Ooooooooooooh we’re halfway there

Bear with me as I wanted to get A LOT into this post: weekly totals, monthly total, year-to-date, New Year goals, what’s next….

I’m not quite sure how interested you guys are in week-by-week accounts of the month or if you want the whole story right away.  But I’m going to break it down weekly just because I think there are a couple of interesting trends that went on.

First off I want to make a big fat disclaimer that this month was obscene.  I had absolutely NO intentions of running as much as I did.  But May ended graduation and I flung myself full throttle into the process of studying for the MCAT as well as applying to medical schools.  This led to the rise of the double (and occasional triple).

I’m actually semi-embarrassed by my totals.  Sure, I do feel great physically with no true wear and tear buttttt….the fact that I was running so much and not keeping tabs on my mileage makes me feel a little bit silly.  I highly doubt I would have run so much if I had known how quickly those “just a few more minutes” or “just another mile” moments added up.

That said, no regrets. While the numbers may be blush-inducing I feel great.  I feel fast and strong. Ultimately I think that’s what matters.

Too bad I don’t have a marathon on the horizon and most fall marathons have already filled up.  Couple that with the fact that New England doesn’t have any December/January marathons and I’m feeling a bit bummed that I can’t *truly* capitalize on this fitness.  Ideally I’d want to take the rest of the summer and scale back and then NAIL a winter marathon.  Maybe Disney? Any other thoughts? In the interim, I do have the local 5 miler in July, a half planned for September and a 10k in October but my mileage is a bit overkill for that.  Hell, it’s a bit overkill for a marathon to be honest.

So here it is, with slight commentary because I was an idiot and didn’t write down lots of thoughts during the actual weeks themselves:

Week of May 31 – June 6

• 92.3 Miles
• 13 hours 23 minutes 32 seconds
• 8:43 pace
• 3X Core, 2X Lifting, 0 XT

First week where I really did doubles with regularity.  At first my double runs were slower, or at least felt slower, but overall very happy with the pace.

Week of June 7 – June 13

• 112.6 Miles
• 16 hours 30 minutes 30 seconds
• 8:48 pace
• 3X Core, 1X Lifting,0 XT

More miles.  And a slightly slower average pace.  Still a wayyyyy faster pace than during Boston training.  There seems to be an interesting line between a slower average pace but with speedwork (Boston) or just easier runs everyday and a faster average pace.

Week of June 14 -June 20

• 128.1 Miles
• 18 hours 39 minutes 12 seconds
• 8:45 pace
• 2X Core, 2X Lifting, 0 XT

Bam.  Definitely a weekly PR.  Included the triple where I amassed 21 miles in a day (which I went on to repeat later this month) AND I got to run with Jess.  Which I think was a turning point because my runs have just gotten speedier since then.  I also got in an actual long run this week, not a split one, after going out drinking the night before.  So a very interesting, but awesome, week to say the least.

Week of June 21 – June 27

• 125.5 Miles
• 18 hours 2 minutes 2 seconds
• 8:38 pace
• 4X Core, 1X Lifting, 0 XT

Boom.  Pace dropped.  The miles were “scaled back”.  Not intentionally and obviously 3 miles isn’t a lot when the total is so high. I’m just very impressed with the pace for this particular week.

Month of June

• 500.5 miles
• 72 hours 38 minutes 12 seconds
• 8:42 pace

Well these miles are ridiculous and definitely a new monthly PR.  The pace is just mind-blowing to me.  How could I run an average of 8:42 for 500.5 miles?!  I mentioned earlier in the post that there was that interesting trade off when I have speedwork in my week and that generated a slower overall pace.  I think that not needing the shuffle runs this month helped; everything was even keeled.  Well I also think the key is the double.  I was able to sufficiently recover from 2 X 6 miles (or even a 7-9-5 day!) because my ass was glued to a chair and I got to eat between.

Year to Date

• 2169.1 miles
• Too lazy to calculate time or pace hahah

Well if I remember correctly from my New Year’s goals post way back when….well actually I just looked back and I never had a mileage goal for 2010.  I know that 2009’s total was 3116.0 so I’m well on my way to smashing that.  Not sure if I want to though.

In light of the New Year’s goals I figured now would also be a good time to re-evaluate the concrete goals as well as the ways I wanted to reach them (and I just pasted the actual goals here with my current thoughts, although anything in red or bolded is from the original.  If you want to see the original thoughts you can click the link above):

Goals for 2010:

• PR (duh who doesn’t?).  I don’t know how obvious it is or how clearly it comes across in my blogging but I race to race.  I don’t sign up to “have fun”.  I sign up so I can run hard enough to want to puke my guts out when I cross the finish line. I think that by incorporating new strength moves and speed workouts will help that.  Mixing things up and see what happens.  Specifically (and yes they are lofty but I think that with some real focus I can come real close to most if  not all of ‘em): I really wish I had been able to race more!
  

1. sub 20:00 5k Haven’t raced one yet!
2. sub 43:00 10k Haven’t raced one yet! (But definitely have one for October)
3. sub 1:40:00 half Haven’t raced one yet! (But will in September)
4. 3:35:00 marathon — I was going to write sub 3:30 but that’s an 8 minute pr and I’m not sure how realistic that would be.  Actually to hell with it: the goal is sub 3:30.  I left the last marathon feeling like I had plenty of gas in the tank so we’ll see if I can capitalize on that in 2010. The red is what I wrote back in December/January.  Came close with Boston with 3:35:53.  Unfinished business.
   

• Do an ultra. I had one in mind right for right after graduation but all those toe infections, shin problems put that one one hold
• Dare I say it? Requalify for Boston. Check 🙂
• Not sure how realistic this one is as I have no idea where I’ll be in the fall but I want to run MCM.
  
• And super long term I want to run the Big 5: New York, Boston, Berlin, London, Chicago.  Maybe I could get lucky and find myself in Europe this fall / next year. I can dream right? Well no plans right now to make good on this one
• Have fun. I am.  Yes I tend to stress out really easy but running really has been fun.  Especially post Boston where I’m just running for the hell of it.

And the ways I wanted to get there:

• Drink more water. Yes. I am definitely drinking more water than I did last year.  But not nearly enough.  One 16 oz bottle isn’t going to cut it.  I know I drink other stuff during the day but I need more H2O
• Get faster. Well by looking at my marathon PR and this past months weekly totals I’d say YES.  But I originally wrote that I wanted to do this via speedwork and the funny thing is that lack of speedwork dropped my overall pace.  But I did go fast in Boston using speedwork so different tactics with different logic behind doing it.
• Get stronger. AKA strength train more. Yeah.  I’ve been dreading going to the gym lately but I have been going regularly.
• XT more in general too. Not so much.
• Stretch more. Ditto above.
• Respect the rest day. Nope.
• Listen to my body. Yes and No.  I’m very stubborn but when I was FORCED to listen to my body (back in March/April) I got better at it.  Let’s keep this trend going.
• Wear sunscreen. Meh.  Definitely room for improvement here too.

So what’s next?

Well I’m thinking that the miles are going to have to come down.  I know I’m not feeling anything terrible right now but it’s only a matter of time before my body can’t withstand the impact.  I know I’m a high mileage runner in general but I’m hoping that July and August is reduced and I find a marathon to do over the winter, or even late fall although I think any around me have filled up.

I also have some unfinished business with my goals so I’m printing out that old post just to keep them in my line of sight and they don’t keep falling by the wayside. I think that I just posted them and then out of sight out of mind.  I need to make a bulletin board or something like that.

And since you made it this far with the post here’s a picture that my friend uncovered from Boston on her camera.  Her caption when she put in on FB was “After she finished. She could have prob. kept running” hahahah.  My response? “So NOT true. but I love this picture anyway” 8)