New Bedford Half Marathon (belated) Race Report

aka, the least deserved massive PR I have ever run.  I don't mean this as a humblebrag - I legitimately have NO IDEA how I ran the race I ran at New Bedford. Yes - my half PR has always been soft compared to my marathon and 5K times, and yes, it's been 3 years since I've run one - but let's be honest here...those have been 3 years of not the best training and almost no racing. Looking back on my training reveals that in the 2 months leading up to the race, I only ran over 30 miles in a week twice, and I did exactly 2 runs over 10 miles. So what changed? The only thing I can think of is: DANCE. Lots and lots and lots of dance have apparently turned me into a way better runner. So...anyway...race report!

Race day arrived and it was FREEZING. The last time I ran this race, in 2010, the weather was in the 50s or 60s - pretty legit for the middle of March. When I woke up on Sunday my phone told me that it was 28 freaking degrees outside...um, no. I spent pretty much the entire morning trying to figure out what I was going to wear for the race. Capris? Undershirt? Armwarmers? High socks? After a very slow 10 minute warmup and peeing behind a random bush, I eventually decided on armwarmers and knee socks (knee socks which I have never worn to run in before; this will be relevant later). In retrospect I looked ridiculous, but whatever. I made it back to the car with a few of my teammates and it. was. COLD. And WINDY as all get out.

Semi-naked. Why are we doing this again??

The sheer number of people at the start made things a little bit better, but still, I was raring to get running so I could stop freezing to death. When the horn sounded, Brianna, Joy, and I took off together, but no sooner had we gotten out of the starting gate than I see Brianna flying through the air and landing with a thud on the ground next to me. What can you do in that situation? I looked back and she seemed OK, so I continued on alone (I later came to find out that she actually passed me at some point in the race and beat me by like 2 minutes. TROOPER!). Mile 1 - 6:54. Whoa, girl. I had been prepared for the first mile to be something ridiculous like that, though, so I focused on just relaxing and getting into a groove. There was something in my eye that was driving me absolutely insane, and when I went through the second mile in 7:14 I started to get concerned, because I didn't feel calm, or relaxed. I felt like crap at this pace, and the negative thoughts started swirling: oh, you KNEW this was going to be a disaster; this is what you get when you didn't train for the damn race! Idiot. Try and relax. Look at all of these people passing you. UGH, mile 2, and I already hate everything, this is awful. Not my finest hour mentally. Things didn't improve as we headed over the 3 increasingly large hills that led to THE hill just after mile 3. On the third buildup hill, I remember thinking that maybe this was the big hill...and then remembering for some unknown reason that there was a fence on the left side of the big hill...and this hill had no fence in sight. Between the surprise rollers and the fact that mile 3 came in at 7:24, a mental breakdown was imminent. The wind was in my face, my body felt tense, I just couldn't find a rhythm. Mentally, I was freaking out. 

And then, straight ahead, was THE hill. At least half a mile of climbing up into the distance. I tried to reel in my unraveling mind with the only thing I could think of to hold on to: RELAX. I tried to relax. I tried to tell myself that the stream of people passing me were going out too fast. I tried to reassure myself that the race wasn't going to be won here, that I wasn't going to lose a PR because of a slower mile split on this hill, but I could if I let my mental game implode at mile 4. I finally came through the mile mark in 7:29 - I expected that split to be slow, but it was still a blow to my confidence. Still, I thought, if I just keep THAT pace for the rest of the race, I can still get a PR. And I also reminded myself that I was heading into the most glorious section of the course, a gentle downhill section stretching about 4 miles which on this day had the added bonus of a tailwind. 

I told myself: CRUISE. The pack had started to spread out by this point, and I finally started passing some people, although others were passing me. But I was much calmer about that now - I suddenly felt light and free, and every time someone passed me who looked to be working a whole lot harder, I told myself that they would wind up coming back to me. In many cases, that turned out to be true. Mile 5 was a 7:08 - clearly quite the turnaround! Suddenly I felt completely relaxed and fabulous at this pace, and a tiny ray of hope started to peek through. Maybe this would be OK? Around this time, my brain also decided that it would be a good idea to start playing "Larger Than Life" by the Backstreet Boys on loop...I can't even think of the last time I listened to that song, so this was pretty random. 

For the next few miles, I just locked in and let myself roll. I knew that at some point we were going to turn into the wind, so I was trying to make sure I wasn't trashing my legs before that happened. You know that they always say "trust your training", but in this race, there wasn't much there to trust. I had to hope that my legs were strong enough not to completely crash on me somewhere in this, the longest distance I had run in almost a year. Around mile 7 or 8, I started to realize that the side of my left foot sort of felt like it was...hot. Slash burning. I had a brief thought of "oh, shit, I shouldn't have worn these ridiculous socks, and I'm probably getting a blister there right now", but sort of put it out of my head until later.

We made the turn off of the downhill, heading along the water. The wind hadn't hit at it's hardest just yet, but there was definitely a change from 'ahh, gliding downhill' to 'OK, now you're going to have to work a little bit'. Still, coming through the 8 mile mark, I was still feeling great. If the wheels were going to come off it was going to happen soon, but I tried to keep myself in the moment and not worry about what was ahead. There was a little bit of an uphill at about 8.5, and I powered up it past 2 other women, duking it out on the hill. One again, I felt a little surge of excitement that I was RACING this thing - not just surviving, but actively seeking out other runners to pass. And it felt good.

Just after making the pass. Let's just take a minute to talk about how inappropriately dressed I am for a sub-40 degree day. To be fair...I wasn't cold after the first 2 miles of the race.

And then, it didn't feel good, because we made the turn into the wind, and HOLY SHIT. Not only was it freezing cold, but it was also straight into my face, and brutal. Again, I tried to calm myself down and get myself to relax. "Everyone else is running into this same wind," I told myself, "so shut up and get it done". We were at 10 miles now, and it was now or never. I still hadn't fallen much off the 7:08-7:10 pace, and with each passing split I became more shocked and giddy that somehow I was going to run a giant PR off of 25 miles a week. The pack was too spread out to really draft off of anyone, but I tried to tuck in as best I could behind the line of runners, hoping that maybe even a little bit of the wind would be blocked. After 2 brutal miles along the beach, during which I managed to only slow down into the 7-teens, we finally turned back into the city. 2 miles to go. By now, my legs were starting to ask what the hell was happening, and why we were still running. Mile 11-12 seemed to take an ETERNITY. I had somehow managed to isolate myself between 2 packs of people, and so it felt like I was running completely alone. And then, just after the 12 mile marker - THE hill.

My thoughts at this moment in time: FUUUUUUUUUUUU-you can fill in the rest

I kind of wanted to throw myself down in the road. AND I was utterly disappointed to find that there were no bagpipes at the crest of the hill this year. Having made it to the top, I thought that the worst was over...but the half mile that led to the finish seriously seemed to go on for an eternity. In my remembrance of the course, you basically ran up the hill, turned a corner, and it was downhill to the finish. But alas, in real life, there was about half a mile stretch of flat/slightly uphill road before that glorious downhill turn. I continued cursing the course, running in general, and the now-throbbing blister on my foot (as it turns out, it was a blood blister the size of like, 2 quarters) until I finally hit that downhill. And then...I'm pretty sure I flew past 10 people as I kicked into gear, knowing that I was FINALLY almost there. 1:35:03. 

I definitely was happy when I crossed that line. Mostly happy to be done, happy I hadn't completely failed, and sort of in disbelief that I had just PR'd by 3 1/2 minutes. I mean, what? I knew that my half PR was sort of soft, but I couldn't have guessed that it was THAT far below what I was capable of, especially given my less-than-stellar training over the months (and honestly, years) leading up to this race. And of course, I wasn't COMPLETELY happy because I missed breaking 1:35 by 3 seconds. GAH.  After the race, I quickly realized how incredibly cold it actually was, so I found my teammates and we headed back to the car to grab our gear. On our way, I ran into Kelly! My first running buddy in Boston, my mentor who got me into marathons - and I haven't seen her in years! I attempted to cool down with Joy, Anna, and Brianna, but after about half a mile of hobble jog/walking, I gave up and went to catch up with Kelly instead. We grabbed seafood chowder and chatting - so nice to see her again after so long! 

After the race we headed to a local bar ("Phlanges?" was what we heard over the phone, actual name of the bar: Sliante)...it was St. Patrick's Day, after all! And so I enjoyed a porter and basked in that PR glow.

Post race celebrations: basically the only reason we run. PS, those are not our medals from the race, but random beads that we were given at the bar. 

It was a great day, overall. But the most ridiculous part of the day was yet to come...because as soon as I got back to Boston, I'll give you one guess as to where I was headed. I'll give you a hint: it involved dancing for 2 hours straight. That's right, we had our first full runthrough with the band for Heartbeat! And really, what better way to cap off a half marathon PR than dancing?

New Bedford Half Marathon - 3/17/13

New Bedford, MA

1:35:03

547/3135 overall

54/384 F20-29

Home

[As with everything that I do on this blog these days, this comes way after the fact - I contemplated not writing anything, but it felt odd to just move on to the next race report without mentioning Boston in some way]

I wore my 2010 Boston jacket to work on Marathon Monday because I was thinking about everyone who was running the race. And truth be told, as I watched the elite races unfold and excitedly checked my phone for updates on all of my GBTC teammates between patients, watching as several friends ran incredible races, I was a little jealous that I wasn't racing. I texted my friend Joy - "Uh oh, I think I might want to do another marathon!" I was caught up in the excitement, even though I wasn't actually there for the first time in 4 years. I couldn't have guessed that all of that excitement would be transformed into sadness and anger by the end of the day, and that the jacket that I had put on that morning in solidarity with the marathoners would take on a whole new meaning.

There's so much I could have written over the past couple of weeks, and saying it now would really only be repeating things that have already been said. My personal favorite piece is this one: http://www.logicoflongdistance.com/2013/04/a-bomb-is-opposite-of-marathon.html. But I can tell you that when I walked into the waiting room to get my next patient and saw those headlines, those images on CNN, I felt like I had been absolutely punched in the gut. Many people have spoken about how runners, as a community, have really felt the effects of these events very personally, as we are such a tight knit community and the marathon is such a joyous celebration of that. I was right on board with those sentiments, but there was another reason that I think I was hit harder by all of this than I have been by any other atrocity that has taken place in my lifetime. And that's because in that moment, I realized that Boston is my home. You never imagine that something so horrifying could happen somewhere that you live - in a race you've run, where friends have stood to cheer for you, on a street you walk down every week to get to track practice. And seeing those familiar places turned into a warzone was horrifying. My heart ached for the families, the victims, the runners who didn't get to finish and those who saw their achievements overshadowed by people who seem to believe that by causing chaos that they will prove some kind of point. And as many have said, Boston has clearly shown that we are stronger than that.

I had planned a trip back to visit Andrew last weekend long before these events occurred, and the shock of waking up to head to the airport Friday morning and seeing BU Alert texts about "manhunt", "shootings", and "lockdown" was beyond anything I've ever experienced before. On my flight, every TV was tuned to the news. I was lucky enough to catch a cab and was able to get to my apartment - the streets were a ghost town, even though it was the first truly beautiful spring day of the year. I don't think I have ever been happier to see Andrew in my life as when I walked through that door. It felt like a movie, watching the drama unfold as we "sheltered in place". And then, when it was all over, the elation, pride, and joy that I felt for the city that I've come to know as home was beyond compare.

I posted to facebook that night that "in the end, most people are AMAZING." And through all of this, the tragedy, the sorrow, the utter insanity of the entire thing - the beautiful, the good, and the strong are what have risen above. And I'm absolutely honored to be able to live, to run, and to love in a city filled with so much strength and love. I'm proud to call Boston my home.

Johnny Kelly statue in the Newton Hills, 4/21/13

The Great Stew Chase 15K Race Report

*This post was written over the span of about 3 weeks, so apologies for the horrible grammar, skipping back and forth between tenses, etc*

Know how you know you're having a really good race? When you think to yourself in the midst of mile 6 "huh, I think I just might be having a breakthrough right now." This is the story of an unexpected breakthrough, and of how I learned that sometimes you have to just lay it on the line and see what you can do.

Prerace GBTC crew!

Photo from Great Stew Chase facebook page

I was up bright and early Sunday morning to a cold, calm day and a light dusting of snow on the ground. I don't think at any time during the morning I ever got nervous, because this was of course not a race. It was simply a good excuse to get my long run done. With 10 GBTC ladies racing, we were quite an intimidating pack in our matching red jackets, and as we headed out on the warmup I had to smile. Although I've technically been running for Greater Boston for almost 4 years, this was the first time that I've truly felt like a part of the team, and its a great feeling. My legs felt like total crap on the warmup, which of course led to the typical spiral of "why am I doing this, this is going to be awful, I haven't even RUN 9 miles in the last 6 months let alone raced it..." I still wasn't really nervous, just much less excited. For some reason I decided to wear racing flats, which I haven't ever worn for anything longer than 6k. Whatever, see what happens, right?

GBTC pack!

Photo by Krissy Kozlosky

It was lightly snowing as we stood on the start line, and then without much fanfare we were off. I initially kind of stayed at the back of the GBTC pack, but eventually passed Joy and found myself running in flying V formation with Taylor and Brianna. Well, this is new. It's been so long since I had teammates to work off of in a race, and its thrilling. In the back of my mind I was vaguely aware that both of these girls are faster than me, but I couldn't seem to make myself care about that fact...until we came through the mile in 7:05. "Shit!" I didn't know what I was doing. Taylor, running next to me, says "don't worry, just go with it until it starts feeling bad". And so I take a leap of faith and do just that. The next mile is 7:10, I'm still hanging with our little trio, and perhaps strangest of all, the pace just...doesn't feel that bad. I'm not pushing at all, I just feel like I'm relaxing and letting my legs turn over; just letting it happen. This is confusing but I decide to just go with it (sensing a theme here?)...after all, what do I have to lose? I pass Taylor just before mile 3, which comes in 7:05. Pretty sure my most recent 5ks have been slower than this.

Brianna has pulled ahead by this point, and so I decide to do the only logical thing I can think of in a race where for some reason I'm feeling great: I start reeling her in. By mile 4 (a bit of a slowdown in 7:20 or so), I've caught her, and now I find myself in a position I never thought I would be in: leading a pack of GBTC girls. We head into a business park ("scenic" is not a word I would use to describe this race) and head towards a hill. Things aren't so effortless now, but I try to keep my fear of an impending breakdown on check. A hill looms in the distance, one I assume is the big hill Joy told me about before the race. "Nice and relaxed, right on up", I think to myself, in a display of mental fortitude that seems crazy to me as soon as I think it. I crest the hill, home free or so I think....until I turn the corner and am staring down an absolute monster of a hill. All the positive thoughts in the world won't help me as I drag my suddenly exhausted legs upward. This time my thoughts are along the lines of "this hill is chewing me up and spitting me out", and to add insult to injury, at that very moment a fellow PT student from Spaulding flies by. "These hills suck, don't they?" she says, and then she's gone, leaving me to gasp and bemoan my lack of hill training as I watch her fade off into the distance.

This, I realize, in the moment when I have to decide. Whether I give up and lose myself here on this never ending hill or push on to glory. And while my mile up the hill is 7:45, as soon as I crest the top I'm right back into racing mode - where's Mary? How far ahead is Katie? How much distance do I have on Brianna? At the turnaround I'm able to judge how much of a cushion I have, while also finding the energy to cheer for my teammates as they go by. And as we head down the hill, the relaxed feeling returns...I might not be out of the woods yet, and there's definitely still a chance to crash and burn, but for the moment I've made it through the darkness alive.  Clearly, my legs agree since the downhill mile comes in at 6:43 (notably, the first time I have EVER seen a sub 7 mile in a race over 6K). Off in the distance I can see Mary and Katie duking it out, and I vow to keep my eye on them. Will I catch them? Doubtful...but the least I can do is keep them in my sights.

Coming back out of the business park with a 7:18 is the moment I realize that things are really happening right now...and with 2 miles to go, why not just go for it? It's funny, because every mile of this race I've told myself "just keep going with this pace, see what happens" with the expectation that at some point I'm just going to drop off and lose it. But here I am, with 2 miles to go, and still holding on...so why not hold it? I glance over my shoulder to assess the situation behind me - Brianna is maybe 300 m back, and I know that holding her off isn't going to be easy, but if there's one thing that can light a fire under my ass, it's having someone on my tail.

The last 2 miles of the race are difficult, and annoying, as the course goes through turn after turn and we cross back and forth across the street to follow the tangents. It literally seems like this happened every 2 minutes, which gets old pretty fast. I can still see Katie in the distance, and I'm aware that Brianna is somewhere close behind me, which motivates me even more to keep up the pace. There are plenty of small hills, rises and falls, but at this point they seem to balance each other out.  We finally make the final turn that leads to the finish, and beautifully, there's a long, gentle downhill...and now, finally KNOWING that I'm going to make it, and that I can stop waiting for the crash because it's never going to come, I fly. I pass 2 more people in this stretch and make up some time on Katie, and when I look at my watch to see a 6:54 I almost burst out laughing. Once again, I don't see sub-7 miles in distances over 5K, especially not in the last mile. I just don't. Except for the fact that I just did.

Once we pass the 9 mile mark time seems to slow down, as things always do late in the race when the finish line is so close and yet so far. I see two of my speedier teammates cheering as I give one last push through the finish line. 1:07.

Finish face..attractive, no?

Photo from the Great Stew Chase 15K facebook page

 Brianna, Taylor, and Jenny come streaming through the finish soon after me, and we head back into the building to get warm. I'm still kind of figuring out what to do with myself - I can't BELIEVE that I ran the time I just did, and the fact that I beat the 3 girls behind me makes things even more ridiculous. To make matters even crazier, I hear through the grapevine that the course was long - somewhere between 9.5-9.6 miles. Now, I know, I KNOW that my time is my time and I mean, I am beyond thrilled to have just hit 7:12 pace for almost 10 miles. But the little voice in the back of my brain that understands 'hey, so you might have just closed in on 7 flat pace for a 15K' is also kind of hard to ignore.

And even now, finally finishing this blog post almost 3 weeks later, I can't quite figure out how I did it. My mileage has been pretty lame, I haven't done ANY long runs, besides doing miler-style track workouts every week there is nothing that makes me deserving of the kind of time I just ran. I will say that I think my mental game has GREATLY improved lately - call it maturity, or doing more hard workouts on the track, but my head was 100% in the race the entire time during this race, even at those moments when I really felt like something awful was happening. 

But then again, I do have something else working in my favor. Because after the race, I headed back to Cambridge, and spent the next 5 hours of my life doing this:

Dancing "Belief" for the OnStage National Choreography Month Showing

Photo by Jessi Haggerty

I think this whole crazy pairing of dancing and training for races might just go together better than I expected. :)

Great Stew Chase 15K - Lynn, MA

1:07:04

51/265 overall

9/52 F0-39 (sidenote - holy GIANT age group, Batman!)

11/100 overall women

In which I rediscover my love for running on the 5th lap of an indoor mile

It's a familiar scenario, and yet totally foreign, standing there in the clerking area as "last and final call for the women's mile" echoes through the indoor track. I've stood there a thousand times before, but this time is different. There are no pre race superstitions, no one last song that I just have to hear as I run striders down the backstretch. I'm not even wearing spikes, just some racing flats that I got for free through a Mizuno promotion, and that I've worn for a single tempo run and a disastrous cross country race.  There are no expectations.  I don't know what I'm doing, but somehow I've wound up here, almost 5 years after I figured my track career was over for good, ready to race the mile.

I am standing next to my teammate, Joy, who also happens to be the reason that I am here, nervously hopping from foot to foot and trying to decided if I should retie my shoelaces again. As I told Joy after she coerced me into doing this race between 800s on Tuesday: "I don't think I would ever do anything if it wasn't for peer pressure". Someone else convinced me to run my first marathon, I ran my first 800 to try to impress a distance runner boy, many a long run in my life would never have been had someone not been meeting me. And Joy has lately been the instigator in getting me back to workouts, getting me to race cross country, and most recently, getting me to race this mile. I keep telling her I'm just going to lock in behind her and pretend its a workout, all the while hating her guts. She tells me that she guarantees I'm going to beat her. I legitimately have no clue what's going to happen; I've done exactly 2 track workouts since taking 3 week almost completely off due to bronchitis in December, and I only last week finally managed to pull my weekly mileage over the 30 mile barrier. I also spent 2 hours in dance rehearsal the day before, and my legs feel like lead as I attempt to do some strides. I feel like I could very well run a 6:30 mile at this point.

After spending the entire day trying to deny that I was going to do this ridiculous thing, suddenly I'm standing on the gentle curve of the starting line, bouncing up and down in that pre race ritual that I've never been able to shake. 3 jumps, shake out the right leg, shake out the left leg...from the 55 hurdles to the marathon, some things never change. Step up to the line, and there we are. The girl to my left says good luck, to my right, Joy whispers "don't go out too fast".  And suddenly we are off, and it's begun. Somewhat to my dismay, I find myself running in a pack of about 5 girls near the front of the heat - but I don't panic. Relax, self, just relax, and lock in. I have no idea how fast we're going and am dreading rounding the corner to see a 39 or something equally absurd on the clock, so I am pleased when we come through the lap at 44 or so. Right on target. It occurs to me during the second lap how equally pleasing and obnoxious it is to be running with this pack. I feel extremely relaxed - almost too easy to be racing - but do I make a move? I decide that it's too early to really assess the situation and stick in my groove - straight 45s. On lap 3 one of the girls in the pack abruptly cuts in front of me, and I almost lose my footing and take a dive over the rail, and later I step on someone's lost hip number, which sticks to the bottom of my shoe and makes an obnoxious slapping noise with each step. Of course - I latch on to stupid annoyances like that when I'm racing, so I have to giggle to myself. We come through the 4th lap right around 3:00 - exactly where I want to be...however, the question is, will I be able to hold on to this? What's going to happen now?

I continue on with my little pack through lap 5, passing one or two girls who start to drop back and keeping my focus on the shoulder of the girl right in front of me. Still inexplicably feeling like I am racing, and yet, not like I am dying, I come around the curve into the straightaway and a thought forms in my mind: "Holy shit, I am having so much fun right now!" It's all I can do not to break into a smile, because here I am, finally, racing and pushing and for the first time in so long, loving it. I'm racing. I'M RACING!

It occurs to me at some point that I have a shot in hell of breaking 6 minutes. But things finally starting to catch up to my barely-prepared legs, and while I try my hardest to assemble some sort of a finishing kick over the last 400 meters, I just don't have enough to pass the other two members of my pack, who finish less than a second ahead of me, or to dip under 6 flat. I finish in 6:06, a far cry from my 5:44 PR, but almost exactly where I seeded myself - a seed which I had thought of as basically an impossibility.

I cannot stop smiling after the race. A 6:06 mile - so pedestrian in the grand scheme of track, and even in the grand scheme of my own racing - but still, in this moment, a milestone. There was a time not long ago when I honestly questioned whether I would ever care about running enough again to work for a PR, to really race to the point of making it hurt, that red line. And somehow, what it took to rekindle that spark was the most unexpected of things, and yet so simple: one mile. That's how all running careers start, so in a way it's fitting that maybe this is how mine will begin again - older, wiser, free of expectations and superstitions, and simply running for the joy of the race and that feeling, amidst screaming legs and lungs on fire, that beneath it all you are really having the time of your life.

Photo by Tom Derderian

Being both

Every Friday, I take a 2 hour ballet/pointe class through BU. Last week, this class happened to occur about 45 minutes after I had raced a "5K" (actually 3.5 mile) race and placed second. After scarfing down a sandwich and struggling into my leotard, I was at the barre doing plies and frappes with the rest of the class, legs exhausted, calves screaming every time I had to hold a releve. What are you doing?! my body was screaming at me. This is insane!

Sometimes, as I looked around the class during center work, and saw girls who could pirouette more cleanly than me, had better extensions than me, could master quick footwork better than me, I thought, ah, if only I hadn't stopped taking ballet for the past 8 years. I am lucky to possess a fair amount of qualities that naturally lend me to dance - long legs, flexible back, and (my one claim to fame) really, really great feet - and there are times when I wonder what could have been had life worked out differently, if I had devoted myself completely to dance. But in glancing around the class again, I had another thought: how many of these girls have ever RACED a 5K? Or a marathon? Or known the feeling of one last 800 as the rain starts to come down, pounding the track until you can't see, and there's nothing but you and your breath and the feeling of being so completely alive?

The thought works in reverse too: how many of those who I run with have ever known the feeling of finally landing that turn, of being so caught up in the music and the movement that you almost feel like you've transcended into a different plane. How many of them have felt the ache of a long day in pointe shoes, or the chill-inducing joy of seeing a dance that you created, alone in your living room, come to life on the stage?

Looking at my training over the past few months, it's easy to wonder if I've stopped caring about running, lost motivation, whatever. But really, I don't think it's so much that I've lost running as that I've found (re-found) dance. And when I think about how rare it is to be able to have not one, but two passions - to know what it is to push my body to the limit in a race AND to fly on stage in front of the audience, to be both a badass runner with my race face on AND a ballerina in pointe shoes and a bun, to be both - I mostly think I'm pretty damn lucky. And sometimes it may mean I run less miles in a week, but it's worth it for the opportunity to be both.

Accountability

*pokes head in sheepishly*

Well goodness, guess I've found out what happens to my blog when my training is in the tank...with not much happening on the running/inspiration/racing front, I just decide to forgo posting. Well, not anymore! I have decided that at the absolute minimum, I'm going to post my weekly training here to keep me accountable, not only to my training but to this blog. I really like to write, and I haven't been doing much of it lately, so I think this is a good way to slowly slide back into more frequent writing, whether it be about running or something else (I've had a real urge to write some fiction lately, but I always just feel like every fiction I write is so...awkward. And the main character is always just me with a different name and a different job. So that needs some work.)

Anyway...what have I been doing? I'm ashamed to admit that this past week was the first week in almost 2 months that I have cracked the 30 mile barrier. I mean...what? The good news about this is, I don't feel terribly "un-fit", mostly because I have been religiously going to GBTC practices this fall and doing the workouts (to what end, I have no idea...I really can't see myself racing any time in the near future, but the fact that I've been motivated enough to get to practice is something in and of itself.) The other thing is that I have been dancing a TON this semester. I have 3 hours of rehearsal a week, a 2 hour ballet class on Fridays, as well as teaching 2 kid's classes and choreographing one of the 3 pieces I'm in. Dance isn't something I've discussed a ton on this blog, but it's something that I rediscovered my passion for while I was in NYC and so I am back at it. I honestly believe that dancing really does make me a stronger runner, partially by serving as cross/strength training that works a whole different muscle set (hello, injury prevention!) and also just as an overall strength and power workout. Probably more importantly, it makes me outrageously happy. Which is actually the point, isn't it?

So, we begin with week 1 of the comeback tour. I didn't run with a watch all week except for at practice because I was too lazy to charge my Garmin. Who really gives a crap what I ran for a random easy run anyway? At the moment, not me.
M - 6.2 easy, Dean Road loop. Nothing particularly memorable about this one. Nice weather.
T - GBTC workout - mile repeats @ 10K pace. 4 x mile in 6:54, 6:56, 6:51, 6:46 with 1 lap jog recoveries. Clearly that is not my current (or ever) 10K pace...man I felt like a baller during this workout. I consistenly dread track workouts when I'm on my way there and on the first rep, but by the end I'm just like yesssss everything is wonderful. A little over 8 miles total.
W - 5.3 easy, I honestly remember nothing about this run.
R - OFF. Thursdays are a bit insane since I have class, teach class, and have rehearsal...however, I definitely have time to run in the morning if I would just haul my lazy ass out of bed, so if I choose to take a Monday off (as I am today)...well, Thursday has to happen. 1 hour of dance rehearsal.
F - 7 easy, JP, first run in AGES where I've actually added on distance because I wanted to keep running. Listened to "Into The Fire" from The Scarlet Pimpernel on repeat. Gloriousness. Followed by 2 hour ballet class.
Sat - OFF. College football season and running on weekends are not conducive to each other. That is all.
Sun - 3.9 easy, SO LAZY. Followed by 2 hours rehearsal.

Total for week: 30.6 miles running, 5 hours dance

So. Yup. Welcome back. My goals for this comeback, which I am putting out here to hold myself accountable for the world to see, are to race at the GBTC indoor track invite in January (possibly shoot for 3K PR), attempt to break 20 in the 5K on the road in the spring of 2013, and to be ready for an attempt at a PR marathon in November 2013. Let's do it.

National running day magic

Because I have been doing far too much bitching when I DO post on this blog, may I give you the story of one of the most magical runs I've ever had, which happened to occur on national running day.

Lately I have been really struggling with getting out the door to run before about 7 pm...not that that's a big deal because it's summer and it stays light, but it's not really conducive to longer runs unless I want to eat dinner at like 10. I had a shorter run on the schedule for today but then I realized that it's going to be like 87 on Sunday...and wouldn't it be much nicer to run 10 miles on this glorious 60 degree afternoon than in an inferno over the weekend?

So off I went. At 6:30 (after being a lazy pile of crap and eating trail mix and watching the series 4 finale of Doctor Who for the second time...STOP JUDGING). The first mile my legs were really heavy which I kind of figured considering I took a tough dance class last night, but I was still kind of like 'ehh, not sure if I'm actually going to make it 10 miles tonight'. And then...I hit the Hudson River.  Which I'm kind of obsessed with. Dare I say almost as much as Central Park? I mean...it's a river...so I'm not really sure why I enjoy it so much more than the Charles...but whatever. I'm a fan. Anyway, my legs were starting to feel pretty good and it was looking like it was going to be a pretty sweet sunset. And then the slow build of awesome began.

As I was running by the 79th St cafe thing there was a cluster of people looking up at a tree...and well, if there's a cluster of people, there has to be something interesting. And it was a peregrine falcon!! I sort of have a thing for birds of prey so I was really excited by this. I kept running and eventually reached my turnaround point...which I had conveniently set up to be at the Intrepid museum, new home of the Enterprise space shuttle! So I saw the space shuttle in real life. It may be the nerdiest thing I have ever said that I was really excited by this, but I have been fascinated by astronomy since I was a kid so...I was pumped.

As soon as I turned around it started raining, and I love nothing more than running in the rain. It was perfect - steady and enough to be cooling, but not like 'holy shit we're gonna die and my shoes are soaked' downpour.  I decided to run out onto the longer pier at maybe 68th St to add some mileage and check out the view, since the clouds were looking pretty awesome by this point. Then I turned around, and there was a  FULL ARCH RAINBOW. I can't even describe. The rest of the run I was just so giddy with how well things had been going that I wasn't even thinking about anything besides how much fun I was having. My pace was actually significantly faster than I would have expected for my first double digit run in 2 months and I felt great...so that didn't hurt as a nice little ego boost either. :)

It was amazing to have a run where all I felt was joy. I think it's been rare lately for me to go running and a) WANT to go further than the randomly specified distance I picked out for the day or b) be having fun while I'm doing it. It's been more of a chore which isn't what I want. So to have both of those things happen on the same day - conveniently - national running day - well, it was pretty great. To remember that maybe not all the time, but for the most part, RUNNING IS AWESOME. And I am lucky and grateful to be in a position where I can run along the Hudson River without a care in the world besides what awesome birds of prey, rainbows, monuments, vistas, and generally incredible things my legs are going to lead me to next.