Monday, February 28, 2011

Hey when she moves When she moves When she moves like she runs

Yesterday I capped off my highest milage running week in 2 years. A whopping 46.2 miles. While I know to a lot of you, that's not a lot but with the nagging plantar fasciitis I've had for the last couple of years, I haven't been able to handle the higher milage stuff. Plus, after PRing in Boston last year with a peak week around 45 miles, I'm not sure I need to go up anywhere crazy (I think my highest milage week ever was when I was training for NJ and that was 60 miles). Yes, I know there are people out there who preach you're not going to get faster unless you RUN MORE. I think you're not going to get faster unless you figure out WHAT WORKS FOR YOU. RIght now, this is working for me and I do not want to run the risk of that horrible pain in my foot coming back. I've been keeping it mostly at bay, a nag here and there, but upping my over all strength seems to have really helped.

This weekend was a mix of running and socializing with runners. A lot. Long run on Sat with the gang of uptown girls and Ms. Bea who ran a personal distance of 8 miles. I ran 18. After, there was a big tired love fest.
She was TIRED after her run but loved it. She (with the help of Loren) has been coming along for part of my long runs and really loves running with a pack.
Sat. night I went to Dessert Wars, a fundraiser for The Boston Arts Academy, the charity my pal Rayk is running Boston for.
I intentionally did my 18 miler before going to this event, as there were close to 40 desserts to try. I will be detoxing for weeks.
Sunday, Loren and I headed to The Armory for the Heps, which is the Ivy League championships. We went to a pre-meet breakfast with Cornell (Loren's school) alums and stayed to watch the meet. While by nature, track meets are boring, there were some exciting races. Most notably, the women's 4x800 relay. Princeton set a league record running it in 8:43:16. Really, the most amazing moment of the day was watching Kate Grace, a senior from Yale and their anchor, take her team from 7th place (and a good 50 yards back on the track) to 3rd over all. She ran a 2:03 800. For those of you who don't know anything about times, that is FAST. Really fast, esp. in a relay. It was 2 seconds faster than the individual 800 that she ran and also won.
Another moment I enjoyed off the track was watching Loren give the winners of the mile and the 800 their awards. They announced the presenter "Loren Mooney winner of this event in 1993" when she presented for the mile. When she came back to her seat I said "most those girls weren't even born when you won this event, they're looking at you like you're some old lady". Over all, it was pretty fun.
After, I came home for my slow recovery run and then had an evening of Oscars.
This week's milage should be about last week's, maybe a hair less. Here's to continuing a strong training cycle.

4 comments:

Rose @ Eat, Drink, and Be Meiri said...

That is an ADORABLE picture of you and your dog.

Girl In Motion said...

How cool that Loren had won that back in 1993. She's such a superstar. And you, my dear, huge congrats on the high mileage, that's MAJOR!! But what shocked me to read is that it's been 2 years already with PF following you around. Can't believe it's been this long. So happy that you're finally getting the miles in and keeping it to a minimum. This is great stuff.

L.A. Runner said...

Cool weekend! Congrats on the mileage. You are training hard and smart- good combo! I love the pic of you and Bea, too cute. And... that is a smoking relay time!!! Wowzers, would've love to have seen that.

TiredMamaRunning said...

Soooo preaching to the choir on running mileage that works for you....I've learned that I start breaking every time I've tried creeping up over 60 miles.

Love that photo, too.