Every Wish That We Put Into Motion.... (comments welcome!)

[Herding_Cats]

ALSO. I didn't reapply K-tape last night for the first time in 10 days (i've been living in the stuff.) And today is the first day in probably a month and a half that my [un-taped] foot didn't yell at me when I got out of bed. So fingers crossed the stretching and icing and rest are doing the job.

 

[HangWithMerida]

Good news that your foot is quieting down a bit. I hope it won't bug you again. Keep up the ice/rolling. Almost everyone I have ever known with PF has had recurring issues with it, and it tends to flare when they get complacent about the maintenance. Unfortunately, it seems to be a gift that keeps on giving.

 

[azrivest]

 

[Herding_Cats]

The weather is massively cramping my peak week. I switched Tuesday and Wednesday because of basketball, and then power went out at around 3:00 this morning. 55+mph wind gusts, down trees and power lines all over the place. BIL had a maple fall over and knock his 500gal propane tank off it’s blocks. They’re saying Lake Superior is going to get 34ft waves?! It’s crazy, and I know MI isn’t the only state getting these winds.

But since it’s unsafe to run outside today and looking unlikely to get power restored before 9pm ****scratch that, they’re saying 9pm Saturday now***, I’m not sure what I should do to my training schedule. I feel like the b2b run with the 12 needs to happen for me mentally, but I don’t want to have shuffled stuff around and overdo it.

My foot hasn’t bothered me at all today which is another improvement and idk what potentially 21mi in 3 days will do to it (or ya know...26.5mi in 5 days which if I just finish this week with the LR on Saturday and then run next week as written.)

I had a whole rambling thing typed out and it was a lot. Let me make that easier to see/understand and less word-vomit-y:
This week so far
M: 4mi
T: off (swapped with Wednesday because basketball)
W: 6mi
Th: off due to power outage/weather (was scheduled for 6mi but was planning on 4 since the off day shuffled and not wanting to run 6/6/12)

What do I do here? Treadmill isn’t an option and it’s down into the mid-20s and windy still, so running with the stroller isn’t an option right now either. Medium run Saturday and long run Sunday when other people are home so I don’t have to worry about the toddler?
F: scheduled for 12mi LR—do I do Thursday’s run here and push the LR to Saturday? or just not worry about Thursday and skip to this day on the schedule? Skipping to this day would eliminate the b2b 6/12 runs.
Sa: usually off—or push the 12mi LR to here?
Su: 3mi—if I do the LR on Saturday instead should I drop this? Walk it (because my EA is almost power-walk speed)? Shorten it? Suck it up and be a mother runner?

Next week’s schedule up to rest day:
M: 4mi
T: 2.5mi
W: off

 

[HangWithMerida]

if the b2b run is important for you mentally, I would try to make that happen. If your legs aren't up for a 3 mi following the b2b, you could walk instead, especially given that your EA pace is almost walking pace, or shorten even further for a 2 mile walk. Something you feel like you can work into your schedule. Then try to get back on track the following week.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Yeah that probably my best bet. I definitely didn’t factor a 3-day power outage into my plan, on peak week.

 

[HangWithMerida]

Yeah that probably my best bet. I definitely didn’t factor a 3-day power outage into my plan, on peak week.

Yeah, that sucks! Horrible timing.

 

[DopeyBadger]

What do I do here? Treadmill isn’t an option and it’s down into the mid-20s and windy still, so running with the stroller isn’t an option right now either. Medium run Saturday and long run Sunday when other people are home so I don’t have to worry about the toddler?
F: scheduled for 12mi LR—do I do Thursday’s run here and push the LR to Saturday? or just not worry about Thursday and skip to this day on the schedule? Skipping to this day would eliminate the b2b 6/12 runs.
Sa: usually off—or push the 12mi LR to here?
Su: 3mi—if I do the LR on Saturday instead should I drop this? Walk it (because my EA is almost power-walk speed)? Shorten it? Suck it up and be a mother runner?

Next week’s schedule up to rest day:
M: 4mi
T: 2.5mi
W: off

Just pushing everything a day seems reasonable. And with easy days, it's always the pace that feels easy. So if normal easy pace doesn't feel easy, then slow down. Just remember, it's the cumulative of training. I've missed my last long run once before a marathon and I still was able to finish the race just fine.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weekly wrap up: after much hand-wringing about the power outage, I think it’ll all work out and maybe I won’t end up in a puddle of sweat and tears on a curb for my birthday.

Monday: 4mi EA. On the treadmill. Avg pace 14:11. This was a weird run because for me to fit it in, I ran 2 mi, came up from the basement, put pizzas together, and then ran the other 2mi while They cooked. That filter super weird.

Tuesday: swapped my off day for Wednesday because basketball is life right now for the other people in my family.

Wednesday: 6mi EA. On the treadmill. Avg pace 13:57. This was another “split it in half for dinner reasons” run but I can’t remember what the reason was.

Thursday: super high winds knocked out our power at 3am. Trees and power lines were down all over the place. Didn’t run.

Friday: still no power, a school activity cancelation freed up ds2 to watch ds3 for the evening, so I made it to Ds1’s basketball game.I got to see him play before January 17th (which is what was going to happen with all of the travel for MW and other cancellations we’ve had. Yay!

Saturday: no power until 8pm. And they were working on our road allllllll day. And it snowed and made the roads icy. DH and I finished the Christmas/grocery shopping and *fingers crossed* hopefully we don’t have to go back into town until after Christmas. It was crazy.

Sunday: finally get Friday’s 12mi LR in. Practiced my nutrition strategy (which also included eating cookies and cookie dough all morning...snickerdoodles, peanut clusters, peanut butter blossoms so far) with a few new things: huma raspberry (yum!) and some honey stinger chews (I like these a lot more than cliff blocks.) 80/30 intervals. My treadmill computer really dislikes runs over 7 miles so it just shut off on me at about the 100min mark and then reset when I made a bathroom stop at around the 2hr mark. So this turned into a “duration” run and I ran for 2:40min and then another 5:00 cool down walk. Got through 3.5 expisodes of Maid on Netflix. What a fantastic distraction! Compression socks on right away afterwards. Foot is a little sore but not bad at all.

Managed to put together a flower headband/crown for my rapunzel costume, and did my whole run “in costume” for a final test.

planning on running this coming week as written.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weekly wrap-up, living on my treadmill, Heat Acclimation and Taper edition:

Looked over my training plan for the week and decided to start the sweat-fest portion 2 days early. No more running in a tank top and shorts or capri leggings. Time for long sleeves and full leggings. Time to tune this northern body up for the Florida heat and humidity. It would be A-OK with me if it was in the the 80s through Friday and then cooled off for the weekend. Dear Santa. Can you make that happen? Also, my memory is completely shot right now and I can't remember how my runs went for the most part. It's like my brain has too many other things to think and worry about and this information is just out the window. It also doesn't help that the 2yo has been sleeping sooooo badly for 2 weeks now. I am up a minimum of 3x a night with her and it's starting to show.

Monday: 4mi EA, avg pace 14:04

Tuesday: 2.5mi EA, avg pace 13:57
Heat-acclimation: On this day and Monday I was kind of easing myself into things because I wasn't sure how many layers were enough layers so these were just full length (thicker) leggings and long sleeves.

Wednesday: off (plus a half day of school for the kids and now they are on break until the 3rd) Managed to wrangle a booster appt and a flu shot for DH.

Thursday: 2.5mi EA, avg pace 13:53-- I did end up spending my rewards money from Jackrabbit/Fleetfeet. When I checked in-store the rewards hadn't moved over, and by the time we got home from town I had 2 emails from Fleetfeet telling me about my rewards and there they were in my account! I spent them on yet another SPI belt, this one has a bigger pocket that is also water resistant and has loops for gels AND a pair of pink goodrs to go with my rapunzel outfit. It needs a little less purple and these will help. Plus, DH's enormous otterbox was really stressing my "standard pocket" SPI belts, so hopefully this one fits his phone a little better.

Heat-acclimation: After some asking around I broke out my coldgear 1/4 zip for this run, a step up from Monday and Tuesday in the layer-department.

Friday: 6mi 5mi LR. Avg pace 13:14. I DO remember stuff about this run, and there's a reason for that. Friday morning I woke up and for the first time in almost 2 weeks my foot hurt immediately. Awesome. It was bothersome enough that I put K-tape on it right before I went to do my run in my new, Merida-coordinating shoes! More on those in a minute. Things felt NOT GOOD pretty much as soon as the run started. That "puffy" feeling right in front of my heel was back, it was very uncomfortable to run on, etc. Immediately started bargaining with myself: just do a mile. You can do this for 14min and if it still sucks THEN you can pull the plug. It's a long run, so you get walk breaks. If you need to ditch the LR pace and just power walk it's better than nothing. Time on feet. And after a mile things felt almost normal. Still twinge-y, but nothing like the beginning. So the bargain became 3 miles. Get in half the run. And then at mile 3 the goal became 4. And when mile 4 came things started to decline, so I pulled the plug at mile 5. It's not worth it for my to push things at this point in training and I will absolutely baby this issue to make it through MW. I did walk until I hit the time goal for the run, and that was tolerable. Since this was something I woke up with I don't think the shoes contributed to the problem.
So yes the shoes are "new", but they are the same shoe, one model newer than I have been running in since March. They feel pretty much the same except that the mesh is a lot more stretchy/vented than in the v10s I'm used to. And the color is almost perfect. I'll be doing all of my runs until MW to make sure these don't have any weirdness or make my feet hurt in an unusual way. Merry Christmas to me!

Heat-acclimation: Today was coldgear 1/4 zip PLUS a fleece vest over it. I think this is going to be the way to go for the remaining runs as far as layering goes. Possibly my base2.0 coldgear leggings starting tomorrow as well, but my thicker leggings are pretty warm.

Saturday: off. Merry Christmas!

Sunday: something is scheduled (I think it's a harder run) but I haven't looked at it yet. 9 days until we leave. Right now I'm wallowing in my nervousness about getting covid next week and not being able to make the trip because "what if" the kids brought germs home from school. To be clear, I'm not as nervous about actually getting sick (because I'm a young, healthy, vaccinated person with no additional risk categories) as I am about having the trip potentially taken away because it's all on rented DVC points [non-refundable] and creditc ard points for the flights [also non-refundable.] And the fact that I've been training for this for almost a year, and I'm definitely not doing another marathon for a long while after this one. So fingers crossed for my household. There's a lot of us that need to stay healthy for another 9 days for this trip to happen.

 

[Herding_Cats]

I haven't need a run in awhile like I needed a run today. Sunday's run got bumped to today so we could have another family day before DH just puts his head down and works like a maniac for the next 8 days until we leave. And with all of the uncertainty about Covid and flights and kids who had runny noses and me having a headache this morning, I had pretty much convinced myself that DS1 was going to fail his covid test today, our trip would have to cancel, and we would be out a bunch of money and my birthday plan that I hardcore talked DH into back in JULY was going to be wrecked. There was no way it was just a cold and the fact that I haven't had a good nights sleep in week or that I didn't eat enough yesterday. Nope.

So 8 miles, 6 of which were MT or faster, were exactly what I needed. You gotta turn your brain off to get through an almost-2-hour treadmill run, and I really needed that.

And DS "passed" his covid test. So HUGE sigh of relief here. The biggest thing I have to stress out over now is getting the house clean (with 4 kids at home....good luck to me!) for MIL to come stay with the kid while we are gone.

 

[Herding_Cats]

Weekly wrap-up and a race strategy question!

Monday: 8mi M tempo cut-downs. Garmin shows this as avg pace 13:27, but since there was also 8min of rest in there it’s more like 12:37. This was a much needed harder run that forced me to shut my brain off.

Tuesday: off—bothersome foot

Wednesday: a normal off day, decided to not “make up” anything from the schedule that should have been done on Monday and Tuesday because again, foot. Ugh.

Thursday: 3.5mi EA (was scheduled for 2.5.) avg pace 14:16. Added another layer for more heat acclimation.

Friday: 5.4mi, avg pace 12:50, heavily influenced by 2mi of 14:00+ For warmup and cool down. This was 20min MT, and then a bunch of increasingly shorter intervals, with a “float” instead of a “recovery interval.” Let’s just say this wasn’t my favorite run. It felt difficult. And punching buttons for speed changes as often as I had to at the end made it hard to just zone out. This would probably be a much more enjoyable run to do outside. The bonus is that I could set the speed for the “hard” portion of the intervals and it was unrelenting. There was no “oh I’m getting tired guess my hard intervals will get slower.”

Saturday: off—packed for Tuesday’s road trip to the airport.

And here is my race strategy question: if I really want an “in the dark” castle pic during the half, would it be worth it to try to start in the front of my corral (knowing I’ll get passed....would stay to the right) and run a faster pace for that first section? I’m estimated to be in S3 and arrive at the castle at 6:32am, assuming I start in the middle of that corral and avg 14:00mm. Wondering if I shoot for more like 12:00-12:30, and starting in the front could buy me 15-20min and if that would make a significant difference. I definitely don’t want to be there much/any later than 6:32am unless there are super amazing character photo stops on the way to MK. And then dial things way back for the remainder of the race.

But I also want to not go too hard the day before the marathon. Because I'm still stressing out about finishing it.

 

[azrivest]

I don't have any answer to your question, just want to wish you a great race. Enjoy your marathon in Disney World!

 

[SheHulk]

Weekly wrap-up and a race strategy question!

Monday: 8mi M tempo cut-downs. Garmin shows this as avg pace 13:27, but since there was also 8min of rest in there it’s more like 12:37. This was a much needed harder run that forced me to shut my brain off.

Tuesday: off—bothersome foot

Wednesday: a normal off day, decided to not “make up” anything from the schedule that should have been done on Monday and Tuesday because again, foot. Ugh.

Thursday: 3.5mi EA (was scheduled for 2.5.) avg pace 14:16. Added another layer for more heat acclimation.

Friday: 5.4mi, avg pace 12:50, heavily influenced by 2mi of 14:00+ For warmup and cool down. This was 20min MT, and then a bunch of increasingly shorter intervals, with a “float” instead of a “recovery interval.” Let’s just say this wasn’t my favorite run. It felt difficult. And punching buttons for speed changes as often as I had to at the end made it hard to just zone out. This would probably be a much more enjoyable run to do outside. The bonus is that I could set the speed for the “hard” portion of the intervals and it was unrelenting. There was no “oh I’m getting tired guess my hard intervals will get slower.”

Saturday: off—packed for Tuesday’s road trip to the airport.

And here is my race strategy question: if I really want an “in the dark” castle pic during the half, would it be worth it to try to start in the front of my corral (knowing I’ll get passed....would stay to the right) and run a faster pace for that first section? I’m estimated to be in S3 and arrive at the castle at 6:32am, assuming I start in the middle of that corral and avg 14:00mm. Wondering if I shoot for more like 12:00-12:30, and starting in the front could buy me 15-20min and if that would make a significant difference. I definitely don’t want to be there much/any later than 6:32am unless there are super amazing character photo stops on the way to MK. And then dial things way back for the remainder of the race.

But I also want to not go too hard the day before the marathon. Because I'm still stressing out about finishing it.

I'll bet Billy has an answer to this, and I'd like to know too because one of my race goals is to FINALLY locate the castle photo stop and get a picture! I keep forgetting, there are no icicle lights this year though. Hopefully it will still be lit up nicely.

 

[DopeyBadger]

And here is my race strategy question: if I really want an “in the dark” castle pic during the half, would it be worth it to try to start in the front of my corral (knowing I’ll get passed....would stay to the right) and run a faster pace for that first section? I’m estimated to be in S3 and arrive at the castle at 6:32am, assuming I start in the middle of that corral and avg 14:00mm. Wondering if I shoot for more like 12:00-12:30, and starting in the front could buy me 15-20min and if that would make a significant difference. I definitely don’t want to be there much/any later than 6:32am unless there are super amazing character photo stops on the way to MK. And then dial things way back for the remainder of the race.

So you're estimated to start at 5:16 at the front and 5:20 at the back of s3. There is little to gain there. On plan #529 we had you as a 2:30 HM runner (11:26 min/mile). So running 12:00-12:30 is around M Tempo or so. The Castle is Mile 5.3 which means you need to do about 60 min of M Tempo work. So that's a decent workout (especially having to then do another 8 miles of easy running afterwards), but not PR level effort heading into the M the next day. My personal data is that my M is 7-10% slower after PR attempts at 5k, 10k, and HM when I'm extremely well trained. So let's just say you're not likely extremely well trained, but you're also not going for PR effort and keep the adjustment the same at 7-10%. So a PR level M effort would then be something like 6:25-6:36 assuming bad weather conditions like you had during your earlier M attempt. You'd still have a little over an hour of lead time with a 6:30 finish over the balloon ladies based on your estimated starting position. So yes, there's some risk involved, but it is doable if your heart desires it. The faster you run during the HM, the harder the M will feel at the same effort level.

I'll bet Billy has an answer to this, and I'd like to know too because one of my race goals is to FINALLY locate the castle photo stop and get a picture! I keep forgetting, there are no icicle lights this year though. Hopefully it will still be lit up nicely.

As soon as you go down the castle ramp, turn left towards the castle instead of right towards the bridge to USA land.

 

[Herding_Cats]

So you're estimated to start at 5:16 at the front and 5:20 at the back of s3. There is little to gain there. On plan #529 we had you as a 2:30 HM runner (11:26 min/mile). So running 12:00-12:30 is around M Tempo or so. The Castle is Mile 5.3 which means you need to do about 60 min of M Tempo work. So that's a decent workout (especially having to then do another 8 miles of easy running afterwards), but not PR level effort heading into the M the next day. My personal data is that my M is 7-10% slower after PR attempts at 5k, 10k, and HM when I'm extremely well trained. So let's just say you're not likely extremely well trained, but you're also not going for PR effort and keep the adjustment the same at 7-10%. So a PR level M effort would then be something like 6:25-6:36 assuming bad weather conditions like you had during your earlier M attempt. You'd still have a little over an hour of lead time with a 6:30 finish over the balloon ladies based on your estimated starting position. So yes, there's some risk involved, but it is doable if your heart desires it. The faster you run during the HM, the harder the M will feel at the same effort level.

So what I'm getting out that is: it's not a terrible idea, but I will pay for it in some measure on Sunday. My "fear" is that if I don't try to start at the front that I'll get stuck behind the masses, be even slower than my 14:00 pace, and not have that nice "dark sky" pic I'm looking for. *sigh* I guess I will see how I feel on Saturday and what the weather looks like it'll really do on Sunday. I mean, I'm willing to mostly walk the back half it'll help me be in a better position going into Sunday after doing an hour of MT.

SPEAKING OF SUNDAY would it be worthwhile to try to go a tiny bit faster in the (cooler) early hours of the race for a buffer against 83 degrees in the afternoon? Or is that a big no-no?

I'll bet Billy has an answer to this, and I'd like to know too because one of my race goals is to FINALLY locate the castle photo stop and get a picture! I keep forgetting, there are no icicle lights this year though. Hopefully it will still be lit up nicely.

As soon as you go down the castle ramp, turn left towards the castle instead of right towards the bridge to USA land.

In the runarnorun half video from 2020 he does a nice long shot of running through the castle, down the ramp, and over to the photo spot in front of the castle. it's here from around 11:45-12:05.

The light scheme for the 50th is pretty gorgeous in the pics i've seen, so I'm hoping that's what they have up for us that morning.

 

[SheHulk]

As soon as you go down the castle ramp, turn left towards the castle instead of right towards the bridge to USA land.

USA land??!?! You mean Liberty Square? Sir, this is a forum for the Disney obsessed, you must be lost.
Just kidding of course and thank you!

 

[Herding_Cats]

I’ve done all the laps through the condo tonight getting all of my stuff ready. The melatonin is about to kick in, which is probably why I’m not freaking out any more. Acceptance has arrived, but I may be backtracking to bargaining tomorrow morning.

 

[DopeyBadger]

 

[The Expert]

I had the absolute honor of meeting and running with our journal host for both the half and full this weekend. I had no idea she had done this until someone mentioned following it at DATW today. I was excited to read through a bit and can't wait for the recap!