October in Review + Meet Presley

October in Review

Total Miles:  79.8 miles down from 124.4 miles  last month. 98.2 miles last October.

Total Time:  13:14:44 down from 21:20:46. Average pace dropped from 10:18 to 9:58! Whoop!

Total Runs: 13 runs, an average of 6.14 miles/run.

Highest weekly mileage: 

10/9/2017 – 10/15/2017:	22.1 mi	3:38:10	9:52 / mi

Most hardcore run: Solo speed session on the track. Made more hardcore for how starved I was throughout. Uff. Some really great paces.

Favorite run: I did an 11 mile long run by myself (which I hate) but it actually went really well, I felt strong, and the miles flew by. Sometimes it's nice to have a solo run to be along with your thoughts.

Favorite Race: Twin Cities 10 Mile and the Parks and Rec "5k". The TC10 was an awesome day, and despite not idea race conditions, I had a great race and a lot of fun. The 5k was one of the best races I've ran in a really long time, not worrying about how fast I went out, staying with the hard effort when it would've been easier to slow down, and surprising myself with a sub 8 pace. It was a great day!

Bike Miles: 0 miles.

Favorite Jam: I'm really digging T. Swift's Look What You Made Me Do.

Meet Presley 

When Kyle and I were in Memphis, we visited a local running store. I had spent hours in Bass Pro Shop, so I felt like it was only fair. I picked up a couple of OBNOXIOUSLY neon colored long sleeves for me and my bestie. Well, technically I was picking up one for myself, to which Kyle commented, "Wait, you're not getting one for Toni? You should get one for Toni." Well okay then. I guess I'm making all future running purchases in duplicate!

At the checkout, Kyle pointed at a Garmin Fenix that was on display. "Isn't that the watch you wanted? You should just get that too." I had been looking at the Fenixes for months, humming and hawwing over their price tag. I even blogged about it a month or so ago. My final thoughts were that I desperately wanted it, but could not justify the price tag, no matter how hard I tried. Kyle, the extreme conservative when it comes to money thought I should've bought it months ago. Now that I think about it, maybe he was pushing this watch purchase to even out the ridiculous new boat he just bought.... interesting.

Anyway, it wasn't the Garmin Fenix 5S I had been researching, but it was the Fenix 3 in rose gold. As the words were leaving Kyle's mouth, and I was shaking my head no, the sales associate mentioned that she was pretty sure it was heavily discounted as they were coming out with new models. I asked how discounted, and she wasn't sure. She said she could call the store manager, and wanted to know if I was that interested. Well yes, now I am that interested. While she was on hold she had thought it would be 30% off. You have my attention.......

When she got off the phone with her manager, and she gave me the price, my bank account cried, because I said yes. She took 35% off of an already discounted price, so I paid less than 50% for the watch. And honestly, I think she may have made a mistake, because I haven't seen the watch on sale ANYWHERE else. 

This watch has so many bells and whistles that I'm sure that I don't even know half of the functions. I'm excited to long some major miles with her in 2018, and knock out some PRs finally! I was playing around with names and thought of Presley and Priscilla, both because she's so cute and those are fun feminine names, and she came from Memphis for goodness sake. Until I realized that my last watch was named Priscilla. I somehow forgot that, and only realized it when I looked back on my blog to see how old my last Garmin was. Btw, Priscilla went to a really good home last week. A newer runner was looking for a Garmin, and she's been killing it at running lately, so I knew she'd take good care of her.

So meet Presley. I think we'll have a long beautiful running relationship together. Swoon.

Things I Desperately Want But Don't Need

I love my Garmin watch. I've been a Garmin loyalist since 2009. I told myself if I ran a good 5k race in April 2009, I could splurge on a Garmin 405. I wore that watch for 98% of my runs. I even received a refurbished version at some point when my sweat killed the computer inside the the watch. Ooops.

The watch lasted until April 2014 when the watch broke for good and I got a new one. I love my watch but sometimes it does things that drives me nuts. And then I was looking on Instagram this past summer and I saw the most beautiful running watch my eyes have ever seen.

The Garmin Fenix 5S in rose gold. *drools* I had almost talked myself into buying me when I compared it to the cost of my MacBook and realized it was the same. Woof.

I've ruled out this beauty as my next running watch, but not for lack of attempting to justify it in my head. Kyle even thought I should get it. I know it's only a matter of time before my watch finally dies, so I am doing a lot of research and comparison in the mean time so I can make an informed decision when the time comes.  Until then, I'll be dreaming in rose gold.

RIP Garmin Data

Once upon a time, I bought a Garmin. April 2009 to be exact. A reward for a hard fought 5k PR. I've loved each and every minute of running with my Garmin, and enjoy pouring over the data after runs and races. I love my Garmin so much that after my first one died, followed by my second refurbished one died, I purchased yet another one.

So over the past 8 years I have ran with 3 different Garmin, accumulating all the data along the way. Some time last fall, my computer stopped syncing with my Garmin. It wasn't a huge deal, as I knew I was in the market for a new MacBook in the early spring. I finally broke down and purchased a new MacBook a few weeks ago, and was SO EXCITED to upload my data, especially to look at the last few half marathons I had done and do some comparisons, as you do when you're a crazy type A data lover.

For some reason, my login was no longer valid. I think during the point where my MacBook stopped working, Garmin switched from a username to an email address. It was the weekend, so I sent off an email to their support team. They'd always been INCREDIBLY helpful when I've had issues in the past, so yay! Let's get this puppy fixed!

In the meantime, I created a new account just to make sure that I could get the data off of my watch. Perhaps the accounts could be merged once things were fixed, or maybe not, I'd just re-upload. Whatever. I finally received an email back about my issue about a day and a half later and the guy reset my password so I could get in and update my information. At which point, I realized that the email I wanted was on the newly created account and not the old one, so I sent off another email asking if the newly created account could be deleted out.

Big mistake.

After another hour of fiddling around with it, I realized I could change the email on the one, freeing up the other, so that I took care of it on my own! I sent off another email replied to the original saying, I took care of it, please disregard the deletion request, thanks for all of your help yadda yadda yadda.

You see where this is going, right?

The next day I worked just 3 short hours because it was my weekend to work, so I have a weird week schedule. I get home and see an email saying, "your account has been successfully deleted!" Shit. Shit. Shit. Since I'm finally dealing with this issue during regular business hours, I call Garmin, where the guy assures me that accounts can't be deleted and my files are somewhere, so I chill out a bit. At which point I have a massage ready to start, so I have to leave him to track down thousands and thousands of miles of data.

And when I get out of my massage, I have a message: Yeah, I don't know how this happened, but all of your data is really deleted. Feel free to create another account here.

EFFFFFFFFFFFF.

On the plus side, I have my mileage and running time logged on a separate long, so all is not lost, but since I run a lot of the same races from year to year, it's so advantageous to look back and compare previous ones, reminding myself where the elevation map doesn't appear to have an incline, there is one and it's ever so slight, but to remember not to freak out when it feels super hard. Ugh.

It's not the end of the world, but it sure is a bummer.

New Precious

On a long run with Jenn, she was telling me the tale of her garmin watch strap breaking a few days prior, and her quick fix to superglue it back together. Moments later, I realized I was horrifically overdressed for the run and asked if we could pause for a minute so I could shed some layers. I went to unlatch my garmin to remove it from over the top of my long sleeve, when the garmin strap snapped.

Mere minutes after Jenn's tale.

Later on our run, I gave a mini cheer to a solo runner chick who we had seen at two different spots of our oppositely ran out and back (does that make sense? I don't think so....) and Jenn commented that she loves when people cheer for her. I said that sometimes when I feel like I'm on the brink of death of a bonkfest long run, just a thumbs up will give me another mile's worth of fuel, so I like to do the same thing.

As this conversation ended, we rounded a corner, and an older gentleman started hooting and hollering for us asking how far we were going and telling us we were awesome.

I then asked for one million dollars to be waiting in my car for me when I finished my run.

I guess the third time wasn't the charm in this instance.

After I got home, I inspected my watch and realized that instead of the pin or the strap itself breaking (which is replaceable and fixable) it's actually the plastic part that holds this in place that snapped. Well, poop.

I had been planning on getting a new garmin when marathon training started in June as the battery on my 405 had some issues with long-long runs last fall in training, especially when it was overcast. I read roughly a trillion reviews and 20 page blog reviews and went with the 610.

Isn't she lovely????

Isn't she wonderful?

Isn't she precious??

This garmin is definitely a she, unlike my previous man-watch. My old garmin was named Garmin the Martian, but I rarely referred to it as such, but this one just looks like a Priscilla, right? And then when she's being sassy I can refer to her as Miss Priss. Obvs.

Priscilla, let's make some running magic.

My Christmas Slash Birthday List

Everyone who has a blog is doing a list of things that every runner needs. So that's been done. But no one is doing a list of things that *I* want, so here's my list to Santa slash Birthday fairies.

VS Pajamas. I got these in polka dot last year, and I basically live in them.  All day e'ery day. They're flannel! It's cold here! I'm sure Kyle would like to burn them so I have to wear something less dumpy.

Pug Sweater. Thanks to Jaseface and ASOS I now need this ridiculously overpriced sweater. I can totally see me in this, Kyle in his green and blue flannel and Ollie in her reindeer headband for our holiday pictures. WHY ARE YOU SO EXPENSIVE?!!? YOU'RE RUINING MY DREAMS!

A New Garmin. I almost pulled the trigger on this when my Garmin was on the fritz pre-Madison Marathon. This one is just so pretty! I'll likely wait until I start marathon training again this summer, since it seems to be fine on runs that are less than 3 hours.

The entire J. Crew catalog. Seriously. I just flipped through that and mentally tallied a gazillion dollars worth of stuff I want. Too bad I can only afford the J. Crew factory stuff, and only when THAT'S on sale.

Punchcard for Santosha Yoga. I used my birthday money on a ten punch card last year. I can't go when it's warm out so it lasted the year! I'm also on the hunt for a good hot yoga towel to use. I may have found a green one (obvs) on sale!

Boots. Kyle wants me to ice fish with him (has for the past few years) but says I need super warm boots. He must know that he won't be able to sit on my feet while we're on the ice. I would also like my feet to not freeze off while waiting ever so patiently for the pug to find the *perfect* pee and poo spot outside in 30 below. Can't wait for that. Something similar to these, but that Kyle has in stock at work so he can use his discount on them.

Kate Spade's entire Owl and library inspired collection. It's almost like they're designing with me specifically in mind.

**I'm not affiliated with any of these companies and don't get any money if you purchase these items, even if you do so by clicking the links.**

It's Like Sending a Kid Off to College....

.... I'd imagine anyway.

It all started last week when my Garmin was d-e-a-d before a run.  Silly me, I must've forgot to charge that puppy.  No worries, just an easy-paced run.  I have my mile markers memorized (oooh alliteration!).  Nbd. 

After charging all night and most of the rest of the next day I brought him along on my 9 mile run with new running pal.  Once the first mile passed and Mile 1 : x:xx popped up on my wrist, all hell broke loose.  My watch continued to try to lap, unsuccessfully every 2 seconds, causing a fun chirp! chirp! chirp! every 2 seconds.  Uh yeah... sorry new running buddy, I swear I'm not a dumb-dumb....  I quickly set the watch off the autolap function and figured I could just keep track of the total mileage and time and go from there.  And then it started randomly restarting itself.  Neat.

That night I set to work trying to fix the ol' G-man.  Because I'm a sweat monster, I've had quite a few problems with my watch.  Most of them are probably stemmed from the fact that I sweat a lot and I live in a very humid area (in the summer).  After taking on the 95 degree day a couple of weeks back, my watch had condensation behind the screen.  Oh nooooooooooooooos.

I tried a soft reset and downloading all the new updated firmware, as that typically does the trick.  For some reason the master reset wasn't working, and I was getting frustrated, so I called it a night.

I decided to take it out on my bike ride with Aaron on Friday.  Roughly one mile in it started it's fun lap error chirpage.  Even better, a few miles later it started chirping double time!  Because we were on a busy road, I didn't feel comfortable stopping to shut it up, so we had to deal with it.... for far too long.  Hey, at least it was still spitting out HR data!  (silver lining... there she be....)

A lovely twitter pal recommended putting it in a bag of rice to dry out the moisture inside.  Genius I tell you, genius!  I brought it to the gym to keep time for my interval run, and it wouldn't even allow me to use the lap button to record my splits.  It also couldn't be bothered to keep time in seconds, it would only do every other second.  As in, 5:50, 5:52, 5:54.  We don't deal with odd numbered seconds here folks!

Finally this morning I made one final attempt at a master reset after a 60+ hour stay in the Rice Bag Hotel, and had no luck.  I called up Garmin, explained my thoroughness in at-home trouble-shooting, and they said I'd done all I could and to send him in. 

To be honest, the details of the transaction are somewhat hazy.  It's my understanding that for $40 (what is normally $80) I will be getting a brand new watch to replace my brokey watch.  However, after doing some more digging around that kind of seems to good to be true.  Maybe I'm getting a brand new watch while they fix my watch?  I'm ok with dropping 40 bones for either option, to be honest.

So before work I marched (drove really, but marched sounds more assertive and final) to the post office to give my garmin my final (maybe??) goodbye.  We've had some good times, Garmin the Martian.  You got me through training for my first marathon.  And through 2 more suckfest 26.2s and countless races and PRs in between.  RIP (maybe?) little buddy.
______________
I ran 4 miles with my new running buddy Rachel this morning in 39:20.  See that, in the MORNING.  Winner winner!

Happy Birthday Garmin!

It was one year ago that I set out to run a 5k PR.  But this wasn't an ordinary 5k PR, this was the 5k PR that would justify my GARMIN purchase.  I had shattered a previous PR by almost a minute 4-6 weeks previously and didn't know if it was possible.  Especially because I pulled/strained an ab muscle during previous 5k PR.  During the race, I was in pain 85% of the time.  Anytime I wasn't running uphill I hurt (recap here).  When I crossed the finish line I was so disappointed that my hardwork hadn't translated to a great run because of my strained ab muscle.  But wait!  According to my cheap-o Walmart watch, I actually did PR by 21 seconds!!

Post-race Taylor and I trekked to the 'bou for my celebratory post race latte, and then he started driving towards the running store. 
J:  What are you doing!?!?!? 
T:  Well I figured you'd want to get your stupid watch right now.
J:  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Unfortunately the only watch they had in stock was the ugly black man watch.  Ya'll know how much I luuuuurve green, but I was unwilling to wait another 2 weeks for a watch to be shipped to me, so ugly black man watch it is!  And from the minute he went on my left wrist it was love.  I love him so much that it looks like I'm wearing a pale flesh colored version of him at all times.  Heck ya tan lines.

Happy birthday Garmin the Martian (yes that was/is his name that I stopped referring to him as roughly 363 days ago)!!  You have lead me to many PRs over the last year (7 for 8....not bad) and have been the shining beacon (other than my legs obvs) during my first attempt at marathon training.  GtM I think I love you.  (And in case you were wondering, I plan to hyphenate our last names when we get hitched Jeri Lee _______-the-Martian....has a great ring to it, no?)

*And yes, I through my Garmin a super girly Barbie themed birthday party.  Don't judge.

Check out Erica's giveaway!

Hello Lover! Introducing Polly Sunshine Light....

Cue Miss America Music.....Isn't she lovely???? :)

I have been looking on craigslist for a bike for over a year now. I knew I wanted a beach cruiser type bike, but didn't know whether I wanted one that looked old school or actually was old school. When I found this beauty I was in love. After a weekend without internet, I jumped online a week ago Monday to find that her listing was gone. I was heart broken. A few days later I had an email from the seller asking if I was still interested. It was destined to be. :) She joined my family on Monday and it's 2rue love 4ever 4 sure. When she first arrived I immediately started thinking of names: Sunshine, Banana Split (yes apparently I was taking names for My Little Ponys, whatev), when it hit me--Polly. My buddy Matt cued the middle name as Sunshine, and the rest is history. Of course Monday was 40 mph winds, and yesterday I didn't have time to take her out, and today is 30+ mph winds again. I still may take her for a short jaunt to the local library. I'm so happy. Heheh. :)

On Monday night I decided to say pooh-pah to an easy run and do my speed workout that I had scheduled for the week. I wanted to do 2 speed workouts this week, and thought my legs would be fresh to do them on a Monday, recovered enough to do another one Thursday, and then be good to go for the easy long run on Saturday. Plus I love me some speed work (have I mentioned that before :) ?)

I haded to the gym with my old running buddy Matt (who was doing his second gym work out of the day, crazy kid) for some 400 m. repeats. My fave. Sidenote: Absolutely NOT MY FAVE when I had to do them in high school, but I digress. I was to do 5 miles; 1 mile warm, 6 x 400 in 1:35 (6:20 pace) w/400 jogs in between, and 1 mile cool down.

Since I had the crazy bike purchase after work, and didn't hit the gym until 8pm, I was STARVING. Definitely not the way to start an intense workout. Uff. I started the workout at a very leisurely 10 min mile pace for the first mile. Then it was ON! After the first 400 sprint/jog, I did have to switch it from jogging 400's to walking .15 as I didn't want to waste any of my waining energy on jogging. Lame, I know.

1 mile warm up 10:00

Interval #1 1:34 (6:16 pace)

Recovery jog 2:35 (10:20 pace)

Interval #2 1:27 (5:48 pace)

Recovery walk 2:34

Interval #3 1:29 (5:56 pace)

Recovery walk 2:38

Interval #4 1:29 (5:56 pace)

Recovery walk 2:42

Interval #5 1:31 (6:04 pace)

Recovery walk 2:44

Interval #6 1:33 (6:12 pace)

Recovery walk 2:44

1/2 mile cool down 4:53 (9:46 pace)

Uff da, I was dead tired after the run, and ooooooooooh soooooooo hungry. But nothing feels better than running fast and hard, that's for sure. It is kind of crazy to think that in 7th & 8th grade (when I ran distance for our HS team, actual high school years, I sprinted) I ran my miles at those paces, only without .15 walk breaks. That's crazy. I think my best mile time was 6:07. I can't imagine doing that now. :p Although it would be fun to see what my mile time is now....hmm.... interesting... :)

Yesterday was a boring, I mean easy, 4 miler. I grabbed my gear after work, had the garmin look for the satellite and I was off. Whoa, Garmin is telling me I'm running a pace of :45. That's kinda of crazy. Then all hell broke loose, it was beeping all over the place, mile 1 clocked in at :02, mile 2 at :04. I stopped, walked back the 10 feet to my apartment, and by the time I got there it read 3.14 for the distance. Does that count as a new 5k PR? I think so! I tried to tinker with it, but decided it wasn't a big deal since it was just a junk mile run. I fished through an old drawer and pulled out the old running watch stand by. This baby has been with me since I started running in 2005. Looks so much cuter on my wrist than man watch aka Garmin. :) We made a good team.

vs. 

The run was pretty boring, legs were a little tight/tired which is to be expected. Stretched really well post-run. I did the 4 miles in 39:15. I was keeping track of the splits, but gave up.

1. 9:57 ish

2. 9:40 ish

3. ???

4. 39:15-9:40-9:57-??? :)

I spent the evening running to Walmart to get a bike lock for Polly, dropping off the pics from the wedding (they're HILARIOUS!), get ingredients for cookies (nom), and stop by the grandparents for some supplies I was missing for an art project.

Last day without internet.  Can't WAIT for tomorrow.  :)

12 mile long run before work? No problem.

I think my mind just likes a challenge. I've felt a little less than motivated on some recent training runs, but I think I just need to keep switching things up and challenging myself. Like doing a long run before work. Interesting. I posted on my fb page that I was planning on doing this craziness, and my running buddy that I have yet to run with responded with, "what time?" We've been trying to get a run in together for a couple of weeks, and somehow the planets aligned today. He is VERY speedy (7:30 pace for 14 miles a couple of weeks ago, speedy) but agreed to come with and keep me company. To be honest, it was probably the agreement to let him wear the Garmin for the first half of the run that got him interested and kept him hooked in. After a little thought, this was a really dumb idea. The guy could definitely out run me, what if he took off with my watch?!?! Luckily that didn't happen.

When I stepped outside at 7am it was cold. Mid-50s, strong wind gusts, sprinkles. Eff. That's no fun. But what if race morning is like this? Gotta be prepared. :) We took off and I felt nekkid with out my Garmin on. My left wrist felt so light and free. :p Of course the running buddy was super psyched by wearing it, and checked our pace at least every 5-6 strides. Kind of reminded me of someone else when she first got hers. ;) Unfortunately we had our first user error shortly before mile 1, when we stopped to stretch. When we restarted, I reminded him to start the man watch, to which he replied, ummm... I never stopped it. Since he was constantly checking our pace, we gather it was pretty close to a 9:15, so we'll go with that.

I told him my pacing plan for the 1/2 marathon (did I mention he's doing it too? he just signed up yesterday. WHOO!) and how I was trying to emulate the same paces for my long runs and we went with it. First third 9:15-ish. Middle third around 9. Last third BTTW (for the race)/quick enough to break 9 min pace (for the long run). And we went with it.

To be honest, it was way weird running with someone. I kind of like running by feel and not feeling pressured to go a pace other than my own. It definitely took some getting used to. Our splits were not as consistent as what they usually are when I run by myself, but I attribute that partially to not wearing my Garmin, and partially to running with him. It was great to have someone to randomly chat with and concentrate on something OTHER than running, and just zone out.

At the 6 mile turn around there was user error #2 where I demanded, uh I mean, politely asked for my Garmin back, and SOMEONE again forgot to stop the timer. Hah, garmin rookies, I tell ya. Good thing I'm good at estimating time. :p At the turn around I let him take off to run his legs a bit harder, but concentrated on keeping him in my sights and trying to pace right around or below 9 min miles. With a little over 3 miles left, we hooked up again and soldiered through the BTTW portion of the run. I felt very strong on these last three miles, and they gave me confidence in knowing I will still have a kick at the end of the half in 3 1/2 weeks. We high fived when we got to his apartment, and I sprinted the last 3 blocks to my place.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had run under 9 min miles for the run. After doing some additional calculations for User Errors #1 and #2, I came up with a time of 1:47:35 for a 8:58 pace. WHOO!
1. 9:15 (estimated. watch didn't stop to stretch.)
2. 9:26
3. 9:09
4. 9:00
5. 9:15
6. 9:11
7. 8:57 (reduced 10 sec to accommodate no watch stop)
8. 8:58
9. 8:59
10. 8:45
11. 8:32
12. 8:08

I had plenty of time to stretch, ice bath, eat, shower, and get ready before I had to head to work. I ate an amazing everything bagel with roasted red pepper hummus, a slice of pepperjack cheese, and a 1/4 of an avocado sliced on top. I also had some miso soup leftover from my sushi amazingness of a lunch from yesterday. I was giddily (is that a word? must be, spellcheck didn't highlight it. sweet.) excited to eat it. It was sooooo good. And I even treated myself to a Starbucks latte, since I wasn't sure how zonked I would be once I got to work. So far the only negative is that I have to sit at my desk for about 98% of the day, so my legs are a little tighter than normal. I'm trying to make it a point to go talk to co-workers instead of emailing just to get them to stretch out. Good to know that a Thursday long run could be a nice back up plan if necessary. :)

I did the worst yoga series every yesterday. Blah. It was a "cleansing" series, but it was just boooooooring. It was basically the stretches you do before and after most of the series but repeated a bazillion times and held forever. Probably my least favorite day of yoga, but oh well, I still soldiered through it and am still on my streak. Day 6 (yesterday) complete. Day 7 to be done tonight.

amazing weekend + intro run with Garmin

I think I may have experienced the most fun weekend.  Ok, that's an overstatement, but it was a darn good time.  Friday night I somehow managed to convince the bf to stay home with me instead of going out to the bars.  We ate subs, went to the park to "play," and then to the cheap theaters to see Push.  Which was super good.  Afterward we came home and made attempt 12 at watching Oceans 13.  I really, REALLY struggle at sitting through movies, so we seriously had stopped and started this movie almost everyday for a week and a half, sloooowly creeping through it.

Most of Saturday post race and Sunday was spent laying in bed watching more movies.  Specifically:  Marley & Me (bawl fest), The Italian Job, Journey to the Center of the Earth, as well as unsuccessful attempts at In Her Shoes & The Number 23.  

Sunday I broke out the new toy for my 6 mile run.  It was 45-ish degrees, but super windy and spitty out.  I think that's an official meteorological term anyway.  I waaay over dressed, managed to sweat through a hoodie (???) but had freezing cold fingers.  Go figure.  Plus I think I spent every other second staring at the screen to see what it would tell me.  Finally I just covered it with my sweatshirt sleeve, because the miles tend to draaaaaag on when you're monitoring them obsessively.  Weird.  I've determined that 6 miles is my least favorite distance.  The last 6 miler I did was awful.  5 miles=awesome.  7 miles=awesome.  6 miles=suckfest.  Remind me never to do a 10k.  

1--9:33

2--9:23

3--9:25

4--9:55

5--9:30

6--9:07

 

After my run I treated myself, and the loverboy to AMAZING french toast with fresh strawberries on top.  I've been dreaming about them all day today.  While I was cooking the boyfriend decided (or maybe I threw down the utensils and gawked completely uninvited) to treat me to a push-up session sans shirt.  Yowza.  Great weekend indeed.

Race Report: Washington Pavilion 5k

Attention South Dakota weather:  Please pick a temperature and stick to it.  Seriously.  This week was beautiful/glorious weather.  Wednesday we had a high of 91 degrees.  That's insanity.  This morning at 9am at the start of the race:  38 degrees (probably 30 with wind chill).  LAME.  There is no reason that the temp should be less than HALF of what it was 3 days ago.  With that off of my chest, I would like to continue on.

This is a race that I've never participated in before.  It's one of the smallest races I've done so far, and officially the first one I've done that didn't have a gun at the start.  They really didn't even give people a chance to shuffle up to the starting line (there was a 10 minute stretching session prior to the event) before yelling out "

On your marks, get set, GO!"  Whoa.  Wait.  What?  I don't even have my headphones in yet!!  Luckily I slipped by some people to work my way towards the front and remembered to start my watch at the mat.  The race started downtown and actually ran through downtown for the first few blocks until we got on to the trail.  After the first block there wasn't much congestion, which was awesome.  I felt like I was flying, but in a good way.  

I had meant to ask a volunteer if the miles were marked, but forgot to do that prior to the race.  Something about knowing or not knowing whether to expect the markers helps me out for some reason.  Fortunately there was a 1/2 mile marker, which was technically the 1 mile turn around point:  3:50.  Holy buckets, you need to slooooow down or you won't make it through the race.  I slowed down just a bit, but really wanted to run right around 8 minute miles.  

Mile 1 marker (aka Mile 2 walk turn around point):  9:07.  WHAT?!?!?  Time to pick up the pace a little I guess.  The middle two miles were on the bike trails, which I love.  We got to run over this adorably quaint bridge, which was probably the highlight of the run.  Unfortunately a little over halfway done I started to feel the onset of the ab pain from the St. Patty's Day 5k.  :(  It started off as a dull ache until we started to have some small rolling hills.  Every decline in the trail caused more and more pain.  I tried to run while stretching my side with my right arm in the air, which helped for a few seconds.  Finally I decided to stop and really stretch it to see if that would help.  I stopped for maybe 5-7 seconds and when I started up again I couldn't tell a difference.  I thought about quitting.  Is it worth it to continue to this race where I will undoubtably do bad and further injure this stupid muscle?

Luckily while I was having all this inner dialogue, the time and distance kept passing by, and I decided I would just run as hard as I could without too much pain.  I ran hard up the inclines because my side didn't hurt and just winced down the downhill parts.  I kept thinking that I had to make it to the final 6 blocks or so because I knew by the race map that the end was all uphill.  I pushed it as hard as I could for the last mile and thought that maybe, just maybe I could PR by a second or two.  At this point I would take it.  On the final stretch I could make out the clock 2x:30 (or some odd seconds) with some yahoo standing in the way of the minutes column.  The loverboy was cheering with a block to go and I just sprinted as hard as I could after I saw him.  I crossed the line, stopped my watch, and immediately bent over to ease the pain.

One of my friends had come to watch and cheer for me and brought her two little boys who came running up and hugged me.  With all the excitement, I forgot to look at my watch!  25:29.  ????!!!!!  YAAAAAAY!  Official time:  25:27.  21 seconds off my best.  :)  =  GARMIN.

Now scroll back up to that picture up there and see who's nestled into the picture in between my shoes.  Hello lova.  Taylor got me a post-race latte and took me to the local running store to get my new love.  Unfortunately they didn't carry the green one that I had my heart set on.  The guy said he would special order it for me and even give me a discount, but it wouldn't be here until Wednesday at the earliest.  :(  I settled for the black, because I've waited for too long as it is for this puppy.  PLUS the dude still gave me a discount.

As far as the ab issue goes....here are my thoughts:  I have another 5k in two weeks and the only time I've had this pain is during the last 5k (6 weeks ago) and during two of my interval workouts over the last 6 weeks.  I think I'm going to swap out my remaining interval workout with a tempo run, and then take the six weeks between my next race and the start of my 1/2 marathon training program off from intervals (just inserting tempo runs for my weekly speed workouts).  But this sucks.  That's the single training run I look forward too because I just wanna go FAST.  Hopefully it'll do the trick though.  If anyone else has any suggestions let me know. 

Let's ignore the horrible facial expression here and instead 

choose to focus on my rippling calve muscle.  Um.  Ya.  

Totally makes up for the I-am-moments-from-death-face.