Week Four

I'm going to be busy with Pride stuff all this weekend (including marching in the San Francisco Pride Parade with the AIDS Marathon contingent on Sunday!), so I did my long run on my own this morning. The group is up to six miles this week; I did about ten and a half—my usual loop to the ocean and back through Golden Gate Park. I felt a little tired today—probably from working out yesterday, so that I didn't have as much time to recuperate as I really needed—but still finished in my usual two and a half hours, or about 14:15 minutes per mile.

It was odd to see cars on JFK Drive—on Sundays, when I usually run, JFK Drive is closed to traffic, and the street is full of walkers and runners and skaters and bicyclists. It was almost like running in a different park.

I saw some kind of falcon or hawk sitting on the fence of the bison paddock as I ran by. I think it was a peregrine, if I remember my raptor birds correctly. I don't think I've ever seen one in the park before.

Week Three

Today we did our five-mile run. Once again we ran down the Great Highway and back, this time to just past Vicente. We had a bit of trouble sticking to our 14 minute/mile pace—our second mile was 12:20! Oops! But we slowed down our successive miles and finished only a few minutes ahead of schedule. It was perfect running weather, once we got going—high clouds, light breeze, cool and sunny. But it's always awfully cold waiting around under the trees in the wind for the runs to begin. Makes us eager to get out there and work up a sweat!

Afterwards, I headed off to run home, another five and a quarter miles or so. Managed to stick to about a 14 minute/mile pace, despite going out too fast on the first five miles. And I felt good, which was encouraging, considering that my stomach's been wonky ever since the 20-mile run last Sunday, and I've only been able to eat normally for the last couple of days. I'm glad it was a short run this weekend, though!

My fundraising is off to a good start. I've made about $90 in donations from my eBay charity auction, and received $150 in other donations. Only $2860 to go! Thanks so much to my generous donors!

Week Two

The Return of Jesse!

Jesse and I were in the same pace group last year, and we ran the marathon together. He had said that he was going to do the AIDS Marathon again this year, but I didn't see him at last week's training run, so I didn't know if he was still planning to, or if he was, whether he'd be running in San Francisco on Sundays again. So I was very happy to see him this morning! He'd missed last week, so hadn't done a timed 3-mile run, but ran with us in the Grete Waitz group anyway. He was always faster than the rest of us in the Christine Clark group (15 minutes per mile) last year, so he may well end up joining a faster group for the rest of the training, but it was great to run with him again and catch up on what he's been up to for the past six months!

Jesse and me, after last year's marathon, with Diamond Head in the background.

For our four-mile run, we ran down the Great Highway for two miles and back. Our pace group has a choice of running a 3:1 or a 3:2 interval. I prefer 3:2, myself, but we ran 3:1 today, mostly because our pace group leader had a fancy new watch, and he'd just barely managed to program it, and 3:1 was what he'd programmed it for. :) It went fine for me to do 3:1 for only four miles, but I'm considering dropping back to the Christine Clark group on the day I'm doing 23 miles because I think I'll get too tired running the first seven miles at 3:1. We were also a bit ahead of our pace, running closer to 13:30 than 14:00, but we'll adjust that as we go along.

Then, after the four-mile run, we waited a bit to cheer in the group after us (who came in only five or ten minutes later—much better than last year, when it seemed that we always had to wait a half an hour or more for the last group to come in), and then I refilled my water bottle and went off to run another 16 miles! I ran back through the park on JFK to Stanyan, then turned around and ran back to the ocean, down Great Highway to Sloat, back up Great Highway to the park and up Martin Luther King Drive to Kezar, then through the Panhandle and home.

Having forgotten to start my stopwatch, or even check the time, when I started out, and not really being sure how many miles I ran (I suspect it was actually closer to 21 than 20), I have no idea what my pace was overall, but I suspect it was around 15:00 minutes per mile for the second part of my run.

It went pretty well, although it didn't feel quite as good as the 18-mile run did. Partly, I think it's due to running harder on the first four miles, and partly because of getting up at 6:30 am to get to the training run by 8 am and having had less sleep. Possibly also partly because of eating an egg for dinner the night before. I have a slight allergy to eggs, although if I have one occasionally it usually doesn't bother me. Except on days before a long run, I guess. Didn't take any aspirin before running, either. :) I did bring some with me on my run, in case my head started to ache, but didn't feel the need for it. It might have made my legs feel better, though. And, of course, some days are just better than others. In any case, I finished my miles with no problems and still managed to run up the Baker Street hill at the end of my run, so I'm happy!

First Day of Training

We met at the Queen Wilhelmina windmill at the west end of Golden Gate Park at 8 am. Actually, we were advised at orientation to arrive early for our first day of training, but being an old hand at this I didn't worry about it. I was pleased to find that the bus schedule hasn't changed - there is still a 38 Geary Ocean Beach that picks up at my stop at around 7:30 am and arrives at the ocean a few minutes before 8 am. Perfect timing!

I was also pleased to see that Coach John is our Sunday Golden Gate Park coach again this year. It was just like old times!

For our three-mile timed run, we ran down the Great Highway from Fulton to Ortega and back via MLK and Bernice Rogers to our meeting area. I knew that they would determine our training pace by adding one minute to our one-mile average pace, so I wanted to do around 13 minutes/mile to end up in the 14 minute/mile pace group. So I pushed myself just a little, knowing that if I ran too fast, I could always drop myself back to a slower group.

I got off to a kind of rough start. I wasn't planning to time my intervals, just to run at will, but after running the first seven minutes or so, my left shin got very painful. Bad me! It would be very silly of me to go out there and get injured on my very first day. So I slowed down and walked for a bit, then went ahead and started doing my usual 3:2 training interval. After a couple of walk breaks, the pain went away and I was fine for the rest of the run.

Ended up doing the three miles in 37:40, or about 12:33 minutes/mile! They put me in the Grete Waitz group, training at a 14:00 minute pace. Which is just where I wanted to be. Yay!

Then, to keep up my training for the Chronicle Marathon, I ran home through the park with one loop around Stow Lake, for about another seven miles.

Eighteen Miles

I ran 18 miles today! And I'm back on track for the Chronicle Marathon!

I'd decided that this was the make-or-break run for the Chronicle Marathon. If I could do 18 miles today without feeling horrible afterwards, I could maintain a training schedule that would have me ready to run a marathon at the end of July. If I couldn't, I was going to officially and finally bow out of the Chronicle Marathon, and just concentrate on the AIDS Marathon.

And I not only did it, I felt good the whole time, and maintained about a 14 minute/mile pace with a 3:2 minute run/walk ratio, finishing the course in 4 hours and 16 minutes. I ran from my place to the Panhandle, through Golden Gate Park, once around Stow Lake, then out JFK Drive to the ocean, down Great Highway to Sloat Blvd and back, up MLK and Middle Drive to Transverse Drive and back to JFK, once around Stow Lake again, and home! My legs didn't even start to feel tired until the last couple of miles, and they were still much less tired than they were last year after the 18 mile training run. I guess I'm in much better shape than I thought I was! It's kind of hard to tell when you're fatigued from depression and hormone wackiness all the time....

So, why did it feel so good to run 18 miles today, especially after running no more than 10 - 11 miles for nearly two months? I'm not sure, but I have a couple of thoughts:

• New shoes! Yes, I finally made the long trek out to the Sports Basement for new shoes, a new running outfit, socks, and a couple of boxes of Clif Bars and GUs. I love the Sports Basement, but it's way the heck out by Mission Bay, an hour-long trip each way by public transportation, so I don't get out there that often. But I desperately needed new shoes -- my old pair should have been retired after the Honolulu Marathon in December, but instead I went ahead and ran another five months in them. Bad me!
• Aspirin! I had a bad headache last night and this morning, so I took three aspirin right before going out. Had no idea whether this was a good idea or not, and I couldn't say for sure that it helped me run, but it sure didn't hurt!
• Two-minute walk breaks. I've been trying to increase my pace by cutting my walk breaks to one minute, running 4:1 or 3:1, and it's just not working for me. I get too tired with only one minute of walking. I trained for last year's AIDS Marathon at a 2:2 interval, ran the Bay to Breakers at 4:2, and did today's 18-mile run at 3:2, and it was all good. So I guess I'd better just stick to 3:2 for now.

So, training is going well. I'm also working on my fundraising plan for the AIDS Marathon. I've got some good ideas cooking that I'll write more about as they get firmed up.

And next Sunday, I begin this year's AIDS Marathon training. I remember last year how long that first three mile training run felt. This year, I'll be going into it after having run 18 miles the week before!