STILL recovering...

i ran a few times this week, and always muy suave y lento, as tiba instructed. the track was completely deserted due to Semana Santa vacation. The entire city has been a ghost town, for that matter. How pleasant! i kind of wish it was always like this! Culiacan is such a pleasant place... ha!

i didn't really have any pain this week, although my left hip still has twinges of sensitivity once in a while. tonight it feels fine, and at the track, it was my first day in the last few weeks when i actually felt like Running. Slava and I ran 2 miles together, and the 2nd one was at 8:45. i know better, though, and I slowed way down after that, letting slava go on ahead.

I can't wait until I start a new program! maybe tiba will have a plan starting this week. 

still recovering...

After a few days of not being able to walk, i feel 100% recovered from my great race. I tried to run a couple of times, though, and my legs still feel heavy and lethargic. I am in culiacan this week, and finally got to see tiba. He was really happy for me, and I gave him a nice gift of a new Nike running watch. I have signed up for the Santa Barbara Wine Country Half-Marathon on may 10th, but tiba seems to think it's too early for me. oh well! i'm sure his genius will bring me to success as always.

Race Report: Los Angeles Marathon 2008

This was my best race ever! What an amazing day i had!!!

Although there aren't really any weird or funny stories form the day, as there always are from mexico, the day went smoothly and i simply felt amazing.

I used the la subway (?) to get to the start line, and everything seemed really well organized. I dropped off my bag at the gear check, stood in line at the port-a-potties, and made my way to the starting area. It wasn't too crowded when I got there, and I wasn't too far from the start. I ducked through a fence where a bunch people were using a residential street to jog and warm up. The men were also using the yards and walls as bathrooms. ha! lines and lines of dudes standing against every bush. the ladies (myself included) found a bog tree/bush area, and we decided it was the ladies' room. it was certainly better than the alternative!

the began and I started only a minute or so after. I was swept up in all the excitement and passed the first mile at 7:45 or so. I decided to slow down, but the next 2 miles were downhill so I just "went with it". I missed the mile markers for 2 and 3 somehow, and at 4, my watch read 21 minutes for the last 3 miles! i was flying!! at this point i was a little nervous. I though that i might hit a wall too soon, but in general i felt great. better than ever before! over the next 8 miles, i slowly reducec my speed to about an 8:30 pace. After the 21km point, I started feeling those first fast miles. Nothing was painful, and i still felt great, but the perceived effort was rising. staying at an 8:30-8:45 pace was possible, but more difficult. I felt well-hydrated, though, and ate my little bags of honey and PB, and drank gatorade (although not as much as in previous races), and in general had a great time.

the race was full of "entertainment", lots of different kinds of drum lines, rock bands, gospel choirs, etc. I guess the mariachi bands were on a break when i passed :( I was hoping to see them. I did see, though, 2 sinaloense couples dancing to banda music in full sinaloa costume! ha ha! that was hilarious.

allyson met me at mile 18 and took some video. she, jill, and john all get good-friend-awards for the day for driving me around and/or cheering for me.

the best part of the race was between the mile 23 and 24 markers. the course enters downtown LA via a long, high bridge with an amazing view of the entire area. It was a gorgeous day, and on the bridge, there were no photogs, spectators, or anyone excpet the runners, and all you could hear was the soft patter of footsteps. what a lovely moment to have after 23 miles of loud "entertainment" and shouting crowds.

By that point, i had slowed quite a bit. I knew that I could even slow to a 10 min pace and still easily get my goal time, so the pressure was off and I could relax. I was already in shock at how fast my time was. I couldnt' believe how great i was feeling during the whole race. I never imagined i could run so many fast miles all in a row!!I had about 2 9:30 miles at some point, but i still felt pretty good (although i think i had stopped smiling at that point) and i had the oomph to sprint at the very end and passed up 5 or 6 people in the last 50 meters. My shocking time was 3:44:09. I am still in disbelief! An entire 10 minutes faster than my goal!!!

I had a great complimentay massage and exited the finish area through a parking garage to avoid the crowds. I walked back to the metro station (5 blocks... it felt far) and waited for John at our pre-arranged place. After being harrassed by a fat teenager with chapped lips and a nudey magazine, I saw John coming and escaped into his car. We celebrated with Mashti malone's peanut butter cuup ice cream and a meal at Real Food Daily. Today I am waddling, but somehow I also feel like I'm flying.

Yay! I can't wait for the next one!

pre-race thoughts

only 9 hours until the los angeles marathon!

i'm ready!

i'm such a ball of pent-up-carbs I can't even put anything into words. It's not that i'm hyper, I'm just scattered. i need to go to bed now and get some sleep.

race report coming soon....

new program, new outfit

i know it's silly, but i couldn't help it. i haven't been able to decide on what to wear for the marathon, so i decided to buy new shorts and a new top. That put me back by a whopping $84. WTF? i'm such a sucker. since when does running a race require nearly $200? the LA marathon costs $100, and parking at the expo will be $12 (maybe i'll ride the bus) and the out fit... well, you do the math. anyway, i don't remember races in mexico costing this much. sigh.

that being said, my new outfit looks and feels great! i will have a total of 2 pockets for fuel, and no clngy fabrics or extra baggy material. i'll try everything out tomorrow on a 17km run.

tiba's new program for the week:

today: 3x2000@9:36 (9:21, 9:11, 9:39...) plus 2km total of warm up or down.
tues:17km
wed. 6x800x200@3:52
th. 16km
fri. 10x200x200
sat: 30km.

my 2000s today felt great, although i did them too fast. i thought i would feel terrible, but i have recovered well from saturday. the morning was frustrating, though: i awoke at 6am to get to the track in time to get home in time to get back to school in time for a 10am class. i parked nea campus and fed the meter, only to realize that i had forgotten my running watch! tragic! i had to go home and do the 2000s in my 'hood. and i really wanted to run on the nice, cushy track. shame.

tomorrow should be a nice refreshing 17km. can't wait.

tiba is a genius

Does he even know how much $$$ he could be making, doing what he's doing, in the states? Runners part with $100s per month for personalized coaching, usually for not much more than a couple of one-on-one sessions and a few emails. I feel very very lucky to have Tiba on my side, even if he IS 1500 miles away.

When I hit the wall attempting a 20-miler a few weeks ago, it took a new program from Tiba and some major slowing-down to get my strength back. he assigned 2 full weeks of recovery workouts, and this past week was back into the groove of harder and a bit faster. a re-cap:

mon. 8km
tues. 19km
wed. 10km @ 5:10pace (4:45, 4:55, 4:55, 5:07, 5:06)
thurs. 4x1600@7:55 (8:06, 7:40, 7:50, 7:55)
Fri.: 5x400x200 (i rested instead)
sat: 32km

Although those workouts don't look too grueling, it was my first week with a "tempo" run (the 10km) and it felt great to really dig into some speed and distance at the same time again. By the time I got to friday, something inside me (specifically, my digestive system) told me that i needed another rest day before the 32km, so i just took it. I was hanging out near a toilet the whole day. I blame all the fruits and veggies i couldn't get enough of form my local farmer's market on wednesday and thursday...

So, yesterday's big 20-miler started out ok, although I started out late just in case the GI problems from the day before weren't finished. All was fine, but the late start meant i would be running in mid-day heat, so i changed my plan to include 4 home-stops. This was a great idea, because on each loop i used all 17 oz of fluid which i carried. I also ate 2 little shots of honey and PB, but i think that in the future i will go back to just honey. the PB was a bit heavy.

by mile 14 or so, i was hurting. my left hip/leg continues to give me problems, and i started taking full advantage of all stoplight breaks with stretching and waiting as long as possible. I knew I would finish, but i'm sure my stride and my face revealed everything about how i was feeling. I blame the health issues rom the day before, the heat, and the hard week of training. Remember, too, that I just did a 19miler last saturday (which felt great, by the way.) I slowed way down, and my last two 5-km legs were each 35 minutes long. ha! bu, i am very VERY glad that I did it all.

my hip has a dull ache which hurts sometimes constantly and sometimes only when there is both weight and twisting/rotating motion. it worries me. last night i couldn't sleep because of it (it felt like gorwing pains), but this morning it feels much better. I might have Slava ask tiba about it. sometimes the pain radiates down my leg and feels like it's concentrated in my lower calf/shin. strange.

I think that this week marks the beginning of a taper. although I have terrible memories of my taper before the mazatlan marathon of 06, (bloating, excess energy, wacky appetite, etc), I'm hoping that this time i'm able to handle myself better. everything gets easier with experience, right? i hope so!!!

it's been a long month

I have struggled and wondered and not known and questioned and, in the end, over-trained myself.

Tiba did not show up at the track during my last week in Culiacan, so I began the New Year with nothing besides me own running wisdom to draw on. Obviously, that wisdom hass grown significantly over the last 1 1/2 years, but I still know nothing.

I made a plan for my weekend long runs, which would have brought me to a 22-miler before the marathon. I looked at my old Escuinapa plan and my ol LaLa plan (which i never used), and i tried to put together a weekly program, but I couldn't remember exactly what I did in the Fall of '06 before the Maraton Pacifico!

I did some long runs in Edmonds on a treadmill because of the hideous weather, and i did some mile-repititions (6x1600@7:45 or so) and some 400's and all kinds of stuff. Since being in LA, i have done up to 8x800@3:40-3:50, 5x1000s@4:20, 400s at 1:40... i even did a 10-miler at 8:40. My fridays have been 15x200x200 fartlek. Everything was going well. Sometimes it is hard to stay motivated here because I have no one to talk with about all this stuff. I didn't realize how much a part of training is discussing! I generally don't have a problem doing the workouts, but when i don't have a coach, a program, or even a single friend here who knows what i'm going through... well... it's hard.

I did a 17-miler a few weeks ago at a decent pace (faster than 10 minutes for sure), but the following weeks' 15-miler at a 9 min pace was hard. I tried to back off, but I'm terrible at slowing down. Last weekend I was planning on a 20miler, but at 10miles i bonked. I was finishing a loop and refilling my water bottle, and I just crashed. I couldn't finish! I couldn't even do 1 more mile. It was the first time anything like that had happened, and I was really bummed.

Miraculously, Tiba knew what I was up to, as usual. He randomly contacted my old cell phone, which natasha has, and assigned a new program for me. Slava called him back, and he KNEW that I had been working too hard (i still don't know why he couldn't have contacted me sooner....) anyway, he said that it was my FRIDAYS which killed me, and overall going too fast (no more 4:20 kms for me!) and that i needed to slow down and build the resistance. He said the speed will be there on March 2. Right now i need the miles.

SO, my new and improved schedule it like this:

mon: 8km
tues: 6x1600@8:10
wed.:17km
thurs:12x400
fri:15x1x1
Sat:27km
sun:off
and next week the same, but 30 km ending the week.

If i can keep it slow (so far so good), i should be fine. My 17km this morning felt great. 10min miles, easy, no problem.

slow, slow slow...