One week and counting

About this time next week, I should be enjoying the company of my running buddies as we celebrate finishing the Long Branch Half. It's been 3 years since I first ran that race and had a pretty painful experience. I think I've avoided injury this time around, and the weather report is looking promising, so here's looking at a much better experience this time around. I'll be going out for my last long run this morning. The plan for today is to get one more long run in so my legs remember what it feels like (since my last long run was a couple of weeks ago).  10 miles flat and easy on a lovely day in preparation for next week!

Foxtrot 5k Race Report

Records fell at the Foxtrot 5k yesterday!

I convinced my running buddy to join me at this small race to support the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and we rocked it! We both wore our sparkle skirts (because everyone feels faster in a sparkle skirt!) and had a great time. 

Before the race started, she talked to a lot of people at the front of the starting line to see if she could use anyone as a pacer. I had in mind that I wanted to PR (which would mean coming in before 24:26), and I was really hoping to coming under 24 minutes. I didn't have much of a plan though. I forgot my ifitness belt, so I held my phone while tracking the race with RunKeeper. I had set the app to tell my my time, distance, overall pace, and current pace every quarter mile, so it helped to keep me on track when I started to slow a little. 

I felt really good for the first half of the race. I was breathing easy and felt like I was hardly exerting myself. Once we hit the turnaround point, though, it hit me, and I really had to push to keep at my goal pace. I closed my eyes and breathed as deeply as I could, I took shorter, faster steps, and I tried to create more momentum with my arms. In the end, I stayed behind a group of 4 or 5 runners that had formed a bit of a pack. As we neared the finish, one of them made a move to pass, but overall it wasn't much of a race. I knew from  my phone that I was definitely going to set a new PR. As I got closer to the clock, though, I saw that the last seconds of the 23rd minute were winding down. Seeing that gave me an extra burst, and I crossed the finish in 23:55, a personal record by 31 seconds!

My buddy, her husband, and some other spectators were cheering me on, and after I came through the chute she came over to tell me that she was the 1st female and came in under 21 minutes! Her final time was 20:51, and she was the 1st female and 3rd finisher overall. Congrats!!! 

She got a gold medal that said 1st and even won a free massage door prize. And I came home with a 1st place age group medal! Yay!

Yep, those are gold!

As the awards were handed out, I snuck away to my car to get some soft-baked chocolate chunk cookies to celebrate her birthday this weekend. We toasted our cookies, and there was much feasting.

In retrospect, it was a fun race for a good cause, and I am so excited to have set a new personal record. I don't think that I gave it everything, though. I had an extra burst when I saw the clock, and I think that if I had been motivated enough, I could have kicked more at the end and maybe even passed some of the people right ahead of me. In the long run, it doesn't really matter that much, but it really is interesting how much your mental state of mind can affect your physical performance. That will be something to keep in mind for the half marathon coming up on May 5th.  Only 3 weeks to go!

Trying to make it count

So all winter I've been training for a half marathon. It's the same race I did in 2010, and I'm counting on not being injured this time around for a sweet redemption race. Right now I'm less than 5 weeks out and have been having a lot of joint twinges and muscle soreness and am afraid of doing long runs. That means that every short workout and rest day I do really has to count. That means fueling properly and being ready to put a lot of effort into the workout while fully resting afterwards and stretching and rolling, and getting enough sleep.

There is no doubt that I'll be able to finish the race, but I've set my heart on finishing sub-2 hours. There are so many factors that can influence whether that is possible, but the key thing now is to keep myself healthy so I have a shot at it!

Volunteering at an Ultra Run

Impressed. I am so impressed by the runners I saw today running the "Mt. Tammany 10!", a 10-loop, 40-mile race up and down a rocky, icy, muddy mountain, that was put on by Athletic Equation. I've been interested in ultras, and helping out at the aid station today has really made me want to try one out myself. I realize that the longest runs I've attempted have always been road runs, and they've always been according to distance: "I'm going to run ___ number of miles today"; instead of time: "I'm going to go out and run for 3 hours." Part of this is because I don't want to end up injured or too tired to run back to my car, which is probably smart, but I can start thinking about it differently. The runners I saw today were not being easy on themselves. They didn't take it slow and gradually. They jumped in and pushed, and every one of them put up impressive performances. I have some odd twinges and pains that keep popping up, especially after jumping into hard runs, but my base fitness is close to the best it has ever been, and I think that I can be smart about listening to my body and still reach some new boundaries. I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to help out today, and I look forward to some long runs this summer that will prepare me for some very different running experiences. Congrats to all of the awesome runners of the Mt. Tammany 10!

Seeing Progress

I may be limping around with a compression sleeve on my knee, but I feel amazing. I ran 11.33 miles on Sunday with 1,150 feet of climbing at 9:49 pace. I felt it in my knee somewhere around mile 8 or 9 in the middle of the endless hill, but I pushed on and didn't walk and got it done. Less than half a year ago I was stopping to walk on a hill in the middle of a 4 or 5 mile run. I feel so confident in myself now. And thankfully, I don't think that the knee pain will be lasting. It's already much better than it had been. A couple more days of rest should have me ready to run again. I am very excited about trying some flat fast runs now to see how I can do at keeping a sustained speed. The half marathon I'm training for is very flat, so I'd like to replicate that for some runs. I can't wait to get back out on the road and trail!

A Base

Two years ago I made a discovery: total body circuit workouts did more for my running than running did. I ran a 5k PR without training or really preparing for the race in any way except for having done circuit workouts for a couple of months beforehand. I am now finally getting to put that knowledge to use as part of training for a half marathon this spring.

In the past, when I tried to build a base for long distances, all I focused on was increasing mileage. I wasn't strong enough for the longer miles, though, and I got injured. But now, I finally have a base. I started building it as I trained for the Ride to Read cycling fundraiser last summer. I trained for a fall 10k and was prepared for that distance before bringing on longer distances and more circuit workouts. I did a month of Jillian Michaels' Ripped in 30 workouts this winter and incorporate yoga into my weekly training. I feel stronger and more flexible than ever. I ran a 10-miler this morning at a faster pace than I ever had before even though it had hundreds of feet more elevation than any 10-miler I've run. I still have a long way to go before I'll be really ready to run the half at my goal pace, but I have the preparation behind me that is needed to get there, and I'm really excited about that.

Savor the Rest

Operation Pudge Removal is in full swing here! It wasn't necessarily a New Year's resolution that instigated it - more the realization that my jeans didn't fit anymore and that there was pudge present where it hadn't been before - but I began this diet and exercise quest on January 2nd and am now on the 7th day. I rested during the week, but I also brought on the challenge and really pushed myself, doing double workouts on several days, so today I am truly resting. No cycling, no running, no Jillian Michaels workouts. If anything, just walking and light yoga or stretching.

And it feels so good. I have lost a bit of water weight (which may just be a cycle thing and not really related to the exercise, although that can't hurt), and I feel so much lighter and better, and it feels so good to savor the resting.  I'd say that I had a successful first week of Operation Pudge Removal (Operation PR), so let's see what the next few weeks bring. My goal is to drop the excess pudge, gain foundational strength, improve my endurance, and increase flexibility. Who knows, there may be a new race PR for me come spring!