How Was Your Weekend?

I dread this question. No, actually: I hate this question. What can be worse on a Monday morning than perfunctory checking-in chit chat with your boss led off with “How was your weekend?”

Now, maybe you are one of those rare creatures who actually likes and respects your boss and coworkers. Me, it would be tough to come up with a list of ten people I admire and trust in my company (that could say more about me than my coworkers; I never said I was easy).

So the last thing I want to do is talk about the weekend with my boss. First of all, I’ve usually had a crappy weekend (still living with sadness and anger over here) and the fact that she asks me about it pisses me off. Second, she could care less. Third, she’ll never tell me anything about her weekend, so why the fuck should I be the one to share? I suppose I could just say “Fine,” and move on, but usually I just pretend not to have heard and ask her, “How can I help?” Because she only stops by when she needs something from me.

There is only one woman in my entire department who could ever relate to (one part of) my weekends. This is because JMK is a dedicated runner (she’d make that “List of Ten” I mentioned earlier; she ran the GMR and Media Challenges with me last year), and when I say 10 miles at race pace then a 20-miler on Sunday,there is no explanation needed, and I don’t have to endure minutes of “Wow! I could never do that!” etc etc. I ask you, dear readers (who I have missed muchly): Is anything more annoying than nonrunning people being impressed with our distances (and/or times) when we know deep in our hearts that we’re not hitting our splits, or felt awful the whole way, or are ten pounds heavier than last season? I can’t accept their awe because it’s an illusion (and probably idle bullshit, as well). If I’m not impressed with myself, then they are rubes.

By now you’re probably all thinking, “TK came out of her cave to rant at us?” Well, er, kind of. But here’s the good news. (Yes! Finally, good news.) For the first time in a looong time I hit my time goals during my two long weekend workouts! This is old news for those of you who follow me on Twitter, but my 10-mile pace run and my 20-mile long run were both exactly at goal pace.

My pace runs have become a lot less onerous since I took Julie’s advice and made the first mile a warm-up at long-run pace. Then I hit the gas pedal for the rest of the workout, which took me past Astoria Park, under the Hellgate and Triboro Bridges, and through the back streets of Astoria. Including Mile 1, my average pace was 8:31 (if I run this pace in London I will qualify for Boston); if I drop Mile 1, the average pace drops to 8:25! I take it as an auspicious coincidence that my workout mirrored Sarah’s, who is a stronger runner than I.  While this run isn’t quite enough to get me back to the level of confidence I felt going into the New York City Marathon, I at least feel like I may dare to dream of a new PR at London.

Today’s 20-miler was a bit of a circle in a square, as the route I plotted was basically a square (four sides: East Side Rec Path, 102nd Street, West Side Rec Path, 57th Street) with a loop in the middle (Central Park 6-mile loop). I think this new course had me a little jazzed, as I’ve run that hook around the bottom of the island so many times I visualize it when I’m bored in meetings. This 20-miler took me 3:09:59, at a 9:29 minute per mile pace. I can live with that. Anything much faster than that is frankly getting too close to race pace (for me), and at this point in my training–5 weeks from race day!–I am not willing to risk wearing my body down more than necessary. I’ve one more long run (on 4/5) and a tune-up race (on 3/29–the Scarsdale 15k) before I begin tapering. (As an aside, I’m starting to get this inkling in my head that perhaps I won’t fight the taper as much this go-around, since I am so completely flattened by this training already.)

This is one of the reasons why I miss writing for Pigtails Flying. Because the question “How was your weekend?” between you and me actually means something. But we don’t even have to ask that question to get at the heart of the matter. Instead, we can cut to the chase and say, “How was your tempo run?” or “How did your long run go?” and the sharing of distances, times and splits may sound dry and mathematical, but it’s so much more meaningful than “Fine.”  There’s secret information in those numbers, extractable only by folks like us.

Here are some more numbers, which tell the tale of Kara Goucher’s weekend. (What is a PF post without KG, after all?) Sunday morning she competed in the Lisbon Half-Marathon in Portugal as a tune-up for the Boston Marathon. Her coach Aberto Salazar had told the press earlier in the week he thought she could break the 66-minute mark (which would have set a new world record; as well as shatter Deena’s American record), but it was not to be. Kara did win, with a time of 68:29. That’s an average pace of 5:13.  Do you think she finished happy with her first-place finish?  Given Salazar’s trash-talking, I’m guessing she’s a little disappointed. Here is the official race website in English–hopefully the results will go live by the time this post gets uploaded so we can see her splits.

UPDATE @ 1:30 PM: Here are Kara’s splits.

DON’T FORGET: I’m here all week celebrating my birthday!