Wordless Wednesday

Run for the Water 10 Mile Race Recap

Wish I had time to write a long boring recap...but lucky you, I only have a few minutes...so here it goes.

Here was the course....full of up and down hills....

Here were my splits....

A PR for me, and 4 minutes better than I did last year!

The weather was PERFECT!  About 45-50 degrees and just a light breeze.

Phene raced the kids K after, and all in all it was a GREAT day!

 

 

 

 

And in the afternoon we carved our pumpkin....

 

 

I am taking a complete week off from running.  I am hoping to just workout at Dane's and do some yoga.

Hope you all have a great week!

Threeeee Things for Thursday

*Today we are doing biometric screening here at my office.  There are a few things that are already bothering me about it.

1. I couldn't go to the track workout this morning because there was no way I could do a fast hard track run without eating something...which leads me to my next issue...
2. Looks like I will be running on the treadmill...yep 5-6-7 miles on the treadmill!  I need 7, but I don't know if I can handle being on it for that long!  Wish me luck!
3. I didn't get to have coffee this morning...I can already feel the headache coming on.
4. Did I mention I have to run on the treadmill????  Did I mention I haven't had coffee yet?????

*Tuesday I started feeling achy and ended up having a horrible fever/chill/achy flu thing all night.  Luckily I think it was only one of those 24 hour things because I started feeling better last night.  But now Sean has it and is at home in bed, I am hoping Phene isn't next!!

*I have a 10 mile race this Sunday.  Goals you ask?  Geeeeez....after this week of Sean's nasal surgery, Phene sick on Sunday, me sick on Tuesday....I don't know.  I am hoping for 7:30 minute miles....but I might have to be satisfied with under 8 minute splits....We shall see!  Plus it's been like 85-90 every day and SUPER humid.  Well lo and behold a cold front is coming in and it's going to be 40 something Sunday morning!  Now some of you may say that 40 is great running weather.  And I agree that it is...WHEN you are used to it.  I have been training in warm weather, and I don't know if I am ready for 40 degrees


Have a good Thursday all!!

My Weekend in Pictures

Friday night we went to dinner at El Monumento in Georgetown with my run group friends, yep this is the only picture I took. 

 

 

Saturday morning Sean ran Vern's No Frill 5K and PR's with a time of 26 minutes!!

 

 

Saturday afternoon we went to the Florence Friendship Days Fair in our town

 

 

I made a box with Modge Podge for my friend Amy (idea from pinterest)....it turned out awesome...until I put the lid on...guess I didn't think that lid might be tight and it took all the paper off...so cool :( Oh well it's homemade and it looks good if you keep the lid on!

 

That's it...that's all I got! I hope you all have a great week.......
I will leave you with this gem....

 

Five Things Friday

*This morning as I am driving in to work on the freeway the guy in front of me threw out his bag of fast food trash.  It immediately hit the ground and trash went everywhere!  I don't understand someone who could throw trash out of their car like that!  No pun intended, but how trashy!?

*This weekend is the Florence Friendship Days 5K.  I found out about it last week and have been going back and forth about whether I want to race it or not.  I have raced it for the last 2 years....won it the last two years (Only because it's SUPER small), and PR'd on this course last year with a time of 20:53.  I don't know if I don't want to run it because I feel like a lazy bastard lately..I'm tired, I have a trail run on Sunday....these are the excuses I am coming up with in my head....or am I shying away from it because 5k's suck and I will be disappointed if I don't do better than 20:53.  Sean wants to run Vern's 5K on Saturday morning, so that just might push me towards not doing it.

*Tonight we are going to dinner with some friends from the RUNGT group I run with twice a week.  It's a new restaurant that I have been wanting to try, and after a long week...I am ready for a margarita...or maybe two.  The only thing weighing on my mind...is that we don't have a babysitter...so the kids are coming with us.  Which is fine, we can handle it.  But I wish, wish, wish, wish, wish, we had a babysitter.  Not just for this night, but for other night's also.  We don't have family who will babysit around here...and we live so far out in the country that it's hard to find someone who will come out and babysit, especially if we are going to be out late.

*Last night I met up with a friend I haven't seen for the last year.  We went to a place called Pflugerville Lake where they have a walk/run/bike/trail.  We brought the kids in the strollers and walked the 3 mile loop around the lake.  We talked the entire time and pretty much picked up where we left off.  It was a nice afternoon with a breeze, and even though the kids were kind of wild, I had a great time.  I felt thankful to have her as a friend.  And even though we haven't talked for awhile we could still relate and get a long.  She is a super special person...one of those people who are absolutely no BS...she is very real and authentic....any way, just a nice reminder that there are people out there like that.

*This morning I was listening to something on the radio about being appreciative about what you have, because a lot of people have less.  You know sometimes I feel like I am such a wanter....I want more clothes, I want more money, I want a nicer car....I want a nicer house, the list goes on and on and on and on of all the things I want.  And I have a lot!  I have so much to be thankful and appreciative for!  What an a$$hole I am sometimes...upset because I can't afford a pair of Lululemon pants...I mean seriously...I need a reality check sometimes. 

That's it...that's my 5 things for this Friday....
To everyone racing this weekend....good luck, I hope your races go well...
Have a good weekend all!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Good News and Bad News

So the good news is...my time from the Tyler Rose 1/2 Marathon is my gun time...not chip time.  So I would personally like to shave off that 40 seconds or so and say I ran it in 1:40.  Works for me!

The bad news...ughhh....race pic came out last night...I am sharing ONLY two with you, because the rest are THAT bad!

(The only thing I like about this one is that I am racing that girl in!)

Have a good weekend all!!

Tyler Rose 1/2 Marathon Race Report

Saturday afternoon Jessica and I made the 4 hour drive to Tyler, Texas to participate in the Tyler Rose 1/2 Marathon.  It was a really nice drive through parts of Texas that I had never been...and of course we were excited and chatty so the drive went by really fast.  We pulled in to Tyler and went straight to the racing site so we could get familiar of where we needed to park and how far it was from the hotel.  After a dinner of hamburgers and french fries we were in bed and asleep by 9:15.

We woke up the next morning and it was 45 degrees which is quite chilly, considering it was almost in the 100's last week.  I knew that the weather was going to be a challenge for me.  Running in colder weather is always easier, but I feel like I did the majority of our training in humid hot weather here in Austin.  Every year it takes me and my legs a bit to get used to the change from summer to fall, and even fall to winter.

We headed over and picked up our packets and did the bathroom thing and a .65 mile warm up.  Before we knew it, it was almost time so we parted to find our pace groups.  (I ran with the 1:40 group, and Jessica ran with the 1:50 group.)  I found my group easily and at 8am we were off.

Our pace group soon kind of separated off and we were a group of about 8 people total.  There were only 2 women in the group, myself, and another lady.  From mile 1 to 8 is was easy breezy....up and down rolling hills staying right on the heels of the pacers.  (The pacers were kind of cool, they were these two guys who were just cruising so awesomely consistent) Here is the elevation profile per my Garmin....

Then...this is when the wheels started to shake...I got a side cramp...from mile 9 to 10 I had to slow down because my side was KILLING me....I tried everything and it just wasn't going away.  I started to fall behind the pacers and would catch back up with them on the downhills.  Around mile 10 is where I pretty much couldn't catch back up to them.  My legs were DEAD....They just weren't working.  I kept the pacers in my line of sight but at that point I knew I wasn't catching up to them.  I told myself I could only do what I could do and I pushed on best I could.  I have never had this issue where my legs just wouldn't cooperate. It was so frustrating because mentally I felt fine.  No hip pain, no foot pain....

As you can see my splits there at the end were just crap.

As I turned down to the finish line I sprinted in and I was SOOO happy to be done.  My final time was 1:40:48.  A PR of almost 11 minutes from my last half!  60th overall and 2nd in my age group.  I felt like crap though.  I just kept moving because every time I stopped to stretch my inner thighs and calves were cramping.

Jessica came in at around 1:56...super proud of her, she said she had a great race!


We hung around for awhile and they had some problems with the timing and didn't have our official times, so we decided to leave so we had time to go back to the hotel and shower before our 4 hour ride home.  All in all it was a great trip and the race was well put together.  And we got a great tech shirt and look how cool the medal is!

I should be super happy as my time goal for this race was 1:45 and I came in almost 5 minutes before that.....but something went wrong in the last miles of this race and I just can't get it out of my mind.  Did I not drink enough water?  I ate part of my shot blocks almost every 2 miles and had sweedish fish...this is the way I have fueled before and it's always worked.  Was it the hills?  Was it the cold??  The area where I got the side cramp still hurts today, and I have never had a side cramp quite that bad.

One of the best things about this race was the support that people gave me because I was wearing my Team Luke's Locker shirt.  High fives, well wishes, pats on the back....people absolutely love Luke's Locker and had nothing but nice things to say.  It made me VERY proud to be running on their team!

This is How I Train and why "Less is More" Works For Me

 

Above you can see my highly detailed intricate training plan for this Sunday's Tyler Rose 1/2 Marathon.  (If you want me to make you a plan and send it to you, I would be happy too...I will even doodle a flower on it for you)

Since my training in the fall left me injured, and I was feeling so sluggish and tired running 5 days a week plus doing Dane's, I decided to try the less is more half marathon plan.  You run three days a week...one day is a tempo type workout (Thurs column above) and one day is a track type workout (Tues column above) and one day is a long run (sat column above)

The number I have next to what I should be doing per the plan, is what I actually did in my workouts.  (Clear is mud right?!  The more I look at this I realize I might be the only one who understands it!) I think the only time/day I failed on in this plan was the weekend long runs.  As you can see I should have done 6 this last weekend, but I did 12.  I am pretty proud of myself though for getting through the 10 weeks pretty consistently.

So, do I feel like this less is more plan worked for me?  For the most part, yes I do.  I  feel like running 3 days a week is probably much better for my body.  Having more recovery time between runs has definitely made me a faster runner, running on fresh legs more often.  I have still felt some tightness in my hips, and have been dealing on and off with plantar fasciitis, but for the most part it hasn't been anything I haven't been able to run through.

 I think this plan would have been a lot harder to follow if my run group in Georgetown didn't already have most of these type of workouts going two days a week.  (Tuesday's we do Tempo type runs and Thursday are our days for track workouts.)  Finding the imagination, place, and drive to do these workouts by myself without them would have been really hard.

Along with this running I have done Dane's workouts Monday's, Wed's, and Thurs....and I think I only missed two of those workouts in the last 10 weeks.  And this is all part of the plan.  You incorporate a lot of cross training on the days you aren't running.  Plus one rest day, which of course I took every week!

Here is just a sampling of what my mileage looked like for the last 6 weeks

As you can see it's been pretty consistent.

My goal for this weekend's 1/2 marathon is under 1:45.  I just found out they are going to have some pace groups for the 1/2 marathon which I am pretty excited about.  The options are 1:40 and 1:50.  I think I am going to go with the 1:40 team and see how long I can keep up with them.  7:30 is a HELL of a pace to keep up for 13.2 miles, but I might be able to pull it off for awhile and drop back if I need to.

I will admit I am getting some anxiety about this weekend's race.....but I guess that's all part of racing, and on race day I hope the stars align and I can do what I need to do in the time I want to do it in.

Wish me luck!!