Eat your WEEties... or your words

groaaaaaaaaannn

In this week's episode of Claire's Sunday adventures we are going to talk about the Frostbite 15k, in Raynham, Massachusetts. This race seems to have gotten its inspiration for a t-shirt design (above) from a Laffy Taffy wrapper or a popsicle stick. If I'd known the t-shirt was going to be that crappy I would have stayed in bed.

Before the race even started I was pooped. This was my last workout before a rest week, and the day before I had ridden 3 1/2 hours. Normally that kind of a ride wouldn't be a problem, except that life got in the way and I didn't get to eat much afterwards, nor did I have much for dinner that night. So when I woke up this morning I actually had some quad soreness coming down the stairs. I never get sore! On top of that I had taken Thursday to do some speed work. Hold on, let me explain...

See, I like doing speed work about as much as I like ironing. I don't do either. But then last week Bree Wee left me a comment that read:

"Nice job on holding the low 9 min. miles... get some speed work in and you can be sub 9s!! Honest!"

"Speedwork" is a dirty word. Normally when people tell me to do speed work I change the subject while in my mind I'm giving them the dirty look of a lifetime and swearing never to listen to another word they say for as long as I live. But when someone who gets results like Bree's tells you to do speedwork, well, at least give it a shot. That way I can always come back and say, "SEE! Ha! It didn't work! I told you so!" and then snap my fingers so my private nurse will push me away in my wheelchair. I'll show you, Bree, I thought as I climbed on the treadmill. The plan was to do a threshold workout that I think is a Jack Daniels (the runner guy, not the whiskey) thing: run 800 meters at goal marathon pace, then 400 meters recovery, then repeat. I forget how many times you were supposed to repeat, but since technically this was supposed to be an "above 10 mile" day I decided, 13.1 miles would be a good distance. Yep, I ran another half marathon on a treadmill. This was all part of the plan, purposely do it too hard, too long, and all wrong. When my legs are worn down to bloody stumps, you can't say I wasn't trying, and I'll have a good excuse never to do speed work again for as long as I live. So I did it, I ran 12 of the 13.1 miles holding just below a nine-minute mile for half a mile, and cutting it with a 9:15 mile for "recovery". Afterwards I purposely did minimal stretching and waddled off to work where I sent Bree some message to the effect of, "Okay, I did what you wanted. I did some speed work. Now I don't have to do it any more for as long as I live, right? So, can I expect this speed to kick in by tomorrow, or do I have to wait till next week?" Psh, I thought, I sure showed her.

Back to this morning with my sore legs. For some reason I had gotten it into my head that it was going to be 50*. It was not 50 degrees, it was somewhere around 20 degrees, and in the low teens with the wind chill. I was shivering inside the school, and I could tell I was going to be one unhappy Claire all morning. As usual, I got out of the car with my bladder about to burst and made a bee line for the bathroom, where it was clear from the stench and the stall turnover that people were not following Claire's #1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't. I waited until the last possible moment to walk out to the starting line, and as I was leaving I ran into John from last week's tour of the hills of southern Rhode Island. John was wearing nothing but shorts and a long-sleeved t-shirt. New Englanders are nuts. At the start they had some sub-par singer struggle through the national anthem, and I stood there grumbling to myself about how we have to have the longest damn national anthem in the world and how I'll be damned if I'm going to take my had off in this freezing cold. Then bam, and we were off.
There was a period of about 2 and a half seconds where I was tempted to pick it up a little bit, but the stiffness in my legs, the freezing cold, and my general ennui with the whole situation made me kick it back a gear. Maybe if the t-shirt were cooler I would have been more motivated. I thought, Bah, just keep it at a pace where you won't be counting the miles. That way it won't seem like a long way. Even so, because I'd seeded myself so far back as a result of leaving the school late, I kept easily passing people through mile 1, and still in mile 2. In fact, I didn't wind up staring at the same back for more than about a minute until around mile 4. Weird. And even then, hardly anyone passed me. Weirder. Around mile 3 I came up behind an old man with a bit of a hump and a day-glow orange knit hat that was fraying and coming apart in about 8 places. I prayed it was Grandpa, my nemesis from the Busa Bushwhack, but when I passed him he didn't look like Grandpa at all.

I was running, and I was sweating buckets like usual but I never, ever did get warm that whole race. And worse, a little before the half way point the gusts of an icy headwind right in our faces began and didn't let up until mile 8. Since I was soaked, I felt it tenfold. I just kept thinking back on how the race was called the FROSTBITE 15k, and how I'd thought it was going to be in the 50's. How did they know? How did they know? I kept whimpering to myself in my head.

note: grades look far more severe because of the length of the course being squished into a skinny little graph.

At the 10k mark we hit the first hill, "You've gotta be fucking kidding me," I heard a voice gasp as we turned the corner and saw the road tipping skyward. I couldn't believe it, it sounded like something I would say, but the voice wasn't mine. I took another look at the hill, actually it didn't look so bad. It was the only decent hill on the course, but still nothing compared to the monsters 'arry and I tackled last week. The only crappy part was that once you got to the top of the steep part, it just kept going up and you never got a break. But other than that, it was fine. Really. I even passed some more people! Oh yeah, I forgot, around mile six was also where I started getting shooting pains in my shins and butt. They threw off my stride a bit, but they were unpredictable and therefore bearable. Meh, I've got a rest week coming up, I thought. And anyway, I'm not going that fast.

When I hit 8 miles I wanted to run as fast as I could. I wanted to get this over with and crawl back into the nice, warm school, but I made myself hold back until I could see the finish line. When I did see it, I let loose like something important were on the line. "Come on!" I barked to the first person I passed and ran like the dickens. Only an hour and 20 minutes or so had gone by. I had no idea whether this was good or not, but I could see the school beyond the finish line and that was what was important.

I made a half-assed attempt to look cool for the cameras on the way over the mat, and finally uncovered the Garmin to see what kind of pace I'd been holding. "Holy shit! 8:42! I don't think I've ever run that fast in my life!" I said out loud to no one in particular. In fact, when I look at my pace, the only mile where I went above a 9-minute mile was the uphill mile.
Holy cow! It worked! My one tongue-in-cheek speed session hurled me below 9 minute miles, just like Bree promised. I know that's not how speed work works, but come on, that's pretty incredible. Now I am going to say something that you may never catch me saying again: Bree, I was wrong. I will do speed work in the future. At least once more, I promise.

Epilogue: They were serving breakfast in the cafeteria, and you'll never guess who I sat with... 'arry! And I'll be seeing him again next week in Derry. I think 'arry is going to be my new BFF.