Weekly Reads: A Step Toward Falling

A Step Toward Falling is the latest teen book I finished as part of the young adult book committee I serve on. I listened to it on audiobook due to time constraints (I was down to the wire on the last three books I finished!) and would've probably preferred it in book form. Regardless it was such a good story, a good depiction of friendship and not judging people until you get to know them.

My rating: 4 stars

Summary from Goodreads:

Emily has always been the kind of girl who tries to do the right thing—until one night when she does the worst thing possible. She sees Belinda, a classmate with developmental disabilities, being attacked. Inexplicably, she does nothing at all.

Belinda, however, manages to save herself. When their high school finds out what happened, Emily and Lucas, a football player who was also there that night, are required to perform community service at a center for disabled people. Soon, Lucas and Emily begin to feel like maybe they're starting to make a real difference. Like they would be able to do the right thing if they could do that night all over again. But can they do anything that will actually help the one person they hurt the most?

Looking Back on Training

A couple of weeks ago, I started looking back at past training cycles. This is one of my favorite pastimes (I'm so lame, I realize). I was thinking about goal times for the Brookings half marathon, and had a hard time wrapping my mind around a sustainably hard pace for 13.1 miles, as one does.

I started looking back at my training from 2014 for the Brookings half marathon, when I ran a 2:02 and was training for a sub 2 half. I was shocked to see that my training wasn't anything special. A 2:02 half seems so fast right now, that I expected my training to be really strong, fast speed work, good mileage, strong long runs. Um... not so much. There were some decent speedwork sessions, and some long runs. A lot of weeks with one run. A lot of long runs that said, "really hard, walk breaks, blah...etc." And apparently I raced two half marathons on back to back weekends. And still ran a 2:02. My long runs are slightly speedier, but WAY more consistent both in pace and frequency. My tempo runs have more miles in them, roughly the same pace. My speedwork has faster paces at longer intervals.

January 2014 60.5 miles 2017 72.4 miles (slightly sub 11 v. 10:38 pace)
February 2014 80.2 miles vs. 2017 41.8 miles (slightly sub 11 v. 10:36 pace)
March 2014 52.2 miles vs. 2017 89.5 miles (10:45 v. 10:27)
April 2014 65.7 miles vs. 2017 110ish miles (10:20 v. 10:40ish)

Whoa.

The cool thing about looking back on this data is to give me confidence in what my training has been like in this cycle. Which might be one of my strongest cycles outside of marathon training (which is where my current half PR exists). Hopefully I'll be able to remember this when I'm running the race next weekend and it feels hard.

Here's to doing hard shit.

or something like that.

RIP Garmin Data

Once upon a time, I bought a Garmin. April 2009 to be exact. A reward for a hard fought 5k PR. I've loved each and every minute of running with my Garmin, and enjoy pouring over the data after runs and races. I love my Garmin so much that after my first one died, followed by my second refurbished one died, I purchased yet another one.

So over the past 8 years I have ran with 3 different Garmin, accumulating all the data along the way. Some time last fall, my computer stopped syncing with my Garmin. It wasn't a huge deal, as I knew I was in the market for a new MacBook in the early spring. I finally broke down and purchased a new MacBook a few weeks ago, and was SO EXCITED to upload my data, especially to look at the last few half marathons I had done and do some comparisons, as you do when you're a crazy type A data lover.

For some reason, my login was no longer valid. I think during the point where my MacBook stopped working, Garmin switched from a username to an email address. It was the weekend, so I sent off an email to their support team. They'd always been INCREDIBLY helpful when I've had issues in the past, so yay! Let's get this puppy fixed!

In the meantime, I created a new account just to make sure that I could get the data off of my watch. Perhaps the accounts could be merged once things were fixed, or maybe not, I'd just re-upload. Whatever. I finally received an email back about my issue about a day and a half later and the guy reset my password so I could get in and update my information. At which point, I realized that the email I wanted was on the newly created account and not the old one, so I sent off another email asking if the newly created account could be deleted out.

Big mistake.

After another hour of fiddling around with it, I realized I could change the email on the one, freeing up the other, so that I took care of it on my own! I sent off another email replied to the original saying, I took care of it, please disregard the deletion request, thanks for all of your help yadda yadda yadda.

You see where this is going, right?

The next day I worked just 3 short hours because it was my weekend to work, so I have a weird week schedule. I get home and see an email saying, "your account has been successfully deleted!" Shit. Shit. Shit. Since I'm finally dealing with this issue during regular business hours, I call Garmin, where the guy assures me that accounts can't be deleted and my files are somewhere, so I chill out a bit. At which point I have a massage ready to start, so I have to leave him to track down thousands and thousands of miles of data.

And when I get out of my massage, I have a message: Yeah, I don't know how this happened, but all of your data is really deleted. Feel free to create another account here.

EFFFFFFFFFFFF.

On the plus side, I have my mileage and running time logged on a separate long, so all is not lost, but since I run a lot of the same races from year to year, it's so advantageous to look back and compare previous ones, reminding myself where the elevation map doesn't appear to have an incline, there is one and it's ever so slight, but to remember not to freak out when it feels super hard. Ugh.

It's not the end of the world, but it sure is a bummer.

Brookings Half Marathon Tips

I have a ton of running friends that are running their first half marathons at Brookings. It is one of my favorite halfs, and this spring will be the fourth time I've ran it (previous race reports here: 2012--1:55, 2014--2:02, and 2016--2:15)! I've been giving out tips and advice left and right and realized that maybe some folks in the far reaches of the interwebs might also enjoy some of the tips, so here they are!

Brookings is awesome. The course is flat and fast. While it is flat-flat-flat there are some stretches in the final miles that are the slightest bit uphill (and then downhill), then back uphill, and finally downhill. It is so gradual, you can't even see the difference, but you can feel it, and it sucks. So be prepared for that and know that after each sucky bit you get a nice mini downhill reprieve. The first time I ran it I thought I was losing steam on the first tiny uphill only to realize later when I was analyzing my data that, oh, guess I was going up. Makes sense.

There are a LOT of turns. I think the shortest distance I've ran according to my garmin is 13.3, upwards of 13.4 other times. So if you're shooting for a PR, plan accordingly with your pace! Turn+turn+turn+turn+turn+turn+turn+turn+turn=there's no way you're going to run perfect tangents. Trust. The last time I was close to running sub 2 I was 2 minutes over and way more than two minutes in distance. Grrr.

The weather is usually pretty great. But it is South Dakota, so plan for wind. Spend some of your long runs cursing the wind. That shouldn't be hard because for three years straight of training for a spring marathon, every.single.long.run I did was 30-40 mph wind gusts. Woof. If it's a sunny day, the final 4-5 mile stretch isn't super covered with trees so it can feel a bit toasty.

Make sure you stick around long enough to enjoy Nick's burgers. Seriously. These little gems are a god send. They tend to start serving closer to the first marathoner or marathon relay to finish, but they're more than worth the wait. Little sliders sent directly from the heavens.

The medals are legit. Some of the largest medals I own. I always enjoy some great, well-earned bling.

So I hope to see you in Brookings. I'll the one in green sweating profusely even if it's nice and cold out.

Brookings Half Training Week 9

Week of April 17-23
Monday Planned: General Aerobic 8 miles
Monday Actual: Sick and rest.

Tuesday Planned: Endurance 11 Miles
Tuesday Actual: Skipped POWER and had to take walk breaks on my (cut much shorter) 2 mile run.

Wednesday Planned: VO2 Max 10 miles, 2 sets of 2x1200 + 1x800 @ 3k-5k pace
Wednesday Actual: Thank god this run was a good one! It was truly my saving grace for the week. We did 3 miles with the running group, yoga, followed by 7 miles with the workout at the track. It was raining, and it was hard, but it felt great!

Thursday Planned: Rest
Thursday Actual: Rest

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 miles
Friday Actual: Coffee run miles with Toni. 4 of them.

Saturday Planned: Endurance 14 Miles
Saturday Actual: Based on the weirdness of the week, I had planned to do 5 miles with some pick ups, as I had moved my long run to Sunday to have Toni's company. I ended up with 3, slow miles with walk breaks. My legs felt d-e-a-d.

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: I attempted my long run with Toni and it was one of the worst runs in a long time. I wanted to quit a mile and a half into it. I finally bailed at mile 5. I could tell my form was super shitty and I didn't want to risk hurting myself for some miles. Still a bummer.


Total Mileage Planned: 47 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  23.7 miles

Weekly Reads: Illuminae

Illuminae is the first book in a series. It's a crazy, adventure, dystopian novel with all sorts of twists and turns. It's told in a crazy format, instant messenger conversations, emails, dossier files, random graphics. And that was super cool. The story itself took a little bit to get into, but once I was into it, it was a wild ride!

My rating: 4 stars

Summary from Goodreads:

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again.

BRIEFING NOTE: Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes. 

Fall Race Plans

Well we're in the midst of spring (!!!!) and it's truly the most wonderful time of year. I live in South Dakota for the spring and fall seasons (however fleeting and quick they are). But that also means that while I'm in the depths of training for my spring goal race, I have fall races on the mind!

I just pulled the trigger on my fall goal race!

I'll be heading to Massachusetts to visit one of my besties from college and to explore Boston with her and her kiddos. And while I'm there, I'll be running the OceanView Half Marathon on November 5th!

And because I was having the worst running fomo of my life a few months ago, with every running friend I know (slight exaggeration) signing up to run the Twin Cities Marathon, I talked myself off of the ledge (NO MARATHONS IN 2017 JERBEAR!) by planning to jump in the lottery for the TC 10 miler Oct. 1! It'll be perfect (assuming I get in). I get to have the same race weekend experience, I get to enjoy the last ~10ish miles of the marathon, getting me amped to do it in 2018 (hopefully), and I'll be able to cheer on all of my running friends who are doing the full! PERFECT. Now I just have to get in... tick tock tick tock.

For the lucky 13th year, I'll also be lining up for the Sioux Falls Half Marathon on September 10th. This race is hard to shoot for a PR on, imo. The weather is typically warmer and humid, and there are some intense hills. I do think I could shoot for a course PR while training for the above mentioned races, so I'll use it as a training run to keep my streak going!