Running Like A Girl And Proud Of It

I’ve once again waited too long between blog posts so I’ll give a quick recap since the last post and then describe Sunday’s Rock n Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon. 

Overall the training has gone really well despite a few issues over the past month and a half.  I kept my mileage in the range of 90-105 pretty much the whole time and workouts were generally completed as fast as scheduled.  Right after my last post I began to experience some more issues with my breathing and general disposition while running.  I was still getting in the miles and finishing the workouts but it wasn’t easy.  I had to use my fitness to grind through workouts, even though I often was feeling terrible from the start and not believing I would finish until the last interval.  I was having these dry, bloody noses and congestion that were made worse by freshly cut grass and other allergens in the air.  I was so thankful to have teammates to pull me along through that time and a coach to motivate me and put up with all my whining about not feeling well.  I thought I had polyps in my sinuses even after my pulmonologist (Dr. Pollack) told me it was probably just a bad sinus infection presenting itself in a different form from the earlier ones.

Luckily, he was right and I started to improve once I began treating the infection.  Despite some stomach issues (that antibiotics usually give me), things started getting a lot better.  I ran well in workouts including mile repeats, 2mi repeats, and marathon-specific tempo workouts built into long runs.  I was able to close hard in those efforts and felt stronger while doing them.  I ran a nice 5:15 marathon pace workout during a Labor Day race in Avalon (Tim Kerr 7-mi Island Run) and also a 15-min 5K time trial on a random Thursday morning after intense storms washed out our plans to do it earlier.  Last week we did an 8x800m workout where I closed in 2:05.  I ran 58 seconds for the last lap and felt smooth and strong out there.  I recovered quickly and put my mind towards tuning up for Chicago with a good half-marathon in Philly.  Things were looking up.

The weekend started with my daughter Lily’s first birthday party.  It was fantastic.  Lily seemed to really enjoy it and I realized how lucky we are to have such great friends and family to support her as she grows.  My Aunt Andrea (aka Tante Ani) was there to celebrate Lily’s birthday and after the party she, Paul, and I headed back to her place in Philly as she was hosting us for the race.  After watching the Union pull out a big victory and then watching the Phils celebrate their 5th straight NL East title, I went to bed happy before the race. 

I was nervous (as always) for the race but I felt good as Paul and I warmed up together.  When the gun went off I knew I was going to run a controlled effort but I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do.  I quickly abandoned the plan to start running 5:15s as I was sucked out with the deep elite field in under 5 minutes and it felt good.  I closed a gap when I didn’t want to be out in front of a pack breaking the wind. I then found myself on the back of a pack running a trials-qualifying pace.  I had to make the decision if I wanted to go for it right then but I reminded myself that Chicago is the goal and I have been saying I only have one bullet left to get to the trials.  I dropped back (hopefully wisely) and searched for pack going the pace I knew I could comfortably maintain.  I found former teammate, MTC-runner Sean Swift to latch onto and to my surprise the two leading women were in his pack.  I latched on to the back of this pack and went for a ride, leading some stretches later in the race.  The rest of the half was pretty uneventful except for being amazed with how well these ladies were running and being stoked about how easy it felt to run 5:0Xs.  Sean and I pulled away ever-so slightly from the pack in the last couple miles and I went on to finish in 66:52 (only good for 36th in this deep field), technically a PR for the half.  At one point I was kicking myself for not going for the standard given how good I was feeling out there.  However, that thought was quickly replaced by being happy at how good that felt and confident about running sub-2:19 in Chicago.  That was fun.

It took the Eagles blowing Sunday night’s game to finally wipe the smile off my face.  I’m more sore than I thought I would be I guess I should have predicted that.  I’ll take a few lighter days to get my legs back under me before putting in a little more work to tune-up for the marathon.