Twin Cities Marathon Expo

We made our way to the expo, and I was so excited to spend all the monies. It's been a long time (4 years!) since I've run a marathon and I gave myself a little budget to purchase some fun things to commemorate the occasion. We went to the official race gear first so we didn't miss out on sizing of things.

I fell in love with a super cute vest but the $130 price tag had me second guessing that purchase. I have an amazing winter coat from 605 Running Co. that costs less than that. And I've wore that in -10+ degrees. Uff da. Eventually I talked myself out of it, as well as a $100 light jacket. INSANE. I did snag a cute short sleeved shirt, and a pint glass, of course. 

We picked up our race packets and I took note of their words of encouragement for the race.

We made our way through the booths and took some time for some photo ops. I couldn't believe that I didn't heavily stimulate the economy at this expo. CRAZY. I talked myself out of everything.

BRF jackets!

Before too long we were ready to leave. With almost as much money in our pockets as when we started. sigh. It's the law of marathons. When you have money and want to spend it, there's nothing. When you're poor poor poor there will be all the cute gear and you'll be sad you can't have it. Harumph.

Twin Cities Marathon Training Week 15

Monday Planned: Dress rehearsal 7 miles with 2 @ MP
Monday Actual: 7 miles with 2 @ MP. Legs felt amazing. Whooo!!

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Rest + Foam Rolling

Wednesday Planned:  Recovery 4 miles
Wednesday Actual: Recovery 3 miles in some of the craziest wind I've ever experienced.

Thursday Planned:  Power + Rest
Thursday Actual: Power + Rest


Friday Planned: Recovery 4 miles
Friday Actual: Recovery 4 miles at coffee run with TONI!

Saturday Planned: Shake out 2-3 miles with 4x100 Strides
Saturday Actual: 3 mile shakeout with 3x100 strides and another almost 1 mile walk to get to brunch because I can't read a map.

Sunday Planned: 26.2 miles of the Twin Cities Marathon!
Sunday Actual: 26.7 miles of the most beautiful and heavily spectated race I've ever been a part of.

Total Mileage Planned: 44.2 miles
Total Mileage Actual:  43.83 miles

Upcoming Books to Check Out

I have a real problem. There are so many books to read in this world, and just not enough time to get through them all. A lot of people have the misconception that librarians just sit around and read all day, and that couldn't be further from the truth. Unless I'm reading/previewing a picture book for an upcoming story time, I do not get to spend my time reading. But oh man, I wish I did.

Here are a bunch of titles that are coming out soon, some I've heard advanced praise for, some I've seen as ARCs, all that are on my current hold list for me to read as soon as I can get my grubby hands on them from my library.

Let me know if you check any of them out, and what your thoughts are!

Twin Cities Marathon Goals

Throughout training, I had zeroed in on one main goal, to run a marathon under 4 hours. With about a month of training to go I started to PANIC and think about how hard that goal seemed, as we tend to do when we're training for a big scary goal. I really enjoy training and coaching myself, but this is the part of training where I think it'd be really helpful to have a coach talk through the confidence side of things with me.

As it is, I have goals for this Sunday's race. Of course I do!

A Goal: PR. I haven't ran a PR since my first marathon in May 2010. I ran a strong race, fell apart a bit in the final 10k and ran a 4:12. I want to have a new PR so badly.

Sub goal: Sub 4:10. Barring any major disasters, this should happen.

Sub-sub goal: Sub 4:05. I think if I'm having a really great day, a 4:02-4:05 is where I'll land.

I've had dreams all year long of saying, "I ran a 15 minute PR!" so that 3:58 is still in the back of my mind, but I'm also very nervous about going out hard enough to reach that goal that I fall apart and don't hit my ultimate PR goal.

So we'll see what Sunday brings!!

September in Review

Total Miles:  184.49 down from 188.63 miles last month. 124.4 miles last September. Dang it. So close to my highest mileage month again. Considering I had two weeks of taper in there, I was pretty excited. If I hadn't been sick the last weekend, I would've gotten there but rest was more important when I was feeling under the weather.

Total Time:  31:26:46 down from 32:15:598. 

Total Runs: 26 runs for an average of 7.1 miles/run.

Highest weekly mileage: 

9/10/2018 – 9/16/2018:	52.2 mi	9:01:02	10:23 / mi

Yes, that says I ran 9 hours that week. My mind is BLOWN. Highest mileage week ever!!

Most hardcore run: 3x1600 m. repeats too soon after eating an anniversary burger and cheeseballs. Woof. Don't ask how I ran the paces I did.

Favorite run: 20 mile long run with Melissa. This was night and day compared to the first 20 miler of the cycle, even if they were almost identical times. This was so much stronger.

Favorite Race: While Sioux Falls half wasn't truly a race for racing sake, it was a great opportunity to practice MP miles. Melissa and I felt like we were holding back the pace so much and it felt so great. 

Favorite Jam: Weezer's cover of Africa is still one of my top songs! Also enjoying Eminem's Til I Collapse on any speedwork. I'll probably listen to it on repeat the last 5k-10k of TCM.

Twin Cities Marathon Training Week 14

Monday Planned: GA+Speed 7 miles w/8x100
Monday Actual: GA+Speed 7 miles w/8x100. Look! I didn't even forget the strides! YAY ME!

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Rest McRest Rest.

Wednesday Planned:  VO2 Max 8 miles, 3x1600m @ 5k
Wednesday Actual: 6 miles with 3x1600m @ 5k ish pace. This workout felt AMAZING. My legs felt like they belonged to a gazelle dashing through whatever terrain gazelles dash through. I felt like I was going to barf during the 1st and 2nd repeats, however due to my dinner date with Kyle prior to the run. Woof.

Thursday Planned:  Recovery+speed 5 miles with 6x100
Thursday Actual: I had a 12 hour work day, so needless to say I did not run. I had planned to do my recovery run on Friday but.....

Friday Planned: Rest
Friday Actual: I woke up exhausted x 1 million, so I fell back asleep. Then after work I felt feverish and achy all over so I went to bed at 5 and slept until 8:30pm. Then I went back to bed at 11pm and slept until 8:30am. Uff da.

Saturday Planned: Long run 12 miles
Saturday Actual: I still wasn't feeling 100% so I cut the long run short at 8 miles. My heart rate was through the roof and I just felt really labored. Blech. 

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: 5 mile recovery run. I felt pretty much back to normal, but my heart rate spiked pretty high about 1.5 miles in so I took a walk break and then it went back to normal. Phew.

Total Mileage Planned: 32 miles
Total Mileage Actual:  26.03 miles

Weekly Reads: The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl is a really sweet new book from Stacy McAnulty. I picked it up because I had heard great things and I thought it might make for a good option for the teen book committee I'm a member of. And it did not disappoint. It was such a sweet book about friendship and being different, and I think a lot of 4th-6th grade students would love it.

My rating: 5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

Lucy Callahan was struck by lightning. She doesn't remember it, but it changed her life forever. The zap gave her genius-level math skills, and ever since, Lucy has been homeschooled. Now, at 12 years old, she's technically ready for college. She just has to pass 1 more test — middle school!

Lucy's grandma insists: Go to middle school for 1 year. Make 1 friend. Join 1 activity. And read 1 book (that's not a math textbook!). Lucy's not sure what a girl who does calculus homework for fun can possibly learn in 7th grade. She has everything she needs at home, where nobody can make fun of her rigid routines or her superpowered brain. The equation of Lucy's life has already been solved. Unless there's been a miscalculation?