Category: Run!

Rising Moon and a Windy Run

After Friday’s race I was pumped to keep running. In fact I had hoped to run another 7 miles that day, before dinner and fireworks, to round out to 10 total. I wanted this to be my last long run before my half in 3 days. An unplanned 2 hour nap changed that, I didn’t even make it to the fireworks. 😦 While waiting for the awards to start after the race, there was very little shade and I think it affected me more than usual. When Saturday rolled around; after getting in the shopping trip that was postponed last week, I just did not want to run. Same for Sunday. So, I didn’t. I chose to treat the weekend as some needed rest. I haven’t decided if that violates the whole #noexcuses thing or if a little rest is a good thing. Instead of running, I read 4 books. That counts for something right?

After that restful few days, I was ready to run on Monday. Work wasn’t too busy, so I was able to get out of there fairly quickly. I then headed back to home town to run the path I have been running lately. My mom decided to join me, so I met up with her at the trail head. I kind of like when she does that, it forces me to take the first mile a little slower, which is a good thing because I rarely ever warm up enough. Especially on race days- bad runner! Slower is also better when it’s 90+ outside. 🙂

When I broke away from her, I felt like I settled into a good pace. At least on the way up. Coming down, I was looking forward to thelittle bit of help that a downhill brings but then there was the wind. Every single time I run this newer path the wind is ridiculous coming back down. Last week it was so bad and so loud, I could barely hear the music coming from my headphones. It wasn’t as bad on Monday, but I felt like I was running through sludge. Once I made it off the hill and around the corner, it eased up a bit. And I was rushed by 2 dogs on the trail portion again. Seriously?! Why am I dog bait? Overall, though at the end, my pace was pretty good.

The gym didn’t work out tonight so I hit the lake path to get in some miles. My left foot was a little sore the first lap around, so I wasn’t sure how many I was going to finish. I seem to have split personality feet. My right foot has a higher arch and loves heels but hates flats. My left foot has a lower arch, hates heels and loves flats. How does that work out? I haven’t found an insert that would help my left foot yet. Those things are pricey!

Luckily my foot loosened up around 2 miles in. I finished a few more laps to hit 5 miles before turning of my Garmin. I then alternated walking withbutt kicks and high knees for the mile back to my car. I felt a little silly. I was also staring at the serious lack of water in the lake. I’m kind of afraid to ask where the geese went.

Tomorrow I want to get in a few quick miles before a rest day on Friday. Then Saturday is race day!! 13 miles on sand, I can do this right? There are 5 stretches of soft sand that have me concerned. One, it slows me down, two, it weighs me down. But I get to run it with NikeC, so I am sure that it will be a blast. Plus, I am kind of excited about running a race on my actual birthday.

How has your week gone so far? We’re more than halfway through!

Anyone use inserts? Either in running shoes or regular shoes?

Wild Run 5K recap

I hope everyone had a good 4^th of July!

Wild Run 5K brought a couple of firsts for me. One was a rare opportunity due to the race size and something I never thought would happen. What I am most proud of was that I ran a smart race from start to finish-negative splits and all.

Choosing the Wild Run 5k, I knew it was going to be a smaller race and I was a little leery considering the past experiences that I had with races put on by this gym. However, I was pleasantly surprised-for the most part. Packet pick up was a breeze on Thursday. Parking was in the zoo parking lot so super simple. Previous races by this gym had a spray painted starting line, a megaphone start, and an orange cone finish line. So I was impressed to see tents set up, an emcee leading a warm up and a designated start. Granted it was pop-up tent but still a huge improvement. There were about 100 runners for the 10k and 5K combined. A little smaller than even I was previously thinking. The only glitch I saw prior to the race was the start time. I had confirmed that the start time for the 5K was 8:10 but the schedule on the board said 8:30. Umm? Turns out 8:10 was correct.

It was go time and we were off. After looking at the map the previous night, I saw that the first ½ mile of the race had a hill and the last ¾ of a mile were on the lake path that I run. Everything in between was a mystery but for the most part was pretty flat. I started off in the middle of the pack like I always do. We ran through the parking lot to the lot of the baseball field nearby and then up the street. We were still running in a pack when we hit the hill. It wasn’t the elevation, less 100 ft., but it was short and vertical. I walked near the top. .3 miles in and I was walking, waah. It was short, about 20 seconds and then I was running again. I pulled away from the pack and there were only a couple people in front of me. I figured that wouldn’t last long so I may as well enjoy it. After that small hill, it was flat, yay! My watch buzzed at mile 1 -9:37. Ouch, I knew I wasn’t in top shape speed wise, but I was hoping for better than that. I knew I could pick it up so I that is what I tried to do. I kept a guy pushing stroller in my sights. He seemed super comfortable at that pace so I knew I probably couldn’t catch him so I tried to always be able to see him.

I heard someone coming up behind me and that gave me the incentive to run faster. They fell back and I kept going. Rounding a corner I found the only water station but I didn’t need it. I managed to pass a guy in blue shirt here. I just kept watching stroller guy. We went right and there were some rolling hills. The elevation was almost negligible it was just that there was like 6 of them in a row. Stroller guy got farther away. No! So I picked it up again. Mile 2-9:00. A little more street and we were back to the lake path. I knew the path well so I was hoping to pick it up but I wasn’t going to look at my watch again. This was also where I started to realize that no one had passed me yet, I also hadn’t seen another woman since the start of the race. As I was coming up on one of the bridges on the trail, a biker rode past me and then the 10K leader thundered past. I got hung up right before the bridge, 2 women and 4 dogs were in the path. I had to walk the little bridge until I got around them. Then I had like .3 of a mile to go. My goal was to finish strong and not let anyone pass me. Usually I am dragging and breathing hard by the end of a 5K but I felt like I had the energy for a final kick, so I kicked. Mile 3- 8:30.

Finish time -27:48

Hot damn, that’s a new PR! Not by much, but it still counts. Here’s where it got really interesting. I was the first female 5K finisher. What?! Seriously? How is that possible? Another woman finished about a minute behind me. She looked hardcore, how did I pull this off? I was super excited and a little bit in shock. I realize that it’s because it was such a small race but it’s still a huge pick me up after I had a few rough races.

Post finish- not sure what I am doing here

While waiting for the awards ceremony, we got to cheer on the other runners coming in. There were people finishing for the 10K, 5K and 1 mile. The kids running were so adorable. But hands down the coolest finisher was an 85 year old woman with a walker. She completed the 1 mile course. Talk about awesome.

This is also where they kind of fell apart. They were having computer issues so the awards were delayed; so delayed that quite a few people went home. When they finally started announcing, there were so few people there. The awards were for 1-3 male and female for each race. When they announced my name they also announced my time as 24:48. Ha! I wish!

Even with it’s little issues, it was a good race and a fun morning. Well outside of one thing. For whatever reasons, my iPhone had a little glitch. I ran the entire 5K with one song playing repeatedly. 27 minutes of Wrecking Ball over and over and over. I deserve props for not chucking my phone. I came pretty close. 🙂

How was your weekend?

Did you have good 4th?

And the winner is…

Happy Thursday! Everyone ready for the 4th and the weekend?

Thank you all for your thoughts on my “Choose my next Race” post. They were great! And the winner is-

I was definitely leaning one way but Monday was rougher than I let on in my last post. I knew that if I chose Pozo I would probably push harder than I should right now. Between the flat course and fast crowd plus my own desire to beat my last official PR (27:54) I may have had troubles reigning it in like I should. I’m not saying that I’m still not going to try to push it but now I have some hills to temper my inner (wannabe) speed demon. Ha! Plus I have a half marathon next Saturday that I want to try and be as ready for as possible. Did I mention it’s on my birthday? 33 and 13 miles.

Yesterday, NikeC and I met up at the gym again to workout. After 3 miles on the treadmill, it was time for the circuit room again. I feel like I was more consistent this time around. Well except for the step things, I still can’t remember step aerobics. 🙂 Turns out the 90 I thought NikeC was lifting (pushing?) on the first machine last week was 110. I’m so weak! I had to drop it back to 50. We weren’t able to complete the whole circuit because once again people had troubles following 1-20. Come on people!

Then we moved on to the hip abduction things. I learned that those machines can turn pretty creepy when there is an older, leering man dressed in street clothes using one. Ewww. Luckily he left fairly quickly. But I will say that I am glad there are no mirrors in that little area. Those motions are a little awkward in public. 🙂 After that I goofed around on ab coaster. They are harder than they look! Plus kind of fun in a silly way. NikeC tried one too. And holy crap, my abs feel sore today!

Can you tell what distance I am running?

I picked up my race packet tonight on my way home. It was simple and easy at the gym. It has the weirdest bunch of food samples in it. Even a pancake mix. Also, there was a map of the course and I realized that it’s a bit hillier than I would have liked, dang. Oh well, it should be fun. I am looking forward to racing tomorrow. I am aiming to maintain my recent times around 28:00. Yes a PR would be awesome, but we’ll see. 🙂

What are your 4th of July plans?

Anyone else racing?

June Recap- Mid year Check In

In some ways June was awesome, in others not so much. I started my #noexcusessummer plan on June 1^st and stayed mostly committed. I think I only took 5 rest days the whole month. 2 just happened to fall in the last week. 😦 I tried to not let the heat or my lack of sleep or even my stupid stomach get to me. I prevailed for the most part but this weekend kicked my butt. I had a full weekend planned, work, 2 runs, a friend’s anniversary party, shopping, the movies plus the usual errands. Saturday turned out to be a wash. I got through work, completed my errands but soon realized that a run wasn’t likely. I did the yoga dvd instead and it was not good. It was all downhill from there and I did not make it to the party- horrible friend alert. Shopping never happened either but I did make it to the movies (Transformers was awesome!) and was able to get in a sluggish 6 miles on Sunday at the gym. I was feeling a little rough so I would run .9 miles at 6 and walk .1 at 4. It worked pretty well for my stomach.

Monday, however was another story. After missing the planned 5 miles on Saturday, I wanted to follow through with the 5 I had planned for after work. It figures that the last day of June would be the day I felt the worst. It was all I could do to make it through work. I won’t lie I still thought about trying to run. By 3:30, I knew it wasn’t going to happen but as added deterrent I received a text from my mother telling me to get over my ego and an email from NikeC telling me to rest. I get it, I get it! So yesterday was a rest day.

What did my mother mean by my ego? I realized Friday that if I hit certain miles at each run over the weekend and Monday I would hit that impossible dream number that I never thought I’d hit in a month. But, as it was, I was 10 miles short, but still hit my highest mileage month yet-

90.5! What?! How did I do that!?

I had zero races in June but that was partially planned. I needed a break for a bit. I was feeling a little frustrated at how my last few races turned out. I planned June to be a rebuilding month. Mission partway accomplished. While I built a solid base of easy miles and some longer runs, I didn’t do any speed work. Waah waah. Hopefully July will involve some track time. Overall I feel like 84 of those 90 miles were solid miles. Even 2 weeks later, I still say that first 6 a few Fridays ago were just miserable. They were hot and ugly. Either way, I am still stoked about that number.

Month	Miles
January	77.3
February	70.0
March	74.7
April	70.4
May	64.5
June	90.5
	447.4

So at the beginning of the year I set a few goals. While I have not met any of the speed goals, my mileage is pretty solid. I set a goal of 750 miles for the year. At the halfway point, I am more than halfway there! Woo hoo!!! Now to keep it going, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

How was your June?

How has your year gone?

What are you looking forward to in July?

Choose My Next Race

Before we move on to the main event, this happened on Thursday and I almost missed it!

If you want to read my very first newbie post, you can here.

I am a person who likes to register as close to race date as possible. That way I know that I am going to follow though and not just throw my money away. Yes, 90% of the races I run benefit some form of charity but still I like to actually run them. This time I have left it even later than normal so I am calling on you to help me out. 🙂

I have 2 options for a 5k on July 4th-

**Neither race offers finisher medals and I have left it so late that I doubt I will get a shirt either, but both do benefit a charity.

Option 1– Pozo 5K- my original choice

Touted as a flat and picturesque out and back course, this is its 22nd year. It also has the steeper price and farthest drive. Small field about 200 runners. It offers raffles prizes and breakfast. Packets have to be picked up on race day. It benefits a local charity that helps family with sick or injured children.

I had originally planned on trying for a PR at this race but I don’t feel like I am in the shape to do so. According to last years race results, the slowest time was 40 minutes. Slowest. Fastest was 14 minutes. Well crap, I don’t want to embarrass myself. Yes, that’s my ego talking.

Option 2– Wild Run 5K

Somewhat flat and only 15 minutes away. Less expensive but not by much. Again, small field. This race benefits the local zoo. Which I run past every time I run at the lake path. Added bonus- part of this race is on the lake path so I am familiar with it. This offers packet pick up the day before, which is nice.

Downside to this is that is put on by a local gym. Why does this make me nervous? I have run 2 races put on by them in years past and was less than impressed with the organization. However that was years ago and a different location. They could be better now. I feel like this is more my speed right now but feel like I am wimping out of the other. In a completely girly, unimportant way, I have the perfect shirt to wear for this race. 🙂

So help me choose! I have to register by tomorrow for Pozo but have a little time for the Wild Run.

What do you think?

Hope you are having a good weekend!