A Tiny Victory.
Okay campers...after sleeping in on Monday (because of aforementioned lack of alarm setting)...I decided that a Tuesday sleep in would be needed as well, since Mike and I were planning on going for a 5+ mile run that evening.
The work day, overall was pretty bad. I won't bore you with those mundane details though. So fast forward to around....8:30pm.
We toss on our running clothes, I grab Dave Grohl (that's what I named my shoes, remember?), slapped on the Garmin (which I'm on the verge of nicknaming P.O.S.), iPod and went out the door.
It was a rather warm, foggy, groggy, nasty, humid, soupy night here in Chicago. The entire skyline was glued together by one massive cloud. It gave the evening a rather, eerie, murkey feel. Almost like we were running directly into a scene from a cheesy horror flick...you know, where the dark monster of Lake Michigan crawls ashore to feed on the flesh of nighttime runners before returning to its seaweed lair.
But no dark lake monsters were seen last night. It was just a bunch of ass kicking running for me, and some "slower" running for Mike (cause, well...since he's such a sweet hubby, he goes my pace so I don't have to run alone....). Funny how ass kicking for some is slow for others. Ahh...the beauty of running and individual goals!
We headed north along the lake front, but decided to stay on the Lake-side portion of the path since it was lit better (or so we thought). A mile or two down we hit the Fullerton/Lake Shore Drive intersection and the path takes out out and around this game house type thing (I have no clue what it really was, so game house is my best guess)...where there are no lights on the path whatsoever for a half mile(ish). We zipped through that area pretty quickly, needless to say. It was about this time that I felt "the shift" and needed to find a bathroom stat. So we decide we'll run to St. Joe's hospital so I can relieve myself there.
St. Joe's ended up being exactly three miles. We run up to the door. Locked. ARGGGGGH!
No bueno for Barb. So we turn around and head back. I figure I'll use the beach bathroom 1.5 miles down. So we're back to running...through the Belmont Tunnel...into the darkness around Fullerton...back alongside the beach with the flesh-eating dark Lake Michigan Monster nowhere in sight...and we make it to the public restroom.
And despite all of my efforts...I got nothing. Frustrating...right? Yeah. I know.
We continue on our merry way and begin to wrap things up.
Shin spints were had through most of the run. They definitely eased up as I kept running...stopping to walk or get water made them ache with fire...so it was best to keep on' moving. It's always hard to get back into the groove after stopping when you have shin splints. Also, Mike said something about having a really tiny stride. I never noticed that before. So I'm hopefully going to try and focus on elongating my stride a little bit...and making it stronger overall. He showed me by walking next to me while I ran. Oof.
At any rate...here are our splits, according to Mike's watch (since, well...mine Garmin can't hold a signal for anything...said my total mileage was 4.16 or something ridiculous like that). So my splits may vary by a few seconds.
Mile 1: 10:54
Mile 2: 11:42
Mile 3: 11:24
Mile 4: 11:03
Mile 5: 10:51
Mile 6: 12:08 (this was where we were arguing about doing 6 vs. 7-8 miles...I went in with the mentality of 6...so I was spent).
So the fact that I did 6 miles, THAT WELL is a tiny victory in and of itself...the fact I punked out on that 7th mile...not so cool, but I honestly just didn't have it in me and was totally under the impression that we were only doing 6 miles (initially intended to be 2 Miles North, 2 Miles back to Start, 1 Mile South, 1 Mile back to Star for 6t...but instead, we did 3 North and 3 back to start). After we did our 6 miles from the North, he then still wanted to go South. I tried, but I was just dead. He ran on and I started to head back home.
But....LOOK AT THOSE TIMES, BABY!!! Two Sub-11 Minute Miles? Homie don't do that normally. I know it's because I had Mike pacing and pushing me. Which, while it was great for me, I know it drove him nuts. I feel bad that he has to go slower to stick with me.
I'm just exhausted right now though. I had a hard time falling asleep last night and I'm definitely dragging ass right now. It may be an early to be (and early rise?) night for me.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to run this evening since we have to pack and get everything ready since we leave for Kansas tomorrow night. Mike, Taylor and I have a 10-miler and post-run breakfast planned with Dice and a few other folks from the Kansas City area. Should be a grand ole time!
At any rate...I figure a bunch of tiny victories throughout training will lead to one big victory on Oct. 22nd...at least that's how it plays out in my head.
The work day, overall was pretty bad. I won't bore you with those mundane details though. So fast forward to around....8:30pm.
We toss on our running clothes, I grab Dave Grohl (that's what I named my shoes, remember?), slapped on the Garmin (which I'm on the verge of nicknaming P.O.S.), iPod and went out the door.
It was a rather warm, foggy, groggy, nasty, humid, soupy night here in Chicago. The entire skyline was glued together by one massive cloud. It gave the evening a rather, eerie, murkey feel. Almost like we were running directly into a scene from a cheesy horror flick...you know, where the dark monster of Lake Michigan crawls ashore to feed on the flesh of nighttime runners before returning to its seaweed lair.
But no dark lake monsters were seen last night. It was just a bunch of ass kicking running for me, and some "slower" running for Mike (cause, well...since he's such a sweet hubby, he goes my pace so I don't have to run alone....). Funny how ass kicking for some is slow for others. Ahh...the beauty of running and individual goals!
We headed north along the lake front, but decided to stay on the Lake-side portion of the path since it was lit better (or so we thought). A mile or two down we hit the Fullerton/Lake Shore Drive intersection and the path takes out out and around this game house type thing (I have no clue what it really was, so game house is my best guess)...where there are no lights on the path whatsoever for a half mile(ish). We zipped through that area pretty quickly, needless to say. It was about this time that I felt "the shift" and needed to find a bathroom stat. So we decide we'll run to St. Joe's hospital so I can relieve myself there.
St. Joe's ended up being exactly three miles. We run up to the door. Locked. ARGGGGGH!
No bueno for Barb. So we turn around and head back. I figure I'll use the beach bathroom 1.5 miles down. So we're back to running...through the Belmont Tunnel...into the darkness around Fullerton...back alongside the beach with the flesh-eating dark Lake Michigan Monster nowhere in sight...and we make it to the public restroom.
And despite all of my efforts...I got nothing. Frustrating...right? Yeah. I know.
We continue on our merry way and begin to wrap things up.
Shin spints were had through most of the run. They definitely eased up as I kept running...stopping to walk or get water made them ache with fire...so it was best to keep on' moving. It's always hard to get back into the groove after stopping when you have shin splints. Also, Mike said something about having a really tiny stride. I never noticed that before. So I'm hopefully going to try and focus on elongating my stride a little bit...and making it stronger overall. He showed me by walking next to me while I ran. Oof.
At any rate...here are our splits, according to Mike's watch (since, well...mine Garmin can't hold a signal for anything...said my total mileage was 4.16 or something ridiculous like that). So my splits may vary by a few seconds.
Mile 1: 10:54
Mile 2: 11:42
Mile 3: 11:24
Mile 4: 11:03
Mile 5: 10:51
Mile 6: 12:08 (this was where we were arguing about doing 6 vs. 7-8 miles...I went in with the mentality of 6...so I was spent).
So the fact that I did 6 miles, THAT WELL is a tiny victory in and of itself...the fact I punked out on that 7th mile...not so cool, but I honestly just didn't have it in me and was totally under the impression that we were only doing 6 miles (initially intended to be 2 Miles North, 2 Miles back to Start, 1 Mile South, 1 Mile back to Star for 6t...but instead, we did 3 North and 3 back to start). After we did our 6 miles from the North, he then still wanted to go South. I tried, but I was just dead. He ran on and I started to head back home.
But....LOOK AT THOSE TIMES, BABY!!! Two Sub-11 Minute Miles? Homie don't do that normally. I know it's because I had Mike pacing and pushing me. Which, while it was great for me, I know it drove him nuts. I feel bad that he has to go slower to stick with me.
I'm just exhausted right now though. I had a hard time falling asleep last night and I'm definitely dragging ass right now. It may be an early to be (and early rise?) night for me.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to run this evening since we have to pack and get everything ready since we leave for Kansas tomorrow night. Mike, Taylor and I have a 10-miler and post-run breakfast planned with Dice and a few other folks from the Kansas City area. Should be a grand ole time!
At any rate...I figure a bunch of tiny victories throughout training will lead to one big victory on Oct. 22nd...at least that's how it plays out in my head.
posted by Iron Jayhawk at 7:26 AM
16 Camper Comments:
Woo hoo! I'm glad you had a good run last night. It's all about stringing those tiny victories together to lead to the one big victory. Have a great trip!
Great running Barb!!!!
Now I am far from an expert but I would not focus on your stride. My friend "coach" locally has told me most can't really lengthen stride and that there is one common thread in strong running, cadence.
I can't tell you what your cadence should be but mine is right about 190 foor strikes per minute. Try counting every left foot strike for a minute and double it. Then work on slowly increasing it.
Work on turning them over faster and your natural stride length will follow. Stride length can be aided with flexibility and strength work but from what I understand it's not good to just try and stride longer due to risk of injury.
AWESOME JOB BARB! Three things I concur with from your post:
1. Having hubby run next to you slowly while you feel speedy is interesting (for me sometimes annoying);
2. Stopping with shin splints is NOT an option especially when you get them in the numb zone;
3. The Chicago-land soup sucked last night and it is continuing today.
Don't worry too much about your stride - you can increase it somewhat, but your body pretty much chooses the optimal stride for your current speed. (So really, most stride-lengthening exercises are disguised speedwork, to some extent.) Cadence is probably more important - so follow Bob's advice here.
Anyway, congrats on the 2 sub-11 miles! Way to go, especially on a longer run. Keep adding those miles, and you'll see more of those!
You're lucky to have a hubby to run with. My lady is way out of my league with running, so we both end up going at it solo. Keep up the good work... I'm looking forward to Chicago (at least from the sidelines).
You've got spirit!
The bathroom search while running is the WORST! Yay for great splits, tho!
Two miles under 11!! Way to go girl. I feel your pain with the speedy hubby. Mine likes to speed walk next to me as I putt along. I could kill him when he does that.
yayyyy!! now, if my shins can hold it together, we can run on saturday togethuh!!
schweet asch i schay!
fyi, its brutal over here. drink lots of water!
great run! FYI, that game house looking thing at Fullerton and Lakeshore Dr. used to be a children's sanitarium. Yes, They kept crazy kids there. I happen to know this b/c they do a haunted house every Halloween, which I went to last year. Very scary and creepy in there.
AWESOME job, Barb. Doesn't feel awesome to go sub-11?! If it's going to be just as bad in Chicago as in Minneapolis, I have to feel for you on the weather.
Sweet victory...isn't it grand?
But wait? You named you shoes? Really? :-)
Wow! Very inspiring, and much more than a "tiny" victory.
Nicely done!
Don't you hate when there is no accessible bathroom that is when I miss the country and can just pee in the bushes which I did in Lincoln Park during the marathon in 2004 - way too long of line to wait.
Have fun in KC
FUNNY stuff on the bathroom. There is no pain like being mid-run and feel the "shift", as you call it! Nice job on the sixer.
I always worry over my stride as well because when I catch images of myself running, they are never flattering. However, I agree with the others that your stride may be the least what you need to concern yourself with; just be pleased with the run you had.
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