Best Part of the Day

Pic from right before the run. I still can't believe I have woken up so early to workout! 3x in a row I've made my run group.

Workouts for the Week:
Monday- Strength/Weight Workouts- 17 minutes
Tuesday- 3.24 miles (run group)


I woke up this morning really not in the mood to run. I was still sore from my run Sunday and still annoyed about not being able to do my long swim yesterday to get out the kinks (pool was closed). But my husband was like GET UP, GET UP. So I woke up and we went to RunGroup.

Really happy I went. I had one of my fastest overall paces in about a month, so that was good. Plus, even though my legs were sore, after a mile or two, my legs started to warmup.


Workout- Time and Pace combined warmup/workout
Warmup- .56 miles- 7 min, 21 sec
One mile- 10K pace
1 min, 20 sec break
One mile- 10k pace
1 min, 20 sec break
Half a mile- 5k pace
additonal distance due to a. taking a wrong turn on the first mile, and not pausing my runkeeper til i got to the water cooler.

I ended up getting bad news later but I didn't let it ruin my day. I'm trying to do a better job keeping things in perspective and I know that running is one of those things that really helps me out.

First run of 3rd week of Marathon Training in the bag! :)

7 miles and the freak-out

Workouts for the Week so far:

Monday: 1285 yd Swim

Tuesday: 3.09 miles Hill Workout (group run)

Evening: 16 min core workout

1.01 mile evening run

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday: 2.26 mile speed workout (group run)
Friday- 827 yd
Saturday- Rest/Lots of Walking Day
Sunday- 7 mile run

Before I get into today's run, a short recap of the week workouts- Really happy that I went to group workouts, glad I got a core workout in and I wished I would have gotten another swim in. Also, happy about getting a 7 mile long run in.

***** THIS IS A LONG POST! FYI ! ******

Today's Long Run is Long Run#2 in Marathon Training.

This Week's Splits Compared to last week's long run:

07/15-  12:29/12:46/12:55/14:29/12:42/13:14- 6 miles 1:18:37- 13:06 overall pace
07/22- 13:18 /12:11 /14:13 /13:35 /13:07 /12:56 /12:45- 7 miles- 1:32:14- 13:09 pace


This long run, as I'm sure I will say about every long run leading up to the marathon, was hard. I am out of shape. It's hard for me to believe that I lost so much endurance. I have been running for about 2 and a half years. Although I am not fast and I typically do not do long runs, I have completed two half-marathons and two 10 mile races. Therefore WHY WAS A 7 MILE RUN SO HARD?!

You may notice the 3rd mile split of today's run is in red. I will get to that devil mile in a minute.

We started today's run about 30 minutes earlier then last week, which I was really happy about. I also went to bed earlier and ate a better meal the night before. So going into the run, I was feeling better overall then last week's run. I wasn't having throat problems or allergy issues, I hadn't run in two days, my legs felt fine, the weather felt better. Which was good as I was aiming to run 7 miles today, my longest run of the year (so far).

I was very lucky because I had my husband who was running the entire run with me, I didnt take any music or my runkeeper app and had him take care of the distance, pace, extc. 

I started off with downing a gu as I was planning on running about an hour and a half and gave my husband the second one to hold on for me to take before the turn around. 

So we started off on the run at around where the ducks are at San Gabriel Park. They were actually pretty calm today, which was nice. They can get scary when they come after you quacking like mad, but anyways. 

Everything was going fine the first and second miles. As you can see by my pace, I went a little too fast the second mile compare to the first mile. I was starting to get really tired towards the end of my 2nd mile and was struggling to still keep my intervals up. Right around the three mile mark, I was really getting exhausted for some reason and I think the sun was maybe really coming out. I felt like I was drowning under exhaustion and humidity. 

Right before the turn around, my husband reached in his pocket to give me my 2nd gel. It was gone. At this point, looking at my water bottle that was almost empty ( we were about 3/4 of a mile away from the nearest water station at that point), lacking in energy and feeling hot, I started to lose it and fell apart.

This was the devil 3rdmile. Here I started freaking out, giving up on my intervals, mad about the gel, thirsty, and really worried. How can I think I can ever run a marathon? I felt ridiculous for even thinking I could run 26.2 miles when I was struggling to finish a 7 mile run. I was struck with how absolutely long a marathon is and told my husband that if we did a marathon, I was probably gonna DNF.

But just as quickly as I was freakin out, after taking a couple longer minutes to walk then normal, I got over it. I gave up on my intervals and just fartleked the rest of the run. Running every 2 light posts, walking one light posts, or running until I felt like it and then walking. All I wanted to do was to get to 7 miles. 

I should mention that in the 2+ years of running and racing, we have probably done about 20 races. I've been slow in all, but never DNF and yet, I am always convinced I am not going to be able to finish. 

Why? I don't know. 

I guess at the beginning of training, I don't have the strength and base that I have towards the end. On my last two half-marathons, I trained for 16 weeks and 17 weeks. I ran all my scheduled long runs and improved my half-marathon time on the second one by 7 minutes. Not a huge accomplishment, I know, but my point is, I know that if you put in the time and the effort, you will see results.

So why did I freak out in the middle of a 7 mile run? The weather? My insecurities as a runner? No gu? Thirsty? Tired? I've had all these before, but not been that upset. 

But in the end, I did it. I ran all 7 miles. If it hadn't of been for my husband, I know I would not have been able to do it. 

Sometimes I feel like because I am not fast, because after 2 years I still walk a lot, that I am not a "real" runner. I mean, I consider myself a runner, but others who run a lot faster then me, would not consider these paces "a runner's pace". I guess I just need to remember something I hear a lot of people say:

You are running your own race, not someone else's. So there. :)

The long run vs. every other run in training

Today before work I had a short run of 1.57 miles. This is a picture from one of the entrances to San Gabriel Park.
This week's workouts so far:
Monday- 1.42 miles at Lake Pflugerville
.64 open water swim
Tuesday- 1.57 miles- (early morning route)

So, I noticed I tend to do a good job with slowly increasing my distance for my long runs when training. For example, for our last half-marathon, we had a 17 week training plan where we did long runs like such:
A- long run
B- little bit longer
C- little bit longer than B
D- rest week- easy runs, all shorter then the 3 previous weeks.
then repeat x times however

In the 17 weeks, we didn't really miss any of our scheduled long runs.
However, other then the long runs, we didn't really stick to any plan. Sure, I had pipe dreams of speed runs, hill repeats, mid-length runs and easy runs. But consistently, I just did a lot of short runs with a sprinkle of hill repeats, short/faster runs and occasional mid-length runs.
To get to my point sometime this century, I guess what I am saying is that I need to figure out a way to increase my distance of my runs during the week. I feel like on Sunday ( the day we usually do long runs) distance is the main event. I look forward and appreciate going further. I think the solution is to wake up earlier but does anyone else suffer from this during the week? I know that when preparing for a marathon, it is important to establish a good base, but I don't know the best way to do this when I feel like I'm not really  (yet) in enough shape to run a lot of miles during the week and during the weekend, and manage to have rest days.
Also, I really enjoy swimming as it makes my body feel better after a run and I don't want to sacrifice it that much but does that conflict with becoming a better runner? I feel like I hear so many mix messages on time advantage of cross-training vs. running more miles.

Race Day- 10k Race

I really liked today's race. I had a much better experience today then I had at our last race on July 4Th. I think the it's because:
-because we didn't work the day before the race. Usually we both have to work.
- we went to bed earlier. Still to late for how early we had to wake up, but still earlier then normal.
- I had a lot more practice for this particular race.
- I had a goal for what I wanted to do as far each mile.
- I had stuck by my interval training as best I could in the last month.

So, here's my recap for today as far as the good, the bad, and the ugly:

So, today was race day.
The good:
1. We were able to pick up are packets the day before so we didn't have to worry about it the day of.
2. We got some free samples like lotion and Luna bars. I also bought some cute pink tech socks that had the race organizations logo on it.
3. This was the first race event that we went to that had so many participants because there were four different races involved in it: the half-marathon, the 10k, the 5k and a one mile fun run.
4. We got a cool tech shirt. Its black and blue.
5. They had tacos and bananas after the race.
6. I was really proud of my husband! He did so good! He did the race in 58:21 minutes.
7. It was so cool because while I was running the race, so were the half marathoners. At one point the winner of the half marathon passed me up with the police motorcade. It was so cool to see how fast he was still able to go after ( what had for him been 12 miles already).
8. We actually got to travel to go to a race, which was a first. It was a 3 hour trip to Irving, which is where we have some friends and it was the first time I had ever been there and it was very pretty. Lots of trees.
9. It wasn't hot at all.
BUT MAINLY, AND I HAVE SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST:
10. I IMPROVED MY 10K RUN TIME 4 AND A HALF MINUTES FROM MY TRAINING RUN!! I DID 2 MINUTES FASTER THEN I WANTED TO DO!!!


The Bad:
There really wasn't that much bad about the race.
- they did not have any water bottles at all before the race. So it was 2 miles before I had any water because I left my water in the car. However, they had 2 water spots that we passed by 2x in route, so basically there were 4 stops to us to get either water or Gatorade.
-There was no 4 mile race sign that I saw. So i was starting to freak out because i was wondering what was taking me so long to reach the 4 mile mark. every previous mile before that i had exceed the goal i had for my self. But when i FINALLY saw the 5 mile mark, I FELT SO RELIEVED when I realized it was not in fact me.
- I seriously probably could have shaved at least 2 minutes off my time if I hadn't had to tie my shoelaces 4 freakin times throughout the race.

The Ugly:
First, the annoyance. That Gatorade was GAWD AWFUL. I appreciate them giving it us, but it tasted horrible. Like soap. Maybe it's just that flavor. But it was horrible.
Secondly, the blow.
I was so, so, so excited to see that they were going to be having free professional sport photographers. That is until I went to the website and saw the proofs of my picks. I look enormous. It is so embarrassing. My husband, who was not at all interested in the sports photos, looks awesome. He has great runners legs. Figures.
I need to be more disciplined in what I eat, because it's brutal to see those thunder thighs of mine. :(

The Lessons Learned:
I don't really know what lesson I learned from here. Other then, tie my shoes better and lose weight. The reality is that if I lost weight, that besides the DUH! benefits of being healthier, would make me faster. I also know that the only way to increase my speed is to increase the amount of time I spend running in my intervals. However, I have become pretty comfortable with my walk 2 minutes, run 1 minute ratios and it will be hard to move on from there.

We are planning on doing another race, just a small 5k in 2 weeks, which we still need to sign up for. I'm still hoping we do that 10 mile race at the end of the month, but like always, it just depends on how far along I have gotten in my long runs( current longest distance run is 6.62 miles, 3.38 miles short of 10 miles, which is a lot)
I really recommend this race. It was awesome. Pretty course, nice weather, nice amendments, the whole works.

This is a YouTube video that was on the NEW YORK Marathon's facebook page about a man who lost 120 pounds through running and eating healthier. Its really inspiring and beautiful and has coldplays " fix you" song,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SbXgQqbOoU

The little run that made 200 miles!

Who would have thought that 1.83 miles would make 200 miles?! Sound odd? Well, before today's run, I had exactly .5 miles to go to make 200 miles run since April 12th, 2010 when we first started running. And I wasn't to sure about today's run because it was before I had to go to work early in the morning and I've haven't run before work ( when I had to work in the morning specifically) in a while. But I was pleasantly surprised by the run. The weather felt great, it was about 75 degrees, which is the nice thing about running at 7.50 in the morning, the traffic wasn't too bad, although I did get stuck at a light for about a minute and thankfully, my ankle wasn't really hurting me. I felt kinda guilty about today's run to tell the truth because it was the first time I had run all week. And not running monday, tuesday and Wednesday is not like me. I strive to do at least 3 runs every week and that's hard to do when your first run of the week is on a Thursday. I know I will be running tomorrow morning (friday) and have a long run planned for Sunday. Still, Im a little disappointed in myself because I wanted to run 4 days this week like I did last week. I was able to get 13 miles last week, which is my general goal. I've only had that or around that distance like 2 or 3 times. Although Im not really a fan of running around our block, it is by far the most convenient. Without the drive, it makes starting early way easier.
Since Im not going to put a map up of where I ran because it's by where we live, I thought I would put a running memory pic up. The pic below is one of me and my husband right before our very first race ever!


So, I don't know how many of you are from and or live around Austin, but we've got a pretty cool sub place called Thunderclouds. The first time I went was in the one in Round Rock where we live. Then I use to go to the one by ACC campus when I was a student there a lot. More recently, I would frequent the one by airport when I use to work by there. At any rate, they are famous for having a race every thanksgiving. Im thinking about maybe doing it. Its a 5 mile race, which we have never run before and is ( according to their website) the LARGEST 5 mile race in texas:
www.thundercloud.com - look under Turkey Trot