Wow! Some Race!
Sep. 24th, 2007 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threadwalkerWe set a goal: Run in the Susan G. Komen 5k in San Francisco.
We trained up for it and then we did it.
We rock. Yay us! We are already planning to do it again next year. We may do t-shirts or tank-tops or something. If you are reading this, you can expect I will try and "drag you along". muh-ha-ha...
The details:
The Pit Crew and Cheering Section
The fantabulous spouse and my personal cheering section got up with me at 6:30 am on Sunday so he could drive me to a race, find parking, follow me as I zig-zagged through the vendor section, wait for me at the finish line, hold my gorp, take me out to breakfast, and drive me home. How awesome is that?!
My wonderful mother stayed with our cherubs so we could go off and do this without their discomfort or issues. It was an un-looked for offer and we were planning on rousting the kids at 6:30 am. This was her way of supporting me and totally nifty.
Friend who was Dragged Along
What was also supery dupery fun was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
catagon3 joined us. She dragged her tired self to my house Saturday night after spending early Saturday running errands, picking up her race stuff in San Francisco, then driving to Napa so she could spend the whole afternoon/evening being bardish at Coronet. Add in some bardic scrambling to write a (clever and cute) piece about the tournament finals, maybe get a bite to eat, and then climb in her car to drive from Napa to Concord so she could sleep on my futon with just enough time to squeeze in 6 hrs of sleep before I was nudging her awake and offering her hard-boiled eggs and bananas bright and early on Sunday.
Race Results
We both surprised ourselves. We exceeded our own expectations.
I am going to disagree withcatagon3 estimate of her time. She says 31-32 min. I zipped over to the race clock after she finished her run and it said 45:30. That's 45:30 from the start of MY race, which was 15 min before hers (she did not run in the timed race where they hand out chips). So with a little math, that would make her run less than 30:30. Woot woot! A personal best for her! (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!) Regardless, according to catagon3, even 32+ is her current best. woot woot!
I ran in the timed race. I was 314th out of over 700 people ranging in age from 9 to 70. http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/182848_213610_2007.html
I exceeded my wildest hopes and beat my best treadmill run. Which is both good and bad. I was supposed to be laying off the owie-leg and focusing on finishing, not trying to actually "race". And since I never made it to any of my gym workouts in the last week, finishing with a bum leg would have been plenty to cheer about. However, I beat my best treadmill time with 28:04, which is a smidge over a 9 min mile. Woot Woot! That's pretty close to what I was doing in high school. The big difference? It was flat (HS was not). It was on pavement. (HS was not). I'm mentally tougher than I was in HS (I know how to "bring it" now).
It was awesome to see so many people. My husband enjoyed pointing out, some "older woman" blew right past us. LOL.. So I had to check the results. It looks like the first 12 women in the 50-59 category had me beat. So that's on my list of goals: Be able to beat yesterday's time by the time I'm 50. I was 48th (of 146) for women in my age group (30-39). What an odd thought... I hadn't really been thinking in terms of how I stacked up in my age group. And it looks like the pack I passed was right no my heals when I crossed. (snicker!) Numbers are fun to play with.
http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/182848_213611_2007.html#%205
Race and Running Psychology (this is long and introspective)
What was totally cool was I was in my own head the whole time; meaning I was focused on the "here and now" and not distracted by my own thoughts. I don't remember being this focused when I ran cross country in high school. I used to veg-out and flip into autopilot. Instead, I activley worked hard at avoiding "tagging" along with someone, which is my lingo for finding someone w/ a similar pace and sticking with them. The problem with that is that you never experience your full potential, you are experiencing theirs, and if they slow down, you have to overcome your comfort zone to speed up. This is (IMO) a race-trap. I was constantly doing self-assessments to see if I could go faster; internally monitor leg pain, breathing, energy, muscle potential, ankles, feet, knees, etc. Part of the monitoring was testing if I could pull out a little more speed as long as it didn't jack me up. I also really enjoyed "over taking" people. It has a kind of carnivore thrill to it and that kept me pushing myself, too. Overall, I spent the whole time focused on my run and finally achieving that level of focus really adds to my sense of accomplishment.
Breakdown of race phases:
My running routine is that I have a fairly set pace for the first 2.5 miles or so, then speed it up a notch for the next half mile, and then sprint in the last minute (0.1-0.2 mi), but that's what I do on a treadmill where I have all sorts of electronic devices to tell me "where" and "when" I am. I didn't have that on the road and had to guesstimate. I was surprised when I hit the 2 mile marker at 16+ minutes..woot woot! That actually spurred me on because that's a personal best, so I kept nudging myself to work my pace and keep it up. Towards the end it got a lot harder than I expected and I'm still not sure if it was mental or physical. My solution was to let someone faster "pull me along" when I was flagging, which is my lingo for making myself keep their pace as long as I could. On top of that, I kept kicking up my effort to my elevated (end of race) pace because I kept thinking I was almost at the end. I wasn't and I kept rediscovering I had one more pier to go, which was messing up my anticipation, but it also kept me at an elevated end-race pace longer than I'm used to. I think these rhythmic increases in the last mile were key in cutting down my time. They were also extremely draining and the mind-game was brutal when I realized the finish line was further out. I can't tell what that impact was: kind of a trade off between the elevated speed and the mental sense of exhaustion.
I managed to pull out a sprint at the last 30 seconds. I wanted to sprint sooner, but didn't have enough drive (not sure if I was lacking mental or physical push from that long last mile portion). But there was sprinting at the end (woot!) even though the body didn't want to. My mental whip cracker bitch-slapped my motivation up and around after noting good breathing and lack of significant pain. THAT voice reminded me that we are training end-of-race-sprints for a reason, dammit, and yelled at me to pick up my stupid feet, start pumping my hips and quads, and kick it out. The whip-cracker is merciless and I didn't even argue with her. So I sprinted. And I did it sneaky like when I did it 20 yrs ago. I controlled my breathing and ran along the sides of my running treads when I sprinted the end of a race so that people couldn't hear me overtaking them. It's such a mind game because I've already passed them before they can respond, which is a slash to their motivation and it means they have to pull out 2x as much speed than if they'd seen/heard me coming just so they could catch up. Plus, I wasn't the only sprinter and I passed another sprinter doing this as well. She thought she had passed all the end-of-race runners, but didn't know I was there until I passed her. She didn't have time to recover and overtake me. Yup, that was the inner carnivore loving the chase at the end of the race. Rawr!
I can say that when I finished, I could barely walk, I started to shake all over, and I had to sit on a curb to take the timer-chip off my shoe-lace (none of that bending forward stuff, I'd have just fallen over). I definitely dug deep and gave it all I had, which is an amazing sense of accomplishment. How often can I walk away from something saying, "I know that I gave it everything I had and I held nothing back"?
Leg Injury
It hurts quite a bit and I was limping within minutes of finishing. The interesting thing was that it maintained its normal level of dull throb during the race and it was only after the race that it started screaming in protest at me. I could actually feel the blood rushing through my lower leg and feel the pain sensors crank up after I sat down to rest.
My current plan is to take a few days off from the gym and then stick to elliptical and bike for a while since those don't aggravate it. After it's recovered, work back up to 20 min on the treadmill (with my sprint) and leave it at that for a while. It's time to change out my fitness workout anyway, so I'll use the next few days for stretching, meditation and fitness homework.
Races
I love races. I will need to find another worthwhile cause to train up for. I will need to train in a brainier way so that I don't show up on race day telling myself, "Take it easy on the recent sport injury and remember that just finishing is a good thing".
Bonus moments related to race:
Hanging w/catagon3 was fun. Although before either of us slept Saturday night, there was the "whee! I haven't seen you in ages.." and she sang her "Follow Ascelin if you're able" song, which had me laughing (and blushing) as well as the piece she wrote for Coroent. (Wow! I'm always amazed at her bardic stuff. It's such an inspired art.)
We cruised the Ferry Building when we were done. It's so beautiful. I kind of tried to imagine the hustle and bustle at the beginning of the 1900s.
catagon3 and I hot tubbed after my mom left and after spouse and kids zonked out for nap. What a splendid way to end a race day!
I feel great. Investiture marks my "Return to fitness" since that's when I finished Oonagh's dress and put off making excuses. I look back over the last year and it's just amazing. I would not have predicted it.
We trained up for it and then we did it.
We rock. Yay us! We are already planning to do it again next year. We may do t-shirts or tank-tops or something. If you are reading this, you can expect I will try and "drag you along". muh-ha-ha...
The details:
The Pit Crew and Cheering Section
The fantabulous spouse and my personal cheering section got up with me at 6:30 am on Sunday so he could drive me to a race, find parking, follow me as I zig-zagged through the vendor section, wait for me at the finish line, hold my gorp, take me out to breakfast, and drive me home. How awesome is that?!
My wonderful mother stayed with our cherubs so we could go off and do this without their discomfort or issues. It was an un-looked for offer and we were planning on rousting the kids at 6:30 am. This was her way of supporting me and totally nifty.
Friend who was Dragged Along
What was also supery dupery fun was
catagon3 joined us. She dragged her tired self to my house Saturday night after spending early Saturday running errands, picking up her race stuff in San Francisco, then driving to Napa so she could spend the whole afternoon/evening being bardish at Coronet. Add in some bardic scrambling to write a (clever and cute) piece about the tournament finals, maybe get a bite to eat, and then climb in her car to drive from Napa to Concord so she could sleep on my futon with just enough time to squeeze in 6 hrs of sleep before I was nudging her awake and offering her hard-boiled eggs and bananas bright and early on Sunday. Race Results
We both surprised ourselves. We exceeded our own expectations.
I am going to disagree with
catagon3 estimate of her time. She says 31-32 min. I zipped over to the race clock after she finished her run and it said 45:30. That's 45:30 from the start of MY race, which was 15 min before hers (she did not run in the timed race where they hand out chips). So with a little math, that would make her run less than 30:30. Woot woot! A personal best for her! (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!) Regardless, according to catagon3, even 32+ is her current best. woot woot!I ran in the timed race. I was 314th out of over 700 people ranging in age from 9 to 70. http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/182848_213610_2007.html
I exceeded my wildest hopes and beat my best treadmill run. Which is both good and bad. I was supposed to be laying off the owie-leg and focusing on finishing, not trying to actually "race". And since I never made it to any of my gym workouts in the last week, finishing with a bum leg would have been plenty to cheer about. However, I beat my best treadmill time with 28:04, which is a smidge over a 9 min mile. Woot Woot! That's pretty close to what I was doing in high school. The big difference? It was flat (HS was not). It was on pavement. (HS was not). I'm mentally tougher than I was in HS (I know how to "bring it" now).
It was awesome to see so many people. My husband enjoyed pointing out, some "older woman" blew right past us. LOL.. So I had to check the results. It looks like the first 12 women in the 50-59 category had me beat. So that's on my list of goals: Be able to beat yesterday's time by the time I'm 50. I was 48th (of 146) for women in my age group (30-39). What an odd thought... I hadn't really been thinking in terms of how I stacked up in my age group. And it looks like the pack I passed was right no my heals when I crossed. (snicker!) Numbers are fun to play with.
http://www.doitsports.com/newresults3/client/182848_213611_2007.html#%205
Race and Running Psychology (this is long and introspective)
What was totally cool was I was in my own head the whole time; meaning I was focused on the "here and now" and not distracted by my own thoughts. I don't remember being this focused when I ran cross country in high school. I used to veg-out and flip into autopilot. Instead, I activley worked hard at avoiding "tagging" along with someone, which is my lingo for finding someone w/ a similar pace and sticking with them. The problem with that is that you never experience your full potential, you are experiencing theirs, and if they slow down, you have to overcome your comfort zone to speed up. This is (IMO) a race-trap. I was constantly doing self-assessments to see if I could go faster; internally monitor leg pain, breathing, energy, muscle potential, ankles, feet, knees, etc. Part of the monitoring was testing if I could pull out a little more speed as long as it didn't jack me up. I also really enjoyed "over taking" people. It has a kind of carnivore thrill to it and that kept me pushing myself, too. Overall, I spent the whole time focused on my run and finally achieving that level of focus really adds to my sense of accomplishment.
Breakdown of race phases:
My running routine is that I have a fairly set pace for the first 2.5 miles or so, then speed it up a notch for the next half mile, and then sprint in the last minute (0.1-0.2 mi), but that's what I do on a treadmill where I have all sorts of electronic devices to tell me "where" and "when" I am. I didn't have that on the road and had to guesstimate. I was surprised when I hit the 2 mile marker at 16+ minutes..woot woot! That actually spurred me on because that's a personal best, so I kept nudging myself to work my pace and keep it up. Towards the end it got a lot harder than I expected and I'm still not sure if it was mental or physical. My solution was to let someone faster "pull me along" when I was flagging, which is my lingo for making myself keep their pace as long as I could. On top of that, I kept kicking up my effort to my elevated (end of race) pace because I kept thinking I was almost at the end. I wasn't and I kept rediscovering I had one more pier to go, which was messing up my anticipation, but it also kept me at an elevated end-race pace longer than I'm used to. I think these rhythmic increases in the last mile were key in cutting down my time. They were also extremely draining and the mind-game was brutal when I realized the finish line was further out. I can't tell what that impact was: kind of a trade off between the elevated speed and the mental sense of exhaustion.
I managed to pull out a sprint at the last 30 seconds. I wanted to sprint sooner, but didn't have enough drive (not sure if I was lacking mental or physical push from that long last mile portion). But there was sprinting at the end (woot!) even though the body didn't want to. My mental whip cracker bitch-slapped my motivation up and around after noting good breathing and lack of significant pain. THAT voice reminded me that we are training end-of-race-sprints for a reason, dammit, and yelled at me to pick up my stupid feet, start pumping my hips and quads, and kick it out. The whip-cracker is merciless and I didn't even argue with her. So I sprinted. And I did it sneaky like when I did it 20 yrs ago. I controlled my breathing and ran along the sides of my running treads when I sprinted the end of a race so that people couldn't hear me overtaking them. It's such a mind game because I've already passed them before they can respond, which is a slash to their motivation and it means they have to pull out 2x as much speed than if they'd seen/heard me coming just so they could catch up. Plus, I wasn't the only sprinter and I passed another sprinter doing this as well. She thought she had passed all the end-of-race runners, but didn't know I was there until I passed her. She didn't have time to recover and overtake me. Yup, that was the inner carnivore loving the chase at the end of the race. Rawr!
I can say that when I finished, I could barely walk, I started to shake all over, and I had to sit on a curb to take the timer-chip off my shoe-lace (none of that bending forward stuff, I'd have just fallen over). I definitely dug deep and gave it all I had, which is an amazing sense of accomplishment. How often can I walk away from something saying, "I know that I gave it everything I had and I held nothing back"?
Leg Injury
It hurts quite a bit and I was limping within minutes of finishing. The interesting thing was that it maintained its normal level of dull throb during the race and it was only after the race that it started screaming in protest at me. I could actually feel the blood rushing through my lower leg and feel the pain sensors crank up after I sat down to rest.
My current plan is to take a few days off from the gym and then stick to elliptical and bike for a while since those don't aggravate it. After it's recovered, work back up to 20 min on the treadmill (with my sprint) and leave it at that for a while. It's time to change out my fitness workout anyway, so I'll use the next few days for stretching, meditation and fitness homework.
Races
I love races. I will need to find another worthwhile cause to train up for. I will need to train in a brainier way so that I don't show up on race day telling myself, "Take it easy on the recent sport injury and remember that just finishing is a good thing".
Bonus moments related to race:
Hanging w/
catagon3 was fun. Although before either of us slept Saturday night, there was the "whee! I haven't seen you in ages.." and she sang her "Follow Ascelin if you're able" song, which had me laughing (and blushing) as well as the piece she wrote for Coroent. (Wow! I'm always amazed at her bardic stuff. It's such an inspired art.)We cruised the Ferry Building when we were done. It's so beautiful. I kind of tried to imagine the hustle and bustle at the beginning of the 1900s.
catagon3 and I hot tubbed after my mom left and after spouse and kids zonked out for nap. What a splendid way to end a race day!I feel great. Investiture marks my "Return to fitness" since that's when I finished Oonagh's dress and put off making excuses. I look back over the last year and it's just amazing. I would not have predicted it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 06:36 pm (UTC)And I didn't know it was *flat*!! How did they find flat land in SF to have a run on??
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 07:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 07:49 pm (UTC)And now that you are walking regularly, you could set the 5k walk as a personal goal for next year.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 07:29 pm (UTC)Sounds like you had a wonderful experience!!
now take real good care of your sports injury!!
thank you!
Date: 2007-09-24 07:49 pm (UTC)Re: thank you!
Date: 2007-09-24 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 08:10 pm (UTC)It was a lot of fun to have you there. Even though we ran our own races, it was encouraging to have you there, too. And cheering me on at the finish!
Lots of thanks to your "fabulous spouse" for coming along and supporting us!
no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-24 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-25 04:07 am (UTC)Reading about the fitness journal is quite inspirational. :)