I am always way over due with posts. Just a quick note to saying training is going very well, 10 weeks to Boston! Last weekend I finally got up to 50 miles, that included 6 miles of hill repeats and an 8 mile steady state run.
I am mostly preoccupied with moving my studio, currently located in Brooklyn back to Manhattan. I am very excited about this. I will only have to walk 12 feet to get from my bed to my studio an 5 feet from my espresso maker to my drawing table. If it sounds like I am working at home that is right. I have designated 50% of my home to my work studio and I am really excited about having a live work space. I think my dogs will like it too.
I will have photos for you soon.
Highlights of 2010
A 10 mile run along the Atlantic Ocean in Iceland and a full day at the Blue Lagoon Spa. A week in Breda, Netherlands visiting my artist friends with a trip to the Fran Masereel Center, Kasterlee, Belgium Registers for TransRockies, 113 mile multi-stage race in Colorado
Registered for Tough Mudder, the toughest one day event on the planet (they say) and looking forward to running a PR Boston!
Hilary post run with Conrad in Canandaigua Lake, NY
Happy 2010. I just spent an amazing 13 days in North Western New York, in the “Finger Lakes” Region on Canandaigua Lake. Each day I ran a gentle 6 miles over the rolling hills. But today, New Years Day, was the best and most beautiful of them all, 12 miles over ungroomed snowy trails. The run is part of a semi defunct rail trail system. Based on my experience no one has walked, skied, or run the path since it was made. I was alone in the woods surrounded by frozen ponds and hills. What could be better? When I finished my run back to the cottage I jumped in the lake to sooth my quickly tightening muscles. It was too cold for the dogs to get in and I did not truly experience how cold it was until I was a little more striped down indoors. My tights were freezing on my legs as I walked out of the water. Here is the goofy video of it for you. Wishing everyone a joyful and healthy new year.
Just a quick update on the X-C training running. I came in second place in my age group. I guess that kind of puts things in perspective as per worrying about placement. Even if I did race it and ran all out I could have never come in first. The winner on the 15k has a 7:02 pace, I could not have done that. But it feels kind of wierd and cool to come in second while actually be trying to run slower.
This is my first 40 mile week. Boy it feels good. It was over 6 days of running, three of which were done at steady state. Finally I am feeling really good again.
Rain, sleet, ice, mud, 25 degrees. A perfect day to enjoy a 15k cross-country race. My scheduled run was 9 miles so I took advance of the NYRR race in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. It was excellent brain and body training as I was not going to race after racing yesterday, nor am I in shape to run a 15k X-C well. Mainly I do not want to chance injuring myself but I love running in the woods.
We waited in the usual mass start group, the rain pounding down harder than ever. Instead of lining up in the front and shooting off like a cannon, I lined up in the very back and trotted my way through the first mile or so staying in the back of the pack and not worrying about getting boxed in. I just went with the flow and it was very relaxing. It was raining harder ever minute and it was cold but it felt great to have no agenda but to enjoy my miles. Normally I run my 5k X-C at a 7:00 ish pace, my last race ranged from 6:40 – 7:15, but today I wanted to stay around 9:00, my long run pace. I forgot my Garmin so I kicked my feet along and checked the clock after each lap of the park, promising myself to slow own if I was running faster than planned. I ran all three laps consistently while trying out my new red Saucony Kilkenny X-C flats. Man, I love those things. I could scamper of the steep rain-soaked hills like it was nothing. I love running x-c so much that I had a little wish to run a 4th lap.
In the final stretch, coming out of the woods it is all flat dirt for about 300 meters. My legs were a bit tight from the hills so I decided it was a safe place to unwind. Most people were pretty tired by then, so as I quickened my pace I passed 6 people who I had strategically stayed behind to keep my pace in check. But I really needed to unwind and it was a good feeling to leg it all go in the last 200-300 meters. I am not sure of my time since I did not have a watch, and I did not start right out when the gun went off, but I would say I was around 8:50 pace which was my target range.
Now the time it took to get home on the subway in dripping wet freezing clothes and thaw my body out in the hot tub was a whole other story, that took a long time, about a 40k.
My first race back since May. The Holiday 4-miler in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. My plan was to be conservative on the first mile to warm up my legs and not burn myself out. The first mile was all uphill followed by a nice downhill. My body felt good, nice and easy running, checking out the people around me. I focused on mile two to three to use the down hills to my advantage. Mile 3 is always hard to keep focus and keep pushing the pace. I felt very heavy. I felt a couple of people attach me to and rather than let them suck some of my energy I focused on grabbing theirs and soon lost them. Mile 3 – 4 was all concentration to keep the pace. I got a small cramp under my right rib cage in the last 1/2 mile. I felt a few dry heaves wanting to come out in the last 500-600 meters but calmed them down. I focused hard to keep the pace going to the end but felt like I was really pushing without much reward. Mile 4 is all uphill with the last 400 meters being the toughest. I had no kick that I was aware of. So what is the verdict of my current fitness levels? I will let Coach Roy handle that but here are my stats with the run distance since I never run the tangents and have extra mileage:
mile 1 – 7:31, mile 2 – 7:18, mile 3 – 7:14, mile 4-7:32 and the last 140 yards – 7:08. for an average of 7:23 pace, 4:08 miles – 30:10 total, my current weight is 120, 17.5% body fat. That is 3 pounds heavier and 2 minutes slower than my April 4 miler, but only 10 seconds slower than my February ‘09 4 miler. And guess what?! It is 16 seconds faster than my 2008 Holiday 4-miler.To top it off it was 26º!
It is 28º in Manhattan and I just finished pinning my number to my shirt, restringing my shoe laces into my racing shoes, and laying out my outfit for tomorrow morning’s New York Road Runners Holiday 4 mile. The race is taking place in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, it will be my first race since May 16, 2009. My first race back after breaking my foot and I am looking forward to it. The first race since working with Coach Roy Benson. Tomorrow is simply about gathering information about my fitness level, or so I can tell myself. On Sunday it will be 8 full weeks since working with Roy, beginning with 15 minutes runs and a 110 minute week with a slow and careful build up to this week’s 33 miles. It may still be low mileage for most of you, but let me say, I am healthy, pain-free, and enjoying every minute of every run. And I can just keep building.
Today while riding the subway it dawned on me how lucky I really am to have a terrific number of supportive people around me. I have teammates that I run with anywhere from 18 to 72 years old. On any given day I could beat either in a race or they could beat me. But together we are sharing what we really love to do, run-and beat the other teams- and to share that with such a huge age range of friends really is a gift.
Before getting too sentimental and speaking of gifts. I made a slew of hand printed journals this week. Using natural tone moleskin 64 page journals and printmaking processes I made over 100 journals with images of my original drawings and photographs and I made running journals. I sold out almost everything but you can still place an order. If you are interested send me at email at hilary@hilarylorenz.com. They are $5, $10 or $15 depending on the size. Check out these images:
My labrador and one of my drawing on these small journals
Large lined journals
My sales table with book press
Each journal is unique and hand printed by Hilary Lorenz.
My last post ended with my run on the Alter-G and a new stress fracture. Today, three months later, 2 days shy of 12 weeks I am running. Most days my foot does not hurt, except when I am walking my very unruly dogs who jerk me all over. All this time off since May 26, the first break, has given me a lot of time to think, to lay on my sofa and be depressed and be pissed off and think of what I want to change in my life. Now it is fall and all those races which I thought I would run were cancelled, but I smartly registered for Boston the day I canceled my NYC marathon.
I knew I could write my own training plan, but I wanted to be sure. I was ready to work with John Henwood when I read an article by Coach Roy Benson in Running Times. Something in it make me call Roy and discuss my breaks and my approach back to racing. I was so taken by Roy that I wanted to work with him, to collaborate, his words, on my training plan. I have never felt such confidence in any coach or any training as I do now with Roy. I started the plan October 19th after clearance from my doc. It began with running a total of 110 minutes over four days for the week. The plan incorporated my swimming and rowing workouts. I was thrilled to begin again and I just had to trust the plan and that I would come back. My first 25 minute jog at a 9:00 pace felt like I was pushing a bolder up a mountain. I was not sweating, or heart pounding, it was just that my body did not want to move. In these last five weeks I have seen some 9:45’s and even 10:00’s when I ran two days in a row. But my longest run was on Sunday, a full 60 minutes. The breakdown was 8:30, 8:40, 8:29, 8:31, 8:00, 7:19, 9:30, 7:53. That 8:00 – 7:19 I met a runner along the way and ran with him, though he left me at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge with a huge hill to climb and tired legs, that is where the 9:30 came in. It was rough, but I was so happy.
From now until the end of January I will be base building, no speed work, no repeats, a few steady state and a lot of general aerobic. I have it in my mind that I just want to have fun in Boston not worry about my time goals. I will leave my time goals behind, expect that I want a PR of course. Some really exciting news is that I will be doing a few long runs in Iceland. In January, I am flying to Reykavik to meet my Dutch artist friend Miek for some big hiking and a day at the Blue Lagoon. then we are off to the Netherlands and our annual big sea walk, a 7 hour walk along the North Sea. It is Miek’s 65 birthday and I have not seen her in two years. She is a physical power house and I am really looking forward to our big walks. One year we were both guests of the Miskolc Museum of Contemporary Art in Hungary. Every morning we got up at 7:00 am, robustly walked 8k to the hot springs, bathed for 2-3 hours, then walked or jogged back to the studios to work. It was one of the most fantastic summers ever.
I just had the best workout of my life. Many of us fantasize about having more training time, having the cool gadgets that the pros have and planning how we be faster, stronger and more competitive. Yesterday in NYC one of my dreams came true; the ability to train on the Alter-G anti-gravity treadmill, just like Paula Radcliffe, who owns two of the $75,000 machines, Dathan Ritzenhein and Kara Goucher.
Prior to finding Barry Heyden, Former Director of Fitness and Conditioning for the New York Mets and founder of Full Spectrum New York, I thought the Alter-G treadmills were only for the pros and if there were any available it would be wildly expensive. I did find one other machine at New York Hospital for Special Surgery’s Performance lab.It turns out the Barry spearheaded the development of the hospitals Performance Center and the training for the Alter-G. Any individual can work out at the hospital but it is expensive, $350 for the initial consultation and $100 an hour. I do not see myself running on theirs any time soon. However Barry is making his very accessible to a wide range of people where you can buy a 10 hour package for only $450. At $45 an hour that is the same a a cheap Chinatown massage and less than one hour with the dog walker. Save all that mental health therapy money you have been spending because your injured and invest it in training on this thing. You can run even with a stress fracture or in Radcliffe’s case after bunion surgery.
Blossom on the Alter-G trainer
My reason for training on this is to get my fitness back faster after breaking my foot 12 weeks ago. I had been pool running but felt myself getting slower and slower. My return to land running is difficult and I hate running on a treadmill. But the G-trainer is built around a Woodway Treadmill which makes gym treadmills feel like caveman tools. It feels fantastic both forward and backward.
I also want to do overspeed training. The G-trainer is the perfect tool for overspeed training. As the individual decreases their weight they’re able to increase their speed beyond what they could normally do at full weight. They are able to run at a faster turnover rate increasing their body’s familiarity with higher speeds. The muscle memory from these increased speed sessions increases the overall speed potential of the individual when at full body weight. The G-Trainer’s broad variable range for weight, speed, and incline allows people to customize their workout session to their specific needs. After warming up I was able to run a 5:20 mile pace, something I have never done on land. It felt like I was running really fast on the track. I was light on my feet yet felt the full extension of my legs and the balls of my feet hitting the ground and pawing back. I had such a nice back kick that I could feel my foot coming to my butt. It was fast but always in total control.
I can’t say enough good things about this treadmill and Barry who is a super nice guy and truly a brilliant and gifted trainer. He gave me a few $50 vouchers that I can give out to friends so if you are in NYC and want to try this for free let me know. My plan is to train at Barry’s 2-3 days a week though the end of year to increase endurance, then use it for stamina training in preparation for the Boston Marathon in April.
If you make an appointment with Barry directly tell him Hilary sent you and if you want a free voucher let me know I will be in Central Park this Saturday morning.
I hoped that at week 1o of my stress fracture healing I would be able to run the New York Road Runners Team Championships. I knew it would not be a great race but an okay race. I began my rehab running back on July 14 and it is now August 8th. One week ago I did my first continuous 30 minutes of running and on Monday I ran 4 x 1 mile. But no way am I ready.
I began cross training the morning after breaking my third metatarsal all the way through. I deep water ran 5 days a week, rode my bike everywhere and began swimming lessons. I swim with a masters team 3x a week and do strength training. I work out about 2+ hours a day in an attempt to keep fit and to make it easier when I started running again. My runs began over three weeks ago with a 5 minute walk and a 1 minute run x 5. progressing until I was running 30 continuous minutes. I have done this 7 days a week for over three weeks. So it should feel easy right?
The reality is my body feels like a rigid piece of metal. My upper body feels like it moves independent of my lower body. My trunk does not seem to connect with my legs and each step takes effort and thought. My form is crap. My first real test was the 4 x 1 mile. I waited until dark because it was hot and humid. I jogged over to the 6th street track which is 1.06 miles away. My pace on the track was 7:29, 7:28, 7:24, 7:59. I do not know what happened on that last one but it was such a big jump that I stopped there. I had thought about doing 5. I noticed my shadow as I ran and it appeared that I might have a limp. My last two 30 minutes continuous runs averaged 8:15 pace. I would like that to be my marathon pace! To put things in perspective my 10k pace is 7:20 and my 4 mile pace 7:00.
Back in May running a fast cross country pace felt very free and loose. I love that feeling of running up and down the steep dirt hills. But today’s run over the Williamsburg Bridge I had to focus on each step. Honestly, I wanted to stop. My foot did not hurt, but my body did not feel like it could move. Going up the steepest sections I felt depressed when my garmin read 9:55 pace. Hopefully it was a malfunction or I pulled it together because my average at the end of the 3.5 mile run was 8:40. The pace is not bad for an easy run, but it was not easy, and that is frustrating. It is not taxing on my aerobic system and I barely sweat, but moving my legs feels very mechanical and labored. I came home and did 30 minutes of yoga which reinforces to me how much stronger my muscles are; now if I could just figure out how to make them move again. I know it takes time and I am happy I can run continuously. But for those of you with stress fractures, just know it can feel like you are learning to run all over again.
