Back in Form May 18, 2009

It has been quite a week!

I started my new job last Monday, and it was a wonderful, if overwhelming week filled with new and familiar faces, lots and lots of meetings, and new information coming out of my ears (once again, my brain is officially full!). The whole thing had a slightly surreal quality … moving into a new office, but in a building where I’ve spent lots of time over the past 3 years … a completely new job, but surrounded by the familiar faces of all the development staff … and Wednesday was the second annual Professional Advisors Day. Last year, at the inaugural event, I was one of the guest presenters … and now here I am, one of the team.

The event was great, and I got to meet some good people with whom I will likely be interacting quite a bit in the future … but the highlight was probably the post-event tour of the athletic center used by the Longhorn football team. The gym areas are state of the art, the trophy room with all the National Championship and Heisman trophies was just amazing. We even got to tour the coaches’ offices, which led to this photo …

Yes, that’s me sitting in Mack Brown’s chair at Mack Brown’s desk! Pretty cool, huh?

The other big news this week is of course on the running front. I’ve been trying to ramp up my training for the past month or so, but it has seemed to be progressing more slowly than I wanted. Granted, I’ve had a lot going on, so I do have to cut myself a little slack. But I have a pretty serious race calendar coming up, and I need to be in the best shape of my life to successfully complete my ultra season … Headlands 50 miler on August 8th, followed by Great Eastern Endurance Run 100K on Sept 26th (complete with 15,000 feet of climb and a 19 hour cutoff!), and then the grand finale … Cactus Rose 100 Mile starting on Halloween.

This past weekend I had a 20 mile run on my training calendar … my first 20 miler since I took a break from training after Bandera 100K in early January. I was honestly pretty nervous. I posted the run to the club in the hopes of having some company, and I just hoped and prayed that it wouldn’t feel awful. Well, I got my wish … it was a great run! One of the best I’ve had in a while! 21.5 miles at a good steady pace and I finished feeling like I could have gone farther (although I was happy to be done). I followed it up with a nice 10 miler yesterday on some more hilly, rugged terrain, and again I felt great!

I know as the Austin summer rears it’s ugly, hot, humid head, that I will have plenty of runs that just drain all my energy … but to have a 30+ mile weekend at this point in my training and to feel great pretty much the entire time? It’s a huge confidence boost, and really has me motivated to step up my training, work hard but smart, and aim high for my races.

I also decided that since my training is really going to pick up from here, that I would do something I’ve put off for a while … I went back to get tested at the UT Fit Lab. I did this two years ago, right before I started my first trail training program … waaaay back when I just a little trail newbie. :-) I was pleased with the results back then. Well, I was pleased with the aerobic testing … the body fat results left much to be desired.

So after 2+ years of training … going from a relatively new trail runner to having completed 6 ultramarathons … I was really interested to see how the results had changed. I went in Tuesday morning to meet with the director of the FitLab. I had brought Phil in to speak at the May Hill Country Trail Runners meeting, and his talk was a huge success, and I was looking forward to my testing. Phil had the results from my previous testing, so we could compare results and see how far I’ve come.

We started with the body composition … and once again the results surprised me, and not in a good way. The good news is I’ve dropped nearly 10 pounds since my last testing … but the bad news is my body fat is still several percentage points higher than I want it to be. So back on the diet for me. It’s not vanity … I’m fine with how I look. But performance-wise, I really need to drop another 5-10 pounds. If I’m serious and careful, I have time to drop this weight and let my body adjust to it before Headlands … but I’m going to have to get serious about my diet. So for the next couple months, it’s going to be all about getting the right foods, in the right amount … focusing on fueling my body with the healthiest foods I can get, without getting more than I need.

The good news? My aerobic testing was way better than I expected! My VO2 Max has gone from 41 to 48 … this is not a number that you’re supposed to be able to change much, so a 7 point jump is huge. When I was at 41 it put me in the 99th percentile for women my age, so 48 is really a tremendous result. That being said, I’m not in elite athlete territory, which starts at about 55 for women (the highest-ever recorded female VO2 Max was 74), but I’m well off-the-chart for regular folks.

There were lots of scientific numbers related to my Lactate Threshold, but the big news from that is the number that determines how long you can run at your LT (the pace at which you switch from aerobic to anaerobic) … and in that category I did score with elite women athletes. The average percentage for this for elite women is between 70-85%, and I scored between 77-79%. This means that I can maintain the pace just below my LT for a lot longer than most people … which kind of makes sense when you think about how long and far I run.

The testing also uses VO2 Max and Lactate Threshold to predict race times from 5K up to marathon distance. I’m not giving the exact numbers, but suffice it to say that it appears I could be running a LOT faster. I wasn’t the only one surprised by these results. The testing is done by taking a drop of blood during intervals on a treadmill, gradually increasing the speed until Lactate Threshold is determined, and then increasing the speed every minute after that until you basically feel like you’re going to die or go flying off the back of the treadmill. Well, I managed to get up to a 6:20 mile … surprising both myself and Phil!

Now, I’m not training for short distance races, so speed is not really my overall goal … but it is interesting information to have, and it does motivate me to keep going with my speed/hill/tempo workouts, in addition to the long, slower runs I need to get ready for my races.

Okay, that’s enough geeking out on running for one day. Lots going on and lots to look forward to.

Next up? Memorial Day weekend in Philly with my sis and my two favorite 4 year olds. :-)