Wowza. Wound up getting the day off work, which isn't exactly good - don't work, don't get paid - but isn't exactly bad, as I've been getting some college app stuff organized, deadlines on the calendar, etc.
Of course, it also means I've been on the interwebs, and my mind had gotten to wandering, and... I'm looking at two early 2012 ultras. What on earth is wrong with me??? OK, nothing - I'm a runner, we DO this - but what happened to the Winter of Strength I've been thinking about? Didn't happen last year; is it destined not to happen this year as well? Why is it so darned easy for me to keep putting that stuff off in favor of new races? Is this just a stage of my life?
Seriously. I had the rest of the year - frankly, pretty much the ENTIRE time between post October 2 race and my hoped/anticipated start of grad school planned as successive strength rotations - a second pass through NROL/Abs followed by Maximum Strength. I kid you not. It all fits perfectly, with enough extra room for some needed recovery and the possibility of an interruption here or there.
I guess I should look at this as a happy dilemma; I am healthy and injury free (if happily anticipating taking a week off after this next race) and have the luxury of choosing exactly what I want to do. Working in a PT office perhaps helps me appreciate this all the more. The problem, as always, is that I want to do everything. I know that trying to fit as much in the schedule as I do probably compromises the quality of any one thing - i.e., I would be stronger if I focused on lifting, faster if I focused on running, more bad-ass (or whatever) if I just did martial arts - but I enjoy them all, so that doesn't seem to be an option. And, so far, the balance seems to be working for me... I'm just abjectly curious about what would happen if I ran this strength experiment, and to do it I need to seriously cut back the running.
Except some really insistent part of my brain doesn't want to do that just now. Especially now, with the weather turning more favorable for running. Bugger.
Oh well. Enough thinking on this today. I can't stop the mind from bubbling away, but no decisions until post race!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Howdy
Been a while. I'd love to say there's a reason I haven't been updating besides that I haven't felt like updating, but there isn't. I was planning to post a race report after the 12 hour race, but decided to wait until I got my finisher stuff, which they said would be mailed to us, to do the post. Well, I'm still waiting...
Long story short, it was a bit of a rough day, both in terms of the course and the weather, which was warm and humid. I had hoped to do 50 miles and settled for 40. Many people I spoke to on the course also revised down their goals. I wound up finishing fourth in my age group (woo hoo!) which I take to mean I'm one of the few women my age stupid enough to have stayed out there long enough to do 40 miles. But so be it.
I'm now tapering for what might be my last race of the year, a 50K out in the same area as the other races I've been doing, meaning in the hill country. This is supposed to be quite the challenging course and there is a time limit on it; for a change, my goal for this race will be to finish within the time limit, which is, one would think, a generous 7.5 hours. If this were a flat country road race, it would be no problem (weather issues not withstanding) but it's not; reportedly there's over 7,000 feet in elevation gain. Plus, I'm still making plenty of rookie mistakes out there (which is fair, I guess, this being my first full year of trail racing). If I do my best and make no serious errors AND the weather is as currently predicted (a GLORIOUS forecast high of only 60 degrees F), I should make it. If not - eh, learning experience.
However, also, if not - well, I know myself, and I don't like ending things on a bad note, so a fail here would leave me wanting to redeem the season somehow. I'm not sure what that would look like, and hopefully I won't have to find out!
Long story short, it was a bit of a rough day, both in terms of the course and the weather, which was warm and humid. I had hoped to do 50 miles and settled for 40. Many people I spoke to on the course also revised down their goals. I wound up finishing fourth in my age group (woo hoo!) which I take to mean I'm one of the few women my age stupid enough to have stayed out there long enough to do 40 miles. But so be it.
I'm now tapering for what might be my last race of the year, a 50K out in the same area as the other races I've been doing, meaning in the hill country. This is supposed to be quite the challenging course and there is a time limit on it; for a change, my goal for this race will be to finish within the time limit, which is, one would think, a generous 7.5 hours. If this were a flat country road race, it would be no problem (weather issues not withstanding) but it's not; reportedly there's over 7,000 feet in elevation gain. Plus, I'm still making plenty of rookie mistakes out there (which is fair, I guess, this being my first full year of trail racing). If I do my best and make no serious errors AND the weather is as currently predicted (a GLORIOUS forecast high of only 60 degrees F), I should make it. If not - eh, learning experience.
However, also, if not - well, I know myself, and I don't like ending things on a bad note, so a fail here would leave me wanting to redeem the season somehow. I'm not sure what that would look like, and hopefully I won't have to find out!
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