A Runner’s Balancing Act

1. Make the summer your “off season” and expect to put in far fewer miles. Even professional athletes train in cycles to optimize their athletic gains. Your body needs a period of time to recover and rebuild especially if you are constantly training for races in the fall, winter and spring. I remind myself of this often when I start to feel like less of a runner because my weekly milages are falling under 20 miles a week.  In AZ the weather is the worst from mid June through mid September. I’m pretty lucky because that’s only 3 months. If I lived in colder climates I’d be dealing with crappy weather from October through April.

2. Find your comfort cutoff. Get a digital indoor/outdoor thermometer that measures both the temperature and humidity. Then track the conditions before you leave on your run and after you return (if you run at dawn or dusk this can actually change quite a bit). Keep track of how you felt in each temperature and humidity combination. This way, you can start to get a feel for where your comfort cutoff is. I get up most mornings around 4:30 am and check my thermometer. I know if the temperature is above 80 degrees while the humidity is above 30%, it’s going to be too hot to run outside by the time the sun comes up (and I go back to bed or hit the gym). Your tolerance may be different. Knowing your range will allow you to watch the weather forecast and predict the days you might be able to run. I keep an eye on the “overnight low” forecast since I usually run at dawn when its close to that temperature. I’ve found that the midday high prediction really has no bearing on the overnight low.

Besides the humidity and the temperature, the last factor you’ll want to track is the presence of the sun. I have found I can run in temperatures between 85 and 100 fairly comfortably when its dark or very cloudy. Especially if the humidity is lower than 25%.  I have also found that 80 degrees in direct sunlight, feels a whole lot hotter than 80 degrees in the shade or darkness.

4. Start exploring the gym. I’ll be the first to admit that being in the gym SUCKS. I am a nature girl at heart and I’m sure that’s one of the reasons I love running so much. On top of that, I’m also an endorphin junky so when I do go to the gym its a rare occasion when I venture out of the cardio room. But since mother nature and I aren’t on such good terms during the summer I make do with the gym. The problem is that the treadmill is BORING. This summer I hired a personal trainer for a few sessions since I have very little knowledge or experience with weight training. Now when I’m stuck going to the gym, I run on the treadmill for about 25 minutes and do 25 min of weights. It works well for me because I am far less bored. I do different muscle groups each day so it’s always something new. There are such a variety of exercises you can do in a gym that no day has to be exactly the same. I usually spend my time on the treadmill planning my weights workout which keeps the boredom away. Another thing I really like about weight training it leaves me feeling pleasantly fatigued, where 25 minutes of running wouldn’t be enough to give me that “ahhhh” feeling as I walked out of the gym.

5. Do intervals on the treadmill. By mid July I cannot stand the thought of getting on the treadmill. The boredom can be crushing. I combat it with doing intervals – after all the treadmill is the perfect place to run a prescribed pace for a specific time. You spend all that time staring at the numbers on the console, might as well make it work for you! I like the book “Run Less, Run Faster” to pull interval workouts (I convert the paces to MPH using an online calculator). But you don’t have to be that precise. Make up your own intervals if you want. Just varying the speed breaks up the monotony. Instead of thinking “geeze I’ve got 45 more minutes to stare at this wall”, you are thinking “just 5 minutes till the end of this interval” By running harder, you can run less and still get in a great workout that will help you PR come fall.

Snapped this photo of the sunrise on an early morning run last week.

I went for one last “real” run with my running buddy this morning. According the Garmin, it was almost exactly 7 miles at about 9:30 pace. It was a cool crisp 52 degrees when I stepped outside at 5:45 am. The exact same temperature expected in San Francisco in the early morning hours of the race. Except our humidity was about 13% this morning and in San Francisco it was between 60% and 80% (depending on the source of information).  Not really sure if the humidity will be an issue at such cool temperatures. I’m bringing my baggy of Endurolytes just to be safe.

Today was a “test run” in every way.  I wore everything I’m planning on wearing during the race including my Nathan hydration belt fully loaded with four water bottles. I’ve never actually run with all four bottles! My friend Sheila is going to run with all four and I don’t want to slow her down by having to stop for water if she doesn’t need to.

If you have a Nathan belt, let me share a tip. The bottles made by Amphipod are much, much better and do not leak all over the place like those blasted Nathan ones (you can order them online here for $4 a piece). They are a tad smaller (8 oz as opposed to 10 oz), but I don’t mind that since it makes the belt not quite as heavy as the Nathan bottles. They may not carry as much water, but at least you don’t lose half of it leaking out as you run!  The Nathan belt holds the smaller bottles quite securely, but they are actually much easier to retrieve on the run since the fit isn’t quite as snug.

So this morning I wore my new purple TNT jersey, along with my long sleeved Nike running shirt over top to test out the temperature. I’m still not sure if I want to start the race with a long sleeve shirt or not. It was nice to have it on the first few miles, but also nice to take it off and feel the breeze on my arms after I got going. If I start the race with it, I will have to wear it around my waist most of the way. Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, but since I’m going to be all loaded up with my full hydration belt, I’m not sure how much I’m going to want something else around my waist. I’m already feeling like I’m going to be lugging everything but the kitchen sink.

I’ve never run a marathon with this much stuff. I have decided that this will be my marathon of experiments. There is just absolutely no way I’m going to break any personal records with all those crazy hills in San Fran. I figure, if I already know I’m going to be disappointed with my time, why not test out a few things that may help (but could hurt) my marathon time.

Here is the list of things I am testing for the first time:

1. Hydration belt – It could make me faster if I can skip having to walk at the water stations. I have tried and I just cannot drink from a paper cup while continuing to run. I always inhale while trying to drink and end up choking! Or the contents of the cup ends up all over me. It’s like throwing the water at my face and hoping some of it makes it in my mouth! However, I can drink pretty easily from a water bottle with a sports cap.  The downside is, it’s going to add an extra 2-3 pounds and I’m sure it will be super annoying by the last hour of the race. Will that slow me down? Not sure.

2. Camera – I’m not expecting this to make me faster, but it could make the run more enjoyable and more memorable. Something to take my mind off the pain perhaps? I’m not sure if the pictures are even going to be good enough quality if I take them while I’m still running. I’m also not sure if I’m going to even have the energy to mess with it during much of the race, and if I do, it could definitely slow me down. I’ve already had several frustrating moments with it where the picture won’t take or I accidentally change the settings by pushing the wrong button. It could end up just being more dead weight to add to my already heavy hydration belt. And there is always the chance that I could fumble and drop it or it could get wet and ruined in my belt. That would really ruin my mood and slow me down.

3. Running with a friend who runs the same pace – Sheila and I have run almost all of our long runs together through the summer. She was definitely a stronger runner than me earlier in the season. I think it might have been that she was more acclimated to running in the heat than I was, but it’s hard to tell. Some of our early long runs I struggled to stay at her pace in the last few miles and actually had to drop back and let her go. Our pace and effort seemed much more evenly matched during our 18 and 20 milers. Initially, I thought I would never want to try to run a race with someone for fear that I would either run too fast or too slow in attempt to stay with them. But when Sheila asked me if I wanted to try to run the race together, I immediately felt really positive about it. It could make the race so much more fun to share the experience with someone. She could actually make me faster by forcing me to keep running when the little voices in my head start telling me to walk during the last 10 miles. Of course it could be a big bummer if I have to let her go because she is truly faster than me or if one of us has to use the porta potties along the way. You never know.

4. Forcing myself NOT to go ahead of the 4 hour pacer. Seeing as there is a HUGE hill between miles 6 and 7, that may not be too hard. In both of marathons that I’ve run, I’ve started with one pace group (4:15 in my first marathon, 4:00 in my second marathon, both of which I think were appropriate at the time), only to pass up the pace guy in the first mile and continue with the next pace group for the first half. At P.F. Chang’s (’08), I let the adrenaline carry me all the way to the half marathon mark at an 8:35 pace. Not smart when I know my natural pace is really more like 9:00- 9:30. After 15 miles, I was hurting big time and telling myself I never wanted to run another marathon. Most people experience these these thoughts during the marathon, but NOT at the 15 mile mark!

5. Speed up on the downhills. I know most coaches say to take it easy on the downhills, but why? It’s effortless speed! Why not? Maybe it will average out with my slower uphill pace. Obviously, I’m not going to sprint, but I AM going to let the gravity do what it does best. I’m not going to fight it! Everyone says its going to wear me out. Guess I will find out!

So those are my marathon experiments. I will fill you in on the results of the experiments when its all over! I doubt this will be my last post before the race. I have too much race anxiety and excitement right now, I need a place to unload it! The computer is going with me to San Fran, so hopefully I should be able to blog from there. It sounds like I will have ample free time. Until tomorrow…

Happy running!

It was a humbling 2:01:37 hours on the hot and sticky streets of San Diego.  From now on I think I am going to stick with the winter races.   I’ll post a full race report later this week. I’m still in San Diego trying to get the most out of my vacation before its over.

The best part of the day was meeting fellow blogger Lisa from Discovering the Meaning of Stonehenge and her friend Laura after the race. It wasn’t awakward at all, in fact it was like we already knew each other from reading each others blogs. Ahh the magic of the internet. They were both so nice to me and graciously gave me ride back to where I am staying. In my race report I’ll have to tell you about the nightmare of finding our car had a dead battery at 4:30 in the morning before the race. More details to come!