Happy Birthday to Me!

Well, hello!

So, I hit the big 2-6 later this week. However, I have already received a few birthday gifts of note from the ever-awesome Coach Mom.

The first: I was registered to run the National Cherry Festival of Races 15K. I've ran their 5K plenty of times, but never made the jump to the big one until this year.

The 15K is most notorious for the climb up "Mount McKinley". Not the real one, obviously, but this is a nearly mile-long climb up the hill on McKinley road, and it just happens to fall right around the halfway point of the race. Oddly enough, this is where I felt the best during this event. I took off like a rocket at the start (yay, forgetting my watch!) and was starting to bonk just a little at this point. Got to the hill, didn't walk at all, felt OK on the climb, threw up 2 rock on fists when I hit the top, coasted down... and then the bonk hit hard. Oh, and did I mention that it was already pushing 80 at this point and humid as heck? Considering the lack of summer we had to that point in Duluth, I wasn't ready for that. I took water and was sprayed with it every chance I had, but I way missed my goal of breaking 1:15 and finished in what was a disappointing 1:19:28.
Yes, I did just say I was disappointed with a race where I averaged an 8:33 pace. What a difference a year makes, eh?
The second came a few days later. I've now run 2 half marathons and earned this, so it was time to get my feet:

Yup! I went and got inked! Coach Mom and Assistant Coach Little Sister both have the same tattoo on the same spot of their right leg, so we all match. It stung a bit, but it was nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be.
And, the third present?

Source

Another half, another go at the course that started it all, another shot to break 1:45. 9/3/11. Let's do this! Also doing this: Coach Mom, Assistant Coach Little Sister, and my Little Bro! It will be his first, and I'm so proud of him!! :)

In other news, in my ongoing quest to "race the crap" out of the summer (as one of my co-workers put it), I took on Northern Minnesota's oldest road race, the Park Point 5 Miler. 

This race should not have gone as well as it did. For starters, I had spent 11 hours the day before on planes and buses coming back from Traverse City to Duluth. While I was in TC, I had been running with the newly formed Traverse Area Running Club, and had just done a 9.5 mile interval workout the morning before flying home. Then, after a short night's sleep, I spent race day at work. Finally, just as race time approached, the cool day turned warm and sticky. I told Brandon to start watching for me around 7:10PM, or around the 40:00 minute mark, as I wasn't expecting things to go well.

37 minutes and 52 seconds later, I crossed the finish line. Boom. Despite the negatives, I feel that I sufficiently rocked that race's face right off. I didn't feel awesome at all, but I'm quite proud of that time all things considered. 

So, yeah. I'm thinking I'm going to take a bit of a hiatus on the racing front until Marquette (though it is hard to turn down a comped entry, believe you me.) I want to break 1:45 so bad I can taste it, and I want to be as fresh and well trained as I can. If there's anywhere that I can hit that, it's Marquette. Here's hoping the weather is a bit nicer this year.

That's all I've got for now. Have fun, kids!

I'm Still Standing...

Hi, all!

I swear, I'm still alive. Things have gotten SO busy now that I'm a working woman again.

Source

Things are good, though! Time for some recapping!
So, the last time that I posted, I mentioned that I was taking the day off because I was feeling run down and my legs hurt. I didn't say either, but I was kind coughing a bit. Well, it turns out I was in the early stages of the flu! :( I kicked that off by passing out in the bathroom at work, which was rather embarrassing for the third day. I should have known better--I'm kind of sensitive to different cold medicines, and I had taken a dose of DayQuil before I left, which I think combined with the fact that I hadn't eaten enough that day, down I went. I wound up going home and spending the rest of that day and most of that weekend asleep either on the couch or in bed. It was not fun, but by Sunday night I was starting to feel human again.
Sadly, due to the flu, I missed my long run that week, and I rescheduled a shorter run for Monday to a different day just to make sure I was really good to go. So, missing those two runs, I ended up with a February mileage total of 69 miles. In my ongoing battle with perspective, I had to remind myself that while this was short of what was planned, that 69 miles was still a) more than I ran the month before, b) WAY more than I ran last year in February, and c) my 3rd biggest month ever (July 2010 was 69.4, and August 2010 was 70 miles). I should not be getting myself down about that number, I should be fist pumping all around my apartment about that number!
My new job is AWESOME. I'm learning SO much about shoes, foot biomechanics, running and triathlon apparel, and other gear. It can be a bit overwhelming at times, but it's going well. I'm also getting the chance to try on lots of shoes and other gear in the name of product research, and as a part of the job I'm asked to wear test some items and give my feedback to the owners. Pretty sweet deal, I'm not going to lie.
This is the part I'm most excited about-- the store also has a running team. Their philosophy is to have members who, regardless of ability, are active in races and the running community and would represent the team and the sport in a positive light. As a member of the staff, I have the option of being on the team. It really sounds like something perfect for me and like an incredible opportunity, and I'm thinking I'm going to go for it. :D So awesome. Again, the new gig is fantastic, and I'm so happy to be there.
March is off to a great start on the running front. Coming back from the flu was a bit rough initially. I felt sluggish and slow on my first run back, which was to be expected. Then, after that run, which was in the early evening, I tried running again the next morning. That was a disaster--I had no speed, my legs felt flat, and I just felt like garbage. I had to cut my 6 miler down to 5 because I felt so awful. I made up the missed mile on my next run 2 days later, and by that point I was starting to feel myself come back, and the next day I did my long run for the week (8 miles), and while it was a long and slow run, I felt great. :) Last week's total came to 22 miles.
This week, barring anything going wrong, will be the highest weekly mileage I've ever put down, 24 miles. I'm already at 10, and I have a 4 tomorrow and a 10 on Friday! I can't believe I'm already at double digit runs for this training!
So far this week:
Monday- 6 miles on the Y treadmill. I had to do 4 2:00 surges in this run, and I did those at an 8:34 pace, with the rest of at anywhere from a 9:15 to an 8:57 pace. I felt really strong in this workout, and I finished at 53:51.
Tuesday- 4 miles, again at the Y. I felt like I was wasting a beautiful day outside, but I wanted to do more of a tempo run, and right now it's easier for me to do things like that on the treadmill. I did a warm up 1/2 mile at 8:57 pace, and did 3.5 miles at an 8:27 pace. I originally meant to do just 3 at that pace and then cool down at the 8:57 again, but I felt so good that I just finished the run at that pace. My time was 34:07, my fastest 4 miler to date.

So, that's what's new over the last week and a half or so!
I hope you all are doing well. What's new and good with you? If you're in training, how is that going?


Have a great day, all!

Welcome February!

Today's run: 5 miles
Week to date: 13.4 miles
Month to date: 5 miles
Happy February, everybody!
I can't lie, I'm very happy to turn the page on the calendar today. For some reason, it always feels good to leave January behind and move in to this month. Perhaps it's because it's one month closer to spring? Who knows, but even though January was a good if not completely crazy month for me, I'm ready for the adventures February will bring!

For everyone dealing the the Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse/SnOwMG storm rolling through the country, I'd like to show you what I have going on outside today:

And the people of the Northland rejoice--"For once, it's not us!!"
To be fair, though, this is what I saw when I started to get ready to run this morning:

Brrr...
I knew I had to get out today. No excuses. Besides, Coach Mom gave me this advice just after the last cold snap:

running outside in the extreme cold is okay if you dress correctly....many many layers...it just isn't much fun!

That in mind, I just decided to wait until I saw a positive air temp. Baby steps, all, baby steps.
This won for "Good enough" after I checked the weather every 4 minutes for the next hour:

I remembered Coach Mom's sage advice about layers, and I picked some fun ones for the usual wardrobe pick me up. Bundle up!

(Yup--you can take the girl out of Michigan, but you can't take Michigan out of the girl!!) No worries, I wore far more than this, but I loved the combination of these two. How can you not feel like a total champ sporting the winged wheel and the famous All-Star toque?

I walked to my new starting point and did a slooooooow 5 miler. I had originally planned 4, but I went in to lala land while running, and when I snapped out of it I was practically at the turn around for 5. Whooops! It's a good start to February though, eh?
I had a moment of divine intervention (or at least I hope...) on the way home. I knew we had no dessert type options left in the apartment, and with the path I'm on lately that's unacceptable. I carried $1.00 in change planning on snagging some M&M's from the skywalk vending machine.
Ready for this: the M&M's were $1.50! Whhhaaaaa?? I didn't feel like turning around to head back to the Snyders down the street, so I opted out of my candy fix. Hopefully, this is some kind of divine move telling me that I will come across something better than vending machine candy... if not I'm going to be a sad lady.

Any fun plans for your February?
I start training for my next half on the 7th, and next weekend the fiance and I are headed back to Houghton for Michigan Tech's Winter Carnival! It's something hard to explain, so check out the link!

Have a great day!

The Week That Was

Hello!

I swear, every day this week after my run, I sat down and meant to blog. Then, I would get sucked in to Facebook, or the USCHO forums, or any one of the 329042570498 blogs I've been reading.
So, time to recap!
This was "The Week That Was..."

1. Deadly
That is, if you were any of the pieces of technology I owned. In a 48 hour span, my iPod, my laptop, and my cell phone all went to the big electronics store in the sky. :( The iPod was a casualty in a massive tea spill, the laptop has been trying to die for months and finally succeeded, but the phone? No idea. It went from working fine, to giving me weird error messages, to not working at all. I wound up getting a $15 go-phone at Wal-Mart that is straight out of 2002, but it's better than no phone at all, right?

2. Culinary
I think part of the reason I didn't post was because I spent so much time in the freaking kitchen this week! This week, I've made: my own chicken tenders (success!), vanilla pudding from scratch (super success!), focaccia (sort of--it was premade pizza crust that I added other stuff to, but still, I tried!), the most amazing chocolate chip cookies (from this recipe), and candied oranges (modified from this recipe... jury is still out on these...) (side note: I've been reading Jenna's blog for ages, and I love it. Love love love what she does.) And, I've made dinner almost every night this week. I am really finding my groove in the kitchen, and I'm having an absolute blast doing it! Now, I just need more Duluthian friends to come over and eat this stuff!!

3. Warmer!
The temperatures FINALLY picked up this week! There were still some killer winds off the lake (especially Tuesday! I was shivering so much on my walk home--it felt worse than when I walked to the post office when it was below 0 last Friday!) but it was overall much nicer this week. I even saw 31 degrees on a downtown thermometer Friday! That's a 57 degree difference from the week before. All without breaking the freezing mark... the weather in this state is unreal. Maybe that's why Minnesotans talk about the weather so much. (Or, so I've heard from my Minnesotan friends. I talk about the weather all the time, too, so maybe I was born to be a Minnesotan!)

4. High (for me) Mileage!
I feel silly saying this, because I know some of you out there have run more miles in a single day than I put in during a whole week, but for this little runner, this was a pretty big week in terms of mileage. I had a chat via Facebook with Coach Mom about my training plan, and she said I still have a couple weeks to go before I start, but reminded me that I need to be running 4-5 times a week, 3-5 miles each time. This week, I put in 4 good runs (so far, I still have tomorrow!) and I'm at 18. Breakdown looks like this:

Monday: 4 miles
Tuesday: 5 miles
Wednesday: rest (crazy headaches... boo!)
Thursday: 4 miles (originally planned 3, but I felt good, so I kept going!) + some Bob Harper. That core thing is KILLER.
Friday: 5 miles
Saturday: little bit of Yoga
Week to date: 18 miles
Month to date: 36.9 miles

I'm getting there--2 days to get that number a bit higher!

So, that was my week! How was yours?

12/2/10--Zigs and Zags

Today's run: 5.06 miles
Week to date: 12.14 miles
Month to date: 5.06 miles (First run of the month...)

And this made me happy:
Year to date: 400.09 miles

Big smiles about that, for sure!

It was another cold and snowy morning in the Copper Country!

So, it was time to put the "snow tires" on:

The outfit:

It was pretty much perfection. I was just warm enough to be comfortable. The hat was the only downer--it kept almost coming off anytime I got a headwind. The jacket ($10 at Wal-Mart--I have 3 of them) broke the wind very nicely, and I was good with a long sleeve and UnderArmor t-shirt underneath.

I knew that I wanted/needed to go 5 miles today, so it was time to get creative with my route. I saw the trucks out plowing, so I knew the streets would be relatively clear. I give you: how to run 5 miles through a tiny Upper Peninsula town:

Yeah. I zig-zagged through the streets like a champ. I got a lot of strange looks from the people out clearing their driveways, let me tell you, especially when I came back through a second time!
I felt slow today, but that was OK. I knew with the streets being snowy and slick, speed was not going to happen. I was more concerned with safety and completion today. Oddly enough, I enjoyed the rolling hills. I can't explain why exactly, but I did! Maybe it just added to the insanity factor of it. I can look back now and say, "Hey, remember that day when it was 20 degrees, windy, snowing sideways, and I went out and ran 5 miles with hills?"
You know, I can't decide if that last statement is either awesome, badass, or completely mental. Either way, I still did it.

I leave you today with this:
The other night, I decorated the apartment for Christmas. I noted that we didn't have a topper for our Christmas tree, so I found a sparkly gold ornament to hang at the top to suffice for the time being.
Yesterday, I noticed the boyfriend staring contemplatively at the TV. Perched on top was Fatty, the stuffed squirrel he bought me on our first vacation together in August '09. The next thing I know, I look over and see this:

Yup, Fatty is now our tree topper. Personally, I love it. This may have to become a tradition.

Have a great day, everyone! :)