Tuesday's run

Knees still hanging in there

I did my normal 4.5 mile loop last night and it felt wonderful. No soreness or looseness while running, and nothing last night or this morning. The plan is to do a 10 miler on Sunday and use it as a diagnostic. If I can do it alright and recover w/o problems, I can do the 1/2. If I have any problems at all, I'm out. I'm ok with that decision, I'd rather skip the race and keep going in my recovery than run the race and not be able to run for most of December.

Looking back, I'm amazed at what a difference in conditioning that training for a 1/2 has made. I used to run short distances really regularly. I *knew* that speed work would make me faster, but when you are used to running 4.5 miles and topping off at a 10K, it's really easy to fall back into normal patterns and not push the speed. I also didn't have an incentive to run long distances, and I was scared of them, so I didn't bother. I'm really impressed at what a difference adding slow, long miles has made in my running conditioning. It seems somewhat counter-intuitive, but the long slow runs really increased my stamina, form, and improved just about every part of my running.

Once I'm recovered from my knees and the race on Dec 11 I'm going to re-evaluate my running plan. I really want to maintain the long runs and I think I've found a similarly-paced trail-running partner to do that with. I also want to add speed play (with Luke) and serious cross training and strength building. Ideally I'll keep running 4 days a week with one long run and one speed run (is that too much? should I alternate long run/speed work every other week?), and do at least 1 day of additional short cardio and strength training.

Jogging again!

I spent most of the last week visiting my brother and sister in law in Montana and used it for a week of knee recovery. The town they live in affords breath taking views of the Montana Landscape. Their house is situated on 200+ acres of land with lots of lovely hiking trails. Fortunately, the wind gave us enough of a break to get one long walk in Big Timber, and a second in Missoula. Other than those two walks, I spent a lot of time icing, taking advil, and just resting.

And I, tentatively, think it's paid off.

Yesterday I did a slow 4 mile loop from my house with short walk breaks at every mile. Rather than do my standard 4.5 mile loop, I decided to run laps around my neighborhood so that I could head home at the lightest sign of discomfort. Fortunately, no knee funniness for the run! I did get some hamstring cramping on the left side near the knee. I'm beginning to think that my IT band, left ham, and left calf  are putting stress on the joint. I get fairly consistent cramping and my left calf has been sore and knotted (in comparison to the right). However, no knee issues either before or after the run!

The neighboorhood got in the holiday spirit this weekend and I had a lovely time running through the various holiday lights:

I'm taking today off for rock climbing but will be back out tomorrow. My main goal is to keep the pace slow, incorporate walk breaks and see if I can do distance at a slower pace. I really want to be able to run on December 11, although I will absolutely pull out of the race if my knees are giving me problems. No point in running a race only to not be able to run for several weeks after.

Should have seen this one coming...

Last night's run sucked. S. U. C. K. E. D. First mile, awkward, second mile, great, third mile, pain. stopping, trying not to cry, walking, wanting to run, trying to run, back to trying not to cry, walking, very slow jogging home. I got home feeling sad, desperate, and like I might have to drop out of the the Tucson HM b/c I'm not sure I can do it without causing injury.

I had Dr. Luke (not a "real" doctor but he plays one sometimes at home), take a feel of my knee, my gait, my stride, basically everything. He's take - "your knees are creaking, you can feel the tendons when you bend and straighten, it's probably tendonitis from over use. Take your own advice and start taking advil regularly." Huh, maybe I should listen to my husband every now and again.

We're headed to MT to visit our in-laws, newborn nephew, and a litter of puppies. It's also going to be cold and I've been worrying about getting in mileage while dealing with 20-40 degree temps. In light of everything that's going on, I'm going to take the opportunity to not run for a week. Instead I'll focus on walking when it's warm enough, Jillian Michael's yoga, and maybe the elliptical or rowing machine if I can handle it. But I'm going to stop running for a while, give myself real rest (not the, I'll-just-run-4-times-a-week "rest" I've been doing), and reassess when I return.

Cross your fingers and make a sacrifice for my knees.

Still Recovering

Despite my personal desires to run,run, run, faster, faster, faster... my body has other plans. It's been about a week and a half since the HM and despite my attempts to convince myself to the contrary, my knees are still recovering. As I said before, I'm not getting pain, but I'm getting that-doesn't-exactly-feel-normal that could turn to pain/injury pretty quickly.

Following advice, I've cut my mileage to about 13-17 slower miles per week with walking, cross training or climbing on my off days. I'm also taking advil, rolling around on my foam roller, and doing leg lifts.

I've been paying a lot of attention to my body and I think I'm having knee problems because of my hip rather than my feet. Both hip flexors are tight and I think they're causing my legs and knees to track in a funny way.

It's frustrating b/c I want to be back out running and getting in miles, but I also want to make it through my next race w/o any injuries and a quicker recovery time. Very annoying when you can push your body faster than you thought you could, but then have to give it a while to recover for the push.

rain, rain

Well, my long run got rained out. Which is actually probably good b/c I've been experiencing some patellofemeral pain in the left knee post running. I don't get it when I run, but if my knees are bent when I sleep sometimes it'll wake me up. I think it might be the shoe. It also might be the distance. I'm going to add leg lifts to see if I can strengthen the quads, and keep stretching the hams, calves, gluts. Cannot. get. injured. Especially now that I've come to love running this much.

Headed to the climbing gym instead. Likely back out tomorrow.

Still recovering

Here's been the schedule so far:
1. Monday - rest
2. Tuesday - Rock climbing (2 hours w/ a new running AND climbing buddy!). Some of those movements out of deep flexion? Painful to the quads.
3. Wednesday - run/jog. Great for the first 2.5 miles, then it felt like someone inserted hot pokers in my quads. Clearly still recovering.
4. Thursday - walk
5. Friday - walk
6. Sat - jog. 4.5 miles, average 9:30 pace, felt good! My quads are recovered, although my knees feel a bit... loose. Not sure how to describe it. I'm definitely going to start some mild weight training next week now that my legs are recovered. I really need to build my lower quads to protect the patella tracking.

7. Tomorrow: planned 8 mile run w/ new running buddy and Luke. A bit nervous, but generally looking forward to it.


Finally, this week I learned why you never run a race with new shoes. I picked up a pair of Cascadias at the expo and was psyched to try them out this week. Well, they talked me into 1/2  a size bigger and it was a huge mistake. The're ok to start, but w/in .5 mile I can feel that all the proportions are wrong and my foot was sliding around in the shoe like crazy. Normally my cascadias feel like a second skin on my feet - these? not so much. Pretty soon into the run I started feeling the effects on my knees. Not horrible, but not good. Fortunately, they'll let me exchange them for store credit which I will use to by the 9.5s. It means I didn't get the 20% off, but I need new shoes anyway so it'll be worth it for something that fits.

Does make me wonder how many people experience knee problems from too big shoes.

2011 Women's Half Marathon

Yesterday I ran 13.1 miles. Receiving the official race results last night: I ran 13.1 miles in 1 hour 59 min and 58 sec. Boo-ya! Under 2 hours by 2 seconds! Here's how it went:

Saturday, Day Before 
The day before the race my mom and I went to the expo to get my stuff. The good: I snagged a pair of Cascadia 6s for 20% and a new sports skirt Lotta Breeze Capri for a discount.  My mom bought me a race gift of a really nice Brooks hoodie with the sleeves that turn into fingerless gloves and a thermal hood with a hole for my ponytail. The bad: going to any sort of expo with my mother is bad for my pocketbook :). The second bad: The sizing on the shirts was off. Way off. I ordered a medium (for a 34" chest according to the size chart. FYI I have closer to a 39" chest in the bust, but fit a 32-34 elsewhere (shoulders, etc). It has probably 6 inches of negative ease (extra fabric). You could fit two of me in there. So I'm going to have to do some taking in. I tried to exchange it (me and a bunch of other women in the same "too big" boat), but they told me no can do.

We went for a walk the night before the race and I finished with a light dinner of pasta and a salad.

I had a hard time sleeping, and before I knew it it was 5:30 am and time to get up.

The Race
I woke up at 5:30 and snagged a banana with almond butter and some licorice tea. My mom, kind heart that she is, got up with me and dropped me off at the start line. My stomach was nervous so I grabbed a last minute pit stop before lining up. (a shout out on the porta johns - the race had 75 porta johns lined up for over 3K runners. The lines weren't too long and moved fast. Good job.)

The start was cold. 43 degrees cold. That's cold no matter where you live but when you're used to running in the mid 80s, 43 is really cold. Fortunately I had checked the weather and decided to buy a pair of arm warmers at the expo. After trying a lot of $25 and $30 pairs (seriously? for sleeves?) I settled on a pair of asics $8 el cheapos. El cheapos for the win! Great wicking, didn't overheat, no chafing, and no ugly arm pinching.

The gun goes and of course, b/c I'm i the 3rd corral, it's a slow walk to the starting line. The course started through downtown scottsdale which meant snaking our way through city streets. As with most races, getting through the participants was a slow going pain. I've said it before an dI'll say it again: I love no problem with walkers. I'm a walker. But, if you plan on walking a race, it's just rude to force your way to the front and then walk 4 abreast, refusing to let faster walkers and runners pass. The first mile was like a frustrating, real life game of frogger: trying to get around women walking an 18 minute mile with giant water belts and backpacks.

The plan? Run 10 min, walk 1 min, walk water breaks, aim for a 10 min pace.

 Reality? yeah, not so much. My first mile I was running a comfortable 9:21 pace, even with the walker-frogger game I was stuck in. By the time my first walk break hit I was just getting into some open running space. So I kept going. Pretty soon I realized that I was going to be better taking my walk breaks at every 2 mile water stop.

The first 6 miles were beautiful. My average pace went from 9:21 to 9:12. I felt great, the air was cool, and I was happily flying along to the dance party in my head. The only interruption was the crappy race band playing the same damn Elvis song. Dude, I had Rhiana telling me to "shut up and drive". Elvis totally squelched my juju. I planned to take a gel at mile 4.5 or 45 min. W/ my pace, that meant I actually ended up taking my Hammer gel espresso around the 5.5 water break. Totally easy, no stomach problems. Yay!

Mile 7 we hit an incline. It slowed me but not too bad. I started to feel some stitches that could lead to cramping and decided to channel... I have no idea what. But I realized that if I slowly raise my arms out to the side and above my head (for dancers: basically a porte de bras from second to high fifth and back; for everyone else: I'm flapping my arms like a bizarre bird), it stopped the cramp. So I'm running up this incline, slowly flapping my arms and bopping around to the music. I see a number of woemn around me struggling and then i glance at the ground to see a shadow behind me doing exactly the same thing :)

By the time I hit mile 7-8 my average pace was 9:09. Yup, I'm running negative splits on my first half marathon. 7-8 goes great and I take 1/2 of my second gel at the start of mile 9. In the 9-10 mile I'm getting tired. But I kept channeling my friend KT's guide to Chi Running: Relax, fall forward, and run from bent ankles. As soon as I reminded my body into the posture running was effortless. I fully credit her input as the reason I can run as fast as I can.

Mile 10, I'm ready to be done but I'm still feeling great. Tired, but great. I'm flapping around a bit, but also avoiding all cramping. My calves are sore and tired, but what do I expect? I've just run 10 miles at one of my fastest paces.

Half way through mile 10, I see the  2 hour pace team leader exit the porta john. The 2 hour pace team is not just w/in my sight, but w/in reach. I make it my goal to keep him in eyesight through the finish. Considering I thought I'd take 2 hours and 30 min to run the 1/2, revised to maybe 2 hours and 15 min during my training, this was an unthinkable goal a week ago.

Luke snapped this one of me .1 miles from the finish

By the time mile 12 rolls around I'm still flying and hit the mind-over-matter part of the race. I'm going to finish this thing and I'm going to finish fast. Rounding the corner to the finish line I see my mom and Luke cheering, smiling, and jumping up and down. I feel fast, happy, tired, and totally amazing. I pick it up just a bit and cross the finish.

We were given our finisher medals by uniformed air force service men. Here's my issue with this. Yes, they are well dressed young men (like the firemen at the end of the Nike Woman's 1/2 marathon), but this is a woman's empowerment race - how about a female air force service person? Aside from the problematic gender-stertyping assumption that all women like men in uniform, it seems a bit silly to 1) assume that all women also like men and 2) is patronizing to get a "good job girl" pat on the head from a dude. I'd have rather had a female servicewoman or a female marathon finisher welcome me to the finish line. Because I run for myself and to run with other athletes, not to get a gift from a dude.

Anyway... Post race I grabbed an orange and a banana and found Luke and my mom by the cookie cafe. Cookie Cafe: great idea for non runners, the last thing in the world you want after running a long distance. I got lots of hugs and a dry shirt.

Probably one of the most memorable kisses since our wedding :)

So excited... can't... stop... talking... long... enough... to... eat...

Me and mom.

Cookies, medal, and nice, dry shirt

Gear:

•  I wore my el cheap arm warmers (awesome), 
• my on-sale el cheapo RoadRunner tech T ( also awesome, need more...),
• my black Gym Girl Ultra skirt (a bday gift from mom),
•  my pink bday sunglasses (from Luke) a sweaty bands head band (new from expo, also reflective so I don't get hit by cars when running at night), 
• running socks... addidas I think, and 
• what I have now discovered are Brooks Cascadia 5s. I picked up the 5s at the RoadRunner sports outlet in San Diego. They are stiffer and not as comfortable as the 6s, but my old pair of 6s are tread-worn and my new pair hadn't been run in. Plus, even though not as light, they are still great shoes.
• Moving comfort Fiona sports bra
• Target up&up sunscreen spf 50
• Body Glide
• spf 30 Blistec 5 star protection chapstick ( a must in the low humidity)

Food:

• Pre-race: banana, 1/2 packed jelly belly sports beans, almond butter
• Water or gatorade during the race
• 1 hammer gel espresso at mile 5.5 (needed more post-gel water)
• .5 hammer gel espresso at mile 9 (needed more post-gel water)
• orange, banana, and nuun electrolyte drink post-run

Post-Run
I felt really good until about an hour or so after the run, then I started getting sore. Fortunately my mom's place has a really nice community hot tub and we headed over for a soak.

Then runner's stomach hit. I definitely pushed myself. I shaved 13 or so min off my training times, and my stomach paid the price. Not as bad as after some of the wharf to wharfs, but I had the hungover stomach/GI problems until about 2:30/3pm. In retrospect, I think that I didn't get enough water after taking the gels and I made the mistake of drinking 2 cups of gatorade instead of water after taking the gels. Too much sugar combined with really pushing myself. Oh well, it happens, and it was totally worth it.

Today my quads are sore and parts of my calves are stiff, but not too bad. I'm going to try to get in either a light jog or walk .

The next challenge: recover while still preparing for another 1/2 marathon on Dec 11th. The added challenge: figuring out how to run for a week in November when visiting my new nephew in MT in near freezing temps. Till then, I've got this:

finished my first 1/2 marathon in 2hours 8 seconds. A personal best in time and distance. It was fun, fast, and I'm going to be sore. Headed to the jacuzzi, full write up with pics tonight or tomorrow.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Starting line!!!

7 am and ready to go!




-



Posted using BlogPress from my iPhonev

Location:N Fountain Dr,Scottsdale,United States

My 1/2 marathon dance party playlist.

Ain't Nothing Wrong With That Robert Randolph & The Family Band
Americano Lady Gaga
Bad Kids Lady Gaga
Beautiful, Dirty, Rich Lady GaGa
Beyonce Feat. Jay-Z - Crazy In Beyonce
Blazin [Explicit] Nicki Minaj
Blow Ke$ha | www.RNBxBeatz.com
boom boom (feat. cham) rihanna
Boom Boom Pow Black Eyed Peas
Born This Way Lady Gaga
Breakin' Dishes Rihanna
California Gurls Katy Perry
Catch 22 Pink
Centerfold [Bonus Track] Pink
Check It Out (With Nicki Minaj)[EXPLICIT] will.i.am
Crazy Beautiful Life Ke$ha | www.RNBxBeatz.com
Disturbia Rihanna
Don't Stop The Music Rihanna
The Edge Of Glory Lady Gaga
The Fame Lady GaGa
Fly [Explicit] Nicki Minaj
God Is a DJ Pink                          
Here I Am [Explicit] Nicki Minaj
I Gotta Feeling Black Eyed Peas
I Wanna Go Britney Spears
I’m The Best [Explicit] Nicki Minaj
Just Dance - (The DJ Vice Megamix) Lady GaGa
Last Chance [Explicit] Nicki Minaj
Matthew Sweet - Ultrasuede Matthew Sweet
One Tribe Black Eyed Peas
Only Girl (In the World) (Remix) (Bonus Track) Rihanna
Party All The Time Black Eyed Peas
Pon de Replay Rihanna
Raise Your Glass P!nk
S&M Rihanna
Scheiße Lady Gaga
seven deadly sins Flogging Molly
Shut Up & Drive Rihanna
Simple Little Melody Black Eyed Peas
Super Bass [Explicit] Nicki Minaj
Teeth Lady GaGa
Tightrope (Feat. Big Boi) Janelle Monáe
TiK ToK (Extended Club Remix) [Explicit] Ke$ha
Till The World Ends (the Femme Fatale Remix) Britney Spears feat. Nicki Minaj & Ke$ha
Tonights the Night Pink
U And Ur Hand Pink
Umbrella (Feat. Jay-Z) Rihanna
We Found Love Rihanna
We R Who We R Ke$ha | www.RNBxBeatz.com
Who's That Chick? (Doritos Night) (Bonus Track) Rihanna
Ya se fue Ozomatli
Your Love [Explicit] Nicki Minaj
Your Love is my Drug (X-Change Mix) DJ X-Change

New PR!

After a miserable run on Wed. I didn't have much hope for Thrusday's run. I even told Luke, "yesterday was a bust, today may be too, so if I'm dying, please feel free to run ahead and I'll meet you at home." Real confidence, eh?

We set out and I felt good. Really good. Part of it is the weather. Part of it is the totally awesome rockin' dance party that is my 1/2 marathon play list.  And I kept feeling good. I started to get patella twinges around mile 3, I had a very strange stomach thing around mile 3.5, and then I hit mile 4 and I could have gone for hours.

My pace? Average of 8:49 min mile!

It's going to be hard to rein the pace in at the start of the race. I'm considering setting my paceing notifications to occur more often (currently every 6 min). Then again, the start of the races are always slow. But I'm excited and ready.

My plan is to stick to my 10 min run, 1 min fast walk, pattern. Unfortunately this won't line up with the water stations (every 2 miles) that I will walk through in order to get water. So after the first 4 miles or so I may switch to running in-between and walking my minute at the water stations. I will do another reassessment at mile 7 and see if I can run the last 10K straight. If I'm not feeling it, I'll reassess at mile 10 and will likely run the last 5K straight. But again, this is all based on assessment of knees, cramping, etc. So, basic plan is stick to the 10 min run, 1 min walk, unless I feel really good afterI've made it at least 1/2 way, and then consider scaling back the walk breaks.

I plan to do a banana w/ some almond butter for bfast. I'm going to take 2 hammer gels expresso and a small bag of shot blocks sodium with me. My plan is to take one of the gels at 45-50 min (mile 4.5-5, when I seem to need it), and a second gel at 1h 30. It seems like more nutrition than I "should" need, but the gels stop the leaden legs that I seem to get w/o fuel every 40-50 min. I wish I had had more long runs to see if I really need the 2nd gel or if I'd be ok w/ just getting some electrolytes, but as everyone says, the race is not the day to start experimenting. If anything, I'd rather be over-prepared- esp b/c my body didn't have a problem w/ anything i put in it during the run. (Pre run is another story, only bananas and oranges seem to help me avoid death cramps).

For the most part I"m sticking to water at the water stations, although I may be up for the sodium in a gatorade towards the end. For recovery, I've got nuun tablets. I wish there way a way to carry nuun w/ me during the race w/o having to carry my water bottle. I love the bottle for long runs, but it does become a pain in the ass when I'm trying just to focus on my running and not what the damn bottle is doing.

Ugh

Yesterday's run was rough. really, really rough. As in, felt like back to square 1 rough. I was going slow on the start and before I hit .5 miles, a wall of side cramps came on with a vengeance. Ok, clearly a sign to walk. So walk I do. And the cramps? they don't leave. I kept going for nearly 4 miles, but everything was very tight and it felt impossible to breathe.

I know why this is happening, and it's not race nerves. I've been going through some serious dissertation stress it the last week or so and I just can't shake it. Sometimes running/walking is great for stress relief. But others, like yesterday, I'm so tight and tense that the act of running/walking just makes everything tighten further with ever step.

After the completed, but sort of failed, walk I went climbing with Luke. Climbing was hard but in a different (no-impact) way and it was nice to get back on the wall.

I'm headed out again today, we'll see how it goes. Somehow I've got to find a way to shake the stress before Sunday's race.

Clearly I don't understand the word "taper"

So maybe starting to add strength training the week I start tapering for my first 1/2 marathon isn't the brightest idea out there.

I am sore.

I am also dumb.

I will be walking today.

Sigh.