2018 Goals: Nicole has the Boston Marathon on the Brain
Nicole and her sister Kacy at the Bachman Valley Half Marathon. It was a perfect day; they both won pie.
Note: This is our third in our 2018 Goals Series. Missed the two posts? Grab them.
When I—Tish—first started working at Runner’s World a long time ago, I ran marathons right around 4:10.
(Once upon a time, I clocked marathons in the 3:45 range, but that was many years and about 15 pounds ago.)
A running frenemy told me that there was no way I would ever break four hours in the marathon again, so I might as well have another slice of chocolate cake.
At RW, there was this guy who worked down the hall, super friendly, super encouraging, known as the mayor of running, Bart Yasso.
I cornered him one day: “BART YASSO! DO YOU THINK I CAN BREAK 4 HOURS?”
Bart, looking startled, asked me my current time. When I told him, I fully expected him to say, in his super friendly, super encouraging, gravelly voiced Bart-like way something like, “Oh, sure! No problem! Piece of (chocolate) cake!”
Instead, Bart said: “Hmpf. It’s gonna be hard.”
NICOLE HAS BOSTON ON THE BRAIN
This memory came to mind when I talked to Nicole Albright, who’s got Boston on her mind. It’s her number 1 Athletic Priority for 2018. She’s 37, so that means she has to run 3:40 or better.**
(*She’ll actually need to run closer to 3:36 if she wants to secure a spot in the prestigious marathon thanks to its complicated fastest-in-first policy and sell-out registration process.)
Nicole finished her first marathon in 4:17 five years ago, and she’s been steadily chipping away at her time. She ran an impressive 3:45 at the Indianapolis marathon in November. That’s more than 30 minutes off in five years. Woohoo!
So for Nicole to run a Boston qualifying time should be a piece of cake, right?
You see where I’m going with this. Hmpf.
HOW HARD IS IT TO TAKE 10 MINUTES OFF YOUR MARATHON TIME?
Harder than baking cookies with your adorable son. (But you knew that already.)
In your first years of running, if your priority is to get faster and you put your mind and energy to it, you’re probably going to get faster. Which is satisfying and fun. Who doesn’t like to see faster times?
But the big drops in time get smaller as you reach your personal limits—of fitness and desire. And eventually age catches up with you.
Nicole isn’t there yet, of course. She’s run 8 marathons and she’s only 37! We all know people who’ve set personal records at age 42, 47, 55.
But Nicole also has a 6-year-old son and a full time job—she’s a music teacher—which means she gets her runs in before being mom and boss, which means she’s on the road at 4:30 a.m.
“I do what Dimity says: Don’t think, just go,” Nicole says.
And only in this crowd can Nicole say something like, “I can’t do long runs during the week, because while I don’t mind getting up at 4:00, I just can’t see a 3 on my alarm clock.”
HOW CAN NICOLE ACHIEVE HER GOALS +
QUALIFY FOR BOSTON?
With great support + a BRF. Nicole has a younger sister, who has two sons, to do long runs with. And they have super-supportive husbands, who make a fun weekend with the boys when she and her sister travel solo (yay! sorry kids) to their marathons.
With smart nuturition. by eating less sugar and thinking of food as fuel. “I’ve been using Shalane Flanagan’s cookbook,” she says.
Sidenote: Nicole has been a vegetarian all her life. While a lighter weight does make a runner faster up to a point, she also has to be careful to keep her protein intake high, not to get TOO skinny or she’ll zap her energy.
With smart racing. Nicole is aiming to run negative splits in back to back half-marathon and marathon (March and April), which means running the second half of the race faster than the first.
Whoa, you say. Isn’t that a lot, maybe even too much?
Nicole has done a half-marathon before nearly every marathon with no adverse side effects. And she plans to do both of these at a really conservative pace. As long as she can lock into that really conservative pace, and not get carried away with the excitement of the day, she’ll be fine.
That said, she admits that she has NEVER run a negative split, which is an important skill for racing.
HOW DO YOU RUN A NEGATIVE SPLIT?
Start out slow. I mean, you should feel like you’re just doing a warmup jog. (I said the J word!)
HOW SLOW DO YOU HAVE TO GO?
For those of you who need numbers my former colleague (Budd Coates, a five-time Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier) offers this formula: use the pace of the last half of your longest long run.
PS This is the best way to start any marathon, the best way to finish strong, the best chance you have at getting that BQ.
With smart goals. As for Nicole setting PRs in both the half and full marathon in September and October, I admire her ambition. I would also caution not to get too tied to both of those outcomes as the only measure of success. The half-marathon should be a tune-up for the full, not a blow-up.
POSTSCRIPT #1
As it happens, I did break four hours in the marathon again, and it WAS hard. I followed a plan Bart Yasso graciously sent me (and two other RW co-workers) via email week by week, and ran 3:54 at the Country Music Marathon. Yay! A version of that plan is in his new book, Race Everything.
POSTSCRIPT #2
Sarah Bowen Shea and I chatted with Bart for the January 26 Another Mother Runner podcast—up this Friday. Tune in and let us know what you think!
#295: Meet Our Newest Co-Host
Sarah welcomes one of two new co-hosts (the big reveal of other new one is next week!), Maggie Palmer, a thirty-something mom of three. Asomewhat familiar voice to podcast listeners and blog readers, Maggie is the BAMR whose family lived through Hurricane Irma on Saint Maarten, three weeks after relocating to the Caribbean from Oregon. Listen to an update on Maggie’s family situation in Chicago, plus how working out is working out for her these days. Maggie reveals how her “monthly plight”—and her male high school track coach’s attitude toward her period—sidelined her from running. Find out why she ran a half-marathon on the aptly named holiday of Independence Day. Along with sharing many laughs, Sarah and her new co-host bond over falling while trail running (spoiler alert: both tales involve horse poop!).
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Running Through It: Tamara + Workplace Harrassment
Tamara at the end of the 2016 Chicago Marathon—and a long, challenging year.
Welcome to Running Through It: the first column in a new series on Another Mother Runner. In it, we are going chronicle the ways running has helped #motherrunners through a challenging situation or stage in life.
We want to hear from you! If you have an essay (no more than 1,200 words, please) you’d like to contribute to Running Through It, please email it to us. We’ll be in touch when we can publish it.
When I participated in the Women’s March on Washington last January, I struggled to explain why I was there. I reached for words that would express my feelings while hiding the harassment I was experiencing at the time. I couldn’t tell my story, however, without speaking of the predatory behavior that continued for months in plain sight.
A year of harassment had reduced me to silence. At the Women’s March, I found a place where I could scream.
When aggression builds slowly and subtly over time, it is easy to dismiss with an empathetic eye roll. For me, tense differences of opinion with a coworker led to chronic interruptions, belittling insults, and public embarrassment. Initially, even I chalked it up to an unfortunate personality conflict. That changed, of course, when my harasser cornered me and named my departure from our organization as his top priority for 2016.
I heard my own pulse in my ears as he promised to make my failure as uncomfortable as possible.
I expected him to demean me and my work, but I hadn’t anticipated the escalating manipulation, isolation, and physical intimidation. When out-of-town meetings required that I stay in the same hotel as my harasser, I asked the concierge to walk me to my room each night. Although my colleagues never took my harasser’s threats seriously, I used their presence to ensure that I was never alone with him in a meeting room, hallway, or taxi. Despite these strategies, I felt safer running through unfamiliar downtown streets before dawn than I did in my own workplace. The constant sense of high alert was exhausting.
As it does for so many, running became an outlet for my stress. I’ve run for nearly 20 years and my local running group was my go-to social scene following the birth of my children. Once under attack, however, I relied on running to give me a sense of control. Even that wasn’t sufficient, however, and I searched for something more.
In spring 2016, Coach Mary-Katherine Fleming appeared as a guest on the Another Mother Runner podcast. She shared her heart-rate based training philosophy that made runners stronger and faster without injury. She pledged to coach and love runners en route to personal growth and healing. She spoke with a contagious energy that made me believe something badass was possible for me.
I registered for the Chicago Marathon – my first in 11 years – and jumped in with two orthotics-supported feet. In the Train Like A Mother online community, I found several hundred women who celebrated one another every single day. Although I never revealed the harassment to them, my TLAM friends helped me create an alternate reality that my harasser could never touch. It’s hard not to feel inspired by women who choose to run at 4 a.m. – for fun – and share their learnings and successes after each race.
My harasser would take pleasure itemizing my inadequacies: my irrelevant work experience, my weak contributions in meetings, even the sound of my voice. When he would tear me down, I would think back to the tempo run that had just made me feel strong and worthy. As my training paces quickened, running gave me a steadying sense of predictability and confidence.
It was during a run that I decided enough was enough. With sweat dripping from my T-shirt, I leapt from the treadmill and emailed a formal complaint. I would no longer quietly endure.
Tamara, running through it—and stronger than she has in years.
Unfortunately, my outrage surfaced too late, and I lost my job. I spent five months finishing my contract and making those around me feel comfortable with their complicity. I never told them how the praise they heaped on my harasser made me physically sick. Instead, I finished what I started to the very best of my ability. And I ran and ran, clocking my fastest half-marathon time in 15 years. I practically floated across the finish line, lighter and freer than I had felt since the harassment began.
It seemed only natural for me to begin my last day at work in my running shoes. Pre-dawn hill repeats gave me the chutzpah to show up and look my colleagues in the eye. No amount of core planks and dead bugs, however, could keep me standing tall by evening. My ugly-cry tears prompted the CEO to hug me so hard that he picked me up off my feet.
As far as I know, he was unaware of the harassment, and I was too embarrassed to explain my sadness. Just six months ago, the culture surrounding speaking one’s truth was different.
After I left my job, I had no desire to talk about my experience. Enduring it once was enough and so many women had it worse. I felt grateful when a new job soon let me put it all in my rearview mirror.
Then, the #metoo movement crashed through my privilege and silence. It woke me up to my responsibility to advocate for other women. It drew a clear red line that I will never allow anyone to cross. Most importantly, #metoo showed me that other people’s comfort will never trump my own dignity.
On the morning following the Women’s March, the sun rose over D.C. and I ran. I passed monuments celebrating the country’s great leaders. I skirted overflowing trash cans, a reminder of 500,000 women who tidied up their mess. After three or four miles, the overcast sky released rain that mixed with my sweat and tears in the Mall, Arlington, and the Pentagon.
As it had for years, running made me feel ease amid my suffering. Today, nearly a year later, I am stronger, faster, and standing taller for myself and others.
Have you Run Through It at some point in your life?
We want to hear from you!
Write up your essay (no more than 1,200 words, please), then email it to us.
We’ll be in touch when we can publish it. Thanks!
Move of the Month: Three Triathlon Swimming Drills
Tri Coach Jennifer Harrison in her second home: the water.
Welcome back to Move of the Month.
Each month, we showcase (interesting, fun) moves from an expert Train Like a Mother Coach.
This month, we’re jumping into the pool with Coach Jennifer Harrison, who, along with Elizabeth Waterstraat, leads the triathlon program in the Train Like a Mother Club. She’s a mother of teenage twins, and has so many duathlons and triathlons under her race belt, she lost count at 200.
Coach Jen, a lifelong swimmer, knows that a strong swim can make or break a triathlon; inefficient, choppy swimming prematurely drains your energy for the next two disciplines.
Here, she demonstrates three simple drills to improve your stroke length and efficiency.
1. Fingertip Drag Drill: Emphasizes a high elbow and long reach
2. Catch-Up Drill: Promotes stroke extension
3. Open Water Sighting Drill: Teaches how to sight with minimal interference
(Miss last month’s Speedskater from Ultra Coach Stephanie Howe?)
All swimmers, from beginners to #mothersharks, can benefit from adding technique drills to their swim sessions.
Start with 10 x 25, focusing on one drill for the full 10 lengths; over time you can add distance and/or mix up the drills.
2018 Goals: How Amy Plans to Balance Mental + Physical Health
Amy Johns, all smiles as she dons her Mystic Half-Marathon medal.
Note: This is our second in our 2018 Goals Series. Missed the first post about Bethany, a divorced, ambitious #motherrunner? Grab it.
Aren’t you so happy you ran today?
(If you didn’t run today, no worries. Get back to us when you do.)
You run because it makes you feel better—physically, mentally, emotionally.
You don’t need a degree in psychology to appreciate why running helps people with depression. Indeed, studies show that exercise can be as effective as anti-depressants for mild depression**, delivering a significant boost in mood after 30 minutes of exercise. If you’re a runner, you may be thinking, well, “duh.”
(**With the important side note that running is not a substitute for professional mental-health care.)
But every mother runner knows it sure is an important component of managing our moods.
All of us who rely on running’s endorphins to lift us out of a fog or clear our head or dispel doubt or bring a little sunshine and happiness into our days fear those (awful) times when we are injured or sick or otherwise can not run.
This all came roaring back to Amy Johns in October 2017 when she underwent an appendectomy and had to take seven weeks off. Darkness descended. “It was an interesting lesson,” she says, in a sort of laconic and deadpan understatement.
In a word, it sucked.
Amy Johns, 41, is the director of sustainability at Williams College. She came to running from tae kwan do, in which she received a second-degree black belt before she had her son. She also struggled with what she describes as depression “low level enough that I could cope.”
When she tore her ACL, she had surgery, followed by many weeks of physical therapy, the second stage of which included running.
Wait! Running to come back from ACL surgery? “Tae kwan do has a lot of side-to-side movements,” Amy patiently explains. “Running is a forward motion and strengthens your legs.” (And quick side note: Yes! I plan to use this in my on-going Running Is Actually Good for Your Knees propaganda campaign.)
When Amy’s son, Nate, was born, seven years ago, she was hit with a psychological double-whammy: postpartum depression and no more time for stress-relieving tae kwan do.
It was a dark and difficult time, and she realized, “I can not cope with this alone anymore.” She sought professional help with therapy. But she also she knew she needed to exercise.
The sisters-in-law enjoying the Disney Princess Half-Marathon (watch out for the train!).
Happily, she picked up a copy of Run Like a Mother and thought, “I can do this!” She followed plans for a 5K, then 10K, and then persuaded her sister in law to sign up with her for the Disney Princess Half-Marathon, which they did in February 2015. She likes to do two to three half-marathons a year. “I became hooked on running because it fits really well in my life,” she says. “Nobody bothers me, nobody expects me to be on, nobody talks to me, it’s really what I need right now.”
And then came the appendectomy in October. “Depression is sneaky, it can be hard for me to tell when I am not doing well,” Amy says. “I tend to have a stiff upper lip. I’m fine! I’m coping! Then I realize I was NOT doing okay. My doctor’s primary recommendation was, ‘You need to exercise!’”
She had to wait six weeks. She was allowed to walk, but she was in a fair amount of pain. Plus, she says, “Walking doesn’t give me the same endorphins as running.”
“It was a reminder that depression is a chronic thing,” Amy says. “I have to keep an eye on it, like any chronic illness, I have to not ignore my coping strategies, the upkeep. For me it’s not going to go away, it’s a thing I need to manage.”
TAKING A LOOK AT AMY’S 2018 GOALS
View of all of Amy’s year.
Amy’s intertwined and interdependent athletic priorities work toward a common overall goal: physical and mental health. But she’s also got a LOT going on outside of running, so she’ll have to be mindful of her mood and energy levels and adjust her ambitions when Life intervenes.
January: Avoid Processed Carbs
Amy says she fell into the trap that many runners do—thinking she was running a lot and her nutrition was “pretty solid.” Blood sugar results revealed otherwise. So she had to tighten up nutrition. But Amy’s son, Nate, loves bread and pasta (who doesn’t??). So she makes it for him—he’s 7!—and her husband, serving herself lentils instead of pizza.
I see two potential pitfalls here: No busy mom (is that redundant?) needs to become a short-order cook preparing separate menus for each family member. And also, saying no to all white bread and pasta all the time seems punitive, I mean, likely to backfire.
What to do? Depriving yourself of an entire food group can have the perverse effect of making you crave it more. Olympic marathoner and committed foodie Deena Kastor would tell you to go ahead and have the occasional slice of pizza—just load it with veggies, have a side salad or soup, and (try to) stop at one slice.
The point is to not demonize a food group but to make it as healthy as possible (but don’t force veggie pizza on your family if they hate it—that’ll backfire too). You know this trick: Exercise portion control by serving yourself pasta in the smallest bowl in the house (and have your lentils, too). It seems silly, but I’ve seen it work. Eat YOUR favorite white carb when it costs you the least: e.g., I eat white bagels (yum!) on long-run Saturdays.
May/June/July: Overload!
Amy’s “real” life and running life collide here. She has a half-marathon on May 20, starts training for a hilly fall half in June, finishes her MBA in July, all while looking for a new job.
What to do? Amy knows. “Respect the recovery window and REST.” “Be conservative—job hunting is a lot of work.”
The trick lies in heeding her own good advice. I LOVE her tip to herself to do the strength work BEFORE her run so that it gets done. If that means cutting a run 10 minutes short, so be it. Hilly runs are also efficient strength-work in disguise: a 20-minute run with hill repeats is probably as effective as a 30-minute flat run. That said, approach with extreme caution. Quit at any hint of pain (I mean, other than OMG-I-hate-hills pain).
It seems counterintuitive for the superbusy, but take naps. You’ll feel better. And also, this will be a time to let other Life Things slide: Don’t vacuum, fold laundry, clean out the empty yogurt containers. Radical!
August: Play, vacation, fun.
Amy has earned these happy words after finishing a half-marathon not to mention an MBA. Yay! But I worry a little that some of the surrounding words—“inside,” “plan,” 5K or 10K “if not stressful”—have the potential to drain some of the happiness from the play, vacation, and fun.
What to do? Speaking of radical, here’s what I’ve got to say about running on the treadmill in August. Don’t do it! Even if you love the mill, save it for winter’s cold, dark mornings.
Get outside. You need the light and the air (we all do). Too hot? Carry water, sip a lot, and slow waaaayyyy down, like barely faster than walking. You can even run one minute, walk one minute for a total of 30 minutes, which sounds excruciating, but counts as running in my book! (And it works: I did it for the month of August 2016 and made it through a November marathon.) Studies show that exercise outside helps calm anxiety—you want to tap into this natural resource while you can.
Do you see some of yourself in Amy’s plans for mental + physical health? Would you add other advice–or encouragement?
#294: The Truth about Marathon Training
Sarah and co-host Amanda Loudin, veterans of nearly 30 marathons between them, pull back the curtain and reveal best practices about training for a 26.2-mile undertaking. They start slowly with the importance of rest and underappreciated “easy” runs. Coach Amanda lays out what’s an appropriate base for marathon training, both in terms of how long you can run—and how long you’ve been running. She talks about the optimum length of a training cycle and the best number of days to run per week, plus variables that affect both elements. Serving up a dose of reality (and wit!), Coach Amanda tells why “couch-to-marathon” isn’t a smart move. She also shares why long runs are cornerstone of marathon training. (It’s not quite as “no, duh!” as you might think.) Invariably, the two Masters-age marathoners discuss how marathon training morphs as you age. The insightful conversation culminates with sage advice on sidestepping injury.
First, though, the mother runners have a silly debate about the ideal stopping-point for number of marathons. At 16:45, Amanda puts on her coaching hat and the advice-filled portion of the pod starts.
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