(Sick) Week in Review

45 Miles
6x200m repeats at 40
10M "long run" fail

Remember how excited I was about my running last week?  Well that just turned to poo as soon as I stepped back onto US soil.  I felt a tickle in my throat when I was leaving Istanbul and I immediately went into I'll-do-anything-to-not-get-sick mode, which included, but was not limited to:  taking zicam four times a day, drinking what's gotta be at least two gallons of water a day, running slower, running shorter, and sleeping as much as a possible.

It didn't work.

The snot, mucus, sore throat all hit me full force later this week. I thought for sure it would go away, but it's Sunday night and I got 11 hours of sleep last night and somehow there is more junk in my respiratory system than there was two days ago.  I kid you not, I blew about 37 snot rockets on a 45 minute run this weekend.  How is all of that in me?

So yeah.  This week was tough. I was jet lagged. I wasn't used to the time difference.  I had an accounting midterm.  I had Bank of America work to catch up on.  I wanted running to be the one thing that made me feel great. But instead it was just like I was burying myself deeper into my summer cold.

I can only hope that next week will be better, but my guess is that it will take me a little while to get over this thing.

Week in Review

70 miles

3 x 2.5M in 5:43 pace for 14.3M total

11.2M MLR 

13.8M with 4 miles tempo with Billy

3rd wedding 

I just keep on feeling better and better with each step I take.  I feel so fortunate that I did not get sick upon returning from India, as I did when I returned from China.  It's just made the transition back to my normal work and training schedule so much easier!  This week Coach had outlined a pretty tough workout which would help prepare me mentally for the Brooklyn half in just ten days.  I was a bit nervous and my legs were definitely tired, but both Billy and I surprised ourselves and ran faster than we were expecting. It was a great way to start the week and gave me the confidence I need to run a decent time at the Brooklyn half.  Billy and I continued our workout partnership later in the week when we did a 14 miler with a little 4 mile progression thrown in the middle.  It wasn't easy, but it was humid and sticky out and we got it done without quitting.  Overall, I'm right where I want to be with my fitness, especially given my schedule.  I've also been able to hang out with my only non-running friend a bit, as you can see in the selfie below.  This is definitely my strategy to find Kishor a girlfriend.

Enjoying some free snacks from Duke with Kishor

(China) Weeks in Review

Shanghai Skyline - Captured on my first run along the Bund River

Week of October 13th
14 hour flight to China

Nick and I ran through Beijing!

3 Days in Beijing
1 Day at the Great Wall
Term 2 Kick-off in Shanghai
42 miles
1 Day off

This week started off with a run with Jilane and Meagan in DC and hopping on a plane to Beijing soon after that.
 I landed in Beijing on Tuesday, feeling excited to be on a continent I had never been to.  I got in several runs with Nick in the pollution-laced air and even ran a light minuters workout on Saturday in Shanghai along the Bund.  All in all, I'm really happy to be here and am so excited to get in some more runs!

Week of October 20th
47 miles
1 Day off
7 miles @ 630 pace on the treadmill

Llama temple (photo courtesy of Nick Alcantara)

This week was full of classes daily from 8AM - 6PM but it's a totally different vibe than the MBA residency in Durham.  There is actually time in the evening to go out and explore Shanghai and to get to know the city.  Because of this, it's been much easier for me to run around the city, my own way of exploring around.  One day the smog was too thick for my taste, so I hopped on the treadmill to get some miles in and closed the last 3 miles in sub-6:00 pace to get in some work. After a night singing my lungs out at karaoke, I forgot to set my alarm and woke up at 750am and had to frantically get dressed so I wasn't late for class that started at 8AM.  Somehow I made it to class with 2 minutes to spare and was so relieved, but obviously bummed that I didn't get to run. On the last day of residency, I organized a group of classmates to run with two of our professors, one of which was leading us through some cool places in the city since he lives in Shanghai.  It was a great way to get to know our professors and the city. On Sunday, it was time for me to go home and I boarded a plane at 4PM and was home at 10PM in Durham on the same day. Time travel rocks!

In the end, this residency helped me realize that I can't use these residencies as an excuse to just totally ignore running.  I was hoping to get 60 miles in during this stay, but didn't reach that because I missed my alarm.  I think that going forward, if I buckle down, I will definitely be able to still hit a good mileage and continue to achieve my running goals without sacrificing my performance at Duke.

Shanghai Skyline on my run

My classmates Brenda, Sam and I during our last night in Shanghai

Organized a CCMBA running tour of Shanghai with our professor

Week in Review

70 miles
1 workout
15 mile long run
4 days in Arizona
3 Cities in Arizona - Flagstaff, Phoenix and Tucson
1 Red Eye Flight

With three runs completed in Charlotte, I hopped on a plane Wednesday night to see my brother in Phoenix and to reunite with Merry in Tucson.  While the air was thin, the temperatures were scorching, with highs in the 100s.  I wanted a little bit of a down week, so while I got in 70 miles, it still felt like my legs were getting some sort of rest since I had a long run on the shorter side and ran only five miles on Sunday.  Reuniting with Merry felt oh so good!  We ran together at 7000+ feet in Flagstaff, did a long run touring the streets of her new city Tucson, and ate lots of delicious Mexican food that one must do when so close to the border.  My brother was kind enough to get us a night for free at the Hilton Conquistador Resort so we spent ample time at the pool before heading up to Mount Lemmon for a hike in the cooler temperatures.  The ultimate reward for finishing our hike was stopping by the Cookie Cabin, which sells only gigantic cookies, cobbler, and pizza.  Talk about an athlete's dream!  We split the brownie cookie that was the size of a small personal pizza.  It was more than enough for all of us.  Five weeks until Grandma's Half!

Tobacco Road HM Race Recap + Week in Review

Goal #1:  1st or 2nd place for prize $$
Goal #2:  Negative Split

Actual:
2 miles warmup
1:17:55, 2nd place, Huge Positive Split (38:19/39:36)
3 miles cool down for 18 miles total
70 miles on the week
1 workout

I got my butt kicked today.  It’s definitely not what I wanted, but I still got $600.  My race came be summed up in three words: I wimped out.  I’m not being hard on myself, I’m just being honest.

Tomorrow I’ll run on my tired legs and the half will already be behind me, and I’ll be thinking of the big PR that I hope to get at the Grandma’s Half in like 15+ weeks.  So, I am okay with it.  It was one of those races that I just didn’t prepare for mentally whatsoever.  I was hoping I could come in and race it as somewhat of a tempo and squeak in a PR and a win.  Well, neither of those things happened, and I learned my lesson:  I need to prepare mentally for all races, not just the ones I deem really important.

Basically, I went out in my marathon pace - 607 - for the first mile and felt great.  Then I picked it up to tuck in behind a group of guys that were running around 5:50 -- perfect!  Then mile 4 happened, where I blindly followed the guys and dropped a 531.  While I wish that I could say that 5:40 is my goal half marathon pace, I knew that I wasn’t ready for that kind of pacing today.  So I had just split faster than my overall 10k pace a couple weekends ago.  I relaxed, and let the boys go, and ran another 5:42 in no mans land.  Respectable.

By the halfway point turnaround, I arrogantly thought I had a nice cushion over the second place girl.  I was wrong. Kimberlie Meeker (hopefully my new training partner when I move) was merely 15-20 meters back...if I was lucky!  So, I told myself that all I had to do was maintain 5:50s and that I could probably hold her off.  By mile 9, she had made her way to me because I ran 6:01, and by mile 10, when she passed me, you can tell exactly where I mentally fell apart and stopped caring and started rationalized and doing all the things I tell myself never to do.  I ran a 6:19 split for mile 10.  It’s basically where she got 19 seconds on me that were maintained through the finish, because after that I tried my damnedest to get the pace back down to below 6:00.  Eventually I did, but the damage was already done...Kimberlie finished in 1:17:35 and I followed 20 seconds later.

I definitely wasn’t thrilled with my race execution - with almost a 1:17 positive split for the second half of the race, but I was only 5 seconds off of my half marathon PR.  I’ve really been enjoying the shorter distances, and I didn’t enjoy this one too much at all.  This race just affirms that the half marathon is a really tough distance for me to wrap my mind around but also that a marathon is not something I want to do anytime soon.  I really want to focus April and May on doing what I need to do to run a 1:15:xx half marathon, because I know it’s in my wheel house, I just haven’t put all the pieces of the puzzle together yet.

Other news from the race - Kimberlie got a PR and is trying to qualify for the Olympic Trials.  I reassured her that, given her recent performance, she should definitely be able to do that.  Michelle got third and brought home both $450 and a PR.  Aaron pulled in some masters cash, so all of the Charlotte people left richer, which is always fun!

Also, Garrett and I checked out basically all the neighborhoods in Durham and tried to narrow down our house rental search to just a couple of hoods.  We are thinking now Hope Valley or downtown, but it’s looking like suburbia is calling our name because of the safety and accessibility to running trails.

Week in Review

Goal: 80-90 Miles

Actual:
85 Miles
4 Doubles
15.5 Mile Long Run
2 Workouts
1 Dance Lesson

Considering I was in Atlanta for three days this week and in a car for a full day, this was definitely a successful week.  I performed all the workouts on the plan and hit my target mileage, despite high temperatures and no training partners for two days.  I enjoyed a fabulous visit with my sister who came all the way from California to hang out!  The humidity here didn't scare her away and we were able to enjoy a couple of my easy runs together as she rollerbladed alongside me through the houses of Myers Park.

Our trip to Atlanta was filled with several, expensive trips to Whole Foods in Buckhead and some wedding shopping at Lenox Square.  Vanessa was a good sport when I took off for five hours to attend Ottie and Sheryl's wedding where I reunited with several of my Wake Forest teammates and reminisced on past memories that I would have rather forgotten.  Of course, I was the designated driver and spent almost thirty minutes carting around several very drunk former teammates before finally settling on dropping them off at Taco Mac for them to continue on in their drunken activities.  It was at that moment that I wished Garrett were there because either 1) he would be my sober wing man or 2) I would be in the backseat participating in the debauchery with my friends, acting just as obnoxious.  Clearly, option 1 was what I was stuck in, which was fine because I had a lot of fun hearing their antics.

Next week I'll be in Charlotte for the entire time and am looking to hit 95 miles, which will mark my all time high!!!