Waiting for Fall
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Well, I almost put “Friday” in the dateline above, so that should give a hint about how the week is going! Actually, I’ve been having to remind myself all morning that tomorrow is not Saturday.
Anyway, moving on…. It is now September and it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve posted anything. It’s been hectic around the Foy home lately. Of course, there’s the usual 100 mph pace that we can’t seem to avoid, but our neighbor and friend for 20 years is in the hospital with metastatic melanoma. He’s the same age as me which, of course, freaks me out! He has a wonderful wife and two awesome kids. Preston, who I’ve written about on here before, who runs on the high school cross country team, is one of his kids.
There are some things that I’ve learned unexpectedly from all this. So, in no particular order, I thought I would ramble off some things. My husband is my best friend in the whole world and I count my blessings every day for having him come into my life; his love has been absolutely life-changing for me (and I definitely think I “married up!”). I should find a way to spend more time with friends. I’m pretty happy with my life and if I were to die tomorrow (though I certainly hope I won’t), I’d be okay with where I’ve managed to find myself. I play the lottery sometimes, but I don’t buy tickets when the jackpot is something ridiculous like 80 million because I like my life and that kind of money would change it in ways I wouldn’t want. My Aunt Cele always used to tell me, “Charity starts at your own front door,” and the older I get, the more I am struck by the truth in that statement.
And, some things about death…. There is never a bad time to get your affairs in order - I have a will and I have a Health Care Power of Attorney put in place … just in case … because you don’t want to put that burden on family during a crisis. There’s nothing wrong with thinking about death and trying to figure out what you think it is; in fact, it’s nice to have some kind of personal philosphy about it that makes sense to you. Bob and I have actually talked about dying, about what it means to each of us, and about things we want and don’t want done. We all die and there’s no way to avoid it. I don’t think that death is necessarily an entrance into some sort of better and easier existence, so I’ll keep working on improving myself mentally, spiritually, and physically in preparation for what comes next.
I guess there is a lot more that I could rattle off, but I’ll stop there and go on to other things.
I’ve been waiting for Fall to get here. We have officially had the hottest Summer on record. It is September 2nd and we are going to hit 100 degrees tomorrow. This is just insane. While I’ve been running okay, I would have liked to have my long runs up to between 40 and 50 miles by now - I haven’t been able to go over 31 miles because there haven’t been any days cool enough yet. But, my downhill mile repeats are getting better - I’m starting at about 6:15 pace and finishing at 6 flat - and they feel pretty easy now. My left hamstring attachment is STILL bothering me a bit, but I think that the older I get, the more I just have to deal with stuff like that. Anyway, I don’t know what I’ll do about racing this season. I wanted to run a marathon and two ultras, but since I’m stuck at 31 miles I’m not sure that’s a reasonable goal at this point.
Well, that’s a short update. I’ll try to be a little less slack about posting.
Happy trails!
Missy
Sometimes, I feel like a walking pharmacy!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
I was traveling last week - Boston and Providence - and ran into some frustration at the airport. I had no problems on the way up, but trying to get home via Providence was challenging. First, I ended up having to go through security three times. I don’t mean just walking through the bleepy metal detector thingy, but I mean going all the way back out and then coming back through again. Did you know they can give you a “front of the line” pass when they make you do that? Well, they can, so ask for it if you get sent back.
The first problem came with, of all things, a bottle of shampoo. It was too big. It was fine on the way up, but somehow it was not on the way back. Okay, so my only alternatives were to throw it away or to check my bag. And, that led to the second problem. I checked said bag and came back through security. I had to pull out my zip-lock bag full of insulin and all that. I had taken it out of the bag I checked and stuffed it into my backpack. Well, security decided that I could only have one ziplock bag and I now had two - one with insulin, meter, test strips, syringes, etc and one with meds, vitamins, inhaler, chapstick, and gum. I got so annoyed by it (and the fact that I had already checked my bag and so had no viable alternative now) that I looked at the security guy, dumped the ziplock bag of insulin stuff straight into my backpack and said, “why look at that - I only have one ziplock bag now.” He wasn’t terribly amused by that and sent me back through security again. But, the other guy saw the interaction I guess and let me go through without another word.
Okay, so now I was finally on my way home. But, it would be eight more hours before I got home because thunderstorms up and down the east coast had shut down everything. When it started to look like I might not get home that night, I got a little nervous. I had enough Lantus for getting home late, but not enough to get through a whole extra day. And, I didn’t want to try to use syringes to make a make-shift insulin pump set-up while I was delayed. So, I went to the help desk and asked if I could get insulin if we were delayed until the next day. Well, that didn’t go over very well at all. I did not mean to freak anyone out, but they started scurrying around trying to figure out how to get me the heck out of that airport. And, they kept asking if I was okay. I tried to explain that all was fine … as long as I got home some time that night. And, all would be fine if they could just get insulin for me if we were delayed longer.
In the end, I got home about 1:30 am without having to switch airlines or flights, but they were ready to put me on another airline and send me west and then back southeast to get me home. Oh well.
The whole thing made me feel like a walking pharmacy. It’s crazy how much stuff I have to take with me when I travel. It’s like taking all the junk you carry around with a baby! I also found out one time that you can walk into any ole pharmacy and buy Regular insulin and NPH without a prescription. The newer insulins require a prescription but most pharmacies can contact your home pharmacy and then fill the prescription for you. Oh, you can buy insulin syringes anywhere without a prescription, too. Ah, the things you learn when you forget stuff.
Well, I’m back at home with all my pharmacopeia right here at my hands now. Now if I can just catch up on sleep!
Happy Trails,
Missy
Diabetes and the long run day
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
I was up at 4:00 am this morning so that I could get in a 31 mile run and still get in a day of work. The 31 miles took a little less than 4 hours (3:58:40 to be exact). Luckily for me, the early start meant I finished up before the cloud cover burned off completely and before the temperature soared upwards. It was still humid, though.
My blood sugars have been great all day, of course: 67, 77, 80, 103, 72. And, so far today (this is before dinner) I’ve eaten 5 poptarts, a packet of Powergel chews, 3 bags of sports jelly beans (comes out to 45 jelly beans), an Odwalla banana nut bread bar, half of one of those huge containers of Dannon strawberry yogurt, grapes, a banana, a turkey sandwhich, a protein shake, a bunch of chocolate (of course), some mini reeses peanut butter cups, wasabi almonds, a packet of nabs, coffee, diet coke, lots of water while running, and I can’t even remember what else. So, I’ve used 9 units of Lantus, 1 unit of Regular, and 3 units of Novolog so far. I’d say: hmmmm, not bad.
See, this “good blood sugar day even though I’m bad about eating like a pig” is one of the things that makes a long run day soooo worth it! I wish there was a way to bottle this up and pull it out for special occassions.
I started thinking about all this because I was reading some responses to a question: do you ever get tired of having diabetes all the time? Wow. Yeah. I used to cry about it. I used to be afraid to go to sleep at night sometimes. I wouldn’t go to football games because of the feeding frenzy. I hated everything that bread meant for my blood sugar control. I hated that I knew more about the differences in brands of syringes than most people even knew about how to spell them.
The thought still crosses my mind from time to time, but I can’t remember the last time I cried about it. I can’t remember the last time I threw something across the room out of frustration over it. I actually even woke up one morning last week with a surprise high blood sugar (170) and didn’t get terribly upset over it.
There was a time that a 170 first thing in the morning would have made me come unglued. I wasn’t sure why I had a 170, but I did what I needed to do and went about my day. By that night, I had figured out that my vial of Lantus had gone bad somehow. That night I was up and down all night (200, 52, 154, 34, 174, 33). The meter would read high, I’d correct, and then I’d wake up plummeting. I changed the vial of Lantus the next morning and by the middle of the day, all was back on track.
And, so it goes. Sure, it’s frustrating, but I’ve learned after all these years that it’s not going away, that I’m really the only one who cares about it, and that life still goes on regardless of what my meter is saying. So, suck it up, Missy.
Besides, I can run 31 miles, starting before the sun even comes up, and then put in a full day of work. I’d say that diabetes hasn’t beaten me.
Happy trails!
Missy
Running, training, diabetes, eating, sleeping….
Friday, July 30, 2010
I can’t believe that it’s almost August! The summer is flying by. I’m not complaining too loudly, though, because this has been the hottest summer on record in NC. Those of us who run are all too familiar with the weather forecast day in and day out. It’s bad enough when you have to dodge those summertime pop-up thunderstorms, but the unrelenting heat and humidity has been driving me crazy.
Other than work - which for me is research and writing up said research - I fit in running, eating, a little bit of sleeping, some time with Bob, and that’s about all I have time for. I had someone tell me the other day that they wished they had just a little bit of the will power I have to stay on task. My reply was that it’s not will power; it’s a matter of not letting myself think about it. I just do it. It’s kind of like with diabetes: if I allowed myself to think about it, I’d be paralyzed by it all, so like everyone else who lives with diabetes, I just do what I have to do without letting myself think about it too much. The same goes for running: make the schedule and then check it off each day.
So … running/training is coming along. I’ve been running about 90 to 95 miles per week which is plenty for the summer. My long runs are 31 miles. I’ve been adding one day each week of downhill miles to strengthen my legs and work on my turnover without overdoing things. I’m being good about strength work for the past three or four weeks, sticking to a lifting routine and getting in some ab work. It’s coming along.
I have a lot of leg strength deficit right now for a couple reasons - I know that sounds like a lie if I can run 95 miles/week, but really I do have some loss of leg strength. One reason for it is the chronic hamstring thingy I have to deal with (it’s my left hamstring right now, but it’s getting a lot better). The other reason for the leg weakness is that I’ve been dealing with thyroiditis for a while now. It went on for a while before we figured it out because my thyroid panel looked okay. Finally, my primary care doc tested for antibodies when I got the “pill stuck in my throat” sensation. Bingo. My biggest symptoms were fatigue and muscle and joint pain. Both of those are easy to write off when you’re a runner, but when it got to the point that driving was difficult because the seat made everything hurt and I couldn’t sleep because laying in one position too long caused pain, it was obvious that something was wrong. Now that it’s under control, I’m rebuilding strength that I had started to think I would never regain. So, I’m excited.
I’ve been thinking about running another 50 miler this Fall. I haven’t decided where to run yet; there are a lot of them to pick from. I love running ultras. I like the distance, but I really like the people and the race atmosphere, which is super low-key. And, the races are almost always on trails.
Speaking of trails, we have some trail work to do this weekend. The weeds and pygmy bamboo have gotten almost hip-deep in the swamp crossings so it’s hard to see the foot bridges anymore. Plus, I don’t like trying to run through that stuff not knowing what’s in there as I’m charging through. I slipped off one of the foot bridges this morning into the swamp muck because I couldn’t see where I was going. Trail work this weekend.
We’re laying out a cross country course around our yard for this Fall. Our “yard” is almost two acres, so we can do a circle with a loop at the end that shoots you back around the circle again (so sort of like an out-and-back loop around the yard) to make almost 1K by the time you’re back at the start. I have to plant some more tree seedlings in a few places so that the course will be mostly shaded in the future. We have a few sections done already and my 15 year old neighbor has helped me figure out how the loop should run. He suggested we have a couple places that we cut some tree limbs so you can feel like you’re running through a tunnel between the trees - we have two of those now. I was trying out the whole loop the other day and he was out in the yard and started yelling, “Go Missy go!” That was funny! Eventually, we’ll probably plant some trees and shrubs around my neighbor’s yard so we can add another loop to it.
Well, happy trails to everyone!
Missy
Training for a marathon with diabetes
Thursday, July 15, 2010
There is training for a marathon and then there’s training for a marathon with diabetes. Most of the diabetic runners I know will admit that they secretly wish they could just train and not have to worry about how to work around all their diabetes stuff. And, I’ll admit that it was almost maddening to me when I was running the road circuit and my teammates and workout partners could pay so little attention to the details of their training. I’d almost feel jealous when they would scarf down a whole bottle of gatorade or accelerade after the workout and not think anything about it. And, it would almost make me mad when they could show up for a long run or a workout without having had time to eat something and still do the run.
But, my attention to detail made me a better distance runner than some of them. If things didn’t go well in a marathon I almost always knew why. They rarely had a clue. I could figure out in training exactly what I needed to tweak in terms of fluid and fuel replacement because I had a meter that told me exactly what I was doing wrong or right. They just had a good run and didn’t know how to replicate that except to hope the streak would continue that way.
It’s scary to try new and harder things in training when you’re running on insulin, though. Most of my training partners could be cavalier about things. I could not and I still can’t. My husband says that even though I see it as a curse, it probably has something to do with why I haven’t been plagued with injuries. There is probably some truth to that. I can run 100 mile weeks without repeated injuries. I can go from no long run to 24 miles and then up to 30 in a matter of a month. But, I know that I have to be especially careful about speed work.
You can learn to run with diabetes. You can run in races with diabetes. But, it takes some work to learn to train for a marathon, to have a goal that requires pushing yourself in your preparation. And, when you’re running on insulin, you always have a bit of trepidation. To this day, I still have those times of nervousness because of the whole diabetes thing. For instance, if I’m out running and my blood sugar starts dropping unexpectedly, I do a quick mental check about how far away I am and how much carb replacement I have with me. I think about back-up plans and where I can stop if I need to. It’s a level of anxiety that other runners never have to deal with.
On the other hand, though, once you’ve done some long runs with diabetes, you learn to LOVE long run days! Wow, it never gets so good with blood sugar levels than it does on a long run day! You can eat anything and you barely see anything over 150. You’re so aware of your blood sugar, it’s like you’ve got a meter built into your brain. You’re super-duper sensitive to insulin and just a little bit will do you just fine. Cake? Why sure! Bread? Certainly, don’t mind if I do. Oh, macaroni and cheese please.
So, it’s the middle of July right now and the last thing most of you are thinking about is training for that Fall marathon. But, this is exactly when you need to start training. I don’t believe in the one-size-fits-all plans that you get out of the running magazines. Everyone is a little bit different. Some of us have better speed, some have better endurance, some are completely new and prone to injuries, etc. But, there are some basics. For instance, to run 26 miles, you have to be able to run 26 miles. All training plans need to include a long run schedule, a strength building focus, and a method for measuring progress and reassessing status. For diabetic runners, I think that all training plans also need to include repeated practice runs for assessing fluid and fuel intake and the relationship of those to blood sugar profiles. Perhaps all runners should have this nutritional component, but diabetic runners can’t ignore it and can’t ignore its connection to practice. So, while I’ll say that to run 26 miles, you need to be able to run 26 miles, I’ll also say for diabetic runners that to run 26 miles, you need to know what your blood sugar does for 26 miles.
Okay, that’s all for now. Happy trails,
Missy
What is different about running with diabetes?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
I have had Type 1 diabetes for almost my entire running career. I can’t really remember what running was like before I had diabetes. But, I do remember a few things. I remember not having to carry carbs with me on every run. I remember being able to be blissfully negligent in how I readied myself for a run. I remember being able to change my mind on how far I planned to run at any time, even during the run. I remember being able to run whenever I felt like it, even if it was completely unplanned. I remember being able to run myself into the ground and being totally glycogen depleted to the point of utter fatigue … and thinking it was funny.
I guess the biggest “difference” about running with diabetes is that I can’t be negligent at all. I can’t be flippant, impulsive, cavalier, or stupid about my running … not with insulin on board! In some ways, that may sound like diabetes should make me a better runner - you know, that it makes me more responsible. But, I don’t think that’s the case. Diabetes has definitely made me smarter and more careful about my training, but if I could have mastered those skills without diabetes, I believe I would have been a better runner than I what I became with diabetes along for the ride.
I’m not saying that diabetes has made me less fit or that it has directly impeded my athletic potential. I am saying that diabetes has added road blocks and hurdles at certain junctures that has made it difficult to reach my full potential. Diabetes has gotten in the way … for sure. But, then again, maybe it has held me back from overdoing things, from over-trainng and becoming injured. I have had very few injuries in a pretty long racing career. I’ve had two major running injuries, to be exact, and neither was from overuse. Both major injuries were from accidental trauma. One was from a serious ankle twist on trails and one was from getting cut off by a walker on a track during a workout. Oh, I’ve had some minor injuries, like sore this and sore that, etc. Plus, I’ve had chronic exacerbations of one of those old injuries that shows up in my hamstring attachments, creating small tears here and there (and part of that is getting older in the context of having that old scar tissue).
But, when it comes right down to it, running with diabetes is different. The longer I’ve been running with Type 1 diabetes, the less different it all seems to me, but it’s still different. And, for the person with diabetes who is new to running, it is worlds apart from being a non-diabetic novice runner. Just as I have this constant mental checking going on in my head on every single run I go on, the novice runner who has diabetes can think of almost nothing else than their blood sugar for the entire run. It’s all-consuming. Usually, the very first question I’m asked by a new diabetic runner has something to do with checking my blood sugar while running. Actually, almost everything they ask is in some way related to blood sugar control while running.
I’ve been doing it so long now that it really is second-nature to me at this point. I have a very good awareness of my blood sugar. Part of that probably comes from learning patterns and part of it is because running on a consistent basis has increased my awareness of my blood sugar level. So, I know what to expect and I can do a mental check to see if it feels like things are going as predicted. If I didn’t already know what the normal pattern should be, it might not be so easy to interpret how my body feels. For instance, it takes practice to recognize the difference between a normal type of increasing fatigue and a dropping blood sugar - if you run far enough while taking in enough carbs to keep your blood sugar up, you’re going to run yourself into plain old fatigue. You have to experience that a few times to learn the difference.
So, I’ve said all this about how running with diabetes is different, but I have trained with runners for long periods of time before they ever realized I had diabetes. As much as I feel like diabetes changes my running, the fact that another runner can go months without knowing I have diabetes kind of challenges that notion. Hmmm, I don’t really know how to resolve that discrepancy. I guess running with diabetes has a certain meaning to me that doesn’t exist for someone who doesn’t live with this disease. In fact, they don’t even “see” it.
Happy trails,
Missy
Running with diabetes
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Some days, a run just doesn’t go well. I ran a long run today and just felt pretty bad for the whole run. I even shifted things around because the weather this morning was fantastic for a long run. I got through the whole run, 31 miles of it, but it was ugly.
Let me explain a couple things about this morning’s long run. First, I’m not a proponent of running through injuries or even risking an injury just to log mileage. I slowed waaaay down and plodded through my run today because I knew it was just one of those off days where I wasn’t going to feel good and the smartest thing to do was just slow it down, back off, and try to enjoy a nice day. I would usually just turn the watch off on a day like today but I left it on so I could make a point. I’ve run this same 31 mile run in 3 hours and 45-50 minutes many times; this morning the run took 4 hours and 12 minutes. I don’t always have it in me to run fast every day and it’s not smart to be so married to the clock that you can’t just let it go on a bad day.
Another point I wanted to make is related to the title of my post. Despite the title suggesting that diabetes had something to do with my run this morning, it actually had nothing to do with it. I put it in there to make the point that every time something doesn’t go right with our running does not mean that we should assume it is related to having diabetes. It became clear to me that people with diabetes do this a lot when I was at a conference and a parent asked me how their child’s diabetes regimen caused an injury (I think it was a torn ACL if I remember correctly); they wondered what they were doing wrong that made their child prone to a sports injury. I’ve also gotten questions about the connection between diabetes and stress fractures, tendonitis, pulled muscles, poor racing results, etc. Diabetes is not the culprit for every single problem that comes up.
Anyway … I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll feel better! But, I may take advantage of the nice break in the weather and the fact that my husband is off tomorrow and get up early to go kayaking and watch the sun rise on the lake. I hate getting up that early, but once I get out there and see the bald eagles on the lake as the sun is coming up, I’m glad I did it. By the way, we have bald eagles nesting on the lake - in case that wasn’t obvious or that threw someone there.
Happy trails,
Missy
Running on Insulin
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
I ran a long run yesterday morning … very early in the morning … like 5:30 early in the morning. I have to get started early when I run long because it can eat up half the day (or more). In the summer, I have to get started even earlier because of the heat and humidity we can have here in NC. We’ve been having record heat and humidity this month. Usually, it’s only like this for the second half of July and pretty much all of August.
On Monday, my blood sugars were running high. It didn’t matter what I did; there was just no fixing the problem. So, Monday was one of those days where I took a lot more insulin than usual, ate way less than I would have liked (and certainly not what I would have picked), and I still struggled with 201, 210, 174, 270, 146, and finally 125 by bedtime (after fighting with it all day).
But, I ran long yesterday (Tuesday). Ah, running on insulin! So, about a third less insulin for the day, almost three times as many calories, and here are the blood sugars: 89, 126, 94, 116, 81, 78, 121, 95, 109, 104, 121. If I didn’t know better, I would be wondering if I really still had diabetes. Maybe running on insulin is a temporary cure, huh? In fact, yesterday I used a whopping total of 4 units of Novolog. The rest of my insulin was the 1 unit of Regular I take in the morning before I run and the 12 to 13 units of Lantus that I take every day.
Even if I didn’t like to run, that kind of result would have me hooked. When I went to bed on Sunday night, everything was normal. The cat woke me up about 2:00 am Monday morning and so I got up to hit the bathroom and checked my blood sugar since I was temporarily awake: 88. All was normal. Sometime between 2:00 am and 6:00 am, I hit a snag of insulin resistance. At 6:00 am, my blood sugar was 139. I usually wake up at about 80 to 100. This kind of thing just happens. It’s probably something hormonal, whether that be related to estrogen or some other endocrine substance. For those of us on insulin, we know that it just happens sometimes.
I was going to run long on Wednesday, but the forecast for Wednesday was even hotter than the riduculous hot we’ve been having. Plus, I had the insulin resistance thingy going on. So, I decided to run long on Tuesday. Running on insulin for a long time can literally reset my metabolism. My guess is that just about any aerobic activity for a long time would do the trick, but running works for me. Yessir, it did the trick.
I ran about 31 miles yesterday. I was finished, showered, had lunch, and started working by 11:00 am. Yes, my dad was a Marine!
Happy trails (on insulin!),
Missy
Boston visit
Monday, June 14, 2010
I got back from Boston yesterday. I had gone to Cambridge to finish some research work through a dissertation fellowship that I’ve had at Harvard this academic year and then went to the DESA Conference at Joslin on Saturday. It was a really good one-day regional conference on incorporating exercise into diabetes management. Kris Freeman was able to make it to the conference as well. Kris was on the 2002, 2006, and 2010 US Olympic Ski Team and competed in three events in Vancouver, the 10K, the 30K, and the 50K. I had a great time talking to Kris.
Here we are before the panel discussion:
But, here we are before we got the picture right:
I’ve often wondered why it’s been twelve years since I first qualified for Olympic Marathon Trials and ten years since I first ran in Olympic Trials and I’m still the only diabetic runner to get there. Kris has wondered the same thing about his sport. As we were talking about all kinds of things with training, insulin, etc, it struck me how much both Kris and I just took matters into our own hands and figured things out. We had used a lot of the same “insulin cocktails” to acheive the best possible control during long and rigorous events; we had made some of the same mistakes; we had thought of many of the same approaches to problem-solving.
Kris is a great athlete, but he’s a really smart guy, too. I think his ability to manage both his diabetes and his training so intelligently has has been a huge factor in reaching such a high level of success in competition. He couldn’t have done so well if he had been relying on someone else to figure things out. He wouldn’t have gotten to three Olympics if he didn’t have incredible drive inside. Kris has an incredible sense of motivation, he’s very intelligent, he is focused and balanced … and he’s a great athlete. I think he’s just a super guy, too. This weekend I realized that it takes a whole lot more, though, than just being a good athlete or a good guy to rise to an Olympic or a World Championship level when you have diabetes.
I would love to see Kris win a medal in 2014. He finished 4th at World Championships in 2009, against some of the same people he competed against at Vancouver. But, Vancouver didn’t go as well as it should have … for a variety of reasons. I would love to see him get the chance to redeem himself and to perform at top form because I think he’d medal in at least one event. On the one hand, I make that wish simply because I hope the best for him, of course. But, seeing how gracious and sincere Kris is within the diabetes community, I also wish him that success because I know that he’ll share it with everyone he can, particularly with kids.
And, now I’m back in NC. After getting a brief hiatus from the unusually early heat and humidity in NC, I’m now back to running in it again. It was oh-so-nice to run in 65 degrees and no humidity last week, but even early this morning here in NC it was already mid-70s and 97% humidity when I ran. But, it’s still nice to be able to run, so I won’t complain!
Happy trails,
Missy
Summer training
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
This would be strength work, right? Well, I need to do some strength work over the summer, but I don’t think I can build up to pulling that rock for real!
I ran a long run this morning. It was my first long run since the 50 mile race in Chicago about two and a half weeks ago. I ran 30 or 31 miles (it depends on whether the loop is closer to 6 miles or to 10K). I ran for 4 hours, so whatever. I had to get up waaaayyy early to get started early because I have a ton of work to do this week and I’m heading out of town to Boston at the end of the week. Just before I leave to head back to NC, I’ll be able to make it to the DESA conference at the Joslin Diabetes Center on Saturday.
So, anyway, the long run - it went pretty well I guess. It was really nice weather this morning compared to the nine thousand degrees and insanely high humidity from the week before. I decided to take advantage of some good running weather to get back to training again.
I haven’t decided on any races yet, but I know I need to get in some good, solid base work so I’ll start out with a training phase that my coach and I always used to call “hills and drills.” It’s pretty simple. Each week includes a long run, a day of running up and down hills, and one or two days with form drills or strides after a regular run. Plus, I’ll try to be good about lifting weights and doing core work like abs and balance exercises that work all the pelvic stabilizers.
I don’t even have a set amount of time yet for how long “hills and drills” will last. Summers in NC can be brutally humid for long stretches. But, every now and then, we get dry stretches. It’s anyone’s guess. I learned a long time ago to be flexible in the summer.
There are some other things to consider when training in the summer. I think one of the biggest mistakes that I’m prone to making with hot weather training is not letting go of a focus on pace. If it’s hot, like nine thousand degrees and humid, I have to back off of the pace I would run in cooler and less humid conditions. My effort (as evidenced by heart rate and breathing) will be the same but my watch will read a slower pace.
So, then how do I avoid becoming very well-conditioned aerobically, but very slow and Gallow-like by the end of the summer? It’s great to have a lot of endurance, but it’s not great to be real fit and slow. I work on speed by working on stride rate in short bursts. Form drills and stride work after a couple runs are one way. Plus, I work on stride rate on the elliptical (in a nice climate-controlled environment). And, I do downhill mile repeats every now and then.
Downhill miles are a great training tool! It’s a great way to work on pace in hot weather; it’s a great workout when you’re trying to be careful about injury; and, it’s a perfect way to get your leg strength caught up with your cardiovascular fitness level (your leg strength typically lags behind and that results in a lot of overuse injuries). I’m lucky that I have a mile long stretch of country road that goes gently down (or gently up, depending on your perspective). And, the shoulder of the road is in pretty good shape, so I have the option of running on a soft surface, too.
I really like summer training because it’s more relaxed and less structured. I do a lot of un-timed running and I can enjoy doing things differently, or stopping to say a quick hi to a neighbor, or taking the camera with me to get some pics along the way. It’s nice to be less anal about running! I’m so Type A, so obssesive, so anal, that it’s refreshing not to be so high-strung for a change. So, I always look forward to summer training. It makes running feel more like being a kid and going outside to play.
Happy trails!
Missy