Nook v. Kindle + Mankato Pacing Pictures

Some extreme weather the last few days has me at the gym logging my miles on the treadmill.  I can do cold (mid-30s) I can do wind (40+ mph), I can not do cold+wind.  Those of you that did....well....I bow down to you with my un-wind burnt face.

Tuesday I had an easy 6 miler today.  And I actually enjoyed running on the treadmill.  It was the darndest thing really.  I read a few trashy gossip magazines while flying through some miles, and before I knew it, I was done.  And drenched in sweat.  But that's beside the point. 

I did 6 miles in 56:50 for a pace of 9:29.

Wednesday I had originally had a 10 mile run w/8 miles at tempo pace, but knew I'd want to catapult myself through the window in front of the treadmill if I had to do it indoors, so I did my 7 miler from Thursday instead.  Again, I was really digging on the run.  Until mile 5.  Then I was o-v-e-r it.  And I had this really weird pain in my foot that I think resulted from tying my shoe tight, but also teetered on the possibility of being a seriously painful muscle/bone/something or other.  I'm going to go with bruise for now.  The good thing (or not so good thing, I guess technically) is that I bruise like a peach, so I'll know for sure before too long.

I did 7 miles in 1:06:00 for a pace of 9:26.

All of this treadmill running (and I know it's only the tip of the iceburg) has me thinking that I really want a Nook or a Kindle.  Now hear me out on this, I am a die hard book lover.  My greatest dream for my future home is to have an actual library inside of it (I plan on marrying a prince apparently).  We're talking floor to ceiling bookshelves with that sliding ladder that I will siiiiiiiiiiiiiing on whilst floating across my library gazing upon all my books.  But for the sake of running, it would be super/fabulous/amazingly awesome to have an electronic reading device so I can READ BOOKS WHILE I RUN.  I love to read.  I love to run.  To read while running might actually cause my world to spin out of orbit (don't worry this shouldn't effect you.  you may think that we're living in the same world, but I can assure you that I am very much so in my own), and that's a good thing.  I saw a gentleman walking on the treadmill last winter with the font at 48 and realized that I too could devour some books if I could crank up the font a bit (and not have to worry about holding a book and physically turning some pages.

Do any of you do this?  I am seriously thinking it may be my Christmas/Birthday present to myself.

And now some super fabulous photos from the Mankato race.

I'd like to say we're talking race/pace strategy, but more than likely we're discussing our dance moves.  Raaaaaaaaaage.

This is my stoic runner look.

Was unaware that there was an official photog ahead as I was fishing a GU out of my sports bra/GU holding receptacle.

Weeeeee........... downhill.

Excellent bug catching opportunities.

Being sweaty is neat-o.

Race Report: Mankato Half Marathon

Race Expo

I got in to Mankato around 5pm, and somehow managed to get to the expo, even though I am notorious for getting lost.  I grabbed a seat at the Minnesota Pacers booth and introduced myself to a few folks that were pacing either the half or the full on Saturday.  I got to talk to a TON of people that were looking to run with me (2:10 half marathon pace group) and the pace bands were going like hot cakes.  :)  Jeff stopped by the booth to say hello and snapped this picture for me.  (Danke Jeff!)  I haven't seen him since the Sioux Falls Half Marathon when he ran a mayjor PR and then up and moved away.  LAME.  Jk.  It was nice to catch up with him briefly.  Shortly after, I ran into Tom and Sara.  Tom was planning to run the full and Sara was ready to dominate the 10k on Saturday.  I also got to meet Sam from Operation Jack who was pacing the 3:40 group for marathon #51 of the year.

Then it was time for Dick Beardsley's speech at the expo.  Amazing.  We watched the final 10 minutes of his 1982 Boston runner up finish, and it was awe inspiring.  He recounted some of his amazing races and got me pumped up.  This was the first time of many times of the weekend that I wished I was racing v. pacing. :)

After the expo it was time to check in to our hotel and then meet for our pacing team dinner.  We chowed down on some pasta and went over some pacing tips.  After dinner everyone split, and Alyssa and I headed to to the restaurant next door to partake in our pre-race brew ritual.  :)  My stomach was super duper upset because some dumb-dumb decided it would be ok to eat some pasta with alfredo sauce.  Luckily the beer really does the trick for chilling out my upset stomach.  I love catching up with Alyssa (probably why I plan to race with her all.the.time.).  We talked running, racing, and life.

We headed back to the hotel to get everything in order for race morning, and then I introduced Alyssa to the athlinks website.  Which we then spent waaaaaaay too much time looking up people's race results.  We quickly realized it was bedtime and called it a night.  Unfortunately,  I was super duper nervous and could not sleep.  The last time I checked my phone it was 1:30am and I had yet to sleep a wink.  Alyssa's alarm went off at 4:30 and I thought it was our alarm.  Sadly, I couldn't fall asleep until our real alarm of 5:30.  Ugh.

Race

I woke up and my stomach was still upset from my dinner choice and I struggled to get any food down for breakfast.  I choked down almost half a bagel and a banana, which was so not enough.  [Priority #1 in the next 5 weeks is to figure out my fueling!!!]  We headed to the finish line in the dark and scrambled around hoping we could find a bus to take us to the starting line.  Also, we were running a tidbit late for the pacing group photo so we thought it was perfect time to do our fast warm up run to catch a shuttle.  :)

We made it to the start and met up with the group of other pacers.  They were blasting some great raging music so Alyssa and I spent our warm up dancing in lieu of running.  :)  And by dancing I mean flailing about spastically (in my case).  :)  Before too long it was time to line up for the race, and I was surrounded by tons of people who were looking to run a 2:10!  There were some who were shooting for PRs, others were just hoping to finish with me, and many many others.  I tried to chat with them all and get them pumped up for the race.

Before too long, we were starting!  I was concerned that the 10k, half marathon, and marathon were all starting at the same time (roughly 2000 runners) and that it was going to be a royal cluster-eff (it was Mankato's inaugural half and full marathon, so you learn to not expect perfection on race day) but it went off fabulously!  It took about 2-2 1/2 minutes and we were on our way!  Within the first few blocks of starting the crowds spread out a bit and I had runners running on my shoulder chatting it up with me.  For a 2:10 finish, the pace was to be 9:55.  I was instructed to come in ~30 seconds under to right under 2:10, so I had assumed a 9:54 pace.  I kept a good eye on my average pace to keep us on target as well as to check our mile splits against the pace band I was wearing.

We ran with the full marathoners through the first few miles and we were just slightly under our goal pace.  I gave the runners some tips about the water stations when we were coming near to them (pinch the sides of the cup and drink out of the spout to cut down on the amount of air you swallow, grab a cup and run a ways before trying to down it, etc).  Our average pace dipped down to 9:51-9:52 after some downhill stretches so I consciously tried to slow up the pace a bit so we wouldn't lose some runners.  This, I feel, was my only mistake as a pacer for the day.  At this point, we were almost right on with the mile markers and my garmin miles, but unfortunately that would change.  

Mile 7 brought a tough hill (tough for me, so I'm sure the 2:10 crew were struggling as well).  I naturally run a little slower up hill and did the same for this mile.  We ended up just a little bit behind pace after the 7 mile spot.  Of course, if I wouldn't have slowed things up a mile or two earlier we would've been right on.  Grrr.  The next mile ended up being right on pace, but long.  Gah!  If you are to run a 9:55 pace, it doesn't matter if you're running a 9:55 pace for the 1 mile your watch says, it matters from mile marker to mile marker.  For the remaining 4 miles we worked to make up the .05 miles (almost :30 seconds at the pace we were at) difference.

I felt TERRIBLE, because I know a lot of runners who run in the 2:10 range will run 10-11 miles as their longest long run in training, so they were already pretty fatigued at this point and probably did not want to make up the time difference caused by the mile being long.  I had a group of about 10-15 runners still surrounding me for the final 5k of the race and we pushed to get them there in their sub 2:10 goal.  I tried to chat with a couple of gals to give them extra encouragement.  I also heard a LOT of runners that we were passing say, "Oh $#!t! We just got passed by the 2:10 group!!"  I tried to encourage everyone along the way.  

At mile 12.5 Dick Beardsley was on the course cheering on folks and cheered for me!!!  "Great job 2:10 pacer, keep it up!!!"  Uh...heck ya!  I told the group we had roughly 5 minutes of running left, and that you can do ANYTHING for 5 minutes.  I told everyone I wanted to see their final sprint once we rounded the corner to head in to the finish.  One gal told me she was already giving it everything she had, and I convinced her she would have an extra gear somewhere when she saw and heard all of the people surrounding the finish line.  And she did.  :)  I started pumping my 2:10 pacer sign to encourage the crowd to cheer even more and then I crossed the line after my crew.

Amazing.  That's all I have to say about pacing.  It was so much fun.  I had such amazing conversations along the course with runners.  I met some amazing other runners that were pacing as well.  I got to run a gorgeous course for a completely unselfish purpose. [sweetest most awkward self timed photo EVER.  love it.]

I had so many runners come up to me after we finished to thank me, I was just beaming for them and all of their hard work.  Those that finished before me stuck around to stay thanks.  Those that fell off pace tracked me down to thank me for being there for the miles they were able to stick around for.  A-ma-zing.

I finished the 13.18 mile race in 2:09:26.

I learned so much about pacing just from one attempt at it, and I can not WAIT for the next opportunity to do so.  As I said, I wish that I would've kept the pace around 9:51-9:52 when it fell to that and let the race gradually eat up that time as the course inevitably reads long, or to have an extra cushion for tough hills, but I'm so proud of all the runners on Saturday, especially the 2:10ers, whether they finished ahead of me, with me, or just behind me.  What a truly amazing experience.

I only have a couple of suggestions for race improvement, which is shocking because as I said before, it was their first.  There were a couple of points on the course where I was dyyyyyying for some water.  I sweat like a crazy person (as I've mentioned once or twice before) and so I was super duper thirsty in the 80+% humidity.  A lot of the folks in my group were as well.  I think it was after mile 5 because I had just taken a GU.  Also, there was one water stop that I got a cup of water that tasted really rusty.  My stomach was already pretty upset since I wasn't able to eat much before work, but that water DID.NOT.HELP.  Ickers.  Otherwise, everything was great.  Not just good, but great!  I'd recommend this race to everyone, but be prepared for hills if you're doing the full. :)

Marathon Spectating

Alyssa and I both had 20 miles on our schedules for the weekend, so we had planned to do our remaining ~7 miles together while spectating the race.  After I was done pacing, I felt super super nauseous.  I know I hadn't eaten enough before the race, and because of the 80+% humidity, I was probably a bit dehydrated as well.  After chugging down some water and gatorade my stomach did NOT want to run.  We made it about .8 miles before I had to call it quits.  Let's just cheer instead.  :)

We watched the 3:20 and 3:30 ladies come in and talked about our future marathon time goals.  I watched for Jeff and saw him running strong just before mile 26.  I cheered my face off for him but could not even get a small smile.  He must've been working hard.  :)  I waited for Tom to come through and after 4:30 started to freak out that I hadn't seen him yet.  I sprinted to find my car and grab my phone so I could call Sara, his fiance, to figure out what the heck was wrong.  I sadly realized that I had MISSED HIM on the course, and was so so disappointed.  :(  It was time to say goodbye to Alyssa and then we both FREAKED when we realized that we'd see each other in 6 weeks for Vegas BABY Vegas!!!

Pacing Practice + Mankato Half Marathon Prep

Thursday night I had an easy 7 miles on the schedule and decided to attempt to do them at half marathon pacing pace for Saturday of 9:55.  I did some quick reading on how to change my Garmin to show average pace for the run and I was off.  I magically had a 7 mile route mapped out on runstoppable so I was excited, especially because it went through my old stomping grounds.  It's a bit hilly to get there, and a little hilly to get back home, but it's a great residential area that makes running at night okay (IMO).  Plus there's very little traffic, so I'm able to run on the road for a majority of it.  Win WIN win.

I referenced my watch whenever I came under a street light, but just took the run at an easy pace.  98% of the time the average pace was right on with the 9:55.  I naturally sped up the last mile just because I was ready to be DONE and EAT, so I made myself slow down so I could finish right on the nose.

I did 7 miles in 1:09:26 for a pace of 9:55.  Hurrah.

So tomorrow I head to Mankato MN to spend some time at the race expo and meet the other pacers for the Mankato Marathon and Half Marathon, and meet up with Miss ALYSSA!!!  She's pacing the 1:55 group because she's speeeeeeeeeeeeedy.

Now it's time to unpack my suitcase from the Twin Cities 10 Miler (yes it's still sitting on my kitchen floor not fully emptied yet) and fill 'er up again!  I love race weekends.  :)  And I of course mean that I plan to do all of this at the very last minute tomorrow when I get off work, because I'm sleeeeeeeeepy.  :)

Mile Repeat + Blog Searches

I was supposed to do my mile repeats on Tuesday but after changing in to my running clothes, I realized I was exhausted (still attempting to fight off this cold or whatever it may be).  I quickly changed in to my sweats and called it a night.

Wednesday after getting my nails did (I look like a girly girl! whaaaaaaa?) I headed to the gym for my mile repeats, since it was dark, and I knew I'd get yelled at if I ran outside.  :)  I was supposed to do a mile warm up, then 3 x 1600 m. @ 7:38 pace with 800 m. jogs in between.  I was a bit frightened.....as I always am by mile repeats.  I did take a minute to look through my running log to see that I had survived similar mile repeats (and even faster ones!) to build my confidence up.  Uh... this was genius btw.

And the domination continues!  Bahah.  Mile repeats--7:28, 7:29, 7:29.

In super creepy news, while banging out my mile repeats at the gym, I happened to notice an older gentleman on an elliptical behind and to the left of me looking my way.  I know this because those giant windows in the gym.... uh they're uber reflective at night.  At one point, I noticed he had taken out his cell phone, outstretched his arm, and appeared to take a photo of me!  Now I hope I am wrong, because I cannot understand why in the world someone would take a photo of me sweating my butt off at the gym.  Perhaps he was super duper impressed with the amount of swass (sweaty+ass) I was rockin' for a chicky, but either way, totally creepy.

So I've compiled a list of pretty awesome searches that people have used to find my blog.  Enjoy:

• bicycle lean over cleavage
• uff da running/yoga clothing
• pooped my running shorts
• Uh....huh?
• jeri sparkles
• Moonbeams also shoot out of my bum FYI.
• wet t-shirt contests in california april 2011
• You were probably disappointed....sorry.
• 10 mile race strategy
• Run slow for 9 miles.  Sprint remaining mile.  Look horrendous in race photos. Done.

Also wanted to share my newest favorite scarf that's on it's way to New York.  The color is amaaaaaazing, and I'll probably have to crochet myself one now.  :p  If you're interested in an infinity scarf they are $33 dollars ($30 scarf + $3 shipping and handling).  Let me know if you want one!!  jerbearshares [at] gmail [dot] com.

Long Run...Dominated

Friday night I went to bed at the early hour of 9:30pm since I was exhausted and knew I'd be up early to get in nay dominate my 18 mile long run.  I slept like a champ (as I'm still fighting off someother or another) and was up and at em at 6:45am.  After eating my breakfast and checking the weather report, I decided to crawl back in to bed.  20mph winds and getting worse as the morning/afternoon goes on?  Uh no thanks.  I got some rando-sickness to kick.  Roughly 13 1/2 hours after calling it a night, I finally crawled out of bed.  Refreshed (I would hope).

To pass the day away, I knocked out a couple of scarf orders and did some major damage on my almost full DVR.  Before I knew it the winds were dying down (only 18 mph!), and it was about time for me to do some 18 mile domination!

When I first started the run, it was hard.  I was half a mile in and was already counting down to being done.  That, is sooooooooo not awesome for a long run.  17.5 miles left!  Keep being positive/kill me now, and do it gently please.  Somewhere around the 2-3 mark I got in to a groove and my sorta mad stomach took a chill pill.  It was going so well that I didn't want to pause to take my GU at 4.5 miles.  But I did, and did so uber fast.  (I hate taking GUs while running unless I have to, say, in a race.  I usually try to take them super fast when I have to refill a water bottle or something).  As soon as I started up again my stomach was mad.  Again it took about a mile for it to feel normal again.

The great news is that I was going at a fairly quick clip for my long run, and it didn't feel taxing at all.  To be honest, I 100% expected to crash and burn as is my modus operandi for the 18 miler.  "The curse of 18."  The run was slightly boring because no one was out on the bike trails.  I tried really hard to find the cute boy with the purse puppy but he was nowhere to be found. :(  I turned around at 7.5 miles because the trail was under construction.  It actually worked out pretty well because I knew I'd have to do at least a few miles after dark and knew that Aaron would yell at me if I was doing them on the trail.  :)

I took another GU at mile 9 and filled up my water bottle.  Again my stomach was gross feeling for about a mile after stopping, but the second half of miles on the trail flew by.  Once it started to get dark I took to the sidewalks for the remaining 3 miles.  Of course one of these miles has a hill.  Nothing major, but basically a mountain to me.  This was my only split that was over 9:23 pace, so win as far as I'm concerned.  The entire long run was phenomenal, except the last mile was a bit of a struggle to maintain a low 9 minute pace.  If I had been running farther than 18 I would've sucked back another GU to combat it.
1. 9:18

2. 9:11
3. 9:23
4. 9:18
5. 9:21
6. 9:26
7. 9:12
8. 8:58
9. 9:03
10. 9:08
11. 9:05
12. 9:15
13. 9:15
14. 9:06
15. 9:31 (hill)
16. 9:06
17. 8:59
18. 9:09
I did 18 miles in 2:45:44 for a pace of 9:12.  My previous attempts had been 2:48 and 2:53.  Yippee skippy!  I'd say this constitutes as an 18 mile LR domination. :p
Sub-4 you're miiiiiiiiiiiiine! :)

Check out Shut up and Run's sweet giveaway!

Dear Cute Boy

Dear cute boy running by the dog park,

Right off the bat, I'm willing to forgive you for having a small dog instead of a big ol' man's-man dog like a golden retriever.... we'll work on that.  I'm going to go ahead and assume that it was a family member's dog that was going to need to be put down unless you could step in as the hero of the day and take it in.  You're right, that is awfully admirable of you.

Moving right along, to explain my staring slash gawking this evening, I must admit that I have pretty poor vision, so I was eyeing you for quite sometime presumably "checking you out."  When you smiled and waved (yes, at this point I wasn't even aware that you were looking back at me, again blame the eye sight) [sidenote:  how do I not get struck by cars while running?  Christ....] I can only imagine that I looked like this:

In fact I know I did, because my nose is mondo-stuffed up so I was a horrendous mouth breather on this run.  Additionally, I distinctly recall that my mouth was wide open and quickly shut my trap to smile and wave back.  See!  I can be cute!

Meh, who am I kidding, I more often look like the former than the latter, if we're going to get really honest.

ANYWHOSITS.... We should probably get together.... discuss our future golden retriever's name, and start planning out our 2011 race schedule (jk, it's already planned out.  I hope you realize that what this actually means is I'll just be convincing you to run the same races as me in 2011, right?  Mmmk).  Let me know when you're free.

xoxo
Jerbear
__________________

Other than waving and smiling at my future husband, t'was a pretty uneventful run.  Oooooooooook, it was amazing, because I'm still on that "my runs are like unicorns and rainbows and kittens and sparkles."  So there's actually a chance that the guy I was gaga over on my run was actually Aaron and I was too blinded by the run's awesomeness to realize it.  FML.

I did 7.5 miles in 1:11:59 for a pace of 9:34.

I Will Not Faint During My Tempo Run + Road ID Review

Wednesday I was super psyched to hit the bike path for my tempo run.  I know, who am I lately?!?!?!  It was a gorgeously cool day and I was ready to run hard.  My stomach had been upset all afternoon, but I figured it'd be a-ok once I started running.  I had 8 miles to do with 6 at tempo pace of 8:24.

I started the warm up mile and realized that my legs felt fabulous.  Yes.  I started my tempo mile.  Every time I looked down at my garmin it was telling me 7:40 or 8:00 pace.  Uh slow down.  Why is it so hard for me to find that 8:23 tempo pace?  Grrr..... First mile clocked in at 8:10 and my stomach was not happy.  I kept going but slowed down a bit.  I felt like I was going to puke, so I decided I'd try to run this mile 8:24 + the 14 seconds I had spotted myself so that my stomach would chill and I'd be able to get through the rest of the miles.  

About 3/4 of a mile in to this one I saw Miss Sara.  Sara is a runner in town who I got to meet before the Sioux Falls Half, along with her boyfriend now fiance Tom!  Of course I had to stop her to see the sparkly new addition to her left hand, and then I started to see 2 or 3 sparkly rings, and felt like I was going to barf on Sara's shoes or faint at her feet.  Uh oh.  Every once in a while I have a tendency to faint, or almost faint, but it's usually in the shower after a long run (or at the end of a marathon....yeah... kind of forgot about that).  I also remembered that before I faint I always feel like I'm going to vomit, I should definitely try to remember that for the future.

After they continued on their run, I hung out trying to get the world to stop spinning and then started walking towards home..... a good 2.75 miles away.  Not a long ways, by any means, but much too far when you're feeling like butt and are soaked in sweat in 50 degree temps.  I got chilly FAST!

I ended up walking 1/4 of each mile on the way home and taking the jogging part verrrrrry slow.  :(  So much for feeling amped up for the tempo run.  I'm not sure if I just didn't eat enough during the day or if I'm getting sick or what.  Something about throwing up sweats with the hoody UP seems to make me feel better.  

One thing I was thankful for, is that I was wearing my new Road ID for the run.  I was sent an Elite Wrist ID for free by Outside PR to review for my blog, and I was ecstatic when it arrived.  Of course I selected the green color (as if there was any question).  It came in a super de duper cute box.  When I first pulled it out I was a bit confused.  It comes with a long strap that you are to shorten to fit to your wrist.  It seemed like a lot of responsibility, and I didn't know if I was up for it.  :p  Luckily the directions are very helpful, and before no time I was trimming away at my Road ID.

I was able to put my name and my birth year along with my Mom and Grandma's contact numbers for emergencies, and also Passion.  Of course I had to take a photo of the Road ID next to my Passion tattoo.  I'm cool like that.  

I had asked for a Road ID last year for Christmas, but apparently my family doesn't care about my safety, so I didn't get one.  (jk...kinda.)  But I think it's an absolute must for runners/racers/bikers/triathletes.  You never know when it's going to be needed (hopefully never!) but it's a cute accessory in the meantime.  My only complaint, is that if I had been smart, I would've realized that wearing a Road ID and my clunky Garmin on my wrist would get annoying, and I should've gotten an ID for my shoe.  I just made sure the Road ID was big enough to wear slightly up my arm so it didn't rub in to my Garmin. Problem solved.  

And stay tuned, because perhaps a new Road ID is in the cards for my up and coming 100 followers mega giveaway.....
Speaking of giveaways, check out Miss Zippy's!