Long Run with Hubby Support

So it's taper time for next week's half in Annapolis. We were out of town for a few days at my inlaws, and I needed to get 6 miles in. This is definitely on the shorter end of my long runs these days. Never thought those words would come out of my mouth. Being out of town meant no run with my buddies that I have come to rely on these last several months.

My inlaws live in the middle of nowhere. It's quiet and peaceful and very flat, think pancakes. If I head out from their house and take a right, I can get three miles before hitting the main road. Perfect for a 6 miler except for I am now spooked. You don't see any, make that no, runners out here, but you see lots of hunters. I wish I didn't think this way but a run where I am looking over my shoulder the entire time is not how I envision a peaceful time.

This is where hubby became my hero this weekend. He got to use his new toy, a fat tire bike with a borrowed basket. He kept calling himself my mobile SAG. He was so proud of himself.

Just a really cool shot. We are in the middle of nowhere.

Pretend you only see the cows and beautiful day in the background. There is no heel striking and over-striding here. Nope, you don't see any of that. I promise as soon as this half is over, I'm going to have a gait analysis and start back on my core strengthening. If I don't, someone please smack me.

The mandatory action shot.

And the staged shot to show off the bike. I have one awesome hubby to cruise around and keep me company for 6 miles. Thanks and love you dude.

The other crazy part about this run. I purposely waited until 11:00 am to run so it would be warmer. Next week in Annapolis, the low is 70 and a high of 80, and I was not successful at any heat acclimation with this run. I'm not sure what's going on with this crazy weather, I only wish it would last one week. This girl is going to melt into a puddle.

And thanks Emma, the new Lucy top was awesome. Cool and comfortable, lots of pockets, just wish it wasn't quite so see through. The hubby liked that part. ;)

And because my hubby made the effort to video me. Please ignore me adjusting my shorts. Oh well.

 

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Can this weather hold?

I left work almost on time tonight. Headed home instead of the gym to sneak in 3 taper miles before dinner. After a rainy day, the sun was shining and I could wear a skirt and test my shirt for Sunday (glad I did). Since time was on my side, I started making dinner first to get it started. Spinach ravioli bake was a first time recipe and a hit with both me and hubby.

But back to running. Why can't I slow down when I know I have such a big goal in front of me? The first mile chimed at 9:07 which is race pace. Slow the heck down. I did manage a little better for the rest. Must have been the 70 degree weather, birds chirping, sun out that made me do it.

Love that blue sky.

And the bright pop of yellow in the yard.

And just because I was having a craptastic day until I saw this, and I actually laughed out loud.

Credit

I'm heading to the treadmill on Thursday for the last run so I can slow down and give the legs a rest. Fingers crossed. And the shirt tag on the side chafed me, so I need to perform some tag surgery. This is the one and only running gear that has caused chafing, go figure it would be a shirt for my first half. Glad I listened to advice and tested everything.

 

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Taper time or not

I am getting excited. This time next week, I will be in Virginia Beach hopefully sleeping prior to a 7 am start for my first half marathon.

Even with the stress of work, I have gotten my runs in and I have tried to focus on improving my pace. I used McMillan to set my ranges, but found I was running more of my weekly runs on the slower end of the range.

My running partner, L, wanted to push the pace for this last long run to see if she was ready to tackle a sub-2 goal next weekend. I told her to go ahead and she what she could do. I was feeling pretty good and stayed with her the first mile and a half before I dropped back a bit. But not as much as I thought I would need.

I can't believe I was able to do this, and it was completely doable.

I checked to see how this compared to other "fast" times for me. My three faster times were all races with great PRs for me. Hopefully, this is a good omen of times to come. Fingers crossed.

My toes are green and ready. And I loved being comfortable wearing flip flops this afternoon.

I will be tapering the rest of the week.

 

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Darn you little pieces of chocolate goodness

Dark Chocolate Pomegranate

These little nuggets of goodness are my complete weakness right now. I even try to measure out a serving size, but it just doesn't work. I love my hubbie, but I hope he doesn't bring me another BJ's size of these beauties anytime soon.

I think all 6 miles on tomorrow's schedule may just be to run these things off. Wish me willpower luck tomorrow.

 

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If you do what you are supposed to do ...

then you are able to run without knee pain. The plan called for 10 miles on Saturday, which I gladly deferred until today.

All the way around, a better run today than last week. I used the handy dandy cadence alarm on my way too complicated Garmin 610. If you need a watch with more bells and whistles than this watch, make sure you have your PhD first. But this watch keeps me on track. If I get sloppy with not enough steps per minute, then buzz ... signal to pick those feet up. Average cadence = 87 or 174 steps per minute.

The route was tricky with several turns downtown (one wrong turn), and a little tiring with all the waiting at stoplights. By the time we got to mile 8, L and I were both quiet and wanting to get this done. Speeding up for the last little bit helped ... and I felt good the rest of the day. Long run accomplished. And the new Brooks felt great.

And hopefully, this is what I'll be doing this time next year.

Courtesy of Run Disney.

Jill

 

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Got to keep on moving

I am so close to my first half, knee don't fail me now. After last week's cut short long run, I was happy for a fall back week. I skipped the recovery run to rest, ice, stretch, you know the drill. On Monday, I did all the exercises my strength coach gave me that I never did before. Shh, don't tell her. Lots of core work to keep my gluts engaged and not sloppy as the miles increase.

I did hit the treadmill for 3 miles on Tuesday, and all felt well (knocking on my wooden head). Aren't you jealous of this amazing fashion assemble I put together below. I sent my BRF a picture to make her jealous or happy she wasn't there to be embarrassed.

I finally got a happy phone call on Tuesday too to let me know my shoes I ordered 3 weeks ago were in. I hate wearing a size 12 because everything has to be ordered, and there was some mixup with my order and it didn't go through the first time. Good thing I am a shoe stalker for my local running store and kept calling to see where these babies were. I cannot believe I ordered Diva Pink, but considering the other options were awful looking, pink it is.

I have worn them for two 3 mile runs so far, and I love the Brooks PureFlow 2. I might even love them more than my PureConnects but since I haven't tried the second version of that shoe (I would love to try them if someone would send me a pair. Hint, hint), I will hold my opinion until I have some more miles on them.

Since my two running buds have conflicts with the long run on Saturday, we decided earlier in the week to wait until Sunday. Boy, I am glad for that call.

This was the radar for this morning. So I knocked out my recovery run a day early ... on the treadmill because I didn't want to go swimming. Actually, it wasn't that bad outside, I just wasn't in the mood to get wet after last week's snowy run. The win for the week was an average steps per minute of 178 for all three runs and this = no knee pain. Woot, woot!

I really should be sleeping because I have 10 on the schedule for tomorrow this morning. Fingers crossed my gluts stay strong. Nighty, nite.

Jill

 

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It was a cold and snowy day

And I was slated to run 13 miles ... but the recovery run on Sunday didn't go well. How do you screw up a recovery run? You run 4 miles on a hilly, trail on tired legs which makes your ITB hurt AGAIN! Ughh!

I ran 6 miles on the treadmill on Tuesday with my ITB strap, and everything felt okay.

I took Valentine's Day off because I had a late work meeting, my knee was ehhh, and I wanted to spend time with my best guys.

I foam rolled, stretched, iced, but still didn't think 13 miles was the best idea today. The other group was doing 10, and both groups were doing loops so I had lots of options. My BRF is a fair-weather runner, so the forecast of rain and snow wasn't going to work for her. My new RF, L, also had a tough week & wasn't ready for 13 either.

It hadn't started snowing yet, but by the time we started it was 37 and snowy big, fat flakes. It was going okay, until about mile 8 when the knee started barking. And L was having issues as well. We cut the 10 mile run short to 9.3 miles because we had to get back to our cars.

So more foam rolling, stretching, icing, and careful analysis of my cadence count. Which stunk. I've gotten sloppy or lazy or something, and it has to stop. Here's to a cadence that comes back into line. Quickly!

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Long run done ... 12 miles

Even with a stressful week at work, I had a fairly good run week.

A 6 mile progressive run on the treadmill for Tuesday and a 5 mile treadmill run on Wednesday were on the schedule. About half way through the 6 mile run, I realized I have been loafing on my paces during the week. Most of my long runs have been faster than the during the week runs. Time to pick up the pace. Well, that's what McMillian tells me.

So I picked it up for an average pace of 9:39 for Tuesday by bumping up the speed each mile. I have to say the faster I went, the better and easier it felt. On Wednesday I decided to start out faster and it was pretty much 5 miles of a sucky run, but I averaged 9:27.

I was trying not to be head case, but 12 miles had me worried. Eleven was tough. So instead of staying home and resting up, I had a late dinner date with my bestie and the girls to celebrate two birthdays. I behaved with one glass of wine and a fairly well-balanced dinner. No greasy food, and only one small piece of dark chocolate infused with chili for dessert. Unfortunately, I didn't head to bed until midnight with an alarm set for 6:30. Ughh!

Most of my buds were dropping back to the 9 mile group this week ... and I forgot my music. Luckily, my normal partner was able to do the full 12 with me. She had a tough week & didn't hit her weekly runs. All went well until about 11 when I felt the crazy ITB "awareness." I realized I was getting lazy with my form and cadence, so I paid more attention to finish it off. I will say that I knew we would hit 12 miles before the parking lot. I told L that when the watch hit 12, I was done. No room for over-achievement today.

I felt strong after the run ... much better than after 11. Here's the only photo of the day, another L & I from a local mom's group. She is going to do awesome in her half next week.

I did need an almost 2 hour nap to recover after watching my Tar Heels get obilerated by the Hurricanes.

Do you use McMillian or other pace calculator?

If you do, how often are you successful in hitting all your goal paces?

I need to work on this more consistently.

Does anyone else's Garmin have crazy estimates for your calorie burn?

I do wear my HRM, and it reported I burned 13 calories for each of the first 2 miles. Are you kidding me?

 

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Long run catch up

My first 11 mile run weekend was a little chaotic thanks to a winter storm that blew through the mid-Atlantic. Thankfully the run was cancelled early Saturday morning due to snow and icy sidewalks. Very little off the beaten path gets cleared in our town. Not enough bad weather to need lots of snow equipment. Everyone usually waits for it to melt.

We the long run postponed until Sunday, a friend and I ventured out later on Saturday for our 4 mile recovery run a day early. The roads were fine, sidewalks were still iffy. The route was nuts, but good chatting time with a friend and 4 miles done. It takes out and back to a whole new level.

Fast forward to 9:30 on Sunday morning, and we were off to conquer 11 miles. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, it was a tough run. It was an out with a loop and back down a long road where we were on sidewalks (not my favorite surface). The loop was through a park which had a great frozen pond, but I didn't think my running partners would appreciate the photo stop. I also forgot to restart my watch after a brief map checking stop, so I lost about 0.4 mile. And I want that 0.4 on the record.

I wasn't worried about pace. I just wanted to get it done, so I was pleasantly surprised on how close I was to a consistent pace. And I finished strong at the end. When we stopped, my first thought was "Snapalicious" to describe how my hamstrings felt. Glad it was done, and I knew I could have gone longer.

The next week is a roll-back week so I could rest a bit before ramping up to 12. Tell me why I want to do this again.

Oh yeah, to accomplish something new. And to push myself out of a comfort zone. Definitely pushed on this one.

 

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Frostbite 15k 2013

Why is it when you have actual content to blog about, you don't have time to blog? So, lets see what I can do to get back on track.

What does any sane person do when they are missing their long run due to be out of town? They sign up to hit a new long distance at a race. Why not? We headed down to Chapel Hill on Saturday to watch the TarHeels beat up on Maryland. Go Heels!

I talked my running buddy to sign up for this with me. She has already ran one half, so no new mileage milestones for her, but she is awesome for playing along. My other buddy picked up my race bib for me. Since the race was only a 9.3, I planned on meeting L a little early so we could warm-up and I could hit 0.7 miles. I AM OCD, but I really wanted to hit the magic 10.

Let's do this.

Warm-up 0.75 miles/7:36

It was chilly but not too cold and bonus for the gym being open so we could stay warm. The course is an out and back, and take note, not my favorite thing for a 9 mile course. Somehow I forgot some of the hills we ran down on the way out. How do you like that foreboding?

They were rolling little inclines, but were tougher than I thought. My goal was to run this closer to 10 min miles since I am inching up the mileage. Did I meet that goal? Fail.

I told L to go at the turn-around because I knew she was cruising along. I felt good, but didn't want to push this. With the exception of mile 6, I stayed pretty consistent in the 9:40s.

And a race picture I may actually buy, for a race that I didn't race. I love that big cheesy smile, because everything is clicking.

Overall results: 1:29:58

10 miles was tough, but I've got this. 11 for this weekend, if snow doesn't shut the city down.

 

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Amazing weather day & a new record

So what do you do on a cloudy but warm day? Head out for a 4 mile recovery run along a scenic riverside route. And what do you know, by the time we got there, the sun came out. 65 degrees in January. I will take this, especially after last week's run in the mid-20s.

Families were out walking, and we passed many smiling runners coming and going on this out and back course. They are replacing a bridge nearby, so we had to go off-road and a little mud sliding through a construction zone. But all in the name of fun.

Yes, I am that tall. ;) How is this for an amazing stretch spot, and with awesome views.

4.03 miles in 42:49. It's hard to slow down for these recovery runs, but getting better at it.

Which gives me a new record. 22.14 miles in a week. I'm not sure why Daily Mile is showing a week 54.

I am trusting the plan, and it is working. So excited to tackle 10 miles this next weekend.

 

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Holiday Fun

Yes, I dressed up in a completely ridiculous outfit to celebrate the holidays. Only one other person in my training group participated, but I forgot to get a picture. So, hubby to the rescue for a photo of just me when I got home. I love my new Target socks.

I take myself way too seriously at work, and in general for life. My morning was made when my son saw my getup and said "Mommy, your running group if going to love your outfit." The smile on his face was perfect.

Sometimes, you just need to lighten up and say "Merry Christmas."

 

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