October in Review

October in Review

Total Miles: 98.2 up from 53.8 last month.  Up from 6 last October.

Total Time:  17:30:20 up from 10:58:42 last month. 

Total Runs: 19 for an average of 5.17 miles/run.

Highest weekly mileage: 

10/10/2016 – 10/16/2016:	28.3 mi	4:48:18

Favorite run: Twelve mile long run. Steady, strong splits with my HR lower than it has been for similar long run efforts. Any time a long run is a favorite, you know that you're running is going well!

Most hardcore run: Ten mile long run with 3 minute pickups every twenty minutes. Felt so strong!

Favorite race: Monster Dash Half, 14 minutes off of my time from September!!

Bike Miles: 0

Favorite Jam: Panic at the Disco's Hallelujah and Miss Jackson. On repeat, non-stop.

November goals:

• Group runs with friends, new and old
• 100 miles
• Daily water consumption!

Race Report: Monster Dash Half Marathon

After deciding to defer my entry for the Milwaukee Running Festival Marathon, I knew I needed a race on the horizon to train for. I convinced Kyle to take a quick weekend getaway with me to the Twin Cities to run another half before the end of 2016.

The race profile showed a net downhill course. Wahoo! The weather forecast early in the week showed perfect race weather 42-46. As the week went on, it warmed up to high 40s, low 50s and 90% humidity. Meh. Still could be worse, for sure.

After a few key workouts leading up to the race, I had a pretty firm race plan going in to the race: 1st 3 miles at 10:15, 2nd 3 miles at 10:00, 3rd 3 miles at 9:45, and the final four miles all out. I had thought the all out pace would be 9-9:15 pace if I was running my absolute best. I also could've swore that miles 9 to the finish were all downhill. Spoiler alert: no.

The race started and it was so gorgeous, I almost couldn't handle it. All the trees' leaves lining the route were on fire. So insanely pretty. People started complaining at .83 miles about how warm they were, and started shedding layers of clothes. I started having a weird intense pain in my foot at a mile in to the race, and that freaked me out. I focused on my form, and eventually the pain went away. Thank goodness.

Mile 1 10:06
Mile 2 10:06
Mile 3 10:23

I purposely slowed down the third mile to reign back to the race plan slightly. I took my first GU at mile 4.5 of the race. Most of the first half of the race was a slight downhill. I knew the course was net downhill, so whenever we ran some rollers or up a hill I thought it would be the last one until "it was all downhill from here."

Mile 4 10:00
Mile 5 9:54
Mile 6 10:02

We had a decent climb during mile 7. I was feeling really good, and shocked at how well I was sticking to the race plan. Usually around the 7 mile mark I start to s-t-r-u-g-g-l-e in a race and the walk breaks because necessary. I took my second GU at mile 9 and was ready to start running all out.

Mile 7 9:58
Mile 8 9:39
Mile 9 9:33

I swear when I looked at the elevation map, the final 4 miles were all downhill. So where in the hell did the two hills in mile 11 come from? And the monster climb in mile 12? And a couple more in Mile 13? Good question. I wanted to know that same information as I continued to go up up UP! But I knew I was on pace to run a really strong time, so I kept pushing and counting down the minutes of running to meet my time.

Mile 10 9:22
Mile 11 9:21
Mile 12 9:40
Mile 13 9:13

.22 1:41 (7:39 pace)

I crossed the finish line, stopped my watch and was thrilled to see a 2:09:05 for 13.22 miles (we were already off almost .1 mile at the one mile marker... grrrr....). This time was almost 14 minutes faster than my half in September. And even better, my legs weren't broken upon finishing! Is this what racing feelings like?! It's been so long I don't even remember.

Even my HR data was better than September's race!
Avg HR 160
Max HR 177

Kyle and I went out for a delicious lunch after to celebrate, and have a celebratory beer. Mmmm.

Milwaukee Running Festival Marathon

This past Sunday I was supposed to run a marathon. I didn't.

After my mom passed away in August, I wasn't sure what I would do about my upcoming marathon. On one hand I thought I might enjoy training for it, and give my brain a break from all the emotions and grief. On the other hand, I thought the stress of marathon training on top of the stress of my grief might kill me. I looked up the transfer policy and realized I had to the end of October to make a decision. Phew.

After marinating on it for a few weeks, I ultimately decided not to run the race. I knew I could do it. Complete the race. Likely in a 5+ hour time. But that wasn't my intention when I signed up for the race. When I signed up, I was falling back into l-o-v-e love with running, my mom's health was looking up, and I was ready to put in the work to run a decent marathon time, 4:20s-4:30s. I did NOT want to slog through another 5 hour marathon that left me hating running and marathons in general.

And so it was decided. No marathon in 2016. Meaning my last one was over two years ago. If i sign up before the end of the year, I can get my deferred entry to Milwaukee for $10. I'm still not sure if I want to run a fall marathon next year; Kyle kindly suggested that maybe I don't even do marathons anymore. To which I replied, "Yeah if I could just run ONE GOOD ONE, I could retire....."

26.2 TBD.

Weekly Reads: This is Where it Ends

Wow. This Is Where It Ends was intense. I put off reading this book for a long time, because everything in my life was far too stressful to read a book with such intense subject matter. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. AMAZING.

My rating: 5 stars


Summary from goodreads:

10:00 a.m. The principal of Opportunity High School finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.

10:02 a.m. The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.

10:03 a.m. The auditorium doors won't open.

10:05 a.m. Someone starts shooting.

Told from four different perspectives over the span of fifty-four harrowing minutes, terror reigns as one student’s calculated revenge turns into the ultimate game of survival. 

2016 Mileage

A little over a month ago, I was logging my mileage and I happened to glance at my annual mileage for 2016. I was shocked when it showed 400 miles for the year. I didn't really start running this year until April/May, so I didn't realize I had that many miles. I was having a good month of running in September and October, so I decided I would try to hit 700 miles for the year.

Eeps.

I was just shy of 700 miles in 2013, and just over 700 miles in 2014. In 2015, I ran less than 200. Miles. Total. For the year. Whoa.

I sent a text to my new running buddy in town and asked if she'd be willing to keep me going during November and December after my October half to help me get in the mileage. I planned to take the week after my race off, which left me with 190 miles to run in 8 weeks. I recovered a little better than I expected, so I was able to get in about 10 miles, so now it's on. 180 miles in the next 8 weeks.

Totally doable, right?!

Weekly Reads: Today Will Be Different

One of the most enjoyable books I've ever read is Maria Semple's Where'd You Go Bernadette. So I was excited to see that Semple had a new book coming out, Today Will Be Different. I went into this book with such high hopes because of the previous novel that this one was just okay to me. Had I not read the previous one, maybe I wouldn't enjoyed it more. Read it, and let me know what you think.

My rating: 3.5 stars

Summary from goodreads:
A genius novel from the author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette, about a day in the life of Eleanor Flood, forced to abandon her small ambitions when she awakes to a strange, new future unfolding.

Eleanor knows she's a mess. But today, she will tackle the little things. She will shower and get dressed. She will have her poetry and yoga lessons after dropping off her son, Timby. She won't swear. She will initiate sex with her husband, Joe. But before she can put her modest plan into action-life happens. Today, it turns out, is the day Timby has decided to fake sick to weasel his way into his mother's company. It's also the day Joe has chosen to tell his office-but not Eleanor-that he's on vacation. Just when it seems like things can't go more awry, an encounter with a former colleague produces a graphic memoir whose dramatic tale threatens to reveal a buried family secret.

TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is a hilarious, heart-filled story about reinvention, sisterhood, and how sometimes it takes facing up to our former selves to truly begin living.

Race Report: Sioux Falls Half Marathon 2016

The Sioux Falls half marathon was hard. Physically, yes, but emotionally even more so. My mom is my biggest cheerleader and spectator and the SF half is the race she never misses. Ever. During her last day on the planet, I told her she needed to start training as soon as she got to heaven, because I'd need her with me for my races. She responded that she'd be there (meaning at my races). Cue all the tears.

The week of the race I had a horrific cold, brought on partly by all the stress of the previous couple of weeks plus allergies, but there was no way I was missing my twelfth consecutive Sioux Falls half.

I got to the race start insanely early to take a group photo with my SFWR ladies. Look at that monster group! I remember when there was like... ten of us!

Going in to this race, I didn't have any real goals other than to finish. And then I stopped at the 605 Running Co. booth that were giving away a sweet prize for whomever could predict their race time the closest. So I wrote down my absolutely A++++ time prediction.

LOLZ.

When the race started, I was happy that it had a new start and route this year, because I would've completely lost it running around Howard Wood without seeing my mom there cheering for me. As it was, I still started the race crying all through the starting chute and out on to the street. Woof. This might be a rough day.

The first few miles were around the park and the historic district. The first two miles are nice and flat and then we start a decent climb in mile 3. I was taking in the miles, ignoring my pace (other than to make sure I wasn't starting too fast) and was just thankful to be running.

1. 10:29 
2. 10:37 
3. 10:38

Miles 4 and 5 were mostly downhill with some uphill stretches. Mile 4 has the longest downhill in the course (this year with the added benefit of running UP it at the end of the race, uff) and the one I'm always extra careful to take it easy on so my quads don't sieze up on me. At about 5.5 miles in we started our gradual way back up up up! This is also the spot that my mom is always at, and luckily the only part of the course that didn't change, so I knew there would be tears here and I was prepared for that. I'm sure this year she was there and was thrilled now to have to deal with the traffic of the race spectators. :P

4. 10:19

5. 10:28
6. 10:47

With about five miles to go, I was spent. Drained, emotionally and physically and just ready to be done. I put on some music to help tune out the world, and started to implement some walk breaks to bring my heart rate out of the scary zone. Uff. There was a decent hill in mile nine, and since I'd taken a little walk break earlier, I made myself run up 90% of it. Uff da.

7. 10:48

8. 10:42
9. 11:21 

Somewhere in this stretch I started to do "finish line math" to see what my finishing time was. I realized I was nearing my half marathon PW. And even that couldn't keep me from taking walk breaks. I was done-zo and if I had to walk the whole way to the finish line, so be it. (Spoiler alert: I didn't, but it sure felt that way!)

10. 11:22

11. 11:08 

 

Mile 12 was the slowest of the day and I remember being hot and ready to be done. Somewhere in mile 13 there was a lovely breeze at my back that was cooling and pushing me along, so I dug in and ran as hard as I could.

12. 12:22

13. 9:58
.26 2:05

I finished 13.26 miles in 2:22:59, just a mere 10+ minutes from my race prediction time. Ha. So close. 

The finish line was inside the arena, so my friends and family had a hard time finding me, as I didn't run with my phone. Emily and Megan found me as I was going to grab my phone at the bag check and told me that Kyle got yelled at by security for trying to bring the pug into the arena, thus missing my finish. 

It was a really hard day to run 13.1 miles (or 13.26, but who's counting) but I'm really thankful that I did it. Sometimes it's nice to prove to yourself just how capable you are of doing something that is hard.