Temperatures swung from snow last week to 70s and maybe even some 80s this week. Glad I’m doing the GVRAT to force myself into summer miles, but this is a learning experience for me for sure!
Sunday: 18 miles. Met a friend for a socially distant walk/catch up for about an hour afterwards on a couple park benchnes, and it was so, so needed.
Long run fuel: Tailwind, Bobo’s bar, Gu.
BWF/Core work: Two workouts this week again, so on track.
Stretching: Back into the habit of stretching, but still room for improvement.
Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee1000K progress (1021K): 111/634miles. There’s one other runner with the same last name, so I like to think I’m chasing him. He’s still ahead, but I closed the gap a bit this week!
Sunday: 18 miles. Hit up the Jail Trail, which was mostly empty since I got there early and it was still cold. Made a detour to the Point to round out my mileage for the day.
Long run fuel: Tailwind, Bobo’s bar, Gu.
BWF/Core work: Two workouts this week! Felt good, but sore to get back to it.
Stretching: Back into the habit of stretching, so we’ll keep that going.
Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee1000K progress: 63/635 miles. I’ll have to double check, I think this race is 635 miles, but that number may be a bit off. A 1000K is 621, but the course is a bit longer than that, as is the case with many ultras.
First week of real training for O24, and feels good to be back. I’ll be adding in BWF work this week, bt I’m back on the stretching train, so that helps a lot!
My long run was tough, it was really humid, warmer than it had been all week, and the trail was packed, mostly with people fishing in the stream that runs next to it. Sadly, so few people were wearing mouth coverings, but it’s at least wide enough to keep my distance.
Monday: 7 miles.
Tuesday: 4 miles.
Wednesday: Rest.
Thursday: 6 miles. Ran the Zombies, Run! Spring virtual race, which was a ton of fun, one of their best!
Friday: Rest.
Saturday: 5 miles
Sunday: 14 miles.
Long run fuel: Tailwind, Bobo’s bar.
BWF/Core work: Took the week off, restarting next week.
Stretching: Back into the habit of stretching, so we’ll keep that going.
Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee1000K progress: 19/621 miles.
So here’s where we are. Eagle Up is cancelled until 2021. O24, which was supposed to be this weekend, has been delayed to the first weekend in October. In a cruel twist of fate, that means that I could do the same training plan starting at that point (the week I log below) and it would line up perfectly.
However, that would mean that I’ve been ‘in training mode’ since Christmas for a race in October. Yes, this training cycle has increased my speed and I’ve made some great progress, but that’s a lot to take on, mentally.
I took the whole week off, mostly as a mental reset, but did participate in the virtual Doc’s Blow Out Yore Butt challenge on Friday. The idea was to tackle one of your soft PRs and see if you could break it.
My softest PR is probably 50K, but I wasn’t going to go after that, instead, I decided to run a 10K. My previous PR was 59:19.
So, I adjusted a bit, jumping into week 4 of my plan (a mix of two RFP plans and the speedwork from Uncle Pete) and then adjusting/repeating around week 12 and 13 so it all works out pretty well. This puts me back into VO2 speed work which I’m dreading, but also know it will make me a better runner.
I’m also dreading all the summer running I have in front of me. To help with that, I signed up for laz’s 1000K virtual race across Tennessee. We have four months to log 1000K, and since this is probably my only chance to run a laz race, I figured, it’s a good way to get some inspiration.
Monday: Rest.
Tuesday: Rest.
Wednesday: Rest.
Thursday: Rest.
Friday: Rest.
Saturday: Doc’s Blow Out Yore Butt challenge – 10K: 54:08, new (unofficial) PR!
Sunday: Rest.
BWF/Core work: Took the week off, restarting next week.
Stretching: Should have stretched, but didn’t. Back at it.
My friend and teammate Lauren planned an eight hour puzzle run for her birthday. And while we couldn’t all go to Indianapolis to do it in the park like she originally planned, we were able to all compete virtually!
Each hour, she would release a new clue. You then than three options for getting the second clue to that hour:
Run 2-3 miles
Walk 1 mile
Do some sort of activity for 30 minutes (this could be wiring, cleaning, other exercising, whatever you wanted to do).
After you got the clues, you’d come up with either a three digit code or three letter word to send back. If you were right, you got one of the eight puzzle pieces. First one to assemble all eight puzzle pieces correctly wins!
You could participate as a team, but I was running solo. You could also front-load miles for those who wanted to do a long run; they would get the clues each hour at quarter after. I decided to run three miles each hour, which gave me a little taste of a last person standing race. I set up in my basement with my laptop, some snacks, water and at 9 a.m., I took off for my first run. Each hour I’d be running 9 loops of my neighborhood.
Hour 1 – Numbers. Run time: 30:15
At the top of the hour, Lauren gave us six Sudokus. The second clue showed us which three boxes we needed to turn into her. I copied one of them wrong, so I had to come back to this after my hour two run, but I enjoyed it, it’s been a while since I’ve done any Sudokus! This is where I also learned that doing these kinds of mental tasks after running is harder than I expected!
Hour 2 – Ballroom. Run time: 28:56
This freaking puzzle! This one gave me the most trouble the whole day. We got the image below as the first clue, and then the second was the crossword that showed what letters to send back to her.
I made a word bank, and eventually Lauren released a better word bank, so I was able to figure it out from there. But man, I was googling everything (names of famous hip hop dancers, George Fred Astaire, synonyms for tango, my search history is something else!) and I tried some wild things, even trying to figure out how to use the clock as a clue.
Eventually I finished up Numbers and resigned myself to keep working on Ballroom for the rest of the day.
Hour 3 – Sign. Run time: 28:31
This hour’s first clue was a sign from Bryan’s Family Fish Market. After my run, I got the blank puzzle with a few letters filled in (like Wheel of Fortune). Eventually, I started crossing off letters from the sign and filled in the puzzle, asking me for the number of MPs in the UK House of Commons. Sent that off, got my puzzle piece and stared some more at Ballroom.
Hour 4 – Bar. Run time: 28:04
Hour four gave us a picture of bottles lined up on a bar. After my run, I was asked to make a Moscow Mule, the three digits being the number of each bottle. Stared some more at Ballroom and got some more substantial food from upstairs and refilled my water bottles.
Hour 5 – People. Run time: 27:47
This hour brought us six people with their ages, pointing to each other. After my run, I got an order of mathematical operations. The first solution I came up with (using the order of operations), was a four digit number, and I knew that couldn’t be right, so I went back and did each step as a separate, individual equation. That yielded the correct three digit code!
Still working on Ballroom, but I also took the pieces that I had and started to put them together in Photoshop. I could see what is was going to be, but still had half of the pieces to collect. This was also where the running was really starting to wear me down. The breaks were good for my legs, but the brain keeps going, even when you’re running, so it was quite a workout the whole day!
Hour 6 – Words. Run time: 27:32
This one also took a while to figure out, and Lauren released a bunch of extra hints for it. At the top of the hour we got three columns of three letter words. Our clue was red, yellow and green boxes that corresponded with each of them.
At first, I thought it was finding similar letters in the green box words, and maybe some overlap from yellow. I also tried finding the most used letter from each column, and the most used letters from each color.
Eventually, figured it out that red words had no correct letters, yellow had a correct letter in the wrong spot and from there, I was able to brute force through it all to figure out the answer, but not until after all my runs were done.
Hour 7 – Clocks. Run time: 27:35
This one was ingenious. At the top of the hour we got eight clocks that were missing their hands. The second clue ave us the hands.
So at first, I tried finding a pattern in the times, and looking at the elapsed time between each clock. I tried adding up the total elapsed time, nothing was working.
Hour 8 – Excerpt. Run time: 27:26
I went out for my last run, hoping to get back quick enough to give myself a fighting chance to finish up Words, Clocks and Excerpt. I made it back, grabbed my computer and phone and ran upstairs to see what I could finish.
The first part of the clue was an excerpt from Sherlock Holmes on a very busy background. The second clue was a color wheel with an arrow pointing to cyan.
If you filtered to read the cyan part, you could make out an extra sentence near the end. I saw the word ‘address’ in it an immediately send in the clue of 221, the first part of Holmes’ address. Knowing it was a three digit code, there was nothing else it could be.
I still needed to get words Words and Clocks. Words I was able to work my way through, it just took me until after run eight, leaving only clocks left to be solved.
Staring at it, I suddenly realized that one of the clocks was from Ballroom! I actually made it harder on myself by going back to that clue and trying to read the time off of it. The more simple, and correct answer was to just send in the time that matched that clock from the second part of the clue. That series of texts, sending in the answer for Clocks as my mind worked through those revelations was amazing and I was cheering in my house! That gave me all eight pieces!
I put them together, sent it in, and won the individual race! A four person team finished up very shortly after hour 8, and a two person team didn’t finish until just before the end of the day cutoff, so I’m very happy with my performance!
As sad as it was to not be together to celebrate her birthday, being able to play this amazing game virtually was great! Following along with people working through puzzles and running all day was really awesome.
I can also say that this is the first time I’ve ever won a race! Guess it takes a combination of mental and physical tasks to give me a chance! But I will say, I’m really proud with my running. Getting consistently faster throughout the day was not something I expected to be able to do, and I really impressed myself!
Lauren did such an amazing job putting this together, changing it to a virtual event on the fly, and coordinating us all as we ran. I think there at least 40 people participating which is so awesome to have such a big group, from all over the country playing!
This inadvertently became my last race for the spring, and I’ve taken the next week off (going the same direction for all of my running around my neighborhood tiny loop has done a number on my left Achilles). I have the Zombies, Run! spring virtual coming up, and then I’m gong to do Laz’ The Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee 1000K to make sure I keep up my running over the summer and to get ready for the newly rescheduled O24.
This week was filled with highs and lows: Lauren’s (Virtual) Birthday Puzzle Race and then Eagle Up being cancelled until 2021. I’ll have another post up with my thoughts and how I’m changing my training, but for now, here’s my last post for this series.
Wash your hands, stay home, wear a facemask when you go out and let’s all band together (by staying apart) to get through this together.
Monday: Rest.
Tuesday: Rest.
Wednesday: 10 miles.
Thursday: 9 miles.
Friday: Rest.
Saturday: 24 miles – Lauren’t (Virtual) Birthday Puzzle Race!
Sunday: Rest. My Achilles was a bit tender from the race the day before, and with EU being cancelled, I needed the mental break.
Long run fuel: Tailwind, Bobo’s Bars, Honey Stinger Waffle, homemade crusty bread.
BWF/Core work: Did the BodyWeightFitness Recommended Routine once this week, still making some good progress, but now I’m out of the habit, have to fix that!
Stretching: Out of the habit of this too, but time to make it up!
Still running, which is helping my sanity, but I’m also leaning more and more towards Eagle Up being cancelled. Not sure if they’ll rechedule it, but I’ll at least have a fall ultra on my calendar with O24.
Wash your hands, stay home, wear a facemask when you go out and let’s all band together (by staying apart) to get through this together.
Monday: Rest.
Tuesday: 7 miles.
Wednesday: 5 miles.
Thursday: 9 miles, steady state 20 minutes.
Friday: Rest.
Saturday: 15 miles.
Sunday: 9 miles.
Long run fuel: Tailwind, Bobo’s Bars.
BWF/Core work: Did the BodyWeightFitness Recommended Routine twice this week. I also did an at-home yoga class, and there is a new Zombies, Stay at Home mission I need to check out.
Stretching: More stretching, although I did miss it two days.
Getting into a groove of running even more alone than normal, but I’m also dealing with a weird state of my races being cancelled/postponed, so I’m not sure how to train. As of right now, my A race is still on (and it’s honestly on the bubble, depending on how these next two weeks go), so I don’t want to stop, but if it gets postponed, I’ll just have to modify my plan.
My other ultra, which was supposed to be a tune-up race, is being rescheduled for October, so it looks like I’ll have an A race for the fall, although I’m not looking forward to training through the summer. However, if my current A race gets cancelled outright, I’ll at least have something else to make my new A race.
It’s all up in the air and unknown right now, so in the meantime, wash your hands, stay out of groups, and let’s all band together (by staying apart) to get through this together.
Monday: Rest.
Tuesday: 5 miles.
Wednesday: 10 miles.
Thursday: Rest. Just wasn’t feeling it mentally, so I swapped two days.
Friday: 9 miles.
Saturday: 11 miles.
Sunday: 18 miles. Did 11 miles at the park, which people were generally really good about social distancing, but the pollen, the sun, humidity and some stomach issues made me stop early, so I did the last 7 at home that evening.
Long run fuel: Tailwind, Bobo’s Bars.
BWF/Core work: Did the BodyWeightFitness Recommended Routine once this week, will add another in next week to keep an average of 2/week. I also did an at-home yoga class, as well as the new Zombies, Stay Home at home workout. The ZR workout was cute and fun, and I’m glad they’re doing it, it’s great content for the current apocalypse.
Stretching: More stretching, although I did miss it two days. More gentle yoga, which is also helping a bit!
As is our new reality, this was my first race cancelled, which was a tune up for Eagle Up. So, I geared up, crewed myself and did it virtually on the jail trail and Frontrunner loops on Sunday.
The jail trail loop is 5.5 miles, and the Frontrunner loop is 4, so I planned on doing five jail trail loops and one Frontrunner loop, giving myself the option to stop at my car between each one. The day started out chilly, in the 20’s, so I was in a few extra layers I knew I would stop to take off.
Lap 1: Parked and got my things situated, using my vest filled with two bottles of Tailwind and I took off towards the South Side. Not many people out, but given the time, temperature and the social distancing, I wasn’t surprised. Got back to my car and decided to not stop, instead grabbing half of the Bobo’s Bar in my vest and kept going.
Lap 2: The sun started to peek out at times, and I thought about doing a clothing change for when I got back. Generally though, another pleasant loop, although my hips were tighter than I wanted, so I knew I’d be going slower than I wanted. Once I got back to my car, used the Porto, toiok off one torso layer, grabbed a handful of Pringles and ate the rest of my Bobo’s Bar.
Lap 3: Started to see a few more people, which was nice, and the sun was really coming out, so I spent most of this loop thinking about changing my clothes. Once I got back to my car I took off the pants (had shorts on underneath) and changed into thinner socks, which was a big help. Had a couple Pringles and a peanut butter packet.
Lap 4: Saw the president of the Frontrunners twice on this loop, which was a nice boost! Churning out the miles, still chugging along. At the end of the loop grabbed a ginger ale to stave off some stomach issues and fueled with half a Bobo’s bar. My headphones died on this loops, so I grabbed and paired my second pair when I was back at the car after a trip to the Porto.
Lap 5: saw a different member of the Frontrunners and stopped to do two quick good deeds: putting back a construction barrel from the middle of the road, and replacing a panel on one of the bike-share bikes. I started walking the bridges on this lap to give my legs a break. Grabbed some coke, Pringles and another peanut butter packet and headed out.
Lap 6: This was my short loop, which also meant leaving my car in the opposite direction. It was a nice change, even though it was only 1.5 miles shorter, but the change in direction and the new bridge was nice. Got back to my car, stopped my Strava and enjoyed being done, especially since there was a big increase in the number of people out on the trails.
Final time: 6:40:18. I had been hoping for sub 6, but having to crew myself, and the mental toll of *frantically waves at the world* I can say I’m not unhappy with my time.
Physical: Felt sore and tired, as expected. My hips were tighter from the start than I would have liked, and I think that made me slower. But maybe that’s a good thing, to take it slower than I could, this wasn’t my A race. Did develop one blister, which, all things considered, not bad to be my only injury after a race like this.
Crewing: I did better than I thought crewing for myself, I was generally really organized and did well thinking about what I’d need each time coming into my car. I spent a decent chunk of time looking for some band aids that I ultimately didn’t need, and hadn’t thought to pack ahead of time anyway. The back of my car is a little tight, but the totes helped a lot keeping things organized.
Next up: O24 is being rescheduled, but I don’t know the date yet. Eagle Up is looking less and less likely. Depending on how things play out in terms of scheduling, one of them will be my A race, but I’m sure they’ll both be later in the summer, meaning hotter and grosser and I’m going to hate it. I’m still following my training plan, and I made sure to take some good time off after this virtual.
