Moving on up...

As I mentioned before, circumstances in my old living situation forced me to move to a new apartment a little over a week ago. When you're faced with an "emergency" move, you kind of have to take what you can get and not be too picky. My only 2 real requirements were that I had to be able to afford it, and I had to be able to bring my cat with me. I really lucked out when I found a place near the YMCA (no more excuses for missed core or cross-training sessions!) and it's a huge step up from my old apartment in terms of quality. But it's also a big "step" up in another way...

I now live nearly half a mile up a steep hill (or more, depending on which street you take and the direction you're coming from). Hills at altitude can be killers, but they'll also make you really strong. Another natural element that can make you tougher is wind, and we sure have a lot of that in Flagstaff. The first time I drove up the hill to my new place, I could only think about how freakishly hard the end of all my runs was going to be. I complained about it quite a bit, and the first few days I stopped my run at the base of the hill and walked up. But, now that I've thought about it some more, I have a new perspective on it... Running that hill every day, quite often in the wind, is going to make me a BEAST! (or at least give me some ridiculous quads!)

My 100 Valentines

I realize I'm a week late on this, but I've been busy moving to a new apartment (still in Flagstaff! More about that in a later post) and doing all the little things that go along with that. But, anyway...

What did you all do for Valentine's Day last Tuesday night? Whatever it was, I do hope you had a wonderful time. But, in my extremely biased opinion, I have to believe that I had the best Valentine's Day a girl could ask for. Did I get a dozen roses, a box of chocolates, and a fancy dinner with a handsome man? No. My evening was MUCH better...

I got to spend an hour on the NAU Skydome indoor track with about 100 of my best friends in Flagstaff. I'm talking about the weekly Team Run Flagstaff workout. Every week, all year long, the members of TRF meet for a track workout with coach Mike Smith , following the training philosophies of Dr. Jack Daniels (the joke is that we "run under the influence of Jack Daniels"). Whenever the TRF workout fits with what Shayla wants me to be doing in my training, I jump in and do the workout with the group. And, when I have my own workout earlier in the day, I still show up to spend my evening at the track. You wouldn't blow off a standing date with your best friend, right? And I won't blow off a date with my 100 best friends.

As much as I am, and I'm sure many people here are, inspired daily by all the elite runners in town... I'd have to say I'm more impressed by the TRF runners getting after it week after week. They aren't getting paid or given free gear for their efforts. They push themselves because they love to do it, and that's something special. Soooooo many people say they can't or won't exercise because it's painful, boring, or whatever. But, I feel like we could win a lot of people over to running if they would just come hang out at the track for an hour with me and my 100 Valentines.

NAU Tune-Up

I decided to take one more shot at the mile during indoor season, because I didn't feel like the first one was my best effort. Seeing that the field would be a bit stronger for the NAU Tune-Up, I had a good feeling that I'd be able to take a few more seconds off my time. But I also didn't account for the fact that a stronger field could mean more traffic. Before the race, one of my friends from NAU and I talked and decided we would work together since we were hoping for a similar pace. I felt really comfortable with the idea of going out in 78 (5:12 pace). I definitely prefer to run pretty evenly paced or negative-split races when possible. Unfortunately for me, it seemed everyone wanted to go out in a quick pace to establish their position and I got stuck in a big blob of runners, running slower than I planned. Even though I've been in situations like that before and knew how important it is to stay calm, I still panicked as I saw the leaders getting further away and not being able to go with them. When I finally found a gap, I pushed through it and spent a large amount of time out in lane 3 as I tried to get back up toward the front. At that point, I was still probably in around 6th place. I just focused on holding an even pace, but I don't know if I actually was because I didn't check my watch and they didn't have a clock running that was visible to us. With about 400 meters to go, I realized that I was feeling really good (unusual for me in a mid-distance race!) and started to press. Unlike last time, I feel like I actually managed to kick and I passed a couple girls in the last lap to finished 3rd in 5:19.42. The first 2 girls were about 3 seconds ahead, and from the amount of energy I still had left after the finish, I really think I could've been with them if I had gotten out more aggressively. Of course, we'll never know if I'm right about that because we can't re-run the race. But I did learn something about race tactics, and I'm grateful for that. Also, my time altitude converts to a 5:07.83 at sea level, which is another PR for me. While I obviously would've liked to run a few seconds faster, I really can't complain about a new PR. This is the last track mile I'll get to run this year, but I'm hoping to run the 1500 a few times during outdoor, and maybe we'll throw some road miles in over the spring and summer.

Up next: I'm not sure. Shayla and I need to sit down and set out an outdoor schedule, but I think I want to open my season at ASU and I definitely want to race steeple at Stanford and Princeton. Beyond that, we'll just have to see!

Call for help: allergies!

Friends who know anything about allergies, I need your help!

Here's the deal... I used to be a complete milk junkie. A probably drank more milk than water. Then, a few years ago and allergist recommended cutting back on my dairy consumption to cut down congestion. I did as he asked and cut milk products almost completely out of my life (including using rice "milk" on my cereal). I went nearly without for at least 2 years. And then, I was introduced to the Peppermint Mocha. I can't handle coffee on it's own, and rice milk tastes icky (technical term, folks!) in coffee, so I just went ahead and head milk in my coffee. Right from the beginning, I started feeling sick after every time I drank it, but I wasn't willing to give up my yummy (another technical term, obviously) treat. I thought maybe I'd developed lactose intolerance, so at home I started using lactose-free milk. But, it didn't really help. I was still getting sick. Another thing I've noticed is that a lot of sports recovery drinks - which often contain proteins from milk - weren't sitting well with my stomach.

Last night, my roommate put out the theory that maybe I'm allergic to casein or whey, two proteins in milk. I hadn't thought of that possibility and decided to do a little research. Everything I've found suggests that developing such an allergy later in life, rather than having the allergy as a child and growing out of it, is rare. The question I'm posing to all of you experts, self-proclaimed experts, and just anyone who has an opinion is this... Do you think it's possible that in my 2 years completely devoid of dairy products I could have lost the ability to handle casein and/or whey and developed an allergy to one or both?

The past few weeks in review...

Okay, so I haven't written since my 3k at BU. And there's a reason for that. The morning after the race, I woke up to anonymous comments on my blog attacking me for my performance and for blogging at all. I knew I shouldn't let the words of an anonymous person bring me down, but it really did get to me and I considered getting rid of my blog. But, the outpouring of support from Team Oiselle and other friends on Twitter has been incredible. I thought about writing a post in response to the awful comments I got, but I'll just leave it to 2 main points:

1. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
2. If you don't like what I'm writing, I've got a simple solution for you: don't read it!

Here's what happened at BU... A few women from the fastest heat scratched, which got me bumped up. I asked the check-in clerk if I could stay in the 2nd heat and have him move someone else up, but he told me that was not possible. (Note that I tried to stay in the heat I belonged in, but they wouldn't let me.) Since I knew those speedy women were going to run faster than I could handle, I decided my best option would be to let them go and run my own pace from the gun. And that worked well for a while... But after enough of a gap had opened up between them and me, it was just too hard mentally to hold that pace. Physically, I felt perfectly fine. My breathing was relaxed and my legs didn't feel overly taxed. I just couldn't mentally engage in the race. I still finished in 10:06, a 15-second PR, but it was pretty far off what I went there to do. Maybe things would have been different if I had taken the chance of going with the back of the pack. Perhaps I could've held on to them for a while and run the time I needed. Or, I could've completely died and run even slower than I did. There's no way to know how it would've turned out and it's not worth beating myself up over. I can't change the past, so I might as well just look ahead to the next one.


Watch more video of 2012 BU Terrier Invitational on flotrack.org


Then, last weekend I ran the mile at NAU. I haven't run the mile in a quite a while, and I've never raced it at altitude, so I didn't really know what to expect. My hope was that someone else would set a strong pace and I'd be able to latch on to them. I tried to make that happen in the first lap, but the pace felt too comfortable. Shayla confirmed this when she yelled out to me to "take over! It's too slow!" Rats. So, I did. I picked up the pace quite a bit, and one girl from the University of Arizona went with me. She just sat on my shoulder until the last 200 meters or so, and then blew by me. Since I haven't done a ton of speedwork yet, I didn't have much of a response. My kick just wasn't there. I managed to gain back some of the ground she put on me, but I came up a little short. She won in 5:18 and I tied my sea-level PR of 5:19. The accepted altitude conversion makes that a 5:08, an 11-second PR. Imagine what might have happened if we hadn't run that first lap several seconds too slow! It definitely makes me want to try another mile soon. And next time, I won't be timid about the start if no one else is willing to take it.

Finally, I'm sure you all know what an amazing weekend it was for distance running in the US. There were American and collegiate records broken all over the place! And several of my friends set new personal and school records - the Middlebury women's DMR, Diego Estrada in the 3k, and many more! I can't wait for my "kinetic chain revolt" (my chiropractor's phrase for all the crazy stuff going on with my hip and achilles) to be resolved so I can get back out there on the track and run some new PRs of my own!

Next: probably a mile at NAU on 2/16... Depends on my injury status.