17 posts tagged “running”

Seven days until the marathon.

We've been tapering for the last two weeks after the 20 miler. The previous weekend was spent on Tiger mountain running 12 miles.

Yesterday was our last team practice as we ran 8 miles around the Greenlake area. This has been a great training season for me, I've been extremely privileged to work with Jim (coach) and a core group of team mates.  I felt a touch of melancholy at the thought of not seeing Jim, Kit, and the team every Saturday. When you start out marathon training, it's uncomfortable. Going outside when its dark, wet, cold (or a combination) is hard. It's hard to motivate yourself sometimes. When you do it with a group, that you bond with over the course of the season, going out to run no longer becomes uncomfortable. It becomes something you get done.

On our very last Thursday run, me and Jim chatted while we warmed up around the park. He talked about how a marathon is a training exercise, how that when I got it done I would miss waking up early on those Saturday mornings. For him, the greatest pleasure was the discipline of setting a plan and executing on it. The main event is in many ways a victory lap for those months and months of preparation that was required.

Throughout the season, Kit has been an incredible source of inspiration for me. The ability to do what she has done and live with CLL. She's always shown up at our Saturday practices even though it drains her energy deeply. Having her at the coldest days of the season handing out hand warmers was a great motivator for me to keep moving. Like her, many CLL patients fight constant challenges to keep a sense of normalcy.

Unlike them, I have one final challenge left this season. One long run to get done.

This was it.

After about 4 months of training, we hit the Snoqualmie Valley River Trail for our 20 miler. This is the longest training run of our season. The weather was not going to cooperate as it dropped a ton on rain on us. Fortunately the tree cover helped to shelter us from some of the precipitation. Thankfully the weather was warmish. As usual I was wearing shorts and didn't have anything to cover my legs.

This was the last and final test to work out the how I'm going to run the marathon. The plan is to alternate 5 minutes of running with a 1 minute of walking. That seems to be the right combination for me. During the 20 miler, it left me fairly fresh for the latter half (though I did slow down slightly).

At the end of the trail, some Team in Training volunteers held out a finish line for me. Instinctively I picked up the pace for the last couple of yards. Lisa gave me a little medal to celebrate our longest run and a bag of treats to remind us of the little things over the course of the season.

Afterward we headed to Jim's (coach) place for a celebration of sorts. Coach became the grill master and I wolfed down a nice juicy burger. The season is drawing to close. The entire team has worked really hard and everybody is stronger and faster than when we first started. Only one challenge still remains at the end of June.

If my calculations are correct, we have 24 days till race day. Time has definitely flow by this weekend.

Last weekend, we made a trip back to Preston, site of the infamous Snow Day run. How would the warmer weather and the improved fitness feel? It felt great! I really focused on being smooth and steady for this run. Keeping in mind that I want the effort to be easy. I just need to get the distance done at a reasonable pace. That mental process helped. I felt strong and fluid for most of the run. No sudden unexpected fatigue at any point in the race.

The last couple of weeks I've been amazed at the progress I've made this season. For the same amount of effort, this is the strongest and fastest I've been. I've started to buy into Jim's (Coach) training philosophy (trails and hills).

It's week 13 already. Time has passed by so quickly this season. It seemed like I only started training. This is the 1st of the long runs we'll be doing on the Snoqualmie Valley River Trail. This week was an 18 miler. In two weeks we do a 20 miler out here.

The drive out here was beautiful. It was the furthest we had driven out to go run. The weather was near perfect. Maybe a tad hot but good for getting acclimatized to summer weather. I also used this run to think about how I wanted to tackle the marathon. I set off on a 5/1 run walk. I've been getting stronger this season and I've been starting my long runs too fast. I went slow for the 1st 9 miles and then turned it up a notch going to my regular 10/1 run walk. After about 30 minutes I realized I was going too strongly and settled back on a 5/1 run walk. It was a good idea too. I was just about out of gas when I finished 18 miles.

The trail was nice. Peaceful and tranquil. Paved quite well. There were a couple of sections that had a bunch of little rocks which hurt when I landed directly on them.

This upcoming week is a down week to help us recover from the long run. I'm feeling pretty good. I'm not feeling as tired as usual.

Week 12 was out on the Sammamish River Trail. It was a flat paved asphalt path. A little change up from the dirt trails we've been running the last couple of weeks. I've run on the trail lots of times over the last couple of years (I ran my 1st half marathon on it). This was also supposed to be an easy "rest" week run for the team.

What I didn't expect was how much the heat affected me. This was the hottest day of the year so far. Having grown up in Singapore, I'm used to heat but it might take me a week or two to get acclimatized to it.

Going out I felt good. The legs and body felt strong. I had picked up a big bruise on my waist the day before (played Whirlyball the day before). It was all good until about the 8 mile mark. The sun was out in all it's glory and the asphalt was just radiating heat. I pack water but that didn't seem to help with the heat. I poured water over my head to keep cool and that provided short relief.

After I got done with the run, I broke out my stash of water in the car and shared it with everyone. Everybody really needed it.

Week 11 was at Lake Youngs. The plan was to do the 9 mile loop around Lake Youngs and then a 7 mile out and back for 16 miles.

As my body has started getting stronger, I find myself starting too strongly. Having run with my team mates for the last 3 months, I have a general idea on how hard I'm pushing myself by gauging my position with theirs. I've been trying to pace S & L. If I stay behind them in the early going, I don't find myself fading at the end. S & L were nursing injuries this last week and I flew past them. That was a mistake.

The last mile or two of the Lake Youngs loop consist of a long uphill stretch of 148th. I was still feeling pretty strong at the start of the stretch and I flew up those hills. Big mistake. The out and back leg required me to tackle those hills again and I was hurting bad. I pushed through my exhaustion and finished. I even had enough left to tackle that one last big hill before the finish.

I'm definitely enjoying hills a lot more. The hill work that I've been doing seems to be paying off dividends. I'm tackling hills with more confidence the last couple of weeks.

The funny thing is that this course took roughly the same time as the 15 miler we did the Redmond watershed even though it was a mile longer.

Week 10 marks roughly the half way point to the marathon. Counting week 11, we have about 2 months left before the marathon.

This week's long run was a the Redmond watershed. It would consist of 3 loops and a little extra loop for a total of 15 miles. Next to the marathon (and maybe 2 of it's longest long runs) this is one of my longest runs ever.

I approached the run a little tired and pensive. My big right toe has been achy and my right calf has been feeling a little tight this week. I've rested, iced, massaged and used ibuprofen. It's gotten a little better every day this week but I was pretty close to skipping today. I didn't.....

The first loop around the watershed went well. I felt light. I felt good. It was nice to have Justin and Kathy around that first loop. Conversations with running partners always makes a run go smoother. The second loop was a lot harder, I was mostly by myself. The little rocks on the trail became increasingly treacherous as I rolled my ankles a number of times. Every time that happened, I got frustrated. A couple of times, I yelled at myself.

The third loop was a completely different experience. Coach K has talked a lot about running with your brain off. That third loop felt a lot like that. My brain became this detached entity outside my body. A couple of times I got scared because I didn't see the trail makers. I was concerned I was lost. But I kept going and eventually I reached a junction and saw our trail marker on the floor. I caught up with Sam and Lonnie around this point and she was not running well. I ran with them for a little bit before going ahead of them. Sam is a much strong runner than me so I hoping it's not anything too serious. I got done with the third loop and did the extra loop. I was a machine at that point focusing my will on getting it done.

Finally I got done and I'm happy that I did. It was tough run but I'm glad that it got done.

This was easily my best run ever.

It was a gorgeous day to be out. The weather was close to perfect. The long run for this week was out at Tiger mountain. I got a lot of extra rest this week. It was a "rest" week for the team. Runs were a shorter distance to help us recover from the build up in mileage the previous weeks.

This was a timed run. We were supposed to run for 2:30 hours and turnaround after 1:05 or 1:10. Imagine my surprise when I hit the turnaround point (15 mile creek) early. Even though it's called 15 mile creek, it's more like 4.5 miles.

The trail has a 2 mile decline down into 15 mile creek before a tough return route back up the 2 mile incline  (what goes down must come up after all!) Going down the declines, I took it really slow. I was focusing hard on running smartly. I was aggressive with the walk breaks. After the turnaround, I found myself hitting that incline really well. I had to stop and hike up those hills for a bit (Coach J said that would happen). I felt good on those hills though. The weekly Tuesday hill sessions have proved beneficial. I'm more confident in my ability to tackle hills now.

The body felt fresh throughout the run. When I reached the end point, I was a little disappointed because the run was done. Just an incredible feeling to have.