Sound Mind : Sound Body

Eat Clean

2010-03-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I started a week long goal of eating healthy. Only a week? Well, it seems if I make a goal of eating clean for any period of time longer than a week I don't meet it. So, right now, I'm working with a week.

For this week, my goal is eat a minimal amount of processed foods. Eating foods a natural as possible. Not some kind of crazy "raw" diet. And some things are just going to have to be processed. But, my goal is to go with as natural of a diet as I can.

I know, in order to maintain a healthy diet over a long peroid of time, I'll have to go back to the yummy Zone Bars that I love so much.

As I type this I'm sipping a strawberry/banana/soymilk smoothie.

On tap for this weekend, a trail 5K in Dublin and a long run on Sunday. By Monday I should have a full 7 days of clean eating under my belt, and a race report.

Sweetheart 12K 3/20/10

2010-03-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

This past saturday we finally got to run the Sweetheart 12K, which was originally scheduled on 2/13/10. The race was rescheduled due to approximately 5 inches of snow. Yes, we live in Georiga, NO we are not used to snow!

I'm glad the race was rescheduled. I had signed up to run the 5K in February, becuase I had only been up to running for 2 weeks post injury at that time. I changed our entries to the 12K once I knew the re-scheduled date. Having run a 15K last weekend, I wasn't worried about the distance at all.

I decided that after not doing so well on the Geico 12K, I was going to PR on this one. Not just a little PR, but go from 1:06:45 to 1:05. To do this my mile splits would have to average at around an 8:45 pace.

Race morning came around, and what do you know. Normal "Kat with a Goal" wasn't grouchy? Why, I have no clue. I wasn't nervous, grouchy, cranky, irritable, Nothing. Weird. We got to the race about an hour early, socialized some, then ran about a 15 minute warm up. The weather was perfect. About 45 degrees, sunny, and no wind.

The race started at 8:00 AM and we were off. My splits were as follows:

1- 8:58

2- 8:47
3- 8:36
4- 8:44
5- 8:42
6- 8:53
7- 8:43
.21- 8:00

I wish I could have picked it up a bit on mile 6, I just lost my steam.

So, you see this race was 7.21 according to my Garmin. A 12K is 7.45, so the race was about .25 off. That's ok though. My Garmin time was 1:02:59, and let's just factor in another 2 mintues for the missed distance and that STILL put's me at a huge PR of 1:05 on the dot. I'm taking it as a victory either way and I am very happy with my results!

This weekend will be a Race-Free weekend. I'd like to get in a decent long run this weekend since there won't be a race to concentrate on.

Yesterday began Phase 3 of my training program. I will get in my usual speedwork each week, as well as a Tempo run each week. I'm going to be sure to get in my long runs in preparation for my May half marathon.

Gate River Run 2010

2010-03-17T13:35:00.000-07:00

My 5th running of the Gate River Run was a success. Chuck and I had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed our tradition of running the best run of the year in Jacksonville FL.

We headed out of town on Friday morning and got to the race expo around lunch time. We picked up our packets, and 10 of our friends packets. We walked around the expo for about 2 hours then went to the hotel to check into our room.

The hotel was very nice, the Embassy Suites on Baymeadows. After unpacking and going through our expo goodies we met up with a few friends, Mom, and her friend E. Lunch at Wild Wings was great. So maybe beer and spicy food wasn't the best idea for a "night before a race" meal. Oh well, I had fun anyway.

Friday night was early to bed. I laid down at 9:15, and suprisingly fell almost immediately to sleep. Me... who usually has insomina for no reason at all. 5:00 AM came early and I was up, in the shower, dressed, ate my bagel with peanut butter and was ready to go by 6:30. We ended up leaving later than I wanted. Which resulted in heavy traffic coming into the downtown area. On the way to the race I realized after my peparation I still managed to forget my Garmin. Luckily Mom let me borrow hers. I was such a grouchy butt on the way to the race. I'm always grumpy on race morning.

Once we got to the stadium and parked, we visited the porta-potties. Then found our corral section to line up in. We waited for about 30 minutes. Then it was RACE time!

The entire 15K was as enjoyable as it has been every year I have run it. We had no expectations of running a fast time, we just wanted to do it and enjoy the day. We finished in just a few seconds over 1 hour 30 minutes. This was a few seconds slower than last year, but who's counting?

The race has a great beer trailer, all of us enjoyed the refreshments. Once we all got our fill, back to the hotel to get cleaned up. Lunch on Saturday was at the Seven Bridges, a nice restaurant with a micro brewery. I tried the brown ale, had fettucini with parmesan shrimp. Then for dessert Chuck and I sampled the dessert tri. Oh Yum. The bread pudding was amazing!

Once we were full from lunch we all headed back to the hotel to rest up a bit. The hotel has a reception from 5:30 to 7:30 that includes free drinks. We were all there to enjoy the "spirits"! After that was over we wandered over to the Omaha Steak restaurant for dinner. I wasn't hungry, so I just had a potatoe.

We were all full, happy, and tired, so we all went to our rooms to get a good night sleep. 8:00 AM to rise Sunday morning, and go out for a windy recovery run down Baymeadows. We got in 3 miles at a slow pace, just to stretch out the muscles and get some blood pumping. For breakfast we enjoyed the hotel's complimentary hot breakfast. After filling up, we showered, packed and headed to the Jacksonville Landing to say goodbye to our mini vacation spot. We had smoothies and shopped for about an hour before heading back to Georiga.

The trip home was uneventful. (That's good right?) And back to work Monday morning.

This week is my last week on Phase 2 of my training. Last night was my speed workout, which went well. I will either start my Tempo runs this week or next week. I'll wait and see how I feel.

Cantrell Center 5K

2010-03-02T13:33:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, Feb 27, 2010 was the 2nd Annual Cantrell Center 5K, as well as my 2nd go at the race.

♥I've got love for this race♥

1. It's about 1 mile from my apartment.
2. I go to the Cantrell Center about 2 times per week to swim.
3. I like the staff at the Cantrell Center.
4. It's a Big Race.
5. It's chip timed.
6. It's a RACE, come on, I love races!

Race morning was great. I woke up In A Good Mood. For the remainder of the morning, I REMAINED In A Good Mood. How crazy is that. I'm notorious for being a grouchy butt on race day. We didn't have to get up too super early since the race was close by. Our babysitter showed up not only on time, but early. Everything just fell into place. I bet the biggest factor was the fact that I wasn't trying to PR or meet a hard goal!

We had picked up out packets early so we didn't have to mess with any of that stuff. No tummy upset for me. We did a good warm-up run of a little over a mile. Before we knew it, it was race time.

Coming back from my injury, I decided that my "Race" would really be a 3.1 mile "Tempo" run. My tempo pace varies from 8:20 to 8:35 (depending on distance), so my goal was to start around 8:35 and end at around a 8:20 pace. My actual performance was pretty true to my goal. Granted due to the hill on the last mile of the course I spiked up to about a 8:45 for a bit. Overall my pace was 8:26.

After the race I chatted with a few of my running friends and enjoyed the crowd of happy "5K'ers" I'm ready for the 12K next weekend at Geico.

Untill Then...

Phase 1 Down

2010-02-23T12:17:00.000-08:00

I havn't done much blogging since I've been back to running. Which makes since, because Phase 1 was somewhat boring and uneventful and I didn't have much to say. I am happy to be back on the road / treadmill. I've enjoyed it although I've been less than motivated. I think once I get back to a few quality workouts each week that will improve.

For the last 3 weeks of training in Phase 1, I'll just hit the highlights:

Week 1 - 15 miles
Week 2 - 11 miles
Week 3 - 12.6 miles

Yeah, that looks pretty sorry on "paper". But I am mixing in a lot of weight training, I've been swimming 1-2 times per week and we've been riding our new road bikes... since we want to complete the Rock & Roll Sprint Tri in June. I have been busy even if not running a lot.

Some other highlights of the last three weeks:

My daughter Shyenne has started running with me. We plan to run her 1st 5K on April 24th, the day before she turns 9. She's up to 1.5 miles. She needs 2, 1 minute walk breaks. I can already tell she's improving. It's nice to be doing something that I love with her, not to mention it being great for her health.

I ran my first 5K of the year on Saturday. I wont go into much detail about it, becuase there was no pressure, no plans, no stress. I just ran 3.1 miles, that's it. My time was 27:47. I was very satisfied with that.

I sold my old car, a Chevy Malibu that I bought new in 2000. Chuck and I bought a "new to us" 1999 Ford Explorer Limited. We almost came out even buying the Explorer after selling the Malibu. I'm loving my new bigger vehicle. The Malibu had no A/C and summer will be here soon.

One last thing... I got my hair cut. It had gotten pretty long, I had about 6 inches cut off. It feels much better, I'm happy with that change too!

I need to post pics... maybe next time...

Can I do it ALL?

2010-02-05T12:28:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last month doing a lot of planning for the 2010 year. Planning RACES! I love races. I love planning ahead, pre-registering. Getting all prepared for the race once race day gets close. I was happy with our devotion to running and racing last year, for 2010 I want even more.

I would love to run, and race hard every single weekend. I know that's not possible. Races take a toll on the body, cost money to enter, and then there's childcare to arrange. It's a good thing that I like to plan ahead, otherwise we'd be in a mess and probably get nothing accomplished.

Right now I've got everything I want to do through June figured out. Lots of races to run and even a few trips to take. One BIG thing Chuck and I would LOVE to do is a Sprint Tri. There will be one close by in Macon on June 5th.

Planning for the Tri will be all new for me. Here's what I've got nailed down so far:
I need to register by April 1st.
We need a babysitter for the morning.
I've already began swimming laps. Continue swimming at least twice a week until the event.
Buy a Road Bike! Train on the bike at least once a week until the event.
Get necessary gear (attire, accessories, etc)

Ok, That should do it. I'm sure I'll think of plenty more as time goes by and I talk to more experienced Triathlon competitors.

Who's That Girl

2010-02-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

Running on the treadmill at the gym last night? Me, yep, me.

I was cleared by the Dr. last week to start back to running this week. I could have done my first run on Monday night I guess. I waited until Tuesday night because running Monday would have messed up my running every other day plan.

Last night I got to the gym and walked 30 minutes at about 4mph on the treadmill. Chuck and I then worked chest and triceps. We threw in a few core exercises for fun. Then it was go time. Time to see if I was fully rested, healed, and ready to go!

I stepped up on the treadmill, fastened my mp3 player, set up my garmin to track my HR, and set the speed to about 3.5 to warm up for about 5 minutes. My heart was beating fast and I felt so nervous. Just as nervous as if I was about to run a race! I just focused on my music and the cooking show on the gym TV and chilled out. Warmed up and stretched. Let's do this. I set the speed to 5.5mph (about a 10:55 min mile) Ran at that pace for a mile, then went to 5.7 for a mile, and ended at 5.8 (10:20 min mile) for the 3rd mile.

The run felt great. I never got tired. I had no heel pain. I felt like ME again.

When Chuck and I got on the treadmills they were crowed, so he got on one about 3 or 4 down from me. By the halfway point of my 3 miles most of the other people had finished and the treadmills cleared out. I looked over at Chuck and smiled. I big REAL smile, the kind that you can't stop even if you wanted to. Not smiling because your supposed to. I was smiling because I was truely happy. Even when I turned away to make sure I didn't fly off the back of the treadmill. I couldn't quit grinning! I realized I must look like a total dork with that smile pasted on my face sweating like crazy running on the treamill. Oh well.

Well that's it. I did it. Now I feel like I can start planning and look forward to a smart balanced training program. I'll run 3 miles again on Thursday night. I hope all goes well.

Great news from the Doc.

2010-01-27T08:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I had my follow up visit with my podiatrist.

I was so nervous sitting on that table waiting for her to come in and give me the verdict. I knew that the pain was gone. Really, I can walk barefooted and no heel pain. In shoes, no heel pain. I can do a one legged calf raise on the injured foot, no pain. I can walk on my toes, no pain. All of the original symptoms I had were gone. Thanks to REST, the stupid boot, meds, and physical therapy.

Knowing all of that, I was STILL scared that she'd tell me to wait longer to run. Or that she'd move my foot around and it would hurt somewhere new. Ok yeah, I was being neurotic... I can't help it.

Survey Says: Kat can start running next week! She said I can ween myself off of the boot for the rest of this week and start walking on the treadmill for exercise. I'm thrilled to know that the end is near. My only fear now is that once I start running again the pain will come right back. My remedy for that will follow.

I do want to go back and say that I've been keeping up with my non-running training nicely.

Week 3 of Injury (Jan 11 -17)

Swimming Total: 1 Hr 40 Min. 2,000 meters
Elliptical Total: 1 Hr
Stationary Bike Total: 30 Min.

Total Cardio: 3 Hr. 10 Min.
*I also lifted weights and trained Abs 4 days this week.

Week 4 of Injury (Jan 18 - Jan 24)

Swimming Total: 55 Min.
Elliptical Total: 1 Hr. 30 Min.
Stationary Bike: 30 Min.
Arc Trainer: 1 Hr.

Total Cardio: 3 Hr. 55 Min.
*Lifted weights / Abs 3 days this week.

As of today, I'm on 5 full weeks of Rest. I'm doing good at the gym so far this week too. Tonight I teach my body blitz class, afterwards I'm going to treat myself to a nice 30 min. walk on the treadmill. Fun stuff!

I think I did a decent job holding onto my cardio fitness as well as my sanity over the last few weeks. I'm looking forward to running my first race of the year... the Sweetheart 5K. I usually run the 12K, but this year I'm scaling back, not only on the distance but also on the speed. I think I'll just treat this run as a tempo run. Not all out race pace!

Now, back to my re-entry as a runner plans. I'm following RC's direction. I am going to start back to Daniel's Training phases. This time I'll officially start with Phase One. I've got Phase 1 - 4 tenatively planned out through the end of May. More to come once those plans are firmed up.

My next post, should once again be a post about RUNNING!

A Fresh Start

2010-01-19T11:39:00.000-08:00

As much as I've dreaded the arrival of Sat. Jan 16th for the past two weeks, the Museum of Aviation race ended up being a wonderful day for me!

If you have been reading this blog, you know running the Half Marathon {that I invested 12 weeks of hard training into} was sidelined by achillies tendonitis. The only running I've done since Christmas is running my mouth, whining about NOT running.

The day of my goal race (goal was to break 2 hours) snuck up on me sure enough.

Last week Caryl posted on the Macon Tracks forum that she needed help stuffing packets on Friday. Since I'm off on Fridays I decided to go out there and join in the helping. Friday morning I got my workout in early, showered and headed out to the base. I was quickly put to work folding shirts, then we teamed up and started assembly lines stuffing packets with the appropriate bib numbers and sized t-shirts. 3 hours flew by before I knew it and then I had to go pick up Shyenne from school.

While I was there on Friday I mentioned to Caryl that I might come in the morning, to help give out packets and do anything else they needed. I KNEW that when Chuck's alarm went off for him to get up and get ready to go run, I would never go back to sleep. I knew I'd stew and stew over not being able to run my race. Why not go ahead and get up, get out there and at least participate in the race by helping out some more.

Mom was going to run the half marathon as well. But on Thursday she started feeling very sick and had a chest cough. On Friday when I mentioned going to the race she offered to watch the kids for us while we were gone.

Saturday morning we got up at 4:30, got ready and headed to the base by 6AM. I got to work right away handing out packets, taking ID's, and answering questions. It was great seeing my running friends beforehand and wishing them a great race. The announcers called runners to the starting line. I gave Chuck a goodbye hug and good luck kiss and he left to go line up. We were still putting everyone's ID's in alphabetical order. Michele Archer said that she could use help handing out finishing medals, I had nothing else to do for the next 2 hours so I was on board.

Not only was volunteering at the race a rewarding experience, but I was able to see so much more by not running. I got to watch the winners of the 5K and half marathon. I got to watch RC and many other Tracksters finish.

The best part was standing at the finish line when my sweetie Chuck came through. Finishing in 2:07:17, a good 6 minutes faster than his half marathon time in Jacksonville this past October. Being able to put the finisher medal on Chuck after his accomplishment made me feel great. I would have never been able to do that had I run the race with him. I found the sliver lining to my cloud : )

Now, that that's over with... I can stop whining and complaining! Time to move on, focus on a fresh start.

I go see the Dr. next tuesday, so I should only have a week left in this boot. I should be able to resume my running soon after that.

I'm relying on RC's expertise as well as common sense this time. I will start on Daniel's Phase 1 of training. I will not over train. I will focus on being balanced and staying injury free.

Bring on the February races... even though I may not "race" them... I'll be there!

Heartbroken

2010-01-12T08:43:00.000-08:00

You know how it felt when you were in highschool and your boy/girl friend broke up with you? At first it hurts so bad, your heart is broken and you know you'll never love again. A little time passes. For the most part your ok... then a memory hits you and it feels fresh and new and hurts all over again. You miss him/her. You want him/her back so bad. More time passes and you know your ok. You can live without this person. THEN, you see him/her again. It all comes rushing back. Ouch.

Ok, well I feel like running broke up with me. Dramatic? Maybe.

The feelings are so much the same. I got injured and running left me. I keep telling myself that it's no big deal. I can survive without running. It's not everything.. I have much more in my life than just running miles. I know this.

Then, I'll remember a race, or a certain running route I like... or what it feels like to be in the middle of an awesome tempo run, sweating, heart pounding, legs screaming... loving every second of it.

I miss it. A lot. I know, I know... I WILL run again. This isn't forever. It damn sure feels that way right now though.

Running will take me back. It just has to.

Enough of that. I just needed to get out some girly whining that nobody really wants to listen to.

Last week (1/4 - 1/10) I was a very dedicated little cross training chick.

I did about 4.5 hours of cardio (elliptical, arc trainer, and stationary bike)
I swam a total of 1700 Meters (1 hour and 20 min. total swimming - yes I'm slow)
I did weight training twice and Abs twice

I am keeping my cardiovascular system in shape if nothing else.

This week started alright.

Last night I swam 1000 meters and worked out back and abs. Good workout.

I was hopelessly optimistic that I would be able to participate in the Museum of Aviation race this year, despite my injury. Reality has set in in stages. First I resigned myself to the fact that I would just walk the Half marathon. No sub 2 hour goal would be achieved. Then I realized that the half marathon was out of the question. I couldn't walk across the room without limping... how could I walk 13 miles? Not going to happen. So, I talked to the M.O.A. organizer and she said I could change my half registration to the 5K. Cool. I decided that I could just walk the 5K. OK, yippy. I'm pumped up again. At least I could do something, right?

Wrong again. I went to see Dr. Onderko again this morning. She is keeping me in the boot for 2 more weeks. Then she said I'd "ween" off of it. She said no walking (except for the obvious moving myself from place to place). No impact cardio. Just elliptical, bike and swimming. Ahhhh. I left her office and started crying, again. Knowing I can't do anything on Saturday. The first race I'd planned to run of the year.

I guess I'm ok now. I know I have pleny of time once I heal to do all the things I'd love to do with my running goals. I know I have years and years to run the Museum of Aviation races. That doesn't keep it from hurting my feelings right now.

2010 Goals

2010-01-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

2010 Goals…

I was going to wait until I was healed up to officially state my goals for the year. I was thinking it would be too hard, not knowing exactly how long I’ll be I.J. (as Chuck would say). I can’t wait though. I’m jealous of all these other healthy runners posting their goals. So, I’m going to go ahead and post mine as well. If I it turns out that don’t meet the specific running related goals, only if this injury is the reason, than I won’t hold myself accountable.

Here Goes:

Mileage: 1300
PR: in the 5K

Marathon: Complete 1 in 2010, with a 4:15 time goal

Health: Once I heal from tendonitis, not to get injured again.

Diet: Eat clean at least 90% of the time. Weigh 5 lbs. less by next New Years.

Tone: Do weight training exercises at least 2 time per week.

Core: Do Abs AT LEAST 3 times per week.
Explore: A Sprint Triathlon OR the Warrior Dash in May
Mind: Don’t sweat the small stuff. Try to chill out and not let little things bother me so much.

Injury Overview & Trip to the Foot Doc.

2010-01-05T11:12:00.001-08:00

I’ve come to terms with my “injury” although I still feel some sort of denial or disassociation with the fact that I… ME… really have an injury that is keeping me from doing one of my favorite things, Running.

I think I’ve done a good job of keeping up with the progression of this problem. But, just for me and my need for organization, I’m going to sum it up from the beginning

Sunday Dec. 20 - I ran my 16 mile long run in training for the Museum of Aviation Half Marathon.

Monday Dec. 21 – I ran an easy 4 mile treadmill run, maintaining a 10 min. mile. The last .20 of a mile I noticed some discomfort in my left heel. Not enough to stop me in my tracks, besides, I was almost finished with the run anyway.

Tuesday Dec. 22 – I went to the track for speedwork. I ran about 3 miles to warm up. I noticed the discomfort had turned into pain. I tried to ignore it. I decided to do the speedwork, on my first 400 meter interval I was in so much pain that I couldn’t keep my pace where it should be. I decided to forego the rest of the workout.

Wednesday Dec. 23 – I rested today. Iced my foot a few times.

Thursday Dec. 24 – The Macon Tracks Christmas Eve run was this morning. I decided I was going to run 6 miles. When I got up Thur. morning my heel really wasn’t hurting. As soon as I started running there was pain. Pain enough to make me alter my stride. My hard headed self kept running and ended up running about 5 miles. I was in pain the rest of the day. Walking was more uncomfortable than running.

Friday Dec. 25 – Sunday Dec. 27 – RICE! I didn’t have to work these days so I iced and heated alternately as much as I could stand. I also did about 3 hours total on the elliptical machine on Sat. and Sun. Even the elliptical is somewhat uncomfortable.

Monday and Tuesday Dec 28. OK, I’m fed up at this point. Frustrated and upset. I WANT to run, but I can’t even walk without limping. Nothing seems to make my heel feel any better. I email Amy and she tells me to give Brian at Peidmont Sports Med. A call. He isn’t at work today so she emails him and asks him to see me ASAP. I limp through the day, pouting : ( OH, and I’ve decided to go the ENTIRE week and not work out AT ALL. Yes, total rest. Nothing. My brain and my body were just going to have to get over it.

Wednesday Dec. 29 – Brian e-mails Amy and tells her to get me to call him. He graciously fit me into his schedule for the day. I needed some answers, just for my mental well being. I was about to go crazy. He took a look at my feet. No pedicure and all. Yikes. Did some prodding and bending and said that it’s probably Achilles tendonitis or less likely a stress fracture. We talked a little about the shoes I was wearing (which I had moved to a Neutral shoe). He said I should probably be in a stability shoe like I wore before. He said that my left arch was a little lower causing some problems… obviously. He set me up with an appt. to see Dr. Onderko about my heel to find out for sure what the problem is. I will see her Tuesday next week.

Thursday Dec. 30 – Monday Jan 4 - A lot of “resting” icing and LIMPING. Oh, and Monday, after my week of no physical activity I worked legs & abs at the gym and went to the Cantrell Center to swim laps. Did a total of 800 meters in about 40 minutes.

Tuesday Jan. 5 – At 8:30AM I go see the Foot Dr.

Melissa, Brian’s sweet wife, did my X-rays when I first got there. It was nice just knowing that the person that was working with me runs too. Then I go to talk to the Doctor.

She checks out my X-rays and says that IF it’s a fracture, that it wouldn’t show up on the X-ray anyway. She feels around on my heel. Asking what hurts and what doesn’t. She does some weird little test where she hit a metal thing and put it on my foot. She said if it hurt, it would be a sign of a stress fracture. But it didn’t hurt, thank goodness. I will go back and see her in a week, and if it hasn’t gotten any better she wants to do a bone scan to be sure it’s not a stress fracture.

I took advantage of being there and using her knowledge, so I went ahead and asked her a few questions about my toes. The toes next to the big toes always hurt when I run long distances and get black toenail. Over time this lead to some ugly toenails on those toes. She explained that my bunions are the culprit in that scenario. Thanks to genetics. Thanks Dad!

She gave me a boot to wear on the left foot so I won’t limp so bad, and end up hurting other things by compensating my stride. She said NO running for at least another week. I got an Rx for some steroid that is supposed to make me feel better. Lastly, I have a few appointments with Brian. I should learn some stretches and strengthening exercises to make this better and keep it from happening again.

I can do the elliptical, bike, swim, and lift weights. That’s it for right now. Less than two weeks until the MofA Half Marathon. This isn’t looking promising at all is it?

2009, A Look Back...

2009-12-28T08:27:00.000-08:00

With four full days left of the year 2009 I might as well go ahead and do a little year end analysis.

I’m almost embarrassed to post my 2009 running goals, seeing as how I didn’t quite meet them all. Although, I guess I didn’t do too bad.

These are the goals that I wrote into the front cover of my training log book:

Plan- Run 900 miles in 2009

Actual- With 4 days remaining of the year, I am currently at 1190.81miles.

Plan- Complete my entire “manual” running log book.

Actual- Yep, it’s full and complete. There’s just something in me that can’t rely entirely on a computer log. I like writing it all down!

Plan- Run at least 1 Race every single month.

Actual- I ran a total of 20 organized races this year, running at least 1 each month.

Plan- Run my 1st Half Marathon (In 2 hours or less)
Actual- I completed the Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon on Oct. 3, 2009… although it took me 2 hours, 5 minutes and 56 seconds.

Plan- Explore Trail Running

Actual- Easy enough. We ran a total of 73 miles of trail running and 2 XTerra trail races.

Plan- Beat Race PR’s on my 5,10,12 & 15K distances.

Actual – Not a single PR this year. Although I did get very close to PR’s I set in 2007 and never quite got close to again in 2008. This is going to be a focus on my 2010 plans, seeing as how I failed on this one! Thanks to RC, now I know HOW to do this one.

I am going to wait a few days and ponder my 2010 goals. One problem I’m having is that I got a sudden injury in my heel and ankle area last week. Very bad timing for an injury. It is hard to be optimistic and goal oriented when I am not even sure how long this problem is going to have me out of running. I might see a Dr. and get some more definite answers. That will be another post.

Go With The Flow

2009-12-27T11:54:00.000-08:00

I've accepted the fact that I am injured. It has fully sunk in and I'm OK with it. Really, I am. No, I'm not lying. Ok, maybe a little.

Since the painful slow Christmas Eve run at the loop on Thursday, I rested all day Friday, Christmas day. I soaked my foot in ice water & applied heat in 20 minute increments. Chuck massaged my heel a lot too. We went to my Mom's for Christmas dinner. In between soaking & heating my heel, I ate and we watched movies on HBO all day.

Saturday I bucked up and took RC's advise. Which was to spend equal planned running TIME on the elliptical at my desired Heart Rate.

Meet my new buddy. The Arc Trainer!

See, I hope this sweaty fling is short lived. I don't want it to turn into a long term affair. Although I am thankful to have a gym membership and access to cross training equipment.

Saturday I spent 1 hour total with an Avg. Heart Rate of 162 on this bad boy. Sunday (today) I managed 2 hours total. My equivilant running time should have been a 2.5 hour workout, but I couldn't manage another 30 minutes.

Thanks to Shyenne's new Kindle. The two hours of cardio went by as quickly as I could have hoped. I'm reading Midnight in Madrid. Pretty good so far. Shy's grandpa got her new nifty electronic book for Christmas. But she's sweet enough to share with her Mom!

This week's training hasn't been totally wasted. I still got out and burned some calories. Hopefully I'll be back up and running soon enough. With the cross training I should be able to pick up where I left off. I might even take advantage of the running break and get some swimming practice in. One of these days I am going to do a sprint Tri. Maybe sooner than later.

Christmas Eve 2009.... Long Post

2009-12-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

This holiday season has been less than stressful for me. Simply put, we decided that we were only going to do Christmas shopping for our kids. We set aside a budget. In November we went out one friday and spent that budgeted amount on the kids presents. What do ya know, we were done shopping.

The next weekend was Thanksgiving. The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went and bought a tree and wrapped all of the presents. We decorated the tree, placed the presents underneath. What you ya know, we were done with decorating and wrapping presents as well.

I havn't given a second thought to the holiday hussle and bussle since then. I am very thankful to not work in retail anymore. Oh, how that made me hate the holiday season. That's behind me now. All I've done this year is sit back and enjoy.   Well, maybe I threw in a lot of running in there too!

A month has gone by and Christmas will be here tomorrow. In the morning I'll get to watch my sweetheart Shyenne inspect her loot from Santa and open her gifts.  The rest of the day's plans are to eat a lot of food and relax. Ahhhhh.

As for running. I could whine and complain on this one.

I decided on Tuesday, two days after an amazing 16 mile training run for my Half Marathon in 4 weeks.... to run my first Marathon. I decided that instead of running the Snickers Half Marathon on May 6th, I'm going to bite the bullet and run the FULL MARATHON! So, I emailed RC about my decision. I asked for some advise and reassurance that I'm not insane for wanting to do such a thing.

His answer was simple. Yes, I could do it. Although, if I want to do the full marathon in approx. 11 weeks, I would have to commit NOW. He gave me a few training tips and a long run plan. As soon as I read the email I was all in.

THEN... wouldn't you know. Tuesday night's track workout came around. We got there really early because I got off of work early and I didn't want to drive all the way back to Bryon then come back to Macon. Amy showed up early so me, Amy, Chuck & Mom did some slow laps to pass the time. I ran about a 2 mile warm up. During the warm up my left ankle and heel was hurting, pretty darn bad. RC finally showed up and gave us the game plan. Which sounded super fun. 4 x 400's then a 2 mile "race". Everyone was to guess their 2 mile time at tempo pace and then run it with no Garmin for pacing help. There were even prizes involved for the winner who runs their actual time closest to their planned time! What a cool "speed workout".

I started running my 400's and immediately my heel and ankle was hurting SO bad that I couldn't hold even an 8:30 pace. It was just the pain, not my breathing or my legs holding me back. I did 3 400's and stopped and told Chuck how much pain I was in. I'm not a baby, I'm pretty hard headed and will stick through a lot of things that hurt. But this hurt REALLY BAD!

He told me I should really sit out the 2 mile run, that I should hold back now and not hurt anything any worse. I knew he was right, and against everything in me, I didn't do the race. I had tears in my eyes watching everyone else participate. I just DONT like to quit. I felt like a quitter, even though enough of me knew that I was not running for the right reasons.

I didn't run at all on Wednesday. I iced/heated/rested/alieved... and used our TENS unit on my heel/ankle area.

Thursday morning was the Macon Tracks "Christmas Eve Loop Run". There was plans for everyone to bring treats and we would enjoy hot chocolate after our run.

I was apprehensive about the pain in my foot.  I decided that I would run 2 to 3 miles out and back, getting around 4 to 6 miles in depending on the pain. I told Chuck that I WOULD NOT cry and get all bent out of shape if I had to stop and walk.

At the begining of the run Michelle Archer asked if she could run with me, we were running about a 10:20 pace. She hasn't been running for about a month and wanted to start back slow. We were perfect company. We chatted and ran, slowly. The pain in my foot kept on nagging. It wasn't getting any better or worse as we ran. A few times I stopped and walked with Michelle because her stomach was bothering her.   Walking hurt more than running. I eventually ran a total of 5.28 miles. Not bad I guess. I would have loved to run a tempo run. But that was out of the question. My pace ended up being aound 11:00 min miles.

I talked to RC and he is pretty sure that I developed achilles tendonitis. I didn't realize that could come on so suddenly.

I'm worried that this is going to seriously interfere with my Marathon training plans. Although there is no need to worry. There is nothing I can do to make it disappear. I can just do the RICE and see what happens. Hopefully I'll be able to run some quality runs and my long runs soon. I don't want to miss too much.

We will see what happens???????????????

Reindeer Run 5K 2009

2009-12-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

The Turkey Trots are behind us, bring on the Christmas holiday season! I started out right with my 3rd running of the Reindeer Run in Macon. To be extra festive I put together a little elf costume to wear for the race.

My Step Mom Michele was in town for the weekend so we were able to bring Shyenne and Chuck’s little boy Chase to the race. Michele was there for moral support and to keep an eye on the kids. The kids ended up being excellent race photographers.

As for performance expectations on this race, I wasn’t geared up for a PR. Having run the race before I knew there were a few challenging hills. My goal for the race was to at least get close to my PR, in the 24 min. range would suit me fine.

Chuck, Mom, Michele, Shy, Chase & myself got to the race about an hour early. Chuck and I headed out to warm up. We needed to warm up our muscles for the race, plus it was just COLD out and I didn’t have much covering my legs. We got in about 2 miles before the race started.

RACE TIME! I wasn’t nervous for this one. Just excited and jumping around. The race started on an incline, and stays on an incline…. For what seems like the first 2 miles! I had a hard time keeping my pace anywhere below an 8:00 pace. But I held it steady. Around mile 2 I saw my fellow age grouper Amy and decided that if I could keep her in my sight than I would end up with a decent time.

Running the final stretch of the race I saw Michele, Shy, & Chase cheering and taking pictures. It was great to see them at the end like that. I saw the time clock up ahead, I was in the 24 min. range. I pushed out all I had left in me to keep it under 25. My Garmin read 24:47, the official race results say 24:51.

I am very pleased with this race. It was a strong effort. It was a hilly course. I came in very close to my old PR… something I’ve done twice since I started training under RC’s guidance.

A little Inspiration

2009-12-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

I have such an optimistic view today.

Although it’s raining outside, and according to the forecast, it should be raining like this for the entire day.
That’s ok though. Work is slow right now. I have one project to take care of by the end of the day. It shouldn’t take longer than 30 minutes to complete. So, what am I to do?
I’ve gone ahead and printed a 2010 calendar to plan for some races for the upcoming year. This gets me all excited and in the mood to run! I went online searching for all sorts of races, 5K’s to marathons, road races to trails. Anything fun, new, different, same old favorites…you name it.
I quickly realized that one year is not enough time to do everything I want to do. For example if I pick a 5K that I’d like to PR on, I can’t expect to run a Marathon the weekend before. Chuck and I also have our kids every other weekend, so I have to keep in mind that if we want to run a race on the weekend we have kids, we would have to arrange for a babysitter. So you see, it’s not wide open to run whatever we want to run.
This fun search for races around Georgia and maybe even Florida, got me all in the mood to run… I was feeling my mojo.
Last week was a down week for me, running and otherwise. I was just not feeling it. I’m past it now and feeling wonderful.
I decided to go through the blogs that I follow and just randomly read over everyone’s past year of blogs. I came to the realization, that even though we say it to each other as a comfort when a fellow runner is down… but we ALL really do go through the same things.
Each and every runner that blogs goes through the same cycles.

The “Oh my, I’m going be the best runner ever, I’m going to hit every workout, every pace, run every day, I’m a beast”
Then the, “Ok, I’ve been running a lot, now what"
Then the, “I hate running, I havn’t run in X amount of days, weeks, I wish I had the will to go out and run, what’s wrong with me?”
Then the “OK, I’m through whining about this, let’s get out and run, do my best, be a strong runner, eat right, and hit every planned workout”

We all go through the same cycles. The beautiful thing is, that we always end up back where we started. Fully motivated, recharged, ready to go out and conquer the world.
Not only that. By reading all of my fellow runner’s blogs I remembered one reason I love running so much. It is such an individual experience. We can all be runners, but we all have our own goals. We can be at so many different levels of ability, yet compete in the same event. We don’t have to win the race to meet a goal. We just go out there and do it, do our best, and set our own bar higher and higher as time goes by.
All of this may have been inspired by the amazing speed workout at the track last night.
RC posted the workout on the Macon Tracks site, he called for a 1 mile warm up, 6 / 20 second strides, 2000m – 1600m - 1200m – 800m – 400m all at interval pace followed by a 1 mile cool down. It sounded tough, then I thought about the fact that after the first interval, it would only get easier. Sure enough, we got to the track early since we wanted to get started to get back to Byron. Mom was watching the kids for us so we didn’t want to be out too late.
We warmed up for our first mile, easy. We did our strides. I did NOT want to start that first 2000 meter interval – 5 laps on the track at a goal pace of 7:38. Ugghhh. Regardless, we started it. The first lap I ran a little too fast, so I slowed my roll a bit. Then I settled into the 7:30’s.
2000m – 7:37 Pace, complete.
Then we walked a 400m and geared back up to do a 1600 interval, one mile at a goal 7:38 pace. The pace felt good, I felt strong, and my stride felt very steady.
1600m – 7:35 pace, complete.
During our 1600m the regular group was meeting up for a briefing from RC about the night’s workout. I was already into the workout and I didn’t want to cool back down so I just ran through it. After finishing the 1600 meters (at a 7:35 pace) the meeting was just finishing up, and I looked at RC’s dry erase board where the workout is always written out. He wrote “Killer Intervals”. Ha Ha. The cool part is I knew I had already completed the first two and the last 3 would be a piece of cake!
I ran the 1200m interval at a 7:31 pace.
The 800m at a 7:38 pace, and the 400m at a 7:27 pace.
Overall I stayed under my planned pace of 7:38 so I considered the workout a success. Now I’m ready to tackle the Reindeer Run on Saturday. Hopefully I’ll have a good report from that race. PR or not, it will be fun!

Bartram Forest Winter Run

2009-11-30T08:56:00.000-08:00

I just had a good feeling about this race from the beginning. I had heard a few things here and there from other Macon Tracksters about this race. I had planned to participate in it from the very first time I heard about it. After reading the race information I knew it was going to be a good one. Of course, I was right.

I’m not even sure if it should be called a race, maybe more of an event. The whole idea is that you can run a 50K, a Marathon, or a “Fun Run” completing as many of the 5 mile loops as you wish. My plan was to do the Fun Run version of the event, to complete 3 loops running approximately 15 miles.

Not only was the event extremely laid back as far as which distance you wanted to run, but there was no definite start time, you could stop after each loop and indulge on a wonderful spread of homemade cookies and treats, grilled cheese sandwiches, water, gatoraide, coffee, and more. Sounds good doesn’t it?

We arrived in Milledgeville in plenty of time to get ready to run. Only to discover that there was only one bathroom and the line was very slow moving. Not using the potty was NOT an option. After that we still had to go back to the car and get our Garmins and stuff. Once we got back down to the start line, the race had already started. This is the first race I’ve ever missed the start of. Guess what? It didn’t matter. You could really start whenever you wanted to. So we started the Garmin and off we went.

The loop went something like this:

For about a mile we ran on singletrack trails. It wasn’t too technical. I just wore my regular road shoes. Not too hilly, not hard at all. Then we wended up on some kind of crazy newly made trail that seemed to be freshly bush hogged. It was grassy and uneven. There were holes everywhere and these nasty little small tree stubs that kept trying to grab my shoes. This lasted about a mile or so. Then for a good mile and a half we were on service roads with decent packed surfaces. I remember 1 GOOD hill and another not too bad hill up a power line road. The last mile and a half was back on a double track trail that was pretty easy to maneuver.

I ran loop #1, felt great. Stopped for a few minutes for a cookie and some fluid. Then headed back out for loop #2. On the second loop Chuck’s ankle and Achilles was bothering him really bad. So I kept up with my pace but he slowed down so he wouldn’t hurt himself any further. After loop #2 we stopped again and I ate a rice krispy treat and drank some more gatoraide. Chuck decided to sit out the last loop because he was really hurting. Mom and I took off for our final loop around the forest. The last loop felt the best for me. I ran it faster than each previous loop. While running the last section of trails back to the finish line I saw Chuck up ahead. He decided to run the course backwards to the water station then turn around to get about 3 miles. I finished my “fun run” strong and felt like I could handle two more loops and do a marathon. I have good sense so I quit while I was ahead. We snacked on some of FM’s fudge then headed back to Byron.

I finished with in a total of 2 hours, 30 minutes and some seconds. Not too bad.

Sunday morning when we got up I felt like I had been beat with a really big stick. My whole right side was sore. I guess “good” sore, not injury sore. Today is Monday and I still have some soreness in my calves, quads, and hips. Wow, those hills and uneven terrain really did me in.

Next year, I plan to do the Marathon.

Thanksgiving Week

2009-11-30T08:53:00.000-08:00

Last week was a test for me. It all started with my ~~Long Run~~ Half Mile Hell Run that I’ve already written about. As far as running goes, the day was just bad. Not only did my running suffer starting on Monday, but my healthy diet did as well.

Monday-
About 10 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts greeted me when I arrived at work. I had no will power to deny them, so I ate 4 stinkin’ donuts for breakfast. Then, to make things worse, we celebrated the Warden’s birthday by ordering pizza and we all brought homemade treats. Unfortunately I participated in the celebration. Uhhhhh…
That night, thinking I was all past my blunder of a run on Sunday, I was just going to run on the treadmill, 5 miles. Yeah right. I had a tummy ache and ended up only running 3 easy on the treadmill. I was still in my funk apparently.

Tuesday- Track workout. I did the workout RC posted, which looked something like this:
3 Sets of (2 x 200, 2 x 400, 1 x 800), with the exception of the last 800 on the last set. I did horrible as far as hitting my goal times. My stomach hurt because once again, I ate too much at work… too much of the wrong food!
Wednesday- Rest Day. I worked until about 2 then we headed over to Brunswick for Thanksgiving. We ate dinner out and I had massive amounts of fattening food at the restaurant.

Thursday- Turkey Day! For breakfast we had Pecan Pie! Then we sat around and watched T.V. until noon. Then my mom and I went out (in a strange neighborhood, where apparently the dogs arn't used to runners!) and ran and "easy" 4.5 mile run. We didn’t eat dinner until after 4 because Chuck’s Mom had to work. Once we finally ate, I ate so much I was in pain.

Friday- I planned to run my tempo run, but we slept late, ate pie for breakfast, then drove back to Byron. By 5 PM I knew a run was not going to happen! I didn't even stress about it.

Saturday – Bartram Forest fun run. I think I’ll post a whole separate blog for this one! As far as food goes, I ate whatever I wanted at the race. Later we went out and had Mexican for dinner.

Sunday – RESTED AGAIN! We were so sore from the forest run that there was no way I was going to run. I spent the whole day cleaning the apartment. We also went and got our Christmas tree and decorated for the holiday. I finished off the bad eating / slack running week with Pizza Hut pizza and a Yuengling lite. No more junk for me!

I still managed to sqeak out just over 29 miles for the week. Which wasn't the 40 I had planned on, but far better than I was doing 6 months ago. If 29 miles is my lazy week, then I think I might be OK with that!

I blew out the candles!

2009-11-23T10:38:00.001-08:00

Blew out what candles? Nope, it's not my birthday. It's not my daughter's or Chuck's birthday either. Then what cake am I talking about? It was the cake for my freakin' pity party!

As I type this I think I'm pretty much over it. Party's over, the mess is cleaned up.

I know we've all had our horrible accounts of "the worst run ever". They don't come very often. When they do it's like it's the worst it's ever been. Then a few days later you run again, your legs are light, your lungs are clear, your thoughts are free and easy. It's like the bad run never happened. Sort of like the pain of childbirth. You just forget.

Today I'll just share with you my pitiful almost long run from yesterday. Only because I know, in just a few days, I'll be able to post again about a much, much better run.

It all started Saturday night. Chuck and I went out to dinner with one of his old high school friends. I ate greasy fattening wings and steak quesadillas, drank (just one) beer and had a big chocolate peanut butter dessert. My tummy can be very sensitive anyway when it comes time to run. But eating all that crap the night before, never helps.

I woke up Sunday morning at 5 to get ready for the 14 mile run I had planned to run out at the loop. I had my paces all planned out for each mile. But honestly my heart just wasn't in it. I looked at the temp on my computer. It read 52 degrees. I'm thinking, we usually run in the low to mid 40's. In that weather I can handle shorts and a long sleeved shirt. It's warmer today so I'll just wear shorts and a tee-shirt. Little did I know, it was windy and raning. Both conditions I know I'm perfectly capable of enduring. This morning however, I was NOT feeling it... at all. Chuck and I walked downstairs and I just stopped before we went out into the weather and said "do we really want to do this?". See, Chuck had not run for about 4 days due to his achilles tendon bothering him. He said lets just go and get it over with.

We get to the loop, I still am only wearing shorts and a tee shirt, but I had grabbed a jacket since it was so windy. We get out, suck it up and start the run. Nothing really hurt, except a little twinge in my shins that has been bothering me for about a week. Once I started to get warm my jacket was really getting on my nerves. It wasn't a running jacket, it was loose and baggy. I didn't want to tie it around my waist. I didn't want to throw it on the ground. I was thinking, I can't handle dealing with this stupid jacket for two hours. Then, during the middle of a great pointless hip hop song with a great beat... I dont know... a good one about stippers and $500 in ones. Yeah, during the song my MP3 player stops. I glance down. The screen is blank, it won't come on. Uggghhh..dead battery. I do not want to run for the next two hours with an annoying jacket and Nothing to listen to. I'm griping to Chuck and wanting to stop. Wanting to but knowing that I really wont. I run on for a few more minutes. Then glance down to check out my pace. Guess what? My garmin screen is blank. I fidget with it and manage to press the right combination of buttons to get the stupid thing reset. It restarts, only to show that I'm running a 1 minute mile pace. Ok, I know I'm training to run faster and all, but come on.

Then the screen goes blank again. I just stop, turn around and start walking. Fuming a the stupid garmin. Chuck realizes that I've dipped and he turns around and says he's at least going to run back to the car. I don't. I'm going to walk. I'm pissed. I take off my Garmin and throw the stupid thing in the street. Chuck hears it hit, turns around, picks it up and fusses at me for being immature and keeps running.

I spent the next half mile walking back to the car. Feeling sorry for myself. Feeling embarrased to have thown a watch that cost over $150.00 in the road. Wanting to run my 14 mile run. NOT wanting to run my 14 mile run. Then, while I was at it I just started crying. I kept this thought process going until Chuck had gotten the car and headed my way to pick me up. I got in the car and not a word was spoken all the way back to Byron.

The rest of my Sunday consisted of me laying on the couch and reading a VERY good book. It's called "the Help". Great book. I iced my shins every hour or so and was a lazy bum.

I topped it all off with eating donuts for breakfast this morning and then pizza for lunch today. Not only did I forego my planned long run yesterday, I managed to eat probably 3 days worth of calories in about 6 hours. Go Me!

Now that it's written, and shared. I can say I'm over it.

Thanks to Chuck, my Mom, RC & the Grasshopper for the support & encouragement.

Younglife Turkey Trot 5K 11-14-09

2009-11-16T09:44:00.000-08:00

The 7th Annual Griffin Younglife Turkey Trot 5K was held this Saturday.

I learned of this race from a post on the Macon Tracks Forum and decided I wanted to run it, just for a fun 5K to do on a weekend that our kids aren’t with us. I went ahead and registered, only to learn that 2 more 5K’s were being held much more locally on that same day.

Even though it was an hour drive, I figured the race would give us something different to do… a change of scenery at least.

Saturday morning we sacrificed yet another morning of sleeping in (do I even know what that is?). We were up by 5, of course I needed my prerace “warm up” shower and Me & Chuck needed or pre-race fuel: coffee, a bagel & peanut butter. We left the house soon after 6 in order to get to Griffin at least an hour before the race started (8:30). I wanted make sure we could find the place and be able to do my warm up for about 20 minutes.

Chuck was in charge of directions & driving, so of course we got there with no problems. The race was held at the Wyomia Tyus Olympic Park. It was a beautiful park and a beautiful morning to run. The temp. was in the mid 40’s, the sun was out, and the wind was calm.

We got our race numbers and tee shirts, which were surprisingly technical tees. I didn’t expect to get a Segoi tee with a $15 entry fee! Even though they didn’t have any small size tee’s, they said they would mail me one when they came in.

I asked the race organizers if they had a course map anywhere. A guy on a mountain bike showed us the course, turns out he just rode the course and would be leading the runners on the course during the 5K. TURNS OUT this is a TRAIL/ CROSS COUNTRY 5K. OOPS. I was under the impression that this was somewhat off road, but I didn’t know it was ALL off road. At this point I was sure this wasn’t going to be a PR course. Who cares right? It would be fun.

After a quick trip to the potty, Chuck & I were off to run our warm up, and sort of scout out the area. We finished jogging and waited a few minutes until start time.

The course was CRAZY! We started off on a paved golf cart trail uphill. Went straight down a steep hill and ran into the grass. Wet, uneven grass with ruts all in it. We ran around the edge of a soccer field (some sort of soccer tournament was being held that morning) and up another hill in the grass. We made a left turn and entered a trail like area where the ground was covered in about ankle deep leaves. We couldn’t even see the ground or the possible roots & ruts under the leaves. At this point it was KILLING me to keep an 8:40 pace. This isn’t even my tempo run pace! I tried to high step it over the leaves, the last thing I wanted was a twisted ankle!

Chuck managed to get up ahead of me very early in the race, probably from back when we first started running on the grass. He gradually pulled away further and further. I didn’t even let that bother me, he’s always been faster and more confident on the trails.

After running on the leafy trail, we came back out onto some grass UP hill only to turn right again onto another trail. This one was much clearer, as far as no leaves on the ground. Only now there were visible roots to contend with, wooden bridges, switchbacks, hills, and mud puddles. Fun Stuff.

At about 2.5 miles we came out of the trail (which was beautiful yet painful) and back onto an open grassy area. Only to do what? Run up another hill in the grass. Ahhhh. Only to be lead on a deceiving wet pea gravel driveway. It seemed that running on the gravel would be better than running in the grass. Nope. The gravel was saturated and just sunk under your feet like sand. So, I hop off the gravel only to sink in water in the grass and soak my shoes completely. Back on the gravel. I was huffing and puffing and dying, only to look at my pace. 10:15??? WHAT? This is bad. I knew my time would be horrible, but the terrain was sucking the life out of me. By now, where is Chuck? I don’t know, I can’t even see him anymore!

Completing the torturous pea gravel hill, we are rewarded with SIDEWALK at a decline, yes. It was wonderful. I picked the pace up a little, only to turn left and go again up a hill, but still on sidewalk so I was thankful for that. I know where I am, and I know the end is probably .25 of a mile away. Sweet. I see a young girl in front of me. I’m not betting on having a great time. I did pass quite a few people in the middle of the race on the trail. A few of which might have possibly been in my age group. So, I decided that my last effort would be to pass the high school girl in front of me and not be passed by anyone else.

I trudged up the sidewalk, we cross a road and get back on the golf cart trail we started on. There is a guy in the road stopping cars for us to cross. Behind me I hear foot steps. I hear the guy say “Go {insert female name?}” . I didn’t turn around. I had no idea how old this chick was. Although I decided she would not pass me. I revved up the speed… mentally I was doing track work and I was just going to go for a 400 meter interval. Give it all I had. I passed the girl and never even heard the footsteps behind me again. It was a blonde girl that came in behind me was wearing black tights with blue shorts over the tights.

My finishing time was 28:25. I was disappointed. Thinking I should have done better than that. I do felt like my effort for the whole race was as good as I could give. The course was very tough.

Chuck managed to finish a good 30 seconds before me. Punk : )

We waited around for the award ceremony. My mom got 2nd place Masters Female.
I got 1st in my age group, which they did by 10’s (30 – 39 Female). And guess who walked up to get her 2nd place medal???? Blonde girl with the black tights and blue shorts! Ha!

Poor Chuck, beat both of us, but didn’t bring home any hardware… His age group is tougher. He wouldn’t let us live that down all the way back to Byron.

Chuck and I ended the day with dinner at the Mellow Mushroom. We ate the best Pizza and drank delicious cold beer. I even had desert, white chocolate macadamia nut cookie sundae. After dinner we went to a movie and ate popcorn. I ate so much that I was in pain.

We ended the evening by watching the Bulldogs play, and actually WIN! Well, I didn’t make it through the end of the game. The early morning, the run, the food, and the beer put me in a coma. What a wonderful Saturday!

Improvements?

2009-11-02T12:07:00.000-08:00

4 Weeks of serious focused training down, 11 Weeks to go… until my next half marathon.

I have mixed feelings about my training at this point. I’ve been following my prescribed paces, doing my easy runs, my quality runs, and my long runs. For some reason I still wonder it that’s enough?

I know that it’s probably just self doubt. If I did any more, it would probably be classified as overtraining.

I still can’t help but feel that I’m missing something. Yet when I go back over my log book and my run paces I can’t find any thing that I think I’m doing wrong either?

Maybe I’m just being impatient. I ran aimlessly for 6 years. Now that I am concentrating on really being a better runner, I want it to happen RIGHT NOW!

Even after typing that last paragraph, I know that I am a better runner, now than I was 4 weeks ago. So, I’ll just calm down, continue doing what RC says, be strong, be focused and meet my goals.

Two runs this week proved to me how much I have improved already.

***Pic of Chuck & me, looking not so happy to be up early on a Saturday.***

Jay’s Hope 5K:
I went into this race not expecting to come out with a new PR. Most likely because I knew that a portion of the course would be off road. I’ve run trails enough to know that being off the asphalt SUCKS time off your pace. I did however, want to run a race, preferably with negative splits… and run the race knowing I did my best on that particular day on that particular course.

As for negative splits, can I say “kinda”?
Mile 1 – 8:02
Mile 2 – 8:09 Hmmmm???
Mile 3 – 7:56
.15 – 7:26

The beginning of the course was a gravel road that went at least a half mile down hill slightly, then we turned around and went right back up the hill on gravel road. Yuck.

Did I run the race that morning, the best I could considering the course? I think so. No need to beat myself up about my performance, because at no point while running did I just ease up because it hurt. I pushed as hard as I could push that day.

As far as my finishing time, unofficially being 25:16 (according to my Garmin). Well, it’s slower than my Race for the Cure time last weekend. BUT BUT BUT BUT… it’s faster than every other 5K that I’ve run all from Jan to Oct this year. That’s something to be happy about right?

Regardless of my time, split paces, etc… I had a great time. Chuck, Mom & me enjoyed the whole event. From our crunchy pre-race warm up and strides (that I have to MAKE them do). To the race itself, to hanging out afterwards eating Chick-Fil-A biscuits talking with friends. It was great! OH, and let me not forget that I placed second in my age group!

My race, although not spectacular by any means or a PR did, in my opinion show an improvement in my running over the last 10 months. My long run the next day was more telling.

We (Chuck, Mom & Me) met out at the loop with the Macon Tracks at 7:15 in the cold windy weather to get our long run of the week in. 11 miles were on tap for the morning. My plan was to run the first 6 at my new easy pace of 10:20 – 9:40, starting at the slower end and ending toward the faster end. Then I would run 3 miles at marathon pace, which is now 8:53. Finishing the last two miles at a 9:40 pace, or possibly less. Giving me a negative split run.

I did it, exactly as I planned. I couldn’t be happier to have run 11 miles at a 9:36 pace overall. Not to lose my steam at the end of a long run like I used to. This shows that my efforts are producing results.

I can’t wait to see what the next 11 weeks have in store. I’m ready though!

Race For The Cure 5K

2009-10-26T07:40:00.000-07:00

My third official week of training under RC wrapped up nicely. The weekend held a wonderful race and a long run that packed a punch

The Race for the Cure marks an anniversary of my running. My first 5K was the Race for the Cure in 2003. I can’t believe that it’s been 6 years since I started running. I only wish that I had known all that I know now back when I started. Knowing it now is all that matters and I’ve enjoyed it all the same.

My training week last week consisted of a few easy runs, one night of serious speed work (4 intervals of 1200 meters each! Wow...), one tempo run (That, dare I say, wasn’t very hard?), an extra quality workout being my race, and a long run of 11 miles.

As for Race Day, everything went as well as I could expect. I asked RC what to shoot for as far as pace or goal finishing time. According to my handy dandy little training chart, my “projected” 5K time would be 25:20. RC said that I could pace myself to hit that finish time OR I could go for a PR.

I’m thinking to myself… my PR for 2009 just so happens to be 25:22 at the Cantrell Center 5K. In 2008 my fastest 5K time was in the 27’s (ouch). In 2007 I hit my lifetime PR at the Race for the Cure. So, let’s see, this means I hit a peak back in 2007 that I havn’t gotten very close to in TWO WHOLE YEARS! No time to dwell on being lazy for two years, let’s do something about it… let’s get back to where I was in 2007 at move forward from there!

My plan on race morning was to run an 8:10 pace for mile 1, 8:00 pace for miles 2, and 7:50 pace for mile 3. This should at least get me to beat my Cantrell Center 5K time. I actually ended up running:
Mile 1 – 8:07
Mile 2 – 7:41
Mile 3 – 7:46
.15 – 1.05
My finishing time being 24:40

I am very very happy with my time for this race. Not a PR, but pretty darn close after only 3 weeks of serious focused training. I’m also a little happy that I didn’t PR since I didn’t pay for chip timing, my results wouldn’t have been posted anyway! But I have my garmin data as my own proof, and that works for me!

The day after the race (which I never thought I’d do) I ran my long run of 11 miles. I threw in 3 miles at marathon pace, seeing as how my next goal race is the Mus. of Aviation Half Marathon. It’s time to start getting ready for how it’s going to feel running at that speed for 13 miles! My long run yesterday went well. I ran my first 6 miles at an easy pace averaging 10:30. Then I kicked it in a higher gear for 3 miles averaging a 9:12 pace. The last two miles I really wanted to get in at a faster average pace than the first 6, which I did, with a 9:33 avg. pace. My total time for 11.4 miles was 1:50:19. I couldn’t be happier!

This upcoming week is going to be another tough… high mileage (high mileage to ME) week. I’m going to run the Jay’s Hope 5K on Saturday. I know nothing about the race course at all, so I’m still not sure what I think I’m going to do. I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

Recovery Week... I tried

2009-10-13T07:38:00.000-07:00

Monday, Monday… No, wait. It’s Tuesday. Sure feels like a Monday though, being back to work after a 4 day weekend. Regardless of how if “feels”, today is the 2nd day of my 2nd week of my more structured and goal oriented training under Sam.

Let’s recap last week:

Chuck & I were told from the get-go to “take it easy” this week due to the fact that we “ran an 1.5 hour tempo run” (Sam's words) on Saturday. But, being all excited about the new training program it was SO hard to hold back. So hard that I didn’t really listen well on Tuesday night’s track workout… although I wised up and took it easier on my tempo run Thursday.

Here’s how Week 1 Turned out-

Mon. 10/5 – Easy run on the treadmill, 4.4 miles in 45 minutes
Avg Pace 10:22 - Avg. HR 158

Tues. 10/6 - Speed work @ FPD
(100M Run & Recover, 200M Run & Recover, 800 Meter Run & Recover) x 3

Wed. 10/7 – Rest Day (Taught Body Blitz Class)

Thurs. 10/8 – Easy Run outside, 4.4 miles in 45 minutes

Fri. 10/9 - Tempo Run (1 mile warmup/1mile cooldown)
20 Min. at a little less than tempo pace – avg. 9:01

Sat. 10/10 - Long Run 9 miles @ 10:30 pace Avg. HR 164

Sun. 10/11 - REST DAY… Did NOTHING..ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

After forwarding all of my data to RC… for the most part it was a great training week. I just didn’t cool down enough after my tempo run, my heart rate was still too high. I’ve also been given the OK to start hitting my VDOT chart paces for speedwork. Woo Hoo. I am ready to start challenging myself in that area.

I’m planning on running 2 races in October, both being 5K’s. They are, the Race for the Cure & Jay’s Hope. I’m interested to see how those two races turn out.

I’ve got a good mental plan for the rest of October. RC has been so nice and answered all of my questions about what to do and how to do it. I feel positive and like I’m on the right track.

Oh, one other cool thing…
First off, I think I’ve already mentioned how cool I think it is that I get the opportunity to train with my Mom. Maybe due to the fact that I get to run with her a lot, I don’t think much about how cool it is. (Mom… it’s cool!)

This weekend I got the opportunity to run with my Dad. He was in town briefly this weekend. He had been a runner for a long long time… 30+ years. He had intended to run the Jax Half with us, but his knee started bothering him and he reduced his mileage too much to do that distance. Well, during my long run on Sat… Chuck & I ran past his hotel and he picked up 2 miles with us. It was great to run and chat alongside my Dad. I had not seen him in over a year. We got to catch up a way you only can while sweating out the miles!

It was also cute later on when we took off our shoes and socks and compared foot issues. We have almost the exact same problems spots on our feet. Each have a bunion on the right foot, and the 2nd toe toenails get beat up and turn black, fall off, and the tip of those toes are callused. Interesting…

I plan on another update by next week. Let’s see how training goes for Week TWO???

3 Down, 1 To Go

2009-10-08T06:10:00.000-07:00

Quarters of the year that is.

I started the year 2009 with some pretty firm “resolutions”.

*I wanted to be more consistent with my running than I had ever been previously, and completely fill out my training log.

*I set a mileage goal for myself, which seemed steep at the time.

*I even set a few time goals for race distances I knew I’d be running this year.

Now that 3 quarters of the year have passed, I have 1 left to go to fulfill my ambitions. I decided to reflect on what’s happened so far and make sure I’m on track for the last 3 months of the year.

*As far as consistency, I give myself an A! Taking a quick look at my 2009 log book shows runs about 4 to 6 days per week. From the beginning to now, I’ve averaged 15 – 25 miles per week.

*My mileage goal was 900 miles for the year. As of today (10/7/09) I am at 820 miles. I give myself a A+ on this one.

*My time goals / PR’s for races. Well…… See, this is where I’m lacking. My fastest 5K for the year was a good 2 minutes slower that my PR 5K. I hit a 10K at 30 seconds slower than my 10K PR. And on and on and on… my race times aren’t spectacular by any means for 2009.

Although, if I were to grade myself on the fun and experience of all the races I’ve run in 2009 I would definitely go for the A range. That part of my running IS important and I have enjoyed all of it to the fullest.

That’s where I started pondering some things….

Do I want to get faster and see better race times? Yes….

Am I getting any faster on my own? Nope, it doesn’t look that way.

I’ve managed to go FURTHER, by simply adding mileage to long runs slowly week by week. That’s easy. But, how do I get any faster?

That is the weak link in my chain. The way I was plodding along was something like this: I’ll decide to run faster tomorrow during a run. Then the next week I don’t “feel” like doing anything but logging the miles. Then the next week I would forget I even wanted to get any faster. I was getting very good at logging the miles. Sure, that is hard for some people, but for me I would just write down how many miles I planned to run each day of the week and do it. Although looking back, they were mostly what I think are called “junk miles”?????

Here I am today, in the first week of October. What Now?

Chuck and I both have been talking about wanting to get better, faster, and stronger with our running and race times. Last week we did something I am so happy we decided to do. I am also grateful that the opportunity was there for us. We met with RC for the first time and were pleasantly surprised and highly impressed by his knowledge of the sport, his passion about the sport, and his willingness to help others with a mutual desire to improve as a runner.

We’ve officially been schooled:
Learning very specific information and given some pretty clear rules to follow. He gave us guidelines on creating weekly training and plans all the way down to what paces to run specific distances and HR levels. Not to mention some AMAZING spreadsheets to pour over. I love spreadsheets!

Although I have this huge resource now, I think I have even MORE questions. Luckily Sam is very helpful and so nice about giving advice. I’m sure before I know it I’ll be confident in my training and have a clear plan and direction from the big picture down to my planned mile split times.

I CANT WAIT!!!!

More to come……

I Did It!

2009-10-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

On Saturday October 3, 2009 at 7:00AM the gun went of and I started to run my first Half Marathon.

The Jacksonville Marine Corps Half Marathon!!!

The race weekend began on Friday morning. Chuck, my Mom, and me piled into the car and headed to Jacksonville, FL. The 4 hour trip flew by since we were all hyped up, talking and having fun. We arrived in Jax right at lunch time and went by the 1st Place Sports running store to pick up our packets, race shirts & goodies.

Then we embarked on the adventure of finding lunch. We wanted to go to Sweet Tomatoes, but I had no idea how to get there. Finally getting directions, actually GETTING our car into the parking lot of the restaurant was a different story… but we did make our way there. Sweet Tomatoes is a delicious salad bar, soup, bread, potato, pasta, and dessert buffet style place. It is sooooo yummy. Perfect for pre race carbs, but not too heavy either.

After filling up on a late lunch/early dinner we headed to the hotel to check in. We stayed at the Wyndham Riverwalk Hotel, which was the host hotel for the race so the rates were reasonable. The hotel is nice and clean too.

It was early to bed for us Friday night. We were in bed by 7:30 and asleep by 8PM. The alarm was set for 4:30 and I wanted to be sure to get plenty of rest.

4:30AM came dark and early. We got up, showered to wake up and warm up our muscles, drank some coffee and had a protein bar. We drove over the river to the start line by the Jax Jauguars stadium. We were at the starting area soon after 6AM. Picked up our champion chip timers and wandered around waiting for 7:00 to roll around. Sure enough… it did!

After very recently having an introductory lesson from my new running coach Sam… I had a very simple race plan for finishing today’s run in right at 2 hours. I wanted to start off at a 9:30 min/mile for approx. 4 miles. Then go to a 9:15 min/mile for approx 4 miles. Then run the last 5 miles at a 9 min/mile. That SHOULD have put me in right at 2 hours like I wanted. Simple, Right?

Well…. Let’s see. Starting off, I felt WONDERFUL and FANTASTIC. Downtown Jacksonville is neat and pretty and the race atmosphere was fun. So, I had to MAKE myself SLOW DOWN for the first mile. Then we ran over the Main Street Bridge, which I had to slow myself down going up, and of course running back down. Not too much further down the course we ran over the Acosta Bridge, which is quite a higher bridge (81 feet over the water). That one wasn’t easy, but not hard either. After coming down the second bridge I just set myself on “cruise control” and focused on maintaining my planned paces for each mile.

Things were looking good… really just mile after mile passing by. Until about mile 11 my pace slowed and there wasn’t much I could do to make myself speed up to my goal of the 9 min/mile. It was getting Hot. I was getting Tired. Nothing impossible, I just could feel the amount of time I had been running wearing on me. Then we had to run over a “cat walk” to cross over the river under a big bridge. It was at an incline, then we had to run down four flights of a spiral ramp which zapped some energy. At mile 12 I knew my hopes of getting the race finished in less than 2 hours was O-V-E-R…. unless I was going to push out a 6 minute mile. Uh, nope… the sun was glaring in my face, I was soaked with sweat… and just plain Tired. So I concentrated on the last mile telling myself “In 9 minutes you’ll be able to say you ran a half marathon”….. “In 8 minutes you’ll be able to say you ran a half marathon” and so on.

The finish line was hidden. Most of the last mile was down a straight street that you could see all the way down to the end of. But at the last minute the course turned and you are guided onto a grassy park area where the finish line awaited.

The finish line was neat, they had tanks set up as an archway to run under and Marines were putting the medals on our necks. We got a very nice glass with the USMC emblem on it. Let’s not talk about how I though for about 10 minutes I was gonna puke up Gatorade and a GU pack. But, the nausea passed and I ate a granola bar. Unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy the free post race beer. No Way could I stomach that! I think Chuck had my share.

Our official times were: 10K Chip Gun
(Age Grp-32 out of 97) Kathy Wilkins, 31, Byron, GA 58:20 2:05:30 2:05:56
(Age Grp-16 out of 63) Cheryl Coody, 52, Byron, GA 59:08 2:08:16 2:08:43
(Age Grp-63 out o f 88) Chuck Whitaker, 43, Byron, GA 1:00:13 2:13:14 2:13:40

We didn’t stick around the post race celebration long. I was soaked with sweat and I wanted to pop a few blisters on my toes that were killing me. Back at the hotel I had the BEST hot shower and then relaxed on the bed for about 15 minutes.

Later that day we went to the Jacksonville Running Company to visit Josh Myers. After getting some new running gear, we went to Wild Wings for lunch/dinner. We ate tons of food and wings and drank some great cold beer!

Saturday night we walked from the hotel to the Jacksonville Landing across the river. It was a nice night out, they had a band playing and everyone was outside enjoying the weather and beautiful scenery.

We still managed to get to bed early again, since we were worn out from the race. Sunday morning we were up early to run a 4 mile recovery run, before checking out of the room then heading back to Byron.

Sore Hamstrings

2009-09-23T08:10:00.001-07:00

Why are my hamstrings sore??? Maybe it has something to do with the great track workout I got last night.

After we got off work at 5PM yesterday we rushed to Byron to pick up our kids, swing by the apartment, change clothes, grab the kids a snack and get right back in the car. The MTRC track workout starts at 6:30PM and we got there right on time.

Sam informed us that we would be running 400 meters at an effort of 8/9 out of 10. Then we would walk 200 meters to cool down completely. He was suggesting that more experienced runners perform 10 reps of this workout and that newbies do 6 to 8 reps. Then we were to end the speed work with one mile of running.

This being our first speed work in A LONG TIME we decided at the beginning that we would try for the 6 to 8 reps depending on how we felt. I have no desire to try and show off and end up hurting myself! After the first 400 meter fast interval we laughed and said “yeah, let’s go for six”. I feel like we put in an honest 8/9 effort! I kept glancing at my Garmin and seeing the miles per minute around 6:30 and 7:00. I’m not sure if that’s what I’m supposed to be doing or what??? But it felt good.

Now, not only do I have my nifty Garmin, but I’ve got the heart rate monitor to give me even more training info. Still not 100% sure on where exactly I need to be in this area, (plenty of time to learn right?)… I just glanced at my heart rate at the very end of the speed interval, every time is was right at 190 bpm. Then at the end of my recovery walk it was always back down to 125 bpm. I guess this is alright?

I also learned that my new Garmin is quite a bit smarter than me! I wanted to press lap at each new interval. Well, the Garmin would start a new lap all on it’s own after I had pressed lap at that location. The book said that it can remember a location and auto lap. I don’t know, I’ll figure it all out soon enough. I thought it was funny though because I ended up with about 40 laps because I was manually pressing the lap button and my Garmin was creating laps all together. WEIRD.

Tonight I plan on resting from running. I have to teach a “Body Blitz” class at the gym. It is a weight training class that works upper body, lower body, abs, and I focus a lot on stretching. Sometimes I make everyone jump rope between weights, but they don’t like that so much. All the more reason to do it right! The thing I like most about doing the class is that it forces me to get some ab/core training in, which I tend to get lazy on.

Oh yeah, and did I mention my hammies are tight???

Jacksonville Prep

2009-09-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

Somehow or another, time has had a way of sneaking up on me and suddenly here I am. Less than 2 weeks away from my first Half Marathon. On Oct. 3rd we will be in Jacksonville, FL running the Marine Corps Half Marathon.

For some odd reason I am not nervous in the least bit. Not one bit. Maybe because I know I can run 13 miles. I have not figured up a strict mile split plan yet. The only guidelines that I’ve given myself for this race, is to run it in 2 hours or less. This averages out to a 9:10 – 9:15 minute mile. I think I’m just going to get out there on race morning and see how I feel and go with the flow. It will be my first half ever so I’ll be proud of myself as long as I finish and I know I did my best.

Since the Labor Day Road Race I have been making my weekly running plans and following them for the most part. I’ve taken a few extra rest days due to some tightness in my right hip. It isn’t painful so I’ve just been icing it some and not pushing too much.

Chuck and I finally joined the Macon Tracks Running Club. We got to meet a lot of the people that keep the club “running” while working with them on the LDRR. They are all so friendly and we’ve all got common goals, we figured it only made since to join up officially.

We’ve also committed ourselves to join them every Tuesday (as schedules/kids allow) and push ourselves on the track doing speed work to see how our race results can improve. I’m really looking forward to that.

Secondly, for the camaraderie as well as a change in scenery, we are going to join the running group for their long run out on “The Loop”. Well, this won’t be an every week thing for us since we will always have our kids every other weekend. But, on the weekends we are childless, we will be there to run!

Our first run of The Loop was yesterday. Our intention was to run the whole 12 miles, in preparation for the ½. We did it, although we weren’t expecting quite so many hills. Did I mention that we were the “slow pack” of the group? Oh well, that’s what the Tuesday track sessions are for right?

One more bit of exciting news!!!! I got a new goodie for my birthday coming up. Michele sent me a Garmin 305 with a heart rate monitor. I’ve been drooling over a new one and I used it for the first time yesterday. Well, I didn’t hook up the HR monitor. I didn’t want to run 12 miles for the first time with something strange strapped around my chest!!! I was scared it would rub on me. I’ll give it a try for the first time on a much shorter run!

Plans for tonight are an easy 3 on the treadmill. Gotta get the crunchies out of my body from yesterday’s workout.

2009 Macon Labor Day Road Race

2009-09-10T11:26:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I have been picking on Steve about not updating his blog in, um... Forever, but then Chuck informed me that I havn’t posted on MY blog since August. So, I guess I should get busy.

The biggest deal in my little running world would have to be the Labor Day Road Race. The whole weekend ended up being wonderful!

I have wanted to help out with a race for a long time. I’ve been running in races for 6 years now. I know I should at least help out when I can. And for now, my schedule has me off on Friday’s. That left me with no excuse… I had the time to do it now. I ended up (dragging Chuck along too) helping out with the packet pick-up on Friday afternoon. I had a really good time and it was so nice to actually meet some of the people I had been in contact with online from Macon Tracks. Chuck was all cute about it too, he just though he was going to hang out with me till I was ready to go, but he ended up helping out too and really enjoyed it as well. We had no plans on Sunday so we offered to come by again and of course the race organizers were willing to accept the help.

One more thing about the Macon Tracks group… I’ll just have to say that I’m shy. Chuck is my personality opposite, so he brings me out some. But the people of Macon Tracks were so nice and friendly that I just immediately felt comfortable being around them. I was intimidated at first thinking I would feel like an outsider or something. It wasn’t like that AT ALL! That’s just my little neurotic self thinking though. I’m just happy that I made myself go and get over that little fear I had.

On to the BIG deal: The race! The Macon Labor Day Road Race was the first race I ran that really impressed me. I ran that race for the first time in 2004 with my Mom. It was my first 10k as well. The whole time we were running the race I remember saying to her “we have to do this race EVERY year”. It was nice that it is a big race, well organized, and the point to point is always fun. I’ve only missed the LDRR one year, due to having the flu. Plus, when I picked up my packed that year I swear my number was #666… I was NOT wearing that in a race!

This year’s race was just as great as I hoped it would be. I got my 10K PR on this course in 2007. Ok, yes that was 2 years ago. I was beginning to think it was a fluke. My goal this year was to at least match my time of 52:38, or hopefully beat it. I planned out my mile splits just like I did for this years Jim Herrin race and I wrote my goals on my arm with a Sharpie. (Hey it worked once!) My average mile pace was planned to be 8:27.

I won’t go into all the tiny details of the race. I’ll just say I enjoyed the course, the weather was nice, my tummy wasn’t a mess, and I wasn’t sick. So, all was good. I ended up finishing in 52:56 (chip time), being 18 seconds short of my goal. OK, I’m not even upset now. Because at least I know my PR from 2007 wasn’t a fluke. I can really run a 10K that fast (fast to me anyway). Woo Hoo!!!!

After the race we stuck around for the award ceremony. My Mom & my Aunt placed in their age groups. Go Them!!!!! And we said Hi to our new friends from the Macon Tracks. Monika gave me a copy of the club’s newsletter that ……………GUESS WHAT???? Featured MY Blog!!!! I was so silly and excited about that. For about 10 minutes I was all giddy like I was a Supa-Star! (Thanks Amy for picking my blog!)

We hopped on the trolley shuttle back to the start of the race. Since we parked by RunFit Sports and the store was having a celebration for Labor Day as well as their anniversary, we decided to stop by and see what was going on. To our delight, they were giving out FREE COLD MICHELOB ULTRA and hot dogs. What could be better? We sat around and talked to Steve and ate before we headed home to shower and relax for the rest of the day.

Relax is exactly what we did for the rest of the day. I went to bed at 6PM! I guess the race took a lot out of me, and it had been a long weekend.

August Record

2009-08-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

Not much new to post for now.

I've been planning my training each week, and following those plans pretty close. Good, but sorta boring for the most part.

I just entered my miles for last week into my online log, and noticed that I ran 115.80 miles for the month of August. This is a record for me! I guess it helped that August is a long month, but I am not complaining.

My two biggest goals are Labor Day and the 1/2 Marathon on Oct. 3rd. I am doing tempo runs in an effort to do good at Labor Day for the 10K. I have been running long runs on the weekend to get my mileage base up for the 1/2. So far I've gotten to 10 miles, but not really anywhere close to my 1/2 pace time. I guess we will see on race day.

This coming up weekend I wont do a long run, since the LDRR is on Monday and I dont want to kill my legs before the race. Then the next two weekends after that I will run 11 then 12 miles. After that rest a weekend then the 1/2 will be on me. I can't wait.

I have been going to the pool at least once a week. Focusing on a base for swimming training. I'm trying to get the basics down, work on technique. Then after the new year, start focusing on endurance for a tri. And I WANT A ROAD BIKE so bacd I can't stand it. But I will be patient.

Chuck has been nursing a bad shin splint for a whole week. He only got 5 miles in last week. I wish he'd get better. Running isn't nearly as fun without him around. Hopefully he'll be "back up and running" soon. I miss his company.

Make it Go Away!

2009-08-18T05:00:00.001-07:00

This feeling as if I'm coming down with a cold. I dont wanna get sick, I dont wanna...I dont wanna... I dont wanna. Make it go away. I've been taking my multi vitamin/ vitamin C & D later in the day. I'm eating very good (somehow my willpower has been top notch lately?). I dont wanna get sick.

I just feel sorta tired, scratchy throat, like my head is too heavy for my neck to support. I'm trying to tell myself that it's allergies. That my head feels heavy because of the swimming I've been doing... that my shoulders & neck are just adjusting to the new workout. I dont want it to be a cold. Tonight I am going to TRY to go to be extra early and get some rest. Before all that can happen I still have 8 more hours left of my work day and a 5 mile tempo run planned for tonight. Hmmmmm??????????? Chuck is going to tell me I need to rest, just go home and lay down... (but I know he secretly wants to get in more miles than me, and I can't let him beat me... muuaahhahahah).

To pick up from last week's post: I did my 5 mile tempo run on the treadmill. Hitting my 3 hard effort miles at between an 8:45 & 8:30 minute mile, as planned. I'm leaning towards an 8:35-8:40 m/mi for Labor Day 10K. I think this is doable... IF I DONT GET SICK!!!!

Thursday I rested... Good Girl! Friday morning I was off, so I waited until about 9 and went outside to run 4 miles. I ended up finishing in 35:16! Wow, I wasn't planning on hitting it that hard, but it felt good... despite the 100% humidity and frequent inclines on that course.
Friday afternoon I went to the Cantrell Center and swam 800 meters! I even went 100 meters STRAIGHT without stopping. I just did 25m freestyle, 25m breastroke and alternated to get to 100 meters. I was quite happy with that swim.

Saturday I went to the apartment treadmill to get in some junk miles, just 3. Ran 1 mile slow, one at a 8:50 pace, and one mile slow. Then got in the apartment pool and played around swimming laps, just focusing on technique and breathing, not going for distance or time.

On Sunday I got up EARLY and met with my mom for our weekly long run. We ran 8 miles starting at 6:15AM. We ran down Watson Blvd, turned into the C'ville mall, circled the parking lot once, down Houston Lake, turned on Thomson Rd, then into Eagle Springs, back out of E.S. onto Gunn Rd & back to the Apt. It was a good run, very warm & VERY humid. But luckily the sun never came out. I kept the pace slow (avg. 9:56) that's all I had in me that morning.

As for the Ab/Core training. I am keeping up my end of the bargain! I've done some training at least every other day. I've been scoping out all my magazines and getting some new moves to try. I've got a good workout I'm probably going to try tonight.

I mentioned earlier that I've been eating good lately. For some CRAZY odd Insane Unrational reason... I have had incredible willpower and not been cheating on my diet. I've been good with portion control and not eating many sweets at all. That settles it... I AM SICK! No, but really, I hope I can keep up the good nutrition because I can run so much better when I feed my body right.

With any luck, I will not get sick and continue on my training... next goal: Labor Day Road Race!

Runner out of Air

2009-08-12T06:06:00.000-07:00

After resting on Monday, aside from an easy spin class.... cool thing about being the teacher ( I can cheat)...

Last night I hit the treadmill and ran 3 miles of hill intervals. It was a better run than I anticipated. I just did .25 warmup, then went to a 3% grade for .25, recover for .25 then 4% for .25, recover 2.5, 5% for 2.5, recover .25, and repeated 3%, 4% & 5% each for .25 with an equal recovery. The workout went by real fast with all the incline changes.

We hit the weights quickly last night. I just did a little chest work with dumbells. I have vowed to do abs/core work 3 times a week. I did that Monday and plan to hit it again tonight. I have made this vow several times this year and have yet to stick with it.

Finally, Chuck and I went by my mom's & dropped of my sweet little pumpkin (Shy) and went over to the Cantrell Center for our 2nd free visit to the pool.

My ATTEMPT of a swim workout went something like this:

25 meters freestyle (then rest 15-20 seconds) x 24
Total of 600 meters, but I had to rest every 25 meters.
Not too bad I guess, considering I'm trying to teach myself.

I know HOW to swim and my form is lacking somewhat. But with practice I know that will come as well.

Next time I swim, I think I'll try for 5o meters straight without a rest. My biggest problem is not relaxing while I swim. I kick my legs too hard and too fast & it wears me out. It's like I'm trying to run underwater... I need to change modes and use my ARMS. Hopefully I will adapt to the water...

Tonight's plan is a 5 mile tempo run on the treadmill. Fun stuff!

Jim Herrin 10K 2009

2009-08-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my 2nd 10K of the year, and I did something I had never done before.

Before I tell you what I did, I guess I'll go back and tell why real quick. I like to read a couple of local runner's blogs as well. A few of them use a coach and follow specific training programs. I think it only makes since to not only read the information they post, but to use it as motivation, AND pull tid bits of information and learn something as well. They speak of techniques and race pace training runs and such. A lot of that confuses me to be honest, but I think I get the overall idea... maybe? So, after reading a post last week, I dediced to plan out 1/2 mile split times for my race on Saturday and have a goal finishing time.

That shouldn't sound so crazy. I've been doing a lot of racing this year, and yeah, I even had some PR goals written down in my training log. I havn't met a single PR goal, I think I set them too high!

So, on Wednesday I decided that I was going to run my 10K in 55 minutes. Not being a PR (52:26) but a few minutes faster than my previous 10K this year (57:4?). Reasonable right? I thought so.

Saturday morning I got up at 5:45, showered, and got on the running gear. Ate my mini bagel with peanut butter and drank a half cup of coffee. Then I got out the fine tip sharpie and wrote my goal split times down on my arm... I felt like a REAL runner... neat!

So that's what it looked like.

I got to the race and I was so stinkin' nervous. I NEVER get nervous before a race, because I never really worry too much about how I do. I like races because they are fun. It's a chance to get out, run a different course, and be around many other peeps who also enjoy running. If I feel fast, I go fast. If I feel slow, I go slow. I never intended to PR on races where I did so before, it just happened that I felt great that day and I went with it.

The race was great! I started off at my goal 8:50 pace, and pretty much floated from 8:30 to 9:00 min. miles. I had moments in the run I felt like I was flying, and moments when I wondered why I was even there... as usual.

As the race wore on, I was noticing I was consistenly beating my mile split plans. I felt good, so I didn't slow down. I figured I'd keep the pace, and use the extra time later if I had any problems. Problems never occured. Once I finally came into view of the Finish line timer, it read 53:25.... Heck Yeah, Obviously I was going to break the 55 minute goal I'd set for myself. Finished in 53:57, a whole minute faster.

After fininishing the race I was a very happy girl for achieving a goal. And I tought myself a lesson. I can train to go a little faster. I can set goals, and not be scared of not meeting them. I think I was resisting goals in fear of not meeting them?

My goal for the Labor Day 10K is to beat my all time PR (Labor Day 2006 52:26).... I am sure I can do it, if not at least try. If I don't, there is always another race day!

Oh, and I placed 2nd in my age group.

Sleepy, Frustrated...Looking at the Rainbow

2009-08-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

I got my new Runners World this weekend. Oh yeah! I love diggin' into a new magazine. I read one article about how your day can sabatage your running. One thing they mentioned was of course getting enough sleep at night. Well, I read that article while laying on the couch as Chuck watched some King Alexander movie on Scyfy... and reading how you should avoid TV and computers up to 30 minutes before bed. Well, I wasn't really watching the movie, but I figured I'd get up and go lay in the bed, get comfy, and read the rest of my magazine.

So, I get to an article about a girl (Tera something) that has had chronic insomnia for years, she's a little younger than me. The article was good. I related becuase I am prone to insomina myself. Not very bad. But I'd say at least once a week I can't fall asleep. And at least once a week I'll wake up at 3 AM or so and not be able to go back to sleep. Sometimes it will be 3 days in a row, sometimes I'll go 2 weeks and sleep just fine. I guess it's anxiety... I don't know for sure.

After reading this article, wouldn't ya know, I turn off the lights & try, but I can't freakin fall asleep. I got up at about 11 PM and took a half a dose of benedryl... knowing it would make me groggy in the morning. But I was tired of laying in bed tired, but wide awake.

And I have to get up at 5 every morning for work. So I got six hours of drugged sleep. Not enough I feel, since I usually log at least 20 miles a week.

All day today I've been blah and sleepy. Then other personal & financial issues are just nagging at me... mostly bothering me only because I'm tired.

I was all hyped up about running and biking more, and planning on getting to the pool to swim one day this week... all energized mentally. Now I just feel drained. It's only monday afternoon.

It's hard to balance everything. I guess I do a decent job at the balancing. I'm a libra... it's my nature : ) But, sometimes I wish things were a little easier.

I'll get my run in tonight, and get my miles logged for the week... Reach those goals and try not to put to much effort into throwing any kind of pity party. I have exactly 2 more months till my first half marathon. I'm super excited about that. Plus, yesterday Chuck found a cool race I've never run in Savannah... Savannah River Run. It looks to be even more challeging than the Gate River Run (my fav of the year). So, that's in December... something else to look forward to.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

2009-07-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

It's monday... and back to work I go.

I throughly enjoyed my vacation. I had never been to Jekyll Island before, so I was pleasantly suprised. I just thought it was so neat that it is so laid back there. No fast food joints, no traffic, no hussle and bussle. I didnt even get in a car for 4 days. We walked where we needed to go since Chuck was actually there for a conference, they had lunches and dinners planned on site at the condos we were staying in. It was perfect. I finally got to run on the beach on Sat. morning. The tide was usually in when it was cool enough to run, so I ended up running bike paths for most of the week. Which was perfectly fine with me. I would love to go back there some day. It was great.

Yesterday, our first day back home. We ran the XTerra 10K out at the Pig Trail in Macon. It was a great run. Well, they had done a lot of logging out at the trail all month, finishing it just a few days before the race. So the landscape was shockingly changed. It was sorta depressing, but I know these things happen for a reason. I started out feeling froggy. Ran great in the first half of the race. The last half, the hills and heat got to me. I ended up finishing right over a 10 min mile. I was very pleased with this time considering the crazy trail terrain and hills. My time was much better than my Trail 15K up in Jackson. That was horrible!

Now, I've got to put together a plan for the week's workout. I've discovered that I can start training some at the Cantrell Center pool. I though I'd have to get a membership, but I can swim for $5.00 a visit... which will be more cost effective for me since I won't be able to go very often. I'm excited to start a good swimming training base, so that I'll at least have that under my belt when I get ready to train for the sprint tri next spring. I found one in Jekyll actually... I'm going to look more into that very soon.

I just cant decided where I want to put all of my effort... a marathon or a sprint tri? I know I have to pick one due to the fact that I dont have tons of time to train. We will see : )

Jekyll Island

2009-07-21T05:27:00.000-07:00

I am in heaven! Really! I havn't felt this relaxed and carefree in a long time. I'm always rush rush rush... on a schedule, working 10 hour days, pushing miles on the treadmill.... ahhhhhhh. Well, not this week. I'm in Jekyll with my sweet man Chuck for the week. He's got a gang conference for work which really only lasts 3 1/2 days... but we've turned it into a week vacation.

So far, I've had a blast livin' it up and chillin' with a bunch of crazy fun lovin cops. We've been hanging out on the beach, in each other's condo's, grillin out and enjoying the get away. Chuck and I got up early both mornings so far to run. I got 4 in yesterday and 5 this morning. Both runs were great, we just did an out an back on the bike trail that lines the island. Tomorrow I've got my sights set on 6, then probably a rest Thursday morning.... because Wed. night is probably going to be a late night.

Well, the boys just left for class. Poor pitiful me... nothing left to do until lunch except play around on the internet, go down to the beach and read my book, maybe take a walk. Oh, I dont know how I will cope. Hahaha... They're cooking out burgers and dog for lunch. I might end up needing to run 2 times a day to burn off all the extra food and beverages I'm consuming. Oh well, I'm having fun and that's all that matters.

Before I go, check out the pretty pic of our cozy cottage style villa condo. I love it. I could SO live here.

Bon Temps

2009-07-17T17:54:00.000-07:00

Weird title, I know. See, I can't do anything without looking for some kind of deeper meaning I guess. Chuck and I have been all into this show on HBO called True Blood, amazingly enough... about vampires. We've gotten the first season on DVD and now we're ready for the second season to be out... since we don't have HBO. Well, the ficticous town that the story is set in is called Bon Temps... which when pronounced sounds more like, bon tom... yeah... try to sound french. I was showering this morning and wondering what that means in french, looked it up, and it's "good times". I like that. Cause isn't that what life is all about? The Good times.

Aside from my ability to say "I learned something new today" (which I'd like to do everyday) first thing in the morning. My day has been great. I spent the morning in with my sweetie, I cooked eggs, bagles, and coffee... ate while we watched the Tour de France. Later, we went to the Cantrell Center for the first time and swam some laps. I went a total of 400 meters. It was a very enjoyable workout. I can't wait to go back.

My running for the week has been alright. My training has been limited to the treadmill, due to the heat. I'd love to run before work when it's not so hot, but I have to leave the house at 6AM and I'm really not interested in getting up before 4 to go run. I used to run early in the am, but not that early! I am planning on going out for my long run tomorrow morining with my mom at about 6:30 to beat the heat.

I went in and edited a few posts and added some pictures I've been meaning to upload. So If anyone is interested, I've got a pic of my new tattoo on the Tat post and some pics on the XTERRA post.

Well, I'm tired and I want to get to bed since I plan to get up early.

All.... don't forget to live it up and enjoy the bon temps!

Tatt It Up

2009-06-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

So, this is a first for the year. Guess how many miles I logged last week. ZERO. And guess what else, I'm not even mad about it.

Monday I taught spin, Wednesday I swam 600 meters (may not be a big deal to you, but oh my!) Sat and Sun I rode my mountain bike on the road for a total of 17 miles between the two days. So, it's not like I sat on my butt doing nothing. Oh, and I worked a part time job on Tuesday night, so I couldn't run that night.

Wednesday I got a new Tattoo! It's my 3rd one. I think it's my favorite. I'll try to post a pic of it sometime this week. It put a damper on my running cause my sports bra would rub on it and it was very sore for a few days.

This week I'm going to try to ramp up the miles to make up for what I didn't do last week.

I'm sure I'll be just fine though!

Plans... dreams.... TRAIN

2009-06-24T05:06:00.000-07:00

Not much new has been going on as far as my training goes. I’ve been back in the groove of things for the last two weeks, that I’m happy about.

Right now my training goal is the USMC ½ Marathon in Jax. So, my simplistic plan is to do my long runs on the weekend. Increasing my mileage by 1 mile per week, then dropping back down every 3rd week for a rest. I’m working on a tempo in the middle of the long run at my “1/2 pace”. The long run we are doing also consists of a few monster hills on the way out, and the monster hills on the way back again. So, I think that’ll have me ready for anything. By the time Labor Day gets here the hill going up past the interstate won’t be anything!

My running during the week has consited of treadmill (It's HOT outside) and trail runs on Sunday if our schedule permits.

This week I plan on doing 10 miles on Sat. morning. I’ll try to get a tempo in at a 9:15min/mi for at least 3 miles. We’ll see how that goes. We will probably have to get up at 5:30AM to get out there early enough before it gets too hot. Our 9 mile run last week ended at about 9:15AM and we were MELTING!

I’m going to the pool to swim for the first time “for real” today. I say “for real” because I have been swimming in my apartment’s pool for the last few weeks. I have never been taught to swim… I took a swimming class at MSC back in 2000 and I don’t think I fully got the hang of it back then! So, my form started out HORRIBLE and I felt like I was going to die while swimming… I couldn’t understand how I can run for 2 hours, but not even swim for an entire minute!!!!! But, I’ve looked online and gotten some tips on technique and tried to apply them the best I can without a “coach”. I can already feel some improvement with not getting tired as quickly. Oh, and yest I must admit that a good pair of googles makes all the difference in the world!

Back to my swim plans for today…. We are going to a REAL 25 meter lap pool today and I can’t wait. I even had a dream about it last night. My mom had on a clear swim cap and I was all mad because I didn’t have a swim cap. How dare she show up more prepared than I was… Hahaha… I’m nervous about the swimming because I still don’t think I totally know what I’m doing. But, there is only one way to figure it out right?

My ultimate goal is to do a tri next spring. I am taking baby steps. The running section will be the easy part hands down. As for biking… I’ve been riding my mountain bike on the trails, which has got to be building “biking” muscles…. But I know it’ll be different on the road. We are probably going to get road bikes at Christmas time… I hope. Then swimming. Well, I guess my goal is to start off slow now. See if I even think I can really do it. Then at least try to swim once a week to keep up a base of training. Maybe up the training more when I get into a serious 16 week out training for the tri. Also, there’s the “open water” thing that I’ll have to learn how to do once I really figure out how to swim. Oh My! But I really really want to do this.

I want to actually BE the BEAST I dream of being!!!!

XTERRA DEEP SOUTH 15K

2009-06-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

This weekend ended up quite nicely!

I took Friday and Saturday as rest days. Since I’m still not so much in the groove of things, I wasn’t resisting the rest like I normally would. Chuck and I had all three kids at the house this weekend. We took them to the pool most of the morning on Saturday. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon watching rented movies.

Sunday was THE day. We had been training for the XTERRA Dauset Trails Deep South 15K. It’s been our goal race since the Gate River Run in March. I was putting a lot of stock into this run. BUT, who am I to decide when I get sick, and when I lose my magic running mojo?

We got up at 5:30 AM and went through our normal race morning routine. Shower, coffee, bagel with peanut butter…. We filled up the Camel back and packed up the running gear and headed to Dauset Trails.

I wasn’t nervous about the run at all. I guess because at this point I hadn’t properly trained in my mind, so if I totally screwed up, I would certainly know why. I had only run a total of about 15 miles in 2 weeks, as opposed to my normal 20ish each week. Also, looking back we didn’t run on the trails to “practice” nearly as much as we would have liked.

We arrived right at 8AM. Picked up our packets, visited the potties, got geared up and pinned on the bibs, then stood around for about 15 minutes until the start. At 8:30 we began around the parking lot about a half a mile and finally into the woods. It was pretty, as usual. I was feeling OK, I was telling myself “this isn’t so bad” “I can do this” “It’s JUST 9 miles”… This worked for about the first 4 miles. Then I started to lose some wind. We went up a big hill that I normally probably would have been fine running up. Not this time. I just let the fatigue set in and I started walking. Mom was feeling her fire, so she took off. Chuck, being my sweetheart, stayed back with me and walked and encouraged me to keep on going. I started jogging again. The whole time not wanting to get too fast and trip and bust my face open.

I had my Garmin on. I know it’s not totally accurate in the woods, but it’s usually pretty good. It was showing right past 7.5 miles. I was thinking, less than 2 to go, I can SO do this. THEN… we got to the last water stop. The guy at the stop told us we were at 6.5. WHAT???? Your telling me I have 3 more miles to run??? WHAT? I stopped running and walked and I must admit, whined about it. I really didn’t think I had it in me to run 3 more miles on that trail. But Chuck reminded me that I either had to run it or walk it. There were no short cuts… so step step. I did start running again. Not happy about it. I kept repeating how I was going to finish this race… trying to be positive.

Then right at about 9 miles (according to my Garmin)… the clearing popped up ahead to the finish line. WHAT? The Garmin was right? I had done all that whining for nothing. Apparently the guy was at 7.5, not 6.5. We ran into the finish holding hands. Yeah, mushy! Our time was right at 1:50:59. Did we kick butt & take names. Nah. Did we do our best considering and did we finish! Heck Yeah!

We loaded up in the car and drove back home with the top down. NICE!

Got home, showered, changed into DRY clothes, rested for a bit, and got a sandwich for lunch.

Next Stop…. Bike Clinic 4PM at the Pig Trail. We loaded up the bikes and all our bike gear and headed back up to Macon. The clinic was designed for beginners. Which, I consider myself to be due to the fact that I’ve taken my bike off road only about 5 times. The OMBA put on the clinic, and they did a great job. We went over some routine bike info and then practiced a few skills. After that we were off to the trails for a ride. I really enjoyed the ride, less having to stop one time and being scared to go down the next hill. There were two experienced riders behind me that stopped to help. I felt like a big goober, but they were nice and didn’t make me feel bad. I ended up getting down the hill without planting my face into the side of a pine tree. So mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned. I think we ended up riding for about an hour. We all got back to the cars and packed up once again.

Next Stop…. Wild Wings Café. Yes, we went and indulged. We treated ourselves to Hot Wings and Nachos. It was great. We got a sweet tooth after dinner so we had to stop at the DQ in Byron on the way home and get Blizzards.

Once we got back to the house and showered AGAIN… and got the bikes and gear put up then cleaned up the apt. a little, we were spent.

Off to bed we went, only to start another work week.

I hope this week I am more focused on my training. I guess it’s only a matter of what I have time for right? Hopefully I’ll have more to report soon.

Chin Up, Chin Up.. Everybody loves a happy face.

2009-06-04T04:47:00.000-07:00

TGIT! Yes, it’s Thursday again.

I’ve done a little attitude adjustment on myself. A little self positive thinking I guess you could say. Went over all of the things in my life I have to be happy for. Then made myself admit that whatever I seem to feel is so bad, really isn’t so bad. Is it that easy? I don’t know. All I can do is try it!

Last night I went straight to my Mom’s house after work. We all had yummy tacos for dinner (she cooked them healthy style). After we ate we just sat around and talked. It was nice to not go straight to the gym after work. I had gotten into a rut. We were going straight to the gym Mon – Thursday. That really gets old after a few months. I think I really needed a little break. I just have to keep reminding myself not to beat myself up about it though!

Chuck has been such a sweetheart. He knows I've been down and has let me slide with not cooking dinner (ok, so it's going on two weeks now). But I can whip up a mean protien shake so he's not complaining. He just keeps reminding me that I'm a beast...(at least he thinks so) and "ain't nothing gonna hold me down, oh no, I got to keep on movin"... So, I also wanna perk up and get back to my normal self for him.

I couldn’t help it… I packed my gym bag this morning. I still have yet to have a GOOD run in my new shoes. And they fit so good and are so soft and comfy. I want to get back in the groove of running so bad. I’m worried about running the 15K on Sunday. I’m just going to go with the intention of enjoying the beautiful scenery and moving my body for 9.3 miles. Even if I have to take walk breaks… I’m going to finish it. Plus the T-shirts are supposed to be really neat! Hahahaha.

Alright, so I have a good attitude about the work day… a good attitude about my running. I am off tomorrow and I plan on spending the whole day with my little Shybug. She wants to go shopping and spend her Birthday money.

Hopefully, the next time I blog I will have some GOOD running news…. And more miles to log : )

Will I Get Better?

2009-06-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

It’s Wednesday, so I have to work today and tomorrow then it’s the weekend. I should be happy right? Not so much.

I am down in the dumps and I am not liking myself for it!

It all started last Tuesday. I woke up feeling horrible. Just aches all over and a sore throat. I worked all day (all 10 hours of the work day)… every hour passing thankful that I survived it! I got home and had tomato soup and cheezit’s for dinner (not a normal food I eat). Then I went to bed early. At about midnight I woke up with a high fever, in a lot of pain, and talking craziness (as Chuck later informed me, once I was sane again). I took ibuprofen and sweated like crazy and broke the fever around two, not sleeping well in my wet sheets. Gross.

Wednesday morning, going to work was not an option. I called in sick and stayed in bed till 10 AM sleeping on and off. I watched the Heroes series back to back on Netflix on my computer and just laid in the bed. I didn’t have an appetite at all (VERY UNLIKE ME!) and felt horrible. At about 2 I called Chuck, I was running a fever again and wanting to be shot to be put out of my misery. He claimed that he was coming home and taking me to the MedStop. Grrrrr… I protested, but he wasn’t hearing it. I was like… what’s the point of going to the Dr. when you have the flu, they just say get rest and drink fluids…blah blah blah. So, I went against my will. Turns out it’s strep throat. I got an antibiotic and went on my way back home to rest.

Thursday I was still tired, but feeling normal enough to move around, shower, and eat something. Still not up to normal by any means.

Friday, rested again. Watched THE ENTIRE 1st season of Heroes. By the way… that show is wonderful for anyone interested. If you have Netflix you can watch it instantly. It was so well written and interesting. I can’t wait to watch the next two seasons.

Saturday, I decided, darnit I’ve been resting for 3 days, I am going to run. I intended on running 8 miles. HA… double fat HA HA. Not happening. I run/walked 5. I was quite pissed with the fact that I didn’t get my 8 miles in. Mom and Chuck proceeded to pep talk me and encourage me and remind me that I was sick and such. Still, I wasn’t happy.

Sunday, we went to the Pig Trail with the intentions of running about 6 and then riding our bikes. I think I ran for 6 minutes and quit. Everything hurt… my stomach, my head, my body. I got mad and walked. Then we didn’t even ride. I was so mad for stopping, I was mad for not feeling good. I was mad that we put the bikes on the car and didn’t even ride them. I was mad that we drove to Macon and wasted gas for nothing. I was just plain MAD. I spent most of the rest of the day sulking. We went to the pool for a few hours later in the afternoon. That was alright, but I was still not happy.

Monday I felt much better being back at a work. Like a normal human again! I had to teach spin after work. I had NO energy to do it. Luckily I only had one woman in my class and my mom in there. So we took it very easy and I didn’t even break a sweat.

Last night, I attempted to run. What do you know, about .75 into my intended 3 mile treadmill jog. I stopped. As soon as I start sweating I start feeling miserable. Like I want to tear my skin off. It is very uncomfortable. And my legs burn. And my feet hurt. All of these things that are usually normal for me are almost hypersensitive. I can’t stand it. And I’m a very heavy sweater. (Can I say sweater like that?) Anyway, I’m used to sweating, I’m not a girly girl, I don’t mind getting sweaty and dirty… But for some reason I just can’t tolerate it right now.
I quit and got off the #$*!@ treadmill and took my sorry @$$ home. I was not happy. Not at all.

I did not even pack my gym bag today. So, I guess that means I’m not even going to try to go to the gym and run. I suck. Then I’ve got the XTerra 15K trail race to do this Sunday. I have absolutely no desire to even do that race that I was looking so forward to. I have no desire to run, ride, or even eat right. I am in a BLAH. What a whiney butt I am being, I really don’t like being like this.

I’m having some job issues and that have me down as well.

I’m trying to be positive. But right now I’m am happy thowing my little pitty party I guess. Maybe I’ll snap out of it soon.

Memorial Day Weekend

2009-05-26T07:07:00.000-07:00

My week ended with a total of 27.3 miles. I’m doing very well at making sure I get AT LEAST 20 miles in each week. I’m ready to start making my goal 25 per week and being happy with right at 30 if I manage to make the time to get all that running done. I guess it does get easier when I’m making most of my training runs from 5 to 6 miles during the week.

This Saturday we didn’t get any running in. Well, the weather has been horrible, but that wasn’t even why. We had both kiddies… and a Birthday party to go to during the afternoon. After that we went home and took a nap. Later I made a homemade pizza and we drank a few beers. Oh Yeah…

Sunday Mom came over and sat with Shyenne and Chase while Chuck and I got our long run in. Mom wasn’t too worried about missing the run because her calves have been bothering her. We went to Monkey Joes and ran the subdivisions behind the shopping center to Lake Joy Elm and back. Got about 8 miles out of it. My Garmin was dead, but we’ve done that run before so I knew the distance. Not sure how my time was…but I honestly didn’t mind “free running” for a change. When we got back I took Shyenne out to run 1 mile. 1 mile without walking, she was so proud of her little self.

Memorial Day was great fun. We got up early and packed food, loaded up the bikes, picked mom up and headed to Dauset Trails. We ran out there for 7 miles. It took us 1:46, but we had to stop a lot due to sludge puddles. We wanted to see how far we could run on the trail since we have the 15K out there in 2 weeks. It was challenging but I really enjoyed the run.

Since it was so muddy out there we drove back to Macon and rode our bikes on the Pig Trail. We only went about 3 miles out there. I am getting more comfortable on the bike, but I still thought I might die a time or two going down hill! We saw a deer again. I love being out in the woods playing!

Later on yesterday evening we went bowling and then to Mellow Mushroom for pizza. First let me state that I do not like bowling and completely suck at it. But since Chuck is always willing to do whatever crazy thing I want to go do… I figured it was my turn to humor him. Still though… I suck at it. Then I got a tummy ache from the bowling alley food I ate and the beer I drank. I just didn’t feel very good for the rest of the night.

At bed time I could not go to sleep. We went to bed by 10 and I was still wide awake at 12. I hate that… not being able to sleep. I get very frustrated and that just makes it harder to fall asleep. Plus I was TIRED from all the exercise earlier. What’s up with that?

Needless to say, when the alarm went off at 5 I felt horrible. Really horrible. I feel like somebody hit me with a car… My body didn’t have enough time to repair the damage I did yesterday. Plus I had not bowled in years so tossing around a 10lb ball so many times has my neck, shoulder and arm feeling sore. Yuck. I want to go back to bed…

Ok, enough whining. I am for sure going to get 100 miles this month. That makes me very happy. And I am going to try to get 30 miles in total for this week. I think I can make that happen. I am going to take today off due to the two long runs back to back, then my lack of sleep last night. I need REST!

2009-05-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

So, I got behind again. Might as well catch up now and vow to post AT LEAST once a week. As much as I sit at the computer that should be easy right?

To recap April’s training… I didn’t even manage to get in 70 miles. That was disappointing. But I had issues with my shoes. I’ve been running in Asics 2110’s & 2130’s for the last few years. For Christmas I got the 2140’s in the same size as usual… 7.5. I put yankz in them. I don’t know if the laces were part of this problem or not… BUT… after about 150 miles on the shoes, my feet were getting worse and worse. Pain on the top and side of my left foot. Black toenails. Sore toes. A blister on the bunion on my right foot. I had a couple of runs in mid-April that I had to just stop and walk because of the pain in my feet.

So, I went back to an older pair of 2110’s. Ran a week or so, no problems. I don’t know if they changed the design too much or if the sizing is different. I’ve just decided running shoes are sized crazy anyway. I wear a 6.5 in dress shoes/ high heels. I guess I need an 8 in running shoes. Whatever works to make my feet no hurt, I’m game.

April 18th – We ran the Perry Dogwood Festival 5K. I did pretty good on my time. I think it was 25:47. Chuck beat me and had a major PR. This was the first race he toasted me on. I’m proud of him! My Mom PR’ed on this race too.

Later that afternoon we went to Dauset Trails to learn how to Orienteer. That was pretty fun. I wanted to do it since we have been contemplating doing an Adventure Race. Plus I’d never been out to Dauset Trails before.

April 25th was my daughter, Shyenne’s 8th Birthday. She got to have her best friend over, have donuts for breakfast, got hair and nails done…. A nice pretty girly cake. She was a little princess for the day.

May 2nd we ran a pretty good 10K. My time was 57:13. Nothing phenomenal, but I was happy with it for the most part.

I’ve taken my mountain bike out a few times since I got it. We rode the Pig Trail twice. The first time we rode I started on the more technical side and ended up walking more than riding. Once I did get on the bike I screamed like a girl plenty! Only while careening down hills with pine trees flashing by on both sides of me…. Just that! The second time we went out there I did much better.

May 19th we ran the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics. I really enjoy doing that run. I’ve run it 2 times in the past. This time we ran from City Hall in Macon to Wesleyan College. It was about 5.6 miles. There were about 8 of us out there. It’s was fun to get to run down Vineville at noon and have Police escort the entire time. Later that afternoon we went out to LH Thompson and ran the trail, just got 3 miles in.

We are training to run the 15K Trail Race at Dauset Trails on June 7th. I think we are good to go on that race. Mom bought me a pair of trail running shoes. They are Nikes, Avlord I think. Which is crazy for me. I havn't run in Nike in 6 years. I got a size 8.5, theres lots of room in the toe area. I've run in them twice so far and I am happy with thime.

I have been eating VERY clean for the last 3.5 weeks. Trying to get off a few pounds I put on while we were in Jacksonville in March. BAD GIRL.... But I feel SO much better when I'm not eating junk food at all. I'm eating a lot of protien and trying to go easy on carbs, and only whole grains when I do eat them.

Now back to the stupid 2140's that hurt my feet. I decided (I guess I was smoking crack) to wear them again for my long run... yes I said long run... on last Saturday. This was a 9 mile long run to be exact. At about mile 5 I felt the new blister forming on my bunion. After the run I had that blister plus one on a little toe, plus a nice black toenail. Now my feet are sore and feel abused from that run. I WILL NOT wear those stupid shoes to run in again. I can wear them to the gym and to spin... that's IT!

Sorry for the choppy post. But I will try to keep up more often. My goal for the month is 100 miles and I’ve already gotten 77 in. It’s only the 21st, so I should be good to go!

2009-04-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I’ve ignored my blog long enough, has it been two weeks now… or three. Oh my goodness! I think I’ll try break it down, hope it's not too long and boring.

3/23 – 3/29

Let’s see on 3/21 we ran the Cherry Blossom 15K (10.25 or so…hahaha) and after that race I was sore sore sore sore. My right hip was mad at me and it simply took me longer to recover from that run than I wanted it to. Even though it was the furthest distance I’d ever run, and I did it at an avg. 9 min/mi. I took it easy the following week, just a few easy runs… mileage for week ending 3/29 totaled 16. So nothing major.

The COOLEST part of this week was on Friday! After some research Chuck and I went to Bike Tech and got mountain bikes! We ended up getting the low end of a good brand name bike. We got the Specialized Hard Rock Sport. We weren’t quite ready to spend mega bucks on bikes but we didn’t want to get something that was going to fall apart after only a few trail rides. So, that’s what we ended up doing. Chuck’s bike is bright blue and mine is black with goldish trim. We both love them. We took them out for their first outing on Sunday evening (since it rained all day Friday and Saturday). We rode 9.25 miles total around a few subdivisions.

It felt so good to ride! It’s so different from running. But I do believe I can love both. I guess the running is my first true love, but being on the bike has it’s own draw on me. I just can’t wait to take it off road for REAL! Let’s just hope I don’t kill myself it.

3/30 – 4/5

On Monday of this week, while I was entering my mileage into breakingthetape.com I realized, Hey… I only have to run 7 more miles and I can get 100 miles in this month. Which would give me 2 days to run 7 miles, easy right? So of course, I made sure that happened, and I achieved a training record for myself. I ended the month of March with exactly 100.14 miles.

I finished off this week with a total of 18. Nothing amazing.

I ran the treadmill on Tuesday.
Friday afternoon we ran 6 miles and my time was pretty good (55:46). After our run we took the bikes out and ended up with 13.25 miles. Part of the ride was off road. We went down the dirt roads along the outskirts of some cotton fields, rode to my mom’s house, met her and rode around the subdivisions… then rode the cotton fields back home. Due to all of the rain we’ve been having we got very muddy and got stuck a few times. I didn’t mind so much, but I had a good laugh at Chuck when he got all pissy about his mountain bike being dirty. We rinsed them off real good when we got back to the apt. and they were as good as new.

Saturday me, Mom & Chuck drove up to Stone Mountain. I had never been up there before. I didn’t grow up in GA so that isn’t as weird as it might sound. The plan was to climb the mountain and then run the Cherokee Trail that winds around the perimeter of the mountain. We got up there at about 11AM. It was a beautiful day. As soon as we got to the park there were road bikes EVERYWHERE! I was so jealous. I wanted to ride a bike! I don’t even have a road bike, but still, there were so many of them and the weather was perfect. There were runners everywhere. It was neat to see so many people outdoors enjoying the springtime and getting some exercise. Not something we see a whole lot of here in Middle GA.

We started off climbing the mountain. We attempted to RUN up the darn thing. Hahaha… Mom & I wimped out first. Chuck eventually stopped running. When we got almost to the top, I realized suddenly that I was scared and I hunkered down and climbed a few feet with my hands on the rock too! What a dork I am, I made myself chill out because there were little kids everywhere running up and down the mountain, they weren’t falling and dying, I knew I’d be ok. We got to the top and it sure was pretty up there. We stayed a few minutes and took some pics then made our way back down.

We found the Cherokee trail and started run/hiking around the mountain. We went for awhile until I started whining because I was SO THIRSTY and my feet were really bothering me. It felt like my shoes were too tight and the top of my feet were killing me. We ended up stopping at the bottom of the sky lift thing and got some Vitamin Water. That was the best tasting beverage EVER due to the fact I had gotten so thirsty! We headed back out and ran/hiked some more until I kept whining and complaining about how bad feet were killing me. So we headed back to the car. By the time we got back in the car it was 3:30PM. We had been out and about for 4 hours! The time went by so fast… I still find it hard to believe that we did that much exercise.

Afterwards was the reward – OUTBACK. I had a frozen cocktail, a juicy steak, a loaded baked potato, and best of all… the Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Pie! That thing was HUGE and tasted like heaven. Oh, I do love my desserts.

With full bellies and tired legs, we went and checked into a (crappy) motel. It didn’t seem so crappy to start with, and I won’t go into details, but it was pretty crappy! We took showers, cleaned up, got pajamas on, and watched T.V. I didn’t really sleep that night. In the morning the plan was to go back to the park and run the 5 mile perimeter road around the mountain. But, the three of us agreed that with the night of not much sleep and the amount of walking we did the previous day… let’s just rest. We ended up going to IHOP for breakfast, yum again! Then headed back to Byron. The rest of the day was spent chillin’ out and watching TV. It rained off and on and we were too tired to go out for a run or ride.

4/6 – 4/12

This week started off with the same ole routine. Monday, I did some weight training and taught spin class. Tuesday, I ran a 4 mile tempo run on the treadmill. Wednesday, I was GOING to run 6 miles around Mom’s neighborhood with Chuck. I think Wednesday’s run was one of the most horrible runs I have ever experienced. SUPER SUCK RUN!!! My feet were absolutely KILLING ME. It felt like someone was hammering the top of my feet with every step and my toes were very sore. I kept stopping and walking (I NEVER do that). I was mentally and physically not feeling the run. It was frustrating me to no end. I felt like a big Loser. I hate to quit. But Chuck told me I was just going to make it worse by keeping on… we stopped right at 4 miles and I walked back to Mom’s house, all pissy and mad about it. We got back to the apt. and Chuck fixed dinner for the kids and made us a protein shake. I just sat on the couch and soaked my feet in ice water, and pouted of course.

I was still beating myself up about it the next day. I went to the gym Thur. evening and got on a spin bike and just did 30 minutes of cardio and then worked back & abs. Friday is my day off. I did some grocery shopping and took my daughter to see the new Hannah Montana movie. Hey, it was much better than I thought it would be! I didn’t do any running, just a rest day. I was going to take her to the track, and let her run a little (yeah, my punkin wants to start running!) and I was going to do intervals. But I was advised by my mom and Chuck to NOT run and REST for an extra day. Grrrrr.

Saturday we got up early and headed to Athens to watch the G-Day spring training football game. It was fun! It was my first time to see a college football game and Chuck is a huge UGA fan. It was us, mom, and all three kids. Everyone had a good time! I didn’t run today, obviously… no time to do that. I did manage to eat a blizzard for dessert, Reeses Cup no less. Sinfully amazing.

Are you ready for this? Here comes the coolest part. We had planned a long run today. Since I was forced to rest 3 days in a row, GRRRRRR… I was ready for action. All carb'd up from that big ole blizzard. We were originally planning on running 9 miles. Chuck decides that we’re going to go the full 12 (a loop in Byron from a friend’s house). I’m like, ok, sure, that will help with my mileage for the week. We tried to hide it from my mom, who joined us. She found out we were planning on doing the 12 and was game. We headed out and our goal was to keep a 10:00 – 10:30 mi/mile pace. In the first 2 miles of the route there are 3 major hills. We tackled them with flying colors. The rest of the run was just a matter of time, and not stopping. It really went by fast. It was one of those runs where the miles just kinda tick by. We just got in a good rhythm. One of those days that reminds you why you really love to run. It was definitely what I needed to snap me out of my funk from the crappy run on Wed. night. We finished in 2:05:21, an avg. of 10:26 min/mi. Exactly what we were hoping for. I had never run that far before!

We went home and I soaked my feet twice. Mom took us to eat Mexican for Easter dinner! I had fajitas and fried ice cream. Now that I’m writing it all down, dang I ate bad this weekend. Oh well, I burned lots of calories on Sunday right?

Okie Dokie. I’m all caught up now! There are a few adventures I’m looking into participating in. I’m going to write about all that later. I need to get some pics of my new bike on here too. I wish I had more time to ride my bike & run as much as I wanted to. I’ll be working on that one!!!

Cherry Blossom

2009-03-26T13:21:00.001-07:00

I’ve been meaning to write this blog all week.

I wanted to type up my own little review of the “Cherry Blossom 15K”. This race being our 6th race in a row since Februrary 14. We (being Chuck, My Mom and me) have been on a streak! It has been fun and I’ve loved the training. Although, the Cherry Blossom managed to kick me in the bootie. I am not sure if it was that race itself, or just a long stint of a lot of running.

Me & my Mom

My girl Jenny and myself ran the Cherry Blossom 15K together last spring. G and Dennis were out there too. It rained and it was cold. We had a good time anyway. I PR’d at 1:24:35. Oh yeah! Chuck was supposed to run his first race ever that day. He didn’t make it because he hurt his leg a few weeks before and ended up on crutches for a week and limped for a month! So Dennis ran as Chuck (is that allowed?). So, since I had participated in the run last year, I figured I knew what to expect….

WRONG…

We showed up to the race. It was colder than I would have like, but pretty with the sun shining, so who can complain? We got there later than we normally do for a race, so we didn’t have long to wait around to start. The race started and Dennis, G, and Jenny had all planned to run out a little faster than I had in mind. So they were gone. I WANTED to PR this year. I really did. I figured I could at even just under a 9 min/mi… not too hard right? A friend of ours, Bug (Kristen) and I planned on running right at the same pace, so we stuck together. OK, so at the beginning of the race, immediately something didn’t feel quite right! We turned right instead of left on Rivioli (unlike last year’s race?) I told Bug, who didn’t run the previous year, that something was weird, but of course we went with it… over hills, down hills, over hills, down hill, over hills, down hills… yeah yuck! Then something else seemed weird. We were hitting mile markers and my Garmin wasn’t agreeing with them. We were quite a bit ahead of what the marker signs said and with each mile it got worse and worse??? I was confused and it was kinda messing with my mind! I was thinking that maybe they were just placed wrong and that the last mile would be really short. We finally got up to where the course said 8 miles and I knew where I was, Bug and I realized something was crazy, but we didn’t fret. I just told her I’d mark a lap on my Garmin when we hit 9.3, that way we’d know our time for the real race distance. Once we hit 9.3 my Garmin said 1:24:01, which yes is a PR. But I’m not really counting it cause it wasn’t official… The last mile (yeah, the race ended up being 10.2ish miles) was rough for me. I had never run past the 9.3 distance. My quads felt like jelly and I was out of juice. Bug and I finished at 1:32:22.

Bug & Kat..................................

I was tight that whole night. I soaked my feet and rested most of the afternoon. The next morning. OH MY! My quads were so sore and my right hip was sore. I felt like I’d been hit by a car.

Sunday we went out the GA Children’s Home trail and ran an easy 55 minute run. It felt good to stretch out and take it easy. Guess What? I didn’t fall this time! Yeah me. This is Chuck and me running... He's a trail monster. He always does better than us, maybe it's his Indian blood.

Monday at work I was still sore and my hip was still tight. I was reconsidering my goal of running a half marathon in October.

Now I’m feeling good. My hip still has a little something weird going on in there… but it’s not pain. So, I’m ok with that. I’m going to take it easy as far as mileage this week. Since it’s probably going to be raining, I guess that’s a good thing!

Gate River Run 15K

2009-03-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

Last weekend (3/14/09) was a mini vacation. I didn’t get back to work until Wednesday of last week and I have been busy… this past weekend we had a lot going on. So, I need to catch up and start with the Gate River Run 15K weekend. My FAVORITE run of the year. This run is the USATF Championship 15K. 15,000 signed up for the 15K this year and approximately 5,000 for the 5K.

On Friday 3/13/09 we (Me, Chuck, Jenny, G, Dennis, Kristy, Bug, and Tim) all left a cloudy cool Byron, heading down I 75 to Jacksonville, FL. The trip down was uneventful (that’s a good thing right?) We ate at Fazoli’s in Valdosta, trying to carb up! We got to the Wyndham Riverwalk in Jax at about 4 PM and we all got to our rooms, put our stuff up and changed clothes.

The Wyndham was the host hotel for the Gate River Run. So they provided transportation to the race Expo and the race. We caught the bus to the expo, got our race packets and T-shirts then walked around for about 2 hours looking at all the neat running and fitness merchandise, services, etc. We got our 2009 GRR glass and all kinds of freebees.

Bug has a friend named Josh (used to work at RunFit) that is a manager at a new running store in Jax… called Jacksonville Running Company. We all went to his store and a few people bought new shoes, we all stocked up on sports beans and such. They even gave us all a Mizuno running shirts with the JRC logo on it to wear during the race.

We went to Seven Bridges for dinner. I had to constantly fuss at Chuck and Tim to not order beer… I kept telling them to wait until Saturday. They both drank some, but not as much as they wanted I’m sure. Dinner was great! We were all riding together and a few people needed some last minute items from WalMart, so we had to stop by there. We didn’t get back to the hotel until after 11PM. It was probably 12 by the time we got to sleep.

5:30AM the alarm goes off. I am so excited at this point. I took a quick shower (yes, I always shower and shave before a race… can’t stand to have fuzzy legs.. wind resistance??? Hahaha) Got dressed and got all my race gear ready. We met up in the lobby with the rest of the crew at 6:30AM to catch the bus over to the race… the race was across the river from the hotel. We were all sleepy but happy.

Jenny and I ran the GRR last year, it was just the two of us. This year all the folks listed above (Kristy and Tim ran the 5K) ran with us. It was Chuck’s first 15K. I was so proud of him, all of the training he had put in to get up to the distance he was about to run. Jenny and I kept telling everyone how cool this was going to be, but it’s hard to describe until your really there.

The 5K started at 7:45, so we wished Kristy and Tim a good race. The rest of us bounced around… it was cooler than we expected, a little windy, and we were basically standing in thick clouds. But at least it wasn’t raining and at least there wasn’t the 30 – 40 MPH winds that we dealt with in 2008.

After standing in line for porta-potties a few times… race time rolled around. The Star Spangled Banner was sang beautifully. The elite women start the race at 8:25AM. The gun sounding gives me chill bumps. There are SOOOOO many people there. When the gun sounds for the rest of the top seeded men, and us mere mortals, there are so many people that we just stand there for about 2 minutes, waiting to start walking, and finally run across the start line.

As we begin the run (and for the remainder of the race) the streets were front to back, side to side, packed with people. We almost immediately lost sight of G, Dennis, and Jenny who are faster… Bug was somewhere about 3 minutes ahead of us. Chuck and I stayed together. I wanted to cross the finish line with him. We stayed at about a 9:45 mi/mile for the whole race. It’s also a pain to try to duck and dodge people and try to go any faster.

There are tons of spectators and bands. Never really a dull moment. Rock groups, high school bands, signs, banners, families in their yards, cocktail stands, you name it.

The “Highlight” of the race is at approx. 7.75 miles. The bottom of the Hart Bridge… better known as the Green Monster. It is a half mile incline at a six percent grade. It’s really not THAT bad, but it is a hill that never seems to end. You think your at the top and it still insists on going up and up. But, once you reach the top you have less than a mile to run and it’s mostly downhill around to the JAX stadium where the Jaguars play. We finished in 1:28:38 (chip time)… 1:30:38 (gun time). Our goal was for under 1:30 so we were very happy with that time.

After the race it was to the FREE BEER tent to drink MGD 64.

We walked around the post-race festivities for about an hour and a half until we all got tired and were getting cold so we headed back to the bus to go to the hotel. After showering and changing again we went out shopping and then to a post-race party put on by the JRC. It was a good time.

Sunday was a gorgeous day. The sun was bright and the temps were great. Most everyone had a bit of a hangover. Chuck and I didn’t drink much at all, so we were fine. We met with Jenny in the lobby at about 9 (Jenny did in fact have a hangover) and we went out for a “recovery” run. Ha ha. We ran down the riverwalk, crossed the Acosta bridge, ran down the north bank of the river then back across the Main Street bridge to the south bank where our hotel was. We just did 3 miles easy. Chuck didn’t agree that you can run easy runs over bridges. Oh well… it was so pretty and the scenery was great, we didn’t care. After the run everyone went down to the pool and we soaked up the sun and put our tired feet in the cold water.

The crew (with the exception of Chuck and I) headed back to Byron on Sunday afternoon. Chuck and I planned to extend the vacation a little bit so we rode up to Tybee Island to stay one more night out of town. We checked in our room then drove to Savannah to check out the Riverstreet St. Patty’s Day celebrations. We ate and had a few beers. Really enjoyed watching all of the people acting crazy!

We woke up Monday morning and ran 4 miles down the beach in Tybee Island. It was wonderful out there. It was the second time I’ve ever had the pleasure of running on the beach. I could really live like that!

At about lunch time we checked out and headed to Byron. By the time we got to Dublin it was raining and getting cold. Sorry Middle GA, but you guys had a crappy weather weekend… We didn’t want to come back!

We took Tuesday off to have time to clean up, wash clothes, do grocery shopping, all that REAL WORK type stuff. Blah.

So, Wednesday was back to work but I had the BEST weekend. I couldn’t have asked for more : )

Another Week, Another Race

2009-03-11T05:54:00.000-07:00

Last week’s training went well. Chuck is still working nights, so it is messing with his workout / running schedule, which in turn messes with mine, since we generally train together. Mostly it is causing a problem for him due to the crazy sleeping schedule from working at night.

So, since he worked Thursday night he was able to be off with me on Friday during the day time. Friday we went out kinda early and ran an easy 3 miles down the road from the apartments. It felt good to run in the springtime weather. It was our first “warm” run so far.

Saturday (poor Chuck on only 3 hours of sleep) we got up and headed to Geico for the 12K. It was a foggy morning, but it was neither hot nor cold… so I wasn’t complaining. I had told Chuck that we were going to run together, since he always accuses me of dusting him. Which is not necessarily true! I have been running a lot longer than him. But I have just recently decided that getting a little faster is something I’d like to do…. I guess I decided that right around the time we started running together. So in my opinion, he is already as good as I am now, and it took me 6 years to get where he got in 6 months. Yes, I’m hatin’!!!! ANYWAY… I told him that I would stay with him for the whole race on Saturday. I wanted to finish together.

See I have this little competitive nature that I like to deny. I told my girl Jenny once “I’m not competitive”… she busted out laughing. But continued to tell me that I am, but not competitive in a mean way, that she thinks I’m generally competitive against myself… I thought about it and I guess that’s right. She said that last March when we were running the Gate River Run together (almost exactly a year ago). I was reflecting on that conversation as I ran the 12K with Chuck on Sat. We both had the MP3 on so there wasn’t any convo to entertain me…. I prefer conversation to music… so I had to keep my mind busy somehow.

During the race I kept a pretty close eye on the Garmin. We were keeping a 9 min/mi pretty steady. I wanted him to keep the pace just to prove to him that he COULD do it. I also had my ulterior motives… I WANTED to be running a little faster maybe. I had no problems staying where he was, and I’m not at all trying to say that I’m so much faster or whatever… I just WANTED to blow out my previous year’s time…. even though I had promised to finish with him. He did manage to keep a 9 – 9.30 min/mi for the majority of the race. He pulled the hills very good, charged them really. I was very proud of him for his 2nd 12K.

I was very happy to finish the race side by side with him seeing as how he IS my running partner. I enjoyed the race overall. It was one of those runs that nothing hurts, all was good, mind and body. Each mile marker just came and went, I wasn’t constantly thinking about wanting the run to be over with. I truly enjoyed the run. This I am thankful for, because had I been trying to PR the run would have been more painful, not such an enjoyable experience.

I learned a lesson at the Geico race:

I realized how much I AM in competition with myself, and that it’s ok not to win! Because, if I lose, I also win. I just have to find out where the victory is.

We finished in 1:09:35. Jenny got 2nd in her age group, Mom got 1st, and I got 2nd!

Here is part of our little group from Byron: Cherry (my mom) G (Robert) Jenny, Dennis, Me, Chuck.

Sunday we went out and ran 4 miles around Eagle Springs. It was HOT. Really only in the mid 70’s, but it was HOT. It’s hard to go from running in the 30’s one weekend to the 70’s the next. Come on, we’re in Georgia… what should I expect?

Monday night I taught my spin class and worked weights for the first time in weeks. Now my chest and arms are killing me. What was I thinking? Next week I will defiantly get back on a regular weight training schedule… anything to avoid the soreness. Ouch.

Last night Chuck and I met up at my runner mommer’s house (Mom’s nickname). She sat with my punkin’ (Shy) while Chuck and I took advantage of daylight savings time and ran outside after work. Oh yeah, how sweet is that! BUT that is where the sweetness ends. Apparently something was dead in my Mom’s neighborhood. Something stinks soooooooo bad and strong. It was absolutely horrible. I’ve never smelled something that made me nauseated. Not only did it stink horribly, but I was trying to run, which sorta kinda requires breathing. This breathing thing was quite undesirable due to the FUNK in the air. I was honestly thinking that someone was dead in a house and rotting (that sounds bad doesn’t it). I’m hoping it’s more like an animal, a large animal? Chuck is a detective and knows what a dead person smells like and he said that it smelled similar... I'm still hoping it's the animal idea. YUCK.

Back to the run… I’m trying to breathe, but not wanting to breathe cause it stinks, not wanting to breath through my mouth, because something that smells so bad has got to have bacterial funk floating in the air right? Just kidding. It took a mile and a half to get out of that neighborhood into another one that didn’t smell bad. I ran the rest of the run pretty good. I averaged a 9.45 min/mi. I enjoyed the run.

I’m in a great mood today. We are leaving to go to Jacksonville on Friday. Oh YEAH! So excited. The Gate River Run 15K – The USATF 15K Championship… running with the bigwigs… well, running quite far behind them anyway. I love the race, it will be my 4th run of it.

The rest of my week, training wise, should be uneventful. Just a treadmill run tonight and then I’ll rest Thur & Fri.

Trail Run Fun?

2009-03-04T09:20:00.000-08:00

I finally did it. It wasn’t a matter of not being sure if I wanted to run it, just a somewhat significant amount of money to pay for a race for two people at one time… But I did it. I registered Chuck and myself for the XTERRA Deep South 15K at Daucet Trails. I am soooo excited about this trail race. My first trail race ever.

I really do love to run the trails. Although, I must admit, I have not run a trail since tripping & falling last time. But that’s just because I don’t want to fall again and ruin all the training I’ve put in for our run in Jax. Ok, maybe I’m just a little scared. So What! I’ll be back out there soon enough.

I’m very goal oriented. I’ve had my spreadsheet since December outlining our training up to Gate River Run on 3/14/09. After that I was thinking… then what? I want to run a half marathon this year. But there isn’t a whole lot out there to run from now until the fall. I want my next goal to be closer than the fall. I like a 12 – 15 week kind of goal to reach.

Now that I’ve signed us up to run the Trail 15K (9.3 miles) that will be perfect for my next training goal. At first I was thinking - we would already be trained for a 15K in March, so what’s the challenge? The challenge being that running the same distance on a trail takes much more time than it does on the road. Also more / different muscles need to be trained… and not to mention… foot /eye coordination?????? Hahahaha.

My next training goal will be for June 7, 2009. That being the trail 15K. To train for the goal I will run trails as much as possible, increase road distance so I’m at least running approximately the same amount of time it will take to complete the trail 15K. I will also focus more on my weight training, specifically lower body. There… that sounds fun!

Gotta go… Excel is awaiting!

Let It Snow

2009-03-03T11:01:00.000-08:00

So, how cool is it that it snowed on Sunday! Yippie for the kids in all of us!

Before all of the pretty snow, let’s go back to Saturday’s race. The Cantrell Center 5K. We got up Saturday morning and met up with our usual race crew, me, Chuck, my Mom, and Tim…. Drove the 10 whole minutes to the Cantrell Center (love a close race!) and picked up our packets quickly and easily. I was in a good mood to start with for a change. It was my first race in 3 weeks that my nose wasn’t running like a faucet. Oh yes, cold is gone!

We had driven the course on Friday, and our friends (Jenny & Bug) ran the course a few times in the last few weeks. They said that the course was a little hilly so we were prepared for what was to come.

The race started, and I felt pretty darn good. I didn’t have any specific time in mind. I really just wanted to do better than I did last weekend at Al Toll (26:08). I figured that would be do-able since the first mile and a half wasn’t a super sucky hill. Once I got running good, at about a half mile into the race I could tell I had a pretty good stride going on. I took a few glimpse of the Garmin and was hanging around 7:40ish min mile pace. I was happy with that so I focused on maintaining the pace there. Even over the hills, then the last part of the race, when my chest was burning and I’d liked to have slowed down, I kept my pace as best I could… and ended up being quite happy with my finishing time. My Garmin said 25:24, I think that’s what the time clock said too, but you know how it’s easy to forget after you come through the finish line… It also measured the course at 3.18. I’ll break down my mile splits cause I’m a dork like that.

1 – (7:49) 2 – (7:57) 3 – (8:17) .10 – (1:19)
P.S. I don’t like the finishing line to be around a turn… would rather sprint straight in…

So, I was pleased with my time and the race overall. I didn’t PR, but I did for this year. Chuck & my Mom PR’d. Chuck came in under 27 for the first time (26:56?) and my Mom was right behind me in the 25’s I think… Not sure. Oh, and Chuck ran his PR 5K on 3 hours of sleep. He has been working nights so it has screwed up his sleeping schedule : (

Of course the rain and cold weather came in afterwards. But we stuck around. My Mom placed 1st in her age group! Oh yeah, Go Her!!! Wooooo Hoooooo. I’m proud of her.

Here is a goofy sideways picture of me and the CFA Cow.....

Mom and I went to lunch at O’Charley’s after the race. I had a huge chicken salad. YUM. We didn’t do much else for the rest of the day.

Sunday… we all know about the snow. Chuck and I decided to run in the snow. Our thoughts were… are we ever going to have an opportunity to run in the snow again? We bundled up and ran around the apartment complex in the pretty (cold wet slushy) snow for 3 miles and smiled and giggled about it most of the time.

Afterwards we treated ourselves to Pizza and Wings @ Meldino’s. I only ate 3 wings and 3 slices of pizza. I didn’t have ANY beer. Oh yeah, I was a good girl… and that was my treat of the week. Not bad.

Yesterday we ran a 7.5 mile VERY HILLY course out in Byron. I mean hilly. At about mile 1.5 there starts a series of 3 hills, the last hill being a half a mile long and VERY VERY steep. After the 3 hills you run out to total of about 3.8 mi. and turn around and go back, only to run the HILLS again! OH MY. They are a biotch! But check this out. The last time I ran the exact same course I finished in 1:17:37, but yesterday I had magic legs and finished it in 1:09:31. I’m super pumped up about that. I felt strong and fast the whole way back. Usually on the way back on the hills I want to die. Not yesterday.

Now it’s back to work. Normal day at the office. I’m gonna run tonight on the treadmill. Then I have 2 days of rest ahead of me. I Plan on running a very easy 3 on Friday morning. The Geico 12K on Saturday is next on our schedule. I’m looking forward to that race, I always enjoy it.

Happy Running!!!!!!

My Weekend - Kat Bites the Dust!

2009-02-23T10:25:00.000-08:00

I think I need to go all the way back to Thursday night to catch up. I ran on the treadmill at the gym and ran a great 5 mile run. My time ended up being 45:08. Pretty good for me. I think the only reason I finished that fast was because Chuck was running next to me and kept “upping” the MPH… so I couldn’t let a boy beat me right?

Friday was a run rest day, but I ended up meeting a co-worker at the LH Thomson trail, we just walked to whole thing one time. It was a pretty morning and it felt good to get out and move. I finally went and got my nails done (purple tips – cute) and I picked up my Mom and my munchkin (Shyenne) to meet Chuck in Macon for lunch. We went to La Fiesta and I pigged out on chips / dip / fajitas. Oh YUM. Eating with the excuse of extra carb intake for running on Sat. Yeah Right!!!

Saturday we ran the Al Toll 5K, which was unplanned. I say that because I like to plan ahead and make spreadsheets for everything, especially for running, and that race wasn’t one I had intended on running. My mom wanted to run the 15K and was unsure of going at it by herself. Obviously I couldn’t run it with her because I’m not a Masters runner. She wanted Chuck to run it with her, but he is on the little plan I made, which is to run the Gate River Run 15K on 3/14/09. That will be his first 15K and we wanted to do that together. Plus he wasn’t really wanting to run a 15K 3 weeks ahead of plan. So we agreed that we’d go and run the 5K, and support her on her 15K effort. His co-worker Tim ran the 5K with us too.

Since it was unplanned, I wasn’t all excited about the race for some reason. I’ve ran most of the yearly local races at least once, but I had never run this one before. Not sure why, just hadn’t. So we got there and just chilled out (literally, it was cold!) until race time.

I started off feeling crunchy and stiff. By the time I got to the top of the hill I was feeling pretty good, so the downhill ending was wonderful. My 3rd mile time was 7:36. I finished in 26:08. Not my best time ever, but my best time of the year, so that’s something right? : ) Chuck finished in 27:17 and placed second in his age! Tim PR'ed at 31:23, an entire minute faster than his last weekend's race! Mom did the 15K in 1:24:25, wonderful for her! A PR by far. She beat my 15K PR by 10 seconds. I guess I’ve got to kick it up!

Me & Chuck before the Run 2/21/09.

OK, so Saturday afternoon Chuck and I decided since we only ran 3 miles in the morning that we’d go out for a trail run. We went to LH Thomson. Oh, I’d say 10 minutes into it I had a little disagreement with gravity. Luckily I’m short, so I didn’t have far to go to bust it on the ground. Yep, my foot caught on a little bitty nub of a root, I went air borne and landed on my left knee, right elbow and hand. Scratched up my elbow, cut my hand, and bruised my knee. The impact knocked my sunglasses off! After I smacked the dirt I started crying…. Oh my, I usually don’t cry over getting hurt!!!! It really scared me more than anything. I was thinking, oh no, I broke something! Chuck comforted me and I quickly realized that I wasn’t really hurt! I got up and ran some more. Oh yes, only to fall AGAIN! But the second fall was nothing really, didn’t hurt anything. I think my legs were just tired from the race earlier and I wasn’t picking them up enough to clear the rooty terrain. Or I’m just a super klutz suddenly. Not sure. So, we went home after running a total of 40 minutes. I got a nice hot shower and cleaned up my boo-boos. Got dressed up all cute and went to Mellow Mushroom.

OK, what happens next deserves a blog entry all on it’s own. I had the “Great White” pizza, a small one, 10”. A long with 2 Michelob Ultra’s. OH MY GOODNESS! I havn’t had beer since New Years I think, and it was great. And that BIG FAT GOOEY CHEESY PIZZA. I savored every single bite. I didn’t eat it, I made love to that pizza. I ate every last morsel. I was so full when I finished I thought I would pop.

So, that was a nice ending to a kinda icky Saturday, only icky because I fell. I don't want to be scared to run trails, I love running trails. But I think I'm going to wait until after we go to Jax to run one again.

Sunday we got up and ran a slow recovery run, 3.5 miles in almost 38 minutes. I felt good. Nothing hurt or was sore. My knee was ok. Nothing hurts on the inside of my knee, I didn’t pull or twist anything. It’s just bruised and hurts on the outside like someone smacked it with a bat or something. Otherwise I’m just fine!

In all, I had a great weekend. Did I mention the AMAZING pizza I ate on Saturday night? Well, it was good!!!!!! I enjoyed the runs I completed. I’m ready for the week of training ahead!

Recovered

2009-02-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

Today I feel great! I'm sure I've fully recovered from the head cold I had all of last week through the weekend. I feel like a normal human being again. Much better : ) I guess the truth will be how I feel on my tempo run tonight! I'm looking forward to the workout.

I rested yesterday since I worked a part time job. I needed it since my "easy" 3 mile run on Tuesday took more out of me than it should have, plus my left shin was still a little sore. Today I took alieve and feel fine, and I think I'll ice my shin tonight after I run just in case.

I am proud of myself lately for eating very clean. I've been monitoring my diet, using www.caloriecount.about.com. I like it because it will show you the percentage of carbs/protein/fat that you eat daily. I like to try to stay balanced so it's easier for me to see using that site. I'm not as worried about how many calories I'm eating, just that the food I eat is nutritious and I'm trying to watch portion sizes. Since eating too much of heatlhy food still makes you gain weight!

I'm looking forward to running the AL Toll 5K on Saturday. I've never run this course before so it'll be interesting. Not sure if I'm even worried about running super fast (super fast for me anyway!). I just realized that we are scheduled to run a race for 5 weekends in a row. Goodness. I think the only one I want to PR is the CherryBlossom 15K. I think I can manage that.

My Happy Valentine

2009-02-17T08:03:00.000-08:00

Even though I was very sick and pitiful it was a great weekend!

Friday, a regular day off of work, I ran a few errands in the morning. I got groceries, big job…. Tried to get my nails done, BUT they were too busy and I planned to meet Chuck in Macon for lunch. So I left there with ratty nails and we went and ate Moe’s. YUM. I was a good girl, I ate a steak salad with no shell and no cheese. Friday night we had all three kids, so I cooked breakfast for dinner. Whole wheat from scratch pancakes, turkey sausage, and scrambled eggs. Good Pre-Race food I think, plus the kids were thrilled with eating pancakes for dinner!

Saturday morning… Race Day! OK, see I had been sick all week, and it progressively got worse. By Sat. morning my nose was running crazy bad and my tummy was not doing so great. I was determined to run the race anyway, on a good does of Cough/Cold syrup. My Mom, Chuck, and me headed to the 12K, Chuck’s friend Tim ran the 5K. I was a whiney little brat before the race. We got started anyway and ran an average 9:01 min mile, Chuck and I finished right at 1:07:16, well he was a few seconds behind me… even though his silly butt wrote 1:09 something on his card??? My mom blew it out, finishing in 1:04:30ish. Wow for her! It was a PR for all of us! I think my fastest 12K was Geico last year at 1:07:26, it was Chuck’s first 12K so of course he got to PR! Tim PR’ed too for his 5K. Go us!

I got home Sat. and just laid my lazy bum on the couch and tried to rest. I loaded up on cold medicine. We took the kids to see Bold Saturday afternoon. I think I enjoyed it more than they did! Sat. night I made homemade pizza with a whole wheat crust and lots of veggies. It was so good. Then I dipped strawberries in dark chocolate for dessert. I was so full at bedtime. It was great! I figured I deserved extra calories after burning so many during the race.

Sunday, Chuck made me rest against my will. I did the bare minimum around the house. Cooked steak fajitas for dinner, easy and healthy. That’s probably the most notable thing I did all day.

Monday I had a planned day off of work. Chuck decided to call out as well. It was so nice to have a 4 day weekend. We decided to go hard core today.

Started off the day by doing something I had been super dreading. We got the oil changed in my car and the tires rotated. I hate doing that crap myself, so I’m glad he went with me : )

So, we finished that up and drove to Macon to the GA Ind. Children’s Home trail. We ran out there for about 55 minutes. I love it out there. It is so beautiful, BUT I had to contend with my dripping nose the whole time. I ended up with dried boogies on my face, oh joy! That is so gross, but us runner have to deal with gross bodily stuff sometimes dont we! We went home, ate lunch, watched FitTV and rested. At about 3:30 we went back out and ran down some off road, power line trails near the apartment. I was worried the whole time that we would get shot / arrested / kidnapped / killed by a wild animal / abducted by aliens something crazy. I just felt creeped out the whole time. Does the buzz of the powerline fry your brain I wonder? We finished this run pretty tired, 3.5 miles in 37 min. I told him I felt like it was the final workout on "The Biggest Loser" on the day before weigh-in where the trainers work them to death. Got back home, rested a little, THEN I had to teach spin for 30 min. at 6:30PM. It took every last drop of energy in my body to teach that class.

I cooked veggies and chicken breast for dinner, then we chilled and went to bed early, before 10PM. I slept so good. I woke up this morning feeling well rested and much better. My nose isn’t running any more. I still feel the slightest bit like I’ve had a cold, but nothing like last week! Yippy.

I’m looking forward to my training this week. My mom wants to run the Al Toll 15K, so we are going to run the 5K to be there with her. I wasn’t planning on that race, but it should be fun.

Denial

2009-02-11T06:26:00.000-08:00

Everything was all fine and good. Then Monday night right before bed my throat started to burn/itch/get sore. I ignored it, like maybe I yawned to big or something crazy made it feel funny.

I woke up Tuesday morning and my throat was all dry and scratchy, so was my chest. It felt like there was sawdust in my chest. I ate a cough drop and felt better. I worked all day and felt alright. We had a track interval run planned, which is hard for us to fit into our schedule… so I was determined to do the workout.

We ran a total of 4 miles, with 4 - 300meter fast intervals. I just kinda made up the workout to see how it would feel. It was good. I wish I had more time for track running. My left shin has been barking at me for a few days. This I’d like to ignore as well.

So I woke up this morning, feeling even yuckier than I did yesterday. Throat sore, chest tight. I HATE getting a chest cold. I’m still in total denial that a chest cold is looming. Nope, it’s something else. I have this dry cough… yuck.

I got some Kid’s Mucinex this morning. The full adult dose makes me loopy. I just take a 12yr old’s dose, I figured I’m still about the size that I was when I was 12. Went through puberty and never grew any more! So, I’m hoping that I’ll feel better soon.

Have a 5 mile treadmill run planned for tonight on my training schedule. Hmmmm…. I really don’t want to miss it AT ALL, then I try to convince myself that I’d be better off resting and getting better.

The Sweetheart 12K is Saturday. I’ll be super pissed if I can’t run that due to being sick. I know I should let my shin rest some. But I don’t WANT TO! I WANT to RUN! Blah. Not fair. Oh well. I guess I have until 5PM when I get off work to decide what I want to do about it.

2009-02-09T10:52:00.000-08:00

The weather was so absolutely perfect for a running weekend! Makes me so happy when I have the time to run like I want to PLUS the weather co-operates.

Friday morning I ran circles around my apartment complex until I got to 4 miles. That was kinda boring and uneventful. I’m so crazy, at about a mile I was like, hey – I totally forgot to bring my mp3 player. I almost always wear it if I’m running alone, unless of course it’s battery is dead.

Saturday - Chuck, my Mom & myself went to the Children’s Home trail. It was amazingly gorgeous out there. The sun was bright, the wind was blowing, oh it was so pretty. We ran 4 miles out there. The whole thing went by so fast, due to looking at the pretty scenery and making sure we didn’t trip over roots and such.

Here’s the cool part. Sunday we ran 8 miles. The last time I ran 8 miles was back in March of last year. Go me. It was also Chuck’s longest run ever, Go him! We did it in about a 10 min / mile pace (1:19:01). Me, Mom & Chuck met up at Jenny & G’s, Dennis came to run & his wife came to walk. They took two trucks out and parked one, drove one back. So we could run out and not have to run the big bad hills 2 times (There are 3 back to back hills at about 2 - 3 miles out, the last one is steep and about .5 mi long.) Yikes. Dennis smoked us on the run, G did pretty good too. My mom & Jenny ended up about 30 seconds ahead of me & Chuck. I didn’t bring my mp3 and Chuck did. So, I ended up running the whole 8 with no music and no convo. It wasn’t so bad though, there was plenty for my mind to think about. Felt great out there. The sky was clear and bright. Perfect morning for running. I even ended up with a sunburn on my forehead! Oh and I learned something about my pre- run fueling. I usually eat ½ a bagel with pnut butter & fruit spread with a ½ a banana. Sun morning I decided to eat the whole bagel… bad idea. I burped bagel and pnut butter the whole time and felt way too full. Plus I think I ate too close to the run. Live & learn.

I’m just so excited to be at the point of my training that I planned to be at. We have 5 more weeks until our goal race – Gate River Run 15K. So we are ok now on the miles. I like to run that one for fun, don’t worry so much about my time. I enjoy that race so much. I think I’ll try to run the Cherry Blossom 15K faster than I did last year (1:24 somethin’).

Today is cross training day, teaching spin tonight. That should be easy I guess.

Retro Blog - Running Friends

2009-02-06T05:37:00.000-08:00

I put the following blog on my myspace page on March of 2008. I may have already said a few of the same things on my first blog here, but I like the blog so I wanted to post it.

Thank You.... Running Friends.
3/9/2008 - Today I got back home from Jacksonville FL. A good friend of mine, Jenny made the trip with me this year to run the Gate River Run. The race was great and I had a blast. It inspired what I'm about to write.

My Mom has been an amazing running parter since she got back into it in about 2004. My Mom has been running off and on for about 20 years. She had been out of it for quite a while when her desire to be healthier along with me nagging her got her back on the road. For a few years we ran independently due to us living an hour away from each other. Now that we live close by, we share weekend training runs and lots of races. She can't make the weekday runs due to her work schedule. Mom and I can run for an hour and talk the whole time about everything and nothing. I am so thankful to be able to run with the woman who gave birth to me... yeah that may sound a bit cheesy... but it's true. I love you Mom!

Rod, an ex-neighbor and ex-coworker, but still a good friend that I learned early shared my intrest in running for fitness. The two of us trained a lot together in 2006 and 2007. We trained for a few races togther, including the Gate River Run last year. I think he's the most motovational training partner I could ask for. We could run a fast 4 mile run where I thought I was gonna die, but he'd talk non stop the whole time about whatever he was passionate about at the moment. He is MIA right now due to a new job... but I'm sure he'll be back one day.

Starting in October of '07 I've been so lucky to have even more people come into my life that have a joy for running (or at least the results from it!). Jenny asked one night at a party if she could join me on my 4:30AM runs and of course that was WONDERFUL for me. For a week or two it was just the two of us girls. Soon after, her her hubby G (Robert) and a friend of ours Chuck were lacing up and freezing out there with us. So, for the most part the three of them crazy peeps are by my side (or somewhere ahead or behind) sweating before the sun rises.

Jenny is an amazing woman in my eyes. She is sweet, kind hearted and strong... She had knee surgery (ACL) approx. 9 months ago and now she's running in 9 mile races like nothing ever happened. I want to be like her when I grow up.. haha, she's just a few years older than me... but she does inspire me.

G... well all I'm gonna say is I'm gonna keep on keepin on with his long legged a$$. And Chuck is our comic relief! He's always coming up with something crazy and he makes me look forward to any run when I know he's showing up. But reguardless of his antics... I'm SO proud of him and his determination to run. He has improved so much over the past few months and I can see him running a 15K and even further with us in the very near future. He just might not know it yet.

I also have to thank 3 other people who are not training partners... but important just the same. Barry who never says a word about the time I put into training, who is with Shyenne so I can be out there running.. he takes pictures at races and believes that I can reach all of my goals. Shyenne, of course my little pumpkin head... she's my biggest fan!

My Dad has to be in here too... he was a Marine for 30 years, during that time he ran.... A LOT... not always by choice I'm sure. But he has run many many races, from 5K's to the Marine Corps Marathon. So I guess running is in my blood.

Then there's Dennis, who claims to want to join our pre dawn jaunts... and Tim who will soon be training for the Byron 5K. Bring it on boys!

SO...... to those of you who accompany me in my love for the running the road. Thank you and I love you all. Running would not be the same without those of you I can share my accomplishments with.

Ok, Back to present:

Now that I just re-read that I must update a few things. Rod, I still havn't run with him in forever. He works about an hour away from home now and we just kinda lost touch.

Jenny, G, & Dennis ended up running 3 half marathons in 3 months in Jacksonville (Tri 2B Tuff Challenge) last winter. Go Them! They are great running friends. They still get to run the 4:30 AM runs, but I can't anymore, due to the fact that my work schedule changed to 4 - 10 hour shifts where I have to leave my house at 6AM to get to work. SUX. I'm on a PM training schedule now, don't like it but it's better than nothing.

Dennis, Me, Jenny, G - Soaked after Cherry Blossom 15K last year.

Barry, well, we divorced last spring soon after my post ('bout May). I'm not going to go into all of that. But he was a great supporter of my running. My little girl Shy, she think's it's cool that I run and I think she wants to get out there and join me. I've let her run 1/4 mile jogs a few times. She'll be 8 in April so I might start letting her run more soon.

Chuck, who ran with us in the mornings... well we're living together now! I must say it's neat to have a boyfriend/running partner all rolled into one. Something I'd always wanted, now here it is. He has made tremendous improvements since he first started. I'm very proud of him.

Me & Chuck - Jan 09 in Bruswick.

My Mom is still running! She runs with us on the weekends. She's da bomb. She can go 4 months without running and jump back in no problem. My Dad, he has reported to me that he's back into running, his doctor told him to lose about 20 lbs.... which he's done. We are throwing around the idea of us running the Rock & Roll half together in Sept. in VA Beach. He lives up in Maryland. We'll see!

How Many Miles?

2009-02-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

I wish that I could go back in time and log my running miles from the beginning. I guess since when I first started I had no major goals in mind, except fitness / weight loss. I didnt see the need to worry about how many miles I was running or anything cool like that. I just got out there and ran a few days a week.

The first time I ran the Labor Day Road Race (2004) I made a little excel spreadsheet to track my training to be sure I could get up to 6 miles. Then I ran my first 15K in 2006 and made a spreadsheet for that as well. So for a few races I have a few months worth of "logged miles" but that was it. I think I may have had calendars with some workouts written on it, but I don’t even know if I still have them. I’ve moved twice since Oct. 2007. In ‘07 and ‘08 I did keep up with a log all year, yeah me! But at this point I don’t know if I want to go back and add all that up… since I can’t get an accurate total anyway.

At least I’ve started now. I’m using an online training log as well as my handwritten log. Have I mentioned how much I love that thing. I’m such a dork, looking forward to logging my workouts… At the end of the book there is a graph where you plot your weekly mileage, plus another graph to plot your cumulative miles. It gives me some thrill to be able to look at stuff like that at the end of a year. My friends know I’m all about a spreadsheet of any kind.

I’m serious about my running now, I really have been since the beginning of ’07 (except for going through a divorce last spring) which temporarily threw things off in terms of my focus on eating healthy and working out. Better late with logging miles than never right?

So, I ran my 4 mile tempo run on the treadmill last night. Did it as follows... 1 mile at 6.0, .5 mile at 6.5, 1 mile at 6.8, .5 mile at 6.5 and the last mile at 6.0. Felt really good for the whole mile at 6.8. Didn't feel like I was gonna die but I could feel the extra effort. Enjoyed the workout since I hadn't run since Sunday, oh my. Not by my choice though!

Weighing on my mind

2009-02-04T05:56:00.000-08:00

I’ve read time and again that your not supposed to weigh yourself everyday. Our weight can fluctuate up to 3 lbs. Daily or so they say… blah blah blah… only weigh yourself once a week. But I just can’t.

For the last few years, at least since I started running I’ve made a good effort to eat right. Sure, I fall off the wagon and go crazy from time to time, sometime staying off for longer than I’d care to think about. If I’m not currently on a healthy diet, I’m thinking about how I should be… how’s that? I’ve been doing VERY good since the 1st week in Dec 08 (got off track over fall). I was like 123, which doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but I’m 5’0"… compact, not a lot of room to put on say 10 extra pounds ya know (it all goes to my tummy pooch…. Why not my bootie?). So by New Years I was hangin’ around 120…. Getting better. Cut out the beer and wings on the weekend and quit eating oatmeal (loaded with brown sugar and peanut butter) before bed. Crazy.

I got this new running log for New Years (Nathan) and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it…. The very coolest thing is that there’s a daily spot for weight. So I have a perfectly good excuse to be obsessive now! Woo Hoo.

Anywho… I get to enter my weight daily… what fun. But at the same time it frustrates the snot out of me. I don’t like it when I go to a Superbowl party and eat just a little bit of junk and gain 3 lbs…. Especially when I KNOW it’s not physically possible to gain 3 lbs of body fat in 24 hours… it bothers me none the less.

Then there’s the catch 22 of eating enough to be able to function on running 20 miles per week, but trying to eat under enough to lose a few pounds over the next few months. It’s not quite fair. All the same, I’m hovering around 116. By the end of March I want to be 110 or so. I just fit my clothes better there, and 13 extra pounds to carry on runs wasn’t cutting it either. I definitely run faster at a lighter weight. Makes a difference!

Change of Plans

2009-02-03T07:03:00.000-08:00

I had my running week allllll planned out, but NO, work must get in the way. I called yesterday to see what night I am scheduled to work my part-time job and it's Tuesday. Blah. I was going to go to a track and so some intervals, something I don't get a chance to do very often and I know I need to. But tonight was the only night this week that I could squeeze it in, but nope, not gonna happen now.

It is so hard to fit in all the elements of training that I WANT to do. And not have my legs too tired for the upcoming workouts. I taught my spin class last night... it was easy, just a few inclines and a few sprint intervals and class was over. There's a girl in there that wants to be able to run a 5k and I really really would like to see her do it. So I pushed 'em and encouraged her that if she can complete 30 min. of spin than she could at least run/walk a 5k. She's not convinced!

Since last night was spin, and tonight's workout will be a big fat NOTHING I decided to get in some leg training with weights. This usually gets pushed to the side because I don't want sore legs right before speed work or long runs, hard to find time. My legs are tight this morning and I like it!

Now I've got to wait until Wed. night to run. My body, if not my mind, should appreciate the rest.

I don't Wanna Work!

2009-02-02T08:39:00.000-08:00

I pulled in the parking lot at my job this morning at 6:23 AM and had a relization. I don't wanna work. 40 Hours per week, 4 - 10 hour days. Yuck. Work gets in the way of everything I want to do, for me. I wasn't born, or have not married, into wealth.... so we've gotta do it anyway right?

Friday I got up earlish and took my pumpkin to school, then went straight away to run 3 miles. It was 32 degrees and windy. My run felt icky just because it was so cold, but I had the satisfaction of knowing I'd done what I planned to do. I had to get the run out of the way early so I could get grocery shopping done, and meet my boyfriend in Macon for lunch (Acapulco - YUM), then go to Dublin and work a part-time job.

Saturday I slept in (7:45) and was lazy for a few hours before I went out and did another 3 mile run with Chuck. We had all of our kids this weekend, so we spent the rest of the day doing kid stuff... playground, movie, pizza.... Fun stuff!

Sunday I woke up and decided that the apt. MUST be cleaned, I don't mean just straightend up, because it's always clean like that, I'm talking pull everything out, and put it all back pretty and organized.... along with the bathrooms getting cleaned, sweeping, moping, vaccuum... I feel so much better now that everything is clean and pretty and straight! At about 3 PM we met with my Mom at her house to run our long weekly run (7 miles this week). We ran around the neighborhood that my mom lives in and through some cotton fields all the way to the apartments I live it. I think it's super neat that I'm capable of running from my house to my mom's.... really it's only about 4 miles going through the feilds, but neat all the same.

About the long run. I ran the first 3 miles at about 9:30pace, the 4th & 5th closer to 10 min mile, due to running in the dirt, the 6th mile, back on asphault was 9:30, but check this out.... I ran the last mile at 9:00!!!! Wow, that's pretty quick for me on a long run, especially considering it was the last mile. I know, I know, I should probably be slowing down on that long run... but It just felt good to go faster, and I'm supposed to listen to my body right? I was rather proud of my efforts. Chuck said I just wanted bragging rights (I finished before him & my Mom did) Go Me! Hahahaha.

I ended the month with around 76 miles, very good to keep my goal of 900 this year in check. I am loving my training right now. 6 more weeks until the Gate River Run! Oh yeah, can't wait!

Tonight I teach spin @ the gym, so it'll be more like a rest day. Is it crazy for me to be sad that it's not on my agenda to run today? Well, I am sad... and probably crazy too.

I've got a pocket full of sunshine...

2009-01-29T05:47:00.000-08:00

What a beautiful day it is!!! I am in such an amazing mood.

Especially nice considering that yesterday I was grouchy, tired, and blah. Last night was my planned 5 mile treadmill tempo run. I'm usually not a treadmill hater, but for some reason last night I got on it and felt nothing but disgust toward the stupid thing. At first, all of the treadmills were full, one became free so I get on and start setting it up... only to realize that the pace/distance LED's wern't working. How am I to run and not know how fast/far I'm going. Can't have that. So I go hop on an Arc Trainer for a few till another one is free. I get on it and start jogging, only to realize I've gotta take a potty break, grrrrr.... so take care of that, get back on. EVERYTHING hurts, is crunchy, tight, not good. I do the following workout:
Mi 1 - 6.0, Mi 2 - 6.3, Mi 3 - 6.5, Mi 4 - 6.3, Mi 5 - 5.5. The last mile was supposed to be at 6.0 but I had absoultely no juice left in my tank to make that happen. I ran the last two miles hating myself for being such a sorry runner, thinking that I should feel better or be running faster than I did. I can do that to myself easily... punk myself out and be mad at me about it. How silly!

So the run was complete, no matter how icky it was for me... I did it right?

I went to bed last night, and after a week of not sleeping well, I fell fast asleep and slept all night, slept GOOD. I woke up feeling all chipper, no tightness from last night's run, in a wonderful mood. Today is jeans / sneakers day at work. Oh yeah... lovin' it. I'm at work at 6:30AM every morning, by the time the sun came out and I realized that it was NOT going to be another cloudy dreary day I was ready to dance in my office. Or do yoga or something.

We are having a "pre superbowl party" at work today. They are ordering wings and sides and having cake. I have officially decided that I WILL NOT be eating any of that junk. I've eaten good since The first week of December and I'm gonna keep it up. I got on the scale this morning only to realize I've lost another pound. Sweeeeeet. I even got on the scale backwards to be sure, and it said the same thing. My boyfriend Chuck, weighed hiself later in the mornin' and said that the scale gods were on our side, he had lost some too.

Tonight I plan on going to the gym after work and doing about 30 min on the Arc Trainer, and maybe some Abs. I am keeping my fingers crossed to hold on to this happyness... I love being in a good mood.

Much needed Rest

2009-01-28T04:09:00.000-08:00

After my week of extra miles last week, Monday I only taught my spin class (30 min) and did some abs. Yesterday the plan was to do 30 min of cardio, probably on the Arc Trainer at the gym. On the way home from work I was SO tired and felt very rundown. I took the "listen to your body" advise and decided to cancel the workout. Went home and did NOTHING, even got to bed by 9PM and got an entire 8 hours of sleep which is very unusual for me on a week night. Do I feel guilty about skipping a cardio workout? Heck no, not this time. I am sure my body needed the rest and recovery. Tonight the plan is a 5 mile tempo run on the treadmill. Now I'm jazzed up and looking forward to running after work.

Last Week

2009-01-27T04:30:00.000-08:00

It's already Tuesday, but I want to go back & recap last week. Last week ended up being a 24 mile week, kinda by accident. It should've only been a 19, maybe 20 mile week.... but my boyfriend Chuck & I got a little overly ambitious. We know, we know... over training, injuries... we know... but Steve G. let me borrow his Garmin and I was so excited to have the new toy I just couldn't help myself! I mean, how cool is it to have a neat little gadget that can give you so much useful information. Besides, organizing info / spreadsheets & such, get me goin'... so you can imagine how much I like the Garmin. OK, I'm really workin' hard to justify my extra miles last week here!

Anyway, I did get a 5 mile tempo run on the treadmill, 2 trail runs (4.5 mi & 3 mi), one easy 4 mile run, and a long run (7.5 mi) on Sunday that had a few substantial hills. I am proud of my effort last week, but plan on taking it easy this week. Soaked my feet in ice water a few times over the weekend just in case.

Last night I taught spin class at my gym, just 30 minutes. Tonight I'm gonna ride the stationary bike for 30 min. and work some weights (upper body).

Here I Go!

2009-01-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

Well, how do I start? So, I've been playing around on the local running club's (Macon Tracks) forum lately, really enjoying reading the posts and getting great motivation from everyone. I've been reading blogs by the members that have them posted and enjoy them, so I figured why not share too? Here goes....

I'll give a brief overview of my running history, then stay up to date from now on:
I started running in June of 2002, I was 24 years old, my daughter was 2 at the time, I had gained 10 lbs. since my daughter was born and was going through a bit of depression.

My Dad (a US Marine) has been a runner since joining in 1974 and completed 2 Marine Corps Marathons. My Mom has been a runner for about as long, usually running to control weight or for the mental therapy aspect! I took a Running course at MSC in 1999 and enjoyed it for the few months I was doing it for a grade (got a C... What!?!).

Given my state of mind, and body back in 2002 I decided to start running! I knew I'd shed a few pounds and it would give me time out of the house all to myself. I wasn't a stay at home mom, I worked at JCPenney then so I got up early and ran before work. By the new year I had lost about 15 lbs... I was very happy at the progress and was feeling so much better about myself. It was October of 2003 before I got the courage to run a 5K, from then on, I slowly but surely got hooked on running and road races.

I was off and on with running for the first few years of it. I had a foot injury due to wearing junky shoes, I'd get lazy, or didn't want to run in the cold, whatever the case was... I was inconsistant. Since the first of 2007 I've been a lot better about consistancy, and my goal is to keep it up!