500 miles!

Earlier this year I set a goal to run 500 miles in 2012.  I expected to get to the 500 mile mark last Saturday during my half-marathon long run but due to sickness I cancelled that run and figured I would just hit the mark during a weekday jaunt with Lynn.  A few weeks ago my old neighbor, Lisa, asked if she could run with us the day after Christmas and, of course, we welcomed her!  Lisa is the gal who trained alongside me for my first ever 5k in 2008.

Lisa, Renee, me, Molly in 2008 at my first ever 5K

 As it turned out I only needed to run 2.74 miles on Wednesday to hit my 500 mile mark.  Who better to run my 500th mile with me than the woman who helped me run my very first 5k and the woman who is currently getting me out of bed at 6am three days a week to be sure I'm in training mode for my very first marathon?! 

My training plan for Wednesday called for 7 miles so I hopped out of bed a little bit early and ran a mile before meeting Lisa and Lynn.  I didn't tell them this was "the day" so when I stopped half way through our run and yelled out, "excuse me, I have an announcement to make!" I think I took them off guard.  I continued and stated I had officially run 500 miles this year and high-fives ensued.  I was elated! 

We got back to the neighborhood and I went inside to get some water while Lynn and Lisa returned to the their respective homes.  I still had another 3 miles run and I wasn't exactly excited about it.  Did I mention it had snowed a bit the night before?  Well, I had and I took advantage of the snow to snap a photo to document my milestone for the year.

Sidelined...again

I got a slight head cold last week which took me out of my Friday run and my long run on Saturday last week.  I felt better by Sunday but still rested.  I ran with Lynn on Monday and Wednesday this week (Wednesday deserves it's own post) and then Wednesday evening I started to get a slight cough.  I toughed it out yesterday at work and hoped that Airborne and zinc tablets would stave off the worst of it.  Lynn and I sent a few texts and I was certain I would be able to power through 3 miles in the morning with her.  Unfortunately, I woke up at 2:00 am with an ear ache, sore throat, and general crappiness.  I took some ibuprofen and kept my alarm set for 5:30 so I could text Lynn to tell her I'm out for the count for the second Friday in a row.  Now I'm home from work and am concerned this sickness will keep me out of a long run for the second week in a row.  Noooooooooo.  Seriously, sickness, you are ruining marathon training.

Wednesday = fast day

I did NOT want to get out of bed on Wednesday.  Not. At. All.  Seriously. 

But I did. I had six miles to run that morning so I met Lynn for 3 miles like we do every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Before I left the house I decided to eat 3 Clif Shot Bloks (with caffeine, yay!). 

The first mile felt difficult. The second mile, not as bad. 

At 1.5 miles I asked Lynn if she had time to run an extra .25 today so we could run a different route and she did.  The third mile felt fantastic for me and we finally rounded our way into our neighborhood at about 3.2 miles.  It was a bit warmer than it should be in December (37 degrees) so I changed into a short-sleeved shirt to wear under my jacket and drank some water before heading out for the second half of my run. 

I returned home and realized I ran just over 6 miles at under 10:40/mile average pace which is the fastest 6 miles I've run for quite a few months.  And it felt good.  Really, really good.

Running at higher elevation

Josh and I decided to pack up for the weekend and head to his parents' house in eastern Idaho.  Josh had planned on taking Brooke skiing on Saturday and I decided to pass on it because I needed to run and quite honestly, I just wanted to relax for the rest of the day. We arrived to the in-laws' house Friday evening around 8:30 and sat chatted for a bit and enjoyed the hot tub and a few beers.  This morning Josh checked the weather forecast at Grand Targhee which indicated it was going to be -3 degrees with a 25 degree windchill sometime that afternoon and he quickly cancelled the original skiing plans.  I left them at home to figure out what they were going to do with the day and set out for a 7 mile training run.

It doesn't seem to matter how many times I run in eastern Idaho, I always seem to forget that their town sits about 2000 feet higher in elevation than Boise and that, my friends, makes for some difficult running.  Thank goodness I didn't have to run 10+ miles today otherwise it would have taken me forever. Plus, it was chilly (slightly below freezing but don't worry, I had plenty of gear on) and it got especially cold toward the end of my run because the wind started blowing.  Thank goodness that happened at the end of the run and not at the beginning or middle otherwise I might have given up and had someone pick me up.  Ok, I really wouldn't have done that but it would have been tempting.  I was also running on rural highways for most of the run today which means the frozen dirt combined with freezing weather and a bit of snow made for a few slick spots.  I suppose that should also be factored in when picking apart my pace today.  In the end I ran 7 miles at an average pace of 11:33/mile including my walking breaks.  After looking at this site it looks like given my elevation I could potentially log 10 seconds/mile less at Boise elevation which would put me at 11:23/mile, or the same pace I ran 10 last week.  Ok, I'll take it. 

I also ran in my new tights today (these, only womens) which are kind of hideous, but they seem like they might have helped with recovery but who really knows, since I only ran 7 miles...

Anyway, long story short, I did snap this little shot of my rural run today:

Opening my eyes to reality

Lynn and I ran again this week, which really should be no surprise since we've been running together for 5 weeks now.  The only difference about this week is that Monday I had us cut our time short because my body was so ridiculously tired from running 10 miles the day before.  Wednesday was fine but I don't think we ran over 1.25 miles at any given time throughout our morning jaunt and we felt a lot faster than we really were that morning.  But Friday, oh Friday!  Lynn was able to go the entire 3 miles!  She said it was the first time since high school that she's run a straight 3 miles.  How cool is that?!

In other news I've been working on trying to slim down a bit and at the recommendation of my supervisor at work, I started drinking a protein shake before going to bed.  I know I'm not getting enough protein my diet and maybe this will help.  You'd think with me being on Team BEEF I'd get plenty of meat-eating in throughout the day, but I just don't.  So I'm eating breakfast regularly and am trying to make better choices about all of my snacks and daily meals.  Although I haven't cut out alcohol completely, I'm trying to be smarter about that.  It just seems like drinking multiple glasses of wine or beer would be counter productive to drinking protein shake an hour later.  Just a thought.

Did I mention I ran another Team BEEF race?  The Turkey Trot Relay was a load of fun and I'd definitely like to do it again next year, but maybe not after staying up drinking until 3 AM and then trying to run 2 miles that morning.  Who does that?  Me, I guess, pretending like I'm 22 again.  Anyway, a few gals from work and a gal I know from back in jr. high and high school joined me in the 8-mile relay.  They ran much, much faster than I did and I don't think they felt like they were going to die like I did.  Then again, I'm pretty sure they were 215% more than responsible than I was the night before.  Sticking with Team BEEF protocol, I had them take a photo of me to send in to the Traci at the Idaho Beef Council.  And this, my friends, is the photo that made me rethink my eating and drinking habits and made me realize I need to get my $h!+ together to drop the 20 pounds I've packed on over the past year or so.  Blah.  I hate this picture but also feel like I need to be honest with myself about how I've let myself get out of control  Time to reign myself back in and get my @$$ in gear.  So far I'm down about 3 lbs...

Progress to come...

Fall running, running partner, and full blown marathon training

Turns out I wasn't very good at running in October...and it also turns out October was ridiculously busy at work.  That means I probably should have taken the time to run far more often than I did to keep myself (and my family) sane.  But I didn't.  I'm also excusing myself because my left knee wasn't feeling all that great after the Portland Half and I didn't want to injure it further.

November was much, much better!  I saw my neighbor out running a few times and finally on my way home from an afternoon run, I asked her if she would be interested in running with me a few mornings a week.  She was nervous, stated she's not a very fast runner, and doesn't run very far, and didn't want to hold me back.  I let her that I am not fast, am willing to walk when needed, and assured her that she would not slow me down. 

That was a Wednesday and we agreed to meet up that Friday for our first run together.  Lynn and I met up that first morning at 6am knowing very little about each other.  We now meet up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for about 3 miles.  Lynn started out being able to do about 1/2 mile of running with 1/4 mile walking for about 30 minutes and just last week she was able to do 1.5 miles running, 1/4 mile walking, and finished off the morning with another 1.25 running!  Progress!  It is SO GREAT to have someone waiting for me 3 days a week to run.  I've also found when I run with Lynn I am much more consistent with my time even though I don't check my Garmin like crazy when we're running together.  I got new shoes which helped an immense amount with my knee and hamstring pain I had been feeling during most runs.

Finally, on to marathon training.  Jamie and I are signed up to run The Phoenix Marathon on 3/2/13 and I'm finally feeling like I'm training for it.  Turns out the first day I met up with Lynn lined up perfectly with one of Hal Higdon's programs for starting my training and I've been surprisingly good at keeping to the program, even with inclement weather.  I ran 9 miles on Thanksgiving (talk about earning my stuffing) and this weekend I completed 10 on the dread-mill due to the rain yesterday morning.   When I say I finally feel like I'm training it's mainly because I don't have many recovery days between long runs.  I'm used to half-marathon training which allows me to run 10 miles and take a few days off before running anything similar until the race.  Two weekends from now I'll run subsequent long runs each weekend of 12, 13.1, and 10 miles to finish up all of my long runs of 2012 and in between those long runs I still have to keep up my weekday mileage of 12 to 14 miles.   The interesting thing is that I won't run anything this month longer than I what I have already run during any 2012.  January will be different...very different...

All that being said, it looks like I'm on track to run my goal of 500 miles this year, perhaps as much as 35 miles over my goal!  Yippee!