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!
Glad to hear that you had such good runs this weekend! If anyone asks how your weekend was, you can respond with a simple “Good” now.
And, yes, the questions (which often seem to be mocking in nature) from non-runners are extremely annoying. Even moreso are the comments from the couple-miles-a-week guys who want to compare runs with you. As a result, I’ve started to just keep my running to myself. Of course, people who know me will ask about it, but they’ll also know not to ask stupid questions.
TK! Glad to see you posting again. And also happy to hear that your training is going so well. I wish I’d known you’d be running in Central Park yesterday, as I was doing two loops — one of which was at 9:30 pace — and it would have been nice to have had some company.
Enjoy the Scarsdale race next weekend. I would have run it, but I’m doing a 30K in CT instead. It’s a good course, which I would describe as rolling (and a few little hills to get the HR up). It’s small, too, so the crowd is manageable. The neighborhood is beautiful and, as an extra bonus, one of the water stations is usually manned by the Scarsdale Fire Dept — and some of those guys are hawt.
Happy birthday. Mine’s in two weeks…
I have a serious thing for firemen. I sometimes deliberately detour to run by a firehouse.
Yes, it would have been very nice to have ran a loop of CP with you! I am astounded you run ever at 9:30 pace!
Congrats on your paced and long runs. Because we’re training for goal races around the same times, I know exactly how you feel. As the date gets closer and closer, each scheduled workout seems to take on an added significance so much so that all you want to talk about the next day is the workout and when you can’t share that with people because they don’t know or can’t relate, it is extremely frustrating.
Still, through experience, I’ve learned that the final month of training probably have less to do with our final race time than what we might think. In the end, the race you will run will be more reflective of your overall training over the entire 16 or 18 weeks than what you did in the last 4 or 5 weeks leading up to it. Conversely, if you run too hard, like I did the past week, you end up risking your goal race more than helping it.
Anyway, hoping you have the best training leading up to London. Good luck!
Lam, yes, that’s it exactly. Workouts now are more about building my confidence for race day than anything else. Thus my reluctance to push too hard.
You actually pass the firemen twice, but both times it’s right after running one of those short but steep hills. They’re like a carrot. Well, not for me.
Getting in 10 at race pace followed by a 20 the next day is, as the kids used to say but probably don’t anymore, awesome.
And sorry to say that Kara blew up in the race. We must now commiserate, you for Kara, me for Ryan Hall, about their below-par pre-Boston races.
Funny (re firemen)!
And yes, sad (re Kara & Ryan). I hope they aren’t freaking out.
HA! as a non runner I am always in awe of anything over a block but I see how it could be frustrating if you’re not making your goals and we’re all “OMG!!! YOU”RE A RUNNING ROCK STAR!!!!!”………..
However…. until my car is sold (June) and I become one of you- I shall continue to be in awe… (na na na na na!)
missed you!
hitting those training targets is sweet.
you should have fun at the 15k – i’d venture the course leans towards challenging, on the other side of rolling ;D
i’m running the 4 miler w/my daughter. maybe we’ll see you there?
Nice bit of running there. Can’t wait for London.
In college, I too, imposed a ‘Birthday Week’ on my friend. Since, blogs didn’t existing and I wasn’t about it staple journal entries to a tree in the quad, I merely selected a daily theme-plaid day, hat day- that people followed.
In my view, birthdays are the only legitimate holiday, and therefore worth celebrating as much as possible, even if it means extending the party across a whole week!
When is the actual day? I’ll wear a plaid hat in your honor.
Wednesday, March 25th. But please don’t wear plaid, I can’t be responsible for that. Blue suits you, so wear a blue shirt if you must wear party clothes.
“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?”
Yes, I hate the non-runners that look at my running achievements and nonchalantly say ‘I can do that.’ No they cannot…long distance running takes dedication, sacrifice and hard work.
Also, I hope you have a fantabulous birthweek.
This could be said about anything. “How was your day @ work?”, “How’d the team do?”, “How was your summer?”, blah blah blah
Just be happy that some of us “non runners” give a hoot @ all, are interested and some even have a clue what is behind the ‘numbers’, believe it or not….one doesn’t have to play a sport to understand it.
As for people thinking that “I could do that”. Watching many people run by while viewing the marathon, I think anyone could run one and finish, as long as they trained for it properly. Now, finish it in a competitive time, that’s another story…..
rD
“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.”
TK, congrats on getting in the 10 and 20 milers….and major props for hitting your splits!!! What a feeling! I did 21 on Saturday morning…slower than I wanted. My legs were fried…did a speed session of 800 repeats on Friday and was supposed to run long and fast the next day just to replicate a marathon scenario of running hard on tired legs, but my ache-y legs said nope whenever I tried to push it.
With my marathon one month away, it’s hard not to take this as a bruise to my confidence. But I’ve got one more 20 to prove myself, so I’m choosing to stay positive. As soon as I press “Submit Comment,” I mean. 🙂
My coworkers are kind of over my running stuff. When I get the perfunctory, “how was your weekend?” I avoid talking about my weekend long run because if it went badly, I’d rather not be an Eyeore; and if it went well, I don’t know how to share my enthusiasm without feeling like I’m bragging or something. I usually just make a comment about the weather.
OregonLive.com disputes the Lisbon Half Marathon report posted by Letsrun.com in a March 23 article “Goucher’s wheels just fine, thank you”. Kara’s race doesn’t sound so dismal after all…
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