Increasing My Pace on the Long Run

     "Mom looks like a train wreck!" my daughter shouted when I entered the house this morning after my Sunday morning long run.  She and my son giggled and danced around me as I hobbled to a mirror.  I was sopping wet, muddy, red-faced, chafed under my arms, and I had last night's mascara dripping down my face, making me look more like a sad raccoon than a train wreck.

     "I look like a train wreck," I thought, "but I feel like a goddess."

     I had just run ten miles in a torrential downpour, without music, and my average pace was 10:16/mile.  For the most part, I was comfortable during this run; the proof is that I was able to maintain a conversation with my two running peeps the whole time.

     We ran along the Towpath in Canal Fulton, a place I had never visited, and it was my first time running that part of the Towpath.  During our run, we saw three snapping turtles.

This looks exactly like the turtles we saw: poised, ready to bite off our toes.

We saw a few Great Blue Herons.

When they fly, they look like pterodactyls.

We saw lots of frogs.  We saw geese.

Geese are scary and nasty.

  We also saw two deer.  I won't show you a picture of a deer because I always show you pictures of deer.  I know your limits.

     When you need to increase your pace, there are lots of ways to go:  fartleks, intervals, ladder drills, tempo runs, hill drills.  I try these on at least one short run a week, but I know I should do more.  The best way to increase your pace is to get comfortable with running faster.  Period.  I have been slacking off on my long runs by going much more slowly than I should, even with the advice of going at least one minute per mile slower than half marathon pace.  I knew I could do better, but how could I push myself?  Shelby, from The Ohio Runner's Network, advised me to hook up with Jen and Michael on my long runs and my tempo runs, and today was the day I was finally able to do it.

     One of the best parts about this run was that my Garmin crapped out on me (yet again) because of the rain (It was a monsoon, I tell you!), so I had to rely on Michael and Jen to dictate the pace.  I'm not a good follower, so it was good for me to match their cadence, and I listened when they told me to slow down or to maintain our current pace.

     They were so kind to slow down their regular "slow run" pace for me, and at the end of the run I followed our badass high fives with a truly grateful hug for them both.

     You wanna increase your pace?  Run with someone faster, and run naked.  No, Dirty-Mind, I didn't mean without clothes; I meant without a watch or music.  Let the faster person dictate your pace and give you the information you need when you need it, not when you want it.  Carry on a conversation while you run.  Look at the scenery to block out your discomfort.  When you need to, go deep inside your head, concentrate on your feet and your breathing, and look ahead to the finish.  That is what I did, and it got me through.

     I look forward to getting more and more comfortable with a faster "slow run" pace.  If my mascara streaks didn't scare off Michael and Jen, I hope to run with them again!

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Race Recap: Medina Half Marathon

Yesterday I ran the Medina Half Marathon.  I ran as a part of two different groups:  The Ohio Runners Network (TORN)

The Ohio Runners Network, Medina Half Marathon 2014

and as a member of the faculty/staff at Medina City Schools

These are my colleagues at Medina High School.  We are badass runners and teachers!

 I excitedly laid out my race clothes the night before:

Medina, I'm coming for you!

 And then I realized when I got to Medina that I didn't bring my Garmin.  Grrrrr.  I wasn't too troubled about it at the time because I had decided to run with the 2:10 pacers, so I figured I wouldn't have to track my time.  Renee and Carrie (my TORN peeps) wanted to run with the pacers, too, so we decided to stick together as long as we could.

You can tell this is pre-race because we are smiling and not swearing.

Let's get to it, shall we?

The Good:  I was so excited to run this race that I had paid for it a year earlier.  I also paid for next year's entry at the expo because it was only $35.  Psst. . . You may be able to get in on this if you click on this link for early bird registration for 2015.  What a deal!  I would say that I received more than I paid in this race.  The swag and the bling were amazing:

The medal has glitter on it!  The seeds were a nice touch, too.

 The race had lots of hills that I just don't remember from last year.  I happen to like hills, but I somehow had it in my head that there were only two hills of significance.  I was wrong.  When I talked (whined) to other runners about this, they said that the course had changed from last year.  To me, this is a plus.  If I had actually studied the course ahead of time, I would have been more prepared.  Now I know.

Aside from the hills, the race had a bit of every kind of surface:  trail, grass, gravel, road, bricks, pavement.  It was nice to mix things up.  Of course, the run around Lake Medina was again my favorite part.

Photo credit:  Christa Hammontree

The crowds were cute, as they mostly consisted of elementary school children in a contest to see who could support the race the most.  The winners of the cheering contest will receive a donation to the school.  They were all adorable, though.  We saw clever signs (Power Station:  Touch to power up), squirt guns, chalk art, bands, DJs, and a little boy handing out bottled water from a little red wagon.  The kids seemed to have fun, and they really made our day.  The donation must have been a good incentive.  I think this is a genius idea--way to go, Race Director!

The post-race food was plentiful and excellent:  Subway sandwiches, fruit, rice chips, cookies, and lots of water.

The Bad:  I came into this race determined to PR after my defeat in the Rite Aid Cleveland Half Marathon.  As you can read in this post,  I had decided that my downfall is going out too quickly and then crapping out around mile nine or so.  I had thought that the solution to my dilemma would be a pacer, so I chose to run with the 2:10 pacers.  This calculates to a ten-minute mile, a pace that I know I can sustain in 13.1 miles, and it is a two-minute PR for me.  When the gun went off, the pacers (who were pretty young) took off like rabbits, and my peeps and I started after them.  At one point Renee and Carrie (who had Garmins, unlike me) said that the pacers were running an 8:50 mile.  We knew we could not sustain this, so we dropped back within the second mile, but we were so focused on our previous goal (sticking with the pacers) that we kept creeping up to 9:15-9:45 miles.  I caught sight of the pacers around mile ten, so I knew they had to be running eleven-minute miles at that point.  It made me mad because I could have done that with my old strategy, which I still believe isn't a good one.  The pacers did come in at 2:10, but they were definitely not consistent in running a ten minute mile.  I asked some more experienced runners if maybe I didn't understand the concept of pacing.  Maybe none of it matters if they come in at their time?  Every runner I talked to said that a good pacer runs a consistent mile.  Anyone can mess around and pull it out in the end, but it takes an experienced pacer to maintain that time for each mile.  So much for my attempt to run with a pacer.  I guess I'll have to figure it out myself.

The Ugly:  The course runs through neighborhoods and along a highly-trafficked road (Route 18).  You would think that the most difficult place to control drivers would be the busy road. . .but it wasn't.  There were LOTS of cars in the small neighborhoods who were actually WEAVING AROUND RUNNERS.  I saw several cars go around race marshals and almost hit runners.  It was extremely dangerous.  I know for a fact that the Race Director communicated to the neighborhoods about road closures and the race, but there were many people who didn't care at all.  This is truly a problem, and I would suggest that Medina's Race Director have some talks with Medina Police and possibly with other Race Directors to see how to overcome this dangerous dilemma.  Some of my peeps told me that they won't be running this race next year because of the drivers.

Overall:  I'm happy to have run the Medina Half Marathon, and I have faith that the organizers can fix these problems.

The best part for me was seeing and hearing all of my Medina Peeps:  friends, colleagues, students and former students.  I loved hearing my name when I ran by a group of people, and I tried to always respond with fists raised and a Turtle call.

This is Ashley, a former student who flew in from Florida.  Her boyfriend proposed to her when she crossed the finish line!

I love the Medina community, and I'm glad they have this race.  I hope it continues to grow and generate money and publicity for Medina.

TORN: Alumni Turtles

Ok, I lied.  The best part for me was this:

PR, Baby!

A tiny step closer to the sub-2 half marathon!

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Lunging the Turtle

This morning I attempted a divided twelve-miler.  Shall I break this one down?  "Attempted" means I didn't reach twelve miles; "divided" means I did seven miles with Leigh, took a gel, changed my shirt, and finished the rest with the Towpath Turtles.  "Twelve" means. . .wait, why am I parsing this? Are you dwelling on my pain?  You're a sadist, aren't you?  AREN'T YOU?

Ok, I've settled down.  Let's move on.

It was a gorgeous morning, perfect temperature for running in a simple long-sleeved shirt and either capris or tights.  I chose to run at Lock 29 in Peninsula, which is a common starting place for runners and bikers.

Beautiful shot of the Cuyahoga River at Lock 29

 It is also a common ending place because of its proximity to The Winking Lizard, one of the best places I know to blow your fitness on beer and wings.

I have written about Leigh before in my post called "Pace?  Isn't That a Salsa?"  She is still about half my age and at least forty pounds lighter than me (see, I've lost weight or hyperbole since that post!), and she still kicks my ass.  I had a plan, though.  This time I brought my phone, and I made sure to take pictures so that she would have to slow down or stop.  I am tricky, all right.  Here is my first shot:

Say hello to my leetle friend!

This is the first deer we saw on the path.  She didn't even want to move when we came up on her.  She just looked at me like, "Please!  You're in MY HOUSE now!  YOU move!"

Leigh and I had a great talk (I made sure she did most of the talking--I am tricky, all right), and we kept the pace at around 10:20. . . except when we didn't.  Anyway, we had a fun run together in a beautiful environment; I was thankful to be able to run, and I was thankful to run with her. I kept thinking, Well, I will make sure to run more slowly in the second part of my run.

Fail.

I was excited to see the Towpath Turtles today as I haven't run with them in quite a while, and four of us got caught up in conversation, and, well. . . I had to resort to my stalling tactic:

Look, Guys!  A bale of Turtles!

They didn't fall for it, so I had to run extra fast to catch up to them. . .and so it goes.  Jen totally took advantage of the situation after the turnaround and sprinted past me, calling back, "I've got to do this while I can!"  Thanks, Badass.

In short, I came up short--11.67.  I didn't even have the energy to push it to 12, and geez, I end up making up that distance by going back and forth in front of my house ALL THE DAMN TIME!!!

Lesson learned:  Do NOT go too quickly on Long, Slow Distance Day.  

Finally, I leave you with Mike Polk's Easter message (if Mike Polk OR Easter offends you, don't watch this):

Rage Is the Best Motivation

Today was a beautiful Ohio day--50 degrees, sunny.  I was aching to go outside and run, but my husband works on Saturdays, and I can't leave my kids alone if there is a possibility that I can't get back to them quickly.  So, I cleaned my house and I stewed and glanced longingly outside.

This is NOT how 50 degrees looks in Ohio, but for a runner, it's pretty damn close.

I decided to take my kids for haircuts to a modestly-priced, popular chain salon, where I watched a woman butcher my daughter's beautiful curly hair.  I wasn't able to stop her in time to fix the damage.

This is a haircut?  SMH.

I was so angry that I reverted to my very best suppression tactic:  the smile.  As we were waiting for my daughter to finish with the haircut, my son looked at me and said nervously, "Maman, please don't smile.  You're freaking me out."  He knows.

When I got home, I thought I was going to erupt, but I held it together, and thank God my husband came home early from work.  He is a smart man when he chooses to be, and after I told him about our afternoon and I showed him "the haircut," he wisely decided to take the kids out for shopping and dinner while I went for a run.  I do love that man; that is why I have allowed him to live this long.

I haven't been able to run on roads and sidewalks for a few months because the weather has been so treacherous, but today the snow had melted on most of the sidewalks, and I was excited to put my legs through their paces.  I have been running on trails on Sundays, and the massive amounts of snow and ice meant that my pace was usually around the 12-13 minute/mile.  What was particularly difficult for me was that I didn't absolutely know that it was because of the snow or if it was because I lost so much of my training when I was recovering from my broken foot.  Today I decided to push myself, and I'm so glad I did.

My 4.06-mile run today clocked in at 41 minutes, a 10:09 pace, and this included having to walk on occasion when there was ice on the sidewalk.  I am so happy!  I can still run, and I can push myself without snapping the foot in two!

When I came back, I was zoning in my runner's high, and two glasses of wine and some pizza later, I'm still glowing.

I am so lucky.

After all, it could have been my hair.

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Pace? Isn't That Salsa?

I am trying to figure out my pace goals for this year.

Today I ran some Pre-Turtle miles with Leigh, who is about half my age and at least sixty pounds lighter than I am.  She just finished a 24-hour endurance race the previous weekend, so I thought that I would have no problems keeping up with her.  It's like lunging a horse before you ride him, right?  You wear him out, and then he's docile enough for you to deal with him.  Keep in mind that this is only a theory.  I used to own a horse, and lunging never stopped that evil son-of-a-bitch from trying to scrape me off under every tree on our property.

This is EXACTLY how my horse looked.  The fire made it very painful to ride him.

Ahem.  Anyway.


Leigh's idea of "taking it easy" was a nine minute mile.  Then she casually turned to me and said, "So, how's it going lately?"

I gasped and sputtered a reply until I realized that IT SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD!!!  "Leigh, I'm like your mom or something; you've got to SLOW DOWN or I'll have a heart attack."  She obliged, and we settled on a 9:30/mile, but my body wasn't happy about it.  Luckily for me, poor Leigh wasn't feeling very well, so at mile 3.5 she said she was turning around and walking, and I could keep going to the turnaround and catch up to her on the way back.  I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that I could run my 9:50/mile and no young whippersnapper would be pushing my ass on the path.  I turned around at 4.5 miles and caught up to her about two miles from the end, at which point, thoroughly rested(Leigh), we started the same crazy pace as before.

I am thankful to have survived.

So, now I am trying to figure out my pace goal for the Medina Half Marathon on May 25th.  My pace for Akron was 10:22/mile, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm pretty sure I can do better.  I think I can happily maintain a 10:00/mile for 13.1.  If so, I hope that my summer speed training will help me to take at least fifteen seconds/mile off that time for the Akron Half Marathon in September.

Then I will race Leigh.