Feeling guilty...

Day 3 of no running. It was so windy outside today and I just couldn't get myself out the door. Today ends this nonsense. I'm getting up early tomorrow to run.

Did 60 situps, 10 pushups, 30 sec sides, 1 min front plank, 1 min back plank, 50 hundreds.

30 side leg raises (that's going to hurt tomorrow!)

Stretching!

How is it already Sunday?

I woke up this morning and realized my clothes were huge! That's what I get for eating brownies and cake all week...not to mention the awful run I had on Friday. Didn't run nearly as much as I wanted this week but I'll work on more miles this week. I'm super sore from Friday too so that doesn't help. Here's the beginning of a new week:

B: bagel, tea

Ran 3 miles last night in the cold then ate yogurt at the store. Planned to run today, but things changed. Running W, Th, F, S or Sun this week. That would get me a decent number I miles if I can do it.

B: oats, tea, tea

S: bagel, cr. ch, banana, tea

L?: cinnamon bun

D: banana bread, carrot, mac and cheese

B: oats, tea, tea, tea
S: banana bread, clementine
L: cheese and crackers, tea

S: banana bread

after running: Greek Yogurt, then bed.

B: oats, tea, orange
L: tuna sandwich, hot chocolate
D: grilled cheese, cucumber, banana bread

Swam for an hour! 20 laps= 1000m whew!

Weekend run slowwww

I'm sitting here trying to remember what I ate for dinner yesterday and I can't remember. Oh, I just remembered...oats. Hmm, I need to do better on eating real food. I ran yesterday with George so I was pretty tired today. We did the 5 mile loop from SPHS with a stop at Psych. So probably like 4.5 and .5 miles. Think it was about 8:30 pace. Whew, too fast for me.

This morning we planned on getting about 6 miles in before the rain, but Larissa and I were really tired so we ended up only doing about 5 (that's a big estimate rounding up!). Rachel ran with us since she was coming off of recovery from Tecumseh. Good run, but I'm tired now! Lots to do this weekend, probably taking tomorrow completely off. I might go to the gym...swim or weights?

B: oats, tea (before run)

B: oats, tea (after run)

L: bread, egg, lettuce

S: cookies!

D:meatball sub, breadstick, hot chocolate

Reindeer Romp

This past weekend I ran the Reindeer Romp and it was a ton of fun. Once I got myself out of the house in lots of clothes, the snow and cold weren't that bad. I ran 23:11 for the 5k and came in as the second female overall. Now that's not saying much since there weren't that many people in the race, but I still claim "the fastest, crazy 20-29 year old who wanted to run a 5k in the snow" on that day.

5k splits

7:28

7:50 (a little late)

7:18 (add some from mile 2)

Yesterday we ran from the store and did the 6 mile loop- in 17 degrees! My attire consisted of: spandex and wind pants, under armour short sleeved shirt, target long sleeved shirt, black turtle neck, mizuno jacket gloves, hat. My only cold part was my face so I might invest in a ski mask. Other than that, I say Bring on the Cold!!

Today was a slightly less successful day since I realized I forgot my shorts to go to the gym. I was already there at that point and didn't feel like going home and then back to the gym. So I am getting up to run tomorrow morning since I have a date tomorrow night ;-) I've told two people that I'll be running tomorrow morning so there's no backing out of it now. It will be good to see how a morning workout could go.

How have I been doing on:

Stretching? TERRIBLE

Water? Better

Eating? Good

B: oats, tea, tea

S: yogurt

L: stuffed shells

D: bread, butter, wine braised cabbage

Okay, maybe didn't do so well on food today. But in general, I've been getting better!

Here's a picture from the Reindeer Romp. It was lots of fun and pretty exciting to run close to 23 flat. Motivation to keep running through the winter!

Running friends!

Food

B: oatmeal, tea, tea, tea

S: yogurt

L: stuffed shells, carrots

D:meatball sub, bread and butter

Dear 4 hour marathon: We're on

Dear 4 hour marathon:

I have decided to take you on on May 1. Cincinnati, Flying Pig Marathon, it will be you, me, Larissa, and Shestin. And we're going to win. Now 4 hours seems feasible- that's 12 minutes off of my time, which is what I dropped from my first to second marathons. Forget that those were flat courses. Bloomington is hilly enough that we're going to beat you. Even if it's only by a few seconds, we will win. 12 minutes doesn't seem like much, but 30 seconds off each miles is a little more daunting. But we can do that. Monumental half was at 8:34 and that was pretty easy. I just need to double that and I'll be good to go.

My real weapon against you will be strength training. And ab and hip exercises. And stretching. Lots of stretching. And maybe I'll even get myself into the pool if I become overly ambitious. Abs, hips, and stretching are top priority. Then maybe extra drills and swimming. The plan is to stay in the 20-25 mileage range for this month, then I'll get back up a bit. I definitely want to get in at least 2 20 milers this time around. And yeah, I'll figure out how to get myself to do those 2 and 3-mile repeats that are better for marathon training. Oh, and pace runs too. Maybe I'll just actually follow the training plan this time around :-)

I did pretty well on water today (way better than the rest of this month) and food was good too.

B:oats, tea, tea

S: banana muffin, apple

L: pasta casserole

S: banana muffin w/cr.ch, Luna bar

D: egg in basket, lettuce

S:

Hip routine YES

Stretching YES

Here's the hip routine I'll do at least 3 times a week.

Monumental Half PR!

1 and 2- 18:35

3- 8:52

4-8:49

5 and 6- 17:32

7- 8:27

8-8:30

9-8:25

10- 8:19

11- 8:17

12- 8:21

13-8:11

10.10.10 Chicago Marathon Report :-)

What a great weekend! It was kind of a crazy pre-race week (considering I had run 16 miles on the Saturday before the marathon!), but it all turned out well in the end. In terms of training, I wasn't exactly prepared (though not completely unprepared either I guess), but felt okay going into the run because I had run the 21 miles with the Chicago group three weeks before. So much for getting in three long runs before the marathon. Oh well, next time. The week before the race I pretty much ate and slept a ton. I ran 3 on Monday and 3 on Thursday and nothing else since I was trying to do anything I could to get my legs to recover from my non-existent tapering.

We arrived Saturday afternoon and went to the Expo. We ended up running out of time since it was so huge and it would have been nice to look at the clothes and listen to Dean Kamazes, but we didn't have time. After getting our bibs, verifying the chip worked, and trying on our shirts, and taking a few pictures, we signed up for the pace team. Shestin was set on running 4:20 so she decided we should sign up for the 4:15 pace team. I thought she was slightly crazy to think we could do that especially since I wasn't fully rested, but we did it. That meant that we were going to have 4:15 numbers on our backs telling the world that was our goal. That also meant that we got free pace tatoos (:-) my favorite)! On to dinner with teh group at 4:00 because everyone wanted pasta and then hanging out in the hotel and a short walk outside. Then to bed I went!

Christy, Erin, and I woke up at 5:00am to get ourselves ready. With the Funk Pandora station on, I drank my tea, ate my cereal and half banana, and got dressed. I also listened to my standard 5 songs on my ipod quickly just for good luck. Can't run a race without Breakfast at Tiffany's beforehand! At 6:00am we all met on the 14th floor for group pictures. Ben and Rick had gotten huge 26 balloons so that we would see them on the course with their bikes. They were such great cheerleaders! After our picture we all headed out to walk to the race start.

It was quite a walk to the start but we made it in plenty of time to check our stuff, get a few pictures, and get to our corall. What we didn't have time to do was go to the bathroom again. The lines were long and we didn't want to miss getting in a good spot to start since we were stuck in teh open corral. Oh well, I thought I could stop along the course if I really needed to.

At teh race start, Shestin, Jill, and I lined up as close as we could get to the 4:15 pace group. We ran into Dustin who was starting in the same places as we were too! We spent close to half an hour in the corall, but since it was so warm (68! hot!) it wasn't a big deal. We just wanted to start running. The morning before is always so nerve wracking and it all becomes much better once the race actually starts.

The gun went off and we stayed exactly were we were....We finally started slowly walking up to the start line and made it across 13 minutes after the official start. Not too bad considering how many people there were. I was determined to stay on apace from the very beginning this race since I felt I could push myself a little harder than the first marathon. I ran the first mile looking back trying to make sure the three of us stayed together. At the water stop at mile 2, it got harder to stay with the others. I think it was around mile 3 that I decided I was going to leave them and stay on pace. That meant I was losing two running buddies who could get me thtrough the race, but I'm used to running races alone and felt okay about it.

Since the weather was so warm, I stopped at EVERY water stop. I usually got gatorade, but sometimes just wanted water, especially if I had just eaten some Clif Shot Blocks. I felt pretty good and was happy that I was under the race goal time. I ran a 2:02 13.1, which was pretty exciting. At that pace, I'd be running a 4:04 marathon. Ha, not quite.

Still felt pretty good (although it was getting warmer) through mile 15 or 16. At some point I had caught up to the 4:15 pace group and passed them. I knew that I had banked about 5 minutes on my time so I started considering trying to run 4:10.

It was around mile 18 that it hit me. I had seen Jon, Rick, Kenya, etc. at Mile 1 while I was still with Shestin and Jill and then hadn't seen anyone since then. I had really expected to see them around mile 8 or 9 and thought that I really couldn't have missed them with their big balloons, but by mile 18 or so I had given up trying to scan the crowd for them. I really needed a familiar face at that point. At mile 20, I saw that I had 60 minutes to run 6 miles. That's only a 10k I thought- I can normally do that easily. But this was at mile 20 in a marathon on a hot day. My legs just stopped working at some point. It was from miles 20-26 that I once again was afraid to stop because I just didn't think I could start running again. I still stopped at every water station and felt pretty good other than my legs screaming at me. It looks like I managed to kick it back up a little on mile 26, but I knew that 4:10 wasn't going to happen. That was okay though, because I knew that I was going to make 4:15 and I knew that I was almost at the finish line. The mile 23 pump up zone with music helped a lot but was a little deciving since I had 3 miles to go. I'd say from mile 23-26, I could have really used a cheering face for me or my music. If I ever have someone to give me my ipod at mile 23, I think I would do that. I'm still not sure about having it the whole race though.

The second to last turn to the finish was brutal because it showed a hill- the only hill on teh course along with teh 800m to go. It's amazing how long 800m can feel. Even teh 400m sign wasn't too encouraging. But at some point, I did made the final turn and saw the finish line. What a great feeling! I was going finish another marathon and run under 4:15! And I was feeling pretty good!....except for my legs, that is. That last 0.2 was pretty much a blur of just trying to get as close to 4:10 as I could and FINISH!! I ran to the finish line, tried to smile for the cameras (they can never read my number anyway) and tried to find water and food.

I think the first liquid I drank at the finish was beer. The finish was a little hectic with a ton of people limping about, people handing me things, and me just wanting to sit down. AFter I took my post race picture and got my food and drink and cold towel, I went to sit on the curb. Yes, I know this was probably a bad thing to do, but I needed to SIT! And there were ice bags that were being given out to cool ourselves down, but I used them to ice my quads. Jill found me about 20 minutes after I finished and I was so happy to see her amidst all of the people. We managed to get out of the finish area and call Shestin. We eventually heard from her (we were worried she didn't finish because she wasn't answering her phone) and we started making our way over to the post race party.

Mile 1- 9:54

Mile 2-9:31

Mile 3-9:35

Mile 4-9:07

Mile 5-9:10

Mile 6-9:31

Mile -9:14

Mile 8-9:16

Mile 9-9:21

Mile 10-9:32

Mile 11-9:26

Mile 12-9:26

Mile 13-9:31

Mile 14-9:37

Mile 15-9:20

Mile 16-9:32

Mile 17-9:50

Mile 18 and 19-19:49

Mile 20-9:42

Mile 21-9:40

Mile 22-9:43

Mile 23-10:26

Mile 24-10:22

Mile 25-10:10

Mile 26-9:33

Mile 26.2-1:53

B: Raisin bran, cantalope
S: banana w/ pb, apple
L: spagetti, meatballs, grapes

Last run before 10.10.10

B: raisin bran, tea, tea, tea
S: banana, pb
L: cheese and avocado sandwich
S: apple sauce
D: spagetti, meatballs, salad
S: cantalope, cookies, yogurt

Last run of the week! 3 miles easy with Mandy.

Just a slight change of plans :-)

Let's see....an update:

Been running super strong, feeling like 4:15 was totally attainable with another month of training. Ran 16 with Larissa on Saturday and let her do 3 more at the end. For some reason, I just felt like I shouldn't be tiring myself out too much....Fast forward to Monday afternoon..........Kenya calls me and offers me her race bib for Chicago (in 6 days). I go back and forth since I was planning on another month of training. But I'm doing it. I ran 3 miles on Monday and may run 1 or 2 on Thursday or Friday.

I hope I'm ready...enough. And not too tired from not properly tapering. Yikes!

B: raisin bran, tea
S:zuch muffin and pita w/ cr. ch, hot chocolate
L: cr. ch. jam sand
S:apple
D: tortilla, cookies, yogurt, appplesauce,cherry juice

B: granola/yogurt, tea

L: beef, edamame, purple pepper, pb toast, tea

B: apple crisp, yogurt, tea
S: tea, tea, banana w/pb
L: pizza

D: tuna wrap, GPSO food

S: ice cream, zuch muff with pb

B: tea, apple crisp/milk, toast w/cr.ch. jam
S: zuch mufifin w/ cr. ch., tea, tea, tea
L: zuch muffin w/ cr. ch, applesauce
S:banana w/ pb

S: banana in between runs

D: pizza, bakery breads

Easy run today

Ran with Larissa today- 5 mile Bryan Park loop. Pace felt easy and it felt good to get out and run in the beautiful weather....but my right hip kinda hurt....not good!

B: raisin bran, tea
S:small asian pear, tea, banana w/pb
L: Tortilla, water!

S:asian pear

S: little mac and cheese, zuch muffin w/ cr. cheese

D: quesadilla, tomato soup, lettuce

S:tea, cookie

Great pace run!

I surprised myself today when I actually decided to take the idea of a pace run seriously. We were supposed to run 13-16 miles today at marathon pace and I ended up doing 15.96 in 2:24- 9:05 pace!! That certainly isn't my expected marathon pace, but I'm wondering now if it could be? Probaly not quite, but it was exciting to feel so good after such a fast run. Well...good is relative since I was feeling super strong the whole way through, but my hips really started to bother me around 8 miles. Mostly my right hip, although both are sore now. I spent time time trying to loosen up with the stick tonight, but I don't know how much it helped. So I'm glad that I tested myself today and found out that if I push it, it is going to hurt. STRETCH STRETCH STRETCH is going to be my goal for the next month! In bed at 8:45 tonight- lots to do tomorrow and I'm exhausted even with my short nap in Dunn Meadow today.

B: cheerios, 1/2 banana, tea

L: powerbar right after run, toast with pb and banana, spaghetti, tiny asian pear

D: Laughing planet burrito, Soma cider

Food for the day

B: bagel, cr. ch., tea

S: bagel, pb, tea, tea

S: zuchini and squash

S: grapes

D: potatoes, mustard greens, tofu

S: grapes

No run today- Soma to do work instead.

Hungry, hungry all the time

B: cheerios, tea

L: pbj sandwich

S: grapes

S: egg, 1/2 pb banana sandwich

D: potatoes, mustard greens, zuch and squash, tofu

S: grapes, strawberries, 1/2 bagel w/ cr. cheese

I feel like I haven't stopped eating today! I was hungry around 10 and ate my sandwich super early- I need to start taking two lunches to work I think. Dinner was very good and I think I've been getting some good protein in lately. Still sick, but I've still been feeling strong. Shestin and I ran today for about 3 miles in the Newtons. I'm not sure about them although I do believe in the idea behind running on a flat surface. I'll see if I'm sore tomorrow.

Sick, sick, sick

Well, I have been running well- I'll see if that keeps up tomorrow since I woke up feeling awful today. Really going to try and keep a log of food so here's today:

B: tea, cheerios

S: bagel, cr. ch.

S: apple

L: tortilla

S: apple

S: muffin from Ed.

D: chicken noodle soup with mustard greens added to it, strawberries, banana, walnuts, almonds, milk, orange juice, vitamin c!

Look at those negative splits!

Today we ran Yasso's- my first time ever doing this workout. Even after being a little sore and tired from the weekend mileage I was really excited to be doing these. The idea behind the Yasso's is interesting, though I'm not sure how well it really can predict everyone's marathon time. Supposedly, the average time of the 8-10 800m repeats you do in minutes will the number of hours and minutes the marathon time will be. I don't know about that... More about Yasso's are explained here: Runner's World Yasso's.

Here are my splits from the workout:
3:54

3:46

3:42

3:41

3:38

3:34

3:34

3:23

That's an average of 3:39....a Boston qualifiying time. Ha- I'm pretty sure Bart Yasso's predictor is a little off. But even if he's 20 minutes off, that's still a 4 hour marathon. Do I dare move my goal time up from 4:20 to closer to 4:00?

Just keep running, running, running...

I've been feeling awesome lately and I'm sure hoping this keeps up. Don't know if I'm just in shape now, magically gotten faster, have been eating right, or what...but whatever it is, it feels great!

Saturday I ran 21 miles and then I ran 2.5 on the XC course on Sunday. That goes to show how great I was feeling after the 21 miler! I got up at 5:30 to eat breakfast (cheerios, half banana, and tea seem to be my magic combo), then drove to the stadium to meet the group a 6:30. We started out all together- Shestin, Jill, Mollie, Larissa, Mandy- and ran a lot. Felt like I saw all of Bloomington a couple of times that morning! Mandy and Mollie ran ahead at some point and we didn't bother to keep up with them after that. We ended up back at the stadium having run 17.5. So we ran to our cars, ditched our water belts, and pinned our bibs on- then ran another 0.5 before the start of the race. We then ran Hoosiers Outrun Cancer 5k to finish up our run to hit 21. It certainly wasn't a fast 5k, but I'm definitely glad we did it since the other people pulled us through. They also had oranges around mile 2- our mile 20- which was literally one of the best things ever at that point. We finished up the run and then went out to lunch. A pretty great day! I felt pretty good the whole run, although my legs and knees definitely started to feel it at some point. But all in all, my body was not complaining much for having run 21 miles!

I wasn't very sore after my very long nap on Saturday, although Sunday I was walking down the stairs backwards. But only a little bit and I could have gone forwards if I really needed to! I stretched and massaged my legs a little. Also tried using the stick, but that hurt. Maybe the Traumeel and arnica actually helped too?

Awesome run!

B: cheerios, half a banana
S: half bagel w/ pb (hungry at 9am!)

S: apple, hot chocolate

L: other half bagel w/ pb

S: apple w/ pb

D: brocolli, beef stir fry with noodles

S: cookies, applesauce, milk

Wow, I need to actually eat my lunch tomorrow. I had lentils and rice, but ended up never eating that part of lunch! Do better tomorrow.

We had an awesome run tonight! Ran with Shestin and Kari. I felt like we were flying, although it probably wasn't that fast. No one wore a watch so who knows! I'm loving this streak of feeling super strong every run!!

Bed at 10:40 tonight.

6am run on a Wednesday....?

Yes, marathon training has officially taken over my life. I got up at 5:30 am this morning to drive to Bryan Park to meet Larissa at 6. She said that the run scheduled was 5 to 7 miles, but I pointed out that even with an easy 5, we will be running 40 miles this week. I won and we only ran 5. Good run and I actually managed to get to work on time. So I'm thinking this might turn into a routine...not sure how I feel about that. Felt okay most of the day but was pretty tired in the afternoon for a bit. Now going to bed at 9:30.

I also went to the gym with Rachel this evening and did upper body stuff mostly. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. I'm liking this streak of feeling strong on my runs!

Try again

August and September have been a month full of changes- moving, new job, lots more running, new friends, etc.- and I've decided to start a new blog that hopefully I'll be able to keep up much better than my previous one. I've mostly decided that in order to train well and get faster, I need to truly keep a training log. Running2win gives me graphs and mileage totals, but I'm going to see how keeping more detailed comments of runs, sleep, and meals turns out for me. Hopefully it will keep me motivated and running well. So if for nothing else, this blog will be just for me.

Going to start tomorrow logging lots of different things: tomorrow starts with getting up at 5:30am to run 5 to 7 miles with Larissa. I'm pretty glad there will be someone waiting for me at Bryan Park because my attempts at early morning running alone did not go so well. Sleep now (10:30).