All these things have filled my time and kept me from writing and keeping up. (I feel like the 10-year-old apologizing to her diary for not writing for so long!)
The Whidbey Island half marathon came and went, very successfully, on April 15. I actually started to write about it but can't find what I wrote on my computer. I am stymied by technology. So all the intense impressions of the moment are now faded away.
My goal was to finish in under two hours (and I wasn't completely sure that I could). It's hard to get a good impression of how fast you are running at the time. I did keep looking at my watch at mile markers and constantly subtracting from the start time, and did have a sense that I was doing okay, around or maybe under nine minutes per mile.
I finally learned what "hitting the wall" feels like around mile 11. What it was to me, was the feeling that I cannot possibly run any faster than I am running at this moment (which was slower than I had been running for most of the race). I didn't feel like I had to stop, but I was stuck in that pace. Luckily I passed through that somewhere after mile 12 and as I was nearing the finish line, put on a burst of speed like I never have before. When I saw the clock it said 1:54 and I was determined to finish under 1:55... and I did. In the end my total time was just under 1:55 but my actual time (from crossing the start line to crossing the finish line) was 1:54:30, for a pace of 8:45 per mile. So much better than I had ever expected!
I was surprised but perhaps shouldn't have been, because I had followed my training plan obsessively, and could not have been in better shape for this race. The weekend before I had run the five-mile Tulip Run in Skagit County, and got an amazing personal best of 8:31 per mile (42:37 total). I also modified my eating plan and ate (gasp) pasta for dinner the night before each of those runs--and I actually think that might have made a difference! I didn't eat anything during the duration of the half marathon and I do wonder whether that might have made a difference in the moments of flagging near the end.
I had a fabulous mix of music on my ipod, which I had spent a couple of weeks putting together for the half marathon. I tested it on the Tulip Run and then tweaked it a little bit for Whidbey. I actually got so into making my playlist that I ended up with four hours of music--the first two and a half were running songs and the remainder was more of a post-run mix. I have put it onto i-tunes as a playlist, although about half my music was dropped off because I had originally downloaded it from another CD rather than i-tunes. However, there's still 154 minutes worth of songs, including my number one running song, "Don't Stop Me Now," by Queen (you definitely need this one). On the i-tunes version of my playlist it comes up about half an hour into the list, whereas I had it about an hour into my run, just when I really needed to pump things up! I had "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor at just about the two hour point, to push me across the finish line, but I had already finished by the time it came up!
Here's the modified version of my playlist, which can be found at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=258837320 .
The week after Whidbey I could feel my body needed recovery and I had some difficult moments running during the next few days. Let's just say my digestive system was all shook up and needed a bit of time to recover.
I also decided to try running just a little less to be kinder to my body. For the rest of the spring, and possibly during the summer, I am trying a running plan of running Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during the week (working out at the Y on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and running one day on the weekend. That way I will generally never run more than two days in a row, allowing a day of recovery between most runs.
During May and early June I spent three weeks in England, where I did a lot of walking and also ran on the days I was in London and other cities (in the country I walk rather than run). Of course I also indulged in a lot of scones and cream and bread and cheese and cake and biscuits (cookies), which despite the constant activity and exercise, resulted in several pounds gained by the time I got home.
A birthday party and a graduation party, both involving copious amounts of cake (my favorite thing), didn't help things in the week after I got home. (I am about 10 pounds over my low weight, although 5-7 pounds up from when I left for England.) I have also been running and/or working out only once a day on most days, in an effort to devote some time to getting caught up at work and updating my travel blog. I do believe that balance is necessary in life, and I can't completely sacrifice my job in order to work out twice a day!
But for the last week I have been quite faithful about eating (pretty) clean, working out daily, if not twice a day (except for today, which is a rest day due to minor injury after a run yesterday), and I have run in two 5K runs (last Saturday and yesterday), so I think I am on a good track.
So, that's where I've been the last two months. We'll just have to see where I'm going from here.
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