The Nightmares Begin

One month to go before IM Cozumel... Not that I'm nervous or anything. Not that I've put these crazy expectations on myself, or that there's anything that could go wrong. I've started having nightmares where my flight is delayed and I miss the start, or my bike goes missing, or I get arrested the day before and I'm still in a holding cell the morning of the race...

Last year I was worried about land sharks ruining my race, this year it's I'm worried about the vicious blood-sucking chupacabras who leaves only bone-dry livestock in its wake. Sure, it's unlikely that the spiny wolf-sized demon will attack me, mostly because it is fictional. But still... the chupacabras is a nocturnal creature and if I'm in the lightstick crowd, I'm sure it will be lurking behind some resort landscaping waiting to suck all the blood out of me. Your aerobic capacity really goes down if you've been sucked dry. Even though it's unlikely, my coach has pointed out that it's always a good idea to have a hotel room on at least the second floor.

Beyond the chupacabras, I'm also being haunted by a very real menace: airline baggage trolls, who I have become convinced will lose my bike in any one of my long layovers. Before you suggest I ship, I've already looked into it, and both UPS and FedEx are over $300 each way to ship. The airline's only $100 each way. Because I'm poor, I've had to go for a less-than-ideal travel itinerary: namely a 9-hour layover in NYC and an overnight layover in Cancun. In my mind, the longer your bags are sitting in an airport, the greater their chance of finding their way onto the wrong plane.

But one thing could go wrong to fuck up the whole thing more than any of that other stuff: me.

I'm not saying that I don't think I can finish or anything, I'm saying that I have the ability to fuck up my race more than any of the baggage trolls ever could. If I have learned one thing since starting this Ironman training under someone else's guidance, it's that I don't know shit about my body. This is not something that my coach has told me, but a conclusion that I have reached independently.

First, there's my swimming. I always thought that swimming was kind of a formality: just a chance to offer contestants up as chum and to make sure that you were good and uncomfortable when you got on your bike sopping wet. I never figured that a short little 1-hour splash would be enough to get me tired enough to have an effect on my overall race. Sure, there's a short adjustment period when you get back to dry land and need to shunt blood back to your legs, but that's over in about 10 minutes. To my surprise, it turns out that swimming is also my first chance to fuck up this race. Recently I have been having swim sessions that are challenging enough to make me think I'm going to throw up in the gutter at the pool (10x100's at 1:25 pace with 10s rest when my best 100 time is around 1:21). I have noticed that after these sessions I feel... tired. And hungry. And... drained. I know that I can swim 2.4 miles at around 1:35 pace fairly comfortably, but what if I go too fast? When my mind doesn't get in my own way, there's always the fear of sharks.

Then there's the bike. If there is one thing that I thought I knew about that has been challenged most, it's my perception of myself on the bike. I used to think that I never got tired on the bike and that I got stronger as time went on. For some reason, suddenly I started getting tired around the time I got a coach. (I actually think it was the running that ruined my cycling legs.) On top of that, around fall every year I come to the conclusion based on no evidence whatsoever that I will never be able to ride a bike again. Normally it doesn't matter because all I have waiting for me and my bike are long trainer hours. But now... not so much.

For some reason, when it's cold I can't "feel" my legs. No, not like they're numb from the cold. It's just something about not having skin exposed to air fucks up something with my propioceptive awareness (sense of my body in space) and it's like someone unplugged my legs. My bike feels squishy. I can't and don't want to get my heartrate up. My body wants to ride 16 mph, and I can't seem to overcome it. I do not want to ride 16 mph. Right now I can't even hit the heartrate that was my average heartrate at Patriot in June.

But then again, since I'm finding it so hard to judge my bike fitness right now (it's been months since I rode with anyone else), I have no idea how fast I can ride. And you know what happens when that happens? I see a low average speed and decide that I should be riding faster. And I hammer. (It's a good thing that the pro's leave 15 min. before the age groupers, because if not I'd be coming out of the water with Yvonne van Vlerken, and I KNOW I would be tempted to try and keep up on the bike. THAT would be a mistake!) And when I hammer, I have learned, I REALLY fuck my chances for a good run. I want to have a good run. Which reminds me, I have no idea about how to run either...

My REAL Worry

Yeah, you think I know how to run, but know what? I have no idea. I've run what? like 9 races of marathon distance or longer, and it's taken me 5 years to figure out that I have no effing clue what I'm doing. I learned this when someone else took over my running and I inexplicably dropped 1 min/mile off my average pace for no reason whatsoever (certainly not training, anyway). That was when I surrendered my running completely to someone else, but the problem is that I'm STILL running faster than the paces that he sets for me, unintentionally. And here's the terrifying part: I haven't run longer than 15 miles in this whole Ironman build-up. So not only is my sense of pacing completely baffling me, I also have no clue how my body responds to fatigue these days. How am I supposed to know how to pace a marathon???

Think about it: When you start a marathon, based on your training runs you know more or less the rate of perceived exertion or pace that you can hold for the better part of 26.2 miles. This is based on two things: your knowledge of your body's preferred "steady" pace, and the knowledge of how your body has responded to fatigue on long runs. Pick a "steady" pace that's too fast on your long runs and you crash at the end. Lesson learned, don't do that in a race. But I have no idea what my "steady" pace should be (I've dropped about 5 s/mile off my average pace on each my 90+ minute runs for the past several weeks), nor do I know how my body will respond to anything above 15 miles.

Add that to the fatigue of an Ironman and well... you get the picture. Last year I was so underfed and hot that I could barely move after the bike. After my 110-mile training rides this year, my legs have still picked out a low-8-minute pace for me. I could NOT keep that up for a marathon.

Plus, even though I ride better in the heat, I run like shit when it's hot. Put those two together and you get a bike that's too hard and wrecked running legs that couldn't even run if they were fresh. Also, have I mentioned that it's been in the 40's and 50's every day here. It's going to be in the 80's in Cozumel. Which means that anything I thought I knew about pace, heartrate, etc can be thrown out the window.

A question:
So I have a question for those of you who are successful runners (I'm especially interested in those of you who can keep your pace for the final 10K of the marathon within 10s of your pace for the first 10K). How do you pick your perceived effort for the first 10 miles of a marathon??? How do you know???

Wicked Race Report... Wicked Late

A few weeks ago I signed up last-minute for the Wicked Half Marathon. This was a bit of an unfinished-business race. I saw the t-shirt 2 years ago and decided I HAD to do it, so I signed up last year, and got lost on the way to the start. Damn. I've always had good luck in Salem (also at this link, and this one)... at least to the races I can find the start of, and since I was going to miss the Wild Turkey 5 mile race this year, I was just itching to run in Salem. I know, me, itching to run. Weird, right?

This year, my body is different. For reasons that are a mystery to me, I've been running a lot faster. I also hadn't run more than 10.5 miles since last February. How would my body react to a half marathon? Would I crash? Would 13.1 hard miles tear my legs apart? It was a regular training week, so I wasn't especially rested stepping into this race (but come on, that's not that out-of-the-ordinary for me). I hadn't run a road race in about 8 months... What would happen?

I was trying some new nutrition tactics to deal with my phantom poo problem. I had a light breakfast, only 2 pieces of peanut butter toast, and tucked my usual smoothie into the mini igloo for after the race. I went to Starbucks, but I only sipped about a quarter of my coffee on the way to the start. I'd had a shitty night's sleep, so passing on the joe took some willpower. When I got to the race, I vowed to break Claire's Number 1 Rule of Public Pooping: Don't, but I had to walk about half a mile from my parking spot to the school. Then there were only three bathroom stalls, and a line out the door for the bathroom. As I got closer to the front of the line, I realized that one of the stalls was missing a door. How could I break Claire's Number 1 Rule of Public Pooping if there was no door?! Luckily, when my turn came, my stall had a door. Too bad I stepped into the stall at 6:59. The race was supposed to start at 7:00! I got out what I could, washed my hands, and ran for the door.

Luckily, they held off the start for about 10 minutes and I had plenty of time to elbow my way into the starting corral. There was plenty of room, and when the gun went off I got to start running right away. Weird. It was one of those courses that look pancake flat on the course profile, but once you're running on it, the undulations really break up your rhythm (or mine anyway, I can't run up a hill to save my life). The weather felt cool, but as I started running I felt fine in just spanky shorts and a t-shirt.

Rather than watching my watch and trying to sit on a goal pace, this time I was trying something different. I kept my head up and only checked my watch at the mile markers. In between, I would listen to my breathing and my body. I tried to ignore what everyone around me was doing. I fell in with some runners who were going at a pace that felt comfortable and tried to resist the urge to pass people who were only a few yards ahead. Steady, I told myself. Find a groove you can follow for the next 13 miles. Then every time my breathing got hard I would remind myself to just find a groove.

I looked down at my watch at the first mile marker: my watch said .98 miles in 7:39. Good, the mile markers were right on. I knew that I probably wasn't going to hold 7:39's for the whole course, but hey, I had no idea what my body was going to do. This pace felt good and so I was going to sit on it dammit! I looked away from my watch and kept running.

My second mile came at about the same interval, 7:41. At the third mile, the hills started. I laid off and watched everyone around me pull away. A woman running with her long hair down (I hate that!), an iPod in her ears (I hate that!), and a running skirt (I hate that!) pulled ahead of me, and I resisted the urge to hate her guts. I knew that if I pushed the pace anymore I knew I would dig myself into a hole I couldn't get back out of. Mile 3 came in 7:46, phew, I didn't lose much time. Mile 4 was also steady: 7:45.

By mile 5, we hit the lollipop through some rolling hills. As we set out on the lollipop, we saw the race leader coming back in the other direction. "Fuck that!" I heard a voice say over my right shoulder. I looked over and saw a guy in an Mdot hat. Now that could keep me inspired to push. You all know how I feel about Mdot folks. "Is that a Timberman hat?" I asked.
"No, Rhode Island," he said. Then he started the Mdot monologue about how he'd done Ironman Florida, blah, blah, blah. New Zoot shoes, blah, blah. I watched more backs pull away as I we the next mile marker in 7:49, but my Mdot buddy was still there, telling me more about the shoes. "I'm a heel striker, see. And this shoe has almost no padding. It just doesn't fit my running stride." Still high on my barefoot running kick from reading Born to Run, I bit my tongue about the shoes probably being a good idea for a guy like him. When it came out later that he runs a 10K in western Mass and is a coach, I was apalled.
We hit another hill and I said, "Well, this is where you pull ahead of me. Byeee!" and let him heel-strike on ahead. But at the next water stop, there he was, massaging his calf. "You alright?" I asked.
"Yeah, shoes just making me cramp up. These people cannot have a booth at my expo!" he said. I ran on. Alone. But the chick with the long hair and the skirt was still ahead. The big hills came between miles 6 (8:04) and 7 (7:55).

Starting at mile 8 I was beginning to feel fatigue. I had decided not to put any calories in my drink bottle, and I was beginning to wonder if it would be a problem as we ran over the jetty back into Salem. My stomach hadn't given me problems, but now I was having other issues from the lack of food. My 8th mile split was 7:59, but I finally picked off the lady in the skirt. I slowed down at an aid station and grabbed a Dixie cup of water, pouring it down my shirt more than in my mouth as I ran on.

Mile 9 came in 7:58 and I could feel the wheels falling off. One of the muscles in my right quad (vastus medialis, i think) was beginning to kill, and breathing was getting pretty hard at an 8:00 pace. Mile 10 was 7:59, and lasted a lifetime. I wasn't really falling apart, but it was that feeling of impending doom that you get when you realize that you're falling behind on your nutrition, and you're not going to make it to the end before you run out of gas.

Miles 11 (8:00) and 12 (7:52) felt like they were lasting forever, and like they were over in no time. My right quad was really killing me now, a feeling I've never had. I hadn't run this far all year, and although my long runs had been faster, they had still been 30 seconds per mile slower than this. Finally, I was inside the last mile as other runners kicked it in, so did I. The problem was, despite doing my hardest running all day, I was running my second slowest mile (8:03). I did everything I could to hold on. My quad was killing me! When was this going to be over?

Still, I let myself watch my Garmin in the last mile so that I would know when I could pick up the kick without digging myself into a hole. I was going to set a half marathon PR. I thought that if I broke 1:45 for a half marathon that would certainly put me square in the middle of the pack, but I could only see one guy pulling away about 100 yards ahead of me and there was no one else around. What do I have to do to catch the pack at a half marathon?

Now I could see the school. I did everything I could to kick it in, but this had to be the longest .1 mile of my life. I timed the final sprint to end right where the crowd started, because the finish line had to be there. I had been running for way longer than .1 miles, but when I reached the crowd, they directed me down into the parking lot. I still had some 50 yards to go, and it was just enough to deflate my final sprint. I was mad. Every mile marker had been dead on with my Garmin, and now I finished with 13.2 miles on my odometer. Lame! The last .2 miles were at 7:26 pace, some sprint!

One of my uglier finishing moments. Looks like A) I'm still heelstriking, and B) my quads are enormous! (yuck!), and C) look how far off the ground I am! Why can't I just run at a fast cadence like fast people?!

I finished in 1:44:01, or 1:44:06, or 1:44:08, whether you believe Garmin, my HRM, or the official time for a 7:53 mile if you believe Garmin, and 7:57 if you believe the official results. It was about a 2:13 PR. I had finished 110th overall (19%), and 13th of 105 in my age group (12%), but I would't get too excited about it since there were people who ran in superhero costumes. As I was fishing a water bottle out of the kiddie pools at the finish, the chick with no hair tie and the running skirt came up to me. "You're really strong. I was chasing you for the last 5 miles and I just couldn't catch you!" Hehehe... I win! I thought, but I smiled and told her that she'd been pushing me for the five miles before that. The best part though? I finally beat Gadfly Thom! I was wandering around the finishing area with that dazed look that you get after a race when I saw him come through two minutes behind me! So ha!

Where the hell did THAT come from?!?!

I really, really need your guys' input.

I've been really dissatisfied with my coach. I have many grievances, but these are the big ones:

1. He is training me to be slow. I understand that a triathlon is a swimbikerun (as Rocketpants put it), not a swim, and a bike, and a run. But this guy wants me to do the swim and the bike so slow that I would have to have the run of my life to significantly beat my time from last year. The swim "Ironman pace" he has chosen for me is so slow that I have to interrupt my stroke to go slow enough to make it.
   
2. I feel like he's not listening to me. This ties into point 1, but it also has to do with conversations we've had where I've said, "In the past I've seen improvement by doing XYZ, not ABC." And he says there will be more XYZ in my program, but when I check my schedule, it's all ABC. He says one thing is tiring me out, and that's why I had a bad next workout; but all I keep thinking is a 45-minute swim/2-hour easy bike has never tired me out before. I didn't feel tired.
   
3. I am so very bored! I knew that I liked being my own guinea pig, but I never thought that training would be so bland without it. I find myself dreading most of my workouts now that I can see them coming from a mile away. I hate training these days. The only workouts that have been fun are the ones I wasn't supposed to do.
   
4. I just can't afford it. I thought I could when I hired him, but something seems to come up every month. The cat gets tapeworm, the car needs an oil change, I need a new cassette... I just don't seem to have the financial flexibility to pay for it on my unemployment checks.
5. I've felt like I'm getting weaker. I haven't felt so aerobically out of shape since I quit drinking and smoking. It's hard to pinpoint, especially since he won't let me use bike speed as evidence of lost fitness, but I can feel when I'm having a bad day. I've been having a lot of bad days since I hired him.
   

So I was all ready to fire the guy. About a week ago I started looking at my training plan as more of a suggestion and throwing half my workouts out the window. I stopped following his pacing suggestions, and started going faster. I rode a hard, hilly century on a day when I was supposed to do an easy 3 hour ride. I replaced two rides with runs. Then, I moved this week's key workout up to when it fit better in my schedule. So rather than taking an easy day followed by a rest day leading up to this workout, I just plunked it the day after a tough trail run (and two days after a relatively intense brick). The workout was a 90 minute easy ride followed by a 10K running time trial.

I ran a fucking 41:58 for a 10K! This isn't just fast for me, we're talking is my Garmin broken? fast. I almost shit myself a month ago when I ran a 48.5-minute 10K. So where the hell did those extra SIX MINUTES come from? (I uploaded the data, and it seems sound).

Last month's 10K: about 65º and sunny
This month's 10K: about 60º and cloudy/windy

Last month's 10K: on a flat to rolling course following a day off
This month's 10K: on the track as part of a brick, following a 90-minute ride

Mile 1: 7:24; 6:42
Mile 1.5: feel like I'm going to shit myself; feel alright
Mile 2: 7:37; 6:13
Mile 2.5: get a stabbing pain in my right kidney; get a stabbing pain in my left kidney
Mile 3: 7:53; 6:34
Mile 3.5: hit the wall and consider ditching the workout; slow down a bit as a preventative measure, poop feeling goes away
Mile 4: 8:00; 6:59
Mile 4.5: start playing mental games; begin to feel like my legs are drained and wonder how long I can keep it up
Mile 5: 8:08; 7:04
Mile 5.5: just aim to get through it; start feeling a bit nauseous but figure I have less than a mile to go
Mile 6: 8:02; 6:50
Mile 6.2: finish in 48:35, av. 7:50; feel like I'm going to throw up; finish in 41:58, av. 6:46; am convinced I am going to throw up. Somehow I don't

There are some things that might have contributed:

• I take these pills called Optygen. They're fucking gold, I tell you. I kind of felt that they made me stronger, but I'd never been off them for more than a few days at a time until two months ago, when I ran out and couldn't replace them. This could have something to do with why I felt so weak, and why I feel stronger now that I'm back on them. (They're legal, by the way, and recently coronated as "the official supplement of Ironman"). However, I was still on them when I did the last 10K time trial in 48:35.
• My nutrition has kind of sucked lately, and I've only been back on the ice-cream-free wagon for a week or two. But I've eaten well in the past and never run a sub-seven minute mile, let alone 6.2 of them.
• Is it the coach and the low volume, or is it that I've finally ignored his advice and gone with my own instinct that I'm better slightly tired than I am fresh? I'm sure that the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
• Could it be that my Garmin really was shitting itself? I mean, I was running on a track, and it seemed pretty consistent with the distance per lap... but there also were train tracks next to the field that could have fucked with the satelite signal...
• After about 2 months of running in 90-degree temperatures and stifling humidity, it's finally cool again. Finally I can cut loose again.
• I only started running again about 6 weeks ago, and before that I'd done significantly different training than my usual triathlon training program. Meaning that my 10K last month was on almost no run training in over 6 months. Maybe this time was already coming? Has cycling put me in better aerobic shape, which is only translating to better running times now that I've got about 6 weeks of running in my legs again?
  

So the question is: Is my coach holding me back, or is he a miracle worker??? What do you guys think?

Update: I really appreciate all your input, and it's interesting to hear everyone's take. I have some responses to the comments I've gotten so far.

BANDOBRAS: That's an excellent point. So you think that the fact that I didn't feel good till I chucked his plan in the trash is telling me something? (serous question)

TRIHARDIST: Boo! That's an EXPENSIVE gamble... But I'm coming around to the idea.

GRETCHEN: I was running so hard I had no idea WHERE I was.
To clear up everyone's comments, I WAS following the plan religiously for the first 5 weeks and feeling pretty miserable. Then I decided that he was full of shit and started ignoring it. That was a little over a week ago. After about 9 days of doing my own thing, THEN I blew my own times out of the water.

JUDI: I've only been working with the guy for 6 weeks, and only following what he said for five. I don't think ANYONE can give you that kind of fitness improvement in so little time (legally), they can only tweak something to bring out what was already ready to happen inside. But I'll take my own words into account in my decision. He has been telling me that I've never been rested enough to know what I'm really capable of. However, an ironman ends with a marathon, not a 10K. Less than 3 months out, the longest run I've been assigned so far is 1 hour.

BOBBY: Where did you get the idea that it was a run-intensive program? He has me doing about 60% of my training on the bike (I believe that the bike is not where the problem lies). If I were to follow his plans to the letter, I'd be running less the 15 mi/wk. The biggest change I've made since deciding to ignore him is swapping out bike rides for runs, adding about 50% more running. The run-intensive thing is all Claire and all in the last week.

Holy crap! I've got it!

I've never been a heart rate trainer. I like to separate things into two categories: The Way I Do It, and The Way Pussies Do It. Since I don't train to heart rate, that means it's for pussies.

I understand the whole heartrate training theory thing, and when done right I can see how it would work. However, there are too many problems with it:

1. It's too variable. If someone almost hits you with their car, your heartrate may go up to 180 beats per minute. That doesn't mean that it's a Zone 4 workout. If you're tired your heart rate may not get up high enough, or it may go up too high. It's affected by heat, cold, stress, what you eat, and whether you have to pee. It's reactive, so your heartrate is always a minute or so behind what you're actually doing. If you're a slave to your heartrate monitor, then you'll never do your workout as you're supposed to, because your heartrate will never be a measure of exactly how hard you're working.
2. My heartrate monitor chafes me when I run. We're talking giant, raw holes in my chest that take a week to heal. Luckily I'm sponsored by Aquaphor, which takes care of my chafing issues.
   
3. Zones are always shifting. Figuring out your zones based on 220 minus your age is like clothes shopping based on the assumption that the average American woman is 5'4", 150 lb, a size 8, and a 36 C so therefore those must be your sizes too. Your max heartrate might be higher. Your lactate threshold may be 85% of that number, or it may be 90% of that... or 70%. Next month those numbers may be different depending on how you train. Most athletes who are tuned in enough to do their zones right have good enough perceived exertion that they don't need the HRM. Because I know everything, I assume that I'm a member of that group.
   
4. The strap is one more thing to lose. The watch is one more thing to lose. And you have to remember to put them on. Heartrate monitors are clearly too much responsibility for me.
5. Exercise equipment tells me that I'm going to die. On a treadmill I have run for an hour at about 188 bpm. No problem. But I couldn't see any of the information that is usually displayed on the screen because there was always a message flashing that I'd better slow the fuck down. On top of that, all the treadmills around me were telling the people on them that they were going to die too. Because 188 is more than 85% of 220 minus 26, ergo imminent death. If the person next to me was wearing a heart rate monitor too, then the machines would add them together, and the treadmill's safety mechanism would kick in and it would turn off automatically.
6. Training by heartrate is for pussies. I run on treadmills until I am on the brink of death. Clearly, I am not a pussy.

When I took up with a coach who lived thousands of miles away, I knew that I was going to have to train with a heartrate monitor, but I secretly planned to ignore everything heartrate-related that didn't agree with what I wanted to be doing at that exact moment. But now that I'm starting to collect data (especially about running), I'm fascinated with what my heart is telling me.

First of all, I ran an "all-out" (his words) 10K test last week. I ran 48:35, which is faster than I've ever run a 10K before. As is my style, I felt great for the first 1.5 miles, and was afraid that I was going to shit my pants for the last 4.7. My average heartrate for that run was 175, so we set that as my threshold heartrate, only 1 bpm above my threshold heartrate for the bike. Interesting...

Then I ran an easy trail run in the woods, just noodling up and down the hills, picking my way slowly aroun rocks, running 5.5 miles in an hour. My breathing was easy the whole time. I had the poo problem in the beginning, but then I stopped taking the hills so hard and it calmed down. My average heartrate was 175. Hmmmmm...

Then I ran 8.5 miles when it was 91º out and humid. I ran slower than your grandma would run, and felt like I could have done the log roll faster. I know that the heat affects your heartrate, but I was going S L O W. Know what my average heartrate was? 175. There were times when I looked down and saw numbers in the 180's. I checked in with my breathing: everything was good. Very, very interesting. For me to get over 175 on the bike, I have to be pushing so hard that my jaw drops to my chest and I'm breathing like an asthmatic. Here I was, supposedly 5 beats above my running threshold and breathing like I was just out for a stroll.

Interesting...

As I mentioned before, I've run for an hour with a heartrate of 188 and felt like I could have kept going forever (if only the poop would stop thunking around in my large intestine). Hardly the wind-sucking efforts that Zone 4 means on the bike. So maybe 175 isn't my true run threshold afterall... (chalk up one point for Claire, no points for the pussies!)

Interesting...

Looking at past results with my coach, he thought I have a tendency to take it out too fast on the bike, then blow up on the run. Au contraire. I pointed out that in triathlons and runs alike, my first 2 miles are consistently MUCH faster, even faster than my "threshold pace" according to the 10K test. I have 2 good miles, and then I fall apart. That's true in triathlon runs and road runs alike. Clearly, I have a problem with pacing. Then it hit me...

EURIKA! It's the shit!

I can run fast for about a mile and a half before suddenly my intestines start rotting out my anus. There's never actually any poo involved, just a feeling that I have to poo; but it's enough to slow me down. I can breathe when I'm running fast, that's not the problem... It's the phantom poo!

What's my heartrate when I'm running fast? Well usually it's just slightly above 175... my supposed "threshold" on the run, which is clearly not any kind of threshold if I can breathe just fine when I'm holding it. So forget anaerobic thresholds and lactate thresholds, my important threshold that I need to tease up is my POO threshold! Who knows, maybe I've been a decent runner this whole time, but never knew it because I always had to poo before I hit my max pace? Maybe. So from here on out, I'll be watching my heart to learn about my intestines to become a better runner.

Couples Counseling with Running

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm mad at Running. It's a slightly abusive and unfulfilling relationship. In short, I want it to just happen. I want to wake up one morning and just suddenly, magically be a good runner. From there I will be willing to work hard to become a great runner, but hard work is not exciting when you're working your ass off just to crack the top 50% of the field (slowpokes and fatasses included). I have decided that a 7-minute mile would be pretty fabulous, and a pace that I am more than willing to not work for. If I could run 7-minute miles all the time, I'd be pretty stoked and wouldn't mind run training. Then again, I would also be pretty stoked if I won the lottery, landed my dream job, or Dara Torres asked me out on a date.

I just find it WAY easier to sit there and grumble about being a crappy runner than actually going out and doing the work to BECOME a good runner. See, the problem with learning to be a better runner is that you've actually got to run to do it. This arrangement does not work for me.

However, like it or not, I am still committed to running for at least the next year, so I'm going to have to learn to live with it. So I have brought Running an olive branch. Running and I are going to counseling. Twice a week for the next four weeks (and beyond), I will be following a program to improve the efficiency and technique of my running.

Almost a month ago I purchased Striding On based on the glowing reports they gave it on my favoritest podcast, IM Talk. I figured that if Bevan, a 9-hour ironman, had taken the initiative to stick to this program and saw results from doing some drills off a DVD, then I could too. Ordering stuff from New Zealand turned out to be an adventure in and of itself, figuring out exchange rates, and attempting an international bank transfer before I went the Paypal rout. Then, 3 weeks later, when it showed up at the post office, they turned the package over and over trying to decipher which bar code they were supposed to scan before they let me sign for it. Then I realized that the southern hemisphere has a different standard of DVD's than the States (Europe does too, so I should have seen that one coming). Finally, I got it to work and watched the DVD tonight.

I enjoyed this form of training because it involved no actual running. I wish all training could be done in front of my computer.

So beginning next week, I will go to an undisclosed location alone, in the dark, where no sane people can see me, and I will begin breaking down my running motion with movements that look like I'm being zapped with electrical impulses in the bottom of my feet. I will perform drills with such names as "The Funky Walk," "The Butt Kiss Jog," and "The Fast Step-Over Jog" (which looks much sillier than it sounds). Sure, I may look like someone out of the Ministry of Silly Walks, but I hope that I will be rewarded with sexier race pictures, feet that actually leave the ground as I run, and of course, instant and effortless 7-minute miles.

Running and I are in a fight

I don't think things are going to work out between me and Running. My Running is so high maintenance. Other people don't have to work half as hard as I do, and are able to run as fast as I can. People who work as hard as I do are able to run much faster than I am.

My Running is selfish, it wants all of my time. Swimming is easy and unassuming. Swimming doesn't demand great time and commitment. I am not great at Swimming, but this does not ruin my race. Two to three dates with Swimming a week and I can hold on to the top 20%, extra time with swimming would not buy me a competitive edge. So swimming and I have a good relationship. Swimming doesn't ask too much of me, I do not ask too much of Swimming. Biking and I are in love. I want to elope with biking. Biking doesn't demand too much time from me, but we always want to be together anyway. Biking and I are intimate. Biking treats me well no matter how much time we've spent together. Biking and I go on romantic day trips to the country. But Running... running is a little bitch.

Running makes me feel bad about myself. Running makes me feel ugly and oafish and stupid. Running is a little slut, she gives it away to everyone but me. I work hard, and Running still would rather hang out with those other chicks in running skirts and make me jealous. I buy Running all kinds of gifts, and Running makes me sick to my stomach. Running beats me up so that I can barely walk and then demands that I give her some more.

I want to break up with running, but I don't know how. We've been together for so long now, we have so many plans... If I break up with Running now, we can't go to Mexico next year. Running and I already have tickets to go to Disney World, so we have to make it work until January. I have so many friends through Running, and if we broke up, Running would take the friends with her. Running is the partner that you can't get rid of, because Running is down for anything. Running doesn't demand a lot of money. It's easy to travel with Running. It doesn't need any special accommodations. So I can't think of a good reason to tell running to fuck off. Not for long anyway. I try to break up with Running, but I always come crawling back for one reason or another: time constraints, equipment problems, bad weather, nighttime workouts. Running is the only one that's down for these things.

So running and I are in a fight. We keep flinging insults at each other and giving each other dirty looks across the room.
"I hate you, Running!" I yell.
"You treat me like shit!" Running yells back. "You never say you love me!"
"Well I don't love you! How could anyone ever love someone like you?! You make me sick!"
"You never give me enough time! You're always looking for excuses not to be with me. Why should I treat you better?"
"I dread coming home to you, Running! All day I think about how much I hate you, and then I have to come home and be with you anyway. You bitch and you moan, but I spend 5 days a week with you, Running! You get more of my time than anyone! And, Running, I think you're cheating on me with Anne."

RICE makes you fat

Things are not going well in Claire country. They are not going well at all. I'm stuck in a bureaucratic nightmare where my driver's license has been revoked. It's a long, long, frustrating story and basically boils down to a policy that the DMV has that they don't properly notify you of payments due. Let's just leave it at that. If I tell you the story I might cry again and that won't help matters any. The point is, it's been upsetting me.

On top of that, horror of horrors, I'm injured. It seems incredible, after all the shit I've put my body through over the past year that what put me over the edge was a 3-mile easy run. Monday I was running along at about 10-minute mile pace just thinking about life, flowers, butterflies, stars, puppies... when I started to get a bit of an ache in my left foot. It wasn't too bad, and things ache all the time only to feel fine the next day, so I finished my run (hey, I had to get home, didn't I?) not too worried about it. I ran some cold water in the tub and soaked my feet for a few minutes, and then forgot about it.

The next day it didn't hurt in the morning, and I forgot about it. I forgot about it on the walk to work. I forgot about it while at work. Then I remembered about it on the walk home from the train when it started to ache a little bit. But I'd just found out about my driver's license, and I really, really, really needed to run and I needed to run HARD. And anyway, if I were injured, I would get some warning before I really fucked it up, and I could back off. So I put on a different pair of shoes and started running. I was doing half-mile repeats up a slight hill, and while I was running fast the foot didn't hurt, but running slow back down it ached like hell. So it's not running FAST that fucked me up, it's running SLOW. What the fuck?! I hoped it would go away as I warmed up, but instead it got worse with time: it was fine on the way up, but killed on the recovery run back down. So after three repeats I turned around and hobbled home. I paid special attention to exactly where it hurt, and where the pain radiated through so that I could look it up when I got home.

Immediately I sat down at the computer and searched "anatomy of the foot" and found what seemed to be the culprit: the Peroneus Brevis tendon, a tendon that goes from the lateral head of your gastrocnemius (calf muscle), under the bump on the outside of your ankle, and tucks under your foot to insert at your fifth metatarsal (the bone mid-foot behind your pinky toe). The alternative is a stress fracture, but I do not have a stress fracture because there is no cure for that other than total rest for 6 weeks, which probably means crutches.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck! I'm supposed to be running the Hartford Marathon next weekend! I'm supposed to be running all this fall and finally becoming a fast runner! I'm not supposed to be injured.

If I get an overuse injury, shouldn't it be in one of the big muscles or joints? Not the tiny little peroneus brevis tendon that is responsible for "plantar flexion and eversion" (curling your foot and rolling it outwards). I do neither of these in road running. Sure, I turn my ankle all the time when I'm running on trails, but I haven't run on trails since last Wednesday. It certainly didn't hurt then. Come to think of it, if this were an overuse injury, why wouldn't it start to hurt when I WAS on a trail with my ankles rolling all over the place??? If I'm going to be taken down, I want it to be something dramatic, not the inflammation of some tendon no one's ever heard of. I feel I'm entitled to something really badass that includes exclamation points at the end, like Exploding Gluteus Syndrome!!! You know, something that involves sparks and maybe a bang, or at least a pop or a crack.

But no.

I have a pretty good idea of what caused it, the same thing that causes most sports injuries: overuse. I haven't bought new shoes in a long time. In fact, one of my pairs of shoes is over a year old (although they haven't been in the rotation for much of that time).

On top of that was my decision to run more in order to run faster. I figured I'd train like a runner, running every day with easy 3-mile runs on the "off days" instead of bike rides. So I ran Saturday and Sunday, Monday I ran easy and it started to hurt, and Tuesday it got worse. What's really frustrating, though, is that I broke none of the 3 commandments of running: I didn't go too far (it was a short run that killed me), too fast (it was slow running that did me in), or too soon! I have done similar running volume and similar intensity many times before with no ill effect. And too soon? Come on! Certainly I have enough of a running base in me to be able to handle an easy 3-mile run!

There's no use in seeing a doctor for now (although I finally have health insurance again!!! yippee!), since what he is almost certainly going to do is tell me to RICE it: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation until it gets better. I don't need to pay a copay and lose several hours of work to hear that. And anyway, doctors hate distance runners. They're worse than fat people. They can't WAIT to tell you that running is "bad for you".

I'm doing everything I should, staying off my feet, icing them, taking Advil (right, Judi?). But I am grouchy. I'm back in that place where I can't drag myself out of bed in the morning to go to the gym. I'm bringing healthy lunches, but going out to buy pizza and cookies instead. I'm eating all kinds of high GI foods, processed foods, and crap I would never normally eat. I'm getting fat.

Which brings me to another point: Rest. I hate rest. It makes me grouchy, depressed, and frantic. I know you need rest, but I prefer to take the "active recovery" option, the one where I sit in the back of the lane and just swim easy, or where I ride my bike easy with slower cyclists and enjoy the ride. Complete and total rest has dire implications for me. What if I get fat? What if I lose my fitness? What if next year I don't have the drive to get in as good shape as I am this year??? I mean, if you're just going to sit around on the couch, you might as well do so with drink in hand.

I know that you need to take time off, and also work rest into macrocycles with the off-season and so on. Rationally, I know this. This is what I would tell anyone else: that they need to take time off to rest. But deep down in the core of my being, I think it's a bit blown out of proportion (read more about it here). You need to let your fitness dip, sure, but get out of shape? Sit on the couch until I'm back to running 10-minute miles? Get fat? Sometimes I think I'd rather get my legs chopped off and continue training than be subject to that.

This weekend, a washout

This weekend was supposed to be great. It was going to be a breakthrough weekend physically and mentally. I was going to see friends, do races I'd been looking forward to, set PRs, laugh, smile, and be merry.

Life is full of disappointments.

First off, it rained. A huge storm blew through on Friday morning, and it's been raining pretty constantly since then. Now, Monday morning, it still has not stopped. Despite Ray of Sunshine Damon's argument that training when the weather is bad just makes you stronger than the competition, I HATE the rain. Dreary days make me sad, grouchy, depressed, and most of all, wet.

Saturday morning was the Wicked Half Marathon in Salem (of witch-burning fame). It was going to be great. I had wanted to do it since I saw the t-shirts last year. The WICKED half marathon, get it? Wicked because it's in Salem, the witch city? Wicked because it's near Boston and we say wicked here? Wicked because wicked kind of means cool and badass at the same time? Get it??? And it was only a half hour away. Then when Michelle said she wanted to do it with me I was thrilled! I knew I could run a PR, but with Michelle to pace off of I bet it wouldn't even hurt!

But life is full of disappointments.

First, Michelle canceled on me. You can't really blame her, the race had an early start and she'd only gotten in from a week in San Jose the night before. So I was already pretty disappointed as I drove alone through the spooooooooooky fog in Salem at 6:15 in the morning. It was eeeeeeeeeerie driving around so early in the morning when no one was out. Come to think of it, where was everyone? Salem is a really confusing place to get around, and it took me awhile to find the right place. Finally I did, but it was deserted. Mysteeeeeeeeerious Actually, scaaaaaaaaary. I went up to the door. It was locked. Creeeeeeaaaapy. By this time I'd figured out that I was in the wrong place, but like an idiot I hadn't printed up a copy of the race directions to find out where I'd gone wrong. You know how sometimes the night before they have packet pick-up in a different place from the start? Yeah, I'd gone to the nighttime packet pick-up place, while the race was starting some 10 miles away. Fuuuuuuuuck.

But sometimes you fuck up. And life is full of disappointments.

So I did not run the Wicked Half Marathon. I went home and ran 6 laps around the pond a mile from my house, the same fucking pond that I run around all the time. I figured it was about time for a half marathon PR, and I didn't need any stinkin' organized race to do it. I figured 8:20 miles would be a pretty challenging pace to run, but I resolved to be tough and soldier through. Alright, it would be really tough, but since I figured I wanted to be able to run a marathon in 3:39:59, I might as well get used to running 8:20 min/miles. Sure, all evidence suggested I couldn't run 13 miles at that pace, and barely run 10K at that pace, but I was sure I could suffer through it.

You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find... that life is full of disappointments.

The first 2-mile loop I felt great. I meant to be running 8:20 pace, but every time my eyes drifted off my wrist, I would drop down to 7:30 pace. I was a rockstar! Still, I somberly reminded myself, you don't want to tucker yourself out. Keep the pace.

The second 2-mile loop I managed to hold roughly the pace I wanted, like clockwork. I had finally mastered this pacing thing! I was feeling pretty proud of myself, but I was feeling pretty queasy too. When I run around my threshold it makes me feel like I'm going to poop my pants. I had assumed that this was just something that happened to everybody, but apparently it does not. It has nothing to do with an actual need to evacuate my bowels, as I found out early on (I can never actually go afterwards). It just feels like really bad menstrual cramps, or when you've eaten something that doesn't agree with you. Alright, it feels like diarrhea.

Anyway, by the time I set out on the 3rd loop I felt like I was going to shit my pants and decided to slow down a bit to see if I started to feel better. Then I planned to speed up.

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and shit happens. And life is full of disappointments.

I never sped up. In fact, I slowed down. I got this feeling that I never used to get, but I get now. My legs feel fine, my muscles aren't sore, and my turnover is fine. I just get tired. I can get enough air, but it's like there isn't enough oxygen in it. It feels like someone has turned down the volume or something, and I just want to curl up by the side of the road and take a nap. I THINK I am beginning to understand the need for proper pacing, and the implications of going out too fast.


Long story short, I completed 6 laps around that stupid lake (laps 4-6 tacked on another half-mile loop). I had hoped to run around 1:50 (8:24 pace), but I ran 1:56:57. Only about a minute and a half faster than my PR from February. Worst of all, I was only about 11 seconds faster than Anne's half marathon PR (under similar unofficial circumstances: loops around a different pond)! I knew I was better than that! I have been spending some quality time with the Jack Daniels VDOT tables, and he thinks I should be able to run 1:50:59!

I went home exhausted, deflated, and soaked to the bone. And I was disappointed. Life is full of disappointments.

I had planned to run the Vermont 50K the following day, Sunday. Now before you go all crazy on me, there was an actual logic to this. My big A race for this winter is the Disney Marathon, and I want to have a good race there. The only problem is that I'm also signed up for the half marathon the day before. This was actually NOT my idea, but that's another story. So what I wanted to do was actually get some overdistance training in my legs before I started my main training block, and I wanted to make sure it came in the form of back-to-back long runs so that my legs would be prepared to recover quickly for the marathon the second day. But because road racing is so hard on the legs (or mine anyway), and because I find my main limiter in the late stages of a marathon is mainly pain from the pounding rather than actual muscle fatigue, I wanted the second run to be on trail. See, not only do trail runs have less pounding and impact, but also there would be less pressure to run the whole, entire thing, thus lightening the load on my joints while maintaining the time on my feet and distance covered.

See? There is a method to my madness. But shit happens, life is full of disappointments, and there are days when it rains on your parade. You don't always get what you want.

This is what the Vermont 50K would entail:
Driving 2.5 hours to Vermont on Saturday midday to sign up (there was no race-day registration and I wasn't signed up yet).
Sleeping in my car at a campground (since I do not have a tent, nor am I the tenting type, especially in the rain).
Figuring out dinner, breakfast, and coffee in an unfamiliar place.
Then running 31 miles through a ski resort (we're talking alpine skiing) in the rain on trails that had been rained on for 3 days straight now.

I knew I COULD do it, but I knew that with the mud and the rain and the "camping" I would be miserable. And the performance from my legs that morning mad me think that maybe this wasn't the week to push my running.

So I stayed home. Life... sucks.

Instead I went on a 13-mile run with Michelle in the morning. I had slept really badly the night before, had already sent a text message to Michelle saying "If I'm not at the end of your driveway at 7:30, I'm not coming". When my alarm went off I hit the snooze button and thought, I'm going to lie here until that thing goes off again, and if I hear rain then I'm going to turn it off and go back to sleep. But I didn't hear rain. Fuck.

Life is full of disappointments, and it never rains when you want it to.

By the time I got dressed, though, it was raining again. And it rained the whole, entire time we were running. My body did that thing again, that thing where I just wanted to lie down at the side of the road. "Do we have to run 8-minute miles??" I whined. Then it became, "Do we have to run 9-minute miles??" Then "Do we have to run 9:30's?" What I really wanted to do was stop running and walk home, or curl up and sleep in a mud puddle at the side of the road. Eventually I DID let Michelle run on without me and I shuffled home by myself, disappointed and tired. I fell just short of a marathon over the weekend, which I suppose I should be proud of, but I'm not. Hey, it was over 2 days, it doesn't count.

I had such high hopes for this weekend, but it just fizzled. I'd planned to run 18 miles more than I did. I'd hoped for a PR and a huge mental breakthrough in the same weekend. I ran 26.16 miles in 4:03:05, but that's like adding up all my best mile splits of all time and saying that I'm a 3:15 marathoner. I know, I know, I need to rest.

I want to be a good runner, but life isn't fair, shit happens, and sometimes it rains (and more often on the weekends) on your parade. You can't always get what you want, and life is full of disappointments.

Suffering – It ain't pretty

Suffering has been something I've spent a lot of time thinking about this summer. It all started with a desperate email to Mindy and Mary, two of the fastest runners I know under the height of 5'3", where I begged for running advice. I was told that to become a more competitive runner, I needed to learn to suffer. I was familiar with this concept, but I'd thought that I was already suffering. When the student is ready, the teacher will present him/herself, and suddenly I started seeing evidence everywhere that faster runners were just willing to suffer more than I was.

Slowly it began to dawn on me that maybe, just maybe, I just wasn't working hard enough on the run. What solidified this was Anne's 15% pace increase overnight, just because Michelle told her to "run like she stole something". I'll be damned if I'd let Anne beat me just because she was willing to suffer more! So starting sometime late in the summer, I made the decision that if that's what it took, I was going to SUFFER on the run. I was going to suffer like the best of them.

Suddenly the meaning of speed work made sense. Suddenly I understood the value of different training paces for different distances. Suddenly it made sense why someone would bother to run a 5 or 10K. I attacked running with a new abandon (and maybe even a bit of enjoyment). And slowly I realized that a willingness to suffer isn't necessarily enough.

See, for me, lacing up my running shoes is already low-grade suffering. Okay, that's not true. I talk a lot about how much I hate running, but it's not like I'm skipping my running workouts. Clearly I get something out of it. What exactly that something is still eludes me, but I'll admit that I don't HATE to run. Still, I don't enjoy running. From the second I start, I can't wait for it to be over. Just the act of running is so much effort that I can suffer to a pretty high degree with very, very little extra effort without actually going much faster. Which is not to say I'm not trying. I've been diligently putting in the hard work (maybe too much of it). See my training log in the sidebar if you don't believe me!

And then there's my bike. I love riding my bike, but we all knew that. Recently I've been riding my bike across the city at rush hour to get to work rather than taking the train. It means dodging car doors, out-sprinting buses, darting between cars, playing chicken with pedestrians, shooting through red lights, and fish-tailing my bike when someone decides to pull over without signaling. Stressful? Maybe for some, but for me it's like a video game trying to get through tight spots and beat lights. (Hmmmm, someone should invent that game, perhaps with a frog trying to cross a busy road...) There are 65 traffic lights in my 11.5-mile commute, 63 of which lie in the 8 miles that go through Cambridge and Boston. This means a lot of clipping in and out, a lot of hairy bike handling, and most of all, a lot of accelerating. The other evening I was waiting at a light when this guy pulls up next to me with an all-carbon bike, matching kit, and a Tour de France ass. I sized him up, and decided he had to stay behind me. I clipped in, stood up, passed him, and then HAMMERED. I pedaled as hard as I could on my shitty commuter bike with my big, fat backpack on my back. I pedaled so hard that my bike was squeaking. I upshifted, but it was one of the gears that wasn't working, so I upshifted some more and pounded even harder on the pedals. My legs burned. I didn't look, but my guess is that I was riding roughly 24 mph. When I finally hit another red light about a mile later I was heaving for air, my heart was going like a jackhammer, sweat was pouring out of my helmet into my eyes and mouth. I hadn't even noticed how hard I was working while I was riding. Mr. Tour de France Ass was gone, which was a shame because I really wanted to race some more.

Hmmm... burning legs, pouring sweat, gasping for air, heart racing... All those things sound like suffering, don't they? But not on my bike. On my bike it's fun.

See? That's the difference. I love suffering on my bike, and love putting the hurt on someone else. I love dropping the hammer and saying, Catch me if you can! I always get to work sweaty and gross, because I can't help but ride my bike as hard as I can. In all the times I've ridden to work, only one person has ever passed me. One. Running? Not so much. When running I'm always looking for a way to make it easier, always hoping that everyone else will slow down so I can slow down too. When I get home on my bike, I'm sad to see my house. When hit the mailbox on the corner at the end of my run, it's like walking out of the office at the end of the day: relief!

BUT, in the race this weekend, I may have been disappointed with my result relative to other runners, but no one, but no one suffered as much as I did. Let's compare my finishing photos to Anne's:

Running like she stole something... and got away with it.

Grimace of pain and suffering

On the verge of tears perhaps?

Running like I stole something... and got shot in the back.

The kind of suffering that stays with you... (Please ignore the cold runner syndrome)

In other news, look at the fucking helmet I had to wear!

Feel free to sing the Super Mario Brothers theme song to yourself as you look at this picture.

I should correct one thing I said in my last post. It turns out I was 7th woman on the bike. I had only counted the women ahead of me because I found it inconceivable that someone could be a stronger cyclist (if only marginally -- less than a minute and a half separated me from the fastest female bike split of the day), and an even WEAKER runner than I am. But it must be so, because there were 3 women who rode better than I did and came in behind me. Maybe they're shitty swimmers. Then again, look at the mushroom sitting on top of my head! That thing must have been worth at least a minuet over 40K!

My new secret weapon

This week was the launch of the New Claire. This New Claire is going to become a runner.

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.

(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!