Week in Review

94 miles last week in singles. No workouts. 17 mile long run.

2010 is here

This is my first post, so I'll do a small introduction. I grew up in Conifer, CO and went to school at UNC Charlotte (North Carolina). I had a great college career and loved traveling the country for races. I graduated in 2006 and joined the Adidas Raleigh Club Team. In 2007 we moved to Colorado to train and be closer to family. My last year in Charlotte was no good so I took 2 months off when I got here to re-establish why I run and what I want to do.

Thanks to Russ and many wonderful friends I got back into running and being a competitor. 2009 was my first year with BRC Adidas and it has been a blessing. Everyone is so talented, super nice, I've made great friends, and the support is incredible. Since April 2009 I have been working hard to get back in shape and get back on the race circuit again (thanks coach). It was been a good year of learning to be patient, learning to train at altitude, trusting my training and capabilities, figuring out how to run for the right reasons, enjoying running, turning the brain off sometimes, and setting new goals. I've had a blast thus far and made some larger strides than I imagined I would.

Since Club Cross I took one week off and then ran miles the last few weeks. Most of it was in England so it was a blast and kept me wanting to run more. When I got back to Colorado I could feel the altitude for the first two days, but then my body remembered how to cope. I did my first workout for the year on Saturday (12x300m hills) and it went really well. I'm training for the indoor 3k and outdoor 5k and 10k. I'm hoping to get back down to my PR's and hopefully break all of them.

Happy New Year everyone!

New Year...New Blog

Hey Everyone... I am going to start with a little intro and summary of last year's training since this is my first post. I ran at Washington University in St. Louis during my undergraduate years and has one season of XC and outdoor track left when I went to graduate school at Colorado School of Mines. I had a pretty successful running career at both schools and was able to get a great education at the same time. Now I am working in Golden and on the BRC/Adidas team. I train mostly with Art and Jason in Golden as well as the Mines team.

I just added up my milage from last year and I ended up with 4116 for an average of around 80 miles a week. That is a great year for me and my first year in the past 3 without a major injury. I think that is the main reason I ran several PR's and was able to race consistently throughout the year. I have some goals on the track and road for the coming year that I should be able to hit as long as I can stay healthy. I am going to be racing a 3k indoors and then hopefully some 1500's and 5k's outdoors. I will likely run another half marathon or marathon this fall.

I am hoping to update once a week or so with a weekly summary and racing plans. I look forward to hearing comments from friends/teammates/strangers.

New Year, New Experiences

Happy New Year! At this time last year, my husband and I learned that I was pregnant (not a surprise). I spent the subsequent months running with an increasing amount of body weight, but with a new sense of freedom and excitement. It was the first time I think that I had ever just run to run, no thoughts on pace, distance, or goals. I was running because I enjoyed it and it was keeping me and baby healthy. This year, though, it's a whole new set of experiences. Now I'm trying to reverse the nine months of body strain and weight in (hopefully) less than nine months all while staying at home with my beautiful daughter. So far, I'm doing okay, but I've learned that I'm not one of those lucky women who have a baby and 3 months later are running PRs. Oh, how I wish I was one of those! Training has been progressing, but I'm finding that I need to have more patience with my body. I think many runners can relate with that! Luckily, I may soon have a former college teammate to train and trade baby-watching duties with...this would be huge as right now I'm training alone and my husband and I struggle to both have enough time to train when he gets home from work.

Quick background on me: HS--Fountain-Ft. Carson ('01), College--Adams State ('05), beginning my first year with the BRC racing team, live in Alamosa, CO.

Next up for me is the Fast and Flurryous 4 Mile in Boulder. This will be my first race since October 2008 (not counting Bolder Boulder at 6 months preggo in 66 minutes). We'll see how it goes. Training-wise, I've been averaging 40-60 minutes and have only done a handful of hard workouts thus far, so it could be a bit of a rough day!

Goings On

So far I feel like 2010 is pretty swell. Granted we are only two days into it sooooo best not be countin' the chickens before they hatch right? After a very short stint of slightly sub-par training from a dinged-up soleus (which Larry effectively obliterated with his mad massage skills--thanks Larry) which wasn't helped by a hill workout in the snow, and having lungs and a nose and a head full of surplus snot (mmmmm) the last few days everything is back on track and going as it should.

I've had a handful of good workouts in the last couple of weeks. One of them about a week and a half ago was sort of a combination of a tempo run with some fartlek type stuff thrown in at the end to kind of wake up the leg-turnover (which I have to nurture very carefully or it kind of goes dormant again really fast). The workout was created and aided by UCCS' coach Mark Misch who showed up to yell at me at various random points throughout the workout and it went very well. After a few days of just mileage plus a long-run on the weekend, I did a hill workout in Franktown when I was home for a few days earlier this week. Franktown is a hilly place so I had no trouble picking out a good one on a dirt road that was pretty steep and about 200 meters up. It was really snowy (and not the nice packed-down stuff), as was everywhere else, so needless to say the effort was definitely there, but it wasn't too speedy, but since speed wasn't really the point it was okay by me. A couple recovery-runs later then I did something that UCCS-er's call "sixty-nineties" a couple evenings back. Basically you run hard for a minute then easy for a minute and a half and repeat again, and again, and again, and again, etc., see the pattern? It's geared toward leg-turnover as well. Then today's long run was pretty splendid. The weather was a perfect temperature this morning with zilch wind so it was one of those runs where you feel like you could clip along forever. Plus it seemed like everyone out running was in a good mood...I try to say hi to everyone I pass, and usually I get blown off (in the winter this is possibly because it is 7 a.m. and zero degrees) but today EVERYONE said hi. I got like a 100% response-rate. It was neat.

Happy New-Year.

Here is to a good 2009 and a great 2010 for the BRC/adidas team. Many PR's and wins to come.

Chicken Chimi....

Earlier today I was in my hometown and I had a late lunch...noon. The thing was, that the lunch was a pretty big meal. It was a HUGE chicken burrito smothered in green chilly with beans and rice. I had a workout on the track. I ended up running 4x4 480's, with 65 sec. rest for each one then 3 min. in between sets. I ran around 3 p.m which i sn't enought time to digest the huge meal!
The first few sets were a battle to keep the meal in my stomach! After the second set I felt great! I ended up averaging 77 for the 16 480's. (64 through the quarters). Felt really relaxed and smooth. Now lets see what the new year has to offer! Happy early new years to ALL!!! I'll probably be in Denver tom. night so if anybody wants to celebrate with myself and friends, contact me!

Eastern Montana

I spent all of last week on holiday vacation slipping around the frozen tundra that is Eastern Montana and Northern Wyoming this time of year. I managed about 70 miles of singles with a long run of 17. No workouts. I'm back running on solid ground in Colorado, but still not in any hurry to get back to real training. Pushed the baby jogger for an hour yesterday and ran a crisp 10 miles tonight.

Back to the Track

Hello everyone! Since this is my first post, I'll start off with a little background information. I am originally from Georgetown, Tx which is just outside of Austin in Central Texas. I attended Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado where I was a part of the Cross Country and Track Teams. I finished my college eligibility in the spring of 2009 but completed my degree in Elementary Education this December, after doing a semester of student teaching at Palmer Lake Elementary. During this fall, I trained for my first marathon held in Minnesota on October 4th. This marathon was the Women's Marathon Championships and was the first opportunity to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Trails. I completed the course in 2:45:08 meeting the "B" standard qualifying time for the Trials. I was SO excited! After taking a long break off (a month) to let some nagging injuries heal, I started training again.

Today I ran at the Air Force Academy and did a track workout with some of the UCCS track girls. We did 1k repeats and this afternoon I'll run 35 minutes easy.

Back in the Trenches!

I like the call my big time training phases the "Trenches" because like in the real trenches nothing but hard, nasty, and tiring work is done in the trenches. I took a tw0 days off after Club Cross to re-amp my self for a big marathon build up phase this spring.

Last 2 weeks I've put in like 38 and 78 i believe, but i'm truly not really counting them up. this week i'm jumping back in where i left off before Clubs and going to hit 110 or 120 miles this week. I don't think i'm going to stay go up to 130 until after I race at USATF Cross Championships. I don't have a ton of time to try and adapt to 130 mile weeks and hard workouts. kind of funny because it's only 10 less miles but i know that 120 i can still get quality workouts in(for whatever reason)...

Also, i'm no Art Siemers, but I almost got in a fight with a homeless man tonight running. Apparently, I should not be running on the trail at night while homeless people walk and yell at each other... It was scary for him... if he only had a gun...