Another first for me

At least once a month I have a new first in running. Anything from gear to workouts. For those of you that don't know me I am new to this whole running thing. I played volleyball in high school and college and dreaded the stupid one mile time trial at the beginning of every season. I started running on the treadmill and in a few races after having my kids but (being a crazy competitive person) I decided to get serious after the 2009 Bolder Boulder. Yes there are some days I wonder what the he** was I thinking this hurts! But for the most part running has given me so much more than I could ever say. I've made life long friends, done things I didn't even know my body was capable of, joined an awesome supportive team and gone fun places for races. 2010 was a year I will probably never be able to duplicate. I pr'd in every distance from the 5k to 10 miles, granted some of the races were my first at the distance but a pr is a pr :) 2011 started off well with my 2nd attempt at the half. Which was a pr, but that's not saying too much as I totally bonked last year!

Well this week is one of those what the he** was I thinking. In the constant pursuit of a pr I was convinced that I should jump on the track this spring to better my 5 and 10k times. Which sounded great, of course I am always up for a new challenge. UNTIL my coach told me I would be doing a 5k indoors! Are you kidding me 19 laps........... I know for a lot of you track people this is no big deal but I am having flash backs of the one season I ran track in high school. I only had to do the 400, one stinken lap, and I HATED it. Talk about torture, 19 of these little laps staring at the same girls butt for hopefully 17 minutes. Which is another thing I am not enjoying getting my head around. You want me to go to a higher elevation in a time of the year that I am not exactly at top speed, run a crap load of laps all to end up with a time I am going to be so disappointed in I probably won't want to tell anyone. Not to mention my whole family is in Colorado Springs so they will all come to the AFA to watch me race. Which normally I would love but did I mention I am not fast right now and I am not thrilled about this whole lap business. Oh and did I mention I JUST turned 32 so there is nothing like running against a bunch of 18-20 somethings to make you feel like an old lady. Ok enough complaining!!! I know there is a method to this whole madness I'm just not seeing it with this race coming up this weekend.

Good news is I got in a great speed workout yesterday which gave me a little confidence going into the race this weekend. Bad news is I have 12x400 tomorrow which will probably end up being on the dreadmill. Unfortunatly the tracks won't be cleared, the roads will be icy, we don't have a good indoor track and I need to go fast. So once again I will be the crazy lady everyone looks at as they walk by. You know the one that has the treadmill up to top speed for 75 seconds than walks for a minute and does it all over again 12 times. Unfortunatly I have to agree with them this whole running thing has made me a bit crazy!

Here is to hoping I survive this whole indoor track business this weekend!

Living the High Life

Below is last week's training. I run ~75% of my runs with Art and Jason since we all work in Golden. It's nice to have some training partners. Our blogs will likely overlap so I will try to not repeat the same post Art made. I was planning to race a 3k at Grand Valley, but it didn't work out so my next race will be the Gate River 15k. I will likely race something before that, maybe an indoor mile or road race.

Quality days from last week: Track Workout on Tuesday w/ Art and Jason, Tempo on Friday with Jason and Long run on Saturday all alone

January / February 2011
Monday 31
Training Run 6:00:00 AM - 8.00 mi @ 1:00:00 (7:30 pace)
Tuesday 1
Running Workout 11:00:00 AM - Aerobic Capacity Intervals - - 3.00 mi @ 15:00.00 (5:00 pace)
Wednesday 2
Training Run 12:00:00 PM - 10.00 mi @ 1:10:00 (7:00 pace)
Thursday 3
Training Run 11:30:00 AM - 10.00 mi @ 1:10:00 (7:00 pace)
Friday 4
Running Workout 4:00:00 PM - Tempo Run - - 4.00 mi @ 21:00.00 (5:15 pace)
Saturday 5
Running Workout 11:00:00 AM - Long Run - - 16.00 mi @ 1:48:00.00 (6:45 pace)
Sunday 6
Training Run 11:00:00 AM - 6.00 mi @ 45:00 (7:30 pace)
Training Run 3:00:00 PM - 5.50 mi @ 41:00 (7:27 pace)
TOTALS
Running: 78.5 mi

This week will be more of the same with an indoor workout today since it's cold and snowy out again, likely hills on Thursday or Friday and a long run Saturday or Sunday. Going to try and keep my mileage around 80-90 since that's what I can maintain while doing workouts.

Highlight of the week: Watching the Packers dominate the Steelers with Art on Sunday without their best offensive and defensive players.

Cedar Fever

Well, I found out last week that I am really, really allergic to cedar. Who knew? I have had asthma since I was 20 or 21 and have been dealing with it a little this winter. In January, I did a 10 mile race and while it wasn't the greatest race (or the smartest) I have ever run it seemed like my lungs weren't awful and I was hoping that going down to Texas for a race would help since it is warmer, there is more oxygen and the course is fast. Unfortunately the weather and the cedar had other ideas. I woke up the morning of my race with congestion in my lungs and a really swollen face...not good! I went ahead and ignored it and hoped for the best but things didn't work out quite that way! I was really, really conservative the first couple of miles just in case my body wasn't quite ready for the race but when things went ok I picked it up and dropped in a few quicker miles but by the time I hit the 6.5 mile mark I was really struggling to breath. I got dizzy, started having an asthma attack and had to sit on the curb for about 7 minutes while I was trying breath. It worked but my body was wrecked after that. So, I made it into a workout by doing some fartleks and then jogging the last few miles. At the time I wasn't sure what to attribute the breathing trouble to until after the race and heard about all of the "cedar fever"... My asthma has always been allergy-induced so this was definitely the reason, but it was still an upsetting finish to say the least. I am hoping my next race will be better! We'll see.

Hello BRC/Adidas Team

Hi, I like Ryan am a newbie to the BRC/adidas team, and also have never blogged before. So I too will start with a little about myself. I am originally from southern California and "transplanted" to FoCo in the beginning of November. I recently graduated from getting my doctorate in physical therapy and decided I was sick and tired of California traffic/congestion. So my wife and I packed up and moved out here to breath some "fresh air", and become outdoorsie people. However, we moved just in time for it to get too freakin' cold to go outside, so I would say trail running has been what most of our outdoor adventures have consisted of so far. But it has been a lot of fun, and the altitude is definitely an added bonus for running.

Now as for running, I ran 4 years at UCSB in California, and then kinda just did local 5k's and mile races during the 3 years of grad school. Since then, I have been train anywhere from 100 to 115 miles a week, but definitely have my ups and downs. I was training for the half in Houston last weekend which I got 12th in 104:49. My next race will hopefully be the Gate River 15k. And after that track, which is my favorite of all seasons.

I am an Angel's and Laker's fan so don't hate, but have become a Bronco's fan since moving out here. At least people can't say I'm bandwagon since they went like 4 and 12 or something this season. I pretty much love all sports, but hate the thuggets, sorry. I like to fish, hike, camp, snowboard, eat mexican food, and play ping pong.

Well that's all I got for my first blog. I am really looking forward to meeting all of you in the coming months, and am siked to be part of the team. Good luck to everybody in their coming races, and if you see a red head guy wearing our uniform, I may not look like a "Chavez", but that is me :)

Inaugural post!

This is Ryan with my first ever blog post! A little about me for the few I haven't met since I'm a newbie to the team. I grew up in Colorado Springs, went to Coronado high school, then on to Harvard for college, and moved back in fall 2008. By the way, Tommy's a HUGE fan of Harvard, just ask him. I'm pretty sure Paul is too. I dabbled in the marathon my first year back, and I may come back to it, but I currently enjoy road, trail, and mountain races of (almost) all distances. Not big into track races though.

This winter has been new territory for me, but in a good way. The last two years I was hurt around this time so I'm grateful to be healthy and wiser going into this year. No races coming up for me, just enjoying the everyday runs (besides the -10F days).

Stay healthy, have fun, and run fast, in that order!

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.