Coming up: the Orca Half

On September 21, Nick and I are running his first half marathon! Training has felt...spotty. I made the mistake of not writing down a specific plan on my calendar, so I was mostly keeping track of my workouts via Strava. As a result, I'm not actually sure how solid my training was! So, in an attempt to boost my confidence for race day, I'm looking back on the last few weeks to see how my training actually went.

Nick and I signed up for the Orca Half in late June, after the Snoqualmie Valley 10k, so let's start there! I've grabbed screenshots from Garmin and filtered out walks and hikes, since I'm only counting running and weightlifting as part of my training plan, although the mileage totals in these screenshots do include the hikes and walks.

June

After a race, I tend to take time off—usually too much —and then have to start from scratch to train for the next one. This time around, I did a pretty good job of staying consistent through the end of June.

But July...that was when I started to feel the wheels come off. Looking at my calendar now, I remember that throughout this entire training cycle, I'd have a very solid week and then the following week I'd do next to nothing. My commitment seemed to spike and dip week by week, and not having a specific long run distance planned out each weekend really worked against me.

July

That pattern continued into August. I started to feel panic as race month loomed, and that panic fueled me into two double-digit runs. It's not good training to do almost no weekday runs and then jump up to 10 miles, but that's pretty much what I did. In all my years of running, I have figured out that more rest tends to be better for my legs, and I taper fairly extremely, but simply not training during the week isn't the way to go.

August

That said, I was proud of my runs in August. Running 10 miles while on an overnight trip in an unknown city was something I wouldn't usually do, and the fact that I mapped out the route, woke up early, completed the whole distance, and actually felt good during the run was a major win. 

Of course, a week of almost complete rest and a missed long run followed, and the 11-miler I did the next weekend was hot and painful in a way that signaled to me (in the moment) that my training was a mess. I had hoped my 10-miler would be a turning point, but it clearly wasn't. Every weekend I'd skip my long run or cut it short, I'd get so angry with myself, but the anger and disappointment was never enough to get the lesson to stick. I kept making bad choices and putting myself in a position to be upset, and I couldn't figure out how to dig deep and find the dedication I needed to get this shit done. 

I was so frustrated with myself!

Also during this training cycle, I was getting iron infusions. My ferritin has always been around 11, and after 18 months on supplements it rose to a whopping 36. While 11 (and 36) are technically "normal", I am always tired and an NP I saw mentioned that I was a candidate for infusions. Low iron due to absorption problems is common in people with celiac. So, I went through five weeks of infusions and I'll get my next blood test the week after the race to see if they helped at all. Anecdotally, I don't feel any better or less tired, and it was frustrating to feel I should have more energy for weekday runs but simply...not.

Anyway, August ended and suddenly I was faced with race month. You'd think this would motivate me to finish my training on a high note, but you'd be wrong!

September

Once more, I somehow managed to miss my last long run of training. (I say "somehow," as if it wasn't a choice I actively made.) So here I am, in the last week leading up to race week, frantically trying to get one last good long run in.

I was lucky that the morning I chose to do 10 miles before work was misty and cool. I was also lucky I was working from home that day, because it meant I didn't have to get up at 5am to make this happen. And now I can officially say I'm tapering, as if I ever built my mileage up enough to earn it. Folks, it is not recommended or normal to barely break 15 miles a week during half marathon training. Yikes.

So what went wrong? Part of it was not having my whiteboard calendar filled out with specific run distances. Part of it was that I've never trained for a fall race before, so training through the summer was a new kind of hell for me. Part of it was being in some sort of denial that I'd even signed up for a half...denial which I am still halfway living in.

I now know I am better at sticking to short, low-stakes runs in the summer and planning my long races for winter and spring. I'd rather train through darkness and rain than hot days with 18 hours of sun. Plus we hike a lot in the summer, which makes running long especially tricky.

But at the end of the day, I got three double-digit runs in and (mostly) kept up with my weightlifting, so I'm feeling vaguely confident that I will be able to finish the half without letting Nick down. (He's had a spotty training cycle too, from what I've gathered, but it's his first, so that's to be expected. Anyway, I'm relieved that neither of us is dead set on running a particularly impressive race.)

Ironically, I've been excited for this race since I signed up. I wish I were half as excited for training! Now that training is over and I can look back and see that I didn't do nothing, I can stop being so hard on myself and bask in the anticipation of running a half with Nick. 

Ali