13 miles to go

As you may know I started my marathon training January 1st for the Wisconsin Marathon May 4th, so I am currently at the end of week 4 training.  For the past few weeks my mileage has been hovering around 24 miles or so, but this week I got to up the mileage.  On Saturday I had a 6 mile race pace run on the schedule.  I went out by myself with a plan to stay around a 9:30, I have a really hard time achieving my "normal" race pace of about a 9 minute mile.  So the plan was to go out to Wright Road and just run the neighborhoods and check out some houses.  Running alone is never ideal, but I seemed to find my groove around the 3.3 mile mark, and started to kill it.  I ran the next 3 miles around an 8:53 pace, which is pretty fast for me.  Another reason I feared my 13 miler today.  By 7pm on Saturday my legs were already feeling sore.  I suppose tiring your legs out the day before a long run is actually the plan so you are used to running on tired legs, but I was not thrilled about it. 

This morning I decided I better suck it up, and go meet my friends at ASR.  I am so thankful that I did.  Although the plan was the hills in Oakhill Cemetery and back to ASR for 8 miles.  I was running with Dustyn, and we both decided we were not feeling the hills, so we made our way out of the cemetery and down to Riverside to run.  We did have one big hill down there, but I didn't mind too much.  We made our way back towards downtown on the path and headed towards the bus station for a little bit of extra mileage.  I'm glad I had someone to run with and keep me going.  On our way down Jackson we saw Maria and Andrea on their way out for more miles, they were the only other ones doing more than 8 miles, I asked where they were going, and decided to jump in with them.  I ran miles 8, 9, and half of 10 with them, until my turnaround point.  Maria joked that I might as well just keep going with them for 17.  I said no thanks and started to make my way back. When I hit mile 11 I felt a small surge of confidence, I COULD do this.  I had been contemplating with myself scaling back to the intermediate mileage for the week, which was 11.  At mile 12 I knew I could do it.  My ankle felt tweaked but it didn't matter I was going to run 13.1 miles in less time than my first half marathon.  This may not feel like a huge deal, but it is to me, I am about 5 minutes from being a sub 2 half marathon, which is one of my goals for this year. 

I can't express how awesome it feels knowing that I had an almost 20 mile weekend, and I feel great!  I can't wait to keep going.  Thanks so much to my running and non-running friends for their support.  13.36 down, 12.84 to go :o)

A few of my favorite things

Garmin watches, Road ID, and Brooks Running Pureflow 2's!

2012 in review

As we close out 2012 I can't help but consider my goals, and accomplishments from the past year.  I set out at the beginning of 2012 with races every month from May until August, and even surpassed that.  The year started out in Florida with Ragnar Relay Florida Keys, which I met some truly amazing people.  I did not know anyone on the team, but walked away with 11 new friends.  You can read about my experience (here).

It was in February that some friends finally convinced me to take on 13.1 again in May.  In March my miles started to climb with back-to-back weekends with 10 mile runs.  It was also in March that I started my project of planning the Sundown Dash (a local 5k to benefit Chasing Chad).

April brought new experiences.  I visited NYC, and was able to run through Central Park from my hotel a mile or less away.  I loved the juxtaposition of the trees and baseball diamonds with the buildings, I had to stop and take a picture.  At the end of April I ran Crazy Legs in Madison, with a PR time 6 minutes faster than the previous year.

May 5th I trekked over to Kenosha for the Wisconsin Marathon with Jessica, and stayed with her, Aaron and Laurie.  The weather was dreary, but that is where I achieved my PR Half Marathon time of 2:00:24.  Yes, I was a little disappointed to be 24 seconds over 2 hours, but there is always 2013 to get it done!  Mid May Elizabeth and I decided to head over to Racine to do the Color Run.  It was a lot of fun, we ran together, and I especially liked the color throw at the end.  It was hard to breath with all of the colored corn starch, but it looked really cool.  In fact, my skin was colored pink and purple in some areas for a few days from it!  After the race we found the helpful hints of what to do before the race to avoid this.  Of course the fun did not stop there, I signed up for triathlon training with my friend Elizabeth.  We had both done a triathlon previously, but I was less than thrilled with my first triathlon experience.

Triathlon training continued into June, and my team "Green Machine" and I ran Ragnar Relay Chicago.  The great thing about this team was how well everyone got along, and a couple of my teammates from Ragnar Key West were able to join us.  Unfortunately I had a case of severe dehydration and/or electrolyte imbalance and felt terrible after my first leg.  In fact my teammates were pretty worried about me going out for my 7.7 mile run.  Just before my run I ate a banana and drank coconut water, and was off to a shaky start, but quickly felt better once I got moving and pulled out some fast miles for me: 8:47, 8:44, 8:55, 9:02, 9:33, 9:15, and 8:48.

The 4th of July weekend was my second go at a triathlon.  I made huge leaps from my first, even though I still had some anxiety in the water to over-come.  The heat index was over 100 degrees and it was somewhat miserable, but from this triathlon I decided I wanted to push my limits further, and I started recruiting friends for the Fontana Olympic Triathlon a month and half later. The end of July was also my first experience as a race director.  Overall the Sundown Dash was a success with 165 registrants.  A few days later I was up in Milton for the Milton Mud Challenge for MS.  It was a fun 5k course with a lot of obstacles in the middle.  It was pretty hot, and I was pretty disappointed they didn't have any water on course for participants. 

Next up was the Fontana Triathlon, in training Britten, Jacky and I had biked the course, so we knew the hills that lay ahead.  August 25th came before I knew it.  In my training I focused on getting my biking miles up, and swimming in as much open water as possible.  In the end it payed off.  I rocked the swim after a slight panic attack that I quickly talked myself out of, and even finished the swim before a couple of others in my age group.  The bike went fairly well, and the run was a torturous 2 loop 5k course, completely uphill on the out.  I survived! In fact, I took 3rd for my age group.

In September I volunteered in what has to be the most inspirational race I've ever witnessed: Ironman Wisconsin.  The day before Ironman I was baking with Laurie, and she said she wanted to do a half ironman after she couldn't run as much.  After Ironman, she immediately wanted to do the half in 2013.  Also in September I took the opportunity to volunteer at the River to Ridge Half Marathon, 10k, and 5k.  I was stationed out on the water station at the half, and had a lot of fun cheering on my friends as they came by.  Later in September I joined a Ragnar team for Ragnar DC.  One of my fellow Ragnar Ambassadors needed another runner on her team, so I flew out to Philadelphia, hung out there for most of the day, then drove down to the Cumberland, MD area. Sitting harbor-side while drinking beer was my favorite post-Ragnar.

October was the Haunted Hustle Half Marathon in Middleton.  I kept telling myself that I was going to start seriously training after Ragnar, but then never officially followed a training plan.  I injured my foot in volleyball 2 weeks prior, and although it felt fine to run I decided to tape it up.  Despite the injury I decided to start with the 2 hour pace group to pace myself in the beginning and see where I ended up.  I actually did very well at keeping the pace right around a 9 minute mile, and staying with the pace group.  I met a nice guy who works in Madison and we chatted quite a bit during the run.  It is always nice to make a new friend to run with, even if it is just for that day.  Although it was not a new PR time kind of day I was happy with my time of 2:02:52.

A few weeks later at the beginning of November I was off to Chicago with 3 lovely ladies to run the Hot Chocolate 15k.  After watching the Hot Chocolate Facebook page I knew that packet pick-up was going to be quite the task.  After arriving at a Soldier Field parking lot we waited in line for a couple of hours snaking our way through the ginormous line.  We went out to dinner and drinks at a cute little Italian restaurant a few blocks away, and then it was bedtime.  I did not sleep very well that night, I kept tossing and turning, and unfortunately my stomach was really upset in the morning.  I wasn't sure if I was even going to be able to run a 15k that day.  Luckily my stomach finally decided to settle down.  At the start-line there were so many people I decided that I would stick by the girls, because I could not find Jacky a corral back to run with her.  A while after the official start time we were able to start.  At the 2 mile mark we miraculously saw Jacky running up the hill next to us, so I ran the rest with her.  We had a good time weaving in and out of people, we must have passed hundreds of people!  After the run was a great time too, we got in line for our chocolate, and caught up with several other ladies from Janesville.  

The Hot Chocolate run concluded my official races for 2012, but not the running fun.  In December ASR did Wednesday night hill run, which Jacky and I got turned around on, so we made our own route and went to check out Christmas lights.  Then the last Thursday of the year after our Thursday run we had a little post-run cheer at O'rileys, marking my one year anniversary of running regularly with ASR.  Last night I finished out 2012 with a snow-covered trail run with my friends at All Season Runner.

2012 was sure a busy year, 1111 miles covered swimming, biking, and running.  I can't wait to see what 2013 brings!

Destined to be Vegetarian?

The other day while shopping with a Vegan friend we were discussing foods that we used to, and still eat, and I began to wonder if I was meant to be vegetarian.  Perhaps this sounds strange, but growing up I hated the taste and texture of ground beef, ham, and pork.  When I ate chicken and turkey I picked them apart, and probably only ate half of what was on my plate, avoiding anything I deemed a funny color or gross.  After years of conditioning myself to eat some of these meats (chicken, ground beef, pork, turkey) I have given up chicken.  Not eating chicken has been far more challenging than anticipated, I sympathize with my vegetarian and vegan friends because I feel like 90% of every menu at restaurants and bars around Southern Wisconsin contains chicken!  I made the decision to stop eating chicken because I had some bad experiences with the meat, but it seems like chicken keeps getting pushed in my face.  My favorite sandwich at Panera Bread used to be the frontega chicken, so I don't eat that anymore, then I found out that a lot of cream soups use chicken stock (dead chicken boiled in water), so why would I want to eat that if I don't eat chicken? So I started to make my own soup with vegetable stock.  The more vegetarian items I eat, the less and less I seem to need to eat meat.  So I wonder, are there things that you never liked, and through eating them over and over began to tolerate?  

Fontana Olympic Triathlon

It appears that I had started my Fontana recap and never finished it, oops.  But now I have some fun pictures to add in, so here goes the recap.

Body Marking

I did it! I completed my first Olympic distance triathlon, and I actually felt pretty great the whole time.  Overall, this was the best I've ever felt in a triathlon (I've done 2 others) even though this one was significantly longer.

The day started out with Dixie and Britten meeting me at my apartment around 5am, we loaded up Britten and my bikes, then drove over to Fontana.We saw Matt as we checked in, and Jacky, Jen, Jen, and Kitty before the race.  We took a couple pictures in our wonderful wetsuits, and before we knew it the race was starting.  I was in wave 1, the beach was a little bit rocky, so I took my time walking into the water and let some rambunctious athletes go ahead.  Once in the water I swam about 10 strokes before I had to do the usual "pep talk" fighting off negativity.  I told myself, relax, you have swam much further than this distance, and you prepared well.  After a few more strokes I was able to contain myself.  I kept close to the buoy line, and had a great swim.  The course was short (probably closer to 3/4 mile), but I swam it in 17:42, which is pretty close to my sprint triathlon (1/2 mile) swim time!  As I exited the water I was a little disoriented and thought that I had lost my top as I unzipped my wetsuit, hence this picture...

The bike went well.  I didn't get my Garmin on my wrist before I took off, so I tried to fumble with that a bit, but gave up and just kept it in my front bike pouch.  The bike course had some nice rolling hills.  A couple girls and I had biked the course a few weeks earlier apart from Lake Shore Drive because we missed the slight right turn.  Lake Shore was a bit more hilly than I expected, but I enjoyed getting going downhill.

T2 went pretty well, I took a few steps and remembered that I had left my Garmin on my bike, so I went back and grabbed it.  My T2 time was 44 seconds, not too shabby!  The first loop was a little intimidating.  Up a hill, down a hill, up a super hill, turn around, then do it again. I did run up the big hill and received a nice compliment from a fellow running female commenting on how she didn't know how I was still running up the hill, good work.  At the top I could tell that I was electrolyte depleted so I opted to fill my one water bottle with Gatorade. The second loop didn't seem as bad because I knew what I had ahead of me.  I also had some great friends cheering for me (Jen W, Kitty, and Brad). I knew what the expect (the mother of any hills I've ever run), so I cranked it out and ran that hill!  Before the turn around I dropped off my water bottle to the aid station and the nice guy filled it with lemon lime Gatorade for me.  The rest was downhill (mostly).  I crossed the finish line at 2:58:29.  30 minutes faster than my loosely projected completion time. Olympic triathlon #1 is in the books!

WNB showing off the bling!

 And I finished 3rd in my age group!

Ironman WI: From a specator and volunteer

Wow!  What an awesome experience at Ironman WI 2012.  Saturday I ventured up to Madison for the 8am volunteer meeting so I knew what I was doing on Sunday.  The meeting was fairly brief, we checked in and then went upstairs, outside of Monona Terrace so that we could see the bike area. After the meeting the Farmer's Market on the square was going on, so I walked around and got some veggies, then I walked back to Monona Terrace which was filled with tent shops.  Even going up for the volunteer meeting was a ton of fun!

Sunday was the real all day adventure.  My day started around 4:45 when my alarm went off.  I had been somewhat restless all night, and was glad to get up.  I grabbed my breakfast, backpack, posters, and was on my way.  Since I was volunteering I had received a parking pass to the Anchor Bank parking ramp, so I tried my luck there first.  As luck, or planning would have it, I was able to get a spot when I pulled in at 6 am.  I headed for Monona, and stopped for a minute to take in this beautiful sight in the morning...

Shortly after I was making my way through Monona Terrace scoping out the swim.  I watched a few swimmers warming up in the water from the building, then made my way down to the water. Walking through Monona Terrace was like walking through packed sardines. As I exited through one of the doors, I heard my name and saw my friend Karl, and was able to step back for a minute and wish Coach Kitty good luck.  She seemed a bit nervous as I gave her a hug and tried to move out of the way.  I stationed myself near where the athletes filed into the water.  I was watching for my friends for awhile, and hadn't seen anyone, so I directed my attention to the water, then turned around to the athletes again and saw my friend Andrea!  I called out Andrea's name and she saw me, and gave me a biggest hug as I wished her well! At 6:50 AM the professionals had made their way into the water, and began their swim with the sound of a cannon. The sight was one to see, about 32 arms thrashing through the water.  10 minutes later, the remaining 2500 athletes began their Ironman journey for the day.

Treading water

Off they go

Wetsuit stripping

 Around 8 AM I started to look for my friends, my friend Brad said he expected to swim the 2.4 miles in about 1:15, so I thought he may be faster.  There were so many swimmers coming out of the water around 8:10 it was hard to keep track and look for friends!  I saw Brad at the last minute as he was getting his wetsuit stripped right in front of me, he turned to get up, and was off to the bike.  I had decided I had seen enough wetsuit stripping and had gotten enough water flung at me, so I started to make my way to Monona Terrace up the helix.  I said hello to my friend Karol in the helix and then made my way to the shuttle buses a block away.  On the bus I met some wonderful Ironman wives.  I helped one from Michigan track her husband on the Ironman tracker, and got to talking with another lady, Krista from Ohio.  Krista and I ended up sticking together for the bike course. The bus dropped off in Verona at the 56 mile mark.  We chatted and made fun of the 16 year old "security" kids that provided very little security!  Between 10-11 AM the bikers started to roll in.  It's amazing how practically everyone wears the same thing!  Everyone seemed to wear black, white, and red; or blue, black, and white!  I thought I had spotted Brad, but it was a false alarm, only 7 other guys were wearing the same thing as him before he went by.  But I did end up seeing him bike by at the last minute around 11 AM.  I continued to watch hoping that I would see some more friends, but I had to head back to Monona for my volunteer shift.  I had planned to leave at 11:30, but then saw a girl fall off of her bike coming down the hill, so I waited to see that she got back up, which she did, and continued on.  I waited as long as I could on the bike course, I was having a great time shaking my tambourine, cheering and holding my sign that I did not want to leave.  I made my way back to the bus at 11:45.  I chatted with a lady who sat with me, her husband was doing the Ironman, and she had her 2 kids in tow, then bolted off of the bus when we arrived back by the capital.  Amazingly I made my shift at 12:30.

My Triathlete humor sign for the bike

Bruce happy to see familiar faces

The transition area was pretty slow for quite awhile as the pros started to make their way in.  I started as a bike runner in the back in hopes that I could move up to the front around 2 when I expected to start seeing my friends.  Just after 12:30 as the bike captains had said, a guy came up with his bike asking to remove it from the transition.  He said everything that the bike captain had told us the day before someone would say: "I did the swim, got kicked in the face, dropped out, and now I have people waitng for me and we want to head back to Kentucky." Surprisingly they released the bike prior to 6pm (when bikes are allowed to be checked out). Soon after we experienced our first rush, the bikes were coming in about as fast as we could put them away. Before I knew it, it was 2 PM and I was able to trade out with someone and run bikes near the dismount line.  I was by the chip sensor and had a great time cheering for the athletes as they made their way into Monona Terrace for T2.  After awhile I was moved up to the dismount line and helped bikers off of their bikes.  It was an interesting set-up.  We tried to flag bikers into certain areas. We had 2-3 lines going, but at some times had a rush of bikers and had to jump in and grab a bike where we could.  At the dismount line I saw my friends John and Andrea.  I saw John a little late and shouted for him, but saw Andrea early enough to give her a high-five, even though I'm not sure she knew what was going on!  I continued to bike handle until 4:30 when I needed a break.  I threw my wet, GU (I hope) stained gloves into the garbage, and then found out that they were out of gloves.  So I grabbed a sandwich, relaxed a minute, checked on my friends' race progress, and asked the Bike captain if I could be dismissed.  Aaron and Laurie were now in Madison so we met up, picked a spot of the course where the athletes come out to start their run, proudly donning our signs.  We were able to see Bruce run by, as well as Kitty! After we saw them we started to stake out our spot by the finish.  We tried to bleachers, but it was extremely hard to see, so we made our way to the other side and found someone about to leave and took their spot.

Laurie and I with the signs

Way to go Coach Kitty

At our spot we cheered, watched, and waited.  We were constantly checking online, but some of the run time splits were not registering.  Just before the 11th hour I saw John heading to the finish line.  I screamed for him, but all he could seem to muster was a slight thumbs up.  At 11:25 Brad came by a foot away from my bright orange sign completely in the zone.  Laurie, Aaron, and I made our way to the finish to give our congratulations to Brad and John. 

IMWI Finisher Brad

Janesville Crew

By this time we were all hungry so Aaron, Laurie and I made our way to State Street to eat at Capital Brewery Tap Haus.  We enjoyed some food and Amber beer outside as the runners continued to push on.  We were able to see Kitty, Brenda, and Chris go by.  By now it was 8 PM or so, and I was exhausted!  We walked back to the other side of the capital and said our goodbyes.  I drove home in a daze, and went straight to sleep when I got home.  Monday I enjoyed checking Facebook for photos and videos from the day before.

I never thought I'd say this, but I want to do Ironman in 2014! Mark your calenders!

Reflections

Practically all summer Wednesdays have consisted of going to work, rushing home, changing, going to Wednesday Night Brick, then coming home for a few hours to decompress.  Tonight's projects were making fresh pesto from my basil plant, and putting running photos I had purchased into frames.  The pesto turned out well, I processed my heart out, until I just used my single cup blender to finish up.  A tip if you are aspiring to make your own pesto.. make sure you splurge on the olive oil!

The next project, picture framing was fun.  I put the Sundown Dash poster into a frame, my Rock n' Roll half marathon picture, and my Crazy Legs photos in frames.  On my half marathon photo I had them imprint the Rock n' Roll logo, as well as my finishing time (2:10), but I was a little disappointed that the date was not on there.  Fortunately for me, the race date was printed on the race bib I was wearing.  Race day was 8.14.11; just over one year ago.  Who would have thought I would do another half marathon, another sprint triathlon, be a week away from an Olympic triathlon, and be considering a full marathon just one year later.  I hope this does not sound like a bragging post, but I am proud of myself when I look back at my accomplishments.  I think a huge thanks is in order for all of my fit friends who keep me going, and keep me challenging myself.  THANK YOU!

If I didn't have the "crazy" friends I do who agree to run 200 mile relays, inspired me to run my first sprint triathlon, and meet me at the pool ridiculously early to train, I don't know where I would be.  I do know where I will be this weekend though... and that is in Fontana swimming 1500 meters, biking 24 miles, and running 6.2 miles uphill.  I'm not sure what the next adventure will be, but I look forward to training for it with my friends.