This week has had crazy weather and has made me too excited for Spring. It started with snow on Sunday, but was nearly 70 degrees on Wednesday and I even saw a butterfly and some ladybugs. It was so nice to run in shorts and tank. All was bright and sunny until yesterday. Now there is 8 inches of snow outside and its freezing...back to the tights today.
Its been a while since my last post so lets see if I can sum up my life. Its been a bit busy: I'm working nearly full-time, training really hard, and studying for my Professional Engineers license (an 8 hour test of all 5 areas of civil engineering that I learned in school and don't use daily). Needless to say I'm exhausted, but still running quite well.
I've had some great workouts and good mileage. My mile at Air Force was better than I thought. I ran a 5:10 and left the college girls in the dust, not that I was that fast, but they just didn't come with me. I ran a 3k at CSM for a workout and then a 10 mile tempo in the Snowman Stampede. Shout out to the director and volunteers of the Snowman Stampede...they were awesome and put on a great race. As Tera mentioned there was a few icy spots, but I had more issues with the wind that wanted to knock me down. I ran very well and averaged 6:07 over a hilly course...huge improvement from 6 months ago. I agree with Tera, everyone should do this race, its so much fun.
Last weekend I raced the Runnin' of the Green 7k. I had a great day, not as fast as I hoped but felt wonderful and raced well to first place. I guess I expected the course to be quick since it was in the City (Denver), but it was rolling hills the entire way. Luckily the weather held off till after the cool down and then it started snowing.
Coming up...a 1500m at Greeley (that will be interested) and 5k at the Arizona Sun Angel track meet. It will be the first 5k on the track for me for the last 3 years!! I'm super excited, but nervous of how fast I will run. I'm hoping to be close to where I was in college, but I now I still have a long way to go with training to truly be there. Maybe I'll surprise myself and run amazing or I'll struggle to break 17 min. Either way it will be good to see where I am and what I need to do to get to where I want to be.
Congrats to everyone who raced in the St Patty's Day races and Gate River.
Boulder Running Company/adidas Race Team Blog
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Adventures in Jacksonville
Well the 15k Champs were....interesting....as stated a few posts down. On the plus side of things, it was a great course, we had a great crew, Richard Fannin and co. did a fabulous job with the organization of everything, conditions were pretty good on race-day, no glitches in travel aside from a slightly delayed flight on Air Transvestite (as Paul refers to it) getting there, the spectators at the course were great, we had a lot of fun, I met like a million famous people, and of those Leanne who works for USATF is arguably the coolest lady in the history of Ever, and how many people can really say they've met the coolest lady in the history of Ever?
The race itself on the other hand was a bit of a wash. Summary: I was pretty nervous going into it (what else is new?) and kicked around till about 2 a.m. the night before, got up at 4:45 and did a shake-out with Adrian and Nicole at 5 and force-fed myself a banana, then we took the ferry to the course. Warmed up and such, I got lost on the way to the starting line with Colleen De Reuck and Sara Slattery (we were in the bathroom line when they took everyone to the line), got there, gun went off, and I pretty much fell of pace somewhere around the 5k (I really don't remember where), passed the 5k in like 18:40-something and remember thinking that sure felt dadgum difficult for not being too quick. But I dismissed that thought pretty fast (negative thoughts in a race are a no-no) and I just tried to break the race up in my head into 5k segments but by this time was getting passed by some gals who were initially behind me as well as some of the leading guys who started 5 minutes after us. Since there were groups passing me then I tried to go with some of them and tried to stick with Adrian when she passed, but to no avail. I told myself not to panic because there were a couple really good hills coming up where we go over the bridges and I'm generally stronger on hills than on flats, so I figured I'd catch plenty there. That didn't happen either and instead I pretty much got owned. That basically sums it up. Since it was my first 15k though, at least I can say I ran a PR--however ugly it might have been. Maybe I forgot to pack my Mojo.
At any rate I got a lot out of the experience. Getting to be around the Most Elite of the Elite in the running world, I got to see what they do. If anything else I figured out that the "Little Things" that you do outside of running get to matter as much as the training itself once you are at a higher level. Once you get there, EVERYONE is just as dedicated to running (and just running is the easy part) and EVERYONE wants to be good. Just plain doing the work and being committed isn't quite enough, everyone's doing that. So basically you have to live it all the time--they're all really careful about what they eat and doing all the seemingly tedious things in addition to training (the drills, the strides, the core work, etc.) and those things add up HUGE over years of training and ultimately separate the Good from the Really Good, so I gotta focus on those things more than I have been and make some training adjustments in the process. I mean okay they all cut really loose at the after-party but you get where I'm coming from.
Okay this is getting waaaaaay too long. Great job to everyone who competed around the state at all the various St.Patty's Day races--hopefully no one drank too much green beer. And of course thanks to the guys and gals (Adrian, Nicole, Jason, Greg, Paul, and I guess Tommy) who went out to Jax for making it a fun trip. Never a dull moment.
And special thanks to Dan Browne for unknowingly bearing the brunt of oh so many jokes. He really is a swell guy.
The race itself on the other hand was a bit of a wash. Summary: I was pretty nervous going into it (what else is new?) and kicked around till about 2 a.m. the night before, got up at 4:45 and did a shake-out with Adrian and Nicole at 5 and force-fed myself a banana, then we took the ferry to the course. Warmed up and such, I got lost on the way to the starting line with Colleen De Reuck and Sara Slattery (we were in the bathroom line when they took everyone to the line), got there, gun went off, and I pretty much fell of pace somewhere around the 5k (I really don't remember where), passed the 5k in like 18:40-something and remember thinking that sure felt dadgum difficult for not being too quick. But I dismissed that thought pretty fast (negative thoughts in a race are a no-no) and I just tried to break the race up in my head into 5k segments but by this time was getting passed by some gals who were initially behind me as well as some of the leading guys who started 5 minutes after us. Since there were groups passing me then I tried to go with some of them and tried to stick with Adrian when she passed, but to no avail. I told myself not to panic because there were a couple really good hills coming up where we go over the bridges and I'm generally stronger on hills than on flats, so I figured I'd catch plenty there. That didn't happen either and instead I pretty much got owned. That basically sums it up. Since it was my first 15k though, at least I can say I ran a PR--however ugly it might have been. Maybe I forgot to pack my Mojo.
At any rate I got a lot out of the experience. Getting to be around the Most Elite of the Elite in the running world, I got to see what they do. If anything else I figured out that the "Little Things" that you do outside of running get to matter as much as the training itself once you are at a higher level. Once you get there, EVERYONE is just as dedicated to running (and just running is the easy part) and EVERYONE wants to be good. Just plain doing the work and being committed isn't quite enough, everyone's doing that. So basically you have to live it all the time--they're all really careful about what they eat and doing all the seemingly tedious things in addition to training (the drills, the strides, the core work, etc.) and those things add up HUGE over years of training and ultimately separate the Good from the Really Good, so I gotta focus on those things more than I have been and make some training adjustments in the process. I mean okay they all cut really loose at the after-party but you get where I'm coming from.
Okay this is getting waaaaaay too long. Great job to everyone who competed around the state at all the various St.Patty's Day races--hopefully no one drank too much green beer. And of course thanks to the guys and gals (Adrian, Nicole, Jason, Greg, Paul, and I guess Tommy) who went out to Jax for making it a fun trip. Never a dull moment.
And special thanks to Dan Browne for unknowingly bearing the brunt of oh so many jokes. He really is a swell guy.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Gate River and Beyond!!!
Gate River Run (15k) was ok, but a little disappointing, in the fact that I felt pretty good after the first mile and I ran a 4.38. I should have been with the lead pack through the first mile and hung on for dear life as long as I could. Well that was the plan at least. The one thing I can take out of the race is that I know I'm ready to race up front with the leaders now at US championships... well at least for the first couple of miles. I have to execute my race strategy, because you never know when it's a good day or bad day! I wasted a good day to run really fast... that feels way worse then those days you just feel like crap and you can't do anything about it.
However, the race was crappy, but man is our team awesome! I know for a fact that most teams were a little jealous of how much fun and extremely cool we were! hahaha well great time and great friends! In any situation, all I have to say is WWAD (What Would Art Do) and we would do the most bad ass thing you could think of!!!
"Beyond"
I just got 2 emails back from race directors, I'm going to Crescent City 10k in New Orealins the first of next month, Bloomsday 12k in Spokane, wa, the end of April, and then Boulder Bolder 1ok! I'm soo ready for the Crescent City 10k! prefect timing to race really fast out of Gate River.
Oh, happy late Pie day!! or Pi day or π day - I had cherry pie!
However, the race was crappy, but man is our team awesome! I know for a fact that most teams were a little jealous of how much fun and extremely cool we were! hahaha well great time and great friends! In any situation, all I have to say is WWAD (What Would Art Do) and we would do the most bad ass thing you could think of!!!
"Beyond"
I just got 2 emails back from race directors, I'm going to Crescent City 10k in New Orealins the first of next month, Bloomsday 12k in Spokane, wa, the end of April, and then Boulder Bolder 1ok! I'm soo ready for the Crescent City 10k! prefect timing to race really fast out of Gate River.
Oh, happy late Pie day!! or Pi day or π day - I had cherry pie!
4 weeks left...
Thank goodness there's only 4 weeks left before I can start running! Sadly, I've now taken more time off than ever before and that's including while pregnant and after I had Allie. Hopefully, I can say now: lesson learned.
Last week I was able to start walking on the treadmill, which has been surprisingly hard. To be fair, though, I'm walking at 12% incline...still. It's slightly pathetic that I can get my heart rate up to 120 walking. All I can hope for is that the walking and soon-to-be-commenced NordicTrack skiing will help me shed some of the fat suit by the time April 17th comes around! 4 weeks to go...so excited! After watching my husband and teammates run at Mt. SAC that week, though, I know I'll have to remind myself to take it slow. Here's hoping that I actually listen to myself! Hope everyone's enjoying running in the awesome weather this week!
Talent?
Well, the Gate River Run was...interesting. None of us did as well as we necessarily wanted to, but I still think it will be a positive thing for my track season and I think everyone there would agree we had one hell of a time.
Some highlights...in no particular order:
Some highlights...in no particular order:
- Shannon telling me that she was going to bodyslam me.
- Talent?
- Any of the various Dan Browne jokes
- Before the race, taking the ferry across the river to the starting line, I asked Tommy if the Florida Panthers were based out of Jacksonville and he turns to me, his face a weird shade of yellowish green looking like he was going to cry/puke and mumbled, "I don't watch hockey."
- Watching "The Life and Times of Tim" with Tommy
- Snuggling with Tommy
- Eating Japanese food with Greg
- Having Greg and Jason harass me about eating 3 plates of pasta
- Leanne. What a sweetheart.
- Tommy mooning Richard Fannin's children
- Teaming up with Tommy to beat Greg and Jason at foosball and a weird version of shuffleboard
- Finishing the race and being put out of my misery
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