It has been so long since I've written about my running. I spent all of November - January intensely focused on trying to qualify for Boston at the Houston Marathon. For as well as my training went, it turned out not to be my day and I ended up DNFing with ITB issues. I've gone through a bit of a transition phase since then. To recap:
I loved training for Houston. I love high mileage weeks and I loved getting faster each week. A few highlights of that training:
*PRing a 5k in December. I ran a 21:32 with Troy pacing me. It was a perfect weather day and I felt great.
*January 1st I ran 9 miles at the club and my mantra was "You're faster than you think you are." Again...perfectly cold weather and I ran those 9 miles in 1:08.
*One of my last track workouts before Houston was 5 x 1 mile. Alan ran them all with me and my slowest was 7:00. My fastest was 6:54. This still amazes me.
*My last long training run was 22 miles on January 8. I ran 13 miles @ 8:30 pace and just felt exhausted. It had been a tough week of workouts and I felt depleted. After those 13 miles I ran RAW's Bold In The Cold 15k race with Troy pacing me. We hung on to a 8:15 pace. That pace actually felt better than my 8:30's until the last 3 miles. Then it was all I could do to stay with him. I cried after this workout. I was so proud to have done it and my confidence was so high that I could BQ in Houston.
Some of the toughest workouts:
*20 miler on Christmas morning. It was so incredibly windy. My last 4 miles were into the wind and I would run as hard as I could, stop, turn my back to the wind and just breathe. I had to do that like 4 times. It was such a mental challenge to keep driving into that wind.
*One of my Thursday tempo runs I was just beat before I even showed up. I never felt good both Tuesday and Thursday (my quality workouts). If I felt good Tuesday at the track, I would be dead for Thursday tempo. This one particular Thursday was the worst. There is no question I would have quit earlier had Kevin and Brad not been there. I just hung on to them for dear life.
*Ft Worth Running Club's Half Marathon in November. This was awful. I could not move my legs. At all. This race was a turning point for me though. I immediately kicked my training up a higher level after this race.
Since Houston, I've rehabbed my ITB and am feeling pretty good. I ran Texas Independence Relay with team HOORAW!! and turned out my fastest 10k ever. I loved running for a team, there was never any question about slowing down or quitting. However, I'm mentally beat up from training so hard and not getting the results I train for. The last two years I trained really hard for a 70.3 Triathlon only to have it totally suck and then obviously Houston sucked. The two big things that have gone well are TransRockies and Palo Duro.
I am not burned out on training and I'm not burned out on trying to get faster. I love running. I'm just burned out on bad races. I'm burned out on leaving so much in the weatherman's hands. The one thing that all my bad races have in common is bad weather. Because of that I have signed up for some trail races this spring. I don't feel pressure on the trails like I do the road and I love the longer, slower distances. If the weather sucks, who cares? It's the trails! However, once El Scorcho in July is over I plan to get back on the road. I want to race 5k's, 10k's and 13.1's. I want to get stronger at holding my fast pace for shorter races. Then hopefully, I'll be ready to try and BQ again. I'm convinced I can be a 3:30 marathoner. I just need some more experience and confidence. It seems this year I'm going to be a runner only. I'm sure I'll be back to triathlons though in no time. : )
Races that I'm already signed up for in 2011:
3/19 Grasslands Full Marathon
4/2 Backwoods Scavenger Hunt with Mitchell
5/21 Jemez 50k
6/17 - 6/19 Chattanooga Stage Race
7/16 El Scorcho 50k
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