I am the Fastest......

The first image that comes up in Google Images for "fastest"

I have just a few more days to post here, so I figure I might as well have a little fun.

The other day a Facebook friend of mine--a woman I know only because we're both named Terzah--put a question about running apps on the Newsfeed, and I answered it. I then turned to Dan and told him turns out one of the other Terzahs I know is also a runner and isn't that cool?

How many Terzahs are there? I'm not sure, but I'm aware of eight or so others in the USA, many of them part of my family or friends with my family. This particular Facebook Terzah, who is not a relative, is a really impressive person, and her story of how she got the name is much more interesting than mine. I inherited mine from my great-grandmother; as with all inheritances, the jury's still out on whether I'm really worthy of it.

Anyway, when I told him that the other Terzah is a runner, Dan asked this question: "I wonder if you're the fastest Terzah."

We both thought about that. It's a given that I'm not the fastest of much of anything.....there are millions of faster women, faster pushin'-40-year-olds, faster librarians, faster moms of twins, faster graduates of Rice University, faster Boulder County residents, faster people in my family (Dan's 5K personal record from his high school cross country days will probably stand until/if one of the kids decides to run)....I could go on and on.

But you know what? I just might be the fastest Terzah.

I didn't want to seize the title without doing a little research. I started with Athlinks.com. But that didn't turn up any other running Terzahs. I then Googled "terzah run", "terzah 5K" and "terzah marathon." No one came up but me. I admit it wasn't an entirely exhaustive search. But I think I found another privilege that comes with an unusual name, along with easy-to-claim email addresses and priority in Google searches for yourself (my blog is the first hit when you Google "terzah").

So I am staking my claim: I am the fastest Terzah! Anyone out there want to challenge me? Maybe my Facebook friend will.....Hmm, she's a pretty strong person. Maybe I should be frightened.

It's tough here at the top.

Still Learning....

Do I really know how to run a marathon?

The answer to that (I'm pretty sure) is no.

I have now run six of them, and I've learned many things. But the main thing I've learned is how much I still have to learn.

The major thing I'd like to be better at is how to pace myself in a marathon. Here's a look at the paces for my last three 26.2s, mile by mile, according to my Garmin data (I don't have this data for the first three I ran, and because of Garmin discrepancies these numbers may not add up to my official finishing times or match the official race data exactly):

Top of Utah--September 2011
Mile 1--8:29
Mile 2--8:11
Mile 3--8:15
Mile 4--8:28
Mile 5--8:28
Mile 6--8:44
Mile 7--8:38
Mile 8--8:27
Mile 9--8:35
Mile 10--8:53
Mile 11--8:30
Mile 12--8:28
Mile 13--8:31
Mile 14--8:34
Mile 15--8:21
Mile 16--8:40
Mile 17--8:31
Mile 18--8:54
Mile 19--9:30
Mile 20--10:03
Mile 21--9:14
Mile 22--10:36
Mile 23--11:10
Mile 24--10:36
Mile 25--9:41
Mile 26--9:40
Final .2 pace: 8:35
RESULT: 3:59:11

Houston Marathon--January 2012
Mile 1--9:26
Mile 2--9:01
Mile 3--8:33
Mile 4--8:25
Mile 5--8:19
Mile 6--8:36
Mile 7--8:31
Mile 8--8:36
Mile 9--8:46
Mile 10--8:46
Mile 11--8:47
Mile 12--8:49
Mile 13--8:45
Mile 14--8:29
Mile 15--8:36
Mile 16--8:46
Mile 17--8:47
Mile 18--9:00
Mile 20--8:59
Mile 21--9:04
Mile 22--9:08
Mile 23--9:12
Mile 24--9:08
Mile 25--9:19
Mile 26--8:57
Last .2 pace--7:50
RESULT: 3:53:28 (my current PR)

California International Marathon--December 2012
Mile 1--9:19
Mile 2--8:57
Mile 3--8:39
Mile 4--8:51
Mile 5--8:56
Mile 6--9:00
Mile 7--9:07
Mile 8--9:01
Mile 9---9:00
Mile 10--8:47
Mile 11--8:45
Mile 12--8:59
Mile 13--8:51
Mile 14--8:53
Mile 15--9:00
Mile 16--9:06
Mile 17--11:36 (bathroom stop)
Mile 18--9:04
Mile 19--9:14
Mile 20--9:17
Mile 21--9:05
Mile 22--9:12
Mile 23--9:18
Mile 24--11:40
Mile 25--11:08
Mile 26--9:57
Final .2 pace: 9:02
RESULT: 4:06:32

What do these races have in common? If you said, you hit the Wall, Terzah, and right around the same time in all three races, well, you'd be right.

The fact that I markedly slowed down in Houston, too, albeit more modestly than the other two drama fests, surprised me. In each list, I italicized the mile where I think the Wall came. Each race had its own unique reason: Top of Utah killed me when the screaming downhill turned flat; CIM killed me due to the headwind and my stomach...and even Houston, a race I am still mostly proud of and felt good for the entire way, featured a noticeable point where my pace slowed. In that case, I don't really know why. Poor fueling, maybe? Hard to say, because I was enjoying myself.....

These data also show me that in each race I put in some early miles that were faster than what I was ready for. Top of Utah--which lures you in with a screaming downhill for almost 15 miles--is understandable. But someone like me shouldn't have been doing an 8:11 mile that early in any marathon, for any reason, and especially not in my first marathon in six years. In Houston, I started too slow (9:26?! really?!), but I made up for that with too-fast times in miles four and five. And for that day at CIM, knowing the worst of the headwind was still ahead, I shouldn't have run Mile 3 in 8:39. I was trying too hard to keep up with a pace group that, on that day, was too fast for me.

So here's my homework for April's Eugene Marathon:

1. Be honest about my possible pace, and not only that but be honest about my possible pace for the weather and health Mother Nature deals me on THAT day, NOT necessarily what my pace could be on a perfect day. Darren can help with this, but Darren isn't going to be with me in Eugene on April 28. In the end, I have to know my own body and be honest about the weather.

2. Aim for an even pace, tilted toward slightly slower in the first half and slightly faster in the second half. This will be the hardest part, I think.

3. Fuel properly. Practice this in training. Truth is, I hate eating while running. I barely ate anything during Top of Utah or CIM, and I may not have consumed enough calories in Houston, either (though I'm less sure about that). Time to get over that. This cycle I plan to experiment more with sports drink and Gu-type things. Shot Bloks work well for my gut, but they are bulky and cumbersome to carry and after 13 or 14 miles, my mouth just doesn't want to chew them.

I'm in good company in cultivating true humility in the face of this distance. In my weight training sessions with her, Colleen has said a couple of times that the marathon must be respected, no matter how talented a runner you are or how many you've done (she told me she's lost count of her marathons, but I know they include four Olympics and at least one Olympic Trials victory).

Any other advice? How did you run your best marathon: even paced, or negative split, or positive split? Has anyone really mastered the marathon (maybe Meb has....but anyone less, um, gifted)?

Embracing the Treadmill

I thought of calling this post "wimping out," but even though that's what I felt like I did, it's unfair to some real badasses out there who I know have to train on treadmills.

So yep....the group run didn't happen today. It was 5 degrees with a windchill of -13 when I woke up, and the sidewalks were icy. I decided breathing that for 90 minutes, and slipping around while I was at it, wasn't worth the tough-girl points. Instead, I drove to the YMCA and did my slow long one on the treadmill. It wasn't so bad. It wasn't so great either, and I still want to avoid that whenever possible....but it was better than being bone-cold for an hour and a half or more.

Plus, when I was done, the gym was right there for the 60 minutes of weights and core work that I also had on the schedule.

My friend Keith says we can try again in two weeks for the group workout. Not sure if Keith and his wife joined the group today, or waited until later....I hope they ran inside too. It's now 10:40 a.m. and it's still only 16 outside. Here's hoping it warms up for my next run on Monday!

Stay warm, everybody.

Introverts and Group Runs

Have you ever taken the Myers-Briggs personality test? It's one of the few "psych" tests I have done, or at least I've done knock-off online versions. Here's a decent one--at least as far as I can tell it's decent. I sometimes wonder if these are just more-elaborate versions of a women's mag quiz.

One thing I'm fairly sure these tests do get right: they always peg me as an introvert. I remember a long time ago being at a crazy post-college New Year's Party and ducking into an empty office because big crowds tire me out. At almost every party I go to I'll do this after a while: find an empty room, a bookshelf or even a bathroom where I can go be alone for a while. In the case of this party, a friend of mine found me in that office and said, "Ah....taking a break from the party! You must be one of those introverts who can pass for extroverts sometimes."

And he was right: I am an introvert who can pretend extroversion. I worked as a reporter for several years, and to be a reporter you have to be able to initiate and carry on conversations with strangers. But I never was comfortable at this. Ultimately I'm much happier as the librarian I am now. I do still have to talk to people I don't know as part of my job, but it's usually one-on-one and cordial (reporters often have to be confrontational).

What does any of this have to do with running?

Well, this weekend I'm going to run with a group. Someone I knew briefly back in college got in touch last fall. Turns out he's a runner, too, lives in Boulder and he'd just run his half-marathon personal record, something he attributes in large measure to group training. He invited me along on one of his group's Saturday runs, and I decided to give it a try.

This scares me. I've run with individual friends, with Cynthia and Kathy and my old friend Angela, and I've always liked how this ups the fun factor. I've run on two 24-hour relay teams. I also enjoy being an anonymous member of the crowd during races.

But in races everyone's focused on his or her own run. Cynthia and Kathy are friends in other contexts--they know me. A training group....that's A LOT of other people, and, well, they chat. I'm bad at chatting. I'm scared I'll be the slowest person out there (Darren's got me doing a 90-minute run, all at a low heart rate). And I'm scared...well, I'm scared of all the other things that scare me in any new social situation: that I won't know what to say, that I won't come across as having a sense of humor, that I'll say something to make me put my foot in my mouth, that they won't see me as a "real" runner or as a very interesting person. (These things have all happened to me, and not just back in middle school. Maybe the other introverts out there can back me up on that.)

But I'm going anyway because it won't be the first time I've done something in running that scares me, and it's always been for the best. I'm going because it was nice of my friend to ask me, and surely he doesn't think I'm a total loser or he wouldn't have issued the invitation. I'm going because I see running with a group, at least sometimes, as a missing piece in my training. I'm going because when this blog goes away, I'll need a support group and because I think it's stupid to live in a place like Boulder County and NOT know more runners in person (and actually run with some of them sometimes!). I'm going because I have a marathon in April, and three-plus hour training runs alone get dull.

I do feel that, given my personality and time constraints, I'll probably still do most of my runs alone (I hope I'll get to do at least a long run or two with Cynthia and Kathy this cycle). But getting a little more social in general can't hurt.Wish me luck! I know this sounds like a lot of drama for something that will hopefully be fun. Even for a consummate introvert.

What about you? Are you an introvert or an extrovert (and what do you think of tests like Myers-Briggs? useful or complete BS)? Do you train with a group?