October in Review + Halloween long run

Halloween morning I woke up and dressed up in my first costume of the day: Cold weather runner. And set out to do 11 miles. In keeping consistent with my long run theme, I didn't eat anything before my run. Shocker. I have noticed that when I eat PB toast my stomach goes in to revolt almost immediately after, and I just didn't have time to deal with that.

Instead, I took my first Gu at mile 2, and it seemed to work just fine. I swear I am going to get some GUNS from toting around my handheld water bottle through the winter. Wowsers. My arms get tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired. About 5 miles into my run I see a huge gathering of people....oh ya! There was a Halloween race that I was going to enter. This must be the start. :) I came running in the opposite direction minutes before the start. I ran another half mile up the trail and then turned back around to do the remaining 5.5 miles.

Another mile and a half to two miles in, I started to see some of the racers making their back route of the race. I cheered the front runner on, told 2nd place to go catch #1, and cheered like hell for chick #1 and #3 overall. Then it kind of got funny, as the leaders of the 10k started to pass me in the opposite direction...they started cheering for me! Thinking I was in dead last (by at least 2 miles....). The volunteers kept trying to hand me water and shaking their 5k & 10k turn around signs. I just had to laugh....I was keeping a really strong pace and WASN'T wearing a race bib, but apparently they didn't get it. Oh well, that's the most crowd support I've ever had for a long run. HAH.

I ended up running really strong, and having a really strong finish. It was also super fun to see all the costumes. I'm for sure going to do the race for fun next year in costume. One of my favorites: fourth place (when I saw him) in the 5k was the marlboro man. He was wearing a cowboy hat (that he was carrying in his hand), red flannel, jeans (OUCH!), and had a ciggarette dangling from his mouth. Too funny.

I did 11 miles in 1:38:51 for a pace of 9:00.

1. 9:07

2. 9:04

3. 9:08

4. 8:56

5. 9:04

6. 8:56

7. 9:01

8. 8:56

9. 9:04

10. 8:51
11. 8:39

And with that, my month of October came to a close.....which means.....OCTOBER IN REVIEW. I know you've been patiently waiting for it as always, I completely understand. :)

Total Miles: 115.1 up 14 from last month. Sadly should've been closer to 140-150, but being sicky sick took its toll.

Time spent: 17:41:15 Up almost 2 hours from September.

Total Runs: 20 which averages to 5.75 miles/run.

Highest weekly mileage: 10/12/2009 — 10/18/2009: 30.0 Mi/4:34:50

Favorite run: Um...any I didn't have to do indoors on the treadmill.... jk. Let me think. My easy 6 miler with awesome music. I got some serious clarity about life on this run, and it was just awesome.

Most hardcore run: My 4x800 m repeat workout in which I ran my first 800 at my 400 pace and couldn't figure out why I was dyyyyyyyyyying. :)

Favorite Race: USF Community 5k. Even though it was cold and a crappy course, it also wins by default because it was my only. Not sure how I went from racing every weekend in October, to just once. I'll chalk it up to, it's too damn cold! Anyway. :) I placed 1st in my AG, 5th for chicas, and 11th overall. Plus the clock time was 1 second faster than what I had, which is always a win! :)