San Francisco RUN NWM

The weekend in San Francisco more than made up for a terrible marathon.  Megan and I got in super duper late on Thursday night.  Like 3am CST late/early.  We crawled in to bed in a mega shady hotel and crashed.  We woke up, showered up, packed up and called a cab to take us to our hotel for the weekend.

An hour wait and a $50 cab ride later, we arrived at this adorable victorian 3 story home.  We were able to ditch our luggage to explore the city, despite not being able to check in for another 6 hours (and our bags were delivered to our room later that day, win).

A pic from our 'hood.

We walked down to the expo to pick up our race packets.







There was a Nike "styling" at the expo which was pretty cool.  Ignoring the fact that my outfit I'm wearing (shoes included) was probably $400-500.  But I do love the orange jackety thing.



After spending some time at the expo and then headed to our main Friday treat:  Bay Area brewery tours!  Someone *cough* Megan *cough* was somehow still on Mountain time (which is weird because we live in the central time zone) and thought we were going to miss our brewery tour, but in actuality, we were over an hour early.  Luckily there was a super cute coffee/bistro, Creamery, for us to hang out at. 


We got lattes and the most amazing strawberry crepe of my life.  I may or may not have debated licking my plate (definitely may).



After creating a nice base for our booze, we hopped in a van with a bearded dude and another couple, ready to embark on our brewery tours!

First stop:  The Thirsty Bear Brewery


Our first stop included 2 beers and lunch.  The food was amazing and so were the beers.



Second stop:  Southern Pacific Brewery



This brewery was in a huge warehouse looking place, and I was shocked how many people our age were hanging out drinking at 2ish in the afternoon on a Friday.  How do I get your jobs?!?!?  kthx  We got a flight of beers to sample.  Mmmm.

Third stop:  Speakeasy Ales & Lagers





The final stop of the tour was truly in a giant warehouse.  The serving area was a little window with beer, and 98% of the space was taken up by the giant brewing vats (vats? is that the correct terminology?  at this point I had too many "samples" to remember much, apologies).  We got 2 sweet poker chips to use for any 2 beers we wanted on the menu.

When all was said and done, we hopped back in the van and were dropped off at home.  Totally worth the money, and it was great to get to see a few different places and have a sober driver during the process.  :)

We did some shopping and finished the night with late night sushi.  Essentially past midnight as far as our stomachs were concerned.  Ooops.

Saturday morning we decided to get in to "runner" mode and do a shake out run.  Yay for us and being productive!  And responsible!  Also yay for my Saturday morning class being cancelled, because sitting in your hotel room with a mic'd headset on for 3 1/2 hours while on vacation is not so awesome.

As always, shake out run is code for running to stores to shop, and we ended up at a giant mall.  We did some brief shopping (ok we were there for hours, in our sweaty clothes, oops), until we finally decided to head back, shower up, and come back looking more presentable.


And presentable we did.

Had to look nice to meet our BFFs Allyson Felix, Shalane Flanagan, Kara Goucher, and Joan Benoit Samuelson.  Duh.  Insert runnergirl geek out here.



More expo, more shopping, MORE TIME ON OUR FEET (what was that about being smart responsible marathoners??  DOES NOT COMPUTE.)



We ended up back at our hotel room around 9-10pm, which made it a full 12-13 hours on our feet before race morning.  We're awesome.

You got to see how Sunday went, and then Sunday afternoon we headed to a corner bar that was close to our hotel to gorge on delicious foods and await the Packers Sunday night game.
 


Except "Sunday night" in San Fran is like 5pm.  It was awesome.  And still daylight.  And thus concludes our awesome time in San Fran.  Until next time!

And hint, it won't be to run.  Eff you hills.

Race Report: Nike Women's Marathon

Going in to the Nike Women's Marathon I was nervous.  My training had been sub par, at best.  The weekend before, I ran a 15 mile long run with the last 4 at MP, and hurt my knee so bad I couldn't walk normal until Friday.  Not exactly prime race week material right there.  Luckily Megan and I were doing the race for fun, and my intention was to do it as a long run for Dallas Marathon training.  Based on me and Megan's long run paces, I estimated that we would finish around 4:40-5:00 range.

 

We woke up crazy early and walked the 2-3 blocks to our race corral.  Megan's legit hotel planning FTW.

It took awhile to get to the start but pretty soon we were off!  And within a mile I already needed to use the restroom.  Thank goodness Megan was also on the "fun run marathon" page with me, or I would've felt terrible.  The hills were fast and furious almost from the get go after the first mile or two, and I found my knee hurting around mile 2.



Mile 2.

That... is not how you want a day in which you're running 26.2 miles to START.  We kept the pace nice and casual and tried to just take in the race and not focus on the pain.  Some hills we'd jog up, some we'd power walk, some we'd run, only to shuffle slowly down the other side to keep from hurting anything else.  We stopped and took pictures.  YAY.



It was a super humid day, but it was fairly cool out.  There was a nice hazy misty fog for the entire race.  So while I looked like a drown rat, I actually felt pretty comfy temperature wise.  I will say, thank goodness it wasn't a sunny day, because there was zero shade throughout the race course.  It could've been even more of a death march.  Whoof.




Lucky number 8!

I got to run along the ocean for the first time in my life, and it was so awesome.  I wish it had been a clearer day.  I'm super jealous of you Cali chicas who run along the ocean daily.




Around mile 12 I really started to struggle.  We were doing a run/walk combo, but every time we'd start running my knee would KILL.  The only thing that worked was to run excrutiatingly slow.  I knew that it was way slower than was comfortable for Megan, so I told her to go ahead.  She said no way.  We hit a water stop and she kept on trucking, thankfully.  No sense in being miserable with me.  :)

I crossed the halfway point in a PW half time, but knew the worst of the hills were behind me, and was thankful for that.  We started an out and back portion around mile 14 where we could see people finishing the full.  THAT. WAS. BRUTAL.  I love me a good out and back, especially in races where I have a bunch of friends running, because YAY friendly faces on the course, but when you can see people finishing and you still have 12 miles to go?  Eeew.

I strongly considered DNF'ing at the halfish mark.  I had never been in so much pain.  I kept thinking of how much money I had spent to do the race, and how badly Jenn had wanted to come and run with us, and knew that I couldn't DNF without feeling incredibly guilty.  Soldier on, I suppose.

I chitchatted with a lot of folks out there, especially during walk breaks to help the time pass.  I soaked up the gorgeous views and did anything to block out the pain.  I stopped to stretch my knee and hip to try to alleviate some of the pain.

I called Kyle around mile 20 or 21, wanting permission to quit the race.  He answered the phone and asked how the race went.  I told him I was on mile 20 or 21.  His response, "YOU'RE NOT DONE YET?!?!"

Dear Kyle,
you're not helping.
Sincerely pissed,
Jerbear

After talking to him and sniffling/crying, I came up to an aid station and asked for some pain killers.  Given my stomach issues, I'm super nervous to take a pain killer while running, but I felt it couldn't hurt.  Best decision I made all day.  I got a little bit of relief and was able to waddle through the remaining miles.  The last 4 miles were all along the ocean.  So gorgeous.

I finished the race and had never been so thankful to be done running.  I found the cutest tuxedoed gentleman out there and grabbed my little blue box.

Did it for the bling, obvs.

Megan did awesome and did NOT score a PW, so she clearly wins the day.  And she was able to find me super fast post-race.

Race Report: Sioux Falls Half Marathon

Leading up to the Sioux Falls half, I had been training for about 4 weeks.  I knew my fitness level wasn't very high, so I wanted to run it as a comfortably hard effort level, roughly around marathon pace.  Prior to the race, I had told Kyle I thought I'd run in the 2:07-2:10 range, but I wanted to be under 2:05.  He told me that based on my lack of training, he thought 2:05 would be a stretch.  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Naturally, race morning arrived and we had a massive cold front move in.  This is comical because every time my running friends and I choose the same race as our "goal races" the weather blows, ie:  Sioux Falls half 2011, Fargo marathon 2011, but since all of us were doing this years Sioux Falls half for fun, it was running weather perfection.  High 30s at the start.  Mid 40s by the finish.  Low humidity, little to no wind.

I got to the race start plenty early, because Niki was staying with me and running the marathon.  The marathon starts 45 minutes prior to the half.  I saw her off at the start, and then met up with Megan, her parents, and eventually my parents.  Megan and I had tentative plans to run together as much as possible.


From the start, I wanted to get my heart rate in the upper level of LR pace (~160).  Megan and I were chatting along and loving the cool temps.  Every time we'd get to a hill (ok Sioux Falls' version of a hill) we'd vow to stop talking, but manage to start up again before we got to the top.  Derp.



We stuck together for the first 4-5 miles, and I kept my HR right where I wanted it, but decided to dial it up a bit for the middle section (9:35-9:45 pace).  For the next 5 miles I pushed a bit and lowered the pace to around 9:30s, keeping my HR in the mid to upper 160s.  I got to see my family and Kyle a ton on the course, which was awesome.

The final 5k I wanted to push as hard as I could but I could tell I hadn't done any speedwork since last spring.  My second to last mile was  my previous GMP (9:08), and my final mile was 8:38 (slower than my half PR pace, but still MUCH faster than I'd ran in months).  My final sprint was 7:27 with a max speed of 6:44.  So maybe I have speed, just in teeny tiny doses.


I knew I was close to my 2:05 goal from around the 10k mark, and that kept me from slowing down throughout the race.  I crossed the finish line, stopped my watch, and looked at my garmin.  2:04:59.  Hah.  Take that Kyle.  ;)



I was pretty psyched with my race given my non-existent training, and especially because the majority of my training runs for the summer had been in the 10-11 minute range.  I knew I was pretty out of shape, but was saved by the super great weather and low temps.

Megan wasn't too far behind me, but had to deal with some cranky hip problems.  And then I got to stick around and cheer on all the marathoners, including Niki!  Whoooo!



Kyle put my TEAM GREEN shirt on the Ollie Girl for her inaugural race spectating.  I die.

Half marathon #16, and Sioux Falls Half Marathon #8 in the books!

Registered for Marathon #6

Last night I sat down at my computer ready to empty out my pockets of money.  It’s a bit rude when 2/3 of your fall races all have the same early bird registration fee, no?  Without batting an eyelash, I plunked down $38 for my 8^th consecutive Sioux Falls Half Marathon.  Cheap, awesome race.  Seriously… $38! 

And then I started to do some himming and hawing over the Dallas Marathon.  My running this summer has been close to non-existent.  Between some lingering burn out, a mega intensive June class schedule, and HOLY HADES hot temps (interesting fun fact:  July 2012 posted the driest month in city HISTORY, along with the 2^nd hottest temps, behind 1930-something), I’ve yet to put together a solid week of training, let alone a solid base. 

I decided to check out the flights to see if the prices were increasing, and was surprised to see $160 staring back at me.  The 5-6 times I’ve looked in the past few months have shown me $375…….. $320 is probably the cheapest I’m going to get.  I called my bro to see if there was a specific time I should plan to fly in/out of town, and he gave me the go ahead for whenever.  I plunked in my departure times, and when it came time to pay, the $160 hadn’t changed. 

IT WAS $160 FOR THE ROUND TRIP FLIGHT.

Cue spastic dancing and whooping. 

Cue also Ollie giving me the side eye for waking her up from her 20^th nap of the day.  Gurrrrrrrrl can sleep.

I called my mom, asked her to try to replicate the pricing, as I was sure I was missing SOMETHING.  Nope $160 for her.  After quadruple checking the dates, airports, times, etc. I purchased my flight.  I somehow managed to take care of my trip to meet my sweet niece Harper, hang out with my studly nephew Harrison, see my bro and SIL, and hopefully run a solid 26.2 (for once….) for what I assumed JUST THE FLIGHT was going to initially run me.  HUZZAH.

Amped up marathon Jeri: 1.

So this week is my last week of “base building” aka attempt to get in a long run.  And at this point long run=anything higher than 6 miles (my current summer LR).  I’m hoping to have some solid training (some semblance of Pfitz 18/55 with 26.2 for funzies throw in with Megan in San Fran!), a healthy cycle (YOU HEAR THAT LEGS??!?!), and maybe be able to squeak out a PR come December.

P.S. In case you were concerned, there’s talks of creating/crafting a Team Green shirt for Ollie for the Sioux Falls Half.  No worries.  Team Green REPRESENT!

Slow Down Summer

I feel like all I do anymore is write “update” blog posts. But Danielle was whining that I need to blog asap, or she’s going to cut me, so here I am. IN BULLET POINT FORM-ish.

• Last weekend I biked 52 miles in the Okoboji ride. Following arrows on the road is hard thus the extra 2 miles in my 50 miler. It was hot. Last I saw, the heat index was 106 or something painfully hot like that. From 9am-2pm I drank over 80 oz. of fluids, yet did not have to pee until well past dinner time. Please keep in mind that I sweat 1/10^th of what I do while running, as I do biking. Gross. Big thanks to Aaron and Mike who kept me company, and joined in on my delirious singing on the latter miles, something to the effect of “my lady bits hurt, and my butt hurts, and I’m HOT.. doo deeee dooooo!”
  
  10:15 breakfast brat, natch.
  
  
• I got to spend the 3^rd and 4^th of July with my bestie Jenn and it was glorious, but of course not nearly enough time, as it never is. Someone needs to stop living in the jungle on the other side of the planet ASAP… ya know?
  
  
  
  I hope Jenn has all the cute pics, this is the only one on my phone.  *sobs*
  
  
• The other night I asked Kyle if he would come snuggle with me, as I was having a bad day. He looked at me, looked at Ollie who was snoozing away in between us, and indicated that we be “vewy vewy qwuiet” to sneak out without her. We crawled in to bed and giggled about our swift escape. Ok, I giggled, it’d be way weird if Kyle giggled… not much of a giggler. We joked that it felt like we had a kid that we were trying to sneak out on. We enjoyed 5 minutes of alone time before someone woke up and likely had a panic attack that we weren’t there anymore. “MOOOOM! DAAAAAAAAD! WHERE’D YOU GO? COME BACK! I MISS YOU! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” Our Ollie girl is a little bit of a spaz when it comes to our attention, can you tell? (just like her mama, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!!? Ok yeah. I’m a spaz for attention too, I must admit.)
  
  
  
  
  
• It’s been hot as hades here and running sounds like 0% fun. I’ve been going pretty strong with one run a week, Monday nights, 5 miles. It’s become a running joke, actually (heh…running joke.) I’ll be lacing up my running shoes and Kyle will say, “Whoa?? You’re going running? How far??” And then he’ll remember it’s Monday…. “Oh.. enjoy your 5 miles!” This week I bucked the trend. It was 100+ with a gazillion percent humidity, so I decided to take my 5 miles to the gym in my apartment. Ugh. The treadmills may be as old as me in there. My footfalls are SO LOUD that I couldn’t hear the TV over my plodding along. 1.25 miles later I called it good. I planned to wait until 9 when I dipped below 90 but then I got invited out for beers at Old Chicago. That’s one thing I *can* do in the heat.
  
  
• Marathon training starts in approximately a month, so I think my time of “d!ck!ng” around should probably be coming to an end. Meh. I am excited to start running again, but glad I’m not having to get “serious” for the next month. I’m kind of enjoying this break. I have started doing some targeted strengthening exercises to strengthen my glutes, hammies, hips, so hopefully I can avoid injury for once.
  
  
• I got an invitation from the Mizuno Mezzanni project, and received my free Wave Riders in the mail today. That means, that along with my heavily discounted Kinvara 2’s that I just purchased, I’m now hoarding 3 pairs of running shoes in my office at work. I used to really like the Wave Riders, and ran the Vegas Marathon in them. But when the newer version came out in Winter 2011, I *hated* them. Speaking, I still have a pair of them in pink, size 8 if anyone wants to buy them for cheap. They have 5 miles on them. Anyway, given my extreme ability to break while running, I’ve been thinking that I could stand to run in a more “substantial” shoe, especially for long runs. I’ve wanted to try to Wave Riders again, but after being burned with the pair a few versions ago, I couldn’t fathom plunking down $100+ to see if they’d changed. I’m pretty excited to see if they fill the previous long run shoe void in my heart!
  
  
  
  
  
• I’m still riding a 4.0 wave after getting my grade for my June class (quickly raises the roof with excitement). Oh p.s. I’m trying to bring “raising the roof” back so feel free to get on board with that, spread the word, etc. It was a children’s materials and services class, and further solidified how badly I want to be a children’s and young adult librarian.

Well I think that’s enough babbling for now. What’s that? You want more Ollie cuteness before I go? Alright, twist my arm.

Ollie thought she got to drive home on the 4th of July.

Dad gives the BEST tummy rubs.

When I smile my tongue usually gets caught in my teef and flipped around.  

I kan haz some sushee?!?!?!

No.

Puggy Update

I've been severely absent in the bloggy world lately, but I don't feel too bad about it.  I'm still reading blogs, but it's soooooo annoying to comment from my phone, so don't be surprised if I tweet you instead of commenting.  Bad internet friend=jerbear.

But my best excuse for my absence is this little girl.

OLLIE GIRL!

aka Ollie Lee (Kyle seems to think she needs my middle name, despite it's redundancy).

We've been together for about a week and a half now, and I must say it's love.  Within 20 minutes of meeting her 3 weeks ago, we bonded.  She sat on my lap and didn't want me to pet any of the other pups on the residence.  The whole week leading up to getting her, emails flew regarding her name.  Everything I suggested, Kyle axed.  I was regrettably settling on Penelope/Penny/Pen because that's what I always expected to name my first female (notice I said first, as there will be many, many more I'm sure).  But she just didn't look like a Penny.

One afternoon after Kyle was shooting down ALL MY NAMES, I went in to my co-workers office and she had all my name suggestions brought up in an email next to two pictures of her.  We went down the list and eliminated all the ones that didn't "fit."  I commented that I wish she was a boy, because I think Olivander would be great (oh hai, huge 'arry pottah nerd heah!) and that should looked like an Ollie, to which she exclaimed "OMG SHE DOES!" So then I toyed with naming her Olivia, and Ollie for short, but then I remembered SHE'S A DOG, SHE CAN HAVE A SILLY NAME. *

Our first night was a little rough as she was so stinkin' loud.  Like panting uncontrollably, and doing this weird coughing/choking/gagging thing.  I was ready to preform CPR and/or the Heimlich roughly 75 times.  She also wouldn't sleep away from us, so guess who got to snooze in the guest bedroom?  That'd be the non-snoring family member--me.

The next morning we ran to Pet Smart to pick up some food and things for her, and when we came home she was crying so hard at the door I panicked.  Thinking I'd never be able to leave this dog again, ZOMG!  Luckily, she learned pretty quickly that we weren't LEAVING leaving her, and she didn't have any more separation anxiety.

She doesn't chew on things, she doesn't pee or poo in the apartment, she sheds like a banshee, but she's just the sweetest girl ever.

She likes to sit on my lap while I'm in class, and likes to lay on the floor next to me while I'm studying. She loves looooooves going on walks (which is good because she has a couple of lbs. to lose) and loves to SPRINT down the hallway after we get the mail.  Seriously... it's hilarious... I'll try to video it soon.

She hates the flash on my phone, and the lighting in my apartment sucks, so the photos have been sparse.  She adores watermelon (the only people food we've given her as pugs have sensitive stomachs).

She follows me around and has a smile that lights up the room.  When snuggling with Kyle she has to keep her eyes on me the whole time, just so I know that I'm still #1 (or so I'm telling myself).  She loves Kyle like crazy, and I've heard her drop the L word a number of times.  Smitten.

Just love her to bunches and I'm so glad that we found each other.  She needed a good home, and I needed a good pug to spoil.  I think we both lucked out tremendously.

*Since naming her, I've also realized that Winnie would've been good/cute too.  Geez Louise naming is hard, remind me not to have children.**

**Oh!  Speaking of, I actually dipped in to my FUTURE BEBAH'S NAMES as part of the brainstorming, just in case there was a gem in there.  Not so spoiler alert: there wasn't.