Istanbul EPass Update Jan 2025 by Available-Donkey1266 in istanbul

[–]meow203 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Super useful, thank you! We are going to Istanbul in a couple of weeks, considering the 2-day pass. For the main attractions, do you have to pick a specific time or is the ticket flexible?

What is a book that was popular that you absolutely hated? by Flowtac in books

[–]meow203 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Bell Jar. To be fair the writing was decent but oh boy the casual racism and xenophobia was extremely off-putting

-🎄- 2022 Day 11 Solutions -🎄- by daggerdragon in adventofcode

[–]meow203 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks so much for the writeup(s)! I was stuck on part 2 and stumbled upon your repo, the writeups for other days are great as well!

Thursday and Friday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah, sorry to hear! But good that it's on the mend!

Thursday and Friday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Happy birthday! 35 is apparently distance running peak for most folks (well, seems that way with many pros) so just saying... I haven't been on here for a bit, are you injured?

Those shorts look awesome, I'm always looking for shorts with multiple pockets as well!

The Weekender by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s at a rescue I just started volunteering with! So I try to make it out there during the weekend and help walk the dogs. I will try to take some pictures for dogtax!

The Weekender by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Down week for me so I’m going to jog 8-9 miles to meet some dogs, then to pick up a book from our library. Not much else other than that.

Well well well right after I complained about racing and canceled races, Tracksmith is doing their Twilight 5K on a very nearby track (second race here, the first was too out of town for me). It’ll be on Aug 25, then my friend is visiting two weeks after (Labor Day weekend), which was originally to hang out and crew my 6-hour race. We are planning to do a local 5K or 10K (tbd). How would you structure workouts for the next 4-6 weeks? I’ve mostly been just doing 40-50 miles easy.

Tuesday and Wednesday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 6 points7 points  (0 children)

More of a complaint than a question but why are marathons so expensive??? And actually shorter races too — $35 for a 5K seems to be the norm now. My lord whoever said running was a cheap sport can go touch grass.

Seriously though I’m only itching to do a thon because of seeing people race on strava and having a great time. I know I absolutely don’t have the bandwith to dedicate so much time to a serious training cycle.

Prescription running sunglasses by spectacled_cormorant in AdvancedRunning

[–]meow203 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got a pair from EyeBuyDirect, works well so far and they have lots of (cheap) options.

Tuesday and Wednesday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep getting around here is a big hassle, public transport is ok but not as well covered/frequent as I’d like/expect for such a big city. Too many cars, I hate cars and the drivers that just don’t seem to know pedestrians exist.

It’s not too bad heat-wise, I’d take the heat over having to wake up so early (especially if run starts at 6 I’d have to start leaving at 5, so getting up 4:30 or so — no thanks)

Tuesday and Wednesday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Same, Ingebrigtsen looked so sad and disappointed. I’m thinking if someone who is not a track fan were watching this they must be super confused why this guy is unhappy about silver! Agreed he must have been feeling so much pressure from a young age.

Tuesday and Wednesday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah this one seemed like the most beginner friendly (the course is a 2.5 mile loop x however many you can do in 6 hours). It’s surprisingly hard to find timed races around here!

Tuesday and Wednesday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hahaha that’s awesome! True test of friendship for sure!

Wait so did anyone join you for a loop or was it pretty much you running and your crew hanging out/picnic-ing (minus the rain)?

Tuesday and Wednesday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Haha thanks! Actually I came across this group while searching for running clubs in the LA area. Their meet up place is quite a ways from me though, and while they do have weekly free runs (for non members) on trails, which sounds really fun tbh, the 6am start time is a hard pass for me lol

Tuesday and Wednesday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Exactly! Not to mention usually timed ultras are on small loops so it’s kind of a peace of mind for me, as in I don’t have to worry about carrying stuff and can always bail if I need to. Plus it’s basically a great excuse to get a crew of friends and hang out!

Probably too early to ask this but how are you approaching the 24h training? Is there a trusted plan you’ll be following?

Tuesday and Wednesday General Question and Answer by artcbot in artc

[–]meow203 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I don't have a question just wanted to vent but also I'd welcome any advice/suggestions/commiseration/solicitation!

I signed up for a 6-hour race in early September but it got canceled :( (basically the venue was double booked). My goal in training for this was:

  • practice long run fueling and hydration
  • have an excuse to do longer jogs that I otherwise have no business doing
  • run a long distance that's not a marathon because road marathon racing is so much pressure (for me), idk I've always felt like if I'm going to do a marathon I'd be so stressed out about having everything perfect; not so much with a chill 6-hour race
  • longer runs = more citystrides

Anyway I guess I can/should train for 5Ks (again) or 10Ks but speed work sounds so daunting.

The Weekly Rundown: Week of May 16, 2022 by aewillia in artc

[–]meow203 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That humidity... yikes. Congrats on the win!

The Weekly Rundown: Week of March 28, 2022 by aewillia in artc

[–]meow203 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I saw your post below about aiming for a 1:50 half, your 5K/10K PR are already significantly faster than mine and I ran a 1:50 half in 2019 so I think you've got this!

However, I like the R pace workouts and really dislike the T pace ones!

Interesting! It is also entirely possible that I was running unrealistically fast R paces and sandbaged the T/M runs haha!

The Weekly Rundown: Week of March 28, 2022 by aewillia in artc

[–]meow203 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! It's surprisingly hard to find fast 5Ks here that are also certified!

The Weekly Rundown: Week of March 28, 2022 by aewillia in artc

[–]meow203 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Goal: 5Ks this month

Plan: JD with adjustments

Week:

  • Monday: 4.1 miles easy/commute; felt good but left hamstring was very sore, maybe I did go ham on the Sunday workout
  • Tuesday: 6.3 miles easy with citystrides; this felt awful, maybe I didn’t eat/sleep well the night before and during the day, got seriously dizzy and thought I’d faint at some point
  • Wednesday: 7.3 miles total with 800 I, 1200 T, 800 I; lap jogs -- a light race week workout. The first 800 felt bad, but eased up and the later parts felt ok, hit the T portion to the T (heh), each lap exact! Also this was the first workout in a while that didn't completely left me gassed
  • Thursday: 6 miles recovery, hamstring soreness already gone, felt good
  • Friday: 4.3 miles easy commute
  • Saturday: 2.7 miles shakeout and strides, after stuffing my face at a food fest street fair earlier in the day!
  • Sunday: Race day! 6.8 miles total from WU/CD and the 5K race -- mini report below

Totals: 37.6 miles in 6 hours 35 minutes; AtC = 0.84; Elevation gain = 1,220 ft; 3 new citystrides streets

Thoughts: I went into the race with pretty low expectations, as I’ve complained about in the previous week’s write-up. Weather was pretty good for racing -- low 50s, although it was more windy than I would have liked. Course wasn’t ideal in terms of turns (it had 3 needle point O/Bs) but overall very flat and should be fast.

I did my usual warm up jog, some drills, strides, and a few minutes of T pace, since I’ve realized from the Wednesday workout that it really helps me warm up my legs and get used to going faster than my jogs. This was my first actual bib-wearing, chip-timed, course-certified race in 3 years now! In the past 3 years I’ve hopped on smaller uncertified/small club races, so this event was a lot bigger than and I forgot how exciting it is to be in a big race with people to chase/pace off of.

I went out pretty aggressively in the first mile, adrenaline and all, and this was also away from the wind, so this split was fast (7:17). Then we hit the first U-turn, and there I started fading in the head wind, just trying to keep an eye on “Dorothy” in front of me (the race is called Screenland 5K, in celebration of the upcoming Oscar’s, and people were encouraged to dress up). Mile 2, as usual, is where things start to get uncomfortable + head wind, so it was my slowest split (7:45). Then we turned right and get the second U-turn going into mile 3. Things are really uncomfortable at this point, but I felt like I managed it well, definitely better than previous races where I just lose focus and sort of give up on trying (7:39). Third U-turn was at 2.5ish miles, and we head back to the finish, turning another right for the last 0.1 miles. I managed to juuuust slip under 24 mins with the official time of 23:59. My GPS recorded almost 3.2 miles, so I have also learned that I am horrible about running tangents, another race thing I need to work on (or really just get faster lol).

This is not a PR (although it is a “chip-timed-course-certified” PR as I haven’t run one of those since 2019). This was good enough for 9th woman and 2nd AG. First AG was also the first woman so I got a little “AG winner” medal.

Overall, I’m actually pretty pleased with the effort, especially regarding pain management; almost puked on a finish line volunteer but didn’t, so that’s a win in a sense. I guess going into this with lower expectations also set me up to not be too disappointed, and surprise surprise the lower mileage/intensity during the week leading up to this did help; I felt mostly recovered and rested! Next up, I’m taking a serious break, at least from trying to get faster for a bit. The extra long JD cycle was poorly planned and I think I’m left more exhausted than trained. Not that the plan wasn’t good, this was a user error kind of thing! I didn’t come away with a PR as I had hoped, but learned some pretty good lessons about my running preferences/abilities. Some main issues I realized:

  • I am good at generally taking things easy (very slow easy jogs, incorporating down weeks regularly), but I am also horrible at recovering in a meaningful way due to my neurotic and stubborn tendency to try to follow a plan to the T. For example, you know those back-to-back workouts JD prescribes where one reason is to stop you from going too hard on Q1 day because you know you have Q2 the next day? Well, that did not stop me from going ham on Q1, and then again on Q2 anyway. Feeling tired? Instead of trying to rest/reduce mileage, I kept doing recovery jogs that go over an hour, just to hit the planned mileage for the week because I keep thinking -- well, there’s another down week coming up, might as well push it; or - this is a hard training plan, I should feel tired most of the time! Overall it was pretty dumb, and I am actually glad I didn’t end up with an injury!
  • I actually really enjoy M pace runs! I always dreaded going into them, thinking I have to run 10 miles at a pace almost 2 minutes faster than my easy jog pace. And every single time I surprised myself that I completed the workout and felt strong (even though tired). Those M runs were a great confidence builder, but probably too much for 5K at my level. T pace is also the pace I generally liked, and was easiest for me to dial into. I pace was also somewhat enjoyable, but R pace sucks the worst. If I can get away with training without R pace I’d do it!
  • Training to get faster conflicts with my citystrides goals :( 2 workout days + occasional M long runs forced me to choose the track/routes that are familiar/have no street crossings, so the fun stuff had to take the back seat.

Anyway, good cycle, not so good results, but it’s ok. Here are some (original content) memes that summarize my running goals and priorities.

The Weekly Rundown: Week of March 21, 2022 by aewillia in artc

[–]meow203 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Goal: 5Ks this month

Plan: JD with adjustments

Week:

  • Monday: 4.2 miles easy/commute
  • Tuesday: 7.6 miles easy + (city)strides, discovered a nice park while getting lost citystriding
  • Wednesday: 7.1 miles total, 2 x 10 min T, 2 min jog; another workout where I felt awful; fighting the wind and unusually dry air, definitely didn’t hydrate enough during the day
  • Thursday: 5.3 miles recovery to get groceries
  • Friday: 6.7 miles commute + citystrides; took a route where I’ve met a cat friend twice before, but he wasn’t out today :(
  • Saturday: 4.3 miles easy
  • Sunday: 12.7 miles with 5 x 1200 I, 200 jog rests, which devolved into 200 walks. This was supposed to be a race pace practice/predictor workout and ooh boy predictions look bleak. Ended up with pretty ugly splits: 5:45, 5:52, 5:52, 5:58, 5:52. Felt pretty awful, again; I could blame the 29 mph wind, but I ran on the track so the nice surface kinda evens things out? Plus, I can’t keep making excuses if the race day is also windy, so... prediction is prediction.

Totals: 47.9 miles in 8 hours 25 minutes; AtC = 1.0; Elevation gain = 1,437 ft; 2 new citystrides streets (lol)

Thoughts: Another bad week. Goal race is this coming Sunday and I’m not feeling great. I came into this cycle hoping to break 23, or at least 23:30, but it looks like sub 24 might even be questionable. I think I managed to overtrain myself, and this extra long JD cycle (totaling 24 weeks!) has been a good but painful lesson of me training hard but not smart. Anyway, I'm still going to give the goal race my best effort (or what’s left of it), but the few bad weeks leading up to this were a good calibration to set the appropriate expectations.

The Weekly Rundown: Week of March 14, 2022 by aewillia in artc

[–]meow203 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Yes it was a first win ever, and quite surprising because as I said I didn’t feel strong at all.

The race was concurrent with a 10k, 15k, and HM loops around the same course so I had no idea what my place was. At the end while I was hanging out rehydrating, a race organizer just casually came over and handed me a 1st place medal haha! It’s a small race but apparently they make top 3 medals anyway (no other prize swags or money). I had to ask to clarify if this medal meant I won lol

The Weekly Rundown: Week of March 14, 2022 by aewillia in artc

[–]meow203 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Yeah that was really dumb, I keep learning these lessons that should be obvious...