Just in time for the New Year, the powers that be at New Balance unveiled a new ad campaign, featuring badass middle-distance star Jenny Simpson, to thrill and inspire the masses (and sell some apparel and shoes along the way):

Oh, wait. Except this doesn't do any of those things... #adfail

When I saw this ad making the rounds on social media, I wasn't sure whether to laugh, shout, or cry. On the one hand, I was completely puzzled. How on earth would any business person think this message is a good one to sell clothes and shoes? I feel as though I've been punked by New Balance. I'm envisioning ex-collegiate marketing blowhards sitting around the NB New Year's Eve party, getting plastered: "Yeah, man, everyone thinks they're an athlete now...WTH?" Someone is dared to put this up on the website, and so it goes...

Assuming this was a soberly considered decision, however, makes it all the more absurd. It's clearly elitist, condescending, and offensive. Strangely, this ad would have you believe that entering a competition itself (along with the requirement of corporeal form) makes you an athlete. Again, absurd. My husband, an athlete by both New Balance's and any other standard, and I have had this conversation again and again: what defines a "serious" runner? And roughly, we have come to this: a person -- of any ability or pace -- who takes an interest in training for their own personal self-improvement. Not measuring progress against the current world record, or even against your best friend. I think the criteria to be an athlete are even more broad. Or as Sally Bergesen, founder and CEO of Oiselle, recently put more succinctly on Twitter:

One of the parts of this ad I find the most strange is the statement, "Which is unfortunate, because it means actual athletes are left without much of an identity." Who are these "actual athletes" whose sense of identity is so fragile as to be shattered when someone with a New Year's resolution laces up their shoes to go for a run? It strikes me a bit like the straw man argument we heard for so long against same-sex marriage: "If gays are allowed to marry, what value does my [heterosexual] marriage have?" Allow me to put it plainly: neither others' athletic goals and habits, nor sexual preferences, can make you more or less of an athlete, or more or less married.

I've had these thoughts tumbling around in my head intermittently for a few days, and only today have had a chance to write them down. And when I went to get a link for the ad shown above? I found this current version:

Same tagline, photo, and background; brand new copy and message!

The message on the new version is almost completely antithetical to the previous one. "Take performance to the next level... push yourself like never before." "Track your progress." "Supportive running communities." There was quite a negative reaction on Twitter to the initial campaign, so I was pleased to see that in the end New Balance is not quite as tone-deaf as they might seem. In the end, New Balance took a note from its own prescription, showing their once ill-conceived ad campaign to have "performance driven by data".

In discussing my performance at the Magnuson Series Halloween 5K (which resulted in a 45-second PR on a yucky day), my sometimes coach/full-time husband Greg asked if I might consider trying to tackle the half-marathon distance sometime soon in order to leverage my current fitness. I've been running plenty of miles lately (at least 25 per week, trying to run 1000 miles for the year after a slow start in the winter), but my speed work and training has been focused on shorter distances: the mile in October and the 5K since then. Still, I was intrigued. Who doesn't like the idea of a bonus PR? Plus, it's a distance where I think there's room for improvement: my last and best half-marathon was only two days after getting married! (Such a great idea, btw...)

I decided to try a few longer runs to see how they felt before deciding. In the end and because my life is kind of crazy right now, it came down to one 12 mile run with Shannon, done in the pouring rain, with the last 4 as part of another Oiselle meetup. I'm beginning to think there's something in the water with #oisellevolee, because the run was fairly magical and I was sold that day. Plus, there was supposed to be a large O cowbell corner at the race, PLUS I found a $30 coupon for the Seattle half-marathon, so I knew it was destiny!

Warning: may cause giddiness and delusions of PRs!

Green Lake Gobble 5K

The way the schedule fell, I would be racing my goal race, the Green Lake Gobble 5K, one week before the Seattle half. Despite calling it my "goal race", I went into the Green Lake Gobble feeling a little blah about it. I had missed the last two weeks of workouts because of life, and with a recent big PR under my belt wasn't feeling super motivated to rachet up the 5K hurt again quite so soon. But I had registered, and I HATE wasting money, so I was racing. 

The morning of the 5K was one of those picture perfect autumn mornings: highs in the 40s, but blue skies (the bluest skies you've ever seen...) and sunny. I jogged over to the start line from my house for my warmup, met Greg and Phil for a wardrobe/shoe change, ran a few striders, and lined up. I lined up toward the front of the "joggers" (again, a highly nebulous designation), and as people poured by at the start (I tend not to sprint out as most people do at the start), teammate Danielle ran by shouting, "Go, Oiselle!" which was a delightful surprise. 

I honestly wasn't sure what would happen in this race. I had had some good workouts a few weeks ago, but I get nervous when I don't have a more recent marker of fitness. I decided to try to run 8:40's and hang on using Lauren Fleshman's "head-settle-heart" view of 5Ks. I also tried to concentrate on running the tangents, as usual, and not to be irritated by women running 3 and 4 abreast on a relatively narrow path (srsly?).

That old hurt crept up what felt fairly quickly, but I'm getting to know better what is sustainable hurt and what is not. When I made it to 1.5 miles I knew things were going well; plus, at that point I can fool myself into thinking, "It's just one more 2K rep [my favorite workout], and then a tiny sprint at the end." The mind games we play... And when things got tough in mile 3, I let the invisible string attached to runners ahead pull me along behind. 

During the race I was more focused on pace than on time, so I was pleasantly surprised -- once I caught my breath and could think straight again -- to find that my finish time was 26:18, a 54 second PR!! WHOA!! I felt like a PR was possibly in the cards for the day, given the tough conditions at the Halloween race, but never expected this. Greg was similarly agog. Mile splits were 8:36, 8:34, 8:26, 0:42 (7:07 pace for last 0.1 miles) for a 8:29/mile average.

Seattle Half Marathon

Around mile 9 or 10, I think?

Once I had signed up for the half marathon, I was puzzled as to how to run it. I wanted to have a strong race and not die at the hilly end as I have before, but had no idea what pace was feasible. Certainly the "race predictor" times based on my 5K time seemed overly ambitious. I decided to go out with the 2:15 pace group, stay with them until mile 7-8, and then do what I could to squeeze down after that.

We spent Thanksgiving with my brother in bucolic Republic, WA, where snow and icy temps contributed to a severe and unanticipated taper! We drove back to Seattle just in time to pick up my bib, and then went home and fell into bed. Race-day morning was really foggy; race-day head was just really groggy. But we got there and I huddled in the car until just a few minutes before the gun.

Once the gun went off I tucked in behind the pacers and just let myself be carried along. I am coming to love letting someone else lead; all I had to worry about was running the tangents and avoiding the odd icy patch in the road. The pace felt a bit faster than I would comfortably run on my own but doable; I heard the pacers mention that they planned to bank some time and were trying to come in at 2:14 (10:14/mile pace). Around mile 6? 7? fellow Oiselle bird Shannon caught up with me and we ran together for a couple of miles. During this time my husband checked in, and gave me the car keys so I could have someplace warm to go once I finished (the Metro busses were on serious reroute, so he wasn't sure he and Phil would make it to the finish line before I did).

During one of these miles things started to feel harder. I glanced down at my watch and noticed we had just thrown down a 9:15/mile-equivalent half mile. Too fast for this bird! At that point, I happily let those pacers go -- and while it's always sad to see that little sign recede into the distance, I knew it was the right decision. Once I got the Madison hill, I was plumb tired -- although the presence of the Oiselle Cowbell Corner did help! I walked a little at the top, and again a couple of miles later to have some water and eat a Clif Blok, which helped put a spring in my step again. Though tired, I was able to pick up the pace slightly for the last few miles and finished in 2:14:32 for a 10+ minute PR! Mile splits were 10:00, 9:56, 10:18, 11:21 (tunnel), 8:35 (tunnel), 9:53, 9:55, 10:30 (walking!), 9:56, 10:32, 11:14 (more walking), 10:04, 9:42, 2:33 (last 0.27).

The inimitable Sarah Chan Harnett, cowbeller extraordinaire

Overall, there was lots to be pleased with about this race. Although I was tired, the hills at the end didn't feel quite as soul-sucking as 3 years ago (think mountains of Mordor level of dread). There was a small amount of walking during key water stops, but overall things felt pretty good. And the 10+ minute PR, of course! Later, looking at my Garmin, I noticed that the first half of every mile I ran with the pacers was 20-30 seconds slower than the advertised 10:18/mile pace, and the second half of every mile was 20-30 seconds faster than advertised! A little irritating, but I just figure I ran my 2:14 the hard way, which makes me think there are more gains to be had.

It's been a great year (running and otherwise) -- happy holidays to all!

A few weekends ago I ran the Magnuson Series Halloween 5K, a rather spur of the moment decision that (somewhat surprisingly) paid off. In the weeks preceding the race, I went back and forth a number of times -- should I? shouldn't I? My goal race, the Green Lake Gobble 5K, isn't until late November. The Magnuson race could be a good fitness test, and it's a very cheap race. But: 5Ks hurt. The deadline to turn in my dissertation was a few short days later, and I was worried I might need the time for that instead.

Photo montage courtesy of Emily Brain

In the end it was the presence of the birds that swayed me -- the race was to be a Oiselle Volee meetup, and it looked like it would have a robust group of both racers and cheerers. I pulled the trigger the last day it was possible to register online and used the following 36 hours to mentally prepare myself. It wasn't easy. The forecast for the morning had us in the low 50s, with sometimes heavy rain, and up to 20mph winds. Ugh. This picture from fellow Volee teammate Rebecca Nelson was only a slight exaggeration:

Just a little windy, Rebecca?

Despite the weather, there were quite a few birds that turned out for the event, along with my loyal #1 fan/coach/husband, who ran around the course cheering in several places during the race. I warmed up, changed into my/Greg's racing flats, did a few quick strides, posed for a quick O photo, and we were off! I made a conscious effort to go out a bit harder than I had in recent races, trying to run a more even race. My effort felt hard but controlled, and having Greg and several cheering birds at the top of Kite Hill about 0.6 miles into the race gave me a great boost at a place where I have sometimes lost composure in the past.

After about the first mile, we came out of the sheltered woods and turned directly into the wind. Greg and I had talked about finding someone to draft off of in this stretch, but I was in a no man's land, and the only person around stopped to tie his shoe not long after. So I was on my own. I slowly started moving closer to the group ahead of me, and by mile 3, I was trying to gain contact with them despite that familiar 5K pain. :) I managed a slight kick in the last couple of tenths of a mile, and ended the race in 27:12 by my watch (the Magnuson series doesn't do chip timing, so I like to count my watch time as the "official" one). My Garmin had the course a bit short, but had splits of 8:53, 9:00, 8:55, and 0:24. I was happy with how even the splits were, especially given that mile 2 was almost entirely into the driving wind!

In the end, I was delighted to have a big 5K PR (45 seconds!) on such a cruddy day, and it gave me hope that I could do even better on a "normal" race day at the Green Lake Gobble 5K in a couple of weeks. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a great day despite the rain, wind, and cold, and I can't wait to race with #oisellevolee again soon!