Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Trying to be Fast





(If you are going to race you need to make sure your muscles are loose)
                My racing has been going o.k. Nothing spectacular but I keep plugging away, knowing one day things will click. I have a feeling that will happen when I am able to devote a little more time to my training. Two weeks ago I raced a 1500m at UW. I signed up on the last day to register because why not jump into a 1500 and race?
                Levi, Lilyana and I drove up the morning of the race and upon arriving I realized I forgot my breast pump. I figured this wouldn’t be a problem because Lilyana could just nurse. I thought I timed it perfectly. She ate before we left and it was about 3 hours after that when we arrived. Well I was wrong. She decided everything in the car, on my shirt, and out the window was way more exciting than milk. Oh look keys! Hide keys. Look a loose string on Mom’s shirt! Tear off string. Look it’s Dad! Tell Levi to try sitting in the back. You get the gist. We battled for quite some time and frustrated and exhausted I gave up.
                I know it sounds silly but I was almost in tears. This was probably due to a late night with little sleep and our running late in the morning. The night before the race I didn’t even want to do it. I was seriously thinking about scratching and in the morning with Lilyana giving me trouble I really having to go so long without eating if I raced. I also didn’t want to race full of milk. Levi later reassured me that I need to not worry so much about making everything perfect for Lilyana and put myself first sometimes. I have a tendency to neglect myself and make sure everyone else is taken care of before taking care of myself. But I am working on this. Today I took a nap, took the time to prepare a good breakfast and lunch for myself, which results in my consuming more calories, and tonight I had a very good workout, go figure.
                I never thought I would be “one of those Moms” who at 4 o’clock realizes she hasn’t had lunch yet. That may or may not have happened to me one or 10 times. Now that Lilyana is on a regular eating pattern with solids this is getting much easier for me as we sit down and eat our meals together. I also try to make larger dinners so I can have leftovers for lunch. But I’m getting off topic.
                So after battling with a baby who wanted nothing to do with nursing I decided I needed to get some running in before racing a 1500m. I had enough time to use the restroom 15 times (seriously felt like that many times) and get a 30 minute warm up in. Lately on my workout days I am strapped for time as Levi gets home late from long hard days training in the fire academy so I usually do a really quick warm up of running 15 minutes and some leg swings then starting the workout. Sometimes I don’t even do the leg swings. Sometimes I don’t even stop before starting the workout like tonight. I know it’s not ideal but it’s trained me to be able to do the same on race day when I am running late. I used to be the type who had to get to a race at least 2 hours before my race so I could relax and focus. Oh how the times have changed. Levi was also competing so thankfully my brother and sister-in-law were willing to watch Lilyana while we competed.
                I laced up my spikes for the first time in almost 2 years and did a few strides and headed to the line.  I chatted with old friends and started to feel relaxed. The stress was slowly leaving me. For the next 5 minutes the last thing on my mind would be the baby. Well I did look over at her during the race as John was holding her up saying, “Go Mom!” But I couldn’t resist and that little face just makes me feel so happy.
                When the gun went off I went out hard. I didn’t mean to but I got sucked in. My first 300 was a 52-53. Oops. I think the rest of my laps were 74’s. After the first 300m I got stuck in no man’s land which seems to happen in every race I do lately. There were girls ahead of me and girls behind me but no one to help break the wind. With one lap to go, I suddenly felt amazing. I sped around a girl on the curve then with 250m to go did not feel so amazing. I had a very strong urge to pee and I did not want to pee my pants for a sub 5 minute 1500m at UW. Maybe if it was for some big qualifier or a PR I would have. Girls came up beside me and I resisted the urge to push and try to go with them though I’m not sure if I could have. I think I may have been able to go a second or two faster in the last lap if I didn’t have to pee but that’s it. I crossed the line in 4:44.44. I put in my seed time of 4:45 figuring that’s the kind of shape I was in and I was right!
                After the race Lilyana was fine. She didn’t starve to death. So since she was still content with her Aunt and Uncle I went out to finish my workout. I did a 3 mile LT/progression run on the Burke starting at 6:30 pace and finishing in a 6:00 mile. It felt surprisingly easy. When I was done Lilyana did not give me any trouble eating. My stress was gone and I felt very happy and ready to sign up for another track meet. I was happy I sucked it up before hand and didn’t scratch.  Amazing what endorphins can do.
(Helping me pick out my running shoes)

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