I went out for an easy five miler this evening. It was my first time out of my apartment and away from my laptop for more than 10 minutes. I needed that run after spending several hours trying to make progress on my dissertation and only have a few pages to show for it.

The run was good. Even better, as I ran near the local elementary school I heard a man call out, “Good luck on Sunday!”

Those four words snapped my attention away from the podcast playing on low volume through my earbuds (Slate’s Culture Gabfest). I had just a moment to yell back, “Thanks!”

I’m not sure he heard me as he drove in the opposite direction.

As I continued my run, I wondered how he could tell I was training for the LA Marathon. Maybe he had just seen signs about road closures a few miles north in Beverly Hills and the race was on his mind. I thought about how those four words were much better than January’s drive-by egging. I thought about identity (again, back to the dissertation) and how being recognized by others is part of identity development. I’ve labeled myself as a runner for a couple of years, but today a stranger saw me and figured I was running the marathon on Sunday. I wasn’t even wearing the traffic cone orange 2011 LA Marathon tech tee. I had plenty of time to over think those four words as I ran for another half hour.

My drive-by well-wisher probably just wanted to offer some encouragement.

It worked.

Last year, I ran the LA Marathon in a fierce storm. I was wet and cold for over four hours, but I didn’t complain even when I had to stop at an aid tent for a band-aid for my bloody ankles. The band-aid came off after five minutes.

The rain made the race more interesting, the chafing worse, and the post-race period awful. In hindsight, it wasn’t that bad running through rain. I felt like badass for running through this. (Afterward was a whole different story, I was miserable. It took me a long time to feel warm again even after changing in to dry clothes and drinking some tea.)

It was good to experience. I don’t want to do it again, but I might have to.

I checked the 10-day forecast on Friday. I laughed when I saw this. It can’t be as bad as last year. I’d rather have this than lots of sunshine and predicted highs in the 70s and 80s like it’s been recently.

I’m 18 days away from the LA Marathon and I’m feeling pretty good. This is a big difference from last fall’s taper for Long Beach. Other differences between previous marathon training cycles last summer/fall and winter (Los Angeles):

1. I’m on a truncated training schedule. I didn’t begin training until after the Carlsbad Half on January 22nd. I worried that 8 weeks wouldn’t be enough. I’d barely be able to squeeze in one 18 and 20+ mile run before a proper taper. Nevertheless, I felt okay going from 15 to 18 in one week and two weeks later increasing to 22.

2. I’m running pretty low mileage and fewer days. The one week I hit 40 miles was when I had a half marathon on Sunday and did my long run on Saturday. I usually ran 5 days/week in previous training cycles, but the easy and recovery runs tended to be shorter. My overall mileage is lower, but not by much. In December, Marc, swapped out two days of running for cross or strength training in my schedule. After I had IT band issues in December, he decreased my total weekly miles. At first I thought I wasn’t running enough, but I like this schedule. While I’d love to PR, my first priority is to avoid injury. So far it’s working.

3. I’m doing consistent strength training and inconsistent cross training. My schedule allows me to do either strength or cross training twice per week. I like lifting more since I can do it with dumbbells at home. I feel the benefits, especially with my recovery and avoiding injury. I didn’t do any strength/cross training for LB. For LA I occasionally did a core strengthening workout from Runner’s World.

4. Aside from the Friendship Run, I’m doing all my long runs alone. I did group training runs, but typically ran alone at my own pace. Those long runs were on new courses, planned by someone else, and sometimes had support along the way. Thanks to those SRLA runs, I started training on parts of the LA course.

5. I’ve PR’ed in recent races. While I ran the Holiday Half and Carlsbad Half before I officially began training, those efforts have really helped my confidence. Before LA and LB, I didn’t race for 3-4 months (excluding the Friendship Run, which is more of a supported long run). My two previous half times have me eyeing a time well below my previous marathon goal times.

6. I’ve run fewer and shorter long runs thanks to my truncated training schedule. This time around, I have just one 18-miler and one 22-miler. That 22-miler is my longest training run ever. For LA I ran 18, 21, then 20; for LB I ran three 17-18 milers, 20 and 21.5. Though I had fewer 18+ mile long runs, they were better quality.

7. I’m regularly massaging my legs with the stick, but skipping the post long run ice bath. I ice my hips after most long runs.

8. I have an online coach who creates my training schedule and is there to address my questions and concerns. I previously used training plans from Active Trainer. While they were pretty detailed, they were generic. I like that Marc has specific splits I should hit for tempo or speed training rather than something like 5K pace or “run hard.”

9. As for speed, tempo and hills, I’m still doing those. However, since I’m on a truncated schedule I’ve only done a few runs at the track and a few dedicated hill workouts. In previous training cycles I did one of these workouts once a week for the majority of my training.

10. Overall, I’m a stronger runner.

Yesterday morning, I woke up, made some coffee, ate peanut butter toast with bananas and then proceeded to run 22 miles (longest training run I’ve ever done).

I missed some stuff there. I procrastinated for 90 minutes by watching Saturday Night Live, catching up on Words With Friends games, and hoping a sunny morning would suddenly become overcast. It didn’t.

I eventually got going a little after 9 and ran up in to Beverly Hills and through the final 8 miles of the LA Marathon course. About two hours later, I was at the beach admiring the views of the Pacific Ocean from Palisades Park.

I’ve run this route half a dozen times in previous marathon training cycles. I like it because it helps familiarized myself with the end of the marathon route, but it’s also challenging. The final 4-5 miles are on San Vicente Blvd through Brentwood and in to Santa Monica. It’s one of the best places to run in LA thanks to the tree-lined streets, a soft surface on the grassy median, water fountains, few stoplights and traffic, and plenty of other runner, walkers and cyclists. It’s also on a nice decline, which is less fun if you’re doing an out-and-back.

At Palisades Park, I stopped for a few minutes to refill my water bottles and take some photos. I’ve never taken pictures during a training run (or race) before. I hate carrying unnecessary items while I run. For a 22 mile run, I don’t feel comfortable without a phone. Now that I have a decent camera on my phone, that meant some pictures.

The second half of my run took me back the same way I came. On tired legs all the hills felt tougher and I felt like walking some. I stopped a couple of times, but started running after a few steps. I need to practice going up hill on tired legs considering there are some hills at miles 18 and 20 on the course. I finished off the last mile with some strides (about a couple blocks each). That helped me have my final mile be the fastest at 9 minutes.

I finished in 3:33:21, which puts me at a decent pace for my long runs.

As far as recovery, I felt pretty good and today I hardly felt sore. In the past when I’ve run 20+ miles, it hurt to sit the following day and my legs felt stiff. I didn’t have any of that. I’m going to credit the last ~9 weeks of strength training for the good recovery.

One thing the run did leave me with was with a goofy tan line. At least it’s cool enough to wear tights with skirts these days.

***

One other thing about this week in marathon training. My Wednesday tempo run called for a 1.5 mile warm-up, 2 miles at 8 minute pace, and a 1.5 mile cool down. I was bit intimidated by this as 8:0X miles are quite difficult for me.

I did the workout on the track at UCLA. The tempo miles definitely felt challenging, but not insanely difficult. I think I nailed it.