Awakening My Inner Morning Runner

Running in the morning offers many advantages: avoiding scheduling conflicts, kick-starting metabolism, an inspiring sunrise view.

But then there's the waking up part.

For me (and a lot of people), that's the hardest part. It's soooooo dark in Santa Cruz in the winter. I know pretty much everyone everywhere else has it worse, but it was brutal running in 36-degree weather one morning last month. Hitting snooze means staying in a warm bed, dog at my feet, with the promise of fresh coffee and a hot shower when I get up. Getting up to run before work sets off a domino-effect of time-keeping, strategy and stress. If I run from the house, I can sneak in a quick rinse before heading to the office, but if I meet the running group, it means bringing work clothes and wet wipes. Last week I forgot my lunch.

Getting creative with the route on a recent morning run.

Of course, as we all know, you never regret getting up and going for the run. You love it. You relish that run all day. I get a little smug sitting in meetings after a morning run: I watched the sunrise over Monterey Bay got to enjoy a delicious cup of coffee with friends before all of this. And at the end of the work day, there's to pressure to run stairs in the dark or pound out miles on a treadmill at the gym.

Aside from the obvious benefits of exercising (d'oh), I love morning runs because they feel goofy. Yes, let's run concentric circles today to see what the Garmin map looks like later. Military crawl under a fence so we can get to the peak of this hill? Absolutely.

And then there's the sunrise. It's pretty awesome pretty much all the time.

Seacliff Beach sunrise

Scotts Valley sunrise
(photo by John)

Runners World has lots of tips about how to become a pre-dawn runner, including a checklist of how to prep the night before. I would add: sign up for a race. There's nothing more motivating than the prospect of online race results attached to your name. I just registered for the Across the Bay 12K in San Francisco this April.

Tough run

So Felix was right. Don't tell him I said so, but he was right when he said the Jungle Run in Los Gatos would be hard.

This was the race the Tuesday morning crew had trained for. Intervals at 6:30 a.m. Tempo miles in the middle of our long runs. Tapering. We were going to run fast -- 8-minute mile pace was the goal, which would lead to a 1:45 finish and a huge personal best.

But I got food poisoning. I can't point fingers at where it came from, I just know that I woke up nauseous around 2 a.m., then spent the next hour trying to keep it together before giving in and giving it up to the toilet. This was really frustrating -- not just due to the 7 a.m. race -- but because I just don't get sick. I brushed my teeth with tap water for two weeks in Guatemala and was fine. I eat warm yogurt without so much as a burp. But something finally got me.

I considered skipping the race, but the Web site had promised cool finishers medals and I was too proud to admit defeat from the bathroom floor (and also too hard-headed to tell my running pals about my predicament). So I went.

The race went well for the first half-mile. I don't be Debbie Downer here, but the rest of it was fairly terrible. I think a bee stung my thigh before mile 1 (I still have a huge welt). Then we hit the main road, where the sun already beat down and temperatures felt like they were 100 degrees. Realistically, it was probably verging on 80, and not even 8 a.m. yet.

I lost the crew (all of whom ran amazing times!) between miles 4 and 5. From there, most of the run was spent convincing myself that dropping out now would be futile, embarrassing and, ultimately, more frustrating that plowing on ahead. With about four miles to go, race bandits Blair and Felix found me. They had sport beans and stories. Blair even carried my waterbottle, and having the distraction of company really carried me through those last few hot, mildly hilly miles.


My final time, though no where near the goal pace, wasn't anything to scoff at: 1:54:37 is still a personal best.

What was even better was Scotty and John both getting personal bests and Lynn taking second place in her age group. Good job!!

Toiling through the taper

I'll come right out with it: tapering makes me crazy.

(Yes, this is the place to make the comment that I'm already crazy. Now, moving on...)

I'm limited to 12 miles this week. That's the rule. We're tapering for the Jungle Run half marathon on Sunday. So from Monday to Saturday, 12 miles. That's it. Any mile beyond that costs me $1 at the post-race breakfast.

So I'm crazy -- I stayed up past 1 a.m. a couple nights ago dicing strawberries to freeze, slicing veggies and cleaning out the fridge -- but feel lazy. Also, I have a small amount of guilt after just polishing off a discus-sized toffee cookie.

I understand that tapering will help me run better come Sunday morning, and that this is what we've been gunning for. So I'm sure I'll appreciate it then. But right now I'm trying to figure out what to do with my Saturday? The lack of a long trail run or scenic bike ride will be devastating. Also, I don't have cable to distract myself.

Speed training

For the first time since college, I'm doing a track workout in the morning. (And yes, that's me on the left being coached at one of those college workouts.)

To be honest, I'm a little nervous for the early-morning intervals. I keep times and monitor my pace during some runs: we run mile repeats every now and again, and two years ago Julie and I did some half-mile repeats on a loop course, but nothing at the level I'll be able to in the morning.

However, this is good. There is a goal here: Run fast! I want to run a fast half-marathon just to see how speedy I can be. It's kind of a silly plan, because really I'd rather do a four-hour run as training for an ultra-marathon, but this is good for me and it's good for the triathlon training. Also, it's just fun. I like that tinge of fatigue in my legs every morning and the accomplishment of running 10 miles at an 8:30 mile pace (that was Sunday morning) even though it hurt.

But there's one more reason. I think I'm faster than my times show. I run challenging, not fast, marathon courses and over-train (or at least don't taper) for shorter races, so I never gauge what my capabilities really are. I'd like to find out.

And here's the back story: It had been a long time since I had a bad race. College. Probably this really horrible 10K performance I had at Avenue of the Giants one year when I thought I was capable of running 6 miles even though all I'd done for the past four months was eat crap food and drink.

Anyway, point is I'd had a good streak of runs. Until a few weeks back.

Sarah (my sister's friend) and I met up to run the Nitro Trail half-marathon in Pinole, a suburb in the East Bay. The course was fairly flat and fast. Sarah and I ran together through the first half of the run, clocking sub-8 minute miles throughout. It was awesome, especially because it was Sarah's first half marathon and she hadn't done much training. Pretty much, she's just awesome.

So I started dropping back around mile 8 (I think, it's all a bit hazy) but still had a really amazing pace going at mile 10. Then there was a fork in the trail, no volunteer in sight and I was surrounded by a forest of pink ribbons. Right turn or left turn or straight? I went one way, questioned myself and turned back. I found a different trail and followed two women (who turned out to be the winners). I finished in the remarkable time of 1:36. I ran approximately 11 miles.

The race director had no compassion for the unfortunate turn of events in my race. Had I made the correct directional decision, I prolly would have scored a sub-1:50 time, which is a huge PR for me. Instead, I pouted and cussed and was generally disagreeable over it.

The following weekend, I ran a much more challenging half in Nisene Marks -- hilly single-track trail sometimes so steep that I walking was the only option -- for "fun" and finished in just over 2 hours (2:00:16). It was actually my fastest half-marathon race finish ever, but I ran 1:55 and some change at the mid-point of the Seattle Marathon last fall.

Soooo high! (no, not like that)

So getting up at 6 to run 1-mile repeats -- you know, because I'm so into speed work less than three weeks after running a marathon -- at Skypark in Scotts Valley actually turned out to be a great way to start my day.

Who knew?

I mean, we killed the pace, as in actually didn't really run it at all. We planned to hit 7:55 for three miles. This is nothing like the good ol' days in college, but it would be enough to make me pant and earn a cup of fancy coffee.

Instead, we paced off Blair's internal "GPS unit" for the first one and hit a nice 7:32 split. Lynn led the second one, coming in at 7:40, and for the last one we just threw it all out the window. I was last to cross the line, clocking 7:17 or so.

But after buckling over to catch my breath, downing my watered-down Gatorade and running a cool-down mile with the crew, I got my reward: a frothy, warm, syrupy-sweet soy latte at Coffee Cat.

This would be the first of many highs, many caffeine-related, today.

Crazy antics and results in court today, like having to personally address the judge in front of the court about why the Sentinel should be allowed to photograph a defendant and a mistrial declared for the case of a convicted killer/child rapist who wants out of juvy (he's 37 now, so you could see why.... and also prolly see the arguments against).

So I sucked down some green tea with lunch and then an iced coffee when I got back to the office. By now (it's after 9 and I'm just leaving work), I'm bleary-eyed and dreaming of a shower. Despite, or because of, all the exciting things today -- starting with those blazing fast mile repeats (c'm on, fast for me) -- the one thing I missed out on was a shower. I know, gross, right?