The Road to BQ: Week 11
“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” — Steve Prefontaine
I wouldn’t say that I’m a gifted runner but I do agree that to give anything less than your best, in running and in life, is a waste. Yesterday would have been Pre’s 69th birthday and I’ve been thinking a lot about the way he raced and how I can embody that spirit this season. My biggest challenge with running has always been in my head; never believing that I’m quite capable of the pace I want to run or that I can withstand the suffering that would inevitably come along with it.
That’s started to change over the last year as I’ve gotten glimpses of the speed I have in me during certain workouts or races and as I’ve started to train my brain with the same intentionality that I train my body. More to come on all of that later, I’m sure.
Intention: Give more
This was inspired by a quote from one of my favorite books about running, How Bad Do You Want It? by Matt Fitzgerald. “In every race, something within each athlete… poses a simple question: ‘how bad do you want it?’ To realize your potential as an athlete, you must respond with some version of this answer: ‘More.’”
This week was peak week and I knew that the workouts would ask a lot of me. My intention was to show up and work hard, and I’m pretty proud of how things shook out.
Monday, 1/20/2020: 400m Repeats
- 1.5-mile warmup
- 400m x 14 @ 6:58–7:08, r3:00
- 1.5-mile cooldown
Coach’s “big girl workout” complete! This was tough. I struggled with the first half and paces were a bit all over the place (partially due to some tight ass hip flexors) but I got things under control for the back 7 and settled into a more consistent, and faster, pace.
Tuesday, 1/21/2020: Gym Workout
Wednesday, 1/22/2020: Mile Repeats
- 2-mile warmup
- 1 mile x 5 @ 10k pace, r2:00
- 2-mile cooldown
Ohhh boy, the wheels really fell off on this one. It rained all night long and was forecasted to rain all day too, so I’d resigned myself to doing this workout on the treadmill the night before. Not ideal, but positive mindset, right? So I was ready to go. However, the storms knocked out the power and my alarm didn’t go off. Luckily I only woke up about 40 minutes later so I was still able to get down to the apartment gym around the time I had planned, but this threw me off a bit. I looked up the treadmill settings for the paces I needed and got going on my warmup. In the third mile repeat, I was… slowly dying. My hamstrings were on fire and I felt like I was working way harder than usual for what was turning out to be a slower pace. I stopped .25 miles into the 4th repeat and considered quitting, but got back on and suffered through. Then I really thought about quitting and walked around having a pity party for myself before finally getting back on the treadmill for the last repeat. Woof. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t pretty, but it got done and I’m glad I didn’t give up.
Thursday, 1/23/2020: Rest Day
What a wonderful rest day! I slept in, went to morning yoga where the sun finally came out, then got a smoothie from Juiceland before working from home for a while. I met up with a friend at a coffee shop to get her advice on something for work, then went with another friend to an event in the evening.
Friday, 1/24/2020: Long Run
16 miles @ sustained pace
8:41 average
This was a pretty perfect run. The conditions were just about ideal (45ish, dry, still, sunny) and I felt really good mentally and physically going into it. I even managed to unintentionally crank out an 8:04 mile on number 16 — this is just shy of how fast I’ll need to run in August to qualify for Boston, so it was reassuring to hit it at the end of a long run and still feel pretty good.
Saturday, 1/25/2020: Casual Run
- ~1-mile warmup
- 1-mile time trial with The Loop’s Flash Mile
- ~1-mile cooldown
- 5 miles @ sustained pace
6:48 mile for a 4s PR
8:38 avg for the last 5
A nice way to wrap the week! The Loop Running Supply hosted a flash mile on Saturday in honor of Pre’s birthday and the anniversary of Blue Ribbon Sports, eventually known as Nike. It was a fun event and nice to test my mile time again. Even after all the volume of the week I still managed to get a 4s PR and am excited to see what I could do on fresh legs. After a little post-run party, I headed back to the trail to do the last 5 miles to get 8 in for the day and those went well too.
Total Mileage: 39.5
Rundown: I’m really happy with how this week went, despite the treadmill debacle. My body performed and recovered well. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the mile race and reflecting on why I didn’t truly give 100% when I had planned to. It all comes back to not fully believing in myself and my capabilities. I read a couple of wonderful posts from Peter Bromka recently that inspired me (here and here.) So now I’m recommitting myself to racing — not just running — over the next few months. And in tough times thinking, like many of us, “what would Pre do?”
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