Hijacking the NYT Q&A

So I’m quite enjoying The New York Times’ series on marathon training. They have some wonderful writers, such as Liz Robbins, who is probably my favorite sports writer, contributing articles to the series. But if you’ve read this blog for more than a couple of posts, I’m sure you’ve already gleaned the childish glee I take in skewering things. So my skewers below are not intended as a dig on Tara Parker-Pope’s Q&A article.

The article to which I am referring is called, of course, “The Summer Running Slump.” And did ever respond to it, because I am slumping hard.

Starting with the good bits (from the “A” portion of the article):

“I tell people, right now the goal is consistency, just getting out the door to get your runs in. The pace or how you feel is less important than it will be a few months down the line. It frees them to not put too much pressure on themselves. They’re thinking, “14 miles is so hard, how am I ever going to run 20 miles?” But if they just focus on getting out the door and being consistent, usually things will come around…”

Please, god, let them come around soon, because even though I am lucky to be training during an exceptionally cool summer, I am so feeling the drag. I did 14 miles last weekend, and reading this, I thought exactly that! How the hell *am* I going to run 20, much less 26.2? Then I re-read the article (Like most of ya’ll, I don’t read on the Innernetz, I scan) and saw that the Q&A was with none other than Greg McMillan, who is none other than the architect of my torture training program!

It was like getting personal training advice from a coach! A coach whom I have never met or talked to, but hey, on the Innernetz we’re all best friends, right? So I kept reading.

“Q:  How much does running pace right now tell us about our marathon pace in the fall?

A: You can still make a lot of improvement. If you’re a beginning runner, your rate of improvement will be greater than someone who is more experienced. You’ve got more room to improve. You can expect, and you should expect, that you improve quite a bit as the race gets closer. This is the time you’ve got to focus on just getting your running in, and just living through the initial fitness building process. When you’re building fitness, it’s always the hardest part.”

Well this is fabulous news! I thought I was pretty fit before, flying through a half-marathon in a very respectable time, thank you very much. But I guess there’s always room for improvement. This explains the fact that the only noticeable difference in my pace thus far is…nothing. Not one whit of improvement. My hamstrings are getting extraordinarily tight, though. I’ve stopped wearing heels at the office, they hurt so much, and it’s not like I wore anything higher than an inch to begin with. Hopefully they’ll stop improving soon so the rest of my body can catch up.

(Remember back in the bubble days, when Sex and the City was on TV? Remember the episode where Miranda falls in her bathroom and can’t get up and she calls Carrie to come save her, but Carrie’s a flake and sends her boyfriend instead? And she hollers something into the phone along the lines of “my body’s all fucked up from the marathon!” when Carrie resists? That’s what I envision happening to me by the time this marathon is over. Seriously. Lying on the bathroom floor, so stiff that I can’t even sit up under my own power. Why did I sign up for this again?)

Anyway. I had two major giggle moments when reading Mr. McMillan’s answers to Ms. Parker-Pope’s questions. The first was when he talked about the weather breaking:

“The hardest part right now is the weather change. People are excited about running their fall marathon, but right when you want to be feeling your best the weather changes, and it can be hot and humid. The weather keeps you from feeling good right as you’re getting started in your marathon training, and that can be kind of a bummer.”

Uh, not in New York, bud. Here the weather got stuck back on “May showers” and never progressed as far as “April flowers”, much less to summer. We still haven’t broken 90 degrees yet this summer in New York, as far as I’m aware. So if we’re counting on weather changes to make that whole improvement thing happen, this program ain’t gonna work.

But the real you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me moment came when my coach suggested an insane list of cross training activities:

Q: What else should we be doing besides running to build fitness?

A: As you get more fit, the running gets a little bit easier. Augmenting running with cross training activities can help burn calories and improve fitness. Spin classes, swimming, an elliptical trainer is great. Aqua jogging or water running is an option. If you’re a beginning runner, that’s what you want to be doing to be as fit as possible.

Uh, yeah, I’ll fit those right into my schedule! Never mind that getting up at 5:30 AM to run 4 days a week barely gets me to work on time, plus I’m cranky as an unnapped preschooler every Tuesday and Thursday from sleep deprivation! Yep! Sign me right up!

So I’m thinking about switching to the Galloway method instead. While I’d dearly love to run a marathon in less than 4 hours – which theoretically means shaving thirty minutes off of my expected time, based on the half-marathon – it’s going to take more than a break in some comparatively pleasant weather to make that happen.

Have I made a tactical error in choosing this training program?

What do you think – drop it in favor of the Galloway method, or stick with it and see what happens in September?

Post-Hiatus Update

Apologies for disappearing; summer vacation called, and I answered. The great news is that I have lots of good running pictures and stories to write about in the coming weeks – some good blog fodder!

A couple of updates from prior posts:

• Enell bras are pretty good. My biggest complaint is that when you sweat in them, you get really itchy between the boobs, and there’s no way to scratch through all that fabric. Also the band is pretty tight around my chest, so I have to be very careful about what I eat before running or I get a serious case of indigestion. So far I am chafe free, however!
• My new Sennheiser earphones are still great, although I’m discovering that I can go for longer and longer distances without music.
• Since my disappearance, I’ve been trying out The New York Times interactive training tool, with moderate success. I’ve opted for the McMillan Running Race Ready Program, and while I’m not running any faster, I am now able to run in warm weather without feeling ill, which is really nice. It was 85 degrees out yesterday, and I managed to do a six-mile run including some speedwork, which used to kill me. I’m liking the four-day running schedule pretty well, too.

So that’s it for now. More coming soon!

Relearning How to Run

Normally I don’t blog at work, but today is a warm, sunny Friday, preceding a weekend for which Weather.com is offering 80 degree weather predictions. Pop quiz: how many students do you really think are going to hang around the library on a sunny Friday afternoon late in the second semester?

If you guessed any number over 2, you clearly have never been to college, or you had some bizarrely misplaced priorities while you were there. I assume the two students here today must be failing their classes AND actually care about the possibility of failure, because otherwise they would be outside sunning themselves like so many iguanas.

Also I have not received an email in nearly an hour, an unprecedented occurrence that leads me to believe that some of those half-naked figures on the lawns outside the library are actually my colleagues.*

With that mildly alarming thought out of the way, let’s get back to the topic at hand: running.

As in, at the age of 30, I am re-learning how to run all over again, and boy does it feel weird. I was so sure I’d figured this out, oh, 28 years ago? Then my physical therapist gave me some exercises to correct weaknesses in my hips and my ankle, and now running just feels wrong, difficult, and unfamiliar. I have to work to remember to make my foot roll when it hits the ground, and to keep my arms at my sides instead of flinging them across my body like I normally do. Suddenly I am working on my form, and while it is definitely improving both my running times and my knee, mentally it feels a lot harder. I can’t just zone out to Goldfrapp as I pound out the miles any more.

The orthotics also don’t seem to be doing quite the same thing that my fauxthotics did for my gait. I still get some knee pain when I run. And I am running. I am, in fact, doing some speed work in the form of sprints during my 3-mile training runs. I just haven’t been blogging about it. I’m a little disappointed that the orthotics weren’t a panacea.

This weekend, however, offers a golden opportunity for me to write about my least favorite running conditions: warm weather. I feel as though I am staring at a race through the Sahara when I think of all the training I’m going to have to do this summer. It makes me want to compensate with a nap and a beer.

Assuming I manage to stave off temptation, expect a nice long post this weekend on how much I hate running any time it’s over 60 degrees outside. I have a big test on Sunday that I’m sure will induce serious procrastination in the form of blogging.

*Thank goodness, the President just emailed all of campus a copy of the school’s updated drug and alcohol policy, probably in preparation for the gorgeous weekend that will undoubtedly involve lots of drug and alcohol abuse by students. It is a small comfort to know that at least the school President is not half-naked on the lawn.

All Systems Go!

Today was my last appointment with my physical therapist! Sniff. I mean, yay! While I will miss his metaphors, I am very happy to get the PT seal of approval to run again – without pain, this time. I also have permission to do the Brooklyn Half Marathon at the end of May. Since I’m the cautious sort, I’m going to get my real orthotics and go for a run before signing up, just to see how it goes, but I’m psyched!

My secret twin – fraternal; sadly, we look nothing alike, and she is much prettier than I am – told me that this year the course is going to be reversed. For those unfamiliar with the race, this means that instead of starting in Coney Island and running to Prospect Park, we’ll be running the opposite direction. I plan to imagine myself as Jean-Pierre Léaud in Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), running from his unbearable life to the ocean, where metaphysical enlightenment continues to elude him. (Oops. I pulled a Brittney Spears and did it again. I’d make a terrible film reviewer. Sorry.)

Last year when I ran this race, it was quite the cultural experience. Living in Manhattan it isn’t uncommon to see Hasidic Jews around town, but even when you read about enclaves of Jews one tends to forget that they exist right here in New York. Or maybe that’s just my myopia. Anyway, it was quite something to be running up from Coney Island through Ditmas Park and be surrounded by these soberly dressed families who pretty clearly did not approve of Spandex-clad runners thundering through their streets. Actually, Fred Lebow, one of the founders (the founder?) of the New York Marathon was from a conservative Jewish family, and this is part of the reason that the marathon goes through heavily Jewish neighborhoods. Also, I have to imagine that those routes just make sense, but there’s an interesting account of Fred’s sometimes fraught reltationship with the Orthodox Jewish community in a book entitled Anything for a T-Shirt. It’s a pretty good read; I recommend looking for a copy at your local library.

My favorite marathon book, however, is Liz Robbins’ A Race Like No Other. Not only does she have a great writing style, she seems to have a good way with people and a lot of sympathy for the rigors of training. I’d recommend this book to anyone even considering the New York Marathon.

Last year’s Brooklyn Half hurt. My green goodness, did it ever hurt. It was quite a scene trying to get home: I was one of probably twenty or so people clinging to the railings and limping with great difficulty down the stairs into the subway. There was not one single part of me that wasn’t seriously in pain last year. I was shivering so hard on the subway home that I nearly shook the train right off its rails. I spent the rest of the day in the bathtub in very hot water, and then I fell asleep in the midafternoon for a really long time.

Here’s hoping that this year that happens again, minues the cripling knee pain! You’ll just have to picture me holding up my glass and toasting yours.

Running is a pain in the…

You know that kid’s song that goes, “Hambone’s connected to the…thigh bone…thigh bone’s connected to the…butt bone…butt bone’s connected to the…foot bone” and so on and so forth? It was not nearly as good a teaching tool for anatomy as running is.

This week I have been in a world of hurt. I have a pretty decent clue as to why: I ran ten miles through Prospect Park last weekend. For those who have not experienced the joys of Prospect Park, it is a) in Brooklyn, and b) really pretty, and c) way hillier than my usual stomping ground along the East River Park. In the ERP I have to run up ramps to get hill workouts, and they’re closer to bump workouts. There’s a little amphitheater at Corlears Hook that you can get a bit of elevation from, but otherwise it is as flat as the midwestern states I left behind years ago. It’s really easy to do my unbelievably consistent pace of ten-minute-miles (I have been told that I am “a robot” which I don’t really appreciate since I would LOVE TO BUST INTO THE NINE-MINUTE-MILE ZONE, but my legs just aren’t cooperating) on this lovely flat surface.

The other reason I am in pain this week is because of my best running friend, my Garmin Forerunner 405. Because it wasn’t enough just to finish the race in Prospect Park last weekend, I had to stay on pace, too. The Garmin says so and the Garmin is never wrong. Ever. Except when it says I have five miles left to go and it really means five hundred meters, it’s just forgotten that we were supposed to stop soon.

So in order of magnitude, I broke all of the rules for ramping up your running program: I added too much mileage (three miles last week), I added too much speed (my first-ever 2-mile tempo run) and I added too much difficulty (lots of hills). Any one of those would have been fine, but together they were just too much. The hill squiggles on my Garmin’s running report looked like a diagram of the recent stock market, as opposed to its more usual resemblance to the electrocardiogram of a cardiac arrest victim.

So now I am intimately connected to body parts I hardly knew existed. I mean, are there weights for your hip flexors? How on earth do you make those stronger? It’s amazing what a combination of running and a little internet research can teach you about anatomy. Kids, trust me, you will barely remeber that stupid song in thirty years. It is not an effective instructional tool. Wikipedia tells me that the butt bone is actually called the “pelvis.” Who knew? And I thought a hambone was something you fed dogs before dog food came in bags.

So what am I gonna do about the pain? Run another ten miles tomorrow, that’s what.

But I think I’ll leave my pace bunny at home and take the camera instead so I can finally get some pictures onto this site.  Sound fair, butt bones or whatever you are?

It begins…

This morning. Yes, this very morning, it arrived!

It was in my email inbox as I ate breakfast in my running gear. It’s orange, and it looks like this, minus the images which I’ll work on later:

“February 25, 2009

Congratulations MARIAN!

You’re eligible for guaranteed entry to the most spectacular marathon in the world, the ING New York City Marathon 2009, on Sunday, November 1. To claim your guaranteed entry, you must apply.

For complete instructions to guide you through the application process, click here. To claim your guaranteed entry, apply by May 1, 2009. Click here to apply online now.”

It’s official: I’ve earned entry into what is possibly the biggest and best athletic event in New York City. This is THE MARATHON of marathons. Sorry, Boston. Sorry, Chicago. New York is the best. So why on earth did it take me seven years to get around to doing this event? I’m sure the answer has something to do with the distance. No matter how much you love a city, 26.2 miles is enough to give anyone pause, especially a runner who lists decidedly to the lazy side of distance running.

For the next six months, I’ll be blogging my runs in, around, and through the streets of New York. (I’m going to try to avoid under. I run in the subway far too often as it is.) The final and hopefully triumphant end to this project will be me crossing the finish line in Central Park next November. Are you with me?

Good. Because I’m gonna need all the help I can get.

A little note on signing up for the marathon: Generally you can’t just walk in off the street and sign up. Well, you can, but with over 100,000 applicants and slightly under 40,000 total participants, your chances of winning the lottery are pretty low.* For residents of the area, the usual way to get in is the  method I chose: sign up for a membership with the New York Road Runners, complete 9 races and volunteer at a 10th, and receive the glorious email I refer to above. That process took me about a year, during which I slacked off substantially. The last way to get in is to join a charity, which usually costs money. I don’t have a lot of money, and I don’t have a lot of time for fundraising (you’d think you’d have one or the other – money or time – but as it turns out, you’d be wrong) (at least in this city, anyway), so that wasn’t an option either.

Now that I have my entry, it’s time to get serious. That means running three days a week, regardless of weather. I’ll outline my strategy in the next post. The good news is that I’m not starting from scratch. The bad news is that I’m going to have to get over my laziness in a hurry, because November is not really that far off.

And frankly, I’m a little frightened of all that distance. But I’m looking forward to some great runs through the city. It’ll be a new way to see my home.

* For the record, I have met exactly one person who got into the marathon through the lottery system; however I, personally,  rarely have such luck.