runner - [RUNner] n, 1. a person or animal who runs, especially races
2. one who runs for fun
3. a person capable of completing a 5k in 21 minutes or less, a 10K in 45 minutes or less, a half marathon in 1:45 or less, and a marathon in 3:40 or age-graded Boston Marathon qualifying time; antonyms – jogger, Claire
Since The New Claire has decided that becoming an ultrarunner is the stupidest idea she's ever had, The New Claire will have way more time and energy to spend concentrating on getting fast.2. one who runs for fun
3. a person capable of completing a 5k in 21 minutes or less, a 10K in 45 minutes or less, a half marathon in 1:45 or less, and a marathon in 3:40 or age-graded Boston Marathon qualifying time; antonyms – jogger, Claire
(By the way, the New Claire, once she has achieved this goal, is going to go right back to being the Old Claire and begin a training program that is about 75% cycling, because running is stupid.)
And the New Claire has a secret weapon. Just two doors down, in a big, beige house that looks much like Speedy Labs (only with more children's toys in the front yard), lives the most dangerous weapon known to women ages 25-29. In that house you will find the key to my future success: MICHELLE!
Dun, dun, DUUUUN!!!(Yes, in dire circumstances I have been know to cavort with women in pink... and believe me, my running is in a state of emergency. I would dress in pink if I thought it would make me faster.)
And how does this very dangerous Michelle work? Well I'll tell you... But you'll have to go find a michelle of your own, because this one's taken!
First, Michelle is older than me. So much older than me that we'll never be in the same age group, and therefore never in direct competition. Therefore, she doesn't mind (much) if I start running faster. She is so much older than me, that there is no reason why she should be able to run so much faster than me. In pink. Michelle knows that making me mad is a good way to make me go faster. Michelle knows EXACTLY how to make me mad. She knows that the active ingredients of that potion are the color pink, skorts that you run in, and a "we're all winners here!" attitude. Michelle has all those ingredients in endless supply.
Second, Michelle has way more experience running than I do. She's... you know... old and all, but she also has a coach. So while I'm gasping for air and she is still breathing free and easy, I get to mooch all kinds of free running advice off of her.
But here's the secret ingredient that will be the key to my success, and makes my Michelle better than any michelle you could ever find: Michelle is the worst pacer in the world. Okay, maybe the second worst pacer. I'm the worst.
And this will make me faster.
How? I'll tell you.
Tuesday I was going to run 5x1M@7:50 on 10:00. I was going to do it on the treadmill so that I could go an even pace and get the work in. I love the treadmill because I can't go out too fast, and all I have to concentrate on is not falling off the back. But Michelle wanted to run on the road. "Don't you worry," she said. "I'll take care of the pacing, all you have to do is follow me, it'll be fun!"
And I trusted her. You always trust a woman in pink. Pink evokes trust... and it stimulates the gag reflex.
I should have known that I was fucked when, as a warm-up for our 7:50 mile repeats, Michelle set the warm-up pace at 8:00 miles. You will never find a michelle cruel enough to do that to you. Only my Michelle, created in a top-secret facility in southern Ohio, is specially calibrated to fuck with your lactate threshold that early in a workout.
We got to the lake, and to my relief, Michelle needed to stop for a minute to calibrate her specialized precision pacing monitor: she hit reset on her Garmin. What?! That's it?! THIS is how she's going to keep our pace?! I thought. Then Michelle was off like a shot.
Before I disclose the details of how Michelle is going to improve my performance more than any drug, let me tell you a little story about pacing from a Garmin. A few months ago, back when I was at a job I liked and life was good, I got an e-mail from Angry saying something like, "I just ran 4.xx miles, average pace 8:04. Beat that!"
"Okay, I will!" I said. This exchange would ultimately nearly end our friendship, but this story is not about our friendship. It is about my running. But you have to PROMISE not to tell Angry, cuz he still doesn't know this.
Promise? Okay.
So the very next day I went down to the track determined to run 4.5 miles averaging 8:03 pace. I have a GPS, I thought, this'll be easy! I set it to beep if I went slower than 8:03 pace and started running. When I first looked down at my watch after a second or two, it said I was going roughly 9:58 pace. Oh no! This will not do! I thought, and sped up. Then I hit about 9:15 pace. Oh no! This will not do! I thought, and sped up. After about two hundred meters I look down and suddenly I'm running about 6:50 pace, breathing like a fat girl, and snotting all over myself. What I discovered is that there is AT LEAST a 5 second delay on that damned thing. Five seconds is a really long time when you're running about 40 seconds per mile faster than your threshhold.
Long story short, after about 2.5 miles I needed to stop or I was going to puke or shit my pants or both. But I couldn't walk, because that would fuck up my time. I already had my garmin set to autopause when I was stopped, so what did I do? I stopped dead in my tracks. Just went from a 7:20 min/mi to standing stock still in one step. I didn't even move my wrist for fear of the satellite thinking I was moving. I felt woozy for a couple of seconds, but I didn't move, and I stood still until I felt like I could run again, and then I SPRINTED back down the track so that it wouldn't register me as having actually stopped. I had to repeat this little stunt about 2 more times, but I DID finish the 4.5 miles on about 7:50 pace. Not counting rests.
(At the moment that I write this, Angry and I are still friends. Who knows if that'll be true if he finds out what really happened on the track that day).
The ironic thing is, that as I was running home from the track, I actually SAW Michelle and we had a good laugh about it, because Michelle probably already knew it's impossible to pace off a Garmin Forerunner!
Back to the lake, Michelle resets her timer and then is off like a shot. I take off after her like the fat little bunny in Disney's Robin Hood that's always yelling, "Wait for me, Mama! Wait for me!" I finally caught her, and when I get a chance to look down at my watch after about 100 meters, we're going at like a 6:10 mile. "SLOW DOWN, MICHELLE!" I gasped.
"Oh, sorry!" she giggled.
We ran that first mile in 7:29. That is the fastest continuous mile I have ever run in my life. It was so fast, that I involuntarily peed my pants for the first time in a non-cough-related incident. When I asked a friend (who will remain nameless) about how to run fast, she confided that at one point she would run 5 and 10K's so hard that she would lose control of her bladder at the end. When I read that, I hadn't the faintest idea of how that could happen. Now I know. There were people that I went to high school with walking around this pond right now, and I'd wet my pants. Great!
Do you remember in 7th grade science class how you did the experiment where you stuck only a corner of a paper towel in water and watched the water rise through the paper due to capillary action? I insist that that's the reason I continued to pee my pants on the rest of the mile repeats.
You may find a michelle, but your michelle wouldn't make you run so hard you pee your pants. Only my Michelle can do that.
"Michelle, next time we have GOT to run slower!" I said. I already hadn't been feeling well, and had debated whether running was a good idea at all.
"Alright, this one will be slower, I promise!" she said.
And we DID hold an average of 7:50, on the hilly end of the course, which meant spending a good half of the time in the 7:10 range. "Do you remember when we started?" Michelle asked, as I was going into cardiac arrest.
"No! That was supposed to be your job! You're the pacer!" I gasped.
So instead of trying to figure it out, Michelle, who is not only a superb pacer but also an accurate judge of distances said, "I say... riiiiight... here!" It turned out to be only .8 miles, which was just fine by me, because I felt like I was about to puke.
Finally, on the third one we hit 7:48, but at this point my legs were so fried I thought I was going to die right then and there. "Michelle, I can't do another one!" I said.
"Aw, come on, just one more!" she said, and took off again. I had no choice but to run after her again. Wait for me, mama! Wait for me!
On this one we managed to average 7:49 pace, but on the hilly end of the course. Michelle was pulling away. At .75 miles I did the only thing I knew how to do in such situations. I stopped dead in my tracks, stood stock still, and yelled after her, "I'm not running with you anymore!" My crotch was soaked, I had that stabbing pain above my right pelvic bone in the back again, and I was pretty sure I was about to shit my pants (nothing would have surprised me at this point).
And when I had given up and wanted to run easy the short way home, what did Michelle do? She made me keep running. Any generic copycat michelle would have taken mercy on your soul, but not my Michelle. She was determined to kill me. Not only did we take the long way back around the lake (tacking on about 2 miles), but we also took the long way home, tacking on another couple of little (huge) hills. And did we go slow?! Of COURSE we didn't go slow! We went only slightly slower.
On top of everything else, what was supposed to be an 8-mile run, was over 9. At one point in time we had actually hit 5:32 min/miles. When you say, "I want to qualify for Boston or die trying," most people wouldn't take that literally. Not my Michelle. And that's why Michelle is the most dangerous thing to ever happen to the female 25-29 age group. Because Michelle is going to turn me into the baddest assest mofo on 2 legs by making me survive workouts that make me wet my pants until I just curl up and die at the side of the road.
We went for a tempo run on Thursday morning. The pace got out of control again (this time it was my fault), and this time I was quite sure I was going to shit my pants. But for the first time I'm putting up average speeds (for the whole workout, including warm-up and cool-down) that are in the mid-8-minute range! I have no idea what I'll do when Michelle's rest week is over and she gets back to the REAL running. I'm thinking of tying a bungee cord to her waist and just coming along for the ride.
And the best part?! She's maybe, probably, I'm pretty sure, possibly, I don't want to make any promises but..., thinking (very seriously) about running Disney with me in January.
By the way, Michelle reads this blog. So everyone, be nice to her. But go get your own, this one's taken!
First, Michelle is older than me. So much older than me that we'll never be in the same age group, and therefore never in direct competition. Therefore, she doesn't mind (much) if I start running faster. She is so much older than me, that there is no reason why she should be able to run so much faster than me. In pink. Michelle knows that making me mad is a good way to make me go faster. Michelle knows EXACTLY how to make me mad. She knows that the active ingredients of that potion are the color pink, skorts that you run in, and a "we're all winners here!" attitude. Michelle has all those ingredients in endless supply.
Second, Michelle has way more experience running than I do. She's... you know... old and all, but she also has a coach. So while I'm gasping for air and she is still breathing free and easy, I get to mooch all kinds of free running advice off of her.
But here's the secret ingredient that will be the key to my success, and makes my Michelle better than any michelle you could ever find: Michelle is the worst pacer in the world. Okay, maybe the second worst pacer. I'm the worst.
And this will make me faster.
How? I'll tell you.
Tuesday I was going to run 5x1M@7:50 on 10:00. I was going to do it on the treadmill so that I could go an even pace and get the work in. I love the treadmill because I can't go out too fast, and all I have to concentrate on is not falling off the back. But Michelle wanted to run on the road. "Don't you worry," she said. "I'll take care of the pacing, all you have to do is follow me, it'll be fun!"And I trusted her. You always trust a woman in pink. Pink evokes trust... and it stimulates the gag reflex.
I should have known that I was fucked when, as a warm-up for our 7:50 mile repeats, Michelle set the warm-up pace at 8:00 miles. You will never find a michelle cruel enough to do that to you. Only my Michelle, created in a top-secret facility in southern Ohio, is specially calibrated to fuck with your lactate threshold that early in a workout.
We got to the lake, and to my relief, Michelle needed to stop for a minute to calibrate her specialized precision pacing monitor: she hit reset on her Garmin. What?! That's it?! THIS is how she's going to keep our pace?! I thought. Then Michelle was off like a shot.Before I disclose the details of how Michelle is going to improve my performance more than any drug, let me tell you a little story about pacing from a Garmin. A few months ago, back when I was at a job I liked and life was good, I got an e-mail from Angry saying something like, "I just ran 4.xx miles, average pace 8:04. Beat that!"
"Okay, I will!" I said. This exchange would ultimately nearly end our friendship, but this story is not about our friendship. It is about my running. But you have to PROMISE not to tell Angry, cuz he still doesn't know this.
Promise? Okay.
So the very next day I went down to the track determined to run 4.5 miles averaging 8:03 pace. I have a GPS, I thought, this'll be easy! I set it to beep if I went slower than 8:03 pace and started running. When I first looked down at my watch after a second or two, it said I was going roughly 9:58 pace. Oh no! This will not do! I thought, and sped up. Then I hit about 9:15 pace. Oh no! This will not do! I thought, and sped up. After about two hundred meters I look down and suddenly I'm running about 6:50 pace, breathing like a fat girl, and snotting all over myself. What I discovered is that there is AT LEAST a 5 second delay on that damned thing. Five seconds is a really long time when you're running about 40 seconds per mile faster than your threshhold.
Long story short, after about 2.5 miles I needed to stop or I was going to puke or shit my pants or both. But I couldn't walk, because that would fuck up my time. I already had my garmin set to autopause when I was stopped, so what did I do? I stopped dead in my tracks. Just went from a 7:20 min/mi to standing stock still in one step. I didn't even move my wrist for fear of the satellite thinking I was moving. I felt woozy for a couple of seconds, but I didn't move, and I stood still until I felt like I could run again, and then I SPRINTED back down the track so that it wouldn't register me as having actually stopped. I had to repeat this little stunt about 2 more times, but I DID finish the 4.5 miles on about 7:50 pace. Not counting rests.(At the moment that I write this, Angry and I are still friends. Who knows if that'll be true if he finds out what really happened on the track that day).
The ironic thing is, that as I was running home from the track, I actually SAW Michelle and we had a good laugh about it, because Michelle probably already knew it's impossible to pace off a Garmin Forerunner!
Back to the lake, Michelle resets her timer and then is off like a shot. I take off after her like the fat little bunny in Disney's Robin Hood that's always yelling, "Wait for me, Mama! Wait for me!" I finally caught her, and when I get a chance to look down at my watch after about 100 meters, we're going at like a 6:10 mile. "SLOW DOWN, MICHELLE!" I gasped.
"Oh, sorry!" she giggled.
We ran that first mile in 7:29. That is the fastest continuous mile I have ever run in my life. It was so fast, that I involuntarily peed my pants for the first time in a non-cough-related incident. When I asked a friend (who will remain nameless) about how to run fast, she confided that at one point she would run 5 and 10K's so hard that she would lose control of her bladder at the end. When I read that, I hadn't the faintest idea of how that could happen. Now I know. There were people that I went to high school with walking around this pond right now, and I'd wet my pants. Great!Do you remember in 7th grade science class how you did the experiment where you stuck only a corner of a paper towel in water and watched the water rise through the paper due to capillary action? I insist that that's the reason I continued to pee my pants on the rest of the mile repeats.
You may find a michelle, but your michelle wouldn't make you run so hard you pee your pants. Only my Michelle can do that.
"Michelle, next time we have GOT to run slower!" I said. I already hadn't been feeling well, and had debated whether running was a good idea at all.
"Alright, this one will be slower, I promise!" she said.
And we DID hold an average of 7:50, on the hilly end of the course, which meant spending a good half of the time in the 7:10 range. "Do you remember when we started?" Michelle asked, as I was going into cardiac arrest.
"No! That was supposed to be your job! You're the pacer!" I gasped.
So instead of trying to figure it out, Michelle, who is not only a superb pacer but also an accurate judge of distances said, "I say... riiiiight... here!" It turned out to be only .8 miles, which was just fine by me, because I felt like I was about to puke.
Finally, on the third one we hit 7:48, but at this point my legs were so fried I thought I was going to die right then and there. "Michelle, I can't do another one!" I said.
"Aw, come on, just one more!" she said, and took off again. I had no choice but to run after her again. Wait for me, mama! Wait for me!
On this one we managed to average 7:49 pace, but on the hilly end of the course. Michelle was pulling away. At .75 miles I did the only thing I knew how to do in such situations. I stopped dead in my tracks, stood stock still, and yelled after her, "I'm not running with you anymore!" My crotch was soaked, I had that stabbing pain above my right pelvic bone in the back again, and I was pretty sure I was about to shit my pants (nothing would have surprised me at this point).And when I had given up and wanted to run easy the short way home, what did Michelle do? She made me keep running. Any generic copycat michelle would have taken mercy on your soul, but not my Michelle. She was determined to kill me. Not only did we take the long way back around the lake (tacking on about 2 miles), but we also took the long way home, tacking on another couple of little (huge) hills. And did we go slow?! Of COURSE we didn't go slow! We went only slightly slower.
On top of everything else, what was supposed to be an 8-mile run, was over 9. At one point in time we had actually hit 5:32 min/miles. When you say, "I want to qualify for Boston or die trying," most people wouldn't take that literally. Not my Michelle. And that's why Michelle is the most dangerous thing to ever happen to the female 25-29 age group. Because Michelle is going to turn me into the baddest assest mofo on 2 legs by making me survive workouts that make me wet my pants until I just curl up and die at the side of the road.
We went for a tempo run on Thursday morning. The pace got out of control again (this time it was my fault), and this time I was quite sure I was going to shit my pants. But for the first time I'm putting up average speeds (for the whole workout, including warm-up and cool-down) that are in the mid-8-minute range! I have no idea what I'll do when Michelle's rest week is over and she gets back to the REAL running. I'm thinking of tying a bungee cord to her waist and just coming along for the ride.
And the best part?! She's maybe, probably, I'm pretty sure, possibly, I don't want to make any promises but..., thinking (very seriously) about running Disney with me in January.
By the way, Michelle reads this blog. So everyone, be nice to her. But go get your own, this one's taken!
11 comments:
Aloha lil miss peepee pants! Too funny, it happens :)
LOVE the new goal: Become a runner!
Okay, you have me laughing so hard with the name to use for race day... so I think after too much thinking on it I am going for the Wee... THANKS!
Hey at least you haven't had the displeasure of taking a dump in a farmer's field I had to do that on a 10 miler back in 06....ok now after that TMI moment...
your speed work sounds like its going to go well, also if you want to qualify for the NYC marathon I tend to go the women's time standard so you can pace off me if you want....
I have a Michelle, but mine is a model named Erin. Born and bred in the Midwest. Corn-fed, you might say.
Unfortunately, she's currently too busy trying to break 19:30 in cross country to make me pee my pants :-(
Can't wait to hear how bad you kick ass at Disney.
Been looking forward to your 'learning to run faster' posts and you do not disappoint!!
OMG I was peeing my pants reading this, and I had to get up and take a huge crap which ended up being just water! LOL!!
Hey, is Michelle and Amanda from the same top secreit facility in Southern Ohio?
I am so honored! Not only mentioned, but FEATURED on Claire's blog? I'm not worthy. I'm faster than you, yes, but not worthy. :)
Just you wait. Not only will you be fast, but you'll be fast in a PINK running skirt! With the speed, will come the craving for speed in pink. A pink skirt. I know, it's weird. But it happens.
In the meantime, stock up on black running shorts (to hide the pee), and get ready to WORK, Whippersnapper!
Oh fuck you Claire and your little pink Michelle. I could be your Michelle Goddammitttttt!!! I'm waaaaayyy older than you, and if I only lived on the stupid east coast (thank GOD I don't! how bad would that suck!) I would run with you and make you cry. HMPH. Just send me all Michelle's PRs for 1500 meters to 100 miles and then we'll see who's a bigger badass!
(Sorry Michelle, no offense, I know it's not your fault you live by Claire and I don't. I'm just in need of a running partner right now.)
Claire,
The best way to improve as a runner is probably to find a faster running partner and then try to hang with them. Once the roles get reversed though, and you're faster than her, if you want to continue to improve, you have to dump Michelle and find a faster version.
My wife seems to have that peeing her pants problem in races. Me - I throw up in the finishing chute.
Damon
I LIKE Michelle. GO! GO! GO!
Nice work. Keep at it. And no, you DON'T have to pee your pants in order to get faster. We need to get back to puking and all that. So I guess what I'm saying is that you're discussing the wrong end, so to speak.
We all need a Michelle. But truth be told, pacing is hard. But who cares, you will get faster.
Sweet find in Michelle. I predict New Claire qualifies for Kona someday.
You are so fucking funny.
But more importantly, I peed at RACES Claire, not in a workout!!! Ha ha! There are more people around in races, though, so maybe you are still having the last laugh.
I have noticed that Garmin delay. Fucks with you, huh?
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