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!

Portland Half Marathon!

I signed up for this race last November with my friends Lisa, Mike, and Renee.  Yes, you read that correctly, we signed up for it 11 months ago.  Who does that?!  We do!  Lisa dropped from the race several months ago, leaving Mike, Renee, and I to run on our own.  Our training was....uh....rather inconsistent and for different reasons for all of us.  For Renee, shin splints.  For me, the nasty toenail issue in August.  For all of us, fires all around Idaho completely saturated the Boise air with smoke and gave us great excused not to get out and run made us not want to run outside.  I think I speak for all of us when I say we were all ill-prepared for this race that we decided on so long ago.  I wonder if we would have all rethought our decision to run if the price for the race hadn't been so expensive; dropping $120 on a race was way more than any of us thought we'd spend for a race. For me, it was worth every penny and not just because I got to go to Portand and drink amazing beer!

Beer on Saturday at Deschutes

First things first, the packet pickup was incredibly organized.  They had volunteers everywhere directing people where to go with absolutely zero hassles with getting bibs and shirts. Renee will likely disagree with this since she accidently ordered XXL shirts (she's far from XXL), but they have a strict rule on no exchanges for shirts and I think that was pretty clear on the registration page....so that was a minor hiccup and disappointment, but again, the expo was very well organized and it was HUGE!

Fast forward to Sunday morning and the race itself.   I'm hoping to be reiumbursed for part of my race fees through Team Beef, so I sported my BEEF shirt and made Mike take a photo of me in the parking garage before we went to find our corrals at the race start.

BEEF in Portland!

I've never been to a race with corrals, so I was nervous about getting there early enough to find the correct corral.  Yeah, not a problem.  The port-a-potty line was enormous, but I also had plenty of time to get in line and get things taken care of because we got to the race start early enough.  Perhaps the coolest thing about the event this year was that they had all 11,000-ish people sing the National Anthem to kick things off.  I really wish I had taken my phone with me to record it, but I left it in the car to avoid having too many things to manage.  There was a guy standing directly in front of me who was an incredible singer!  So cool!

And then we were off!

My first 5 miles felt great...really great, in fact.  So great that I probably should have worn my Garmin for the race to slow me down a bit.  I walked a bit during mile six, ate some Goo Chomps (not my favorite, but I did my last few long runs with them and they worked ok), and continued on.  I finally broke down at mile 9 and asked someone what time it was.  Answer: 1 hour 38 minutes (the race started at 7:00).  I just checked a pace calculator and that put my average pace less than 11:00/mile.  Oops.

Things got hard after that and I did quite a bit of walking.  I ate more Goo but it didn't seem to help me much. I found a lady at mile 11 who started in my same corral (C) and I ran next to her for the next mile.  I asked her the time somewhere between miles 11 and 12: 2 hours, 17 minutes.  She said she thought we could finish by 2h 30m if we powered through.  I let her know I needed someone to push me to the end, and that's exactly what she did.  We talked about our recent races.  This was her 3rd half marathon this year and she ran her best (2:18) earlier this year.  Me: best race in 2:21 earlier this year.  Her husband ran the full marathon and was hoping to finish in 4:00.

Mile 12 came and I made a comment about this was going to be the hardest mile ever, and I was right.

I struggled through the last 1.1 miles. 

I walked.

She grabbed my hand and told me we had to keep going.

She continued to look at her Garmin and guided me through the last bit: 1/2 mile to go!  1/4 mile to go!  The finish line is just around the corner!  (why did the corner to seem to be so effing far away?!)

We crossed the finish line together and gathered our medal.  I turned to her and thanked her for helping me get to the finish...and then she was gone.

Mike was waiting at the finish line and I found him right away - that guy finished in under 2 hours!  The spread of food was incredible.  Hello, frosted animal cookies?  chocolate milk?  orange juice? coconut water? bananas?  string cheese?  grapes? candy?  I only dove into a few of the choices, but the whole spread was super amazing.

Renee finished, we got our gear bags that we checked earlier, made sure we all had finisher shirts and our 3 medals (what?) and made our way back to the hotel to stretch, shower, and find some lunch.  

Mike and Renee napped but I suddenly found myself with more energy and decided to walk around near our hotel for a bit and found myself wandering around the Alphabet District.  I ended up logging at least 16 miles on Sunday with the walking I did after lunch.   After all of that, I believe I earned every ounce of beer I drank that evening at The Green Dragon (a-maz-ing). 

I was able to check my finish time and 5k/10k splits when we got back to the hotel: 2:35:34...my 3rd worst time.  I figured out a part of my problem: I started out too fast.  My 5k page was a 10:31 average. My 10k pace was 11:19 average.  The big hill of the event is covered within that stretch of 6.2 miles.  I easily could have walked more in the first 4 or 5 miles and saved myself a bit more for th end but the spectators were in full force over that part and all I could think about was how I couldn't dare walk when so many people were there watching!  In the end, my lack of preparation combined with starting out too fast hurt my time and my pride.  It will get better again...sooner than later, I hope.

Overall, the trip to Portland was a great one for me.  I got to eat great food, drink incredible beer, and saw quite a bit of the city.  Plus, I got to see my distant cousin, Katie, for a few hours at The Thirsty Lion on Saturday, at dessert at Papa Haydn, and got myself a Portland Cream at VooDoo Doughnut this morning. Hooray!

9th Half Marathon

I'm headed to Portland this weekend to run my 9th half marathon!  My training has sucked this time around and I'll be honest with you, I haven't run since my 10.5 miler over a week ago.  My Team Beef shirt is packed, as is my Garmin but I'm seriously thinking about not wearing it (the Garmin) again.  I feel like it holds me back sometimes from going the pace that feels right when I constantly look at my pace. I'll do my best to update as soon as I can!  For now, I need to clean up my Portlandia playlist for the race and see about getting myself some lunch, and potentially create a new playlist for the drive! 

Side note: Good luck at the Chicago Marathon, Jamie!  You're totally going to kick ass!

Oh wow, I suck.

Really?  I haven't blogged since May?  Oy, so sorry!  I guess life got in the way of writing and for that I apologize to you and to myself.  I'll try to recap the Sawtooth Relay (snowy, cold) and See Jane Run Half (better than last year) at a later date, but if I don't it's because I can't remember a whole lot more than what I just wrote in parenthesis.

Remember last November when I signed up for the Portland Half Marathon?  Yeah, well that's coming up in just about 2 weeks.  I got a training plan all lined up and started to get myself in gear to ramp up in mileage when I stubbed my toe on a boat dock and ripped my toenail off the nail bed. 

Ouch.  And do I ever mean OUCH. 

I stumbled around in my Chacos and a pair of decent at work and couldn't get a closed-toe shoe on my foot without breaking out in tears for two weeks. TWO WEEKS!  That means, no working out happened and certainly no running during that time frame.  To top it all off, the air quality here in Boise has been absolutely terrible due to forest fires nearby which makes running seems much less desirable.  Amazingly enough, I've managed to keep going on my long runs and last weekend pulled off 8.5 miles.  I planned to run 10.5 this weekend and 11.5 next weekend before the Portland Half the weekend after (I know, cutting it close) but I've changed that plan.  I did get 10.5 done today (Monday) before work but am noting now (for everyone all three of you to see) that I will never run that distance before work again unless I have been regularly running 10+ mile runs on a regular basis (like every weekend).  I was completely exhausted and felt absolutely worthless.  That being said, I might try to do another 10 miler next weekend but also might cut it down to 8. 

I might not have put in as many miles as I would like by now and I'm certainly nowhere near as fast as I was earlier this spring but when it comes to the event, my body will know what to do and I have to trust that.