Race Report: Chilly Cheeks 5 Mile

Leading up to Chilly Cheeks 5 Mile I had every intention of running it as a tempo run. Originally this spring season, I had both the Skedaddle half and Fargo half slated as my A goal races. With a rocky, rough winter, I have shifted my focus to Skedaddle as workout and Fargo half as my goal race to optimize some training. Since Chilly Cheeks was originally planned as a tune up/race predictor for Skedaddle, it didn't make sense to race it.

Fast forward to race week, and I was reminded that I won my AG the previous year. Ugh. Well now I want to race! Toeing the line of the race, I still had no clue what I was going to do and figured my body would tell me in the first mile or so. My goal pace was literally somewhere between 8:15-8:50 pace. Hahah.

Melissa and I did a really easy 3.5 mile warm up, and I was surprised at how labored my breathing was. There was heavy, low-hanging fog and the humidity was stifling. Then we did strides. And suddenly my legs felt gooooooood.



We started off the race and the strides transferred over to the race start. I looked down and my GPS said I was running a 6:58. Whoa Nelly!! I eased off and kept a couple of my running buddies in sight, somewhere in that first mile (lolz) I realized that I had gone out way too fast and should've gone out at the slower range of my goal pace (as planned) and either stuck there or gradually sped up if I felt good. Instead I suspected I was in for the opposite progression.



Mile 1 8:34 pace

It was really hard to tell who was running the 5 mile and who was running the 10 mile since we all started together due to a new race route because of all the extreme flooding along the river. I had hoped that my competitive nature would kick in for at least a couple of miles of the race to pull me along, but every time someone passed me, I told myself it was a 10 miler, and let them go.



Mile 2 8:45 pace

At mile 2 I shut down the harder effort and just ran. I got to see a lot of running buddies at the turn around which gave me some extra pep in my step, and then I made it a point to cheer on all the incoming runners after I hit the turn around. Thank goodness that gave me something else to think about!

 



Mile 3 8:56 pace

The last two miles I was just ready to be done. I wasn't racing, I wasn't even hitting my tempo paces, and I just didn't feel like being out there. I may have gotten in my head a bit at this point. For me, it's really hard to do a race and not race and I need to remember that when I sign up for things. I either need to volunteer my time to still experience the race, or actually listen to my pacing plan at the start and not crash and burn. The humidity didn't help, but I was just 100% defeated.



Mile 4 9:07



In the final mile, the lovely Deb caught up to me from the 10 mile and was looking strong and fierce. She started giving me encouragement because I think she could tell that I was d-o-n-e. She's literally the best human. I hope you have a running friend like Deb, truly. She gave me a last little pep in my step to at least finish the race with a slightly harder effort. I didn't have much left to give but just focusing on stronger form for me usually results in a quicker turnover and a quicker pace. I told myself I would kick in to a "sprint" finish with a half mile to go but I couldn't even convince myself of that.

Mile 5 8:54

 
The amazing race director Karen did give me a shout out as I was coming up the finishing stretch which was fun, and made that .1 extra of the course tolerable. :P jk Karen.

.1 :51 seconds, 8:33 pace

I did 5.1 miles in 45:09 for a pace of 8:51, and an almost perfect positive split.

My running buddy Melissa met me at the finish line since she had finished a decade before me, and wanted to know how it went, but I made myself take a little walk break out to catch my breath and leave my crappy attitude behind me. When I caught back up to her, she had done AMAZING. I gave her a pacing plan, and unlike me, she followed it to a T, kicked butt and was 2nd female. 

We did our cool down run together after before awards and chili consumption. Despite a crummy performance, I always love Chilly Cheeks and will definitely be back again next year. Hopefully I'll do a better job of listening to my coach. Haha.

Weekly Reads: Two Can Keep a Secret

Two Can Keep a Secret is the newest book by One of Us is Lying author Karen McManus. I was excited to get my hands on it. It was a really good mystery with missing and murdered teens and a massive whodunnit. I had several guesses throughout and I was wrong the whole way.

My rating 4 stars

Summary from goodreads:

Echo Ridge is small-town America. Ellery's never been there, but she's heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.

The town is picture-perfect, but it's hiding secrets. And before school even begins for Ellery, someone's declared open season on homecoming, promising to make it as dangerous as it was five years ago. Then, almost as if to prove it, another girl goes missing.

Ellery knows all about secrets. Her mother has them; her grandmother does too. And the longer she's in Echo Ridge, the clearer it becomes that everyone there is hiding something. The thing is, secrets are dangerous--and most people aren't good at keeping them. Which is why in Echo Ridge, it's safest to keep your secrets to yourself.

Spring Race Plans REMIX

This winter has been a challenge here in the midwest. We had one of the coldest and snowiest winters that I can remember training through. It took almost the first 5 weeks of my "training plan" to feel like I was getting a full quality week of training in, and that was on a week where I was supposed to run a race, but the town was so flooded from previously mentioned snow and blizz-hurri-pocalyse, or whatever they called that system that came through.

I was talking to my running buddy Chris and kind of starting to panic because my miles just haven't been where I've wanted them to be. He casually, subtly asked if I had considered using the Skedaddle half marathon as a training run and switching my focus to the Fargo half. And honestly, I was a little annoyed. But mostly because I hadn't thought of that myself.

If I was coaching a runner who was having a similar season to mine, that would've been my first suggestion. But for some reason you don't see that when you're coaching yourself. Thank goodness for good running friends.

So I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders, and I now have another 4 weeks where I can build up some solid mileage and strength for Fargo. Wahoo!!

Weekly Reads: The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried

The Past and Other Things that Should Stay Buried is just your standard teen zombie-esque book. Or something like that. I love Shaun David Hutchinson, so I will read anything he has written. And I will love anything that he's written. I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one. I received an e-ARC to review, but didn't have time to read it before it was published. And then when it was published my library took FOR-EV-ER to get it in. So then I finished it in like 3 days.

An amazing story of friendship, grief and loss, and all the good teen angsty drama and relationships intertwined. And Hutchinson always does a great job of including LBGTQIA characters in his stories, and this does not disappoint.

My rating: 5 stars.

Summary from goodreads:

A good friend will bury your body, a best friend will dig you back up.

Dino doesn’t mind spending time with the dead. His parents own a funeral home, and death is literally the family business. He’s just not used to them talking back. Until Dino’s ex-best friend July dies suddenly—and then comes back to life. Except not exactly. Somehow July is not quite alive, and not quite dead.

As Dino and July attempt to figure out what’s happening, they must also confront why and how their friendship ended so badly, and what they have left to understand about themselves, each other, and all those grand mysteries of life.

Weekly Reads: A Heart in a Body in the World

I had thought that A Heart in a Body in the World was on the long list for my SD Teen Choice book list for the upcoming school year. It's about a runner, so of course I opted to read it. Midway through the book, I went to jot down some notes, and I couldn't find it on the list. So I must have gotten it confused for another book. Regardless, this one received a Printz Honor this past February and from page 3 I was hooked.

The story is revealed slowly. You, as the reader, know that Annabelle is running because of *some big catastrophic event* but you don't know what. As she makes her way across the country, we get flashbacks to her life before, and things are revealed. I had a hard time "devouring" this book, as I typically do, because I didn't want to read the big scary event. But it was so well written and amazing, and everyone should read it. Seriously.

My rating: 5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

When everything has been taken from you, what else is there to do but run?

So that’s what Annabelle does—she runs from Seattle to Washington, DC, through mountain passes and suburban landscapes, from long lonely roads to college towns. She’s not ready to think about the why yet, just the how—muscles burning, heart pumping, feet pounding the earth. But no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun the tragedy from the past year, or the person—The Taker—that haunts her.

Followed by Grandpa Ed in his RV and backed by her brother and two friends (her self-appointed publicity team), Annabelle becomes a reluctant activist as people connect her journey to the trauma from her past. Her cross-country run gains media attention and she is cheered on as she crosses state borders, and is even thrown a block party and given gifts. The support would be nice, if Annabelle could escape the guilt and the shame from what happened back home. They say it isn’t her fault, but she can’t feel the truth of that.

Through welcome and unwelcome distractions, she just keeps running, to the destination that awaits her. There, she’ll finally face what lies behind her—the miles and love and loss…and what is to come.

Current Obsession: Gratitude Journal

In 2019, I have committed to a daily gratitude journal. According to my journal, I attempted to start it in February 2018, and abandoned the practice after one day. Awesome. I started it up again in late January, and my friend Courtney's posts about hers served as a daily reminder for me to record mine as well. Sometimes I can be negative, and I don't like that about myself. I find myself distancing myself from friends, co-workers, acquaintances that have black clouds hanging over their heads, and I want to be someone that people seek out for my positivity. I had hoped that looking for the tiny moments of the day that I am grateful for, will help me let go of the negative. So far so good. It's really a treat to have a huge long list some days, and to even have a handful on days that I wish I could do over.


So far I'm on a month long streak, and don't see myself quitting anytime soon.

Weekly Reads: Freefall

I had heard a lot of great buzz about the new novel Freefall so I was excited to get it from my library when it came out. It was a page turner! Told in multiple perspectives revealing little tidbits with each chapter, I could not put this book down. I told everyone I could about it as I was reading it, and you should read it too. I could totally see this being an insanely good movie. So read it before it gets optioned and the hold list at your library goes bananas. :P

My rating: 5 stars

Summary from Goodreads:

A propulsive debut novel with the intensity of Luckiest Girl Alive and Before the Fall, about a young woman determined to survive and a mother determined to find her.

When your life is a lie, the truth can kill you

When her fiancé’s private plane crashes in the Colorado Rockies, Allison Carpenter miraculously survives. But the fight for her life is just beginning. For years, Allison has been living with a terrible secret, a shocking truth that powerful men will kill to keep buried. If they know she’s alive, they will come for her. She must make it home.

In the small community of Owl Creek, Maine, Maggie Carpenter learns that her only child is presumed dead. But authorities have not recovered her body—giving Maggie a shred of hope. She, too, harbors a shameful secret: she hasn’t communicated with her daughter in two years, since a family tragedy drove Allison away. Maggie doesn’t know anything about her daughter’s life now—not even that she was engaged to wealthy pharmaceutical CEO Ben Gardner, or why she was on a private plane.

As Allison struggles across the treacherous mountain wilderness, Maggie embarks on a desperate search for answers. Immersing herself in Allison’s life, she discovers a sleek socialite hiding dark secrets. What was Allison running from—and can Maggie uncover the truth in time to save her?

Told from the perspectives of a mother and daughter separated by distance but united by an unbreakable bond, Freefall is a riveting debut novel about two tenacious women overcoming unimaginable obstacles to protect themselves and those they love.