The Switch

Please keep in mind that you have to run slower when the temps and humidity are high. Remember for every degree of temperature over 65 or every 1% of humidity over 65% you need to add 2 seconds per mile. Therefore if it is 75 degrees and 85% humidity then you should think about running a full minute slower than your goal race pace!! Bottom line is that there are going to be hot and humid days and we need to react accordingly.

That blurb has been posted on the Get Fit Atlanta forums every week since probably mid-May.  I hadn't really thought about it until yesterday.  I've spent most of the summer bummed about how slow my outdoor runs are.  They've been ranging from 12 min/mile to 13:15 min/mile.  Even when I have a 'great' run, it's still frustratingly slow. But, if I do the math on the temps and humidity during these runs,s I can usually take a minute+ off the time if we were closer to 'perfect conditions.'  And that's not so bad. 

Last night's 6 miler through the hills of Buckhead were rough going.  But, I felt strong.  Strong enough to run up some of the tougher hills with no walk breaks.  Strong enough to keep up with our Queen of the Hills up those hills.  Rawr!

This was confidence building after Saturday's conquering of Nickajack.  I need confidence now.  I need to build up my belief in myself.  After the run, I was celebrating my "made the hill my b!tch," when my friend Harry said "it's like a switch.  you spend all this time training in the heat - thinking 'This SUCKS' - and then one day - it's like a switch is flipped and the heat doesn't matter as much."

He's absolutely right.   The heat still sucks, but it's not keeling me over like it has in the past.  And that's a great thing.

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Climbing The Hill

My facebook friends will know that Saturday, I conquered the bane of my existance.  "Nickajack."

My run group has lots of pet names for this hill.  Nick-a-whack.   Nick-a-crack.  The beast.  Whatever.

The first 1/4 mile is by far the worst of this hill.  After a long run on the comet, it's daunting.  If you're not careful, you can exert way too much on the first 1/4 mile of the hill, leaving yourself struggling with 2 more miles to the top.  Oddly, it's how my group ends every long run after 6 miles. 

Until Saturday, I've never ran the full 2.3 miles up the hill.  I'd make it a bit and then resolve to 'walk/run' the rest of it.  Several people kept saying "Nickajack's mental," but I had a hard time wrapping my head around running the whole thing. 

Saturday was hot and so the 9+ miles leading up to Nickajack were just miserable.  It was hot.  Sweat was dripping off my clothes.  I was ready to be d.o.n.e.  I got to the bottom and thought, "not this week, for sure."

But, my friend from the bike wreck - she was right there with me.  She drug my arse up that hill, breaking it up piece by piece and making it much less...overwhelming...

And I ran every damn step.  And I got high fives from everyone waiting for me at the top. 

And next week, I'm going to do it all over again.  

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Setting My Expectations Too High

After a great ride last night, I opted to head to dinner with the group.  I don't usually stay because of time restraints on the family, but DH and the boys had gone to the $1 movie last night while I rode and wouldn't be home any time.

After dinner, I got to talking with my run group head coach and my friend from the accident on Sunday (she came out for an easy run and dinner.)  I was talking about my run yesterday morning - and how I felt that I could have pushed myself harder (faster) than I did.

My head coach said "Your problem is that you set your expectations too high."

Hmmm...

Why isn't a tempo run at almost 2 minutes faster than my long run pace good enough?  Oh, yeah, because I hate my long run pace and want my tempo pace to be my long run pace.  I expect with all the running I do, an increase in speed should come naturally.

But...

Realistically, I didn't take training seriously last fall/winter.  Come to think of it, I've never taken running training very seriously.  Even my tri-training isn't as focused as I want it to be.  (side note: it is kind of hard to train for two endurance events at the same time...)

For ING, I didn't do the work.  I didn't put in the mileage, the speed work, the tempo runs, the long runs.  I could have done serious damage that day.  I dropped back in pace groups to a more comfortable long run pace.  I'm opting to focus on consistency, which means getting the distances in.  I should be sacrificing speed for distance.  Trying (Expecting) to increase both simultaneously is a recipe for injury (failure*).  

So, I'm going to work on wrapping my head around the 'it's good enough' idea.  Miles over Time (for the most part, I obviously still need to push myself some.)   Maybe next year, I can worry about going faster.

*No, I'm not saying your a failure if you get injured and can't train/compete.  I'm saying that getting injured is a failure to accomplish the goal of crossing the finish line.

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Fighting the "I Can't"

"I Can't" is an argument I fight daily.  With kids who still want you to do it for them.  With new people at work.  With my head, it tries to define my capabilities.  Pinpointing the problem is that I tend to be self depreciating.  Tend to?  Ok, I am.  I have a lot of negative self-talk. 

I had a rough time of it this morning with my tempo run.  5 minutes warmup - 35 minutes fast - 5 minutes cooldown.  In my mind, I still can't run over 5.3mph without gasping for breath.   In reality, I can push a lot harder for that for an increasing amount of time.  I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. 

This morning, I did the tempo portion of the run at 6.2.  I wasn't overly exerted.  I finished the tempo portion and still felt like I could keep running.  I even felt a little disappointed in myself that I could have pushed harder - but didn't.  However, for the entire run, I struggled to push down the "You can't do this anymore" thoughts.  Several times, I reached to lower the speed because, well, I don't even have a good reason why I wanted to lower the speed. 

The struggle to be 'good enough' in our own mind is so hard.  Thin enough.  Fast enough.  Smart enough.  Why is it so hard to be worthy of loving ourselves?  At what point, are we holding ourselves back from obtaining the sucess we want - in life, in athletics, in love, in careers, in whatever - because we're so busy mentally thinking we don't deserve it?

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Going Gump on Sunday's Events

TNR (Tuesday Night Run) has become one of my favorite weekly events.  I have only missed one or two since the first of April.  I'm getting stronger.  I'm getting leaner (even though the scale disagrees).  I'm being consistent.  Consistency is good.

Last night, the run was more mentally therapeutic than physically challenging.

Some of you may know, that my Sunday bike ride this week was dramatic.  We were out doing the Bud Plant 48 miler (which we've learned how to make into a 50 miler and remove the infamous "six-dog hill" from the equation.)  At about mile 45, one of my friends did a face plant on the asphalt.  I was about 45 seconds behind her and the rest of the group was probably 45 seconds ahead of us.  Emotionally, it was rough going.  She was unresponsive as I approached.  By the time I unclipped and got to her, she was barely moaning.  She's okay, but finished her ride in the back of a Bartow Co. EMS.  I was pretty shaken up, too. 

Coming up on your friend in that state is very hard. I didn't do everything perfect.  There are things I should have done differently.  In the middle of a crisis, I held it together.  I got her taken care of.  I did the right thing.

On my way home from Cartersville, the emotional side got the better of me.  I needed to talk to someone about how I was feeling.  I felt wrong to call another group member to put it out there.  Because our friend was still in the ER.  It made me feel selfish.  

I tried to talk to my husband about it.  He didn't react very well.  He became fixated on the point of the story that she and I were "alone" at that point in the ride.  He was deaf on anything else.

So, for almost two days, I bottled it up.  Nightmares, anxiety, guilt.  I've run the gamut of emotions over this.  People keep saying "hero," and that just makes me feel uncomfortable. 

As two of my running buddies and I headed down Peachtree to run what we refer to as the "Reverse Arden," it all just came spilling out.  For two miles, they just let me babble about every thought about the whole ordeal.  They were supportive.  They were reassuring.  It was quite frankly what I needed. 

My friend is okay.  A 'mild concussion' and some pretty nasty road rash on her face.  She says she feels like someone hit her side with a baseball bat - or a big piece of asphalt.  She's off the bike for at least two weeks (which hurts at less than 10 weeks to Augusta).   I get to get back on my bike tomorrow night (at the Silver Comet Bike Depot) and get over the anxiety I have about the bike.   It won't be a 'fast' ride - it'll be about regaining some confidence that was compromised on Sunday. 

Truthfully, I'm tired of talking/thinking/rehashing all this right now.  So, in the immortal words of Forrest Gump...

"And, that's all I got to say about that."

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Things Are Going...

It's funny.  When you've been away from your blog for a while, it's so hard to come back.  It's hard to figure out what's 'important' enough to catch people up on and it feels ridiculous to just start posting like you've never missed a beat.  So, you put it off for another day.   Then another.  Then another.

Then someone makes a comment about your blog and you're almost embarrased when you realize how lax you've been about updating.  So, you tuck your tail between your legs and hit the "New Post" button and start to type.

The countdown on my desktop says 68 days to Augusta 70.3.  Truthfully, I'm petrified.  I'm not getting near the time in the saddle that I need.  Swimming is suddenly really hard.   And, let's face it - I've always been a slow runner.  So, I look at cutoff times and get a little, well, concerned.

Consistency is key.  I'm much more consistent than I was before ING.  Still functioning on the mentality that something snapped on those lonely miles through Atlanta back in March.  Something made me realize that I can't fake it through these races.  I've actually got to train - on a regular basis. 

My diet is still for crap.  Same weight.  No loss, no gain (so that's something).  Too much soda, not enough water.  Too much eating out.

We're buying a house.  Much bigger house with room for all the little ones - who aren't so little anymore.  We don't close until end of August.  We won't move until October or November.  Our goal is to have current house on the market by January 1. 

New job is great.  It's really hard going from the rockstar to bottom of the class.  Somedays I'm really overwhelmed. 

I would say I'm going to be better about posting.  But that will remain to be seen.  :)  Have a great day!

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Finding Balance

So.  I got a new job.   Realistically, I got a career.  I'm leaving behind the comfortableness of administrative work to become a certified financial planner.  The firm that I work for has two sides:  The CPA side and the Wealth Management side.  My new role will bring new challenges and new opportunities.  The firm is funding the training.  In addition to classroom training, I'm going to get immediate on job training.

Well, maybe I spoke too soon about immediate.

You see, my work motto has always been:  make yourself as indespensible as possible.  When promotions/raises are given, managers/bosses/etc remember the hardest workers, the team players, the ones you can depend on.   When layoffs come around, the indespensibles are usually the last to go.

Unfortunately, in my current position, I've made myself too indespensible and really hard to replace.  No, that's not my ego talking.  That's the fact that I've been told it will take a year to train my resplacement to assume my position.  Managers/Partners that I won't be helping out as much are having a hard time letting go.  My job is not rocket science, but I'm good at what I do. 

I'm dealing with a lot of frustration with this.  I have a lot of anger about being held back from moving forward because of this.  In my head, this makes no sense to me.  And please, don't anyone else tell me about how I'm not transitioning to my new position because it's "not fair to (insert name)."   I'm really sick of hearing 'it's not fair to.." because, you know what - no one has said "Well, we're not really being fair to Lauren."

Anyway!  So not the point of this post, I just needed to get that out! 

In the midst of 70.3 training, I'm also embarcking on the self-study portion of my CFP certification.  I have a total of six courses to complete to be qualified to sit for the CFP exam next July.  I put my weekly study schdule/tentative training schedule together yesterday.  Let's just say my weeks are scary looking.  I've even had to schedule family time and date nights.  It's going to be a lot of hard work to find balance with all that I have planned.  (Let's not forget, I'm going straight into marathon training post 70.3 with a late November marathon (#2) and then will spend a few months focusing on my revenge on Atlanta (f/k/a ING Georgia Marathon))

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