When the answer is not clear

I have what may be competing goals:

• Run one (just one) marathon successfully
• Break no more bones

And I’m not sure how to decide. Normally I’d run off and ask my medical care team only here’s something I’ve noticed. I’m not sure if this is age or gender bias or a lack of common ground (because 99% of my medical care team clearly aren’t as into fitness as I am), but what I’ve heard since fracturing my pelvis in 2018, then struggling with side effects from radiation that affected my fitness and then breaking my foot goes something like this:

• Why don’t you just take a long walk?
• You just run to stay fit, right? So find another workout.
• How about some yoga?

To which the answers are:

• A long walk is beyond boring. Seriously boring. I would rather put that energy into mastering riding my bike.
• I run to compete, not just to stay fit. So screw that noise.
• I already do yoga. And Crossfit. And biking. 

I do have one doctor who’s as into fitness as I am: my endocrinologist. He's an avid mountain biker, totally loves it. And that he's my endocrinologist is also good because he’s the one who keeps an eye on my bone health. So I’ve thought about emailing him through the patient portal and asking his take on this. 

Because I really, really would like to run just one marathon.

What I’ve learned in the first week of having a coach

First, I like it a lot.

While I have all the discipline needed to follow a training program, I struggle to find the right one, the one that meets me where I am.

So many times, a training program will say to find this pace or that pace (where pace = marathon pace or 10K for example) and then it’s up to me to decide well what IS my pace? Did I pick the right one? Pace is easier if the goal is to stay in my aerobic zone (my Garmin watch tells me that), or if there’s an exact specific running pace I need to hit. But the vague ranges just annoy and frustrate me.

Or take strides as another example—when I trained for my first half marathon in 2018, I had runs that called for strides. I knew I was supposed to go fast, but how fast? How long? How many do I do in each run or per mile or what?

My coach gave the perfect definition of what’s needed for strides. He said I should feel like I’m chasing a ball, not chasing a child who ran into the street. And he said do one for each mile. The first time I had strides scheduled, our streets had a lot of black ice so I couldn’t really do one set of strides per mile. I had to take them as I had demonstratively dry pavement. But today, I did a lot better and only got mixed up once (two sets in mile two, oops). Still, that guidance has made a difference for me.

And rest days. Oh, I could go on for a bit about rest days. I’m terrible at taking them, not out of some desire to be masochistic but more wondering if I needed them that week (answer: almost certainly yes) and then I’d struggle with feeling lazy or undisciplined, neither of which are true. Knowing he’s looking at my workouts in the online training calendar is motivation to make sure I do take those rest days.

In a way, training for this marathon reminds me a lot of when I was in Basic Training. The first week I was there, the drills sergeants showed a video of everything we would be learning and all the stuff we’d be doing. I will tell you, about halfway through I thought “well that’s it, I’m going to wash out here, I’ll never make it through and be able to do all this stuff.”  But then I realized they were motivated to help me learn and pass all the tests, sure I still needed to do the work, but I wouldn’t be doing it alone. That’s kind of how I feel about this, but in a much better and a lot more fun way. 

Running in Manila

I’ve run twice here in Manila and both times, it’s been pretty frustrating.

First, I have to run in early evening (which is my morning).

As you might imagine, it’s still pretty hot and humid outside and the air quality isn’t great. Plus it’s also really crowded; according to some sources, Manila is the most densely populated city in the world and I believe it.

There’s a small running park not far from my hotel, although I do have to cross a couple of very busy streets—I wait for the walk light because to do otherwise would be taking an insane risk. The park itself has little twisty paths and people run but I’ve been running around the block on the sidewalk. That’s sort of less frustrating although on one side of the rectangle, the sidewalk is very narrow and I have to go into the street briefly.

But what’s more annoying is that my Garmin cannot keep a signal and keeps hopping to different satellites which makes my run look like a drunken toddler did it. And in turn, that makes the pace and distance tracking wildly inaccurate. Kent believes that the satellite issue is because I’m so far south in the northern hemisphere; most of the satellites are further north so my Garmin spazzes out.

The first day I ran, I set all kinds of “records,” only of course they weren’t. They were just equipment glitches. The second day I ran, I ignored pace and distance and ran for time (35 minutes) and still set more “records.”

I’m super glad I chose the later marathon instead of the one in April. Otherwise I would be absolutely freaking out because there is no way I can complete my training plan here, not with any accuracy.

Some running stats and what’s next

I use Strava to track all my runs and workouts (Ben had suggested it to me, think of it as sort of Facebook for athletes). What I like about Strava is I can take a look at historical data to see how I’m doing and find any trends. Because of that historical data, I knew right away my heart rate spikes were so wildly out of normal for me last fall.

I took a look at my running totals since joining Strava in June 2017 and I was very surprised at what I found.

For 2017, the data only covers my runs since June, when I joined Strava.

Here's 2018. I ran fewer overall runs with longer mileage. And of course I broke my pelvis in May so I didn't run for several months after that:

But take a look at 2019. I would not have guessed I ran that much this year. For so much of the year, I felt as though I would never get back to my previous distances and times, or the overall total. And it’s true, I haven’t yet gotten there. But I sure ran more than I thought I did.

So what’s next? Well I did it. I signed up for a full marathon, my first ever. 

I had wanted to run the Garmin Marathon here in the Kansas City area. I liked the half marathon I did at that event in 2018 and I also like that it’s a local race. But the race date this year is April 18. I’m leaving the country on Saturday for most of January (a work trip) and that will no doubt crater my running. I’ll be in Manila, where it’s quite hot and humid and the air quality isn’t the best, not to mention I don’t know how safe it will be to run (thinking of traffic, not other kinds of safety as I’ll actually be in a really nice, safe part of the city). That was stressing me out, thinking of trying to somehow get the training miles in so I’d be prepared. 

So instead I’ve signed up for Grandma’s Marathon on June 20 in Duluth MN. This marathon has a great reputation for being very well organized and a whole lot of fun. I did crack up when registering because one of the questions asked if I were a grandma. Apparently the first grandma to cross the finish line gets a prize. Isn’t that hilarious?

I've got two training plans I'm evaluating for my training and ironically, the one I slightly prefer calls for a half marathon race on April 18. So I may end up running the Garmin Half Marathon this year!