Holy Speed Rockets, Batman!

Before we get to the run, I'd just like to say one thing...
IS IT SPRING YET??!!
The snow and rain and cold and general yuckiness is SO last month.
Uh, God? I'd like an order of sunshine, please? With a side of warmth. Thankyouverymuch.

So anyway, this run. ROCKED MY SOCKS OFF.  It would have been a top 10 run ANYWAY, just cuz I got to do it with the most awesome person alive, BUT the sweetness had a generous dollop of rockin' pace on top which just took it to whole 'nother adjective. (Awesomesauce? Bomb.com?  You pick.)


Hubs and I starting out at 8am

Incase you've not been here for long (and probably only 3 of you have), my starting off pics are pretty much always in the dark. I truly am a get-up-get-dressed-and-go type runner.  But hubs needed his morning coffee and my parents were coming up to be watched by our minions, I mean to watch our minions, and I didnt want to give them a dark 0' thirty time in which to be here.
So I got up at 7, ate a 1/2 a banana with some PB around 7:40 and we were on the street a little after 8.

We started off in our neighborhood and took that over to Lake Z stopping 2 or 9 times on the way over so I could blow my shnoz. Does anyone else have this issue? I always end up taking embarrassing amounts of tissue along.
I joked with hubby that I needed one of these:



It really would save a lot of time digging one out of my many pockets.

Took 1/2 a PowerBar Gel a bit before 5 miles (and again about mile 10)

I think the guy coming up behind us at this point thought it was weird that I was taking a picture of a gel. On my wrist.  *Sigh*...the things I do for you guys. 

We passed these GORGEOUS balls of fluff TWICE on our run

I oo'd and ah'd and gasped (isn't that a weird word to say out loud?), and squealed...I mean come ON. That baby was the cutest thing EVER.

This is about mile 11. Feeling pretty awesome from my second 'hit' of the gel!

WHAT??

To fully appreciate the awesomeness of this pace you can read about my first two 'real' 1/2 marathons HERE.  I ran my 1/2 last Spring (on a hilly course-I will give it that-today's was fairly flat for most of the route), at an avg pace of 9:03. So to be able to pull ^THIS^ off on a training run? Was pretty stinkin' awesome (only burmmer is that I think that blister thing a ma bobber is coming back-bleh). Pace for the last .1 miles? 7:29.  BOOOOO  YYYYAAAAAA!!

So in celebration, I went out and bought all of these:

Just kidding.
I ate 4 BIG cookies.
=)

Dont ya love when a training run is just purified AWESOMENESS the whole time??

Here I am!

Well, I thought it would be fitting to post here now since its ALMOST my one year anniversary from posting. That has to be SOME kind of record, right? I'm really surprised my blog hasn't rusted over and become inusable. But alas, I can pick it up, dust it off and get it working for me again. Thank you Jesus for technology.

Well, what's happened this year?

I ran The Papillion 1/2 marathon for the 2nd time (and my 2nd 1/2 marathon EVER). Last year my time was 2:08 and change, this year, 1:59 and change!!! I really didnt think I had it in me. This course is pretty hilly and is pretty much all up the hill the last 1.5 miles.  TOUGH stuff. Felt like I was going to 'de-food' so I knew I gave it my all.  Yay me.

Then 8 days later I ran the BoysTown Memorial Day 5 mile which is pretty hilly and WOW was it tough. Hilly, a later race (start time was 8:30) LOTS of spots with full sun AND just coming 8 days off my 1/2.  BUT I did it in under 50 minutes (9:05 avg) so I was cool wid' it.

                                             BOYSTOWN 5 mi run May 2012

And just for added cuteness, here's my little boy running around the track in the fieldhouse after the race. I believe this was lap 3 or 4-he's a MANIAC and I think he's going to be lightening fast like his Papa (cuz the good Lord KNOWS that doesnt come from me!) =)

Since then I have only run one other race. The Siena Francis House 5K/10K (I do the 10K cuz I'm a rockstar like that).  Last year I placed in my age group and my overall pace was around 8:50 I believe. This year I placed again but my overall pace was around 9:50!! Crazy what 80* temps and FULL sun will do to your pace...*irked*  BUT I gave it all I had for that day and that's all I can ask. And hey, I DID get my picture taken with a TROPHY so at least people will THINK I was fast.  =)

Overall though, this has been a hard 4-5 months. I've gotten off the good eatin' bandwagon and have resorted back to my 'anti-portion control' self.  Workouts have been good though. I'm running 3-4 days a week, doing weights 1-2x a week (depending on how often I bike), biking 1-2x a week) and TRYING to get 1 rest day in there. Earlier this year I was up to doing 100 push ups! Ok ok, so its 20 reps x 5 sets, but still. Last year around this time I could BARELY do one push up, so this is quite an improvement! The most I did this year at one time was 40, but then my shoulder felt wonky the next day so I decided I JUST might not be ready for THAT kind of punishment.  Now I am doing around 80 push ups 2x a week.

Anyway, I am hoping to be more consistent in my random jottings here and thereby HOPEFULLY encouraging myself to get back on the right track and leave this 'whole-pack-of-cookies' nonsense in the dust!

Any tips or words of encouragement welcome!!!

2011 Papillion 1/2 marathon! My first EVER-pics included!

I DID IT!!!! Ran my first 1/2 marathon. and LOVED it, crummy weather and all!!

I was anxious about this race for a couple different reasons. #1, it is known for being hilly and I didnt know how well I would hold up running 13.1 miles on a hilly course....#2 I was on the brink of a possible sickness which meant that A)I didnt know if I would GET to run and B) if I DID run, would my performance be hampered by all the hackin' and snot rocketing I would be doing...

Anyway, after drinking over a GALLON of water on Friday and Saturday (and no I am NOT kidding and just so ya know, its also a great way to lose a little weight-lost a pound between Fri morn and Sat morning!) as well as taking near lethal amounts of VitC, zinc and apple cider vinegar, I felt that I had it at bay enough to give it a whirl.

Slept crummy the night before. Woke up a ton and when I did sleep had all sorts of weird dreams about not finding my way to the race, waking up after race time, not being to find all my race items the morning of etc etc...
Woke up at 5:30 and had a pb and j sammy around 6. Checked the weather about 47 times before deciding on what to wear. It was 44* out with a windchill of 39*-yuck. I would find out when pulling out of my garage that it was also drizzly-double yuck.
Being that I didnt know if I was getting sick, I went on the safe side and wore my Chill Chasers under my shorts, a SS shirt, a LS shirt, my jacket, neck gaiter and ear warmers. Oh, and gloves. When I got of my car at the race, I was SO stinkin' cold. Was so glad for all that gear and was giving crazy eyes to all the people walking around in their tshirts and shorts w/ their lovely blue noses and fingers.
Ran w/ my hydration belt which I had decked out w/ my new music player that hubby got me, and in my extra pouchy thingie I had my post-race snack (peanut m&m's and pretzels-love it), my camera and about 486 tissue.

I attached my bib# to my shorts as I figured I owuld probably be whipping off some layers down the road. I was concerned it would bother me but it worked out fine.
I really wish I had a friend to meet up with here as I felt so awkward walking around by myself. Of course I made it LOOK like I was looking for or waiting for someone so I was not QUITE so pathetic looking....

Here we are walking to the start line....That flag was HUGE. It was held up by 2 fire truck ladders and we got to run under it at the start, SO wish I would have gotten a picture of it.

This was about 10min before the anthem. This race is a 1/2 AND a 10K but us super cool 1/2er's got to start 10min before the 10Ker's. Gotta love special treatment.

Race started RIGHT on time which was nice. I lined up WAAAY at the back (there were only 478 people running the 1/2 so there really wasn't a WAAAY far back, but I was back there with the stragglers! I'd rather pass then BE passed!

I ran the first couple miles pretty slowly on purpose, wanted to save some gas for the end. The first mile was run on gravel which I am NOT used to. It's always ALL nice, hard, unforgiving cement for me. After the first couple few miles, I started to pass people which is a HUGE ego boost for me and makes me think I got a little Kara Goucher in me.

No not really.

The first 7 miles was great. About the middle of mile 7 we hit a pretty lengthy downhill, and being that I run on hills on EVERYone of my training runs, I have learned how to run the downhills speedily, but safely, so I took it like a mac truck and passed a bunch of people. but I got about 1/2 way down and thought 'golly gee is this hill EVER gonna end??' and right about the bottom I got an air bubble or something under my left rib cage. Painful. Then about a mile later got one under my right rib cage!! I was running out of energy at this point and said a prayer to God for strength and right after that I could almost PHYSICALLY feel someone pushing me from behind!!! It was like God saying 'Here, let me nudge you along for a bit and you rest' I LOVE when He does things like that=)

A bit after that my air bubbly things went away and I started to feel better but I was TIRED. The last 2 miles or so is a lot of uphill. However, I conserved energy for this and was able to pass a good number of people on this stretch. Even some dudes. I LOVE passing dudes and I love even MORE, passing dudes and having them try to speed up so you CANT pass them! HA!

Oh I did end up stripping my jacket in the first mile and my LS shirt about 3mi in. The cool weather, wind and drizzle were quite welcome after I had warmed up. Cant imagine running this race on a sunny warm day!

My garmin also, after mile 4, kept telling me a mile was up before I would hit the mile marker. Thought I ran the tangents well....but then again I also think I am a super speedy runner...until I see my shadow next to me plodding along....

anyway, so I was sure to keep an eye on my watch that last bit and at 13.1 it said 2:07:45....

however, my 'official' time is 2:08:57 which is what I will stick with. I cant wait to see how I would do on a flat course.

My next 1/2 will be the Omaha 1/2 which is ALSO hilly so I am hoping to make it into the Lincoln 1/2 next year as that is all flat, so I hear.


I obviously couldnt get a pic of myself at the finish so here is one of my friend Jen (didnt even know she was running it!)

Jen and I after the finish

The post-race blueberry bagels were SO yummy (and a nice chaser to my m&m's and pretzels)...they also had plain bagels (boring), bananas, and oranges as well as bottles of water and powerade. They had also been handing out water and powerade I think every mile or so and then PowerBar gels and energy beans at the 1/2 way point.

There wasnt much crowd support but what WAS there was very nice. They were very encouraging and the volunteers were great too.

Something I realize every race I have run is you can not judge a book by its cover. Some people that look SUPER speedy, will be the slowest runners out there and some people you think would be SO slow will whip out that speed like a CityBank Visa.

Me and oh so snazzy medal. My girls think its funny that I call it a medal when its really plastic =)

Still can NOT believe that I ran 13.1 CONTINUOUS miles...

On my training runs, I always have to stop a few times at intersections and such (or to pick up the stray penny), so to run 13.1 STRAIGHT (I didnt walk once!) was quite a feat.

This race was by FAR my favorite. If I dont get into Lincoln next year, I will definitely do it again.

Yesterday and today I am a bit sore in my hammies and hips but everything else feels great. I did a light workout yesterday morning and this morning (elliptical and a treadmill hike) just to get the blood flowing and the HR up a bit....I may try a run tomorrow or Thursday depending on how my legs feel.

So, what's next? I want to build my base mileage, work on running 4x a week instead of 3 and add in some speed work to bring my 5K time down and hopefully my 1/2 marathon time as well.

I LOVE RUNNING!!!!!