2017 Aspirations

Hopkinton start lines, and
Pounding up Heartbreak.
High fives at Wellesley and one more Gu I'll take
Running long miles for smiles in spring,
These are a few of my favorite things!

When the wall hits,
Or bad hamstrings,
Or my knees are mad,
I'll simply remember my favorite things,
And then I won't feel so bad!

(photo from mile 26.0 in 2012, 87 degrees. The picture shows elation. I was elated to have the finish line in sight as I'd thought I was going to collapse. I was completely delusional and steps away from entering 12 hours of wicked nausea and vomiting. lol why do I do this?!)

And if you're still reading, some training thoughts below.

Since Zoe was born, running is a whole different beast. Being well rested is not a thing. Having time is not a thing. I'm basically booked from 5:15am to 8pm. But what can I do with the time I do have, without further burning the candle at both ends? I realized with the last 4 marathons I've run that I've never run more than 30 miles a week. If I want to break 4 hours at Boston (barring any weather disasters), I've got to get some peak weeks closer to 50... which means I've got to fit in some cross training and core training to avoid injury...

I remember when I joined Greater Boston Track in 2011 that the first thing the coach asked me was how many miles a week I was running. I proudly told him 50 (ha, I probably did that twice,) and he kind of paused-- as in, 50 mpw was not enough to be a serious runner!!!! I guess I get it, especially in their elite, dedicated status. Mentally I know I can do 30 miles per week and run a marathon. It's comfortable. So the new challenge is to fit in more miles, and more purposeful miles, to see if we might be able to run a marathon better...

Goals:
1. Tuesday spin with Jen.
2. Planks and IT band stretching and foam rolling... let's make this realistic. Two mornings a week.
3. YASSOS. This has been the workout missing from my training consistently. "Yasso 800's" mean running 800m (0.5m) in your goal marathon time; ex. 4 hour marathon = running 0.5m in 4 minutes, followed by 4 minute recovery. You start with four of these repeats, and over time increase to 10 repeats. I think this is a huge part of what made my training successful for Marine Corps. And they're not that bad.
4. Hills - maybe Spickets? Though Andover has some good ones too, for sure. Once a week. This time I'm going to keep my long runs and hilly runs separate. Hilly long runs were too tiring.
5. Running hard the day before the long run. Yasso's might be a good way to do this. The intent is to tire you out, a. So you don't run too fast on the long run, and b. So you run long on tired legs, to get used to running on tired legs.
6. Lights out by 10pm on weeknights.
7. Taper by running the same intensity, with less distance. 2 yassos instead of 4. 1 hill repeat instead of 5. Etc.
8. Hit at least one 50 mile week. *If* I run 5 days that week, and one day is a 20 miler, that means 30 miles in 4 days. Which is basically 8 miles per day on the other 4 days. That's not that different from 5, right? ... Right?

Obstacles:
1. Time: Maybe run at 2:30 and come back to finish work until 4...? HAHA ya right.
2. Health: working hard without time for extra sleep.

::cough:: And the last list I've been working on...
Vices:
1. Coffee
2. Dancing in my car to terrible (and my terrible I mean amazing) hip hop from 15 years ago like I'm still in high school. I would say the same for 80's music except 80's music cannot possibly be a vice.
3. Staying up too late.
4. And apparently Boston Marathons :D :D :D