Marathon Training / Week Seven : Routine

Running Recap:

• Tuesday / 4 Miles / Intervals
• Wednesday / 7 Miles / Pace 
• Thursday / 4 Miles / Trails 
• Saturday / 9 Miles / Easy 

We all know the song that plays on Bill Murray's alarm clock at 6:00 AM in the movie Groundhog Day.  Sing it with me..."Then put your little hand in mine, there ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb, babe...I got you babe..."  Phil Conors, played by Murray, wakes every day to this song, finding himself in a time loop, resetting every day on Groundhog Day.  At first he tries all sorts of hedonistic and self serving ways to fill his days, even attempting suicide.  But after awhile, he sees that he can accomplish good things during these repetitive days, and re-examines his life and his place in the world.  

Marathon training can be a bit like Groundhog Day.  I've completed my seventh of eighteen weeks, and while I have plenty of motivational gas left in the tank, I can say with all honesty that it is very much a life consuming routine.  I'm constantly thinking about what I will be eating, because the runger strikes every three hours with a vengeance.  I obsess over the hour by hour weather forecast, in an effort to plan out when I will get to run.  I plan my social life (don't kid yourself, Kid, you don't have one) around my runs.  I track the mileage on the three pairs of shoes I have in rotation and plot when I will need another pair (another few weeks).  I mark my miles on a calendar at my desk, track it against the plan I have in a handy-dandy binder, and also log my miles online with my Garmin.  See what I mean about consuming?  

I just finished reading Miss Peregrin's Home For Peculiar Children.  The story features a Groundhog Day-esque loop, where the head mistress, Miss Peregrin, oversees an orphanage for children with superpowers.  Their loop resets every day the moment before their home is bombed by Nazi war planes.  Their days are filled with chores on the same sunshiny perfect day and highlighted by the children's shenanigans."Believing that routine was the best defense against depression, Miss Peregrine tried to keep everyone interested in her daily lessons, in preparing the daily meals, and in keeping the house spic and span." 

The routine of marathon training is exactly what keeps me moving forward, week after week, running four days a week.  I've done training plans before and executed miserably.  What's working for me this time is that I am not just getting the miles in, rather each day I run has a specific purpose.  Each of the four runs I do each week are entirely different, and maybe that's what keeps the Groundhog Day Syndrome to a minimum.  I've played around a lot with training scenarios and structured a plan that's paying off already, physically and mentally.  And it goes a little something like this...

• Running Down a Dream / Intervals :  I watched my friend Jessica get faster and faster all spring.  I finally asked her, how in the heck are you so fast?  Her response: intervals.  Looking up how to do interval training gave me total information overload, but I embraced the spirit of it and came up with this plan: run 4 minutes at average/comfortable pace, run 1 minute just about as hard as I can, knowing I have to keep it up for a whole minute.  Repeat for the length of your run.  (I've taken 1:22/mile off my interval time...she wasn't kidding, it works).  
• The Distance (she's going the distance, she's going for speed) / Pace: Pace runs are mid-distance runs at the anticipated race pace.  It's to get my body synced in with what it "feels" like to run at the speed which I want to run my marathon.  A lot of people don't really have a good idea what their first marathon race pace will be, and I've used 4 different calculators that put my race pace within a 7 minute range based on my races this year.  Oddly, smack in the middle is the pie-in-the-sky time I put on my registration.  It's a little overwhelming thinking that's how fast I will run for 26.2 miles, without allowances for potty breaks.  But as Jamie has said, I'm sure there are worse things that have been done on the streets of D.C.  
• Happy Trails to You / Trails:  Ahhhh, trail running.  I love trail running.  I hate trail running.  I love trail running.  I am lucky enough to live in an area with a multitude of state parks with nicely marked trails through the most stunning dune forests you will ever see.  My trail run days rejuvenate my soul. That is, when I'm not panting and cursing at how hard it is to run trails.  Trial running is good because it improves proprioception, strengthens different muscles, is less jarring on your joints, and adding in the hills gives you a cardio workout like no other.  It's also the place where I leave behind all expectations of pace.  I walk when I need to.  I fall flat on my rump sometimes.  It's all good!  
• Slow Ride, Take it Easy / Easy: Hal Higdon recommends his marathoners do their long runs 60-90 seconds slower than anticipated race pace.  Whaaaa?  Wouldn't I want to run my long runs at pace, so I know I can make it that far at that pace?  Hell.  No.  First, it would wreck your body and you'd be beyond wiped out tired after your long runs, never able to recover to do your other runs during the week.  Moreover, without pretending like I know a lot of exercise science mumbojumbo, running more slowly helps your body learn to burn glycogen more efficiently.  Your body burns fat on those slow runs.  And whether it's proven or not, I've read for every pound lost, you take 10 seconds off your mile.  If that's actually true, hey, it's just another benefit of the slow run!   

So while it may look from the outside like ALL that I am doing is running ALL the time (okay, it's kinda true), the routine really is the sweet spot that keeps the Groundhog Day Blues away.  So when my alarm goes off at 6 o'clock, and Sonny is singing "Babe...I got you babe" all I can do is smile, hop out of bed and slide into my Mizunos.  There are miles to run, my friends!  

Until we meet again...

      Week Eight's Intention: You're a BAMF      

Marathon Training : Week Six / Joy

Running Recap:

• Tuesday / 3 Miles / Intervals 
• Wednesday / 6 Miles / Pace
• Thursday / 3 Miles / Trails 
• Friday / 3.1 Miles / Friday Fivek 
• Sunday / 15 Miles / Easy 

The very first movie I watched when I got my Roku was Happy.  It was New Year's Eve 2012.  All by myself.  It seemed like the perfect way to say good bye to a year full of proverbial trial and tribulation.  It turns out, according to the movie, about 50 percent of happiness is genetic (we all know those people who we swear were born in a bad mood...), about 10 percent is linked to our circumstance (job, wealth, ability to survive kind of stuff), and the remaining 40 percent is determined by what we purposely do to make ourselves happier.  The movie shows us that we can increase our happiness through activity, compassion, spending time in nature, and bringing variety into our lives.  FORTY PERCENT!  

I spent the last week with my Momma, and if there's ever someone who takes full advantage of that forty percent statistic, it's her.  I credit her with my sanguine disposition as well as my appetite for life.  I tend to think I was literally born with it given that the day I was born, my Momma had spent the day hiking through an area in southern Minnesota she calls "God's Country."  I wonder if she had known she would be at the hospital later that night giving birth she would have laid off the day hike, but knowing her, probably not!    

My intention for this week was joy, and we lived and breathed it!  When I moved away from home a dozen years ago, my Momma began a tradition of visiting on my birthday.  As I moved further away, the visit stretched out to a whole week, and she also started bringing a niece along with her (just one of the girls at a time).  This year was Kiara's year to visit Auntie Kari, and I was excited to share some new experiences with her.  Through all our adventures, I tried to focus on the beautiful, joyous happy moments we shared, and soaked up the experiences through their eyes.  

We toured a working dairy farm, where I got to hear my Momma recount stories of her childhood summers on her grandparents' on their dairy farm.  Her joy at seeing a calf on the day it was born, the smell of silage, and the feeling of a cow licking her with a curious tongue returned her to her childhood.  We visited a petting zoo, where I watched with smiles as Kiara fed baby deer from scavenged pellets (too cheap to spend her own quarters on feed!)  We ooh'd and aah'd at the finds in The Henry Ford, where our favorite moment was sitting on THE Rosa Parks bus.   Kiara has a knack for crime-fighting and aspirations of becoming a K9 Detective, so I lined up a visit to a neighboring county's 911 central dispatch center.  She grinned from ear to ear watching my friend Jen take emergency calls from an automobile crash.  Another day, we visited the big lake, and I watched from the shore as she jumped through pounding waves and I gave gratitude to be able to give her this kind of a childhood experience.  I must have looked like the Cheshire Cat, because I found complete strangers passing on the beach were smiling back at me.  

Momma & me on the Rosa Parks bus 

But the single most joyous moment for me was running with Kiara in her first 5K race.  I was slightly surprised when she said she wanted to do it with me, and suspect she was motivated by my promise that she'd get a dog tag award if she finished (the child is highly motivated by bling of any sort).  A whole slew of my friends were there, and I was proud before it even started.  The gun went off and she was gone!  I sprinted to keep up with her, and kept reminding her to slow it down.  I loved hearing her little lungs breathing hard, and she just kept going.  As we approached our first big hill on the course, I told her it's okay to walk up hills and she thankfully slowed.  I don't think I will ever forget our conversations on that run, me cheering her on, coaching her on technique, her complaining about her legs hurting and how she didn't believe me that this was fun.  I laughed as she started fantasizing about what she was going to have for dinner afterward (chicken strips) because that's exactly what I do on my runs!  The course was mainly trails, which was so beautiful and as the crowd thinned out, it was just us on the path, sharing this moment together.  I told her to save some energy and turn on the gas at the end when everyone was watching, and she did just that, sprinting to the finish!  

Take a cue from "Happy" and make the most of what you can with that 40%!  Set out every day with the intention to explore, experience new things, spend time in nature, or just play a little!  These places are where we find contentment and joy.  

You may not be what you think you are,

but what you think, you are. 

~Jim Clark 

Week Seven's Intention: Routine