NYC Recommendations

Later this week I get to jet off to NYC for my first trip there, EVER. And I'm ecstatic. I can't wait to see Susan and do all sorts of fun things! I have a few things planned, such as running a half, maybe seeing a Broadway show, meeting some YA authors, and eating and drinking my way through the city.

And this is where you come in. I need all of your must eat and must drink suggestions. If I don't gain a pound a day while on vacation, THEN I ONLY HAVE YOU GUYS TO BLAME. Seriously.

Annnnnnnd go.

(I would also accept any super stellarly amazing bookstore recommendations!)

Race Report: Free Rebel 5k

I'm not used to late morning race starts, so I had my normal nervous dreams (don't ask me why I was nervous for this race, I get nervous for long runs and hard workouts, I'm bizarre) and couldn't sleep. I finally just woke up early to be sure my stomach would have time to chill out after I fed it. I've been having a lot of stomach issues lately, blergh. I finally texted Jenn to let her know I was leaving early and I'd see her there. 

I thought I was going to regret wearing long sleeves, so I threw armsleeves in my bag, and planned to ditch the long sleeve for them after our warm up together. And then I stepped outside and brrr. I texted Jenn to bring gloves. I was one of the first runners to get to the race and was super excited that I got to snag one of the free race shirts! For a free race (donations for the Humane Society encouraged--awesome!) I was shocked at how cute the shirt was! I also got a commemorative novelty bib, they had drawings for door prizes, and a free green beer ticket for the first 200 race finishers over 21. Yes I think I picked the correct 5k race this holiday.

Jenn finally got there so we headed out for our run. And almost froze. Oh my goodness. It was right around freezing, but with the wind (the out portion of the race route) the wind chill was 19. Uff! We ended up cutting our warmup short to just a mile. My cold is still sticking around with a vengeance so I was nervous that would effect my breathing on the run, especially coupled with the cold wind gusts.

We snapped this adorably green clad photo before the race. 

And this awkward gem of a pic. I was trying to look like the leprechaun on my race bib. I ended up looking like I was trying to pee/poo standing up. Sooper hawt.

And then after standing outside in the cold for an hour (awesome race strategy) the race was finally off!

My race goals I had set for myself were done last week when I had assumed I was going to be over my cold, so I was pretty confident I wouldn't be running a sub 8:30 pace, but I decided I'd only know if I tried. 

I tried to keep Jenn in my sights and also tried to stay with a pack of runners so I would have some wind block on the way out. My first glance at my garmin was a 7:54. Hah, oops. My pace slowed down throughout that mile, since I'm clearly not in sub 8 5k shape at the moment. The crowd of runners dispersed almost immediately so I was stuck with zero wind block, and zero people behind me (or so it felt). Luckily for me, I was finally able to let a ton of snot out behind me without fear of smoking fellow runners with my leprechaun hued boogers. Eeew.

After hitting the one mile in 8:30, I realized that my goal race time probably wasn't going to happen, but I started to feel a little better than I did in mile one and knew we were close to the turn around and would finally have the wind at our backs. At one point my pace for mile two was 8:48. Uff. I kept digging and tried to slowly pick off people. I hit the turn around in ~13:30 and had a totally renewed sense of running. I quickly passed a couple of people and picked up the pace. My second mile was an 8:40.

Shortly after the third mile started I felt like I was all by myself. No one behind me, and a few people not quite catchable in front of me. I started doing the math to see how much time I had left to run to determine when I could start kicking. I picked it up with about 6 minutes left in the race and really tried to haul. My third mile was an 8:24, my fastest of the race, and my final .1 was :41 for a pace of 6:49! Hey, there's still speed in these legs!

I started off around seventh place for females and passed two shortly before the one mile marker, and held on to fifth for the remainder of the race. I was hoping for top ten so I was pretty thrilled about this, and I think that helped keep me focused on running hard throughout the race.

AND for the first time in a couple of years of racing, I finally hit a race goal I set for myself! I was shooting for 25:29-26:21 and ran a 26:17. Whoop! Considering my mile repeats have been in the high 8:30s, I'm pretty pumped I ran an 8:29 pace for this. Slooooooooowly getting back to regular runner Jerbear!

Yayzies!

First Race as a 30 Year Old

Wowsers, tomorrow marks my first race in the 30-39 category. *gulp* I absolutely love St. Patty's day and have run our local St. Patty's day race(s) for most of the years that I've been a runner (2007 5k, 2009 5k, 2010 5 mile, 2011 Irishman [5 mile, 5k, 1 mile]). I haven't done it the last couple of years for a number of reasons. The cost of the race has gotten really high. Most local halfs are $35-40 if you sign up by the early bird deadline, and the 5k and 5 mile cost the same as that.

One year that I ran the race there was extreme flooding, and the route wasn't changed, so runners had to go through mud that was inches deep, another year they started the route on a sidewalk instead of a road because they didn't get road closure permits, and with 100s of runners starting in that much congestion, it was a $#!t show to say the least.

I will say that this race does always have pretty killer long sleeve technical race shirts. They are some of my fave in my training shirt rotation.

This year, I'm racing a half in NYC the weekend after the St. Patty's day races. While tooling around on our local race schedule website, I found a Free Rebel Run planned for the same day as the St. Patty's day races. And it's free, as its name suggests. I convinced my friend Jenn to run it as well. Shockingly, the race day weather looks pretty great.

I haven't ran a 5k in...... over 2.5 years. Hah, and I know I won't be anywhere near a PR. But I would like to have a strong run that gives me confidence going in to my half marathon the following weekend. Since I'm hoping for a sub-2 slash close to 2 hour half next weekend, my goals for this 5k per McMillan race predictor are:

25:29 (8:12 pace) to 26:21 (8:29 pace)

As I'm seeing those paces, that doesn't seem like it should be hard, but my tempo paces have only been in the low 9's. However, after looking over my training log, I have had a set of mile repeats near the 8:30 range, so we'll see!

Regardless I'm excited to get out there in all my green glory to celebrate my favorite holiday with a hard effort run.

(OMG I loved those shoes. Fave running shoes EVER.)

Making Running Friends

For the most part, I love running on my own. When I'm seriously training for something, I have specific paces and distances that I'm pushing myself to hit, and buddy runs just don't fit in to that equation. Also with as temperamental stomach as I usually have, it's hard to make running plans with someone and be able to stick to them when you don't know if your stomach is going to be on the same page.

When I was training for my first marathon, I found Jenn's profile on Dailymile. She was also training for a marathon, and our paces for almost every type of workout were spot on with mine. Of course I had to friend her, message her, and tell her we should be BFFs immediately. And then we were. Thanks to the magic of Dailymile. Unfortunately for me, she moved away 4 short months after we met.

Luckily for me, she introduced me to Megan, who's also a runner, so I was able to get an occasional running buddy since she doesn't live in the same town as me, but she's busy growing a baby right now, so we haven't been able to do many runs together for the last 8 months. Harumph.

For the last six months. I've been meeting up with a new runner friend Jenn who I met through some other local runners to get in our miles and our gab sessions. It's awesome. I seriously wish I could run with her every single day. But she's running paces like I used to run, so I feel like I'm slowing her down when we run together. She's training for her first marathon this summer, so I've promised her I'll be back to normal speed by June so we can plan to spend some of our long runs together!

But I'm greedy. I want more. More running friends! After spending the last few months actually having company for a long run, I realize how much I miss it. I've often joked about making Runner Business Cards to hand out to people I see on the bike trail with my name and email and my general running paces to have them contact me so we can be running BFFs.

Maybe I should plan a speed dating meet up for runners. But like...running buddies instead of dating.

But seriously. How have you met your running buddies??? Is it super weird to just go up to people after races and demand they be your running buddy? I suck at putting myself out there, but maybe I need to just suck it up and do it!

Weekly Reads: Hyperbole and a Half

If you've never heard of the hilarious blog, Hyperbole and a Half, then I feel bad for you. Also, where's the rock you've been living under?? Seriously, Allie Brosh is a hilarious genius. I've been waiting for WAY TOO LONG for this Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened to come out and finally got my greedy little hands on it.

There are some new stories, and some of her stories from the blog that were refined to make even more awesome. If you don't like to laugh and smile than be sure you don't pick up this book. Otherwise, HAVE AT IT.

My rating: 5 stars

Goodreads Summary:

This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative--like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it--but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:

Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

Heart Rate Test

Mid-way through February I did a heart rate test for the first time in over a year. The heart rate test consisted of a one mile warm up, followed by 1 mile at a specific HR, 90 second rest, 1 mile at a higher specified HR, 90 second rest x 4, for 5 total miles (without the warm up included). This HR test comes from a monsterously long document that Sam shared with me in 2011 when I first became interested in HR training. If anyone wants to see that super long document, let me know, I'll email it to you, but be warned, it's a 20-25 page word document. However, it does explain a lot of information and tells you what HR ranges to do for the test.

Essentially the gist is, that if you train by HR in the proper zones for your runs, your heart will become more efficient, and it will take less work to run certain paces. So as your fitness increases, your pace at certain HR zones will become faster.

My results for the test are as follows:

02/11/14
Time	Goal HR (avg.)	Actual HR (avg.)	HR (max)
12:04	140	140	147
10:45	150	150	157
09:36	160	155	164
08:32	170	164	172
07:53	180	170	178

And if we compare that to 15 months ago:

11/12/12
Time	Goal HR (avg.)	Actual HR (avg.)	HR (max)
12:44	140	145	152
12:10	150	153	159
11:17	160	155	164
09:28	170	166	174
08:22	180	174	182

I'd say I've made some strong progress. Yay for my heart becoming more efficient and increased mitochondria. Whoop.

However, if we compare recently to my first two tests done in what I'd consider to be my best running shape, but prior to starting HR training, I still have a ways to go, but shockingly not nearly as much as I would've guessed. Some of my higher heart rate zones are the same or really close to those in December 2011. Now if I could effectively add some speedwork without breaking myself, I could finally take some shots at my forever old PRs.....

02/11/14
Time	Goal HR (avg.)	Actual HR (avg.)	HR (max)
12:04	140	140	147
10:45	150	150	157
09:36	160	155	164
08:32	170	164	172
07:53	180	170	178

December 15th, 2011
Time	Goal HR (avg.)	Actual HR (avg.)	HR (max)
11:19	140	147	179
10:26	150	152	159
09:59	160	158	167
08:59	170	167	175
07:53	180	176	183
02/23/12
Time	Goal HR (avg.)	Actual HR (avg.)	HR (max)
10:41	140	144	177
10:08	150	148	160
09:22	160	159	164
08:25	170	167	174
07:29	180	176	182
Differences
140	:38
150	:18
160	:37
170	:34
180	:24

It takes your body at least six weeks to see marked changes with these tests, so it doesn't do you any good to do them more frequently than that, but I plan to do another test the week before my half later this month to see what the results are.

Week 9 and 10 of Spring Training

I spent way more time foam rolling my legs than I did actually doing this recovery run. Grrr. I have some monster crunchies in my IT band near my knee, and up by my hip flexor. Grrrr.

My tweaked my knee at work early in the week and ended up taking the rest of the week off from running. Not exactly ideal a few weeks out from race day, but showing up to the starting line broken isn't ideal either. Luckily the weather was ATROCIOUS so I didn't feel like I was missing out on much. I probably could've run on Sunday but I decided to be careful and give it another day.

Of course on Monday one of Kyle's friends was in town unexpectedly so we went out for dinner with him and friends, so I was in no condition to run afterwards. 

Wednesday morning I hit the treadmill before work since I didn't have to go in until noon. I had the beginnings of a cold and it was hotter than the dickens in the gym, so I had a tough time keeping my HR down in the general aerobic range. The run was a bit slower than I was expecting, but it still flew by. My knee started to twinge a little the last half mile, but otherwise it was a great run.

Wednesday night I started to feel TERRIBLE and when I woke up Thursday I could barely breathe and my sinuses felt like they were going to explode. I decided to shuffle my remaining workouts for the week to take a rest day. 

offending sinus

For Sunday's long run, I had some very serious math story problem variables to figure out at way too early in the morning. First I had to consult my garmin maps for previous long runs, as ever since I've moved (almost two years ago) I still sometimes get my mile markers confused with my old ones, as they're only 1.2 miles apart. This is normally nbd when I'm running alone, but when you're planning to meet up with someone, it can be really bad. Like the time I told Jenn I would meet her in 11 minutes at my one mile marker, only to realize when I was already on the run that I was actually meeting her at 2.2 miles and she was going to freeze to death waiting for me. :(

Then, after determining our meetups, we had to figure at what time each of us would have to leave our places at our respective running paces to meet up at the pre-existing meet up place. My brain hurt as I hadn't consumed any coffee lately, but I figured it out, nonetheless.

I took off in shorts in hopes that my legs could lose some of their transparency. Seriously. No filter can make these legs more pleasant to look at. Sorry. But shorts! I heart shorts. I should've just wore a t-shirt but I wore a long sleeved shirt and had the sleeves pushed up the whole time.

The first two miles was spent trying to get the phlegm in my throat to either come up or down. I felt like I was choking. Gross, sorry. My heart rate was high from the get go, and I think it was because my breathing was all off since I was breathing primarily out of my mouth.

I met up with Jenn at 4.7 miles, and was elated to have some company. We were both so excited to run in the warm weather that we didn't stop to think about how the bike trails would be with all of the snow and now it's all melting. It was such a sloppy mess of flooding/ice/snow. But still it was a run that wasn't in the freezing cold.

I started to feel pretty wiped out around mile 7. Not a good outlook for a 14 mile run, huh? Jenn took off for home around mile 8 so I still had six miles to slog through on my own. In to a 20mph wind. Meh. If I hadn't lost steam before, I certainly did then. Around mile 12, I was ready to call someone to come get me I was so cashed. My heart rate was crazy high (where it normally is during intervals!) yet I was only managing an 11:30 pace. Ugh. Struggle city, population: Jerbear. I ended up taking walk breaks the last two miles just to get my heart rate to come down.

Both of my knees are sore from all the change in running terrain, and my whole body--joints and muscles are incredibly sore. I seriously feel worse than I normally do after a 20 miler. I clearly should've taken another rest day or dropped down the mileage to 10-12. 

So this wasn't exactly the confidence boosting final long-long run leading up to the half in NYC but I'm still awarding myself extra credit points for completion. Woof.