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Loving Lolo
The 2008 Olympics in Beijing was not the shining moment that Lolo Jones thought it was going to be. She had been touted and promoted as one of the US track stars to watch; how could she not be with the name, the looks and of course the talent. She ran very well in her qualifying heats in the 100 meter hurdles and was expected to win gold. In that final heat as she was pulling away from the pack she clipped the penultimate hurdle and ended up finishing seventh. As a former track athlete in junior high I know how high those hurdles can be. Let's not forget that tremendous amount of technique that is required. It's not just the technique of getting out the starting block properly but the number of steps that each hurdler takes between jumps. The next time you see a track and field hurdling event on TV pick a runner to watch and count their steps. If the race is going well it will be the exact amount of steps each time. They will always jump off on the same foot, land on the same foot, and start all over.
Lolo's 2009 season had it ups and downs with a successful indoor track season only to be followed by a hamstring injury and never quite being able to catch up for the outdoor season.
I had a nice opportunity to meet Lolo this past Friday where she was signing autographs at the Asics store grand opening in NYC. I got there a little bit before the official signing was supposed to start and that afforded the few of us who there that time to have a real conversation with her. My time with her totaled about 8-10 minutes but it ended up being a very inspiring 8-10 minutes. While she was signing my poster we talked about her training, nutrition and marathons.
Training and Nutrition - October is her off month and during this time she has been eating a lot of cheeseburgers and chocolate cake. Next month she will go on an almost all fish diet as her training picks up again. She said that when she starts craving the cake during her training she will be able to look back onto this splurging as a way to help get past that craving.
Marathons - She asked me if I was running in this year's marathon and for some reason I said not this year. She picked up on that right away and asked if I had run before to which I said no but that perhaps one day I would and mentioned that every time I finishing a half marathon I have problems of wrapping my brain around 26.2 miles. She agreed with me on the mileage and said that after her track career she wants to do a marathon. She even admitted that she would walk parts of the course and that her fear was that whenever she started walking a PA announcer would see her and let everyone in crowd know that Olympian Lolo Jones was walking by.
I can't tell you how much that encouraged me to seriously rethink this marathon thing. While I don't think that Lolo would actually walk parts of the marathon course, I think she's way too competitive to let that happen, it was encouraging to hear her just talk about that.
So now I will make the official announcement that I am seriously thinking about doing a marathon. I think I may have two in me. Part of my gut tells me that I don't want to NY to be my first but some other locale where I can go it alone. The other part says NY has to be my first because it will fit into my schedule better and I won't have to go it alone.
Just in case and I repeat JUST IN CASE I have signed up to volunteer as a course marshal at the NYRR Holiday 5k in Prospect Park on December 12. This means that I will not be running in that race, a race I wanted to run in. You have no idea how huge that is for me. My stomach is churning right now.
// posted by stacey on 10:08:00 AM // |
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Saturday, October 24, 2009
Confidence
Tomorrow I am running in the Poland Spring Marathon Kickoff. I ran it
last year and really enjoyed it although it is crazy crowded. This
year it has sold out so I am expecting it to be more crowded than usual.
Most of my training as of late has been geared towards the half
marathon, so much so that I almost forgot that I had this race on the
calendar. I really didn't start to think about any goal specific
training until last weekend. Ooops.
Instead I tries to cram in the race prep. I was reminded that it
doesn't work in running like it does for a history test. But at least
somewhere way back when I plotted out the half marathon training
schedule I did include this race in those plans. At least my brain was
functioning at some point during September! This thankfully allowed me
to be a bit more flexible and get some five mile race specific
training in.
Yesterday, I got that 10 mile long run that I postponed from last
Sunday. Like most of the running I have been doing I have been feeling
strong afterwards. They may not be easy runs, but that strong feeling
is so important and a huge confdence boost. Yesterday's run was no
different.
I ran in Central Park which I haven't done since the Fitness Magazine
four mile race in September. I took all of the hills with gusto and
conquered them. Confidence rising for tomorrow. My five mile split was
under my previous five mile PR so again another confidence booster.
This is what I have been needing since all week I have had a gut
feeling that the race is not going to turn out as planned. But
interestingly enough that feeling has nothing to do with the running
but external things. It just may mean that I run in a pissy mood. But
I am hopin that my gut is wrong and those external things come
through. I need that confidence boost too.
Sent from my iPhone
// posted by stacey on 3:39:00 PM // |
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Saturday, October 17, 2009
Stress
The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of sorts, where I have felt that I have blown around from one place to the next. That includes emotionally and physically.
I am currently in the second busiest time of year work wise, but this phase has the most pressure attached to it. To be honest it, preparing for this upcoming conference has been the worst in the 12 years I have been working on it. Then add in a major web development project that has been fulfilling but getting it off the ground has had it's own challenges. I have been staying late at work during this time, which is almost unheard of, and working on weekends and days off, also a rarity.
There have also been some family issues that I admittedly don't know how to deal with. Every time I try to deal with those I get stuck and don't really do anything. But I am talking about it more so I guess that is a good thing.
Oh and let's throw in the little fact that I'm training for the Philadelphia Half Marathon in November. In reality the running has, as usual, been a life savor for the most part. My training schedule was carefully plotted out at the beginning of September, first in pencil and then entered into my calendar. It is synched with my computer calendar, iPhone calendar and my MobileMe account. I have access to it whenever ad wherever I need it. I can even go so far and add it to my iPod, but I thought that might be a little extreme even for me.
All of this has caused the perfect storm for my stress levels to elevate.
When all of this came to a head three weeks ago, the half marathon training was going great. The schedule was being adhered to and I could feel the difference in all of the runs. The training consists of three focus runs a week; a long run, tempo runs and easy runs, and speed and hill work. I was also hoping that this initial bit of speed and hill work would help me with prepare for the Poland Spring Marathon Kickoff five mile race next weekend.
But then the stress got a hold of me. I came home one day and had to fight off the beginning of a sinus attack. Did that but had to postpone focus run two of the week. I got all of the focus runs in that week but not as planned. Then the stress got me. Coming home from work I was so fatigued that I knew it was not a god idea to run so the speed and hill work lost out.
The one really bright spot about this is that I'm not freaking out about it. Yes, I've had to skip some training runs and even modify the schedule a bit, but I haven't missed a long run and I don't think I lost anything by not doing those training runs. I'm not sure if that is because I've been so stressed out in other areas of my life that I can't worry about this or that I'm in a better place overall.
Finally, this week I was able to get back on track training wise and feel so much better. Even during all of this stress, I have felt stronger with each run. They have been challenging when called for but I have felt incredibly confident after each one. Another good sign about where I am overall.
I do have to figure out what my goals for next weekend's race will be. Initially, I was hoping with all the tempo runs and speed work, I would be able to get a really nice PR. But, because of everything that has gone on, I've only had two speed work sessions and no hill work, I'm not sure if the PR is a realistic goal. That leaves turning the race into a training specific run or just a fun run. The PR can still happen but I don't think that can be the primary goal.
Here's hoping that the weeks ahead will be better.
// posted by stacey on 10:30:00 AM // |
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