Best RACE EVER!!

We had a BLAST at the Shamrock Half today. This event was a TON of fun. I have to recommend this race to every beginner runner or anyone just looking to have a blast. This race had it all... lots of fun runners (men in kilts), beer stops, live Bands and DJ's along the way, and even jokes along the side of the road (as if you'd get bored?!) Many runners/walkers do this race just for the beer.

As a part of your race fee you get a wicking t-shirt, running hat, reusable lunch bag, finisher's medal and most importantly 4 beer tickets for the finishers party. They also hand out plenty of beverages, snacks, irish stew, and thermal blankets. I admit, I was lame and didn't dare partake of any of the beer stops until the big final one. I'm not even sure the beer stops on the race course were legit. It seemed like a couple groups decided to hand out free beer to the runners to quench their thirst on their own. It was quite an act of good will!

Nick at Sunrise (We got up at 5:45 AM. The race started at 7 AM)

I'm looking forward to doing this again next year (God willing!) I finished in a time of 2:21:36, which puts my pace at 10:48 minutes a mile exceeding my expectations. I should have pushed harder, but I was a bit unsure of myself. At the beginning I didn't want to push too hard because I wanted to be sure I'd last the whole way. By the end of it, I realized I had more energy then I should have and was able to sprint to the end. If I had gone a proper pace, I shouldn't have been able to hit it so hard at the end.

A mile on the coast is simply not the same as a mile here. The easy flat miles were a welcome respite to arse kickin' hills we are accustomed. I'm simply thrilled with our progress. I have to thank Nick for running with me. My guess is that he'd be comfortable doing 9 minute miles (he runs at an 8 minute mile pace when he's on his own doing 4 to 5 miles). I appreciate him sticking it out with me. I couldn't have done this had he not been so supportive. I also have to thank Linda for watching the kids so we could run this together. She sacrificed her weekend so we could do this and I'm ever so appreciative!

Me after the race.

The SportsFest: Irish Stew, Beer, Music: What more could you ask for?

Pre-race Jitters

Nick and I are leaving the kids with grandma and Nick and I are going to have some much needed alone time. We are so grateful. Time alone is few and far between these days. This is huge. I've never left my kids overnight, except Ladybug once in Wisconsin in December of '07 thanks to some very thoughtful relatives. Green Eyes has yet to be left overnight.

I've totally got the pre-race jitters. I usually don't get them, but with our unusual training schedule (i.e. infrequent, erratic, sometimes non-existent running schedule)... I'm just a little bit nervous about completing it well. Sure, I can complete it, but can I complete it well? As Nick said, I just need to focus on myself and not worry what others are doing and it will be a good experience.

On the Biggest Loser the other day the contestants did a half-marathon challenge. I think the top time was 2:25 or something. That's a pace of 11 minutes/mile. That's not at all unreasonable for me and the old me would have kicked that. BUT, as I haven't been able to train as well as I'd have liked (you may recall the 90 minutes on the elliptical on Monday). Realistically it may be more like 12 minute miles. That's about what we run right now with the kids in tow but it's hard to say how much the hills and kids slow us down here. This course is as flat (i.e. EASY) as they get and should help keep our speed up. :) The weather is looking beautiful, a sunny 60 degree high. That's pretty much pefect.

One factor that I'm hoping isn't an issue is wind. Being on the beach, coastal winds could prove to be a potential obstacle. Let's hope it's a calm day.

Elliptical Lies

So far our luck with racing weather has been dicey at best. Even in Albuquerque where it rarely rains, it sleeted on our last race day. Mind you it's sunny 360 days out of the year there, so that's some pretty bad luck. Then, during my last Charlottesville 10K run itpoured the entire time. The race is normally a picturesque, lovely fall run. Not so in my case. I'd say we are well OVERDUE for perfect race day conditions come Sunday. Right now they are calling for sunny, highs in the upper 60's-low 70's. Let's hope it stays that way.

Last night, I did 90 minutes on the elliptical even though it didn't really equate to what I should have done for our weekend run. It takes some mental power (OK, maybe not so much mental power as TV watching) to make it through. I took a picture of the elliptical to show how insane the calorie calculators on the ellipticals are. I hate how those things always over-calculate. It says I burned 1121 calories. Whatever. I'm guessing 800 or 900 is more like it for the 7.56 miles it says I accomplished. I did it at an easy resistance level of 8 out of 16. Usually, I do the elliptical at a resistance of 12 out of 16 at a quicker pace, but I can only last an hour or so at that level. I've read articles that have shown that these calculators over estimate and the best exercise burn for your time is running or the treadmill followed by the elliptical and walking. Don't get me wrong, the calorie estimators are good motivators, but they aren't realistic.

You Win Some and You Lose Some

We were shut in all weekend long with the rain. There wasn't so much as a 2 hour window rain free during waking hours so we never got our long easy recovery run in as planned. Not to be discouraged, we checked the weather for Monday and it looked better so I told Nick; "Hey, take off an hour early on Monday. We will go running after work and get it in then." So, Nick reschedules some of his meetings at work and I rearranged the kid's nap schedule and my personal schedule to accommodate an unusual Monday afternoon run. All day it was cloudy, but there was no rain. Things were looking up. The forecast said there was a possibility of it starting to rain again around 6. Perfect. We just had 8 miles to do, we can fit it in.

Of course, when we go to drive out to the running spot, it starts to rain. Our hopes were squashed. There'd be no run for us with the kids. I can't have my kiddos out there 50 degrees in the rain getting soaked to the bone. The whole ordeal just has me feeling completely beat down at the moment. It takes a lot of energy just to get out there in the first place (bottles, snacks... you've heard that all before and then stow them in the car and the mental energy it takes to change my schedule, etc). Further, there is no hope of getting a long run in tomorrow as Nick will be out of town for a bit this week. This was our last chance. So, I guess it's me and the flippin' elliptical for 80 minutes tonight. Another option I have is to leave Nick with the kids while I do the same killer 1/2 mile of crazy hills over and over and over by myself in the rain. As these hills aren't "easy" and they don't fit the recovery bill this run is supposed to be, I won't be choosing that option. I hate the road we live on with a fiery passion, that's how insanely difficult it is.

I suppose the lesson here is that we need to invest in a rain shield for the kids. Obviously, we never needed one in Albuquerque. And during our 10 weeks of training this go round so far we have been able to successfully avoid precipitation with little impact on the training schedule until now. As we approach Spring on the East Coast, I guess we'd best get used to the rain.

OK, well, now that I've vented. I'm going to go get dinner done and then hop on the elliptical. D-day is just 6 days.

Sheer Misery

After two weeks of not building on mileage and a bout of the flu (i.e. no exercise at all for the last week), this week's run posed to be a monumental obstacle to hurdle. We set out to do 12 miles and we did it, but let me tell you, this run really sucked the life out of me. The drudgery went on and on for what seemed like forever (two and half hours to be exact).

I was nauseous just about the entire time and had a constant pain in my mid back. It felt like someone was trying to wedge their knuckle as hard as they could into my back. I blame my back problems on having babies. I never had back issues until I had babies. The nauseous part I think was just me getting used to running in the heat again and maybe some left over queasiness from the flu. The temps are in the mid 70's this weekend, a drastic change from the 50's we've been experiencing. Anyway, it was agony.


Thank goodness it is OVER. I hope we can report that the half is much more fun... because there was NOTHING fun about this run. But sometimes you just have to suck it up and do it.

Week 7: Recovery

**TMI** Warning on this post. Today we ran our recovery run. That means we lowed our mileage by two miles and took it easy in preparation for a jump in mileage next week. After that run we will taper down until the big day. The bulk of our training is complete already. I'm psyched because I thought this would be a lot harder to do during the middle of winter. Actually, it's a lot easier to get our base mileage down. Having done it under the scorching sun in Albuquerque and the oppressive humidity of Virginian summers, this has definitely been the easiest. I'm actually learning to love winter again, go figure. (The high is supposed to be 50 today, but we were running in the morning when the temps were only in the high 30's-low 40's.)

On the way today, Nick's toes began to bleed. Guess it isn't training until your toenails start to turn black and fall off. Nick lost two toenails last time, and I lost the same. No injuries so far for me this go round but I'm not doing as many mid-week runs either.


These days it takes us at least 30 minutes just to get ready. In addition to the shaffing stick preparation, we must get snack and meals for the kiddos (milk, bottle, crackers), make sure they are freshly diapered and appropriately layered (clothes in winter and suntan lotion in the summer), a snack for ourselves in the event one of us has a sugar crash, water, cellphones, and last but not least... pepper spray.

Right now we keep the kids wrapped in blankets. You'll notice that monkey blanket got ran over a few times in the jogger and has suffered some bruising.

Week 6 of Training

I'm not sure if we are in week 5 or 6. In any case, we accomplished 11 miles today and are well on our way to be ready for the half-marathon race in March. We may even do an additional one in April. While Nick and I lost weight while training for our 2nd marathon (as we hope to for this itty bitty half), that wasn't the case for the first marathon. In fact, I gained five pounds with the first. At the time, I blamed it on Nick's pecan waffles. I was pretty fit already and I just wanted to do the marathon to keep fit and check it off of my "to do" list. I kind of beat myself up for gaining that five pounds. I mean, how in the world does someone gain 5 pounds training for a marathon? Come to find out, the body will cause you to retain water to accomodate the intense work outs! Who knew?! I was beating myself up for nothing. Find an excerpt from a Spark People article below:

It's true that many people either gain a little weight or don't see any change on the scale for as long as 4-6 weeks after making a significant change in their level of exercise. This is often explained as "gaining muscle while losing fat" but that isn't quite accurate. This extra weight is usually water.

When you start doing more exercise, your body begins storing more fuel in your muscle cells, where it can be used easily and quickly to fuel your workouts. The process of converting glucose (carbohydrates) into fuel that your muscles actually store and use (glycogen) requires three molecules of water for every molecule of glucose. As your muscles are building up glycogen stores, your body has to retain extra water for this purpose. That's what causes most of the initial weight gain or lack of weight loss. This is a good thing—not something to worry about.

However, despite what the scale says, you are actually losing fat during this time. The extra water retention will stop once your body has adjusted to its new activity level. At that point, the scale should start moving down. You'll end up with less fat, and muscles that can handle a larger amount of work.

Written by Dean Anderson, Certified Personal Trainer

You learn something new everyday. I've noticed the same with this new workout schedule. I'm retaining a little extra water right now as my body adjusts to running for two plus hours again. It takes a lot of will power to get through it. It takes a toll on the body. It only makes sense that the body will keep water in reserves.

Long Run Must-haves

****TMI WARNING on this post****

So today we did our week 3 long run. We hit the hills hard and we didn't feel like pushing much further so we increased our mileage a whopping quarter of a mile. Nonetheless, we have reached a time in our training where preparation with the right gear is a MUST.

Nick discovered today that at the 9+ mile mark, he needs to start using nipple protection. His nipples crack, get red, and bleed if they aren't protected. It's really quite disgusting. I can't even think about it without getting the heebie geebies. NipGuards are a must-have from this point on.


BodyGlide is also a must-have. The sport lubricant is miracle stuff. Most every long distance runner knows that once you reach a certain point in your training your shirts, socks and shorts will cause you to chaffe all over your body... in places you would never think about. Without this fine product, the experience has the potential of becoming much more painful.

Training - Week 2

We completed week #2 of training. We are already at 9 miles (technically 8.94 miles). We only planned on doing 8 today but we accidentally did a little more. I prefer to do a little more at this point because you never know when winter weather might hit and set us back. (I admit, I'm kind of sad we haven't had any winter weather at all at this point.) But, it's a blessing. We only have 4 more miles to add and we'll be ready to go for our spring race. Then we will have a solid base for summer runs.

Our runs are incredibly difficult. Unfortunately, the 20 foot GIS elevations google bases the elevation maps on aren't accurate and they don't show all the hills. I mean, there are at least 3 hills that are as big as the big dip in the elevation profile below yet it only shows one?

The kids were champs and slept pretty much the entire way. The high was about 24 today (near record cold) thanks to the high pressure air mass hanging out in the southwest. While I'm not complaining, I wouldn't mind if that high pressure made it's way back over here!

Crazy Hill Work

There is a price we pay for all the beautiful scenery around here. Tough, make-you-want-to-quit hills . They have a half marathon/marathon here but it is one of the toughest in the nation. At this point in my life, I'm not ready for it. Instead, I've opted for the flattest. Hee hee. Once we complete this one we will consider doing the local one as well.

Regardless, we have to train on these insane hills because flat terrain doesn't exist here except on the highways. There is no such thing as an "easy" run. We did our 7 miler today. It was pretty tough. Below is the elevation profile. Keep in mind that this is one of the "flatter" courses in our area and those small hills are decent hills in and of themselves. You'll need to click on it to see the elevation changes closely.

You (maybe not all of you) have no idea how hard it is pushing an extra 50 pounds of kid and stroller weight up the hills. Nick pushes the kids on the long run days. I barely got it done today without the kids to push so I have to give him credit. I had to push the kids on the shorter Wednesday run and I thought I was going to die.