The countdown continues

It was weird running a slow, 3 miles this week.  I didn't even take my phone along.  I just ran a familiar route near my apartment that is ~3 miles, maybe a little less.  It was hilly but I didn't push it.

I had a friend tell me that I would feel like a very tightly wound spring during the taper.  He wasn't kidding.

All week I've been itching to run.  And when I did run, I wanted to run more.  I can certainly see why this makes people start out way too fast when they run their marathon.  Maybe I'll have to get a super short jog in that morning or day before?!  It seems strange that my last long run was so long ago.  It kind of makes me feel anxious, but I know that a taper is a trusted tool to make sure your muscles are at their best.  Trust the taper.  Right?!  Right.

At any rate, I leave tomorrow morning for Big Sur.  I'm working a short day today and relaxing tonight.  Dinner is set for tomorrow night at 5pm in Carmel.  I feel more excited than nervous, so at least that's good.

I still can't believe it's here already...

Reality Check Run

I realized a few weeks ago that despite running a ton of hills during training (both steep and long), I've not come close to the hill that awaits me in Big Sur.  Hurricane Point.  Longer and steeper than the famed Heartbreak Hill in the Boston Marathon.  Granted, Hurricane Point arrives at mile 10 and not mile 20 like in the Boston Marathon, but it's still a huge bitch.

I posted a while back about this hill.  The climb is 1.84 miles long at ~4.47% grade although some GPS systems map it at a 4%.

I decided to one up it.  After running 4 miles along a very flat trail, I ran 2 miles up a hill in Rancho Palos Verdes which is a notoriously hilly area where I've done a bunch of training runs.  I've never run up Hawthorne Blvd though, for good reason.  The road crests at the appropriately named "Crest Drive".  The hill climb is a 6% grade.  I managed under 10 minute miles up and back down.  I didn't push it since I'm in the taper period...and I had to run a lot of the hill on the gravel/rocks that are next to the road since there isn't a bike lane or sidewalk.  But regardless I'm still really happy I ran <10mpm on such a steep incline.

I felt okay going up, although a 2 mile long incline really does suck a lot.  At one point I felt like I MUST be getting close.  I checked my phone quickly and I had run 0.8 miles.  Ouch.  The downhill wasn't much better honestly, because it was just as steep on the way down.  However!  Now that I've gotten a much worse hill out of the way...I feel even more ready for the marathon.  I pretty much have no running this week (supposed to run 3 and walk 2...haha) and then it's showtime.

6 more days.  

Trying for an easy 3 miler...

...FAIL.

But fail in a good way, I suppose.

I was supposed to run some short, easy runs this past week.  My usual loop is 4 miles.  One more mile wasn't going to hurt, so I set out after work to coast through the run.  I tried to keep a pace where I wasn't getting winded, even on the hills.  Like I've said before, I won't check my pace during the run, so I just kept going until I was back at my apartment.

4 miles in 33 minutes...8:25 min/mi.  So much for taking it easy :P

Tapering is awesome

Despite an extremely stiff two days following the 20 mile run, my other runs went well through the week.  It's nice that the distances have lowered a bit which doesn't cut as much into my evenings as before.

This weekend was the Long Beach Grand Prix and so I needed to run in the morning before we headed down to see the Le Mans race.

Unfortunately for me, it was extraordinary windy on Saturday.  Sand was in my eyes, my ears were burning from the cold wind, and my body was constantly being sandblasted.  I was supposed to run 8 miles and only churned out 6 mostly because I just couldn't take it anymore.  Even my GPS was unhappy:  it apparently thought that I had run 15.55 miles.  Nice.

In other news, I checked out my marathon log spreadsheet today and I'm up to 397 miles for this marathon.  Pretty wild!  That would let me run from here to...Vegas!

20 miles

This year I got to "celebrate" Easter by running 20 miles.

I've been dreading this run for pretty much the entirety of my training, despite knowing that a full marathon is even longer.  I geared up with a bunch of jelly beans, new socks, and a long sleeve shirt to keep from freezing once the sun went down.

Due to other festivities, I didn't start running until 5:30pm which kinda sucked because that meant I'd be finishing in the dark.  Aside from that, I felt ready to go.  I decided to do a long, flat run at a reasonable pace.  I wore my new knee brace for the first time which helped immensely.  I am happy to report that I didn't have any severe knee pain through the whole run!

The run felt slow and steady.  It seemed to take forever to reach the halfway point which was a bit frustrating, but I didn't feel overly tired...mostly just bored.  The sun was already beginning to lower in the sky by the time I was turning around.  The second half of the run was straight into the wind, yet again.  I was smart this time and took gloves with me to avoid the cold hands syndrome.

It was a weird feeling this time around.  I never really felt sore or super tired.  I mostly just wanted not to be running anymore, haha.  The last 30 minutes of the run were in complete darkness.  I had blinky LEDs on, but no headlamp unfortunately, so I just shuffled along the bike path trying to follow the edge as closely as possible.  The run took about 3 hours and my mile pace was just shy of a 9 min/mile pace the whole time which made me extremely happy.

At no point did I stop, even to eat the jelly beans.  I consumed a pack before, one around mile 11, and the final one around mile 16.  The caffeine content of the final pack didn't seem to make too much of a difference, but I definitely felt more energetic after eating a pack of sugar pellets, hah.

I felt pretty good by the time I got home and felt like I could have kept on going!

Overall this was probably one of my best runs, mostly just because of the boost of confidence it gave me.  I feel like running 20 miles is a great indication that I can tack on another 6.  I felt like I could keep going and managed to keep a pretty great pace for 3 hours straight.

Now begins the fun part - the taper!!

ENERGY!!!

Stocked up for the 20 mile run & the marathon!!

Another long Sunday afternoon run

Yesterday was the day of the 18 mile run. I had been dreading this for a while, especially after feeling so terrible running 16 miles...but the marathon is a month away and it's go-time.

I bought a bunch of pre-run "fuel" in the hopes that I'd avoid hitting the wall this time around. I bought Gatorade "Fit" bites, which turned out to be for non-endurance activities and not exactly ideal for workouts over 2 hours long. I ate two of those anyway as well as a pouch of Jelly Belly Sport Beans and pounded a bunch of Gatorade. I also decided that instead of just water, I'd put Gatorade in my hydration belt in the hopes that my electrolytes, etc would stay up.

It was extraordinarily windy yesterday and I decided not to run along the beach. I've been getting really frustrated with running the strand for a few reasons:

1) it's boring

2) it's completely flat which isn't exactly helping me for Big Sur

3) it gets super congested in areas like Venice/Manhattan Beach

4) the Manhattan Beach area splits into a bike path and a ped path. On the weekends when I'm doing my long runs, unless I go at 6am, this area is covered with walkers, strollers, kids, dogs, and just a ton of people in general. AND it smells like dog poop which is not really what you wanna be gasping in at mile 12.

5) it's supposed to be a bike path only and some cyclists that assume the path is their personal velodrome like to blaze past you as close as possible to remind you that you're not supposed to be on the path

I searched around online and found out about this little trail:

http://www.ci.manhattan-beach.ca.us/Index.aspx?page=379

It's only 7.5 miles round-trip, but I figured with the distance added on to/from my apartment, plus some spare miles somewhere I should be able to get the total up to 18 pretty easily.

I ran along Sepulveda Blvd, which was definitely the worst part of the run, and then ducked behind the Fry's Electronics to find the entrance to the trail. It was secluded and laden with trees which brought some much needed shade at 3 in the afternoon. The trail winds through Manhattan Beach all the way down to the Hermosa/Redondo border. The trail is covered in wood chips which was a nice change from cement. There were plenty of flowers and blooming trees that provided lovely scenery and some nice aromas as I cruised down the trail.

What I did not realize was that the trail goes downhill the entire way to Redondo Beach which means by mile 8ish I have to turn around and go uphill...straight into headwinds.

The run back home was pretty gnarly to be totally honest. My knee started hurting around mile 10 and the winds were brutal. Even the trees didn't protect me from the wind as it seemed to be blowing straight down the corridor of the running trail. I felt slight relief once I was back on Sepulveda because I knew the run was nearly finished, but the winds were even worse once I was out in the open.

Eventually I made it back to my apartment and didn't feel like going to sleep. I never felt like I hit "the wall" like I did on the previous long run which was nice. I think I'll stick to the sport beans when I run the marathon :) I stretched for a long time, showered, and stretched again. Today I barely feel sore which is awesome. Even my bad knee seems to be holding up! Four more weeks to go!!!!

Yesterday's stats:

18 miles

2:31:46

~8:33 min/mi

249 ft elevation gain