Saturday!

I slept in, did the morning yoga routine, ate a bit and drank some juice, and then the dog and I were off! and 1/2 of a mile later, it was the Trail of Tears (snow at improper consistency, apparently), so I brought him back to the house. 11.3 miles for me today. It was slow but the snow was kind of slippery and weird--going up hills especially seemed to involve backsliding. Oh, well, still a nice run, and it was good to get out for that chunk of time.

For future reference though: Green Hat does not go with Hoodie. I had to haul those things back in place every few minutes and it was really annoying.

Then I did resistance exercises, and I've been doing pushups, too. I've learned that the best way is to do a set whenever I think of them---such as, just now--I do only 4-5 at a time, so it takes but a few seconds. I get about 5-6 sets in every day, which is enough. I'm still doing the elbows-in pushups, which are harder.

And I've almost nailed down my goal race for this spring...my cousin and I have been discussing my flying out to Calgary and doing the marathon there in late May, which would be fun. We're keeping eyes out for cheap flights...nothing's for certain yet. I was interested in ATB, but my husband's R&R will likely be around then, too...that's an easy choice. And, of course, there is the Ottawa marathon, but I'm somehow not interested in running it, nor in attempting to BQ again. Maybe I'll do the 1/2. At any rate, the race that is appealing to me more and more is an ultra down in NY, close to my mother in law. This would be two weeks before Ottawa, and three before the Calgary marathon. The distances are 50K and 50 miles. I'm mulling this over. My mother in law said 'Please come', which is nice :)

I think it's time for me to do an ultra. Somehow, my system's all jacked up that I can jog 25K without any fuel or water, no problem, or jog for 35K (so far) with fuel and a good zone and then jog 20-30K the next day, no problem, or I can push things decently for a 10 miler or 1/2 marathon and enjoy it, but marathon pace sucks and seems to take as much out of me as 1/2 marathon pace. There it is: I don't enjoy marathon effort. I never got used to it in training...I kept wanting to slip to 1/2 marathon gear. Full marathon effort is boring, non-trippy, and doesn't seem to hold the wall back any so I slog through that (which I've gotten used to, somewhat!) and then cross the finish line feeling like I mailed it in. blech!

The only marathon which didn't seem like a crashing disappoinment/denouement was the Delaware marathon. It was my second marathon and I took a big chunk of time off my PB and was pleased with that, plus the wall was very smooth and very late for me, around 18 miles. Looking back on it, I think the main ingredient missing in subsequent training was the Daniels 10-14ish mile runs with tempo segments. I did mixed pace runs this time, but with MP segments, which wound up faster than MP, oops, but not fast enough for tempo benefits, I think. And, somehow, doing the tempo runs before and after 1 - 1.5 hr normal runs (there were a few combinations) worked a lot better than just tempo runs. My run club schedule had individual tempo runs or group sprints on Fridays, so maybe I'll start off with the sprints (in winter! that'll be a riot! lol) to toughen me up, and then start doing the tempo runs on my own. It'll fit in fine and would benefit me whether my goal race is a marathon or an ultra.

Two other elements I'll have to face in the ultra are footing (it's a trail race) and hills. Footing...well, running in all this snow and so forth in trail shoes will probably go a long way, lol, and in the past most of my running was trail running, so I'm not too worried about that adjustment. I can also do some runs in the Gats here, which would also help with consideration #2. That is a bit worrisome. I've run on the course a few times with my husband, and it's no picnic. They're the type of hills that take at least twice as long to go up as down. With my lingering trace of Colorado snobbery, I don't call them mountains, but the locals beg to differ.

So, hill work....but maybe not repeats on their own so much as running for a while, then running up something steep for several times, plus using my newly-found and neglected Nordic FitWalk, jacking the incline way up, and then jogging on that more and more. If I can get up to a 1/2 hour on the incline, that would go a long way. During the race, I'd probably walk at least some of the inclines, at any rate, and that's something I can practice too.