It’s been about three months since my last post about running, and I’m about a month away from the 2018 Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon. Training with Coach David has been going well. He still has me running three days a week: two 10Ks and a long run these days. Thankfully I’ve graduated from short sprints and 5Ks with negative splits. Coach David says I’ll curse he name sometime during my training, but I just don’t see myself cursing the person who’s trying to help me.

Last week, I coined the phrase, “vampire running.” I really enjoy finishing my run and getting home before sunrise. (Yes, I wear a snazzy reflective belt so cars can see me.) The world is so peaceful then. I rarely see other runners out with me – usually just the Uber self-driving cars, a handful of delivery trucks, and people who have to be at work before 7am. It’s nice to start the day running under the last few stars.

David’s been working with me on maintaining a steady pace during my runs. I’ll admit I don’t always care about pace, like last Tuesday when I woke up super angry and I just felt like hauling ass. Looking back, I can’t tell you why I was angry (maybe PMS) but I was spitting nails. I ran 6.6 miles with an average 9:04/mile pace.

Two days later, I was ready to be more even-keeled. I switched out my fast-paced running music for podcasts and ran the same 6.6 miles at 9:39/mile average. Looking at my data on Strava, I wouldn’t call it a steady pace, but it was less chaotic than the first run of the week.

Last Saturday was my first 20-mile run of this training cycle. Even though David’s steadily increased the lengths of my long runs over the last 3 months, I was still nervous for this distance. And since I’m a vampire runner, I set my alarm for 3am so I could be out pounding pavement by 4:30am. (I have to feed and walk Rosie dog and get a peanut butter bagel with banana and a coffee in my system before my long run.)

Running during that quiet window when the night owls have gone to bed and the early risers aren’t up and out yet is wonderful. It helped me find my zone and I kept my most even pace to date. I chose I route that faced west for the first half, so I could maximize my enjoyment of the darkness, and faced east for the run home. I got to see the first light peaking over the horizon and then I watched the sunrise during my last few miles home. It was glorious. I finished in substantially less pain than I anticipated with an average pace of 10:31/mile.

One thing that’s changed since September is the temperature. Autumn finally arrived a few weeks ago and it’s actually chilly in the morning now. I had to ask Coach David about if/when I should switch to long pants and sleeves. (On race day, the expected starting temperature is around 45 degrees with an expected high of 65 degrees.) He said the magic number for that is 40, though he follows a different rule for himself.