I apologize for the delay! This week has been an utter whirlwind. I wanted to post Monday, but I caught some type of virus or cold. I got out of bed very late with a pounding head. I thought maybe I just hadn’t gotten enough sleep, it happens. I soon learned this was not the case as I would feel better, then worse, then better, but on a steady decline overall. At about 10 AM as I started to then add dizziness into my repertoire of body aches, headaches, stomach aches, and nausea I called it and went home from work. I napped on and off, forced soup down my throat, and caught up on some Netflix.
That is my story and I’m sticking to it! I was feeling a little bit better, but still uneasy Tuesday. However, I could not skip my hills, I only had 90 more days! It wasn’t as bad a struggle as when I first started hill training (I run at race pace +30 seconds with 2 minutes at 1% and 2 minutes at 7%, 2 intervals at 7% is a set, and I do 3 sets). It wasn’t as good as last week. Last week (1/13) I was delayed getting to the gym until later than usual and decided to do biking Tuesday, and hills Wednesday (before trivia). I left my 1/13 hills never having touched the sides of the treadmill (sometimes the last set near the end of the interval I might start leaning to get my heart rate back down), and feeling like I could do another set. It is a BIG difference between then and a month before. This is very heartening because it means that despite having been pushed inside due to weather, I am getting stronger. I don’t know what it will mean for my time or my races coming up, but I never did hill training before the Chilly Half Marathon in November, and I PR’d on that one by 8 minutes!
I did make the ultimate decision to keep my long run on the treadmill again. The more research and looking into I do, I can’t justify risking life and limb to run in temperatures well outside the range of what I’ll see on race day. The more research I read on the topic, and success stories from olympic athletes that trained completely indoors on a treadmill, the less reason I see to push myself outside. I’d rather go into March with confidence, on schedule, get in my outside runs to acclimate than risk an injury or several bad runs setting me back just so I can say I’m a hardcore runner. I’ve run in driving ran before, freezing to my bone, and to quote a friend of mine “it didn’t make me a better runner”.
This is certainly against common thought and the communities feelings, but I’ve always been a different runner, and I need to do what works for me. This helps me knock out runs early, focus on form/breathing/hydration, and doesn’t have the risk of tripping on ice (or falling short just because my body temperature drops/energy drain from wind/snow). I don’t expect Boston to go easy on me, but I need to do right by my body, and not by other peoples opinions which may not even be rooted in fact.
Overall, I am learning some more important lessons. I started to eat my oatmeal squares, but also added in a new berry caffeinated beverage. This helps with the last 30 minutes of my workout and staves off the exhaustion/muscle soreness that might come a few hours after. I’ve also been learning about staving off friction issues. This run I used my bandaids properly (the nipple burn is real!), but I used a swim suit instead of doing laundry which gave me a friction burn around my whole waist from the cinch waist.
I think the exercise room is probably a better temperature representation of what I’ll see in Boston (45-60 historically, which is what my Half Marathons have been), and I’ve got the programming down on the treadmill (3% inclines, increasing by .3 mph every so often) to mix it up. My body doesn’t appear to know the difference as the soreness, blisters, and tiredness are essentially the same (exhaustion is a little less as I control my pace WAY better than I do outside) or increasing by only small amounts in line with distance increases.
Tonight I will do my speed training, last week I got 3.5 miles in 25:10, hoping to keep that up. I finished “Making a Murderer” earlier so I’ll need a new series for my bike rides to prevent myself from pushing my body too much. Saturday before the snow hits I will be getting in 18 miles on my trusty treadmill, then I’ll be cooking up dinner and waiting out the snow binging on some TV shows. Stay safe in the storm everyone!
trapstoohottohandle 