Goal Race Training Recap Week 4

Monday: glute strengthening exercises while watching the Boston Marathon coverage on my laptop.

Tuesday: rest day.

Wednesday: Track party with Jenn! Mile repeats in to some monster wind. The best part of running on the track is you only have to run in to the wind for 1/4 at a time. Yay. I felt incredibly in control during the repeats, and that I had more speed in my legs to give. My goal paces were 8:35, but my last 5k was 8:26 pace, so I let my pace slip down a little bit to reflect that. I pushed a little bit during the final 200m of the final repeat to hit that 8:17. And I could've done more (that NEVER happens to me during mile repeats. Mile repeats=death).

Thursday was another rest day.

Friday I meant to do a short shakeout run, but that never happened. I did do my glute strengthening exercises and core work.

Saturday was the River Rat Half Marathon.

Sunday I stretched, foam rolled, did glute exercises and ab work. And watched excessive amounts of Downton Abbey. Which could be considered a workout.

Race Report: River Rat Half Marathon

Saturday morning I woke up over an hour before I had to be awake to trek to Yankton for the race. This is humorous because I had my mom pick up my race bib for me since she was going to be in Yankton getting groceries, so I could get some extra shut eye (race day packet pick up ended an hour and fifteen minutes before the race start, uff). Kyle and I loaded up and headed south. My stomach was super messed up the whole morning. Bad omen? Surprisingly, no.

These past are 12 years old this weekend. :/ Vintage Jerbear wardrobe.


Osmo nutrition selfie on the ride to the race. I look sleeeeepy.

We got to the race, met up with my parents right away, and my mom was concerned that I was going to run in a tank top and shorts because everyone else had on pants/capris/tights, longsleeves/jackets, ear warmers and gloves. I asked her if she'd seen me after a race and if I *ever* looked cold when I was done running. :)

After hitting the bathroom 37 more times, I finally headed to the start. No pre-race run, but I did have time for some form running drills (I've been doing these lately, and I think they're helping. Perhaps I shouldn't have stopped after track 12 years ago :/).

My race plan according to Jaseface: 3 @ long run pace, 2 @ tempo, 3 @ long run pace, 2 @ tempo, 2 @ long run pace, 1 @ tempo. AKA I only have to run hard for 5 miles. Awesome. Let's do this.

I lined up to start, and everyone flew by me. I glanced at my watch and realized I was running a 9:16. Oops. So I slowed down even more. And even more people passed me.


I didn't listen to my music until the hard miles, so I just took in the sound of footfalls and the views. My parents were at 3 different places in the first 3 miles. Impressive. I hit the downhill and focused on form so I didn't shred my quads. A+ for Jerbear!
1. 10:25
2. 10:33
3. 10:28


At the bottom of the hill it was time to start my faster miles and I settled in to 9ish pace without any trouble. It felt pretty effortless, so that was great, and I passed a bunch of people which helped energize me even more. At the end of the two pick up miles, I was actually bummed to have to slow down. I was feeling great.
4. 9:12
5. 9:13

My easier miles were closer to 10 than 10:30 for my next mile. The wind had picked up at this point (tailwind) so I let it push me along because I knew I was going to be smacked in the face with it very shortly. I leapfrogged with a chick for quite awhile during this time before finally ditching her. My pace easily settled back to the 10:30s once I hit that wind at the turnaround. Uff. At this point the wind was sitting at 35 mph winds with 40+ mph wind gusts.
6. 10:04
7. 10:33
8. 10:25

I was really excited for my pickup miles until I tried to actually hit 9 minute miles in that wind. LOLOLOLOLZ, not happening. Trying to run a 10:30 pace felt like way more work than it should, so I decided I would continue my long run paced miles and make my last two miles fast. Everyone was really struggling here, so I ended up passing walker after walker, which stunk because I really wanted to tuck in behind someone and use them as a wind block!

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I took a deep breath, cranked my tunes and started up it. Enrique's Don't Stop came on and I listened to it on repeat "Don't stop baby, don't stop baby!" Well, ok Enrique! I was running an 11:30 pace but that was still faster than everyone walking up it. The wind was brutal, and it was almost a laughable moment. I hadn't seen my parents for awhile, so I was expecting them to be at the top of the hill, read to take atrocious pictures of me. :)

And I was right, my mom was there waiting at the top, snapping photos the whole time. I waved to her and said a few things as I ran by, and before I knew it she was running along side of me! She laughed and said this might be the only chance she gets to run with me, and she ran with me the rest of the way back to the car. Perhaps there are some miles in her future!
9. 10:43
10. 10:48 (<--hill)
11. 10:42

Once I made it to the top of the hill, I was still going in to the wind, but at least I was running flat! As soon as my watch beeped for mile 11, I kicked it in. I enjoyed a marvelous two blocks of wind AT MY BACK, sweet sweet wind at my back, and my parents almost missed me. My dad said that since they'd seen me at the top of the hill to one mile later, I almost beat them there, while running. Go legs go!

And look! my form isn't total crap at mile 11.25 of a half! #progress

At this point I ran by the hospital my dad was at a year ago for a heart attack, and I started getting all weepy because I was so thankful that he's okay and out cheering for me, and then I realized I couldn't maintain a 9 minute mile and openly sob, so I made myself wrap that up asap and be emotional after the race if necessary.


Little Jer and Big Jer.


Wind at the back feels magical, even if it's only for two blocks.

When mile 12 hit I realized I didn't have much left in my tank. Running the faster pace into the wind was really wiping me out, and there was no one in front of me to try to catch, and no one behind me to catch up to me. Gah. I kept pushing but my pace slipped a little. I started counting down from 180 when I thought I had ~3 minutes left to run and that took my mind off the pukey-I'm-running-too-hard feeling that was a-brewin' in my tummy.



Go figure, I hit zero at the time I hit the timing mat and stopped my garmin. :)


12. 9:12
13. 9:17
.01 :06 (7:12 pace)



My final time was 2:11:49 which is about 3 minutes faster than my time in NYC when I was all out racing. Whoop. This race gave me some much needed confidence going in to this weekend's race!

Stats:

My race entourage and me. TEAM GREEN! (Kyle had to jet back to work before the race was over.)

My mom thought it was cool that the design on my new Oiselle flyte tank matched the design on my hat. I was super confused as to what she was talking about until I realized that my hat was covered in salt. She didn't think it was so cool after that, just gross. Haha.

Oh, and then because my mom is super awesome, she agreed to take me back home-home so I could get in a shower (after our fam partook in post-race Mexi, a Megan and Jenn tradition) and THEN agreed to drive me back to MY home an hour away after some hang out time since I missed Easter, and then drive herself back home. Everyone, please award my mom 5 gold stars.

River Rat Half Marathon Race Goals

When I originally signed up for tomorrow's half marathon, I also signed up for a half marathon the following weekend. Both races are ~45 minutes from home and cheap, and based on South Dakota's super unpredictable weather, I figured I would just check the forecasts leading up to the races to determine which one I would just run, and which one I would race.

Based on the weather forecast, next weekend's race should be cooler, and is a much easier (read: flatter) course. The course I'm doing tomorrow is my PR course, and don't ask me how in the heck that happened because it's got a monster hill, and hill is not my middle name.

Elevation map from the last time I did this race:

After re-reading my race report, that hill was only a mile long, not 3 as I had come to believe (or so it felt).

I emailed Jaseface last week for some advice on how to approach the race, as I want to get my money's worth out of the race, have a strong run, and gain some mental toughness that I can carry in to the following week's goal race. I do NOT want to carry dead legs in to the following week's goal race.

His suggestion was to run 3 easy/long run paced miles, followed by 2 hard miles until I finish the race. I asked if instead of that, I could do 3 easy, 2 hard x 2, and then for the remaining 5k do 2 easy and one hard. He said sure. Phew. One of strengths as a runner used to be finishing hard in races. I would practice doing it in most training runs, and I just knew I could go in to another gear at the end of races. I've been practicing that a bit more lately, and would like to continue doing that, particularly in this race. It also seems silly not to run hard toward a finish line, regardless if I'm racing the race or not. That's just the competitor in me, I think.

So that's the plan for tomorrow.

So what does that equate to for a finishing time?

Uh...

Good thing I'm good at math I guess. I'd imagine the easy miles will be around 10:30 pace (closer to 11:00 on the monster hill that never ends) and the hard miles around 9. [31.5+18= 49.5*2= 99+31]. That would put me near 2:10 I think. And yes I'm going to leave my random math there for you to ponder.

So what does that leave for next weekend? Ugh, who knows. We'll see how tomorrow feels. But yay goals again! Dare I say that running is becoming fun again?!?

IT Band Update + More Half Marathon Race Pictures

Uh... you guys are clearly tri experts.  Seriously.  Anyone interested in doing your first tri, feel free to stalk my comments of my last post for ideas/suggestions/etc.  Phew.

Back to running........... oh wait.... I'm not.  Last night in lieu of running I did a super girly night of diy facial, manicure, pedicure, and eating coffee flavored ice cream directly out of the carton.  I then logged the 75 minutes in my running log as intense cardio.  jk.  As I tweeted last night, my left IT band is almost completely back to normal where as the right one is hovering around 72%.  As of this morning, I'd say closer to 87%.  I could probably have done a short run last night, but I opted to rest (and gorge on ice cream).  I really want my last 20 miler to go well this weekend, and if that means sacrificing some "junk miles" in the process so be it.

And because you didn't see quite enough pictures of me taking on 13.1 miles on Saturday, here are more for your viewing pleasure.  Seriously... I think it's almost to the point that you could print them out, staple them together and create your very own flipbook of my race.  ::brb out prepping craft supplies::

This should answer my "why do my IT bands hurt so bad?!?!?" question.  Uff.