Watch Out Long Island...

 ...we're coming for you!
13.1 on 5.6.12
This half doesn't stand a chance.

Getting excited!

So many good things are coming up including 3 glorious days off of work!!! I heart government holidays. Especially this one, because it's the official kickoff to Summer!

Besides that, Dan and I have plans to catch the Hangover 2 in the next day or so. We're also going to head up to Boulder on Sunday so that bright and early Monday morning we can run the Bolder Boulder!

It's pretty munch the biggest race that I've ever participated in and I've wanted to run it for the past 2 years. It's a 10K and over 50,000 people are signed up to run it this year! It's the biggest 10K in the US.

Besides being in one of our favorite Colorado towns, we'll know a bunch of people running it this year, so it should be a great time!

Even though my training since the Colfax half has gone a bit down hill over the past few weeks, I am still hoping that I can PR in this race. I never was able to write a post on my first 10K back in April, but I'll try to get to that before this race happens. I also have a 5K to write about, so I'm a bit behind.

Basically though, in order to PR I have to run this puppy in less than 57:46 (a 9:19 pace). Dan is also going to run it, so I'll keep you posted on how he does :) I'm sure well, because his training has pretty much consisted of yoga classes, swimming and an occasional light quarter mile jog with the dog!

On the agenda today: Work, 5K treadmill run, BodyPUMP, then perhaps a movie date!

Also: Happy Last Day of School Dan!! (I'm just slightly jealous, but when you're on your 8th summer of this, it gets a bit easier) :)

Do you have any plans for the upcoming holiday weekend?

Half Marathon Q&A

My sister posted the following comment and I decided to make a post out of it, because I am bad at referring back to comments and I thought this would be good to remember:

Melissa Anne said...

ash this is awesome! did you get a runners high at all during the race? did you stop to pee? how do you feel today? i'm so intrigued!

MAY 16, 2011 11:46 AM 

I'm not sure that I got a runner's high, but I did feel like I kept myself in "the zone" for a lot of the race. I was really struggling through a lot of it to keep my speed around where it was, so that may be why I didn't hit it, but who knows.
I didn't stop to pee at all during the race and that was a huge concern of mine! I did hop into one of the hundreds of port-a-potties they had at the start area right before the race started. I think that this was really helpful. I also only went to about half of the water stations (I think 4 in total) that they had along the course. I felt really hydrated throughout the race and really just used them as a way to take a short walk break so that I could recharge and run faster.

I also took a Shot Blok around mile 6 but it made my stomach hurt so I didn't take any more. Usually they help me out, but I think since the race started so early in the morning, my body was just not very used to having something like that at the time.

On Monday I felt really sore... my legs and hips were really tight and I seriously considered working from home that day. One of my toenails also hurt. I was actually afraid to look at it after the race because I thought it was going to turn black and fall off like I have heard runner's talk about, but so far it has just been a bit painful and that's it! The good news is that each day my muscles feel a bit less sore than the day before. I've talked with friends who have done races this length and they say that it will take at least 5 days to fully recover.

Hopefully that's everything! When's your first half Melis?

My First Half!!!

I did it!

Here's my bib that I picked up on Friday at the expo. It's the first one I've gotten that has my name on it. I'm pretty sure that it means that I have entered into the big leagues of racing.

The race started at 6am and this is what the view looked liked from outside of my hotel room when I got up. Do you see that glare? That my friends, is rain. Not the best of circumstances if you are going to run your first half, but I just layered a lot and tried not to think about it.

Here are my friends Randi, Chrissy and Shannon at the start of the race.

The course was pretty flat overall and took us around the Denver area.

I'm not going to lie. It was hard and far! The longest run I had done in my training was 11 miles and I was hurting a lot at the end. The best part about the route was after mile 7 when we got to run through a fire station. It really helped motivate me to go faster. While I had a stretch goal of coming in under 2 hours, I knew that coming in under 2:05 was going to be hard for me, so throughout the race I pushed myself to run 9:40m/m or under. I was able to do that for all but four of the miles and I came in just under the 2:05 mark!!
Here we are at the end of the chute that leads out of the finish! I am so proud of us for running our first half!

Now for the results! I did end up running .09 miles more than I had too, but all in all, I am really happy with my numbers. My splits from my garmin looked like this:

Split    Time     Distance    Avg Pace
   1       09:32        1.00           09:32
   2       09:28        1.00           09:28
   3       08:57        1.00           08:57
   4       09:21        1.00           09:21
   5       09:01        1.00           09:01
   6       09:14        1.00           09:14
   7       09:44        1.00           09:44
   8       09:27        1.00           09:27
   9       09:47        1.00           09:47
   10     09:49        1.00           09:49
   11     09:18        1.00           09:18
   12     09:19        1.00           09:19
   13     09:49        1.00           09:49
   14     01:52        0.19           09:39
Sum  2:04:46      13.19          09:27

My official time was 2:04:42 and I had an average pace of 9:32!!
Overall: 1385/3779
20-29F Div: 227/774
Females: 650/2409

My muscles are so sore tonight and I am super exhausted because I didn't sleep very well last night. But I've taken it easy today and had my fair share of Advil today and hopefully tomorrow I'll feel closer to 100%. Now I'm off to bed :)

Scenes from my run

One of the things I've done to keep myself accountable is join a running club. I would say that all in all I am not a 'joiner' so I may not keep it up past the one season, but it has definitely allowed me to find new places to run and keeps me running at times that I haven't necessarily wanted to.

The club is currently training for the Garden of the Gods 10 Miler. So, we've been training there for the past few weeks. It is really, really hilly, but pretty much one of the prettiest runs ever.

I took photos of some of the views on my drive home the other day and thought I would share.

My camera phone pictures definitely don't do it justice.

if you've never been here, I highly recommend visiting this beautiful, free and open to the public park. It is one of the best places to visit in the Springs.

Hopefully you have a pretty run planned this week. Happy running :)

Shredding It

Over the holiday season I found Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred DVD for around $6 at Target and picked it up. In February, right around the time that I started my training I decided to give it a try, but I only lasted a record-setting one day! I think that my heart wasn't in it, but still... one day out of 30 does not bode well for traits like consistency and dedication.

Last week I decided to pick it up again and stick with it. Today is day 8 and I've only skipped one day (Sunday). Dan told me that Jillian would tell me, "No Excuses", but I feel like the 9 mile run I did that day was a good trade off.

I plan on doing 10 days on each of the three levels. Since each workout is about 25 minutes, I have been able to do one before I get to work each morning. Charlie gets really confused during the ab portions when I am down on the floor. It took me about 5 days to teach him not to come stand over me during those parts of the work out.

While I'm pretty sure that my abs won't be looking like Jillian's at the end of 30 days, I am getting better at doing push ups. What's most important to me though, is sticking with it for 30 days. Since consistency isn't really my thing, this is a good challenge to take on. Now I am off to Shred it!

5K on St. Patty's Day

Dan and I rand our first 5K together a couple of week's ago! It was so much fun. As you can tell from all of the green, it was a St. Patrick's Day weekend race. Can you see us in the picture below?!

This was a really fun race downtown and it was actually a 5K, unlike my Turkey Trot experience, which made it even better :)

Besides actually being the length that the race said it was going to be, my run was so different from my first Turkey Trot. Mostly because I have been working really hard on running consistently lately. But also because I was able to use my Garmin throughout the race which really helped me to control my pace and not get caught up in what everyone else was doing. 

I went into the race wanting to run it in sub 29 minutes, but running with a lot of people can be pretty motivating, and I was able to blow past that time and finish in 27:38, which is a 8:54 avg pace!! I felt pretty exhausted at the end of it, but was really proud of myself overall for doing better than expected! I ended up placing 45 out of 222 in my age group and 222 out of 1,241 for all female competitors!

Even though I am not running races to place or have the fastest time, I do love seeing improvement in myself overall. Looking back at my Turkey Trot run, I remember having to walk at times and I finished with a 10:26 pace. It's awesome to know that all of my training is actually paying off in a tangible way :)

Dan also did well for not training at all. He finished in 28:14 which is a 9:06 average page, coming in 506 out of 937 male competitors and 69 out of 111 in his age group. For not training one bit, that is pretty awesome. Even though he did well, it has taken a bit of work to get him to agree to sign up for another race. But I think I'm pretty close to getting him to sign up to run the Bolder Boulder 10K with my over Memorial Day weekend. I'll keep you posted :)

While Charlie didn't attend, he did stay in the St. Patrick's Day spirit.

Kombucha

 Have you tried it?

I am in the midst of a love/hate relationship with it right now. It's essentially a fermented Chinese tea, that I have been hearing more and more about. It contains probiotics, enzymes, polyphenols and organic acids that are supposed to promote health, well-being and balance in your body.

Their are a ton of different varieties and brands out there, but right now I have been trying different flavors in GT's Kombucha brand. A few things to note if you've never tried it but are thinking about it:

1. There is stuff floating in your drink. It looks gross, but it's actually the live culture that all of the healthy ingredients from the drink came from. I've found that if you don't think about it, you don't even realize when you've swallowed it.
2. The flavors I have tried so far have all been carbonated. Perhaps this is not really a surprise to anyone, but it was to me.
3. It has a slight smell and taste of vinegar. Nothing that strong, but it's definitely noticeable. I tend to like the flavors that have some juice in them to balance out that taste.
4. So far my favorite flavors have been the Gingerberry above and Strawberry Serenity.

I'm not sold on the health benefits yet, but I do think that it acts as a bit of an appetite suppressor and it keeps me from overdosing on caffeine from afternoon lattes :)


POST EDIT: One more thing to note. On each bottle, there is a little blurb that says, "DO NOT SHAKE". They mean it. I accidentally did this morning and I still can't open the bottle yet without Kombucha spilling everywhere!