This is based on what I posted on my running club's message board last week:
Last month was drum lessons. The try for this month (there might be others, but at least I got this out of the way first), was Race a Race. So that's how I approached the Eugene half-marathon on May 3.
Racing is tough for me.
(I think it's because I did so many as training runs when I was doing my first marathon--when I was living in Hoboken, I did a lot of New York Road Runners races because if you ran a certain #, you were guaranteed entry for the NY marathon. Only thing is: You have to be a member since January of that year. I joined in April. Thus: I am an idiot. But my point is not so much that but the fact that these "races" weren't races, they were ways for me to get a run in.)
I am tired of telling myself I don't get "race face." I tend to stop at races if I'm feeling poorly; I rarely break on through (to the other side), though on the once-in-a-blue-uninjured-moon I will, and am rewarded for my efforts.
This time I decided: I would put on my race face. At the same time, I would run this course smartly. I would go in...not conservative--but judicious. And so I'm happy with my race, partly because of the physical and the time (i.e., I took more than 3 minutes off my PR, though I missed going sub 1:50 by 10 lousy seconds), but also the mental (i.e., putting brain & body on a continuous loop reiterating that this was tough and I had to push through it and I was capable of it). It was a mental PR, and I'm more happy about that than anything else.
Last time I did a half was almost two years ago, and it's been a tough two years in a lot of ways. Conditions wrt weather were fabulous, though I will admit when I woke up at 5:30 and was surprised to learn that the noise I thought was water gushing down a gutter was actually water gushing from the skies. But things cleared up before the start and it was great weather; overcast but sprinkles at times. It cleared a bit for the marathoners, I think; it might have even been warm for the 3:30-plus group or so. I was also surprised that there was no wind.
I have to say, I was surprised that there was no 3:45 pacer. I'm going to email them and suggest that. I was around a lot of women around my age who wanted to qualify for Boston. Maybe I should have seeded myself further up in the crowd to find a group who was going to go out around 8:20 (the pace I wanted to average) but I wanted to go out about 8:30 and increase the pace later. I was pleasantly surprised to do minimal weaving in the first mile, and I didn't encounter any walkers, which I was really happy about. Was pleased how that went. Ran with a friend from my running cub for the first 2 miles (he later dropped out because he was fighting a cold) then got into a nice rhythm.
Was running for about 10 miles with this one 38-year old woman who was trying to qualify for Boston -- she was super-nice; occasionally I'd draft off her, and then she'd draft off me, and we talked about signs and running backpacks, etc. Around mile 5, she was like, "I wish you were running the full," and I said "there's still time to change your mind," and she said, well, I've been training for this 2 and a half years. I had to laugh. I know how that goes. (Side note: I watched the marathoners come in, and I was real sad to see her come in at ~3:50ish pace. But then I wondered when her birthday was and if she had a shot after all; but I guess that's more likely if you run a fall marathon, right?)
I loved the course. It's pretty, interesting, there's enough going on, varied. Thumbs up! Just downloaded my Garmin data and I'd had no idea the hill from 4-5 was as tall as it's saying it is. It was such a gradual climb that by the time you were like, hmm, am I working harder than usual?, you were going downhill. I like hills. I think I run them well and it's such a great feeling passing folks on the downhills who are recovering! The hill at mile 8 seemed steeper, but it was shorter and it's not unlike a hill by my house that I often finish training runs with, so I kept telling myself "it's just the Clinton Street climb..." and it totally worked.
That said? I think my favorite distance is about 15k - 10 miles or so. I wish there were more races out there like that. My best miles feel like they are usually run around miles 6-9, so by the time I hit mile 11 or so in a half-marathon, that's kind of the dead zone for me. And especially when my new friend and I split up at the half/full splitting up point, I had fewer people to draft off of.
But I made roadkill! There was this one woman I was running with for a bit -- she was in front of me, then I drafted by her shoulder...and then I passed her. You don't understand. I'm usually the kill in roadkill. But now, well, now I was the road. That last mile felt endless. My time was 1:50:09. I had really, really wanted to round that bend and see a "4" in the minutes area. But hey, it's a PR by over 3 minutes from the Flat Half 2007, so I'm happy with that.
I also didn't feel pain during the race; I got some glimmers of a side stitch that might have become more of an issue if I'd been running the marathon, but everything stayed in check. Breathing was good. It was a PR, and it also was a PR in that I felt totally dialed-in and totally consistent, very present, and, for lack of a better term "with it" during the race. I didn't stop once, didn't walk once during the race--though I ran through all the aid stations but one, and in that case I had to walk for like 10 steps because I can't Gu and run at the same time. That's probably what cost me that damn 10 seconds, but whatever. Maybe I'll try a fuel belt, but I'd always thought those would be tough on my back. Maybe I'll just increase my pace.
I was very finished at the finish. I'm happy with how things went. The day was great. I did things right and it showed. That was good. And now, I want to get faster. I know I have a mid-1:40 half in me. At least. Also, I had kind of wanted to train for a race based primarily on building mileage. I think I topped out at 47 miles a week. I haven't been doing much speed training; I've done maybe 5 tempo runs all year. But now that my mileage is gettign higher, I feel better about adding more speedwork to it. I'd like to do more long tempo runs, I think. Make training a little tougher.
Oh yeah, splits, because I thought this was interesting:Avg pace, 8:24, 8:40, 8:15, 8:33, 8:30, 8:28, 8:00, 8:22, 8:29, 8:37, 8:10, 8:33, 8:17, 8:23, 7:08.
So that was my race for May. May also will be the third try: Go to Asia.
We are going to Japan this month.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Updating
So I thought I would be able to pick back up and talk about the drum lesson(s). But so far life has not afforded me that luxury.
HOWEVER, I am now back to post hopefully more than once every 2+ weeks about what has been going on.
So, here is a (brief?) recap:
Drum lesson #1. We do rudiments. I stand in front of a drum and first read some music. It all comes back to me -- the forced piano playing when i was a kid. Say 6-8 or 9 or so, I played piano. I really don't remember ever wanting to play piano, I'm really not quite sure how it came about. Anyway, it brought me back to those times sitting in front of the teacher's piano, while I wanted to play the song the way I wanted to play it, not the way it was written.
Apparently I'm not much different on the drums.
Don't get me wrong. It was fun as hell (because hell has got to be fun, in a sick perverted twisted way, right?). In a way. I got to be loud. I got to smack drumsticks on this drum and then was told I wasn't loud enough. Kids must love this! No wonder! You have this ... this... forum, where you are taught that it's ok to whale away at something, as long as it's a controlled whaling away.
And I really liked the teacher. This is someone who used to work with my husband, but no longer does, and has been teaching drums for ages, and who has been playing them since about when I started piano.
So I'm tip-tapping increasingly louder on the one drum feeling good, feeling like, hey, maybe I have this beat or something?! Here I am in this great basement in this great Sellwood house, and I'm thinking hey, maybe I'm onto something? Maybe this vision I had of myself when I was 21 or 22 of me about 23 moving to LA and learning to play the drums...maybe that's a vision I could really be, maybe it's not too late (okay I don't want to move to LA but is any of this making sense?). I even have drummer hair! It's getting super-long and the curl is never going away...I'm...I'm totally Slash! (circa 1988)
And then we went on the drumset.
And that's when it all went to shit.
I would tell you the names of the drums in the drumset except that I don't remember. I've kind of...blocked it out. There was the snare drum. And the bass drum. I remember those, because they were the only two I could play at the same time. It wasn't a matter so much of getting the beat, it was keeping it and trying to ... well, it was sort of like the musical version of trying to rub your head and pat your stomach at the same time. Who can do that? I guess drummers.
Teacher was great. Really patient.
A few days after the first lesson: We went to a drum recital that she was leading. All kids, ages from oh I'd say 7-17. Some of those kids were really good! I kind of wished that I had been put in front of a drumset as a kid. But I dount that would have jived with my parents, who I think, did not want the kind of daughter who drummed. I don't know. I just never got that feeling. It's like how I run now--as a kid, I was never encouraged to do it. Not like I was discouraged from it, but like...it wasn't even an issue. It wasn't something that I was to do. We weren't an athletic family, we weren't a musical family.
Because we weren't, I wasn't.
Dunno, though. It's too easy to blame your family for everything. It just is.
But I went back for a second lesson. Just because...I wanted to see again.
And I felt like...why am I here? It wasn't the teaching--again, she was awesome and I would totally recommend her to anyone who would do it. It was just me really realizing that this is not someone I needed or wanted to be. I was never going to buy a drum set, I was never going to make the time to practice--heck, I can hardly keep up this blog, and writing is who I am!
And I was never going to be the kind of person who could do something totally different with the left foot and/or hand than the right foot and/or hand. I love drummers. I have a huuuuuuuuuuge respect for them now; and for that matter, any musician.
It really is a whole language, it's a whole communication, it's a whole expansion of the brain and different kind of smarts than I could have imagined, and certainly not something that I ever considered when I was a kid and music lessons were a chore. It's beautiful. I will listen for the drums in songs, now, not just the melody. I won't take it for granted.
So I could have--and had intended to--describe the actual details and semantics of the drums and how the low-ceiling basement felt and sounded and the beauty of the day. But I realize, now, that's it's ok to have a "me" lesson about the drums instead.
I'm going to post another update about the thing I tried last week, for May. I think there will be something else for May, but I haven't settled on it yet.
HOWEVER, I am now back to post hopefully more than once every 2+ weeks about what has been going on.
So, here is a (brief?) recap:
Drum lesson #1. We do rudiments. I stand in front of a drum and first read some music. It all comes back to me -- the forced piano playing when i was a kid. Say 6-8 or 9 or so, I played piano. I really don't remember ever wanting to play piano, I'm really not quite sure how it came about. Anyway, it brought me back to those times sitting in front of the teacher's piano, while I wanted to play the song the way I wanted to play it, not the way it was written.
Apparently I'm not much different on the drums.
Don't get me wrong. It was fun as hell (because hell has got to be fun, in a sick perverted twisted way, right?). In a way. I got to be loud. I got to smack drumsticks on this drum and then was told I wasn't loud enough. Kids must love this! No wonder! You have this ... this... forum, where you are taught that it's ok to whale away at something, as long as it's a controlled whaling away.
And I really liked the teacher. This is someone who used to work with my husband, but no longer does, and has been teaching drums for ages, and who has been playing them since about when I started piano.
So I'm tip-tapping increasingly louder on the one drum feeling good, feeling like, hey, maybe I have this beat or something?! Here I am in this great basement in this great Sellwood house, and I'm thinking hey, maybe I'm onto something? Maybe this vision I had of myself when I was 21 or 22 of me about 23 moving to LA and learning to play the drums...maybe that's a vision I could really be, maybe it's not too late (okay I don't want to move to LA but is any of this making sense?). I even have drummer hair! It's getting super-long and the curl is never going away...I'm...I'm totally Slash! (circa 1988)
And then we went on the drumset.
And that's when it all went to shit.
I would tell you the names of the drums in the drumset except that I don't remember. I've kind of...blocked it out. There was the snare drum. And the bass drum. I remember those, because they were the only two I could play at the same time. It wasn't a matter so much of getting the beat, it was keeping it and trying to ... well, it was sort of like the musical version of trying to rub your head and pat your stomach at the same time. Who can do that? I guess drummers.
Teacher was great. Really patient.
A few days after the first lesson: We went to a drum recital that she was leading. All kids, ages from oh I'd say 7-17. Some of those kids were really good! I kind of wished that I had been put in front of a drumset as a kid. But I dount that would have jived with my parents, who I think, did not want the kind of daughter who drummed. I don't know. I just never got that feeling. It's like how I run now--as a kid, I was never encouraged to do it. Not like I was discouraged from it, but like...it wasn't even an issue. It wasn't something that I was to do. We weren't an athletic family, we weren't a musical family.
Because we weren't, I wasn't.
Dunno, though. It's too easy to blame your family for everything. It just is.
But I went back for a second lesson. Just because...I wanted to see again.
And I felt like...why am I here? It wasn't the teaching--again, she was awesome and I would totally recommend her to anyone who would do it. It was just me really realizing that this is not someone I needed or wanted to be. I was never going to buy a drum set, I was never going to make the time to practice--heck, I can hardly keep up this blog, and writing is who I am!
And I was never going to be the kind of person who could do something totally different with the left foot and/or hand than the right foot and/or hand. I love drummers. I have a huuuuuuuuuuge respect for them now; and for that matter, any musician.
It really is a whole language, it's a whole communication, it's a whole expansion of the brain and different kind of smarts than I could have imagined, and certainly not something that I ever considered when I was a kid and music lessons were a chore. It's beautiful. I will listen for the drums in songs, now, not just the melody. I won't take it for granted.
So I could have--and had intended to--describe the actual details and semantics of the drums and how the low-ceiling basement felt and sounded and the beauty of the day. But I realize, now, that's it's ok to have a "me" lesson about the drums instead.
I'm going to post another update about the thing I tried last week, for May. I think there will be something else for May, but I haven't settled on it yet.
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