Half Marathon...let's try again.

I've been training for months for the half marathon championships. It took me some time to get my head wrapped around the idea of running 13.1 miles for a race. It seems so far for my brain to have to stay focused. But my training was going so well and I gained excitment after each great workout and high mileage week (high for me is 70-80).

I flew into Houston for the USA Half Marathon Championships on Thursday. Dinner was wonderful, the hotel was fancy, the volunteers were super sweet, and I was ready. Friday went perfect, until after dinner. My stomach was killing me and woke me up all night wanting to throw up (sorry for the disgusting-ness). Not really the feeling I wanted right before the race. I warmed up, but my stomach felt horrible, until I threw up 30 minutes before the start.

I did feel wonderful for the start and was back to being excited. I made miles 1 and 2 perfect, mile 3 right on pace but I felt weak, very weak. Over the next mile I took a GU to help replenish...stomach did not like that. So unfortunately I had to do something I didn't want to do, step of the course and DNF. I had a mile for my walk-of-shame with tears gushing from my eyes. An angel in pink walked with me and made me realize that I was super lucky to be a runner and to have the chance to be in this elite race. She helped me calm down and be realistic about the situation. Thank you Amy!

As hard as the decision was to not finish, it was given me a reminder that bad days are blessings in disguise. You have to have them to appreciate the good days. It took me a few days to get back to running, but I have a great week of training, physically and especially mentally. I've about convinced myself to look into another half marathon. I know I can hit the qualifying time and I have an added motivation of unfinished business.

Wish I had more time...

I have been training now for 10 months since taking my 1.5 year hiatus due to a stubborn buristis in my right knee. Training has been going pretty well for as busy as school has been. Club Cross was a step in the right direction, taking 1 minute 30 seconds off times I had been running previous in the season was a definite bonus. While it was still not my best showing ever, I realize that over a year of time off took its toll, more than I thought it would. I would love to get in really good shape this winter to race track this spring but my clinical rotation schedule is amazingly busy lately and running unfortunately has taken a back seat to school this month. Right now I'm at Children's Hospital and get to work an 18 hour shift every 4th night. It makes running a fun challenge. Thankfully I am still able to get my runs in the other days and my new 24 Hour Fitness pass is really paying off. Nothing like running workouts in a lit room with muscle heads trying to figure out what the heck you are doing bumping up the speed, dropping it down, bumping it up, dropping ...you get the point. At least the scenery is entertaining, nothing like watching trainers try and get stay-at-home-moms to do lunges and pushups. Luckily this rotation is only a month long and hopefully I keep enough fitness to still make a decent showing in track, only time will tell.

Bloody Weather

For my first blog on here i just want to tell everyone that is new to us a little about myself. I have been on the BRC since 2007 and been running since 2001. The last year has been crazy with personal and running stuff and it seems like when one is up the other is down. lol I live in gunnison and train mostly with Josh and Maren Eberly. I am origanlly from Northeast Iowa and went to college at St. Cloud State U. in MN and transfered to WSC in 2005 and competed for both colleges. If your ever looking for injury help just hit me up i have been through the ringer on most of them, So this is what i will be blogging about for the next few months. Hopefully they will help at someone that had similar injorys to me.

had enough

I thought my foot healed after taking a significant break from running after the chicago marathon. I got through club xc and had built up my training to an almost normal volume. I didn't plan on doing the houston half but I was feeling good and wanted to see the trials course.
The race was going pretty well and I was feeling great.....until I felt a pop in my foot around 7.5 miles. I knew immediately that something was VERY wrong. I've never had a stress fracture but I assumed thats what it was. But there didn't seem to be a good place to drop out and I was really pissed off because I knew coming in that I had a great shot to PR.
I got home and had some xrays and an evaluation. Its not a fracture but a partial dislocation of my 2nd toe joint and likely further tearing of my plantar plate (the injury I dealt with before chicago). I couldn't cool down and now I'm back in a boot for the 3rd time in the past year.
All of the injury issues I have been dealing with are coming from my GIGANTIC bunion on my left foot. Im so sick of it holding me back and im tired of running races half injured and in pain.
It's time to cut the bunion off. its going to be a long road but ill be back. An added bonus....I'll be able to wear cute shoes for my wedding once I have a normally shaped foot.

Crossroads revisited

Well, I have been out of the blogging realm for awhile now and have had many changes in my running over that time period. I now run for the BRC/Adidas team and have raced twice since being accepted to the team. The first race, Club Cross was the ultimate let down for me and I really have not done much racing since then. I put together one of the best training blocks I have ever done and thought I should have been able to run around 30:30 or so. Well the short story was I ran 31:24 and was 73rd! which was my worst placing in a race since the Boulder Bolder back in 2002. 119 guys were under 32 minutes that day which shows just how impressive the competition was. The only other race I have run was the XC race in Boulder back in January. Another loaded field and a mistake in the training earlier in the week lead to another let down race.
So where does this leave me now? Well 2010 was a good year. 15 quality races and 4000 miles ran. 2011 has started off well as far as training goes and I have been doing two workouts a week since the last week of December. As I last wrote in my previous blog I am again at the crossroads not really having a good specific direction as to where I want to go with racing and what I would like to accomplish for the year. Only time will tell, and until next time train hard and enjoy the journey.

Running against me, myself, and I...

Since I started racing again this past summer after my reproductive hiatus, I've come up against an improving adversary at every race...myself. Not the self I am now, but my past self. You see, it's like those Garmin's where you can run against the little computer person, except I'm running against my former selves. First, at the Women's Distance Festival 5k in July I ran against (and lost to) my high school senior self. That was quite the blow to the ego, but onwards and upwards, right? I finally started beating my college freshman self somewhere towards August. Fast forward to Club Cross and I think I was actually beating my college junior self! Now training is going smoothly for the most part and fitness is progressing, so I just wonder...how long until I finally am a self to beat all former selves. Okay, this is getting a little confusing. To give a current self report--last weekend I went with Matt (husband and fellow BRC runner) and Allie (crazy baby) down to Albuquerque to run a mile and 3k. I was pretty nervous since I hadn't run an indoor race in 5 years...yikes. The races went pretty well and would convert to (if USATF would get smart and allow some altitude conversions) about 5:00 and 9:50. I know that if I could've channeled some assertiveness and aggression from that college senior self (woot, moving up), I could have run a bit faster. As it was, I left the meet conceding about 3 seconds in both events to my college senior doppleganger. I think I'll get her next time, though, and who knows, maybe come outdoors I'll finally be able to race someone other than myself.

Running is fun.

I put my body through heck this summer/fall, training substantially more than I ever have before, logging in 100-115 miles most weeks. And for what you may ask? For the chance to add a minute to my 10k time at Clubs (on a faster course) and to go from 8th to 56th in the span of 12 months. You can do it too!!!! Here's how: Just run as much as you can and if your body tells you to let up for a few days, just throw in a really hard workout or add a couple of doubles. It is pretty much sure to work.

But seriously...I have finally been feeling better, and am ready to finally take advantage of all of the mileage and workouts from the fall. I have cut my mileage down to a more manageable 85-90 a week, and had some solid hill workouts and tempos.

Dahlberg invited me to partake in a delightful hill workout yesterday, and I think it may have really changed my life. I learned something at the top of that hill. I actually learned two things... Hills are much more difficult at 7,700 feet. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly...Dahlberg is extremely ticklish.

I am going to New Mexico with the Western State team this weekend, but will not be running in any sort of footrace while down there. And I will then travel with said team to Grand Valley the following week, but will probably still not compete in any sort of land speed competition. I will, however, tickle Dahlberg in our hotel room....and probably tickle Art at the meet if the opportunity presents itself. At the very least, I'm probably going to run my fingers through his beautiful goatee. It is the same color as the golden retriever I had growing up....and that is comforting.

Lastly, a big shout out to Shannon "Life's a" Payne and Ryan "Banana hands" Haefer. Happy running everybody.

Paul

Brrrr....

Nothing like a couple sub-zero runs with a ridiculous windchill to make you really appreciate those 20-odd degree morning runs. After yesterday and today, anything over about 10 degrees seems downright tropical. However, you know you're blessed with very good and understanding friends when someone will drive you 10 miles north of your destination so that you can do your whole run with the arctic-caliber wind at your back. Oh, and I'm happy to inform everyone that there is no truth to the myth that running in cold air freezes your lungs--but I'm sure all of the Gunnisonites could've told you that.

Not too much exciting running-related news right now; just training with nothing too big on the immediate horizon. Most likely I'll jump in the Gate River Run 15k in mid-March (I have unfinished buisiness there from last year, ha) or another possibility I am looking at is a different 15k out in Scottsdale, AZ on the same day as Gate River. Prior to either of those I'll probably do a local race to just get the legs going. Then we'll see how things unfold and what leads where. I would really like to get my feet wet in some longer race distances this year though. By "longer" I mean anything beyond 10k. I've laid down a few concrete goals for the year and I think that I have a pretty good idea of what direction to head in training-wise to make them happen. I'd like to get in my first half-marathon (which is still a race distance that practically boggles my mind right now) in the latter part of the year and see where that takes me...maybe a marathon down the road? The more I think about it, the more likely that seems. I also plan on getting in a few track races this spring for the sake of possibly laying down some very overdue PR's.

So that's the 4-11 for now. Till then, just putting in the miles. Also I have to give a big, gigantic, ridiculous congrats to Tera for an amazing race and PR at the Houston half!!! Way to represent and we are proud of you!!!
Over and out.

Spring Outlook

After a period of reflection following a bit of a down year in 2010 for me I have renewed my focus for 2011. I started 2010 off well in the 25k Championships but then lost my focus and the rest of my training and racing was sub-par in my opinion. Things kind of culminated at the Chicago Marathon in miles 18-23. I've never bonked like that before and I never want to again.
Presently I am training for the marathon again. I will be running the Eugene Marathon on May 1st. My mileage is already higher than it was for Chicago and my focus is back. This time I know what I'm getting into and I am ready for it. I truly have only one goal for this race, sub 2:19. That's it, I could finish way back in the field and I wouldn't care just so long as I run that time. I will post back with my progress frequently but for now I'm just hoping it warms up soon. Nobody likes negative temperatures for the morning run.

Today's workout 2-01-11

Feb 1st 2011
Freezing cold outside, but nice to have an indoor track to workout on!

Greg and my lunch-time workout:
3 mile warmup/5 mile cooldown, needed a longer cooldown today because no time for a second run.
2 x mile 4:49, 4:49 90 sec rest
3 min rest
4 x 400m 64, 63, 64, 63 2 min rest

At 38 I can feel a bit more strain on the faster stuff on the tight indoor turns, but my fitness is starting to come back after the Chicago Marathon wrecked me.

Goal at Grand Valley State 3k in 2 weeks - 8:19

Indoor track time.

Found this

Watch more

Videos on Flotrack'>video of Scott Dahlberg at the UW indoor meet in the 3000m. Scott needed to go sub 8:03 to qualify for the US indoor championships in Albuquerque and just missed is by running a very solid 8:03.59. He will head to a meet in MI in 2 weeks to get his time. Also husband/wife team of Stephanie Bylander and Matt Levassiur traveled to the University of New Mexico to race. Stephanie ran 5:10 in the mile and 10:08 in the 3k while Matt ran a very solid 8:45 3k at altitude.