Summer running recap

Farewell summer...

Summer came and went all too quickly and in the span of just a few short days, Cleveland's humid summer has vanished and fall has arrived. I've traded flip flops for boots and have broken into my box of winter running gear... Chilly morning runs require a long-sleeve!

...hello fall!

Before the fall season gets underway, I'm long overdue for a recap of summer running - so here's the rapid-fire long-winded rundown of my past few weeks.

After a disappointing run at USA Outdoor Nationals in June, I took a step back from intense racing, instead running a bunch of local low-key races. No pressure, all fun, and I won some decent prize money along the way :) I'm getting married next year and weddings aren't cheap, so I'm racing on the roads to add to my Wedding Dress Fund! 

Runaway Bride running wedding dress by Oiselle :-)

In August, I ran the Lake View Cemetery 5K, close by my house in Cleveland Heights. I love doing these local races because it's a great opportunity to get in a good tempo workout with some company, i.e. racing against men. I raced the lead guys through 2 miles and then suddenly found myself at the front of the whole race! I ended up being the first overall finisher (much to the dismay of the top male!) and not gonna lie, it was a lot of fun to win the whole thing :) Confidence officially boosted!

Post-race Cleveland skyline views with old roommates Anish and Ron

Also in August I ran my first-ever Double Road Race, a new running event where athletes first race a 10k, then have about 45 minutes to recover during the "half-time," and then race again, this time a 5k. Yes, it is exactly as brutal as it sounds. Back home in California for a wedding, I decided to run the San Jose Double as a workout, thinking it'd be a great way to get in 15k of work. Well, I got what I was looking for (plus a lot more!) - it was HARD!

Teammate high-fives but feeling rough after 15k

My NBSV teammate Chantelle raced too and with a mile to go in the 5k, she threw down a vicious surge that I couldn't match. While I bested her in the 10k, she got me in the 5k, and we ended up tying for 2nd overall, with our combined 10k and 5k times both totaling 55:12 (what are the odds?) :-) Chantelle is a long-distance queen (she's gearing up for the Toronto Marathon) but has some secret leg speed... She is FIT and I'm excited to see what she'll do this fall!

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson after 15 tough kilometers at the Double Road race and would stick to shorter events... But no. I got cajoled into running the Indianapolis Women's Half Marathon at the end of August and so wrapped up summer racing with 13.1 miles.

Pre-race with Nicole in Indy

I haven't been training for a half, so I knew 13.1 miles at tempo pace would be challenging. But with Indy's heat and humidity, it was downright awful. A death march/comedy of errors...

3 miles in, I dropped my Gu, which I had ingeniously stashed under my hat. (As you can see, that college degree is doing me a lot of good in the Gu storage department.) Can someone PLEASE invent a sports bra with a Gu pocket so idiots like me don't lose their gels? At each aid station, I proceeded to get Gatorade everywhere except in my mouth. (Thankfully, my non-waterproof MOVband (on my right wrist) survived its multiple Gatorade dousings!) Overall, excellent fueling strategy by Kaitlin.  

Rocking this awesome outfit because it was too hot to wear a jersey and I forgot my sunglasses...

By mile 9 I was crawling along at 6:30 pace. At mile 10, I asked myself why I was doing this. At mile 11, I was mentally planning my retirement from running. Somehow I made it across the finish line in just under 1:22. OH MAN I AM NOT A HALF MARATHONER!

I was all prepared to hang up my racing flats for good when my dear friend Nicole (who won the race!!) handed me a beer. Lesson learned: even brutal half marathons can be joyful when there's free beer and friends waiting for you at the finish line! Worry not, retirement is postponed :)

And so my summer of fun runs is over and it's back to business this fall. Next on the schedule for me is one of my favorite races, Tufts 10k for Women in Boston on October 14! Stay tuned!

Running by feel

Many coaches encourage their athletes to run by feel. There are numerous benefits to training this way: you become more in tune with your body and are forced to learn what a certain pace feels like. In college, I recall having to do some workouts without a watch, running 400s around the track with no splits to guide me. Without my trusty sidekick, Stopwatch, I felt naked, bare. Running scared, I often ran too fast and paid dearly. 

Checking those splits... definitely not running by feel...

But eventually, with time, I learned to trust my body and instead of forcing the pace, let the pace come to me.

Look, Ma - no watch!

So there's a lot to gain from running by feel. Many days, Coach Dad advises me to "let the run happen," starting slow as I listen to my body, finishing fast when I feel good. But what do you do when you feel like crap, all the time?

THIS is joyful running! "Feeling like crap" is how I'd describe much of the past spring. There were some joyful runs and a couple workouts I rocked, but they were few and far between. I was running lots, running hard, but things just weren't clicking. Few runs felt good, most runs felt blah, and a couple runs were so bad I just broke down in tears...

...kinda like this.

Try as I might, I'd lost the joy in my running and for the life of me I couldn't tell you why. Something was wrong, VERY wrong.

What do you do when you feel like doo-doo and you can't figure out what's up? You go to a doctor. You talk to an expert before devastating self-doubt takes over. You get some answers that are rooted in science, not in your running-crazed psyche. So that's what I did.

I got some tests. A lot of them, actually. 2 doctors, a 3 hour visit, 5 vials of blood, and $700 later, I had some answers. Low iron (not surprising and thankfully an easy fix!) and, surprisingly, super-low Vitamin D! I guess that's what happens when you move from sunny CA to Cleveland, land of little sun.

Rainy gloomy Cleveland summer

I didn't know much about the effects of low Vitamin D until I did some reading. Vitamin D is not only important for maintaining bone health, but it also affects your athletic performance by negatively impacting energy levels and your ability to recover, leaving you feeling pretty crummy. Nutrient deficiencies are a no-no for elite athletes, so since finding out my Vitamin D was severely low, I've been taking 50,000 IUs of Vitamin D each week to try to boost my levels back up. I'm almost done with a 12-week prescription and am finally starting to feel like myself again.

So I'm out on the roads and the trails each day, letting the runs happen, feeling the pace as it comes. Some days are slow but that joyful feeling is returning, and with it, the fire to compete.