Practice Makes Perfect - Inaugural Life Time Treadmill Marathon

Another two weeks have flown by and I have been training just as hard as usual. Starting with last week, my mileage has started to drop. But, first things first – the Last Vegas Half Marathon – didn’t go as planned.  I finished in 7^th place overall, which isn’t terrible, but my time was less than exceptional. I think this was largely due to not tapering all that much for the race and therefore going into the race with tired legs. My finishing time was 1:14:56. I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, so enough said.

My training since the race has been great! On the Thursday after the race I ran 26.2 miles on a treadmill! Yes, I did. It was a fantastic day outside for Minnesota in December, but I wanted to make sure to get in some heat training and be able to have the fluids (Hammer’s Perpeteum) I plan on using during the Trials on hand because these are both important aspects of what I will have to deal with during the actual race.

 I managed to make it an impressive 14 miles on the treadmill before I lifted the towel that I had covering the mileage display. Hiding the time and mileage counter helps the run not feel as long. However, as anyone would suspect, the last few miles turned into a mental grind. I kept trying to make deals with myself about when I would stop the run, as I couldn’t help but look at the mileage just about every mile. Coach Dennis had only told me to go 24 miles, so as the proverbial hamster in my head started to get tired, I tried to convince myself that it was OK to just run 24 miles. But, in the end I was able to defeat my own weakness by reminding myself how much I want to be an Olympian, and to do that I have to give 100%. So 26.2 miles and three hours after I first set foot on the treadmill at Life Time Fitness, I stepped off the treadmill, full of hope and proud of my accomplishment.

In the last week I have also put in some good workouts that I know will really count when it comes to the marathon in January. Repeat 1,000’s on Tuesday and a real ringer of a workout today – 1 hour at marathon pace followed by 30 minutes of alternating 1-minute-hard / 1-minute-easy. BAM! Because this workout was so long and similar to an actual race I prepared for the workout just as I anticipate doing for the marathon.

                Schedule:

                5:00am: Alarm 1 goes off – time to eat breakfast, then back to sleep

                7:30am: Alarm 2 goes off – time to get out of bed, make some coffee and get ready to rumble

                8:45am: Meet Dennis and the guys at Highland Park Life Time Fitness

             9:15am: Warm-ups are finished, Dennis has given us instructions about the out and back course    that we will using and where he will set up our water bottle stations.

                9:16am: WE ARE OFF! Clipping off the miles at a little under 5:40 pace

              9:35am: Making first 180 degree U-turn. We are practicing this because there are U-turns in the marathon course. So we want to make sure our legs know what it feels like to decelerate, make a 180 degree turn and get back up to speed. If you have ever done the common drill of “suicides” at like basketball practice, you will know how much energy it takes to stop your moving body, turn and get back up to speed as quickly as possible. A lot! But with practice this process should go much more smoothly and not be as much of a shock to our legs during the race.

               9:54: Bottle stations #2 – have you ever tried drinking while running at quick pace? Not the easiest thing to do and I end up feeling that I must resemble a very thirsty dog – sucking on my bottle, spit flying, while also trying to gasp for air. Not a very pretty sight.

           10:16am: First hour complete, managing to run over 10 ½ miles during that time, but I still have another hard half an hour to go.

              10:46am: The workout is finally complete and I am gingerly running my cool down back to the gym because I have managed to get a blood blister on my left foot. I wore socks that were a little too thick because I had thought that my feet would be cold otherwise. However, it was a very beautiful 35 degree day and the thick sock turned out to just be a mistake. Lesson learned.

By 11:30 I have made it home after I stop and get myself a well deserved drink from Starbucks and I am full of relief. I had gone into the workout with a bit of trepidation, but now it is all over and I can relax.

Next week I am off to Hawaii for a family vacation! I have never been to Hawaii and I am extremely excited.  So next time I write I hope that it will be from the one of the beautiful white sandy beaches of Maui. For now, Aloha and Merry Christmas!

Happy training,

Meghan

Manchester Road Race - 75 Years of World-Class Racing!

               It has been a busy last week and a half. Thanksgiving Day was wonderful in a number of ways. To start out, I competed in the famed Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving morning. It was a very exciting race due to the fact that they were celebrating their 75^th anniversary, which called for a lot of fanfare complete with a pre-race flyover by a plane that was used in the Berlin Airlift. The race was a huge celebration of the history of road racing.  The first woman to ever compete in a professional road race was there to run, 50 years after the first time she ran the race! She even wore the same garment that she wore 50 years ago – a blue dress. Yes ladies, a dress! It was really awesome to see all the history surrounding the Thanksgiving Day race, and on top of that it was a great success for me. The course is 4.7 miles long with a huge 1 mile hill in the second mile. The race went out, and in my head I was thinking “man, I am in 6^th place and this pace doesn’t feel comfortable.” The mile clock loomed and I looked over to see 4:58. A little yellow light bulb lit up in my head “well, that is why the pace didn’t feel good. Now I will just settle in and use as little energy as possible to get up this huge hill and then I will let the legs fly!” Up the hill we went. I held on to the back of the pack and worked up the hill, towards the end passing the majority of the girls in the pack.  Once at the top we made a hard left turn and started down the hill we had just climbed. I moved to second place, dueling it out with one other girl for a short distance, but once I finally got in front I never saw her or any of the other girls again. I was looking ahead for SallyKipyego who went out really hard and stayed there the entire race. I could see her a ways ahead, but for the time being I was running with a group of two guys. As the race progressed I was still feeling pretty good, but the guys I was running right behind were starting to slow down. I didn’t want to have to cut my stride and slow down to go around the two men…so I did the next best thing, gave them each a love tap right at their center of gravity, a.k.a. their hips, and they moved to the side and I went right between them. The next mile went by uneventfully, I caught another man who obviously took exception to being caught by a woman because every time I made it to his shoulder he would put in a quick sprint and be 5 meters ahead of me again. I largely tried to ignore him and just continue to run hard, trying to see if I could make up any time on Sally. Finally 800 meters to go, and the guy next to me was brought sharply back to my attention because – and I have to admire his competitive spirit – he began to dry heave….once, twice, three times. I swerved far to the right so as to avoid any type of substantive eruption and began to surge for the finish. Soon the finish line loomed, I crossed it still in 2^nd in a time of 25:02. Another success!

                After the race I quickly cooled down and jumped straight into my host family Bill andCarol Oneill's car. Carol whisked me away to catch my flight that was scheduled to take off only 2 hours and 10min after I finished the race. I flew to Tennessee where my husband and I spent a few quality days with my family celebrating Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be thankful for, I have a truly blessed life and consider myself very lucky. Thank you to my family, friends, and all of you who have joined me on this journey. And, the many people and organizations that make my life as a professional runner possible - Team USA Minnesota, Road Runners Club of America, Life Time Fitness, Twin Cities in Motion, Ron Wayne at Mizuno, and many more.   

                Now, as I am writing this blog I am sitting in Las Vegas, getting ready for the Rockand Roll Las Vegas Half marathon – The Strip at Night! The race starts at 5:30pm, so the strip will be fully lit up. It should make for a fun race. Can you imagine it?!  I am using the race to test my fitness and see where I am in my preparation for the OT Marathon. I will keep you all posted and let you know how it goes, stay tuned! 

MinneSNOWta - You betcha!

I have gotten a little off of my schedule in the last two weeks, but now I am back! In the last two weeks a couple of significant events have occurred in my training. Firstly, I completed my first almost-marathon, a 26 mile training run. It was a combination of good, bad and ugly.

I went into the run with the idea that I would treat it just like race day, the only difference being that it wouldn’t be at race pace. So I got up in the morning and ate a bagel with cream cheese and a banana, and spent the rest of the morning drinking the fluids that I plan on using during the OTMarathon. The only problem was that after I ate my breakfast I had to go to work for about 3 hours before doing my run. So I ate my breakfast at 9am and then left work to go do my run at 12:30. The first part of the run was fine, but once I got to about 18-20 miles I started to get the feeling that my head was floating away from my body, like a kite on a string. I was conscious that I was still running, but I felt like I was floating. I shook my head a few times and was able to focus again, but the rest of the run was really long. I think my problem was that I had not consumed enough calories for the run, and I had only taken one Hammer Gel with me, which was not enough. I guess I learned that lesson the hard way.

The second event that occurred during the past week and a half is that it finally decided to snow here in minneSNOWta, which officially marks the end of doing workouts outside. So yesterday, while it sleeted miserably outside I made my merry way to Life Time Fitness in Eden Prairie and jumped on a treadmill to do a 20 mile run. Life Time’s facilities are really fantastic and top notch, so it was the best possible alternative to running outside. I cranked the treadmill up and put it at 1% grade, to compensate for the fact that I am running on a treadmill not the ground, and settled in at 6:53 pace. The first 15 miles passed by quickly enough because I was watching the Michigan V. Nebraska game – quick shout out to my friend Katie McGregor, GO BIG BLUE!  It wasn’t much of a game as Michigan crushed the Corn Huskers 45 to 17, but hey, it kept my mind from spelling out M-O-N-O-T-O-N-Y with every stride.  The last 5 miles which I ran at close to my threshold pace – aka 5:45 min/mile – were a test of my mental fortitude…but I guess I need some of that during my training for a marathon.

Emily Brown and me dressed as presents, participating in the Life Time Fitness Reindeer Run 2010.  It is is hard to run when you can't use your arms! 

My fitness continues to progress and I am excited to see what the next two weeks will hold as I prepare to run in the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving day and the Rock’n’ Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon on Dec. 4^th.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Make it a good one and don’t forget to get your run in before you eat Turkey, because although it is just a wives’ tale that the tryptophan found in Turkey makes you sleepy, I know there is something about a Thanksgiving Feast that makes you not want to get in a run after it. 

ING New York City Marathon Weekend

Sorry for the late post, but what a weekend! I flew into LaGuardia Airport on Thursday for a long weekend in NYC. After a bit of a hairy drive from LGA to the Sheraton hotel in Manhatten, I was tired and ready for bed. But first I had to get in a run for the day, so I got changed and made my way to Central Park to do an easy 6 miles. I returned to the hotel… 9 miles later!  Central Park is a very beautiful place to run, and much bigger than I anticipated it would be. On a normal day I wouldn’t mind getting a few extra miles in by accident, but it made me slightly nervous due to the fact that I would be racing in two days. I decided to put it out of mind; I had felt good on the run and that is all that mattered.

Friday was full of a lot of different and exciting activities. The first activity of note being the technical meeting for the NYRR Dash to the Finish 5k. At 2pm on Friday the group of about 30 elite athletes gathered together to listen to the rules that would be governing the race, go over the course, transportation of baggage and athletes, and most importantly of all: receive our timing chips….and boy were there a lot of those! Each runner was assigned four timing chips. There were two “B” tags which are chips that a placed on the back of the runner’s bibs. One attaches to the front of our uniform and one attaches to the back. There were also two “D” tags which are chips that are looped onto your shoe and form into the shape of a D – one for each foot. The race organizers wanted to reassure us that we would get a time because it was important to them that we wouldn’t be pushing our watches in the race.  Can you guess why?

Because they didn’t want us to ruin the pictures that they were going to be taking by looking down at our watches and pushing buttons. They wanted us – especially the winner – to raise our arms in victory. I completely agree that these kinds of pictures are a lot more fun to look at, but I still think four timing chips was probably overkill.

 NASDAQ

After we finished with the technical meeting we made our way down to Times Square to participate in the coolest event of the day: we got to close the NASDAQ stock exchange for the weekend! It was really fantastic. We went into the NASDAQ and they took us into this room where there were all kinds of video cameras and other special equipment, we were given instructions on how the events would occur and then they put us all on stage and we went live! It wasn’t exactly 15 minutes of fame, but we were on national TV for about 3 minutes as we helped to close down the market for the weekend.  The event was even more exciting because it was the first day that Groupon had gone public – a significant development in the financial world.

Race Day

Next up, race day!  The NYRR Dash to the Finish Line 5K was scheduled to begin at 8:30am right outside the United Nations building. So to start off the day my alarm went off at 5:30am so that I could get some breakfast in my belly. At about 5:50am I was done eating my bagel, a banana and drinking some Gatorade and I had the coffee brewing in the little hotel coffee pot.

As the aroma of coffee filled the room I went about pining on my bibs and putting the D-tags on my shoes. Once those were arranged I put on all my racing attire and packed up my bag to get ready to meet all the other runners down in the hotel lobby at 7am so that we could make our way to the start area.  Once I finished packing I got my coffee and went through a mental checklist to make sure I was prepared for the race:

-uniform

-racing flats

-bibs

-water/Gatorade

-gloves/hat/arm sleeves

Check,check, check, check, check….READY TO GO!

All the runners meet downstairs and we walk a little over a mile on a brisk NY morning to the start line for the race. Once there we all split off into different groups and begin our warm-ups.  For myself that involves a 15min warm-up jog to get the muscles loose and blood moving, a good stretch, drills and strides.

Ten Minutes until race time!

My warm-up is complete now; I take some deep belly breaths to help calm my nerves, repeat to myself over and over “you can do this” and jog about lightly to keep my body warm.

Five Minutes until race time!

We are told to take off all of our warm-ups and get on the start line. The only thing that I have left on are my buns, singlet, gloves and arm sleeves – like I said it was a brisk morning so I opted for gloves and arm sleeves to keep me just a little warmer and so that my upper body wouldn't get tight.  I put my right hand over my heart as they play the national anthem and stare at the Star Spangled Banner, the United Nations as the back-drop to it all. Introductions are made, race commands are uttered and BANG!

The race is on…the race is out slow, 5:15 at the mile, so naturally there is a big group with all the women still together. But people are starting to get antsy, the pace starts to pick up but so do the hills - 5:10 for the second mile. There is still a big group but it is starting to spread out a little more. The last mile heads into central park where the biggest hill in the race is and then a very sharp left turn to head towards the finish. I make it up the hill and make the almost about-face turn and I am only a few seconds behind the leaders. The hill has really strung the field out as people are starting to hurt, the last mile is only slightly faster than the second mile timewise, but the effort is considerably more. So what on paper is a mile split of about 5:09, in my legs feels like 5:00 flat. 400 meters to go and I think I am somewhere around 9^th place, I kick hard still feeling strong and start passing women over the next 200m. 200 meters and one last hill to the finish line. Still running hard, my legs are starting to fatigue but I am so close, my brain doesn’t see or hear anything, it just keep repeating “push” like a broken record. Under the blue banner that is the finish line not only for this race but also the ING NYC Marathon – 5^th place!  I did it!

USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency)

I cross the finish line and take a big deep breath, thinking my work is done for the day. I start to walk with the other women and I am immediately stopped in my tracks…”Hello, I am a representative of USADA (UnitedStates Anti-Doping Agency), you have been selected for drug testing”.   DANG IT!

I have no problem submitting a sample for testing because I want to keep our sport fair and clean, but the process of providing a sample is not the most pleasant of experiences. First I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork, but my hands are freezing and my motor skills are almost non-existent. I manage to scribble out my name, address, etc. as I get checked-in. Now I have to wait…I have to wait without any warm clothes in an unheated tent and drink cold beverages, with the aim of trying to produce a 90ml urine sample. I wait…and wait…and wait. Two people go before me to try and get samples; both come back with only partial sample so they have to try again. I am shivering violently, teeth chattering, when I finally think I am ready to try. I am taken to the porta-potty, where I am instructed to wash my hands, dry them and open a sterile sample cup. Now the fun part – produce a sample WHILE the lady is staring straight at your crotch to make sure you don’t contaminate your sample. Stage fright much?!  This isn’t my first time, so after a few seconds I am able to get the job done. Another victory! The rest of the process is equally as tedious – pouring the sample into different containers for testing and making sure it is all sealed and packaged correctly so that it isn’t tampered with. An hour later I am finally done and can leave to go get warm. Hallelujah! 

The rest of the weekend is a whimsical breeze. I spend some time doing touristy things around NYC with some family (Jeanie and Bruce Coopersmith) who came down to watch my race from upstate NY. THANKS GUYS! And, I get to watch the ING New York City Marathon from one of the best seats in the house - the first row in the finish line grandstands. The races didn’t disappoint, both the men’s and women’s course records were conquered and the women’s race was gut-wrenching to watch (click here for a full recap).

All in all it was a very exciting weekend and I am looking forward to getting back to training and my next race…the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving Day!

Race Prep - Time to Lock and Load

Happy Halloweeeeeen! Another week has gone by and I have spent it in preparation for the NYRR Dashto the Finish Line 5K, which according to a recent press release boasts some big time names in the world of professional running:

“The inaugural NYRR Dash to the Finish Line will draw some big names, including Olympians Deena Kastor and Dathan Ritzenhein, on Saturday, November 5, during ING New York City Marathon weekend.

The race will offer a flat and fast 3.1-mile course through the heart of Manhattan, starting near the United Nations, crossing Midtown on famed 42nd Street, and heading uptown to Central Park for the last dash across the world-renowned ING New York City Marathon finish line.”

The start of the ING NYC Marathon

When I read these names along with a host of other names mentioned later in the article, namely USA 5K record holder Molly Huddle, multiple time Olympian Magdalena Lewy Boulet, and Kenyan superstar and silver medalist at 10,000m at the World Championships Sally Kipyego, my initial instinct is to take a big “gulp” and think “oh crap, what have I gotten myself into”. In years past, I would dwell on the fact that the current credentials of these women are more impressive than mine and waste a lot of energy thinking about that fact instead of putting it all into the race. But, that was the old me.

Some people assume that at this point in my running career I don’t get nervous anymore, but that assumption is far from true. I have just learned, through a number of different resources, to control my anxiety and use the energy that I could have wasted thinking about things out of my control to channel that energy into racing. The fact of the matter is that all the women (and men) who line up on race day put their singlets, shorts and shoes on the same way that I do. So when I start to feel a wave of adrenaline rush over my body, I remind myself that I belong. I put in the hours of training every day of every week, I go to bed early even if it isn’t the “cool” thing to do, and I attempt to eat more healthy foods than unhealthy foods – and boy is that a challenge because I have one wicked sweet tooth! In short, I do my best to live the life of an Olympian.

So, looking ahead to this Saturday in New York, my goal is to keep reminding myself that I belong until that blissful moment when the gun goes off, my mind goes blank and the world becomes quiet as every ounce of energy become focused on the task at hand. If I can accomplish this then I know that when I walk away from the finish line I will be able to hold my head up high and say “I gave it my best shot today”.

Questions and comment are welcome…so fire away!

-Meghan

Meghan's Patented Weight Loss Formula: Lose one pound per hour!

I left off last week with a mission to find out how much fluid I lose per hour when running hard. Last Thursday before a hard workout of 2 ½ mile repeats I weighed myself right before I headed out the door and again an hour and half later when I returned to the gym exhausted.  I hopped on the scale and it said I was 1.5lbs lighter than when I started out that morning. I hope that doesn’t make me too unfeminine, because women don’t sweat right?!   That means that on this day I lost approximately 16 oz of fluid per hour (actually 15.3 fluid ounces using 1.043 dry ounces = 1 water ounce near sea level, but I would rather round up slightly than down). However, I think I will test this out a few more times before the marathon in January, because I want to make sure that I get a good average.

Earlier this morning I was filling out the “fluids form” provided by the Houston Marathon Committee, and I was able to find out where they will have the fluid tables set up on the day of the marathon.

Mile 3.2,  Mile 6.0,  Mile 8.6,  Mile 11.2,  Mile 14.0, Mile 16.6,  Mile 19.2,  Mile 22.0,  Mile 24.6

If my average sweat rate does indeed turn out to be 16floz per hour than I will need to consume 2 cups of fluid per hour in the marathon for a total of about 5 cups during the entire race. As you can see above there will be 9 fluid stations available. So between now and January I will need to devise a plan of how to use those 9 stations to get in all the fluids that I will need to help me run my best. But before I can decide on the best approach I will need to do some more experiments. The most important of these being, how much fluid I can comfortably consume while running sub 6min mile pace.  It sounds so easy to just take a drink, but when you take into account that I hope to be running 5:50-5:45 pace or faster, breathing hard, carrying a bottle along for a short ways, and trying to contend with the other women in the race to get to my bottle, you quickly realize it is more than just taking a drink. More aptly put by another fantastic runner, Lauren Fleshman, “When you have never done a marathon, it isscary as s%#!”

Lauren is currently training for the ING New York City Marathon, which will be her first. I have really enjoyed reading her humorous blogs posts as she trains for the 5 boroughs marathon. I am really pumped to get to be in NYC on the weekend of the marathon where I will compete in the NYRR Dash to the Finish Line 5K the day before I watch Lauren and another inspirational runner – Jen Rhines – compete in the ING New York City Marathon! 

Good luck to these ladies and to any of my readers who will be running. I will be cheering loudly and losing my voice in all the excitement! 

Fluid Therapy

Hard core marathon training has finally begun. I had been looking forward to it with equal parts trepidation and excitement. I’m nervous because I am entering a whole new world of training but at the same time I am excited because I know that this training is going to help me get stronger across every event that I run. The greatest motivation comes from knowing that I am training for such an exciting event – the USA Olympic Team Marathon Trials.

In the past two weeks I have logged over 100 miles per week – hitting an average of 16 miles a day. Not only have my average runs gotten longer, but so have the workouts. As my coach Dennis keeps telling me, I have to train to put more force into the ground for a long time. That will be the key to running a fast marathon in January.

So far my body is holding up pretty well, not really any ill effects due to the increased mileage. I am cautious because I am entering new territory and don’t know 100% how my body will react, but at the same time I want to push the envelope and test the strength of my spirit.  I want to see how far my body can go, because when I cross the finish line on Jan. 14^th, 2012 (13 weeks from now) – I want to be able to say “I trained my very best, and I did my best today”.

Now that the intense marathon training has started it is also time for me to figure out what kinds of fluids and supplements I can tolerate and work best for me to use during the marathon. First, I am going to need to figure out my sweat rate – this will determine how much fluid I need to take in and how often it needs to be done during the race. It sounds complicated, but I have found out that it is relatively easy to determine –weigh myself before and after a hard hour run. The drop in weight will determine how much fluid I lost through sweat and therefore how much I need to take in per hour. I will also test out different kinds of supplements I can take. I don’t want to take something that is going to upset my stomach and cause any more discomfort than I am going to feel simply because I am running 26.2 miles. I am going to test out several different kinds: Gu, Hammer Gel, Sport Beans or take a page of out of Kenny Moore's book "Bowerman and the Men of Oregon" and drink flat coke. It will all come down to which will be easiest to take and not cause any adverse effects. I guess we will see. 

Cheers to happy running! I am off to do my experiments… adios and feel free to share any tips that have worked for you!

   

                                                            Bunny ears for Jennifer, one of my Auggie Runners!