It's been a week :(

I haven't run in a week.  This is the longest I've gone without running since last Christmas.  It makes me sad, but the thought of going out for a run just makes me tired.  I hope I don't lose too much before I can get out there again.  There's a reason, but I can't share it quite yet.  Anyone else had any longer pauses in their running and were able to get back to it?  I need some good stories!!!

It's been a year!!!!

I don't know the exact date, but I'm pretty sure I started the C25K program sometime in mid September of last year.

I can't believe I've stuck with it this long, actually I can because it's been awesome, but I was NEVER a runner before.  I was on the softball team in high school and the dance team.  We ran stairs for dance and sometimes Indian runs and for softball some people ran, but I was a pitcher so I would pitch batting practice while groups alternated between hitting, fielding and running so I barely had to run more than the 60 yards from home to 1st base.

I had tried running before once right after college.  I was also doing weight watchers then, but I never got to running more than like 15 minutes without feeling like I was dying.  I think that I was running way to fast then, but anyway, a whole year woohoo!!!

Green Lake 13 dot 1 & 5K Race Review

So this actually took place on Labor Day weekend, but I've been waiting to get the pictures from my mom, but I keep forgetting to get her camera so I guess I'll just post them later.

Green Lake is the itty bitty lake town where my family has a couple of condos.  We go up there quite a bit and I love it there.  The weekend prior to Labor Day weekend I was there and saw a sign for The Green Lake 13 dot 1 and 5K race.  I was super excited and signed up online that day.  It was their first annual race and even though the town is small I thought they did a really good job setting it up.

During the week before I was looking at the website and noticed that they had a list of participants.  At that time there were only 25 people on the list for the 5K.  I immediately though, oh geez, I'm going to come in last place! Apparently they hadn't updated the list or everyone signed up at the last minute because there were more like 100 people for the 5K and that did not include walkers that signed up the day before.

That Thursday before I decided to run fast 3.1 to see how far I could push myself since I haven't raced since June.   I didn't want to go too fast and then poop out before the end, but I wanted to do as well as I possibly could.  Anyway, on Thursday I finished 3.1 miles in 31:18.  I was super excited and decided to set my goal for 31 minutes, which would've been a 2 min PR and 4 minutes better than my last race which was horrible.

On Friday I got some news that made me think that I might not be able to go as fast as I had hoped.  I decided to not worry about it too much and just see how I felt as I was going.  My sister-in-law was running this race too and I knew she would beat me because she is much faster than me, but I decided not to worry about that either.

On Saturday my mom and aunt decided to sign up to walk the race.  I was really proud of my mom because she used to walk 3 miles every single day at 5am without fail when I was growing up and quit doing it when we moved out to the country when I was in high school.  She keeps talking about starting walking again, so I was glad she decided to sign up.  We picked up our numbers and shirts on Saturday at the community center in town.  Saturday night I vowed to go to bed by at least midnight, which was still late compared to my normal bedtime, but much earlier than our usual bedtime at the lake!

Sunday morning I woke up and got dressed and was feeling really nervous.  I really don't know why, it's not like I was worried about winning at all.  I always get nervous like this before big events though, even when I played softball in high school and when I was on the dance team.  I guess it's just my competitiveness.

This is the first race I've done that there was another distance going at the same time.  The half marathon started 15 minutes before the 5K so as we were walking to the starting line they were taking off.  Of course my sister-in-law was disorganized as usual, and was just charging her iPod at the time that I decided we needed to leave the house.  Love the girl to death, but she seriously drives me crazy!  So we got there early and I ate my Gu and drank too much water because we were standing around waiting.  Finally it was our turn to line up.  We got behind the first couple rows of people who looked like they would probably finish in like 15 minutes.

We had chips, but it was a gun start, but there weren't too many people there so it only took us a few seconds to pass the start line.  I started my Garmin at that time.  The race started at the bottom of a giant hill.  Awesome!  We took off and I felt pretty good.  My dad was at the beginning taking pictures of us so I waved.  I looked at my watch near the top of the hill and it said 9:15 or something crazy.  This was NOT good, I would never make it to the end at that pace, but like I said there weren't a lot of people and they all took off like crazy!  I tried to slow down a bit, but it wasn't easy.

The race turned through town and then headed toward the lake, but I had read the map wrong and it jogged through a neighborhood and then winded through the hotel property.  There were race volunteers at every turn and they were all doing a great job.  There were younger kids (probably from the high school sports teams) and adult volunteers.  They were all saying nice encouraging things and smiling.  I tried to say thank you at each turn.

My first mile was 9:41.  This was way way way too fast for me, although I didn't feel too bad, I was really worried I wouldn't finish.  I had run here quite a bit and knew there were several more large hills coming up.  I tried to really slow down, but was having a hard time doing that.  I was looking at my watch a lot and stayed around 10 min/mile for the second mile.  At the 2nd mile marker I decided to stop worrying so much about slowing down and just go for it.  I had planned on "sprinting" the last quarter mile and when there was a half mile to go we were at the bottom of a huge hill heading back into town from the lake and I was getting tired.  I decided to wait to "sprint" until I got to the top of the hill.  When I got to the top I had slightly less than a quarter mile to go so I took a deep breath and turned it up.  When I was close enough to the finish to see the clock (I need new contacts!) It was at 29:58, I crossed the finish at 30:03 and stopped my watch immediately.  Garmin time was 29:58 which was a 9:39 average pace.  Holy Crap!!! My last mile was 9:40 and the last .1 was 7:17!  I nearly died when the girl that was a foot and a half past the finish line wanted to cut off my chip.  They had given out zip ties and I had made sure it was nice and tight so she had a little trouble cutting it off and I had just sprinted a quarter mile at the fastest I have ever run in my life and I needed to NOT stop!

I found my sister-in-law, she had finished less than a minute before me and we walked a bit until I could breath again!  We decided to walk back and see if we could find my mom and aunt and walk in with them.  On the way we found my dad and brother and grandparents so we stopped to chat with them.  While we were running they had gone to the pancake breakfast.  I still felt the need to move though so after a few minutes we left to find my mom.  We found them at the bottom of that last hill and they were doing great.  We walked up with them and they finished in about 45 minutes.

Not much longer after that we were standing near the finish line, which happened to also be the 11 mile marker for the half,  and all of a sudden the leader came running by.  He didn't even look winded and flew by us at 100 miles an hour!  It was crazy.  He ended up finishing the half in 1:12, holy crap!  The weekend before I ran 6 miles in 1:08 and I thought that was good.  haha!

Anyway, it was an awesome race and awesome weather and they did a really good job for the 1st time.  We talked to the man who's idea this was and he said that it was a lot of work, but they thought they had a good turnout and would definitely try doing it next year.  I hope to be there for it then too!!!

Cherry On Top Award

This is how the award works:

#1. Answer this question: If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?

#2. Pick 6 people and give them this award. Then inform them that they received an award.

#3. Thank the person who gave this award to you!

#1. I don't know how to answer this.  I'm not sure I would change anything.  I know that sounds lame, but if I changed something then I wouldn't have my wonderful husband and my wonderful daughter.  I guess if I had to change something, I would've finished college instead of giving it up to work in restaurants.  In my defense, at the time I liked it and felt like it was something I was good at and aparently I was because I eventually became the General Manager at a medium sized chain restaurant and I got there relatively quickly.  Unfortunately while I was doing that I learned that I never want to do it ever again.  Oh well.  Live and learn I guess. 

#2. So many people have done this and I love all the blogs that I read, so I don't know who to pick so if you're reading this and you haven't done this award, please consider yourself picked!  

#3. Thank you Zoe here for giving me this award!!!

I know I haven't blogged for awhile, but stay tuned because I have last week's race report to post soon!!! 

3 Things Thursday

1.  I love running again!!!  I am really liking the interval runs I've been doing on Wednesdays.  They make me feel strong and powerful.  I am amazed each time by the fact that I finished them! haha!  I really enjoyed my long slow run this past Saturday.  My Garmin died 2 minutes in though so I didn't have anything to tell me my pace or time.  I think I did almost 6 miles in about 1 hour and 5 or 10 minutes.  My other two runs of the week have been faster and easier (for the most part).  I'm really glad I decided to add these two elements into my running because it has given me something to look forward to each week and some almost immediate results as well.

2.  I don't love running with the jogging stroller so much.  I have been in denial about this since I bought the damn thing.  It is of course better than not running at all, or running in the 100 degree heat later in the day.  It is hard to push that thing!  Maggs is only 23 or 24 pounds, but still its hard.  I run in a pretty flat area when I have her with me, but it's still hard.  Maggie loves it though!  She sings songs, points out every bird and flower on the way by and is happy the whole time.  It is still hard though! Luckily I only have to do it on half my runs.  Dave is home on Saturdays and my dad watches her on most wednesdays when I do those intervals.  I think he would watch her on Mondays and Thursdays too, but I don't want to ask him that much.

3.  My brother and sister-in-law do something they call "Fat Kid Sundays" where they eat a whole bunch of junk just because it's Sunday.  It's usually also because they are hung over and those kinds of not so good for you foods are oh so good for hang overs.  Dave and I had "Rich Kid Monday" this past Monday.  Unfortunately, we aren't really rich, but we bought a new computer and a Wii.  I got my Mac Book that I've wanted forever and Dave wanted a Playstation 3, but I convinced him to get the Wii instead.  They are both awesome and we are having tons of fun with them.  So "Rich Kin Monday" was followed by poor idiot Tuesday, but oh well.  If you can't indulge every once in awhile what's the point? You can't take it with you right?

3 Things Thursday

A couple of people do this on Thursdays so I figured I would too, so here goes:

1. I love So You Think You Can Dance!  It is so awesome and the dancers are amazing.  They are just all around amazing, but if you really sit down and think about the amount of time and energy that goes into learning all of these dances, plus practicing multiple dances and doing them as well as they do them.  It is really mind boggling.  This week they learned and perfected 5 routines.  Some in genres that they have never danced before, or at least before being on the show.  Awesome!

2. I think I might be crazy, but I think I'm getting faster.  I've only done a couple runs with intervals and a few long, slow runs, both of which are supposed to help with speed (right?) My last few regular runs have been faster average pace.  Hmmmm It's probably all in my head, but whatever works!

3. It's so hot outside I think I might actually melt at some point.  I am a winter person, I would much rather be freezing than in sweltering heat (yes I'm dramatic) Really though, the heat indexes were in the 100 degree range today with ridiculously high humidity.  Yuck yuck yuck.  Dave has a softball game tonight, I think I will be missing it tonight.  Sorry Babe!

Happy running everyone!  Stay cool!

Run like the wind....

After talking to my aunt who has been running for years and has done 5 1/2's this year and has run the Chicago marathon and done several triathlons I have decided to not just run each time I go out.  I've been reading blogs for awhile and I see people doing tempo runs and long, slow runs and all that stuff, but I just assumed that I wasn't that advanced and I just needed to run.  And then I got bored.  And I felt like I wasn't improving, all of my runs were the same pace, I felt like I was dying if I tried to go any faster, and I felt discouraged.  She told me that she had been a 10 min miler for 10 years.  She never really worked at it, that's just how she ran.  Then she started running with a friend and this friend did tempo runs.  My aunt started doing them with her and now runs 8:30 miles.

So I did my first tempo run (I think, I don't know if I have the correct terminology) on Wednesday.  Then today I ran 5 miles slower than I have been running "normally".  I set the Garmin to chirp at me when I was going faster than 11:00 min/mile.  I did the same thing last week and it chirped at me a lot.  This week, not so much! I had no problem slowing down.  I don't know if it was because I was really focusing on it or if it would've been a crappy run if I was trying to run "normal".  Either way I felt good the whole time until the last quarter mile I started to feel really tired.  I ended up only running a little over 5 miles in an hour which seems so incredibly slow compared to all of you, but hopefully it will help me actually get faster.  That's the logic right?  We'll see.