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?

If You Plan on Running a Half Marathon...

...it's good to have a team of supporters cheering you on. Charlie couldn't come to the race, but he did leave me the following note on our fridge.

He's so thoughtful :)

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 :)

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.

The 5K That Wasn't

On Thanksgiving morning I participated in my first Turkey Trot. It was a 5K to benefit one of the local YMCAs in town and my first 5K! My friend Randi and I both participated and Randi's husband Ryan cheered us on and even better, held our stuff :)

The race started at 9a and the temp was 12 degrees so I decided that layering was extremely necessary. I think I ended up with 2 bottom layers and 6 layers on top along with gloves and one of those hat bands. I actually think I over did it with the top layers and could have stuck with 4-5 and been fine. Plus, by the end of the race I fully hated the gloves I was wearing and thought about throwing them off. They were just $1 target gloves and not fancy running gloves so that might be why.

Here's Randi and I at the start (I'm pretty sure the better picture is on her camera). We decided to line up with the 10 minute mile pace group. 

We started out strong and spent the first few minutes winding around and passing people. I thought we were going to do awesome, but then Randi started to have some breathing issues (most likely because she didn't train outside). I hung out with her for the first mile or so  and then decided to just go at my own pace in an effort to get a sub 30 minute time. After that I was pretty touch and go. The only mile marker I was able to see was the 3rd one, so for most of the race I had no idea how I was pacing myself. My best bet is that I started out way too fast because during the 2nd mile (or what I think the 2nd mile was) I kept on having to stop to walk.

I'm glad I was able to see the 3rd mile marker though because I totally picked it up after that in an effort to make up for some of the walking. I ended up crossing the finish under the 30 minute mark, so I was really excited!

Here I am walking through the shoot to drop off my time tag.

After that I walked back to the finish to see Randi cross. I managed to see her but wasn't able to get a finish line photo.

After a while of waiting around the results posted and I came in at 29:24! I was really excited that I actually met goal and came in under 30 minutes. 

That was until I checked the official race results online the next day and saw the following:

Briargate YMCA/Kaiser Permanente Turkey Trot 2.8M 2.82 Miles November 25, 2010 in Colorado Springs, CO As you may already be aware, the course was inadvertently cut short during the race which made the course 2.8 instead of 3.1 miles (the outlined course is marked off as a 5K). The YMCA and Colorado Springs Police Department apologize for this error and will be sure to correct it for next year.

2.82 miles!!! What a rip off! So basically what I thought was a really awesome time actually wasn't that great after all. My overall pace was 10:26, so I was pretty bummed. However, looking at the bright side, I came in 60th in my age group of 25-29 out of 121 women. 1,744 people participated and I was 931 overall and 391 out of the 919 females that participated. Plus my time beat the average pace of 31:28.

All in all I am still a bit bummed out about it though and am thinking about finding another true 5K to run in the next few weeks. It was a really fun experience though and gave me a good taste of what races are like. I think in the future, pacing myself and not letting the race pace me is going to be my biggest challenge. And, even though the race didn't really end up being the 5K that was promoted, I still want to participate again next year :)