This week I started my mom on the Couch 25K program to prepare for the Skirt Chaser inTempe in Feb. She did a great job w/ her first ever treadmill and running workout. It's an exciting change of pace to be coaching another beginner through her first steps and I"m mighty proud of her.
On x-mas day, Luke and I went for a nice 4.5 miler from his house. This was my first time running this route since we got married in 2005. In 2005 I had must started running. We lived in Pasadena and I'd do a 3 mile loop around the Rose Bowl. It was flat, but it was really hard for me and I felt really proud of the accomplishment. So, after our wedding I was excited to try to go for a run with Luke in his local stomping ground. I had no idea how long the route was, or that it was a pretty hilly run. Plus I was trying to keep up with Luke, who had never run with me before. I was running about 11 minute miles, he was pushing 8? 7:30? It felt like 4 minute miles. By mile 3 I was dead. Then we hit the second to last hill at 3.5. With the cramping, tension, distance, and speed I burst in to tears and started to sob. By the time we made it 4 miles and were staring up at a .6 mile hill, I was threatening divorce. I mean, married less than 24 hours... there should be some sort of annulment option. Like a return policy. I made it, I nearly killed Luke, and I swore we would never run together again.
So this route? it had a history.
I also kicked it's ass. I'm not used to running hills, and I had to take it easy on the downhills to stop from cramping, but we maintained a 9:30 min/mi average pace, even with a good amount of rolling elevation change. The day was cold, but sunny, and we chatted nearly the whole way. It. was. awesome.
One of my favorite parts of running is seeing the slow and steady progress you can make if you just put in a little extra effort or a few extra miles. I'm amazed at how fast I am compared to where I was, and I look forward to going faster, longer, and stronger. I'm having a good time looking back on where I was when I first started, and giving my mom the encouragement I needed, and received, to keep going.
I'm running or XTing every day, but not necessarily blogging b/c of all the family around. I should be back to things after the new year. Until then, happy miles, happy new year, and follow me on DailyMile!
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Sunday Circuit
So far I'm loving the Nike Fitness App for iphone/pad/pod. I've started doing their fitness workouts as a way to add strength training. The program uses a combo of body weight training (pushups, planks, burpies, froggers, etc) and balance moves combined with weights. I've lost a lot of balance since stopping ballet and the challenge is good for me. My left side is also much worse than my right. In addition, I'm keeping up with the IT strength exercises I blogged about a few days ago. And the rolling, lots of rolling.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Getting back into it
So far, I've been taking my recovery slow.
Monday: couch, beer, bath triathalon
Tuesday: Gym work out, XT using Nike Fitness
Wed: Elliptical and abs
Thursday: Went for a slow run (close to 10 min miles) and met up with Colette. Best quote: "I think some alien stole my body and ran those sub-9 min. miles"
Today: slow run or gym, still, at 5pm, unclear.
I've been stretching a lot and taking it really easy as I've headed back into cardio-land. I'm just trying to get myself back into a gentle running schedule through the holidays before beginning any real running training (speed work, endurance work). In the mean time, I'm working on adding cross training/strength training into my work outs, including circuit work, balance, weights, core, and IT-specific stuff.
For now, that means rolling on the foam roller and doing these exercises from Saturday Morning Zen. If you've had IT problems, they're really easy to work into a post-run cool down/stretch. See more here.
Monday: couch, beer, bath triathalon
Tuesday: Gym work out, XT using Nike Fitness
Wed: Elliptical and abs
Thursday: Went for a slow run (close to 10 min miles) and met up with Colette. Best quote: "I think some alien stole my body and ran those sub-9 min. miles"
Today: slow run or gym, still, at 5pm, unclear.
I've been stretching a lot and taking it really easy as I've headed back into cardio-land. I'm just trying to get myself back into a gentle running schedule through the holidays before beginning any real running training (speed work, endurance work). In the mean time, I'm working on adding cross training/strength training into my work outs, including circuit work, balance, weights, core, and IT-specific stuff.
For now, that means rolling on the foam roller and doing these exercises from Saturday Morning Zen. If you've had IT problems, they're really easy to work into a post-run cool down/stretch. See more here.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Tucson Half Marathon 2011
Yesterday I teamed up with two awesome runners to run the Tucson 1/2 Marathon. The race started near the biosphere (about 30 miles north of Tucson) and ran along desert scenery before ending in the town of Catalina. The course is mostly flat, with a long downhill stretch for the first 6 miles. I finished in 2hours, 1 min and 13 seconds. Just 1 min and 15 seconds longer than my race in Nov. Some things went better, some worse, here's the break down:
Night Before
I made pasta with a redwine, portobello mushroom, and chard sauce. It was fine and carb heavy but tasted much blander than my previous version than the recipe. It didn't matter for the race, but apparently I forgot to add the 3/4 lb of overn-roasted tomatoes that made up the bulk of the sauce. Oops. I write it off to pre-race jitters.
Start
This may have been the hardest part. We had to get out the door at 4:30 am to drive north and catch the race bus. That meant 1) being up early, 2) sitting in the desert in December for a hour waiting for the race to start. For those not in the know, the desert is freakin' cold in December. Probably mid-30s, lower when the wind gusted.
Our intrepid team of runners consisted of myself, Colette, and Chris.
Chris started running seriously around the same time I did. Because we live on opposite coasts, we started talking about running and races when he came to visit his gfriend/fiance/wife, and followed progress electronically. This summer we finally bit the bullet and signed up for the Tucson 1/2 marathon. Chris has been my most outstanding training partner and inspiration. Whenever I wanted to ditch out on a run, I'd see he just PR'd in training and boy, oh, boy did it get my ass off the couch and out the door. We ran his first 10K together last year. He swore it would be a 12 min/mile pace. My ass. Try 9:15. As in that race, he totally rocked this one and finished in 1:58:something.
Colette is a new addition to my running life in Tucson. So far we mainly talk about running together but haven't actually gotten out yet. I'm super inspired by her trail runs (in the morning! for miles & miles!). We have become climbing buddies (again, super inspired by her abilities). Hopefully I'll drag my butt out of bed and get out on the trails with her sometime, and maybe I'll be able to talk her into checking out the free track workouts near my house. Colette is another "I run 10 minute miles, I'm really slow!". My ass. She rocked this half marathon finishing in 1:54. She shaved nearly 13 min off her last HM pace. Like I said, total inspiration.
We prepared by packing cheap sweats to toss or bag (in drop bags) before the race, and jumping up and down a lot. This race i ran in my red running capris, lavender and navy blue ski socks, bright teal Brooks Cascadia 6s (I cannot tell you how much I love these shoes), a New balance long sleeved running tech top, champion C9 running gloves, a pink head band/ear warmer, and a new pink Brooks thermal running hoodie (a gift from my mom). In preparation for the race start, I was wearing a pair of sweats and another soft shell jacket.
Food: Banana with almond butter at 4am (ugh), packet of sports beans 30 min before race.
Run
This was a small race in comparison to the Woman's Half. And it started cold. The singer of the national anthem had a lovely voice, but I was ready to strangle him w/ the damn microphone chord ever time he milked one of the notes w/ unending vibrato.
We started in the 2nd wave and in the time I turned to Colette to confirm that we were going to try running together but to break off if we needed to, Chris was gone. Colette and I started but after the 2nd mile she was pulling faster than I wanted to run and I hung back to settle into a pace.
The first half of the race is downhill. Between the cold and the decline, I ran it pretty fast. My main concern was to not fuck up my knees and to have a good time. Because of the cold and the placement of the water stops, I missed taking my gel at the 5 mile mark and had to save it for mile 6. Gel went down just fine and I ran comfortably through the mile 6 water stop, pausing to toss off my thermal and hand it to our intrepid cheer squad: Sarah (Chris' partner), Luke, and KT.
At the 6.5 water stop I needed more fluid to get the gel digested. Learning from last race, I was all about water. No powerade for me. So when I said "water?" and the guy confirmed "water!" I grabbed the cup and slugged it down. Not water. Poorly mixed electric blue powerade. Within minutes, it hit my stomach and came right back up. Hacking and coughing, I went back for actual water and kept going. I must have gotten some of the gel in my system, but not enough. By mile 10 I needed more, but didn't want to throw anything else in my stomach.
Around mile 8 I started to get some IT band pain in the left knee. Mile 8.5 was when the cramping on the right hand side struck. No amount of flapping or running with my arm raised seemed to help. By mil 9 I was really counting down the miles and taking walk breaks every mile to .5 mile depending. I tried shifting my stride around as much as possible and found alternating between low, long, heel strikes (no knee pain, but massive cramping), and mid-foot and even toe running (no cramping, super painful on the knees), helped. When we hit the only incline in the race at mile 10, I was elated. The change in terrain took so much pressure off my knees and thankfully gave me a different stride pattern. By mile 11 and 12 I slowed down to 9:45 and 10 min/mile paces and just cruised on in.
The last 4 miles were really hard, but I made the best of it. I chatted with the sheriffs helping with the traffic. I cheered on a woman in a Woman's Half Marathon tech tee. I co-miserated with a fellow runner. I stopped to give KT a high 10 before running through the finish line (Luke cried out - finish strong! I was really glad to finish at all...), and jogged comfortably past the finish line.
The race was organized, the water stops were frequent and well staffed, and the after-race food was fine (fruit, salty stuff, flatbread w/ PB & J). This would be a great, fast race for a first timer, someone looking to PR, and anyone who can handle long stretches of downhill. Personally, this race was much more physically demanding than the generally flatter but w/ occasional hill course i ran in Nov. I really don't like down. Down = knee problems and cramping. Uphill = slow, hard, but much easier on my body.
Recovery:
Even though the race was really tough, my recovery has been really good. Keeping the sugary drinks out of my stomach (as much as possible), and slowing the pace at the end, really saved me. No runner's stomach. At all. Yay! We all felt good enough to go to the Sonora Desert Museum in the afternoon, and finish the evening with Chris' Mighty Margaritas and fish tacos.
Today (the day after) my quads and IT bands are sore. Inexplicably, my shoulders are also sore and I have a killer knot in the middle of my left back.
Reflections:
I really wish I had had 2 months in between races so that I could have properly trained for this one. I really felt the lack of long runs in the interim month due to my knees recovery from the last race. I also need to figure out what I'm doing (other than running 13 miles) to irritate my IT band and get on changing that ASAP.
Plans for the New Year:
I have plans to run a 5K with my mom in Feb, but no other long races. I'd like to sign up for a bunch of 10Ks and work mainly on speed work. I may plan for a HM in the later Spring, but i'm not planning on anything just yet.
I'm taking this week off to recover and then will ease back into training. Goals for next year:
-add strength training. I need to settle on a strength training plan and start sticking to a twice a week routine. I need to strengthen my hips (should help with IT band), core, and upper body (for climbing and running). I'm going to try to start adding exercises at various parts of my day to break up my long stretches at the computer.
-add some gentle speedwork. This is going to start with doing Fartlek Runs with Luke.
-keep the long weekend runs. I think I may do pyramids of 7 miles - 13 (or longer!) miles, and then back down, just to make sure I keep up the long, slow runs. They really made a huge difference with my endurance and speed.
-keep my 4.5 mile loops
-keep cross training. climbing, swimming, gymming it, sexy time (wait, is this a family blog?), whatever
-And, I'm getting the Chi Running low down with KT on Sunday!
Night Before
I made pasta with a redwine, portobello mushroom, and chard sauce. It was fine and carb heavy but tasted much blander than my previous version than the recipe. It didn't matter for the race, but apparently I forgot to add the 3/4 lb of overn-roasted tomatoes that made up the bulk of the sauce. Oops. I write it off to pre-race jitters.
Start
This may have been the hardest part. We had to get out the door at 4:30 am to drive north and catch the race bus. That meant 1) being up early, 2) sitting in the desert in December for a hour waiting for the race to start. For those not in the know, the desert is freakin' cold in December. Probably mid-30s, lower when the wind gusted.
Our intrepid team of runners consisted of myself, Colette, and Chris.
 |
| It was very, very cold |
 |
| in orange |
Colette is a new addition to my running life in Tucson. So far we mainly talk about running together but haven't actually gotten out yet. I'm super inspired by her trail runs (in the morning! for miles & miles!). We have become climbing buddies (again, super inspired by her abilities). Hopefully I'll drag my butt out of bed and get out on the trails with her sometime, and maybe I'll be able to talk her into checking out the free track workouts near my house. Colette is another "I run 10 minute miles, I'm really slow!". My ass. She rocked this half marathon finishing in 1:54. She shaved nearly 13 min off her last HM pace. Like I said, total inspiration.
 |
| Blurry, but I love the stride and smile. |
 |
| check the awesomeness of the shoes, socks, running capri/skirt |
Food: Banana with almond butter at 4am (ugh), packet of sports beans 30 min before race.
Run
This was a small race in comparison to the Woman's Half. And it started cold. The singer of the national anthem had a lovely voice, but I was ready to strangle him w/ the damn microphone chord ever time he milked one of the notes w/ unending vibrato.
We started in the 2nd wave and in the time I turned to Colette to confirm that we were going to try running together but to break off if we needed to, Chris was gone. Colette and I started but after the 2nd mile she was pulling faster than I wanted to run and I hung back to settle into a pace.
The first half of the race is downhill. Between the cold and the decline, I ran it pretty fast. My main concern was to not fuck up my knees and to have a good time. Because of the cold and the placement of the water stops, I missed taking my gel at the 5 mile mark and had to save it for mile 6. Gel went down just fine and I ran comfortably through the mile 6 water stop, pausing to toss off my thermal and hand it to our intrepid cheer squad: Sarah (Chris' partner), Luke, and KT.
At the 6.5 water stop I needed more fluid to get the gel digested. Learning from last race, I was all about water. No powerade for me. So when I said "water?" and the guy confirmed "water!" I grabbed the cup and slugged it down. Not water. Poorly mixed electric blue powerade. Within minutes, it hit my stomach and came right back up. Hacking and coughing, I went back for actual water and kept going. I must have gotten some of the gel in my system, but not enough. By mile 10 I needed more, but didn't want to throw anything else in my stomach.
Around mile 8 I started to get some IT band pain in the left knee. Mile 8.5 was when the cramping on the right hand side struck. No amount of flapping or running with my arm raised seemed to help. By mil 9 I was really counting down the miles and taking walk breaks every mile to .5 mile depending. I tried shifting my stride around as much as possible and found alternating between low, long, heel strikes (no knee pain, but massive cramping), and mid-foot and even toe running (no cramping, super painful on the knees), helped. When we hit the only incline in the race at mile 10, I was elated. The change in terrain took so much pressure off my knees and thankfully gave me a different stride pattern. By mile 11 and 12 I slowed down to 9:45 and 10 min/mile paces and just cruised on in.
The last 4 miles were really hard, but I made the best of it. I chatted with the sheriffs helping with the traffic. I cheered on a woman in a Woman's Half Marathon tech tee. I co-miserated with a fellow runner. I stopped to give KT a high 10 before running through the finish line (Luke cried out - finish strong! I was really glad to finish at all...), and jogged comfortably past the finish line.
 |
| The Finishers! |
 |
| Sexy husband wearing the scarf and cap you knit him makes all the race pain go away. |
One final shout-out to our awesome team of cheerleaders. Seeing Katie, Luke and Sarah at the 6.5 and 9 mile marks gave me a real boost. Never underestimate the power of people cheering your name:
 |
| The whole team |
Even though the race was really tough, my recovery has been really good. Keeping the sugary drinks out of my stomach (as much as possible), and slowing the pace at the end, really saved me. No runner's stomach. At all. Yay! We all felt good enough to go to the Sonora Desert Museum in the afternoon, and finish the evening with Chris' Mighty Margaritas and fish tacos.
Today (the day after) my quads and IT bands are sore. Inexplicably, my shoulders are also sore and I have a killer knot in the middle of my left back.
Reflections:
I really wish I had had 2 months in between races so that I could have properly trained for this one. I really felt the lack of long runs in the interim month due to my knees recovery from the last race. I also need to figure out what I'm doing (other than running 13 miles) to irritate my IT band and get on changing that ASAP.
Plans for the New Year:
I have plans to run a 5K with my mom in Feb, but no other long races. I'd like to sign up for a bunch of 10Ks and work mainly on speed work. I may plan for a HM in the later Spring, but i'm not planning on anything just yet.
I'm taking this week off to recover and then will ease back into training. Goals for next year:
-add strength training. I need to settle on a strength training plan and start sticking to a twice a week routine. I need to strengthen my hips (should help with IT band), core, and upper body (for climbing and running). I'm going to try to start adding exercises at various parts of my day to break up my long stretches at the computer.
-add some gentle speedwork. This is going to start with doing Fartlek Runs with Luke.
-keep the long weekend runs. I think I may do pyramids of 7 miles - 13 (or longer!) miles, and then back down, just to make sure I keep up the long, slow runs. They really made a huge difference with my endurance and speed.
-keep my 4.5 mile loops
-keep cross training. climbing, swimming, gymming it, sexy time (wait, is this a family blog?), whatever
-And, I'm getting the Chi Running low down with KT on Sunday!
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
"Taper" week
This week is going really differently than my last tapering week. For one, I'm dealing with the "careful with the knees" issue. Second, I'm only 4 weeks off my last HM with the knee issue, so I haven't been doing long runs, or running as often. Sunday I did a hour long run on the treadmill. I think I'm the only person in the world who is slower and exerts more effort when I'm running on a treadmill than outside. So I only went 5.6 miles in a hour, but I wanted the hour long run and it felt just fine. Yesterday I walked 3 miles, today I ran 5. Even though I haven't had a long distance run in a while, I feel really good and comfortable, so I feel confident about the run on Sunday.
Next challenge: weather. Winter hit the Old Pueblo and hit it hard. As in 22 degrees lasi night, high of 47 today. Running in the cold here is odd b/c the air is cold, and being in the shade is cold, but once you're in the sun it feels about 20 degrees, maybe even 30 degrees warmer than it is. Today I wore my VS yoga pants (my only long pants!), a long sleeved New Balance shirt, cap, and Champion running gloves. My cold weather trials were my new $7 fleece vest from Old Navy and my skiing socks. I plan on running in my skirtsport skirted capris and ski socks. Why ski socks? They're knee high, offer mild compression, and are wicking and non-chafing. Gave it a try today and they ran like a dream. The vest was nice for the first mile and in the shade, but got pretty warm in the sun. The gloves were off before the 1st mile. My cap has gotta go, but I might pick up a headband to keep my ears warm. My ears actually ache a little from my music vibrating in the cold.
It's going to be 38 the night before the race, and we have to be on the busses at 4:30am. Yup, 4:30 am for a 7am race. They'll have drop bags, but I am not a happy camper. I'm getting better at narrowing down what i want to run in, but I'm scared of freezing while waiting for the race to start.
Next challenge: weather. Winter hit the Old Pueblo and hit it hard. As in 22 degrees lasi night, high of 47 today. Running in the cold here is odd b/c the air is cold, and being in the shade is cold, but once you're in the sun it feels about 20 degrees, maybe even 30 degrees warmer than it is. Today I wore my VS yoga pants (my only long pants!), a long sleeved New Balance shirt, cap, and Champion running gloves. My cold weather trials were my new $7 fleece vest from Old Navy and my skiing socks. I plan on running in my skirtsport skirted capris and ski socks. Why ski socks? They're knee high, offer mild compression, and are wicking and non-chafing. Gave it a try today and they ran like a dream. The vest was nice for the first mile and in the shade, but got pretty warm in the sun. The gloves were off before the 1st mile. My cap has gotta go, but I might pick up a headband to keep my ears warm. My ears actually ache a little from my music vibrating in the cold.
It's going to be 38 the night before the race, and we have to be on the busses at 4:30am. Yup, 4:30 am for a 7am race. They'll have drop bags, but I am not a happy camper. I'm getting better at narrowing down what i want to run in, but I'm scared of freezing while waiting for the race to start.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The next race...
....because there is always a next race.
Since running the woman's 1/2 people keep asking me if I have a marathon on my mind. I feel absolutely confident in saying: "no". I really like the 1/2 marathon distance and I'd like to run several more in order to improve my 1/2 marathon race rather than trying to double the distance. I don't have any particular race in mind for the spring, but may try to run another one in April/May.
Before then, I have convinced my mom to start training with me for her first 5K! We're going to do the Tempe SkirtChaser 5K sponsored by SkirtSports. My mom is a life-long exerciser, but has not really pushed her cardio beyond moderate to light exercise in several years. But she's in good shape, I know she can do a 5K, and I think the training and sense of accomplishment would do her good. I'm going to set her up on one of the Galloway walk/run plans- joint protection and injury prevention are the key words in her training. Hopefully we'll be set up as training partners on Daily Mile or SkirtSports KickitForward and I'll be able to post updates on both of our progress.
The next big goal is to then do a 5K with my mom and sister in the later spring, and/or a 10K with my sister.
Both my mom and sister have been inspired by my own conversion into running and I'm excited to introduce them to the sport.
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