You must be swift as the coursing river (as long as it's the Lazy River) - comments welcome

As a frequent imbiber, my advice is more practice!

No but really, it definitely affects performance. I'm cutting way back as I go into marathon training.
 
As a frequent imbiber, my advice is more practice!

No but really, it definitely affects performance. I'm cutting way back as I go into marathon training.
It's funny because I don't normally have issues, but I suspect that drinking later - our reservation wasn't until 7:30 and our table was ready later than that - may have increased the impact. Also I'm usually a wine-and-beer person rather than a cocktail person, so maybe that made a difference as well 🤷‍♀️ Not that I felt bad, really, just that running was a little harder than normal!
 
It was really weird to go home in the dark, too - now that it's light from like 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. I'm almost never out after dark (such as it is in the middle of a city). I think I forgot how it works....
 
It's funny because I don't normally have issues, but I suspect that drinking later - our reservation wasn't until 7:30 and our table was ready later than that - may have increased the impact.

Aha. Yes, that'll do it too. I'm off work by 4, so if I have a drink it's usually shortly after that. I try to be very aware of how late in the day it is if I drink. On non-work days, l sometimes have a drink around lunchtime rather than later. And I almost never have more than one in a day.

It's funny, I never thought much about this stuff, but the prospect of a Sunday morning 10 mile long run has a weird way of making you rethink your life choices.
 


I did record my biking to and from dinner as a workout because I was curious about my HR. It was actually higher than I expected, and higher on the way back than on the way there even though it was cooler. Does alcohol raise your HR? 😅
100% yes it raises mine. I can feel my HR being high as I lay down and try in vain to relax If I have a drink too late in the evening. And the HR graph on my watch looks like a workout until the wee hours of the morning, when I guess the alcohol finally burns off. I also noticed how much harder runs the next day were. I used to love experimenting with fun cocktails and now I maybe have 1-2 drinks a month. Unless I am on vacation, in which case I am probably not running. Running has definitely made me reevaluate my life choices. And aging. Aging is making me reevaluate life choices.
 
I've only recently realized how much impact drinking alcohol has on my sleep. It's astounding really. And that lack of quality sleep impacts my running (and the rest of my life. I do not operate well without rest). I haven't comitted to abstaining but I definitely limit myself on the evenings before a big run. It can be a challenge in the moment but I'm always better for it the next day.
 
June 27 - July 3, 2022
HM training week 2 | 77 days until DC Half

In which I wither under the sun
  • M: rest
  • T: 3.09 mi, 33:38, 10:51 per mile, 150 bpm
  • W: 5.04 mi, 48:59, 9:42 per mile, 171 bpm
  • T: 3.05 mi, 34:13, 11:13 per mile, 158 bpm
  • F: strength training, 132 bpm + core, 113 bpm
  • S: karate, 138 bpm
  • S: 5 mi, 52:11, 10:25 per mile, 162 bpm
Weekly mileage: 16.18 mi
Training time: 4:22:43

Two weeks into official HM training and everything is still pretty much on track. Go me!

On Monday my exercise came from walking to and from the office twice. My watch keeps trying to tell me that walking is exercise and I keep telling it, not the kind of walking I'm doing, but at any rate I closed my exercise ring despite not actually exercising, yippee.

Tuesday's run was fine. My knee was a little cranky at first and I started out kind of slow but everything settled down as I got into my run.

On Wednesday I determined that I am simply not good at new paces. Remember two pages ago when I was having trouble slowing down? Well, now I seem to have the opposite problem. I was all excited for my first pace run because I didn't have to plod and I could run with music. (When I'm doing easy runs I listen to podcasts to avoid speeding up too much. I like podcasts but it's just more fun to run to music.)

The first problem came when I tried to switch from the podcast I was listening to for my warm up to my running playlist. My watch decided that I no longer had a Spotify account and refused to show me any of my music. Eventually I got something to play from the Now Playing app, which I think compiled a playlist of the Broadway soundtracks I bought from iTunes 6+ years ago. Okay, annoying, but sure, I'll take Hamilton and Dear Evan Hanson as my playlist.

So with Lin-Manuel Miranda in my ears, I started running fast. The second problem was that I could not, for a million dollars and Potbelly cookies for life, figure out how fast I was supposed to run. My stretch-goal pace is 8:41. For the three miles of my pace run, I clocked about 8:51, 9:04, and 8:35 ("about" because I got distracted with the music situation and forgot to start a new segment for the hard part of the run). I guess this is why you keep doing pace runs: to get used to the pace so you're not flailing on race day.

The third problem was the weather. More specifically, the very intense late-June sun just high enough above the horizon (read: trees and buildings) to feel like a crushing weight and not high enough to be blocked by the brim of my hat. It turns out the route I picked for this run was not very well shaded for the most part (which is a shame because it's otherwise excellent, since the mile between my house and the trail makes for a good warm up/cool down and then the hard part is on the trail so I don't have to stop for traffic). Anyway, after staring into the sun for half the run, I had a low-grade headache for the rest of the morning / until I gave in and took some ibuprofen.

So Thursday I was a little tired and it showed in my pace. Then this morning I actually ran the same route as Wednesday. It was warm, humid, but most importantly cloudy, so I felt fine. (Yes I ran slower too, but I feel like the lack of sunlight directly in my face made the biggest difference.) I even walked up the second half of the hill on the way back when my heart rate got too high - usually I'm like, "nope, must keep running no matter what" so I consider this a sign of progress.

Anyway. I didn't trip and nothing fell on me out of the sky so we'll still call it a win. On to week three, which has no pace runs so I will probably do just fine.
 
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I also struggle with hitting specific paces. It takes me several weeks to internalize what a pace should feel like and it's always a frustrating learning curve. The good news is that you have plenty of time to learn these paces! Just keep at it and your body will figure it out.
 
Yep, takes me a few weeks to settle in to a new pace as well. The first few weeks of fall are always all over the place for me as I start actually trying to hit paces again after a summer of running by effort only combined with the effort just feeling easier as it cools off. Your legs will figure it out.
 
July 4 - 10, 2022
HM training week 3 | 70 days until DC Half

In which I am mystically faster, but also tired
  • M: rest
  • T: 3.53 mi, 36:56, 10:28 per mile, 154 bpm
  • W: 4.42 mi, 45:02, 4 mi @ 10:15 per mile + 4 x 15s strides, 156 bpm + core, 114 bpm
  • T: 4.03 mi, 41:11, 10:14, 153 bpm
  • F: 30 min swim
  • S: 6.03 mi, 1:03:34, 10:32 per mile, 158 bpm
  • S: strength training + core, 109 bpm
Weekly mileage: 18.01 mi
Training time: 4:44:58

This week I did my easy runs at the same effort level/HR as I have been for the past couple of months, but my paces mysteriously yet consistently dropped 20-30s per mile. It was still warm and humid, though I did manage to stay mostly in the shade, so I don't think it was the weather. Maybe it's a weird fluke. Maybe I suddenly became faster for the same effort. WHO KNOWS.

I also kind of ran more than I was supposed to, partly because I was feeling good and partly because I decided I should balance out my WU/CD mileage on HM-pace runs with a little bit of extra, easy mileage on non-pace weeks. So I planned for Tuesday and Thursday to be 3.5 miles instead of 3. Tuesday I was successful. Wednesday I decided to add a few strides to the end of my workout because I keep hearing about them but I've never tried them before. It was kind of fun to almost-sprint briefly. So that was a bit longer too. Thursday I accidentally ran 4 miles instead of my revised-planned 3.5 because I didn't really plan my route and it was longer than I thought. Oh well.

This weekend I was supposed to have karate on Saturday and Jigs & Swigs on Sunday. I had been trying to decide which day was better for me to also do my long run, when I got notifications that both of them were canceled. So I decided to do my long run Saturday because it was supposed to be cloudy and a little rainy. I also figured I'd use the opportunity of not having a weekend workout class to shift my strength training to Sunday and swim on Friday as a nice break from the running.

Maybe because of the extra running, or maybe just because of some coincidental other issue, I seem to have tweaked something in my left inside thigh. I didn't necessarily notice immediately whenever it happened because it doesn't seem to bother me when I'm running, but I did notice it when I swam, especially with the breaststroke. I eventually just dropped that and alternated freestyle and backstroke. But my legs were also feeling pretty tired overall, so I was a little worried about my long run. Only 6 miles this week, though, so I figured I'd be okay.

And I basically was; Saturday's run was fine except that my HR kept creeping up in the last half-mile to mile. I didn't feel like I was expending particularly more effort, but I guess between my tired legs, the 5 preceding miles, and the slight uphill slope, my body wasn't having it. Still finished feeling decent, though.

Finally, strength training went okay, but I did have to use significantly less-to-no weight on the lower body exercises, especially the squats, because that dumb inner thigh muscle kept hurting. There's a difference between "I'm tired and I don't feel like it" pain and "stop before you really hurt something" pain, and this definitely felt like the latter. It was okay with bodyweight, however, so I kept going and modified where I needed to. I'll probably do some extra stretching later to see if that helps.

The next couple of weeks will be a little interesting with fitting runs in around my schedule and unfavorable weather. We'll see how it goes!

ETA weekly totals which I forgot again
 
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Wednesday I decided to add a few strides to the end of my workout because I keep hearing about them but I've never tried them before. It was kind of fun to almost-sprint briefly.

Strides are great. It's a way to get your body the benefits of speed work outside of the structure of a tempo run. You don't have to worry about hitting specific paces, as long as you're running faster but not sprinting you're getting the benefits. And 10-20 seconds a few times at the end of a workout is plenty.
 
Oh forgot to add that I was browsing around Runner's World and found an article about doing legs-up-a-wall pose after a run to help with recovery. I tried it after my run on Saturday and I think it helped? My legs were definitely less tired on Sunday, so it didn't harm anything and possibly had a positive impact. Worth a try if your legs are also feeling tired.
 
Oh forgot to add that I was browsing around Runner's World and found an article about doing legs-up-a-wall pose after a run to help with recovery. I tried it after my run on Saturday and I think it helped? My legs were definitely less tired on Sunday, so it didn't harm anything and possibly had a positive impact. Worth a try if your legs are also feeling tired.

I do that one to help stretch my hamstrings post-run.
 
Rewind: Previous Training "Plans", Part 1

I was curious to see if I could find specifics of what I did to train for previous HMs, because I know I never used a real training plan and mainly did long runs with very little in-between training. I looked through my GDrive and found this spreadsheet from my first HM in October 2017:
1657556109413.png
(I was doing full-time grad school and part-time work at the time, which is why the days are kind of all over the place.) I think I was updating this as I went, so this should reflect what I actually did. I was listening to the Marathon Training Academy podcast recently and one of the hosts was describing his training plan as "long runs only" and I was like, "That's me!" Haha, and I didn't even know how true it was when I thought it. Result: 2:05:38 (unofficial)

I took a break from running after this, but not much changed in terms of training. Next up, the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler in Sept. 2021:
June-July 21.jpgAug-Sept 21.jpg
8 runs in 4 months leading up to the race. Result: 1:44:06

Next we have the Rock 'n' Roll HM in Nov. 2021:
Sept 21.jpgOct 21.jpgNov 21.jpg
So that's an additional 9 runs in the 2 months between the 10-miler and the half. Result: 2:05:06

Both the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler and the Rock 'n' Roll Half were postponed from their usual spring dates in 2021, so I ran Rock 'n' Roll again in March 2022:
Nov-Dec 21.jpgJan 22.jpg

Feb 22.jpg
IMG_3781.jpg
9 runs in 4 months (the 0.91 mile run was a warm up for the local Turkey Trot which was the next run). Result: 2:07:06

Apparently you can only add 10 photos to a post, so to be continued...
 
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Rewind: Previous Training "Plans", Part 2

Continuing from above, the last race I ran was the National Women's HM in May 2022:
IMG_3781 2.jpgApr 22-1.jpgApr 22-2.jpg
This one was my "best" yet, with 9 runs in the 5 weeks between races. Result: 1:59:56

So basically, I have never trained properly for a race in my adult life, and now that I've looked back on all this, I'm actually surprised I managed as well as I have. I have done long runs up to 14 miles, and I did work out beyond running, but on reflection I was clearly quite undertrained. I'm laughing a little at my past self looking at these!

This does make me feel a little more optimistic about my s2 goal for my September HM, though - if I could break 2 hours on this extremely limited training, maybe I really will be able to get to 1:53:45 with a real plan!
 
Rewind: Previous Training "Plans", Part 2

Continuing from above, the last race I ran was the National Women's HM in May 2022:
View attachment 683720View attachment 683721View attachment 683722
This one was my "best" yet, with 9 runs in the 5 weeks between races. Result: 1:59:56

So basically, I have never trained properly for a race in my adult life, and now that I've looked back on all this, I'm actually surprised I managed as well as I have. I have done long runs up to 14 miles, and I did work out beyond running, but on reflection I was clearly quite undertrained. I'm laughing a little at my past self looking at these!

This does make me feel a little more optimistic about my s2 goal for my September HM, though - if I could break 2 hours on this extremely limited training, maybe I really will be able to get to 1:53:45 with a real plan!

I hope the training helps you. I did my own "plan" for training prior to my first 10k and HM when I started running, and only ran 2 or sometimes 3 times per week, and those are still my PRs, despite more dedicated and appropriate training in years following them. I still haven't figured out why....

I also did that September Cherry Blossom race. :) I ran it as a long training run.
 
I did my own "plan" for training prior to my first 10k and HM when I started running, and only ran 2 or sometimes 3 times per week, and those are still my PRs, despite more dedicated and appropriate training in years following them. I still haven't figured out why....
That just seems unfair!

I also did that September Cherry Blossom race. :) I ran it as a long training run.
Lol September cherry blossoms for everyone.
 

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