Back from the Dead

Last week I managed to get in a whopping 5 miles.  For the week.  Hello megataper.  Rest assured, I did get an awesome workout blowing my nose and hacking up a lung all week long.  I also spent a considerable amount of time looking at the inside of my eyelids all weekend.

Not exactly the best way to spend two weeks before a marathon, but I refused to still be sick while trying to run 26.2 miles.  That’s hard enough on its own, you know?

With that being said, I believe I’m on the mend.  Sunday everything finally started pouring out of me (gross visual, eh?).  I attempted to do ab work and yoga, and almost drown myself in my snot.  Boogers… I haz em.  Luckily my slacker status gave me plenty of time to watch season 7 of Weeds.  No, not get uber ahead in my grad school classes, or even start my paper that’s due the day I get home from Philly.  But watching Weeds.  Priorities, etc.

Because of my sicky status last week, I committed Packer fan blasphemy last night.  I ran during the game.  Oh the horror.  I know.  Stupid me was soooooooo tired Monday morning that I convinced myself to sleep in instead of run (I don’t work until 11 on Mondays) because I could just do it after work.  Naturally when I finally woke up I realized that the Packers were playing after work, and that I screwed myself over royally.  I even tried to find a radio station app for my phone so I could listen to the game while I ran, but then the stupid thing died before I got home.  Oh well, at least GB still pulled out a monster win, and I was able to catch the last quarter.  Phew.

[insert Jerbear's 9-0 dance here.  spoiler alert:  it's pretty SAWEET!]

I did 6 miles in 57 some minutes.  I managed to fall zero times in the super dark uneven sidewalk areas, but my pace was definitely reflecting my “tippy toe” running strategy.

IT’S MOTHER EFFING MARATHON WEEK!

Race goals to come...shortly!

If anyone is interested in tracking me on Sunday, feel free to sign up here.

If you need my bib number, let me know.  I probably shouldn't broadcast my personal info on this here public blog (even though you could probably figure it out anyway with a few brain cells... oy, I think I just offended my dumb stalkers.... craaaaaaaaaap!)

Annual Race Budget

With all of the talk about marathons for 2012 already going on over here, I’m left in a little bit of a tizzy regarding the moolah.  If I get in to the New York City Marathon, I will be spending some serious coin on the flight out there, race fee, and some fun money to enjoy the sites/take Susan out for drinks and food for housing me.  J  As I’m currently bored in taper-town, I’m scouting out other races to put on my schedule for the spring, but am a bit hesitant.

Do any of you give yourself an annual budget for races?  And stick to it??

I have a spreadsheet of all the races I consider for the upcoming year.  One of the columns is the race fee, so I could easily see how much I spend on races from year to year.  And my running log has a place for the cost of the shoe, so I’m able to tally up that total as well.  Throw in gas for road trips to not-so-local races, hotel stays, and flights….. and this can be a freakin’ expensive obsession “hobby.”  And this is completely ignoring the fact that most times I see running clothes in kelly green I’m forced to snatch them up! 

Being the credit counselor that I am, I’m half tempted to do some tallying and set a budget for 2012, but the tallying part frightens me a bit, even though I didn’t make any major race trips for 2011.  Running and racing is the one thing that I spend money on outside of my living expenses.  I don’t really want to have to put a cap on the races that I do, but maybe I should.

For past years, I’ve had some unspoken rules that I’ve adhered to.  If I do a fall and spring marathon, one has to be local or drivable.  I’ve lucked out and shared the gas costs and hotel costs with Megan for a lot of these races.  Usually the destination race doubles as a vacation (ie:  Vegassssssss shenanigans and Dallas to see my fam).  I usually don’t give too much thought to half marathons because the price is fairly cheap, and they are usually pretty local.  I think the smaller races, 5ks and 10ks can get me in to trouble.  $30 every other weekend can really add up (not that I raced that frequently in 2011, but 2010 I sure did)!  One rule that I loosely imposed for gas reasons is that I wouldn’t spend more time driving to a race than I would on the race course.   

Are there any other suggestions that have worked?  Keep in mind I make peanuts at my non-profit job, and am going to school full time as well so the “go get another job you whiny ding dong!” suggestion is not applicable at this time

Do running sugar daddies exist?!??! :P

__________________

I ran 5 miles this morning with zero pain.  So my mini-freak out has passed.  I think I was probably be overly cautious with the 2 rest days, but when you break as much as I do, it doesn't hurt to be cautious.  11 days til Philly!

Taper in Bullet Points

I’m feeling lazy, so please enjoy my life and running update via bullet points, aka the laziest blog post format there is.

·         I saw 7 deer on my run on Friday night.  That’s almost a 1 mile: 1 deer ratio.  Zero of them ran away from me.  They have obviously learned that I am friend and not foe.  Please refer to me as the deer whisperer henceforth.

·         I spent most of this weekend cozied up in my bed reading young adult fiction books.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  The only time I wasn’t in my bed was when I was:

o   At work

o   Running

o   Watching football

·         Speaking of watching football, I went out to watch the Bama v. LSU game on Saturday night.  And it was so boring snoring that I wished I was in bed reading a young adult fiction book.  True story:  I’m not yet a diehard Bama fan.  I’m working on it.  Another thing that should be worked on?  The kicker’s FG skills.  Perhaps take a minute from dumbbell curls and work on it, mmmmk?  Interesting fun fact:  This is the first time I've done my hair in a month. Obvs photo documentation needed to occur.

·         The Packers game almost killed me.  I don’t like close games.  They give me anxiety.  Most things in life give me anxiety.  Kyle laying next to me snoring his face off didn’t help said anxiety.  Yes, I woke him up, convinced if he slept it’d be the reason they lost (I deem him a GB good luck charm for some silly reason) and I knew I’d hold a grudge for HIM marring our (yes, our) perfect season.

• Clearly after a close win, the most obvious thing to do is take cheery pictures of yourself while you wait for that one guy to wake up to watch The League and Sunny with you.  You don't know how badly I want to include the pic I took of him in my green and gold headband while he was snoozing, but I think that's grounds for relationship termination.

·         In taper crazy update, I’m not running.  I have a weird knot in my calf after this weekend.  I’m giving it a couple of days of rest, ice, beating the ever loving $#!t out of with a foam roller/rolling pin, so it’s a-ok for Philly.  At first I freaked out, but now I’m pretty confident it’ll be good to go soon.  Because freaking out doesn’t help, did you know that?

·         Also, since I haven’t ran, I’m cranky.  Just sour.  I’ve learned that ice cream gives me the same happy endorphins that running does.  So naturally I ate some right out of the carton with Kyle last night until my intestines started protesting. 

·         And obsessive weather forecast stalking has begun.  Three out of four sites call for no rain.  Clearly accuweather.com is on my $#!t list.  My current BFF weather site is weatherforyou.com that states it’ll be a high of 43 (aka Jeri is cool as a cucumber).  And since our race shirts are long sleeved, I’d prefer the coldest option possible.

·         P.S.  Are shirts are kind of amazing.  You will not be able to miss us running.

Speedy Two a Day + Weekly Wishlist

This week has been a struggle for me.  I just staretd my taper, but my mileage isn't really cut all that much, which I'm ok with since training has lasted approximately 6 seconds.  Unfortunately, almost all of my miles come this weekend, so I FEEL like I'm tapering like crazy.  Three miles on Monday, tempo run turned 4 mile pause to dry heave on the side of the bike trail.  And when I don't run I don't sleep.  GAH.

Finally Thursday night I set out to make up some of my missed miles from being sicky.  Since 6 of the missed miles were supposed to be at tempo, I decided to do a fast 3 for run #1.  Ok, technically I was going to do a one mile warm up and then 2 miles fast.  But I failed at a warm up mile.
8:19
7:41
7:43

Someone remind me of this workout when I'm whining about mile repeats at a slighter faster speed but with JOG BREAKS IN BETWEEN THEM.  Geez Louise, I'm a wussy sometimes.

I sat through class, letting my muscles get all sorts of cold and tight, and then when we were dismissed I hit the streets for another 3 miles.  It got me thinking.  What if you could go run every time you had a few minutes to spare.  How many miles could you get in during the day?  (assuming you could sit in your own sweat/stench throughout the day, obvs.)  I bet a lot.  I'm not going to try, that's for sure.

I did another 3 miles in 27:39 for a pace of 9:12.  A bit faster than my normal easy pace, but my legs were lovin' it.

This weekend I have a poop ton of miles to run, and then the taper really gets going next week.  Rumor has it, Jenn, Megan, and my Philly marathon race day shirts are in, and spoiler alert:  you won't be able to miss us on the course.  YAYZIES!

Buy it here.
I think beanies are just a little bit useless around these parts.  I mean, if I'm wearing something on my head, it will be covering my ears, my ginormo forehead, and 3/4 of my face, because sweet Jesus it's cold.  But if I lived somewhere it was "pretend" cold, I'd totally rock this.

Buy it here.
I sure hope someone was able to take advantage of the Kate Spade sale yesterday.  Because I sure didn't.  Love this yellow bag.  Pretty safe to assume that if I can stash away enough $$$ that a yellow Kate handbag will be mine this spring.

Buy it here.

If this delightly little 'arry Pottah mug showed up in my Christmas stocking (yes I have a Christmas stocking, quit judging my Holiday CHEER AND WONDERMENT!) I wouldn't be upset.

Kinvara Stockpile

I pulled my last pair of new Saucony Kinvaras out of my shoe inventory the week before the Fargo HM half.  I stocked up on shoes during some monster Memorial weekend sales.  Without giving it too much thought, I assumed that these shoes would last me until Christmas where I could stockpile some more shoes for holiday sales.  Uh...wrong.  3 weeks later, these poor shoes already have close to 150 on them, and only get about 300-350. 

When the Angriest of Runners tweeted about running warehouse's sale on Kinvaras I was all aboard.  I found the pink shoes I've been coveting, and a yellow and green pair.  Sadly the yellow and green weren't on sale.  Until I added them both to my cart and realized that the sale vs. non-sale were only $5 different!  Come to mama.  Oh and then I managed to find an ADDITIONAL coupon code because I'm a b.a. online shopper. 

The office receptionist called me Tuesday morning to let me know I had a package.  In her message she said, "I'm guessing they're running shoes!"  Apparently I'm predictable.

Such a beautiful sight.

Behold. Their beauty.

And on to important questions:  Which pair do I wear for Philly?!?!?

Marathon Schedule 2012

I’m a very type A person.  I like to have a plan.  And it always has to be the most efficient and well thought out plan.  So when my spring marathon plans somersaulted last week, I was in a tizzy.  Emails were sent to all running buddies to see what their plans were.  I like to optimize my marathon weekend fun by joining up with runner friends. 

My first plan was Grandma’s.  Kyle has been asking when I’m going to do it (presumably so he can have an excuse to go feeshing in Duluth) and I thought Krista was going to be doing it.  And since it’s so late, I could do a half marathon in May as part of my training…..say… in Brookings!  When Krista confirmed she wasn’t running it, I moved on. 

Lincoln?  Drivable distance for my parents (maybe) and I could probably wrangle Angie to do it.  But meh.  Wasn’t really too excited about it.

So then I landed back on Brookings.  But as the full.  It’s a very small course.  Like 400 for the full and half.  But it’d be cheap.  Just gas to get there and a cheap-o registration fee, and shacking up with Megan.  And the money for Mexican food and margs afterwards, obvs.  And I thought that surely my parents and Kyle could be spectator extraordinaires.  BINGO.

This is how I landed on the decision to do my first marathon in South Dakota.  Might as well be at home when I land my first marathon time that starts with a 3.  J

Naturally after deciding on spring 2012, my mind started to work toward fall 2012.  Since I’ll be doing things el cheap-o this spring, perhaps I could spend some $$ this fall.

Think BIG:  NYC.

I think I’m going to enter the NYC Marathon lottery.  I think I’ve convinced myself that the ideal time for me to run a marathon is in November/December, as it’s typically cooler, and I’m able to train for the majority of it during the fall when it’s cooler.  AKA I don’t drown from my sweat.  Visiting NYC is on my 101 in 1001 days list, and I’m sure I’ll need another Susan fix in a year.  J

If I don’t get in, I think my back up marathon will be Dallas White Rock.  I did the half in 2009, and it was a blast.  Plus I need to go down and visit the family, since I have a new niece arriving in 2 ½ weeks.  I secretly want her to be born at the same time I’m finishing Philly.  Is that too much to ask?  Naaaaaaaaw.

So that’s my plan for the next year.  Who’s joining me???

October in Review + 20 Miler for Philly

October In Review

Total Miles: 170.7 up from 121.2 last month. (151.2 miles from October 2010.)  Highest mileage month of the year, and second highest ever!  (Highest was April 2010).  Heck ya!  This includes a mini taper the first week in October since I raced a half.  WHOO! 

Total Time: 26:54:05 up from 18:56:33. (23:52:41 last October.)

Total Runs: 23 for an average of 7.42/run.

Highest weekly mileage:

10/24/2011 — 10/30/2011:

50.0 Mi

7:59:30

My second 50 mile week ever. :D

Favorite run: My mid-week double digit run.  See below.

Most hardcore run:  Either my 8 mile run with 4 at tempo, or my 600 m intervals.  I managed to find some sub 7 speed in these ol' legs of mine.  So that was fun.  Apparently I failed to blog about the intervals.  Meh.  Just imagine greatness, I guess.  :P

Favorite race:  Fargo FM half marathon.  Well, half of it was good.  So perhaps I should say the Fargo quarter marathon. :)

Bike Miles: 0.  I thought about it, does that count?  Between 8 hours of running, and a gazillion hours of school + work, biking is just not happening.  And that's sad because its still nice enough to do it.  Sorry Princess Leia.

Favorite Jams: Beyonce's Love on Top.

________________

So quick recap of last week since I was too lazy to blog apparently, I did intervals.  They were fast (for me) the recoveries were slow (for me).  Interval paces on the 600s were in the 6:30s-6:40s.  Heyo!

 

And on to my favorite run of the month, the 11 miler on Thursday.  After doing 8 miles, the night before with some speedy 600s, I was concerned my legs would be d-e-a-d.  But I didn't have class, due to fall break, so I was going to take full advantage and get my run in while crunching around on some fallen leaves.  I was prepared to take the run slow, since the name of the game is injury free, but my legs weren't having it.  I was in the 9:20s for most of the run with a low HR.  I'm sure the 46 degrees didn't hurt the cause.  And yes, I was the only one out there in shorts and a tee.  Hey, I put on a tee shirt, not like I'm crazy wearing a tanktop! The last few miles were a little scary since the sun had completely set.  I also slowed down since I always seem to fall, and the odds of this only increase when it's dark.  :/

 

I did 11 miles in 1:44:13 for a pace of 9:29.

 

Friday I somehow convinced Kyle to join me for part of my recovery run.  I did 2.5 miles without him and then he joined me for the last 1.5 miles.  We ran for about 4-5 minutes, then took a walk break, and repeated until we were done.  A dude in vibrams sprinted past us on a walk break, and that lit a fire under Kyle.  Of course that next running stretch had to be in the 8:30s.  Come on dude, this is my RECOVERY RUN.  But it was fun to have his company, and he didn't throw me in the river when we got there, so overall, I'd say that's a win!

 

Saturday morning was the last (and only) 20 miler of Philly training.  Eep!  After a glorious 11 hours of sleep (yes, seriously), I finally rolled out of bed and hit the trails.  I was bummed that I was too lazy to get up early, because the trick or treat trail run was going on, and I meant to intersect with the route and cheer my friends on.  Grr. 

 

After putting in 30 miles in a few short days, my legs were trashed from the start.  Which is good, I suppose.  Nothing wrong with getting in some major miles on super tired legs.  Mental toughness, I'm chasin' ya!  The first 5 miles were pretty pokey and in to the wind, which sucked.  Especially because weather.com had told me the wind was to be a light 3 mph breeze.  Liars.

 

I finally got some pep in my step about an hour in (probably didn't hurt that the wind was at my back) and decided to add some difficulty to my run (you know, because 20 miles isn't hard enough) and added a long hill in the middle of it.  I heard there are about 2 decent hills in Philly, so might as well get a little practice since I suck at them.  Adding pain to the current... uh... pain.... is the awful smell blowing over from the meat packing plant.  It. Was. Terrible.  I could taste the crap.  And of course this is right by our penitentiary, so I was on high alert for an escapees.  So much fun.

 

When I finally hit ten miles and turned around, I was assaulted by the wind, yet again.  And the smell of the meat packing plant.  Barf.  Luckily I had some downhill miles to attend to.  After the downhills, life started to suck.  I always seem to lose some steam during the middle 3rd of a run.  The wind wasn't helping.  Somehow I managed to kick up the pace a little bit during the final 3 miles to finish strong.  Not my fastest 20 miler, but definitely my most consistent.  And I finished feeling like I could easily run for another hour, which I haven't always been able to say at the end of a 20 miler.  I hit 9:20 and 8:40 for miles 19 and 20.

 

I did 20 miles in 3:12:34 for a pace of 9:38.

 

And apparently I took a total of 2 photos this weekend, but they were important hydrating photos, so enjoy.

Sunday morning mimosas. 

 

Me:  How much do you think you'll drink?  What size champagne should I get?

KK:  Jeri... it's 10am, I'm not going to drink.  Get whatever you want.

 

And then Sunday night I had the grossest beer ever to wrap up the Old Chicago Halloween mini-tour.  If I wanted apple juice, I'd order apple juice.  Ick.