The town is still drowning in snow. Piles of it suffocate the sidewalks; the roads are smushy and slick with it. We’re already over four feet in excess of the average snowfall for November, December, and January, and… well, there are nearly two months of winter left to rack up even more.

The view from my window today. And every day.

I know this is normal. It’s January. It’s Alaska. None of this should come as a surprise to me, and yet somehow post-holing endlessly as I climb over the heaps of it shoved onto the bridge sidewalk, leaping in and out of berms to accommodate cars while I run, and slipping and tweaking the continued pain under my fifth metatarsal are all feeling like particularly egregious assaults upon my very soul.

This isn’t some sort of record snowfall year and it could certainly be worse, but for someone who depends on public transportation and feet to get places (I walk a cumulative 3+ miles a day to get to and from my different work places), the relentless snowfall is a burden. It is exceedingly frustrating to be a pedestrian right now.

How my body feels:

Though it’s not debilitating, the foot pain that popped up a few weeks prior to the marathon is starting to concern me. I am fairly certain it is tendonitis of the “flexor digiti minimi brevis”:

This muscle name has too many words.

I worry about tendonitis in this area because the muscle is small and the bone involved with it seems particularly delicate. It doesn’t take a medical expert to suspect that localized inflammation and tugging could very well facilitate a stress reaction and then a stress fracture.

I know I should buck up and see a doctor about this, at least to hear an opinion and perhaps gain some peace of mind that this isn’t already some kind of hotspot on the bone, but… I’m stalling.

Aside from the foot,  though, my joints and bones and muscles all feel good and the motion of running has been pleasant. No problems, no pain, no issues. I feel very lucky.

Getting back into running:

After taking six days entirely off directly after the marathon, I’ve run (easily) only a handful of times. The unpredictable terrain, slipperiness, depth and lack of energy return to my footstrike from the snow all greatly aggravate this foot pain.

There’s something to be said for doggedly putting your head down and conquering the elements – the dark, the rain, the ice, the snow – but after doing that for four months already, I AM SO OVER IT, and will gladly opt for the treadmill if it means I don’t have to navigate this extraordinary mess all over the roads and sidewalks.

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to live in California and have good running weather all the time.

Where my head is:

This past week has been a perfect storm of post-marathon letdown, winter melancholy, and general despondency over the fact that I’m yet again incredibly far away from all the people in the lower 48 I care about.

For the first time since I moved here in August 2010, I’m having serious doubts about my ability to live in Juneau long-term, and have been more actively considering my next move.

My closest friends all have recently serious boyfriends and/or odd work hours, so I don’t get to spend much time with them, and don’t have nearly the degree of family-style support I was remarkably fortunate to enjoy here last year. That’s okay. I’m almost 25, so I understand I’m at an age where that happens. But I’m coming to realize this is a very difficult area of the country to live in long-term without family or a significant other.

When it comes to the prospect of moving away, there are a few things that give me pause:

I love my workplaces here. My work situation right now is glorious. I am spoiled with two fun and satisfying jobs and have wonderful coworkers at both. The prospect of starting all over again in a completely different area of the country is enormously daunting, and I anticipate a rocky adjustment period.

I love the running environment. There is no question about it: this environment and community have helped me come into my own as a runner.  Incredible trails to explore and fantastic people to enjoy them with, $5 races, bald eagles accompanying me on my runs. I would feel wretched leaving this all behind.

But, real talk: after I come home from a satisfying day of work, and after I come home from a glorious weekend run with buddies… I’m all by myself again. Alaska in the winter is a tough place to be lonely.

BAHAhahaha. Poor command of the English language aside, I LOL'd.

The longer version: Everything was in my favor today. Everything. Perfect weather, a flat and pretty course, fantastic support from a friend, a cooperating foot… heck, even the sports drink offered by the water stations was at my personally ideal lukewarm temperature. Stars rarely align so nicely for a race as long as a marathon, so I need to acknowledge there were absolutely no true barriers to performing well today. There was no, “I probably could have run 3:10 if…”  No. These were fantastic conditions under which to run sub-3:10, I just didn’t manage to make it happen today. (Which is fine; that was a reach to begin with.)

I came into this race knowing I’d put in a significant chunk of miles — more than I’ve ever done — and so, felt lost as to my actual capabilities and directionless in the way of a race plan. I wanted 3:15 but I also didn’t want to sell myself short.

The first 20 miles: Let’s keep this part brief, because in my (limited) experience the only thing one should say about the first 20 miles of a marathon is, “I tried to stay relaxed and avoid doing anything colossally asinine with my pacing.” Well, oops, because I was on pace for 3:10 until mile 21, which turned out not to be all that colossally asinine. The first few miles just happened that way, and I figured I was due for another possibly stupid marathon in which I overestimated my abilities. Perhaps it was reckless to be throwing down so many 7:10-7:15s in the first half, but you know all know how this goes — “It felt so easy!” — and anyway, maybe I was in shape for 3:10, right? You don’t know unless you try.

The last 10k: So yes. I thought that if I had a really good day I could take down the 3:10 barrier, but suspected a more realistic result would land me somewhere in the 3:12 range. After mile 21 I just… slowed down. Never suffered or hit the wall. Just got tired and consciously elected not to respond to the fatigue. 

(Of course I am thrilled with this run, but there’s nearly always something you look back on and regret in a race, and today, that something was the conspicuous absence of my mental fortitude.)

Prior to the race, I assumed that if I found myself tired but not “bonked” in that final 10K, I’d employ my standard operating procedure of pressing the pace for a nasty finish, but I just… didn’t.  I was a little worried about cramping up and paying for it — there seems to be that line you can cross in a marathon; if you stay right below it, you squeak by with a decent finish, but if you cross it in pursuit of a stronger finish, you’re suddenly in the zombie death zone and worse off than if you’d played it safe — so when I started seeing 7:28s instead of 7:15s, I immediately accepted that I would finish sub-3:15 instead of a sub-3:10. Surely not my most mentally heroic performance, but possibly smart. And it was still closer to 3:10 than 3:15, so I’m happy with it.

Also — and I know this sounds odd — but I don’t think I was mentally ready for a sub-3:10 today. That’s a big barrier all built up in my head. That’s what the fast girls run. I don’t feel as though I belong there yet. 3:11:xx feels so much safer and it keeps me hungry. (Fear of success. It’s real, and I’ve got it.)

I wish I had more of a race report, but I don’t. It all kind of just… happened. There were no big emotions or turning points or anything, I simply got out there after managing to stay healthy all fall and winter, enjoyed myself, and suddenly it was over.

A mini race review: This is a PR course, no doubt about it. Flat, fast, and nice. I’m not going to pretend I know anything about marathons or race organization/direction, but it all seemed very well done and my experience was extremely positive, so props to the Louisiana Marathon for putting on a great first showing. I’m glad I got a chance to run this marathon before it takes off and gets really bloated with people because small marathons are a wonderful and underrated thing. I no longer have any strong desire to run Boston or NYC. Just… too much freaking hype. I am extremely curmudgeony and not very fun and resent giant crowds. In fact, I strongly suspect NYCM would leave me with heart palpitations entirely unrelated to the act of running.

Final thoughts: I got lucky with this race and lucky with this whole training cycle in that I managed to avoid injury and put in the miles. There are girls out there who can run under 3:10 on 60 miles a week or something annoying like that, but I really don’t think I’m one of them. I responded very positively to the miles I put in — this marathon felt no more difficult than the 3:24:50 I ran this past summer, and I attribute this to averaging 30 more miles per week than I’d logged for my previous marathons. In the eight weeks prior to my taper, I averaged 88 miles per week. For my previous two marathons, I averaged 51 and 55mpw for those same eight weeks. Honestly, I feel a little embarrassed admitting that I put in so many miles and still didn’t manage to tuck under 3:10, especially knowing there are plenty of girls capable of churning out that kind of performance on significantly less volume… but hey, next time, right? And in the meantime, let’s break 40:00 in the 10k.

I seem to be second-guessing myself and worrying far more than seems sensible for a marathon I was originally going to participate in because it happened to be in town the same week I was. Yeah, see, I was going to take this one easy. Then I started training a lot. Then I started getting big ideas about the time I could run. Then I started caring. I hate when I care.

So here’s a brief rundown of my silly taper insecurities.

1. The pain under my 5th metatarsal that’s been around for a few weeks and has yet to go away.

There is a large part of me that suspects this is psychosomatic. Remember my second marathon when I had that weird/disconcerting butt spasm thing going on? And I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to finish the race? And then I went on to PR and the butt cramp didn’t happen once during the marathon and never happened again after that? Yeah, you probably don’t remember that, but I do. I’m hoping this 5th metatarsal pain is the same sort of thing. I don’t notice it all the time, but I suspect it’s related to the plantar fascia or is rooted in some other tendon/muscular issue (rather than a stress reaction/fracture, which, trust me, I have researched and spooked myself about enough already). Whatever it is, I bet the excitement of racing will suppress it.

2. My period.

I know I’m going to get it at precisely the most inopportune time for running a marathon. I have been counting and recounting, watching it like an anxious and highly resentful hawk. I am so jealous of boys. They can compete as athletes without worrying about drastic hormone fluctuations. The thing is, I know I can’t control this. I just can’t. I need to let it go.

3. Tapering.

I tried very hard to come up with a solid plan for my taper many weeks ago, so that I could know what I was going to do and not worry any more about it. But naturally, I have fussed over this noise nonstop since I hit the “three weeks out” mark. I have read (and reread) all the big name running plans, combed through other running blogs, and scoured every taper-related thread on letsrun. All this research has done is cause me to change my mind every day about what to do. I am outrageously relieved to be at the final week because I can basically just take it easy now. A few miles at marathon pace on Tuesday or Wednesday. Everything else, easy.

4. Training, overtraining, illness, and a shakeup of my usual routine. 

Sometimes I think back to that 22 miles at 7:40 pace – how effortless that felt, how easy it would’ve been to throw down the hammer for an additional 4.2 miles and take a time trial PR right there just because I could. Three days after that run, I hopped a red eye back east, felt myself growing congested and sick on the plane, promptly fell ill with a cold, and haven’t felt right since. I’ve had a much harder time than usual adjusting to the time difference and my days seem to be characterized by tissues and sinus rinses. What if I peaked two weeks ago on my training run? What if I don’t feel better next Sunday?

But, hey, whatever.

RoseRunner’s post on 2012 goals nailed my thought process about all this. My motto lately has been “it’s just running.” Every time I find myself on the cusp of freaking out about racing, I think to myself: “What will happen to me if this race is a complete disaster?”

The answer: nothing. I’m not going to lose a sponsorship deal or miss out on a spot on the Olypmic team. I don’t make my living at this. I’m just another hobbyjogger, a face in the crowd, another nobody chasing nothing but her breath. Like any marathon, this marathon has the potential to be a complete and utter trainwreck no matter how much I hope for it to be otherwise. If that happens, I’ll sulk for a day or two and then I’ll get over it. And I’ll have learned something. And even better, the miles I put in to train for it will likely benefit me a few months down the road.

In six days I’ll be hopping around on the starting line trying to convince myself this was a good idea. The race director will crack some jokes, welcome us to Baton Rouge; maybe there will be some kind of jazz band. I’ll be in a new town on a course I’ve never seen before. People around me will be chatting with one another as they adjust iPods and fuel belts and fancy running duds. I’ll size ‘em up and look for targets in order to distract myself. I’ll clear my beat-up Timex watch, the same one that’s been on my wrist through all the runs in the dark, all the runs in the rain, all the runs in the snow. The gun will go off and some folks will shoot out of the corrals like Mario Andretti. I’ll let them go. In the first mile, I’ll be reminding myself to slow down, even though adrenaline is licking out into every limb and my heartrate is higher than normal because this is it, I’m doing it, it’s happening and I’d better enjoy myself. I’ll have to check in often in order to take the first ten miles easier than I think I need to. I’ll settle in. I’ll be patient, conservative, smart. I’ll come through the half in a time that’s probably slower than I want. But I won’t get worried, because I’ve negative split a marathon before, and I trust my fitness, and those hundred mile weeks will come back and reward me in the second half. Maybe I’ll start pressing more around mile 14, and the six miles after that will be where the race starts to get real. Maybe I’ll feel good at mile 20 and nudge the throttle forward even more. I don’t know. I seem unable to visualize past the first half of the race.

On the other hand, maybe I won’t be patient. Maybe I’ll go out faster than I think. I have done quality workouts and high mileage and everything is in place for me to have a pretty good marathon, so I have no idea what to expect with pace, and I think this outlook is a little dangerous. So hell, maybe I’ll really go nuts and overestimate my fitness in the first half and completely crash and burn. That’s all part of the fun anyway.

…SO BEGAN ANOTHER DULL POST.

There have been a few questions from my last few posts that I never got around to answering, so I’ll answer them here.

One question was which marathon I’m running. I’m entered in the (inaugural) Louisiana Marathon on January 15 in Baton Rouge. I’ll be there visiting a friend that week anyway, and couldn’t resist the idea of running a marathon that happened to be in town too. I’m excited about it because I like the idea of supporting smaller marathons, and I prefer races with less hype and fewer participants overall.

The other question was about what a 100+ mile week looks like for me, so I’ll break down how the last few weeks played out.

December 5-11: 103 miles

• M: Three hour run. I estimate about 21 miles. It was positively dumping rain and windy. This run was a solid confidence boost. If I can survive a three hour run in those conditions on a Monday morning before work, the marathon, by comparison, should feel like rolling through a field of rainbows and sunshine.
• T: Two hour run, probably about 14-15 miles.
• W: 12 miles on the treadmill because it was slushy, icy, windy, and nasty out. Played with the speed. Averaged 7:35 pace.
• R: 15 miles on the treadmill. It was even nastier out than the day before. Didn’t feel like dealing with the ice and yelling at the wind. 7:45 pace.
• F: 15 miles outside. Not sure pace.
• Sa: 16.5 miles at about 8:15 pace.
• Su: 9.5 miles. Group run on packed snowmobile trail up in the hills.

December 12-18: I cut back to 80 miles and only ran six days. Included some speed and tempo work.

December 19-25: 105 miles

Dodged a bullet with the weather conditions this week. Temperatures were in the upper-30′s, we were slammed with rain, and the roads were subsequently the clearest they’ve been since October. Compared to some of the icier, windier, snowier weeks we’ve had so far this season, it felt fantastic to run outside and leave the ice studs home nearly every day.

• M: 18 miles probably around 8-8:15 pace?
• T: 16 miles, included 2×3 miles at 6:38 pace.
• W: 12 miles, relaxed, not sure of the pace.
• R: 16 miles, treadmill, 1% incline, included 90 minutes at “7:24″ pace which I suppose is somewhere around my marathon goal pace? I don’t know.
• F: 11 miles, relaxed.
• Sa: 22 miles, 7:40 pace. Running friends joined me for a few miles in both the first and second halves of the run. This is the only longer run I’ve done with a Garmin. Another big confidence boost because it makes me suspect that I’ve been underestimating my paces on the everyday longer runs.
• Su: (Planned) A slow 10 miles to shake out the limbs.

So, money’s in the bank at this point. Next week I’ll cut back to 70-80 miles again, and then it’s the real taper: a week at 50-60, and a final week around 30 or something.

There are a lot of things in my life logistically right now that allow me to put in this kind of mileage, and I have no delusions that I’m some kind of hardcore athlete simply because I ran over 100mpw a couple times.

Consider the fact that I don’t have to be at work until between 8:00 and 9:00am, and my commute is only 25 minutes: I can wake up as late as 5:30am and still run for 2-2.5 hours before screaming through the shower and hoovering breakfast on the way out the door to catch the bus.

I get home from work between 5:30-6:30 most days and can spend the evening socializing, relaxing, cooking, and preparing for the next day. I have no children to scramble after, no odd hours to work, and I love the work I do and the people at each of my jobs. If I worked jobs that required long hours, sucked the life out of me and sent me to sleep with a pit of dread in my gut about going in the next day, I doubt it would be quite so effortless to leap out of bed and run in the dark. And I think part of that is just… Juneau. The pace of life here is relaxed, the people are warm and friendly, and there’s very little about this place that enables anything frenzied or frantic.

The other thing that helps is the running community and the groups I run with on weekends. That they allow me to tag along with them at all has been an absolute gift, but they don’t merely let me tag along: They take me on adventure runs in the mountains. They let me hitch car rides with them to places the bus doesn’t go. They tell stories about the Klondike, marathons, ultras, funny and stupid things they’ve done (on runs or elsewhere). They share experiences, give advice, goof around, inspire me, tolerate my complete inability to run fast downhill on the trails, and challenge me to run way over my head trying to keep up.

So I’ve had a very lucky string of months. I’ve enjoyed my training and been extremely fortunate to have a work schedule/life environment that allows me the flexibility to fit in the miles. Things seem to be clicking and coming together. If I don’t mess up my taper or do anything completely asinine with pacing or fueling, the marathon will go well. In fact, the marathon might go really well. Or it might be a total bust. Heck, it doesn’t really matter either way. It’s just running.

In exceedingly dull weather news, the rain rolled back into town and proceeded to pound southeast Alaska’s four feet of snow into submission before washing nearly all of it away. Don’t tell anyone in Juneau, but I was so relieved to see the rain return. Running is significantly less exhausting when I don’t have to fight through the energy-suck of a thick padding of snow on the road.

Training Plan.

So, I don’t really follow a training plan. My tactic lately has been to do whatever I want.  However, I do see certain patterns emerging in my training, and since they seem to work for me, I’d like to continue on with them.

In lieu of the traditional “three week buildup then a cutback week” thing, I’ve really been liking my recent habit of alternating between “volume weeks” and “speed weeks.” I’ve been gravitating toward a week in the 90-100 mpw range focused on hitting big miles, followed by a week in the 70-80 range focused on a few quality strength/speed workouts. It’s keeping things fresh for me mentally and physically, and I feel really, really good.

There are five weeks to go before the marathon, and if all goes well they’ll look something like this:

5. Speed week at 70-80 miles, two quality tempo/speedy workouts

4. Volume week at ~100 miles

3. Speed week at 70-80 miles, two quality tempo/speedy workouts

2. 50-60 taper

1. 40 taper

Hmm. Looking back at this week’s “Volume” training, I did actually have 2-3 runs that incorporated faster stuff, so it’s not like I’m just jogging through the volume weeks, but it helps me to think about it that way.

Goals and Expectations.

I hate admitting that I actually have expectations for this one, but I do.

Somewhere between 3:15-3:20 should be achievable, but then I think about the fact that 3:15 requires a 7:26 pace average and I freak out a bit. On the other hand, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to do that if I taper appropriately, stay injury and illness-free, knock back enough sports drink during the race, and avoid being stupid.

I really want to keep my approach to this marathon low-key. PRing and breaking 3:20 are the primary objectives. Beyond that, I don’t want to dream too big just yet. I have the feeling I’m not going to see the benefit of this mileage right away. It’s entirely possible that I’ll have a mediocre marathon and won’t yet realize any rewards from all the miles I’ve put in this fall. If that happens, it’s okay. I am well-versed in the reality that running is not an instant gratification endeavor. These miles will come back and reward me some other time if not this time, and at the very least it’s been an enjoyable experiment.

Health Mysteries.

Anybody had experience with night sweats or horizontal ridges on your fingernails? I had a few significant night sweats at the beginning of the week, but none the past few nights. I’ve heard and read that this is a symptom of overtraining, and with the couple of ridges it could be that I’ve got some sort of nutrient deficiency. I’m thinking the night sweats might just be an adaptation response and not so much something to be worried about in terms of overtraining, because physically I feel good and mentally I feel excellent: eager to get out there every morning, satisfied with my paces, springy, energetic, happy to be alive.

Extra Stuff.

Every day after my run I either do 50 pushups or two sets of 3′ fancy planks. I also do a quick “myrtl” routine (a lot like this one) and some inchworm stretches. Other than that, there is no strength training or other ancillary stuff  in my running life right now. I get up, run in the morning before work, do my pushups or planks, stretch, and that’s it for the day. No doubles in the afternoon or extra workouts, because the idea of running in the dark again after work does not excite me.

I go to work, get stuff done, spend time with friends and keep up some semblance of a social life, and don’t even feel like there were 15-20 miles tucked into the beginning of the day. I’m not really sure why it’s all clicking so well right now, but I know that things can change pretty quickly and the process of training and running won’t always be this easy, so I may as well enjoy this while I’ve got it.

I have had the Fiddler on the Roof theme song stuck in my head for over seven months.

I heard it played by a children’s band on April 17th, 2011, after which it slithered up my brainstem and affixed itself like a spiteful parasite to my dorsolateral frontal cortex.

If you are unsure which song I’m talking about, you may subject yourself to the same torture by listening to the first 25 seconds of this video.  Then, if you’re like me and have absolutely nothing worthwhile to do with your life for the next four minutes, I invite you to watch the entire thing because apparently it is a remake of the musical by some random family and it is absurd and cackle-worthy.

So, yeah.  I couldn’t get the tune out of my head for a few months and kept going about my daily life idly humming it and looking like a batty nutcase, so my roommate and I finally rented and watched the movie.

The first thirty minutes were fabulous and had all sorts of exciting songs and we essentially ran around the apartment yelling “If I Were a Rich Man” and trying unsuccessfully to replicate the wedding bottle dance.

Then the rest of the movie was long and boring and sad and brimming with suck and our eyes became glassy and dead as we began involuntarily drooling. I’m not sure whence we summoned the grit and resilience to continue watching, but finally the end credits rolled around and we breathed sighs of relief and promised never to rent a three-hour movie ever again.

I’d hoped my movie experience would help get the song out of my system, but devastatingly, it only made things worse.

My brain is on a constant loop of Fiddler on the damn ROOF.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ACCEPTABLE ABOUT THIS.

I feel helpless.

This is my official plea for a musical exorcism.

***

Running. It’s going well. Physically, I feel fantastic. Mentally, it’s a struggle  sometimes. Here are a few tidbits from the past month.

Mileage: Yesterday I tallied up my miles for the week and they added up to 98. This is my highest week of mileage ever, and came after a string of weeks ranging from the high-70s to mid-80s.

I considered being bummed that I couldn’t have found two extra miles to make it an even hundred, but truthfully, it might have been anywhere from 96 to 100 and there’s no earthly reason to give it another thought.

Right now I am focusing more on “time on feet” than on actual miles. The road conditions are too certifiably dreadful to do otherwise: we have received 49 inches of snow so far this November (and our ski area currently has more snow than any other in the nation).

Turkey Trot: We had a 5K Turkey Trot on Thursday. About 75% of the course entailed breaking trail through 1.5 feet of snow. The winning time was 25:20, by a guy who usually runs in the 17-18-minute range for 5K. LOL. I ran 25:35. It was exhausting and hilly and I wiped out headfirst into the snow a couple times and dearly wanted to punch someone. After the run, my seething irritation with the conditions was ameliorated by a $50 gift certificate for pizza.

Running conditions: The roads are not pedestrian/runner-friendly in the least anymore. Sidewalks and shoulders cease to exist as the plows bury them in still more snow.

Which brings me to my next grievance – my mortal enemies: THE PLOWS.

After they clear the snow directly onto the sidewalk, the plows somehow create an ice sheet on the roads that necessitates wearing spikes all the time. Also, in the wee hours of the morning, I am out there with what seems to be approximately seven thousand plows. Roughly every quarter mile, there is a plow camped out perpendicular to the flow of traffic, zooming back and forth in the middle of the road, beeping, rumbling, being loud, and acting ruthlessly eager to flatten anything in its way. I sympathize intensely with Frogger at these moments.

There is lots of slipping and falling, lots of diving into snow berms to avoid slaughter by Subaru. Often, it is glorious and lovely, and I can see the stars and watch bald eagles disturb the boughs of spruce trees as they take flight, causing showers of what must surely be magical snowy fairy dust. Other times I want to lie down and beat the road with my fists and weep spectacularly until April.

Today, the rain returned. RAIN ON TOP OF FOUR FEET OF SNOW. FUNNY JOKE.

I ran over the bridge this morning, slipping and sliding and sinking into freezing slush the entire way. When I got to the end of the bridge, a PLOW swooshed by and launched a tidal wave of slush over and onto my head and body. I screamed louder than Regina George in Mean Girls when she finds out Lindsay Lohan has been feeding her weight gain bars. Then, sputtering and shivering and freshly committed to punching a dent in the hood of every plow truck I see, I ran to the gym and finished today’s job on the treadmill because I am a sissy and my feet were cold.

The end.

I ran an 8K race yesterday, finishing in 33:50 something-ish, which is about two minutes slower than last year’s effort on the same course.

The course is a flat, pavement out-and-back with only one turn (the turnaround!) and it winds pleasantly through a forest and meadow along a river. On a typical early November day, this race is a PR free-for-all, but it snowed five inches on Friday and there’s no plowing that trail, so footing was a bit more, say, “mentally stimulating” than usual and our times were all slow.

Last year, I took it out conservatively and stalked two of my competitors before eventually grabbing the lead. If you read last year’s race report, you’ll see that I pretended I was a wolf stalking a caribou. What in hell? I am not sure what it is with me and channeling megafauna during races, but I’ll blame my job as my excuse for any of the nature-related asininities that pop up on this blog.

The “caribou” I ran with last year ended up becoming a frequent running buddy. He and I are usually evenly matched, and in any given race we’ll trade off on finishing place. He was there today, and I knew he’d be the one to stay with.

Except that, well, I ended up frontrunning the entire time.

I don’t know what came over me.

Actually, I do: My running friend is strong down the backstretch and I knew I didn’t want to be within striking distance of that kind of speed in the last 800 meters.

So from about fifty steps in, I was in front. I kept pushing around every corner, trying to steal an inch of cushion and put some distance on the other runners. I’m getting better at dealing with racing from the front. I haven’t enjoyed it in the past, because I’m a classic sit-and-kicker and I’m afraid of getting steamrolled by somebody who was back there conserving energy. However, it’s time to start trusting my fitness and my speed. If someone else blasts by and pulls a blistering sit-and-kick trick on me, oh well. These small Juneau races with only 20-40 people in them are an opportunity for me to focus on learning something new as a racer, and that “something new” is running alone and occasionally running from the front. (And yeah, I’m fully aware that in any race in any other state, my times would put me in the middle of the pack, and I miss that — the anonymity. But here, that’s not the case, and I’m nearly always toward the front.)

Racing alone is tough. It just is. It’s hard to push myself from the front once I’m satisfied no one will catch me, and it’s even harder if there is no PR on the line.

To deal with this, I have two thought processes I key on:

1. Ironing out the “focus wrinkles.” I’ve had so many races and speed workouts both in rowing and running where I looked back afterward and thought, “S&#@, that race would’ve gone better if I hadn’t endured a sudden bout of amnesia about the fact that racing is supposed to feel hard” or “If only I’d kept my pace up during that crappy second lap instead of easing off the gas out of momentary laziness.”

Somehow, over the past few years, I started thinking about a race as if it were a shirt, and my lapses in focus were wrinkles that caused me to slow down, to lose speed or distance on a competitor. If I could iron those wrinkles out, that would be a real race: a crisp, flawless, dapper shirt and a true, solid effort I could look back on and be pleased with.

(The hilarious absurdity of this mantra is that I’ve only ironed a shirt maybe three times in my entire life and those times all probably had more to do with ironing on letters than getting rid of shirt wrinkles. For actual clothing wrinkle situations, I turn to wrinkle release sprays. It’s you and me forever and for always, Febreeze.)

For some reason, though, it helps me. I’ll repeat this nonsense to myself whenever I need validation for mentally staying with it during a race or harder effort: iron out the focus wrinkles.

(Now I’m attempting to recall the last time I actually ironed a shirt. All I can come up with was my first day at work in Atlanta in 2009. Yeah. Been a while.)

2. Inches. As a frontrunner, I’m nearly always running scared. I’m chronically anxious about overestimating my speed and subsequently being mowed down by a stronger runner lurking behind. But I’m at a point now where I’ve been racing for a few years, and I have a fairly good internal understanding of my abilities. If I’m out in front, it’s probably because I’m at a speed I can follow through on, and I’m learning to trust that instead of being nervous about my positioning the entire time. So today, instead of letting myself get caught up in frontrunner anxiety, I focused on “inches” — putting an inch more here or there between me and the person behind me by accelerating around corners and — theme of the day — staying focused, since lapses in focus cost me the opportunity to eke out more inches.

Ever seen Any Given Sunday?  I haven’t. It might be terrible, it might be decent, I don’t know. But the rowing world has had a youtube video (here - speech at about 45 seconds in… F-bomb warning for anybody with kids scrambling near your computer) circulating for quite a few years set to the background of Al Pacino’s “Inches” speech. My rowing team got pretty excited about it in college even though it’s semi-cheesy. It’s not exactly relevant for an individual sport like running, but I guess that’s where some of my fixation with inches comes from. It’s that idea of chewing down any extra inch I can between me and whoever I’m trying to beat.

Apparently today’s effort averages out to a 6:49ish pace. I managed to stay fairly focused and hold my friend off through the finish, but with the snow factor, I’m not exactly sure where that puts me. It would’ve been nice to use this race as a benchmark and go for a PR, but hey, weather happens…

After 31 days of persistent precipitation, puddles large enough to kayak across, and clouds that settle so low over the mountains one begins to feel like a steamed vegetable, finally seeing the sun lights me up with an irrepressible urge to sprint around grinning and pumping my hands in the air because it feels like I just set a world record in every event in the Olympics and simultaneously we have achieved world peace and somebody discovered the cure for cancer and everyone in town is skipping and cartwheeling through the streets and the bald eagles are soaring around singing songs from musicals and the whales are high-fiving one another mid-breach. 

Sun, friends. It’s a miracle.

And then, this morning?

It snowed. And I slipped and fell so hard on my run that I earned a notably bloody knee and bruised hip. I spent five seconds blinking away the sudden shock of being horizontal — face inches from the dull bluish tinge of my headlamp’s light on the freshly plowed street — and then another minute dragging myself to my feet and sucking air sharply in through my teeth as the pain ebbed away.

No lasting damage occurred, but the incident’s relevance is this: I recently suffered a fit of utter delusion that led me to register for a January marathon, momentarily oblivious to the ugly reality that this would necessitate training for a January marathon.

What caused this momentary paroxysm of foolishness?

Well, September and October were great running months for me, with mileage weeks of 63, 72, 87, 88, 71, 71, 77, and 90. In the past, I’ve had a few higher weeks like those, but never such a consistent string of miles above 70 on only five (sometimes six) days of running.

There was no objective behind all this running aside from genuine joy, desire, and luck in that I managed to stay healthy. In fact, I was feeling so strong and loving it so much that it felt wasteful not to have a winter marathon to look forward to. It would have been perfect to run one in early December, but as I’m currently balancing three part-time jobs in order to afford living here, that option definitely wasn’t going to fit with my work schedule. And flying anywhere to or from Alaska during the holiday season would have caused an even more massive bank account hemorrhage than usual, so I decided to wait.

But back to this morning. As I sit typing with my throbbing knee and violet-colored hip, I’m remembering just how much of a fight it is to string together a productive week of running in wintery circumstances. I’m remembering why I usually use winter to cut back on running and crosstrain more. I’m remembering why there have been ice studs and yaktrax collecting dust forlornly on a shelf all spring, summer and fall. And I’m remembering last February when I headed out for a run in the snow, slipped, tore my calf muscle, and whined relentlessly on the stationary bike for two months.

For me, September and October offered an excellent running environment. Sure, it rained every day, and sure, it was dark every morning I ran, but neither of those things presents any true obstacle to putting in miles and gaining endurance. You invest in a headlamp and then you get out there and suck it up.

Now, things have changed. Juneau is entering it’s cycle of snow-rain-ice for the next few months, which means the roads will morph into knee-ripping, hip-bruising, calf-tearing asphalt slip’n'slides with wipeout potential looming at every curb and corner.

For me, those are treadmill conditions. It may be wimpy, but I’ve come to recognize that I will not accomplish much worthwhile running outside on ice. Yes, I would rather be outdoors, but the uncertainty of icy roads is insurmountably frustrating to me on any day I’m trying to have a decently fast run: Should I wear the ice spikes or the yaktrax? Will I have to take them off or put them on halfway through the run if the conditions change? Will I have to map out a route that doesn’t go over the bridge today? Will the sidewalks be too difficult to manage due to snow piled up from plows? 

Make no mistake, I do fine with cold, snow, and winter in general. I wouldn’t choose to live here if I didn’t. But I see no convenient avenue for accomplishing quality higher mileage in Juneau this winter without a treadmill, so I’m steeling myself against the imminent test of staring at my face bobbing up and down in the gym mirror for 12-15 miles at a time, fussing with the incline and speed, trying not to count every tenth of a mile, and listening to the same playlists over and over again. I’ll still be pulling out the ice studs and yaktrax on days that it makes sense to do so, but I’ll probably have at least a few treadmill runs per week.

I think this will be worth it. I’m curious about what I can accomplish in a marathon if I keep my miles up consistently. I’d absolutely like to break 3:20, and if I stay injury-free this winter, maybe I can even reach for more.

Then again? Running through the winter in cold, snowy, icy places becomes a matter of managing one’s expectations. I don’t want to turn into a pansy just because the road conditions have become more challenging, but I also don’t want to commit myself to a course of action that will only injure and/or frustrate me.

Here’s what bums me out about the winter running situation: Over the past year, I’ve become a very “zen” type runner. On any given run, I don’t pay much attention to my pace or exact miles. I don’t follow training plans. I don’t do any kind of structured speed work and wouldn’t even consider stepping foot on a track. I run faster or slower whenever I want and as long or short as I feel like it that day. Yeah, it has probably made me darn slow for a 5K, but it has also been a study in truly listening to my body. (Speaking of which, here’s where I make the obligatory plug for Eat Drink and Run’s Your Body Called: Part 1 and Part 2. Too true and too good not to share.) For me, it’s a whole heck of a lot harder to listen to my body in the winter, when every run involves last-minute planning and adapting around weather conditions. It’s also harder to listen to my body when I’ve committed to a treadmill run that day and suddenly paces and numbers are staring me rudely in the face, taunting me to go faster even on a day that might have been better suited for taking it easy.

This week will probably end with mileage in the high 60s. I backed off the miles to see if it might freshen my legs up for an 8K race tomorrow. I was hoping to PR, but with the snow and ice, I’m yet again readjusting my expectations in anticipation of a slower run. My new goal might simply be to remain upright and avoid shredding my other leg.

Lastly, I keep accidentally typing mileage as “mileagle.” LOL.

Oops, another long, disorganized and incoherent post from me. Oh well.

This is because I live in a rainforest.

I am soaked within moments of stepping out my door for my run most mornings. I stuff my shoes with dry newspaper after every outing. The sun is already rising well after 8am, so I never run without a headlamp and reflective vest. Sometimes I accidentally dash through darkness-disguised mini-Marianas Trench puddles and curse as the water soaks in and up, forgetting that my sneakers have been drenched the entire time anyway, and so the momentary insult of a freshly wet shoe is no worse than the fleeting, strangely delightful anguish of waking up in the morning to throw off my blanket, submit my feet to the icy floor to find body vertical, trade my warm pajamas for cold running tights, and — limbs still soft and sweet with sleep – stumble out the door to chase my breath through the dark for a few hours.

These are ideal running conditions for me. Rain, temperatures in the low 40s, not much wind yet. When the roads ice over and the wind comes back, then maybe I can complain. For now, though, I am nothing but lucky to be out there.

In fact, the only drawback of waking up at agony o’clock in the morning to run in the rain is putting on a sports bra. There is absolutely nothing more harrowing or dreadful on planet earth; it’s like a damn mensa puzzle at 5am. I typically spend a good long 83 seconds simply arranging my appendages so that I’m ready to find the correct holes for my head and arms. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, putting on a sports bra is horrendous.

On Sundays, the group I run with often goes out to breakfast after our trail run. The guys can all change their shirts in the parking lot and head right in. Me? I have to tote my things into the bathroom and fuss around in there wrestling with the stupid wet sports bra, which at this point has suctioned itself to me like some kind of strangling octopus. Because you can’t go sit around and shoot the breeze at post-run brunch hour if your sweaty sports bra is still on. As we all know, it turns into a death sentence ice vest that leaves you blue lipped and and miserable.

This incoherent post was brought to you by 100% cloud cover.

I ran my second marathon at the end of July.

I’d had my eye on this one since the day I decided to move to Juneau, but after being injured for nearly two months and then spending my injury recovery months putzing around, I didn’t feel physically or mentally prepared for a marathon.

About a month before: I decided to go ahead and register, figuring to use it as a nice long run even though I wasn’t feeling particularly focused.

Three weeks before: I stayed up all night talking to a friend. When 7:00 am rolled around and I still hadn’t gone to bed, I decided I may as well get my run out of the way. Since I’d been awake for over 24 hours, my judgment was impaired and I concluded there was no compelling reason I couldn’t go run 21 miles that morning since I was already tired. So I went out and ran 21 miles, and that was my only true long run before the marathon. Then I staggered home to my apartment, hastily consumed several liters of orange juice, and attempted to watch Charlie St. Cloud with my roommates. It is a terrible movie and we all promptly fell asleep.

Two weeks before: my left butt cheek began spasming and collapsing spontaneously during my runs. I was irritated by it and didn’t know what was going on. It made me nervous. Was running a marathon on this a bad idea?

On marathon day: I woke up excited and jittery and anxious. I did not feel prepared. I was intensely worried about my crumpling butt. Should I start? Would I finish?

My goal for the marathon was to cross the line in under 4 hours. I figured I could comfortably finish somewhere in the 3:40s, but did not feel prepared for the effort, which left me in a petty mental limbo over what to attempt. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if I should cut loose and try to PR and break 3:30, but… the truth is, I shy away from dreaming big, so I shelved that idea pretty quickly. Even so, it was there.

I wore a tech vest for the run, and packed it with two Gus, two packs of Gushers, and my four-year-old iPod that won’t even let you switch to the next song unless you fast-forward scroll.

The marathon was right in my backyard. My apartment is at the two mile mark. And the 24 mile mark. A straight up out-and-back course. Eesh. So I brought the iPod along for insurance against boredom, but didn’t end up whipping it out until mile 21.

It was 49*F and cloudy when I arrived at the starting line. I spotted two serious-looking girls I’d never seen before — out-of-towners! — one in a blue shirt and another little one in a pink shirt, built like Shalane Flanagan. I decided that Pink Shirt was going to win the race. I also decided that she would not be worth chasing. Blue Shirt looked intimidating. I’d probably let her go too.

Then I mentally slapped myself. My goal for the day was not to accomplish anything groundbreaking or run a good time or beat Pink Shirt or Blue Shirt. My goal was to have a nice long run and not die at the end like last time.

Right?

That’s all.

Okay.

So, I smiled, jumped around, got ready to enjoy myself, and exchanged pleasantries with the other doofuses who were lined up on a Saturday morning for 26.2 miles of feeling gloriously and insultingly and agonizingly alive.

7am, and we were off.

The course begins with a slight uphill for about ¾ of a mile. I figured I’d take the first ten miles out at 8:30-8:40 pace, perhaps.

Mile 1: 8:06

I swore as I clocked this split and promised myself I’d slow down.

But then? Mile 2: 7:55. Mile 3: 8:01.

Whatever.

I reeled off 7:50-8:05 pace like a metronome for the first half of the race. Pink Shirt and Blue Shirt zipped off ahead. Jerks.

I clocked the half at about 1:45 and chided myself again to loosen the reins. Horrifying memories of the last four miles of my first marathon kept flashing into my consciousness, and I hoped that my regular consumption of water, Gatorade, Gu, and Gushers throughout the run would be enough to prevent another colossal hydration and fueling failure.

A wayward insect torpedoed himself into my eye and rudely tunneled through my optic nerve at mile 15, so I spent that stretch trying not to swerve into the road and perish. After about ten minutes of uninterrupted blinking and crying and swearing jihad on all arthropods everywhere, my eyeball finally ejected his dirty dipteran ass and the sun came out and bald eagles soared overhead and I felt really good.

I pushed up a few hills. My legs gobbled up the straightaways. I saw Blue Shirt in the distance.

A running friend hopscotched in his car to give encouragement at around mile 16. He told me to go get Blue Shirt, but I knew — could tell already — that I wouldn’t have to. I saw the tell-tale marathon shutdown limp in the distance, the one I’d sported myself my first time around. I could let her come to me.

I passed her at mile 20.

I passed more people who had been far in front of me for the first part of the race, people who had been reduced to wretched, grim, glassy-eyed shuffles. I felt bad for them. I remembered what that felt like and did not want it to happen to me. Would it yet? Or could I escape and get lucky this time around?

I pretty much said “hell” to worrying about my pace at this point. With 10K to go, it was time to check in with my backbone and see what I could do about squeezing down toward sub-3:30.

My mile splits dropped significantly.

At mile 21, I broke out my iPod and listened to “The Cave” by Mumford and Sons on repeat for the remainder of the race, mostly because I love the part at the end where the horns come in.

In fact, around mile 23 and on perhaps my 12^th listen, I concluded that more bands should have a horn section. I spent the entire stretch fixated on an absurd mile-23-of-a-marathon epiphany that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band feature horns too and that must be why I love them. I was then trying to think of other bands that had horns, but I couldn’t, probably because I was running faster and gradually creeping into the delusional hurt locker. I was ready for the run to be over but I was also in disbelief that it was almost over.

At mile 24, my legs began to cramp a bit. I was on Maximum Security Wall Watch at this point. WTF was that spasm? Am I doomed? (I should note, however, that my butt did not spasm at all during the entire race. In fact, it never collapsed again after the marathon. Did I imagine the entire thing? Bodies are a mystery.)

Anyway.

I dreaded the last two miles because I run these miles nearly every day and they are a long uphill, but astoundingly it soon happened that I only had one mile to go.

One more mile!

More “The Cave,” more horns, more “I’ll find strength in pain,” repeat repeat repeat. (I don’t know why I became so focused on this song during the final piece of the race; I like it okay in real life, but during the marathon I found myself locked into some curious repetitive cognitive feedback loop that made me want to hear it again each time it ended. I couldn’t get enough. No other song would do. So thanks, Mumford & Sons. Big fan for five miles.)

Suddenly the finish line was in view and I crossed it. Didn’t stumble or stagger across, didn’t brown out, didn’t have any of the theatrics or misery of marathon #1, when I was so dehydrated that I turned into a drunken wreck immediately after crossing the line. Goodness, what a difference fastidious hydration and fueling can make.

Anyway, Sparknotes of this rambling mess is that I once again underestimated my abilities and ended up clocking in at 3:24:50, so I was very happy. And even though I told myself it was just going to be a training run… well, it became clear fairly early on in the run that if I didn’t break 3:30, I’d be disappointed. Even when I claim not to have expectations, I have expectations… I may just choose not acknowledge them even to myself. Confession inspired by Angry Runner.

(PS., this was a standard Juneau race field size: there were only 23 women in the marathon event, so that puts my 2nd place finish in appropriate context. Actually, I’m still a little annoyed that I couldn’t find five minutes to beat the first place girl, who was 3:19:50. I believe I closed on her quite a bit in the last 10K. Oh well. Maybe next year.)