Twin Cities Marathon race weekend

I am tempted to just jump to the good stuff and write up the race report, but rather than give away the ending, how about a little post about the few nerve-wracking days leading up to the big day?

Thursday
I was feeling anxious much of the week, but on Thursday the nerves really amped up.  It was seriously ridiculous how limited my attention span was.  I was twitchy and bouncing off the walls and couldn't focus for more than a few minutes at a time.  I got up and walked around my office like every 10 minutes for no reason.  I kept looking at the marathon website and obsessively eating every carbohydrate in a 50 mile radius. My coworkers noticed how anxious I was, and took every opportunity to laugh at how ridiculous I was being.

Friday
I took Friday off work, even though we weren't leaving town till early evening.  I used Friday to pace around a lot, clean up my playlist, charge up the Garmin, and pack.... and check, re-check, re-re-check the separate "marathon stuff only" bag I had packed.  Seriously, even though I KNEW I had packed everything I needed, I still had a moment of near panic when we were halfway to Mpls that I had forgotten my Garmin (I had not.  duh).  I was glad I took the day off to get things done and get the house ready for my awesome mother in law who would be wrangling the dynamic duo all weekend.  We took off for Mpls around 6:30 and were surprised how quickly we made it!  It had been quite awhile since we had taken a road trip without two young'ns.

Side note:
We scored a last minute hotel room in Downtown Minneapolis, only about 3 blocks from the Metrodome.  SCORE!

Side side note:
Said hotel was like straight up 1985 fabulous.  Don't believe me?  ZENITH TELEVISION.  For rizzles.  Don't believe me again?  PASTEL SEASHELL DECOR.  STILL need more proof?  Arcade with Ms Pac-Man.  BOOM.

Saturday
Was SO excited to sleep in.... but my stupid body woke up at 7am anyway.  Lamesville.  Enjoyed a fairly legit breakfast (the usual fare of thin bacon, subpar scrambled eggs, toast, yogurt, etc... BUT there was a made-to-order omelet station.  YES!)

Oh, speaking of breakfast, I am SO glad my pre-race neurosis helped me remember to plan ahead a breakfast strategy.  When we arrived at the hotel, I learned that breakfast on the weekends did not begin till 7am.... which would be too late for me on race morning.  Lucky for me, I packed two slices of wheat bread and a jar of Skippy Super Chunk in my marathon bag.  I was not going to risk not having my usual race meal.  Double lucky for me, the breakfast nook had a toaster available for me to use so I didn't have to try to chew on chewy non-toasted bread.  (People, there IS a difference, despite what my naysayer hubby might tell you).  Jay, ever supportive hubby, told me I was being ridiculous about the breakfast thing.  I say not.

Anywhooooo, the expo opened at 10am and we arrived pretty much right at 10.  Picked up my race stuff and walked around the expo, drooling over new running gear, but showing a great deal of self-control!  Ate random free samples of stuff, grabbed some GU free samples, and of course, a few bags of Old Dutch potato chips (how come they give away chips at every expo I've ever been to?).  The authors of my FAVORITE running books "Run Like a Mother" and "Train Like a Mother" had a table at the expo and I was super excited to meet them!  I took a photo with them and bought a shirt that said "It's fine, I ran today."  The only other thing I purchased was a 26.2 magnet for my car (which, by the way, if you have a plastic car, don't expect a magnet to stick to it... durh), and a pair of TCM Fitsoks (the BEST running sock).

After the expo, hubby and I struggled to think of something to do.  Funny that we had a weekend free from children and we couldn't figure out what to do with ourselves.  When in doubt, go to the best/worst place in the world:  Mall of America!  We grabbed a yummy Asian stir fry lunch, some gelato for dessert, and did a little shopping.  Since it's 1990 all over again, I bought myself a sweeeet pair of turquoise cords from Gap!  We also hit up a movie, which was nice because it was cheap, and it didn't require me to walk around all afternoon.

And of course, we had to pasta it up for dinner!  We met up with my friend Amanda (a kick ass runner and the person who told me I could totally run a marathon) and went for dinner in Uptown at this place called Rinata.  It was fantastic!  A little pizza and bread for appetizers and an amazing butternut squash ravioli for my main course.  Great food and lots of laughter helped me to feel a little less anxious about the next day.

We got back to the hotel by 9pm and I paced around for a good hour getting my bib pinned to my shirt and setting out all of my biz for the next morning.  Texted back and forth with Stacie about our plans for meeting up in the morning, and then a little more pacing.  I took two melatonin because I REALLY wanted to sleep that night.  And actually, I got okay sleep... a few wake ups, but not awful.

Oh, and during one of those wake ups, just before midnight, Jay told me that he was able to get us FREE Vikings tickets and did I want to go?  Um, DUH.  Bad idea to go directly from running a marathon to a Vikings game?  Probably.  Didn't care- was SO excited!

To be continued... up next, Race Report!

anxiety

5 more sleeps.

Okay, here's the dilemma of the day.  I was going to just put this all out on a status update on Facebook, but then I realized that 95% of my friends have got to be TOTALLY sick of reading about running and marathoning and carb-loading, and blah blah blah.

My dilemma is this:

Reeeeeemember how super crazy I was over the past couple of months with my waking up early and my running before work?  Reeeeeeemember how I was like super duper motivated and followed Hal Higdon's training plan to the T?

Tapering has effed that up.  BIG time. 

Now some sort of switch has flipped in my brain and I'm in total "rest and recovery" mode.  Which.... is kind of the point of tapering... but I have a hard time getting up early now because I'm all like "oh... the rest and sleep are good for me!" 

So every morning that I'm supposed to run over the past week and change has been a fight between running and resting.  Resting keeps winning the battle.  And then I feel all guilty and anxious and paranoid that I am totally screwing myself.  I haven't dropped out of running totally, so I shouldn't feel SO bad? 

Here's how last week looked:

Tuesday- 4 miles scheduled.  4 miles ran.  (go me!)
Wednesday- 6 miles scheduled.  SKIPPED IT.  Told myself I'd do it on Thursday.
Thursday- Skipped yesterday's 6 miler again.
Friday- Was going to run 3 miles.... skipped it.  Figured I would make up for it on Saturday because I was going to run my long run and a 5k.
Saturday- 8 miles scheduled for the long run.  Ran 6.  A couple of hours later ran in a 5K race... well... more like ran/walked

It felt like a huge fail of a week.... but I guess I still logged 13.  AND I got some good rest and feel like I am caught up on sleep.


This week:

Today I was supposed to run 3 and have not yet run it.  Now my problem is if I am going to run, I will have to do it tonight at like 9pm.  I KNOW if I run late at night, I will be tired for TOMORROW's run. 

So, my question is:
Is today's 3 miler THAT big of a deal?  Do I have permission to stop feeling guilty?  Can I just run my 4 mile tomorrow and stop feeling terrified that I've screwed my training over the past week or so? 


My anxiety is THROUGH THE ROOF!  AAACCCKKKK!!!!!

10 more sleeps!

HOLYCRAP.

Okay, this is going to be the worlds fastest blog post in the history of blog posts full of run on sentences and poor grammar.  I have been blog neglectful again and busy as heck!  I am on my lunch break right now obsessing about the coming marathon and taking a break from my to-do list to do a super efficient quick blog.

Bullet points, here we come!

• I am already obsessively checking the extended weather forecast for Mpls, MN.  Weather.com probably judges me for checking so much.  Eeeek- some days the extended forecast says it's gonna be sunny.... some days it says rain.  Please please please please no rain.  please.

• So tired of early waking.  So ready for training to be done.
• Taper.  It's weird, yo.  I carry this weird guilt.... and feel like I'm carrying extra poundage because my appetite still makes me eat like I'm running 35-40 miles a week and this week I think I'm supposed to run 21?
• Is it bad that I'm tempted to go tanning a couple of times before the race so I'm not a pasty gangsta?
• What am I going to wear??
• Have I mentioned how I'm SO ready for training to be done?
• Did my 20 mile run 1 1/2 weeks ago and it went GREAT!  So surprised!  BUT, at the end of the run I thought, um.... how in the world will I run another 6 on top of this?  UPHILL??
• Just checked the weather again.  54 and "a couple of showers."  
• Yes, I know, extended forecasts are wildly inaccurate.
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•  I had lots more to say......... but I'm about as scattered as they come right now.  

OH!  I am running the "Filthy 5k" on Saturday morning.  It's gonna be fun fun fun!  I am going to run it very slowly and very carefully so I don't slip in mud and injure myself!



I hope to sit down with my little blog here in the next handful of days and write a legit blog post.  This one was just to clear my brain of all the marathon clutter.

Oh!  I forgot I was going to blog about all the marathon related dreams/nightmares I've been having.  Too late for this post though.  Next time. 

TEN MORE SLEEPS!  AAACCCKKK!.

Finally Fall!!

Ahhh...... Fall is in the air and I am a happy happy girl!  I used to think that Spring was my favorite season, but over the years Fall has become my numero uno.  Let's just say that I would date Spring, but I would straight up marry the Fall.

Wait, that's a weird analogy.

Whatever.

What do I love so much about Fall?

Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks, jeans, scarves, hoodies, crisp air, FOOTBALL, crunchy leaves, Honeycrisp apples, boots, chili, low humidity (which equates to good hair days), and THE MOST PERFECT RUNNING WEATHER.

My Beloved Pumpkin Spice Latte

The running as of late has been glorious.  After a hot, humid Summer of running in the thick steamy air and sweating upon walking outdoors, the cool, crisp air of Autumn is refreshing.  I feel like I can truly breathe and enjoy my runs now rather than just survive it.

This past weekend I went on a weekend retreat to the Brainerd area (to those unfamiliar, it is a gorgeous tree and lake filled wonderland in MN).  I have attended this retreat for the past 10 years and love catching up with old friends and making new friends.  I love being in nature (but having comfortable modern cabins in which to sleep).   Most importantly, I was beyond thrilled that I was going to be able to run there this year!  Last year I was trying to shake off injury and could only manage 2 miles.  This year I had a 12 mile to do and I couldn't wait!

I felt at such peace during that run.  I loved to take in the scenery, stop every so often and snap a picture, and just breathe in the cool Fall air.  My friends Laura and Olivia joined me for the first few miles of my run and then I finished the last 9 solo.  I missed my training partner Stacie, but through the joys of iPhone, we snapped the occasional photo and shared them with one another while we were doing our runs in different cities.

Sorry I have been neglectful of the blog over the past handful of weeks.  I find it's much harder to keep up the blog now that I am back at work full time and the miles are getting longer and longer.  The updates may be sparse, but I'll do my best to keep you all updated on the rest of training!

One month till the big day!  This week is going to be my highest mileage week of the whole training and then the taper begins.... ALREADY??

Upcoming:  5 Tuesday, 10 Wednesday, 5 Thursday, and 20 FREAKING MILES on Saturday!  Lord help me!

Oh and I still need to write a race report for the Women Rock MN 1/2 marathon I ran over Labor Day weekend.  No promises, but that should happen... soon?  Hopefully this week?

Happy running my friends!!

A sampling of the scenery during my 12 mile run in Crosslake, MN!

Almost getting blown away by gale force winds!

Minnesotans LOVE their Honeycrisp apples.

Happy for scarf season!

Some bad ass hills

a catch up post

Whooops!

Not sure where the past 2.5 weeks have gone, but I seem to have lost steam on the ol blog.  I am sure my 16 followers are WAY bummed about this! :)

A super quick catch all blog, filled with lazy bullet points and random punctuation.

• The past two weeks I have done my longest runs to date!  15 and 16 miles!  They really don't feel a lot different than 12 and 13 mile runs- what a huge relief.  I have a feeling that 26.2 WILL feel different.  I have a feeling the next big runs (18 and 20) will feel a little tougher.
• Carb loading should be a sport of its own.  I would win a gold medal for sure.
• I'm watching Teen Mom right now.  Is anyone else totally OVER this show?  Farewell Maci, Farrah, Amber, and Caitlin.  I'm done!
• I've never ever ever been a morning person.  I've never ever ever successfully been a morning exerciser.  The past few weeks, however, I've been up between 4 and 430am to finish my run before work.  Woo hoo!  It sucks so much!  
• My midweek runs are starting to get long.  This week I run 4, 8, 5.  8 is hard to squeeze in before work (hence, the 4am wakeup!)
• Fun fact:  The Real World is STILL A SHOW.  (this is what happens when I try to blog with MTV on in the background)
• We got YMCA memberships!  After this marathon is done-zo, I'm going to have a little cooling off period with the running and focus some more time on strength training and short speedy runs.  
• I went to my first spinning class since 2006.  I remembered it being a terrible experience last time I went, which is why it took me 6 years to try it again.  This time around was an awesome experience!  Since last time they have new bikes, a new cycling studio, and I am just overall more accustomed to biking.  I can't wait to have more time to do spinning!
• I think I might just be really tired tonight, but in this moment I am feeling kind of burnt out from my training.  
• Also I think people might be getting tired of me posting about running all the time on Facebook!  
• The hubster continues to be very accommodating when it comes to my training.  It DOES take up a lot of time.  He is great about not complaining *too* much :)  In turn, I try to run as early as possible so I don't dip into family time as much.

This was a super crappy blog post!

I hope to keep caught up now :)

Till next time!

8 weeks done- almost to the halfway point!

What day is it?  I'm all confuzzled and discombobulated today as I try to get myself oriented to the real world of work!  Today I am back at work again full time (the beauty of a 10 month position is having June and July off of work!) and I am trying to figure out how to adjust my training schedule now that I have 45 less hours a week available for running! Buuut, I'll let you know what I figured out in the next recap post.

For now, here's how week 8 shook out!

Hal Higdon told me to run this:
Monday- Rest
Tuesday- 3 miles
Wednesday- 6 miles
Thursday- 3 miles
Friday- Rest
Saturday- Rest
Sunday- Half marathon

This is what actually happened:
Monday- shopping all day in Minneapolis (this MUST count for some sort of exercise, right?  trying on clothes all day long sure felt like a lot of work!).  One of the upsides to doing all of this running and biking is that I am working on exchanging my old wardrobe for SMALLER sizes!  Woo hoo!

Tuesday- 3.12 miles at 9:36 pace.  Great run that morning- I decided to go the extra .10 mile to make it a 5k and see if I *could* run a sub 30 minute 5k.  And I did!  Woo!!

Wednesday- 6 miles at 10:22 pace.  A humid, rainy run.  Felt good though!  It was my birthday and I turned the big 3-4 that day.  A great start to a new year!

Thursday- ......... **crickets**  ...... *hello? anybody there?*..........
Um, oops?  Nah, I didn't do a damn thing that day.  I also decided to continue the birthday eating binge this day as well.  What happened was I had an early meeting at work this day and wasn't going to be able to squeeze in the 3 mile run.  I rationalized it because I had every intention of doing my Thursday night bike ride that evening.  Well, it was just a busy day and the weather was spotty.  Off and on rain, coupled with wind and I just didn't feel it.  Instead I went to Buffalo Wild Wings and binged on subpar wings.

Friday- Rest, in the form of sitting on my butt in a car for 13 hours (though it felt more like 1300 hours).  First day of our family vacation to Chadron, NE.  There was a whole lotta SD to cover first though!  I never realized how BIG South Dakota was, until I had to seemingly drive through every square mile of it.  Yes, I'm exaggerating, but I'm just saying, long road trips plus small children= frazzled parents.

Saturday- 2.08 miles at 10:04 pace.  My sister in law warned me that running at higher elevation might be a little tough.  I was also aware that this area of Nebraska was MUCH more hilly than flat Fargo.  So, still feeling a little guilty for skipping my 3 mile on Thursday, and feeling a little curious about what it's like to run in higher elevations before I embarked on my 13 miler the next day, I went out for a quick 2 mile trial run.... holy cow!  That felt like a very hard 2 miles.  Hills and elevation are no joke.  Granted, I wasn't running on a mountain in Colorado or anything, but there are some pretty significant hills to climb in Chadron, NE.

Sunday- 12.86 miles at 11:38 pace.  I was shocked that this run went as well as it did!  After my tough 2 mile the previous day, I fully anticipated dying during this run... either that or having to run way slow.  Usually my long runs are around a 11:30 pace, but I fully expected to do 12:00 or even slower.  To run almost my usual pace is pretty shocking!  The route we took was gorgeous, as we ran along a really scenic highway.  We ran early  (5am) to beat the heat, and we were lucky to have overcast skies during much of the run.  Lots of scenery to look at and we even encountered some wildlife.  We saw a large snake coiled up on the side of the highway, we saw a large turkey meet its unfortunate death when it was hit by a semi (said turkey was hit and then almost hit US!), and we saw a handful of deer.  Overall we had a loss of elevation, so I think that definitely contributed to my faster pace, but there was still some hills to climb along the way.  I was proud of myself after finishing that run- great to push myself to run in conditions to which I'm unaccustomed and fun to see new sights!
EDIT:
My WONDERFUL husband pointed out to me that I made very little mention about him in this run (though the photos below prove he was there).  It was a lot of fun to get to run together, which is something we rarely get to do.  We were even awesome enough to take self portraits WHILE running.  We did wait until after the run to post them on Facebook though :)   

So, that's the week!  After I finish this week of training, I am officially at the halfway point!  So excited!

Happy Wednesday!

Scheels Run for the Red 5k- race recap

This was THE.HOTTEST.RUN.I.HAVE.EVER.DONE.IN.MY.LIFE.

95 degrees or so at race time (6pm).  Humid as a mofo.  Sunny sunny sunny.

Sounds like a great evening for a race, yes?  No, not really... but it had been a couple of months since I'd gotten a "free" race shirt, and I was jonesing for a new one!  My scheduled training run for the day was 3 miles, so I thought I may as well sign up. 

As I like to do, I encouraged forced a couple of friends to join in on the fun... since misery loves loves loves company! 

I went about the earlier part of my day as normal, but realized around 2pm that I hadn't really had a drop of water all day.  Ooops!  Sista needs to hydrate for running in 973% humidity and 432 degree temperatures!  It was a busy day- I worked and then I donated plasma.  Sometimes people ask me if I should be donating on days I workout, because it might not be safe or it might deplete my energy.  I don't have any scientific evidence, but from all I have read, it IS safe to donate.  I have never had any ill effects from it, and I always feel fine after donation.

I got to Scheels about an hour before the race to pick up my packet and meet up with Angie and Beth.  Suddenly I was overcome with the thought of "I SO don't want to run this."  Great positive attitude.  I think I also repeated about 50 times something about HATING 5k's.  It was just so hot out, I was getting cranky.  OH and it was windy too!

Anyway, we made our way to the starting line, I grumbled a bit more, and it was time to run!

So I ran.  And it was hot.  And it felt hard!  And about 1/2 mile in to my run, I realized WHY it felt so hard- my Garmin showed that my average pace thus far was UNDER 8 min/ miles.  It was somewhere around 7:50 something.  What the WHAT?!?!  I don't DO THAT.  This might have been great and awesome if this was a low-pressure training run, but I knew that I couldn't maintain such a pace, and I had a feeling I was draining ALL of my energy and might have some struggles near the end of the race. 

I slowed down, but still ended up finishing that first mile in under 9 minutes.  Holy cow!  And I was still feeling pretty good after mile one.  I knew there was going to be a water station somewhere between mile one and two, and I figured I would just keep running till the water station and then let myself have a quick walk break (since I haven't really mastered the art of running and drinking).

Started to run out of steam before I even hit the water station, so I took a quick 15 second walk break and made my way to the water.  I drank half and dumped half on my head.  And suddenly this felt like the longest 3.1 miles ever.  Starting up again felt tough and from here on out, I really struggled.

I finished mile 2 with about a 9:30 pace (I don't have exact stats and will tell  you why soon).

The last mile of the race was a mental battle.  I was tired and hot and zapped.  I took several walk breaks and slowly watched my "average pace" on the Garmin creep higher and higher.  I forgot to do the exact calculation prior to the race to know what pace I needed to run under 30 minutes, and I really wish I would have!  In my mind I was thinking I needed around 9:42 pace to go Sub-30 (it's really like 9:37).  So as I was run/walking the last mile, I was just trying to keep my average pace under that 9:42 mark.

I crossed the finish line in 30:26. 

Okay, BEFORE I complain about how I didn't meet my sub-30 minute goal, let me say how excited I am that I PR'd like CRAZY in this race!  I ran the St Patty's Day 5k in 32:17, so I PR'd this race by 1:51.  Not too shabby to slice that much time off a 5k!

But COME ON, I was THISCLOSE to going Sub-30.  Perhaps if I would have known a more exact pace to keep, I could have mentally got myself to run that.  My own fault. 

For the next half hour after the race, I focused my energy on not passing the hell out.  On more than a few occasions, I started to get dizzy and see spots (I'm no "doctor" or anything, but friends, I think that's no good!).  After I finally cooled myself to the point where I wasn't literally bursting into flames, I felt a little better.

I checked the race results when I got home and it turns out I was 5th out of 43 in my age group!  I finished 83 out of 273 runners!  That might not sound super duper impressive, but to finish in the top half is HUGE for me!  Especially since speed is SO not my strength.  I'm much more comfortable running 10 easy miles than I am running 3 fast miles. 

So, overall, I'm really proud of myself!  I feel like my hard work is paying off and it's a huge motivator to keep pushing myself.

One sad note about the race is immediately following the race, my poor poor Garmin locked up on me.  It got all sorts of wonky and wouldn't let me upload my run to my computer.  OF COURSE.  The ONE run I really wanted to look at stats and upload it to Runkeeper, and I couldn't. 

I had to call Garmin and they were super nice and helpful and even though I think the problem was fixed after doing a master reset, I opted to have it sent in and replaced with a new one since it was still under warranty.  This was the first issue I'd had with it, so I'm not saying it's not still a great watch... just unfortunate that it had to konk out on me after a great race!  Lucky for me I can borrow my hubby's Garmin till my new one arrives!