First 5k Race of the Fall!

Tomorrow morning is the 3rd annual Daniel Defense Pooler 5K - my first time doing this race – all thanks to the awesome Jen!

I'm really excited about this race for many reasons:

1.
It's the first official race of the new race season! I've got lots of races planned for the rest of the year. Check out my Upcoming Races page for more info.

2.
It's the first 5K race during my half training, so I am really curious as to how much faster I can run 3.1 miles after conditioning myself to run longer. I hope to make this a 2012 PR (my all time 5K PR is 27:49 – back in 2009 – I don't think I can ever beat that) – so in order to do that I have to run faster than a 29:06. I really hope I can. I would like to see a "28" on the race clock when I finish! I'm thinking I will be able to do it because the last time I did a sub-29 5K was in 2009... RIGHT AFTER I trained my body for running 10Ks (ableit not my fastest 10Ks - I think I can actually run faster 10Ks now). So I am confident that the half training will not fail me! :)

3.
And the last reason... I'll be wearing a costume!! Not anything really elaborate, but hopefully I'll stand out enough to get some good photos taken of my crazy running outfit. ;) It's a patriotic theme, so I'll be donning the red, white and blue!

Race report coming soon!

Nine More Weeks

Remember my last post on getting new shoes? Here is a comparison pic: old versus new

I meant to post more on being halfway through half-marathon training, and now we are over half way! We are on week 14 and only have 9 more weeks to go until the Rock and Roll Half on November 3rd! Woohoo!

It's hard to believe that it's getting closer and closer. But it seems like I've been training forever... which, I pretty much have been doing since January 1 of this year. The build up and anticipation is certainly increasing as it gets closer, as well as our weekly mileage! I have no idea how I will handle the crossing the finish line... will I break down into an emo mess and weep like a baby? Or will I finish strong and feel like kicking ass upon crossing the line? Maybe I'll be crawling up the chutes, barely able to walk, and crying from pain!?! LOL Hopefully not that last one. I'm pretty sure lots of catching of breaths will ensue and trying to find water will be the first thing on my mind. Who knows! All I know is that I can't wait to find out!!!

We (the Pooler CREW Training Group) did 8 miles this morning on a dark golf course. It was pretty neat, as I've never run on such a course. It was a great change of scenery - even though the first half of the run was in complete darkness (thankfully the blue moon was still out at 5:30 am!) and there was some dense fog lingering over us. The 2nd half of the run was much better and cooler as the humid fog lifted and the sun started coming up.

Another old vs new comparison... Inside of my overpronating right heel

I've got a new injury this time around... It's called um... *something* bursitis (I will fill in the blank later when I feel like getting up to get the paper in my purse with the correct term)!! It's basically some fluid buildup at the back of my knee from my uneven leg lengths (due to scoliosis) and overcompensation of the shorter leg. It's nothing that inhibits my running, but it is one of those minor aches that gets annoying throughout the day and you'd just rather not have it exist. It only bothers me when I extend my left knee. I feel some minor discomfort at the back of my knee. I went to a free injury clinic at Fleet Feet after the 8-miler today and that's what the physical therapist told me. He suggested icing, compression, strengthening exercises and a heel lift (to lift my shorter leg up a bit). I actually have one from another PT that I threw in a drawer somewhere. I used it a few times, but decided it sucked. I might try to find it. I was apparently using it wrong. I was supposed to put it under the shoe's insert, not over it. (Duh!) Apparently this was caused from over striding from sprinting. With my last few runs, I've been trying to sprint at the end, like the last 1 to 1.5 miles of the run because I have energy saved up and I ALWAYS love to see how fast I can go for however many miles we do... Bad idea!! I need to save that stuff for actual races, not training runs...

Other than that I think I'm really getting stronger - especially with the crossfit class I'm going to. It's pretty intense, but I like a good intense workout where I'm not running on pavement for hours at a time! I'll blog more on that at a later time.

Speaking of getting stronger, I decided to start a Plank-a-Day challenge, where you pretty much just do a plank for as long as you can (time it) every day for a month and see how much longer you can do it by the end of the month. The plank position is one of the simplest ways to increase your core strength and stability – something I know I need in order to further reduce my chances of injury when I run.

I found out about Plankaday via a new blogger that I follow: Cherierunsthis.com! Cherie is a fitness blogger from PA who posts lots of recipes, workout tips and fun photos! Check her out if you can! I can't wait to do the Foodie Penpal this month! (I'll blog about that later too).

But it's another fitness blogger who started the Plankaday challenge: Lea at runningfordummies.net. She's got a leaderboard going and I'm currently #11 at 2:23 minute plank. Not bad for my first time! Lea holds 7+ minute planks!

I'm not sure if I was doing it properly, but my abs (and surrounding areas) were shaking for the last minute or so, so I think I at least got some real plank action going on! I'll have to have Joel check my form tomorrow. Lets hope I can keep this up every day! It only takes a few minutes of your time, so I have no excuse not to do it! Join me!!!

New Kicks and 10 More Weeks Until my First Half!!

Dailymile says I've logged 318 miles this year so far - which means that I am WAY overdue on getting a new pair of shoes. I only have ONE pair of running shoes in my inventory - my trusty Brooks Adrenalines. I got my last pair back in {looks back in blog...} OMG... July 2011!!!! Holy moly, I AM way past due!!! I wasn't running as much, but I'm sure I got at least 40 miles on those shoes in 2011. They say you should change your shoes out when they reach 300-400 miles, but closer to the 300 mile mark for smaller runners. Check out the wear and tear on these "old soles":

Pretty FLAT

Inner heel of my right shoe

So after my 7-miler this weekend, I decided I was going to buy a new pair of shoes. I was originally going to wait until the Fleet Feet CREW sale on the 8th, but I don't think my feet can wait that long... I have an 8-mile training run (as well as shorter training runs) and a 5K race before then! I tried on some other (cool) flashy shoes that are similar in style to my Adrenalines - a pretty sea green Mizuno pair (can't remember the model!) and a dark grey/bright magenta pair of Asics 2160 (I think...). Damn, I wish I took a pic of them (oh wait, I couldn't because a kid by the name of Liam was playing with my phone the whole time!) The latter of those I think I will try to save up for when the CREW sale actually happens. I really, REALLY want pretty bright shoes (and a second pair of shoes to train in)!! Neither of the other 2 I tried were as flashy and bright as I would have liked, but better than the subdued Brooks colors. I ended up getting a pair of the new model Adrenalines - in a half size smaller than I usually wear (my older ones had a little too much toe space). They are quite pretty, actually:

After watching me try on shoes, Liam wanted to try some on...although they didn't have any his size. :( But the sales associate was nice enough to put some big shoes on him to make him happy. He also found some smaller kids shoes he decided to try on himself...

Oh wait, here's a  photo of the Sea Green Mizunos (on Liam)....Pink is his favorite color!

Oh, we also picked up my free pair of YurBuds that I won in the Fleet Feet Savannah FB trivia contest a couple weeks ago!! I let Joel pick some out and get fitted because I don't use headphones/music much while running these days. I did try them on, though, and they felt pretty cool.

Speaking of winning stuff, I won a free race entry into the Daniel Defense Pooler 5k on September 8!!! This was all thanks to my great friend and fellow running mama Jen of Running, Our Way!! Thanks so much girl!!! Yeah, Woohoo!!! I actually found out that I won the race entry AND the earbuds on the same day!! I felt so lucky!! :)

I was going to blog more about this being the halfway point in my half training, but I think this is enough for now... I need to eat breakfast...

Happy running!

New PDR - 10 Miles!

A view of DC on the Mount Vernon Trail

For my long run this last Saturday, I did TEN whole miles! I probably shouldn't have, but I was scheduled to do 7 on the training plan, but missed last Tuesday's morning run (I didn't wake up for the run - FIRST time ever missing a training run from oversleeping!) which called for 3.5 miles, so I wanted to combine them to get all the miles in at once. PLUS, no better time to do it while on vacay in the DC area (Arlington)! I'm visiting my BFF who just had a beautiful baby girl. They live right near an awesome bike/running trail - the Custis Trail - that goes on almost as long as you want to go and connects with other trails as well.

I did a 4-miler on the trail on Thursday. I went west on it for about 2 miles and turned around. The trail is mainly a bike path, so runners have to be aware of speedy bikes that fly by. Especially if you need to pass a slower runner/walker... you seriously have to check your blind spot before you pass. I didn't need to do that too many times because I was going pretty darn slow! The trail is very hilly and my Savannah trained body is not conditioned to hills like this. I love it though. Makes things more interesting and challenging. I tried to fly down the hills to make up for my time, but my body didn't let me – well really, my knees didn't like the downhill, so I took it easy. Damn 30s!

The morning of my 10-miler started out cloudy and I expected the clouds to stay and even get a bit of rainfall. Nope. It got sunny! Which was bad because I didn't put any sunblock on my face or tattoo. But even though it was sunny, it never got too humid - not Savannah humid anyway. The weather was awesome. I decided to do a warm up walk to the path (about half a mile) so that I could do a cool down walk back as well to add another mile to my distance (so I covered about 11 miles, but I am not counting the warm up and cool down to my PDR).

I decided to try heading east on the Custis trail this time, because I knew it merged with one of my favorite trails - the Mount Vernon Trail, which runs along the Potomac River. It even hooks up to the Wilson Bridge trail that Joel and I used to run when we lived there (I didn't go THAT far). The first half of my run was awesome and I felt great. Probably because most of it was downhill. I decided into my run that I'd take a 5 minute pit stop at the 5 mile turn around and eat my Honey Stinger chews and stretch. A bad idea. The stopping was good for catching my breath, but I don't think the chews or the stretching helped at all. :( I might have eaten too many, too fast because after I started back up again, my tummy felt weird. (Not so bad that I had to make a pit stop, though) And the stretching didn't help because I started feeling my hips get a bit sore on the way back.

So I went about 3 miles on the Custis Trail and 2 miles on the Mt Vernon Trail. On the last 3 miles of the Custis Trail is where I pretty much fell apart / gassed out / wanted to stop. The beginning of the 8th mile was ALL uphill. I tried to just keep a running motion – even though I felt like I was going super slow – but my thighs were not feeling it. So at some points I had to slow down and walk. The uphill didn't really let up until the beginning of the 9th mile where there were some declines and somewhat level ground. I ran out of water at this point, so I stopped my watch and mooched some A/C and water from a Giant that was on the trail. I started the watch again when I got back on the trail and had one more mile to go. This one wasn't so bad, although at the VERY END was a huge ass incline. On the uphill I was chanting to myself, "dig, dig, DIG!" Then finally I heard that sweet Garmin "BEEP" and reached the top of the hill and stopped my watch for T-E-N miles!! WOO!!

Despite my crappy last miles, I am pretty damn proud of myself for accomplishing this distance!!! I even had negative splits on the great first half of the run! Then it was all uphill from there. It really was an AWESOME trail. I would LOVE to train on this trail. I actually overheard one girl in a running duo say to her partner, "So we've done at least 13 miles, right?" And they just kept going and chatting as they passed me. I ate their dust. Awesome. I want to be able to run an EASY 13 miles and be able to have conversations while doing it! ONE OF THESE DAYS!!!

It's taper week next week with the training group. I sure as hell NEED it! I also start a 5-week CrossFit class on Wednesday... looking forward to getting my ass kicked! :)

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...

Mid-July Update (sorry my subjects are not exciting)

It's the middle of the month of July and I have already logged 35 miles! Woohoo! I have at LEAST another 27.75 left for the month - which is what I have scheduled with the training group, but I always like to to go a little above the set schedule each week (or so has been the trend), so I'm sure I will do more. So if I just did the scheduled distances with the group, my total monthly miles for July will be 62.75 miles! Let's see how much we can add to that...

I've been out of town this past week in Atlanta for work. I managed to get my miles in as well as do a 4-mile race with my friend/coworker, Justin. Our boss threw a shindig at her lovely house the night before and we ate and drank and had a great time. We of course left way later than we should have and definitely ate more than we should have, but it was all so good (we had home made mac and cheese AND lasagna)! So on little sleep and full carby bellies, we went out and did the race the following morning. Not too bad for me - there were hills of all sizes on this course. A shock for my body, but I liked the challenge. I ended up finishing in 41:03.

7.2 miles into my new PDR!

Jen running through the beautiful Isle of Hope neighborhood

On the 4th of July, some of my running mama buddies and I did the Watermelon Crawl at Lake Mayer/Isle of Hope put on by our local Fleet Feet. There was a choice of a 6-mile or 8-mile course, and I did the 8 mile with Jen (thanks for popping my 7.1 cherry, girl! LOL). This was a new personal distance record for me!! The previous longest distance I had done was 7.1 miles (recorded by Nike+ in 2008). The Isle of Hope is an awesome place to run.

I'm testing out some new inserts for my flatass feet. I tried them on the 5-miler today, well one insert in the right shoe only. I tried both on last Sunday's 5k and my left foot started feeling funny (in a bad way) during the run. It says you have to get used to them, but today, I didn't feel like getting that foot discomfort on a long run, so I only used an insert in one shoe (right). I might just wear them both around the house or something to break them in more. I don't know. Or I might ditch them altogether. I guess "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" My arches/feet have not been bothering me at all, but I read that if you over-pronate due to flat arches, it can cause back problems and knee problems. My knees are pretty bad (thanks Dad!), and I get back aches sometimes after runs (which I figure is due to my scoliosis), so I figure I'd give it a shot. They make my feet feel like they are being pushed to the outside of the shoe. A weird feeling. We'll see.

Happy running!

June Summary

June started off on a low note, as I was still in "rest mode" to let my hip heal. I tried to stay active by rowing and starting some bootcamp classes. Upon the followup with my PT, I was told that I could run again, but to take it easy and to continue with my routine of stretches he gave me. I did start of with a few low mileage runs building up to a trial 5k to see how I would do back at my normal distance. I felt fine afterwards and decided that I was ready to join the Fleet Feet C.R.E.W Half Marathon Training Group.

My first run with the group was on Saturday, June 16. Saturdays are our long run days. This Saturday we were scheduled to do 3.75 miles. I ended up doing 4.4 miles due to some course confusion! We start and end all our runs with lots of stretching, but when I come home I still feel the need to ice and stretch my hips and IT band out some more. I feel that by doing this, I am preventing any more issues from arising. It's been working out well so far. I love the group and the dynamic and it really motivates me to get up and run in the mornings!

I am proud to say that in June, I have run a personal record amount of monthly miles: 45! Not bad for coming off a hip injury! I am looking forward to increasing that number each month until my half in Nov!

In the beginning of the month I had started a Jillian Michaels 30-day DVD. I am sad to say that I have only done a few days of it, BUT I do plan to continue to do it until I actually do 30 days of it. I think with the bootcamps and running, I am getting enough exercise throughout the week. I go to bootcamp every Wednesday night and I am thoroughly sore the following days after! I love that feeling! I can tell that I am getting stronger.

I am also sorry to say that I have not been to yoga this past month due to my yoga buddy moving away and well, just not having enough time to go. I still have 5 classes left on my one punchcard with one yoga studio and I just have not been to any Bikram classes at all this month.  I love Bikram, but I think I will have to put it off until the off season. I have way too much stuff going on as it is and $20 a class is a bit much right now!

This month I have a few things going on, such as my 4-mile Race in Atlanta with my coworker on the 14th, and my first (virtual) half marathon RELAY on the 28th. Then in August, I am starting a 5 week Crossfit class with Jen – who has quickly become a great friend and running/workout buddy!

All that PLUS a few other trips and fun things sprinkled in between that I am pretty excited about. This half of the year is starting off on a high note! Hopefully it will continue like this until the end of the year! Happy Half Year!