It's Time To Get Serious!

We are less than 3 months away from traveling to Pennsylvania again and participating in the Runner's World Half & Festival...YIKES! It's crazy to think that fall is just around the corner - Summer has barely arrived and the weather still makes it feel like spring around here.

My running has been WAY off. Had some set-backs and all around disappointing results from my efforts to get out and run. I'm down miles and I am STILL running in the shoes that I got in January. With my mostly mediocre training I usually end up replacing my shoes after they reach around 300 miles maybe a little more. 

The last race was a partial disappointment in that I did not run as much as I wanted to, but at least I finished. Fortunately, See Jane Run was the last BIG event for me - so now we can focus on preparing for the Hat Trick in October.

That's right...we are both going to do the Hat Trick! I realized last year that there were plenty of other average runners who might have a little more training (not necessarily better) - that could be ME! I thought about it for a day or so and then made the decision to actually just do it. 

AAAAAHHHHH.....

Okay...back to work for the both of us! I took a week off...kind of. I got out when Tom wanted to go to the track on Monday. I walked all the way to the track walked a couple of laps and then tried to run one and then walked home. Probably not the best decision to get out the day after. THEN we got out again on Wednesday where I actually did a fair amount of running, just not pushing it so much. My Saturday run was pretty good. Only 3 walking breaks in 3 miles and a decent pace for having tiredness all over the place. This morning we got out on the bikes and tomorrow is another run day...

I know...boring, boring. 

I'm looking forward to getting into our routine and getting ready for this HUUUUGE challenge. 

Yes. I like a challenge. Because I know that I am capable of things that I put my mind to.

See Jane Run

Half Marathon Bling #8!

Man, Oh, Man...I knew that this race would be rough - I just didn't anticipate how much so. This race was my second half of the year - should have been my 3rd half, but the first one didn't happen and #2 was okay.

This one...oh man, I was so bummed that I couldn't get enough training in for the first one so that I could do some maintenance type miles for this one. Then I wasn't able to log many miles in the last 3 weeks mostly because I spent time recovering from Vancouver Half and then I spent most of the week before SJR suffering from headaches - boo hoo...NOT.

I know that my plans are not necessarily going to happen the way that I like, so I'm cool with that. What I don't like is when something comes up during a race and I know WHY it's happening, not so cool.

For the first 6 miles I was doing pretty good with running and walking - I felt fairly decent actually. Also, I had remembed to strap on my pouch that I had a stash of shot blocks in and was downing those during my walk breaks along with electrolytes from the aid stations. Yup...doing a decent job and enjoying the morning and then BAM...

Calf Muscle Spasm. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!

It's only mile six for cryin' out loud! So back to walking for this girl. For the next 4 miles I walked most of the time and tried to run now and then. It wasn't meant to be. I made my peace with what was happening and decided  that I would just try to save it all for the end and try to run the last mile in. That was a silly idea! Once I reached the 12 mile mark I was feeling fairly demoralized because I just couldn't get my body to go and just plain tired because I really tried to step lively and I pretty much am not a fan of walking. Walking a mile when the finish is "right around the corner" feels very, very long.

Once I made the turn to go to the path back to the finish I saw Tom was waiting for me. I tried to run a little more, but that was not really an option, my body was rebelling! However, with Tom giving me a little bit of a pep talk...I was able to run the last stretch through the finish. I was sure that it wasn't pretty, but the photos were just posted and I actually looked okay!

While I'm glad that I did this race, it is one that I will not do again. The course was fine, it went around Lake Union and there were some nice views. However, the first 4 miles were basically an out and back course and then went down and around the lake and the last 3 miles was the 5k course - again, out and back. I am not a fan of out and back courses except if it's just a 5k race...then no problem. I feel like on anything longer I'm back-tracking and that's not my favorite thing to do.

There were plenty of volunteers, but I was so far back that it was kind of hard to tell if the person was a volunteer or just another person hanging out. Special shirts would be good for those people...make them stand out a little more! The food was not that great and there were no electrolytes (that I could see) at the finish.

I guess I have been spoiled by Energy events and how they organize races. They are the BEST!

Now I'll have a few more days of rest and then we'll be getting back into training mode. This time for the BIG event this fall!! Runner's World Half & Festival here we come!

Hat Trick Baby!!!

2016 VUM

Yesterday was the big day! All the training - which wasn't that much...wasn't all  for nothing. We finished and I was able to finish fairly strong too.

My running mojo finally kicked in during May. Most of our training runs felt pretty good, but we didn't have enough time to log decent long runs like we should, but we did log more miles in May than in April and definitely more than March. So I'm  okay about that. I know that we'll have to get the longer runs on the weekends in, but fortunately we'll have lots of time to do that for Runner's World in the mean time.

For our first real big race of the year - one that we both are running I was pretty excited. Since this was the first one since the Hop Hop at the end of March I wasn't feeling terribly confident. I know that I should have a better attitude about my abilities, but sometimes I fall back into the old routine of feeling not so good about my running. In the end, I think I did alright - I paced myself quite a bit which in the end made for my slowest half marathon yet at 3:20:01. Now I know what to shoot for at See Jane Run. If I can take 10 minutes off this time I'll be happy. Then I can really focus on making RW my PR!