Record-Breaking September

ALMOST a new PR...

What a month it's been so far! And it's not quite over!

First of all, I have LESS THAN SIX weeks to go until I run my first Half marathon!!! I am SO friggin excited!  :)

I had an AWESOME 10 mile run last Saturday morning with the Pooler CREW... my pace was FASTER than both my previous 9 and 8 mile run (which both happened to be just about the same pace) and my legs felt GREAT! I had my first ice bath afterwards. Which might have been a minor FAIL because I only got 2 bags of ice and had to supplement with the ice cubes in my freezer because my tap water wasn't cold enough. I think it worked though. It wasn't so bad for my first one! I need to do it more often!

It was also the second time running my longest distance EVAR of 10 miles. And I kicked that previous time's ass!! By about 16 minutes! Well, the first time I did it, there were multiple HUGE hills that I was not ready for...

Ice bath! (I know... I need a new pedicure)

I started putting my distance PRs on my "Completed Races and PRs" tab... to keep track of my fastest times for each mile distance. If you look at the page, almost ALL of the 4-10 mile PRs happened this month! That PDR is about to change too... the long run on October 6 is 11 miles...

We had a mock 5K race last Thursday morning... It was cool and dark, but I was ready to run! I have not run that fast since 2009 when I did my current 5K PR in the Race for the Cure that year (27:49), but if I remember correctly, that course was a bit short, so I the time that I posted in the photo above is truer. 9 minute miles, for 3.1 miles! I didn't think I was going to see a 27 at the end of my run...

And then this morning, I kicked even MORE ASS running 4 miles in 36:32! That's only a slightly slower pace than that 5K last week!

I attribute these record times to the cooler weather and running with a group. Running with people that are at your pace or slightly faster definitely helps push you to go faster than you would naturally go if you were by yourself. Plus the (huffed) conversations while running help with your lungs and also just helps to keep things less boring! It's a good distraction. :) I don't think I would have been able to train like this all by myself, I am SO thankful for my group!!!

That's not all... last week, I achieved my highest weekly mileage: 27 miles (Sunday, Sept 16 to Saturday, Sept 22)!

And to top it off, I am on track to complete another record monthly mileage total of: 78 miles for September!! Woohoo!!

Hot Mama Half Marathon and Relay 2012

Kaite, me and Jen after our run last Saturday - with our medals! (I love my Bondi band!) Thanks for the pics Katie!

This past Saturday, me and a few other of my fellow running momma buddies ran our Hot Mama Half Marathon and Relay - a virtual race put on by momsrunthistown.com. We ran it out at the Rails to Trails trail and Fort Pulaski with the Savannah CREW training group. My group's distance for Saturday was only supposed to be 5.75 miles, but in order to do my leg, I had to complete 6.55 miles (half of a half). It was pretty dark and humid by the time we got there around 5:30, but it seemed a lot less humid than my normal weekday morning runs due to the breeze from the river and ocean nearby. The Savannah CREW team is much larger than my Pooler CREW group - which consists of about 10 people! The nice thing about the larger group is that there are plenty of different paces. I think the whole time I ran, I was with someone or at least caught up to another person going my pace at the time. It's a good break from the Pooler neighborhoods my group runs during the week!

Anyway, we started out on running on the roads of Fort Pulaski and ended up on the Rails to Trails - which I'm not sure if I liked or not - it seemed to go on forever because the path looks the same all the way down. It was a nice path, though! Cute little crabs would run across the path every now and then! And it was shady for the most part. I miscalculated my distance to where I was supposed to turn around so I ended up running over 6.55 miles before I got back to the start. I decided to just go for 7 since I was feeling good and also, I like round numbers! It wasn't such a great run for my running mommas Katie and Jen, but we all have our off days... At least we got it done! :) Looking forward to the next Virtual Half! Maybe I will be able to do the entire 13.1 next time! [[I want to note that the day before, I had a spaghetti lunch and a French bread pizza dinner... and of course lots of water throughout the day. I also stretched out my hips, foam rolled my IT bands, and iced my right hip the night before...]]


My average pace for the 7 miles I did was high 10s - which was what I was aiming for on this long run. I think it was 10:47. Based off that run, I think I could probably keep that pace for 13.1 miles. And I'm sure I will only condition myself to get faster by the half in November. For 10:47 miles, I would be on pace to do a 2:21:15 half.... which is above my goal time (sub 2:30), but not quite my "secret" goal time - which is 2:20 (the time it took my little sister to run her first half last year). LOL! I'm excited to find out how I will do.

Me with my fellow Pooler CREW training group members - Chris and Amanda - after our Mock 5K

In other race news, my training group did a mock 5K last Thursday. I didn't do as well as I had hoped. I planned to do it in sub-30, which I did, but I BARELY made it! The night before, I had a rough bootcamp session, plus I had a couple beers without water after dinner AND I had not been getting much sleep at all last week due to a crazy deadline on a freelance project (very late-nights, and then getting up to work regular job at 8am). So yeah, I was in no position to be running any PRs. It was still fun though. :)

Time for sleep! Wake me up when it's August...