Ted E Bear Hollow 5K! Lots of pics followed by race report

TED E BEAR Hollow 5K August 25, 2012

Time-24:31, 4/18 in my age group, 40/194 overall

^Above picture before the race started. Love to see people milling about pre-race, gets me all sorts of excited to fly past at least 3% of them once the gun goes off.

^Above picture is my buddy Kathleen and I pre-race. We've been friends for over 10 years but anymore, the only time we get to see each other is at the occasional race!

^Above picture is the start line. I am at this time, mentally picking out the 2-5 people that I am sure I can pass in the next 20 minutes...that girl in the green shorts is goin' DOWN, people.

^Finishline pictures courtesy of the awesome Joseph Drugmand! He is at most of the races I do snapping awesome pictures and capturing memories for all of us. 

^Receiving my medal! Placed 3rd in my age group (I was actually 4th but one of the girls who placed in the top 3 overall females was in my age group so I got lucky)  =)

^Photo courtesy of Joseph Drugmand.  The gal on the left got 2nd in our age group. Her and I actually went to highschool together-AND she's pregnant with baby #5!  Kickin' job, Becky!

^ Bunch of awesome ladies. The middle 2 also live in the town I grew up in, which is pretty small, which automatically makes them my best friends now.  We ALL medaled. Representin' P-town like the bosses we are!

^Random dog at our race but SERIOUSLY. How CUTE is that face?  I would have tried to sneak him home in my back pocket if he was bout 80#'s smaller....

Proud of my time at this race!  My watch said 24:31 at the finishline BUT it also said 2.98 miles. They SAID it was a certified course, so maybe my watch was just being a clown, who knows. But my avg pace was 8:14 which is pretty rockin' for this slow poke!

Incase you havent been a follower of this blog from the get-go (and if you haven't, what's wrong with you?! Actually I dont even know if I've HAD this blog that long, so you're forgiven), Ted E Bear Hollow was the first 5K I ever ran back in August 2010 after I had been running for an ENTIRE 7 weeks. Yep. I was ready to kill it.  Ran that one in 32:19, then ran it again the following year in 27:xx (coming off an injured knee) and then this year at 24:31 (OFFICIAL results were 24:54 which baffles me as my watch said 24:31 and I started and stopped RIGHT on the mat-but whatev).  It is a favorite 5K of mine and I'll continue to run it as long at they let me! =)

It was supposed to be slightly chilly and drizzly this morning. We got the EVER so slightly chilly but the drizzly came in at about 20 minutes into the race for about 24.8 seconds and that was it-but it was a welcome relief!  The last 10 minutes of the race, I felt like my face was ON FIRE and would melt off my head at any moment! I have never experienced that in a race. I remember trying to fan it off with my hand. Yeah. Not too successful.

The last 4 minutes were TERRIBLY tough. But I got thru them. Finishline was about 20 feet after a SHARP turn which was kind of awkward as you couldnt put your boosters on the last .10 of the race (or for me, the last .03 of the race)  =)

Next race for me is a unique point-to-point race here in Omaha this Saturday called 'Peak to Peak'. It is a 10 miler along a really flat paved trail here that runs from a store in Belleuve to a store in Omaha.  This is the first year I've done it so I'm excited about it AND it looks like the weather will be PERFECT for racing Saturday morning (around 55* at start time)!  I MUCH prefer cold weather for races, than blazin' temps, dont you?  =)

The good, the bad and the in between and a RACE REPORT!

Ok, so, wow. It's not that I dont love you running folk. I do. From the bottom of my ever-sweatin' heart. But I was kind of mad for awhile. Not really AT you 'uns. But at the fact that you were all able to run like the wind at any given moment, and here I was. STILL semi-injured. And STILL not being able to run as much as my carefree heart desired.
You could say I was throwing an inner hissy fit.

So anyway, I wont bore you with ALL the details, but if you remember, after my 10K on June 26, I didnt properly recover and was rewarded with some nice achy knees. So I was a good girl and took 1 whole week off of running. Went back into it nice and easy and was fine.
THEN.
The night of the 11th and 12th (July) I went for a HARD 10mi bike ride, (and the morning of the 12th I went for a 3mi run too), and then worked out pretty hard the morning of the 13th.
MAJOR knee-setback. grrrr.
But I was stubborn about it and just tried to do my runs easy and keep the miles low. Well, on July 22, it became apparent that wasnt going to help. So I ran just over 5miles (I was being onery-knew I wasnt going to be able to run for awhile so I wanted to get a longer-ish run in before that happened).
So, I took off another whole week and a day of running (only did VERY light cardio a couple times that week) and seemed to be doing ok. So I went for a run July 30th and felt pretty good.
I kept all my runs easy and kept the miles low and ran a few of the runs on the 'mill.
Things were lookin' good. So on the 12th (friday) I thought of hopping in on the 1/2 marathon plan so that I could maybe run the 1/2 on Sept 25th here in town.
On Sunday following, the plan had me running a 5K. Well I knew I wasnt ready for that, so I just planned a route of that distance, upped the pace JUST a bit and threw in a HUGE, long hill to make up for the fact that I couldnt go all out on the pace.
Welp.
that probably wasnt wise. Knees were pretty achy all day after that run AND the next day. So I took off another 4 days of running. I was getting nervous as I had a 5K race coming up Aug 27th (we'll get to that later). Ran again on the 19th and just kept the miles low and easy. Felt great.
Ran again on the 21st, still good. then again on the 24th. STILL good. Then the NIGHT before my 5K (last Friday) my left hammie was really tight all day. Not painful but REALLY tight.
I.Was.Scared.
I did a lot of praying that night and spent a lot of time in the bathroom (nervous fluttery tummy hit me with a vengance!) and the next morning my legs felt good. (tummy was a whole other story-dont know why I was so terribly nervous!)
Anyway, the lower body weight training has pretty much fallen off the map as I didnt want to risk a set back in my legs/knees. Upper body has stayed consistent and I have worked my way up to being able to do 400 crunches (100x4 sets), as well as 3 sets of planks for 90,80 and 70seconds. I have also switched to doing the 'real' pushups after having done week 6 of the hundred pushup challenge about 742 times in the modified push up form. I am doing 6x 5 sets 3 times a week. I am SO wimpy when it comes to upper body strength.

My weight has fluctuated during the last month or so, but I DID meet my goal of 100 during July and was actually down to 99.8! For one day at least =) I seem to hang around 101-102.8 alot, but I am ok with that (for now)..... =)

Here is a pic of one of my favorite night time snacks. Fresh fruit with a generous dollop of yogurt on top (1/2 plain greek and 1/2 vanilla)

THEN I discovered just how much more AMAZING that combo is when it has some Kashi thrown in. Oh my yum.

This is a common breakfast for me on non-running days. Big bowl of cut up fruit. About 150-200 calories depending on what I put in and I am SUPER stuffed after I eat it, but pretty hungry again about 2-3 hours later. So its the prefect amount of food for me on these days.

I read an awesome book called 'The Raw Food Detox Diet' and this is one of her recipes from in there. A homemade veggie soup w/ Ezekiel bread (with raw honey on top) on the side. This whole lunch was 300 calories (the soup is only 50 calories for 1 cup!) and it left me almost TOO stuffed. I love her book and would love to implement more of her ideas but I dont know how to make that work with my workouts (she emphasizes different food combining rules and eating only fruit til noon-which I like to do, but I feel I need more protein after my runs). I know there are people out there (athletes) who eat this way but my body seems to be more finiky. I may try it sometime though and see what happens.

I also checked out 'The Green Smoothie Revolution' and we liked a few different recipes of hers. I dont remember what all was in this smoothie but I know the veggie was kale and spinach. It was actually really good and my kids liked it too!

Ok, so ON TO THE RACE REPORT!

Ted E Bear Hollow 5K Aug 27, 2011 8:30am

My stats Time 27:20 Placed 3rd in my age group out of 33..... 52 overall out of 223

So I got there around 7:45, picked up my packet and head back to my car to put my bib on. Head back near the start line to wait for a couple of friends who were going to meet up with me

Met some very cute random dogs like this little snookums.

So I met up with my friends (it was their first race) and we chatted for a bit before race time.

This was a 10K and 5K so the 10K folks lined up and set off about 5minutes before we did (they went the opposite way as us on the course).

Then we all lined up and good golly was I nervous. My tummy is in a knot right now just thinking about it-so weird!! Anyway, I lined up WAY at the back like always (love to pass people, hate to BE passed). Heard the gun and we were off!

Due to the fact that I was at the back, it was slow going the first .2 miles or so which I think was good for me as I didnt start out too fast. Once we got on the trail, I started slowly picking people off one by one. (only got passed a few times the whole race). I actually ENJOYED the whole first 1/2 of the race, where as I usually HATE the 5K distance from start to finish as I am pushing it so hard. The back half of the race, I picked up the pace a bit but still felt good. But around 2.80 miles in I started to feel it.

Those thoughts started to enter my head 'Just walk for a minute and catch your breath' or 'who cares if you get passed, just stop' and 'I think I'm gonna pass out'.

So anyway, I powered past all that.

The last .10 there was a kid about 10 years old, just huffing and puffing and groaning and lookin' like a hurtin' unit. So I gave him a 'You're doing awesome! Finishline is just ahead, you can DO this!' as I passed him, and about 5 seconds later he ZOOMED past me like nascar racer! Little stinker =)

I finally felt like I had a kick left in me the last .05 miles so I turned on the boosters and rocketed to the finishline passing one guy as I did (I have a pic of his face looking at me as I did that-so funny, should have posted it)

No I did NOT run a 5K in 4:07, I dont even think I could run HALF a mile that fast, no clue why the clock says that. I give God all praise and glory for this run! No WAY could I have done this pain free with out him. this is over a minute slower then my 5K in April, but I have done NO speedwork for 2 months and have only done minimal, slow, low mileage runs, so I'll take it =)

Hubby surprised me by bringing the kiddos to the race and I got to see them at the finishline! I was BEYOND surprised and thrilled. Love these little guys.

I'd give you my splits and all that fun stuff but that little boy in front of me pushed the button on my garmin that made it start going again and I didnt realize it for a few minutes-little stinker.

Receiving my age group award.

They announced my name as placing 2nd but I really got 3rd. I actually ASKED them before all this if I had placed and if so what place I got, and they told me 3rd. Then they announced me as 2nd. I checked the online results the next day, and sure enough, it has me down as 3rd as well!

Next race on tap is a charity run on the 17th of September for a friend of friend who was in car accident in July (5K) and then the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure at the beginning of October. I am really bummed that I cant do the 1/2 marathon in September, but I just figure given what happened after that 'mock 5K' run I did, God was trying to tell me 'eh eh eh Anna, not gonna happen', so I'm fine with that =)

_____________________________

What races do you have planned for the fall? What races have you done this month?

Crawling back into the bloggy world!!

Still alive and kickin' people!
Sorry to have abandoned this lovely blog for a spell, but life got busy (have I said that before? I think I've said that before)...

Anyway, lots of workouts in the last month but I'll just give you the running low down (and race report!) as I know that's the whole reason you come here. =)

April 5: 4mi 42:06
April 7: 4mi 43:19 (mill run)
Apr 9: 9mi 1hr 35min 04sec this run was tough tough tough!! Never got into a groove and the last 1/2 mile was ALL mental. One of those runs where you are SO thankful its over.
Apr 13: 3.75mi 36:28...1.25mi on the mill 11:50
Apr 15: 5mi 52:35 (mill run)
Apr 17: 10mi 1hr 41min 39sec 10min average pace! This run was WAAAY better than my long run on Apr 9, felt like I could go on forever!
Apr 19: 4.5mi 46:30 (mill run)
Apr 21: 4.75mi 45: 35
Apr 24: 11.5mi 1hr 51min (9:39 pace)...LONGEST RUN EVER! I was very pleased with my overall pace and had pretty negative splits. TOTALLY ran out of gas between miles 9-10 and my pace showed it. Somehow got my pep back at mile 10 and the last 1.5 miles were great!
Apr 26: 3.75mi 34:00 (9:04 pace)...fastest avg pace on a run over 3mi!!!!
Apr 28: 3.1mi 32:56...just giving the legs a nice easy run before my first 5K race of the year!
Apr 30: 5K race....will post in more detail below w/ the pictures, was .1mi short, time according to my garmin: 25:06, according to their finishline clock, 25:36

May 3: 3.2mi 32:50.....3mi 31:14...this was a run to AND from a meeting. First time I have ever done that. It was quite enjoyable!
May 6: 4mi 37:52...last tempo run before my first 1/2 marathon!
May 8: 9mi 1hr 29min 38sec (9:57 pace)...last long run before the 1/2! Splits 1(10:49) 2(10:26) 3(10:01) 4(9:46) 5(10:09-HORRIBLE side stitch) 6(10:06-side stitch has been evicted) 7(9:48) 8(9:25) 9(9:05)...pretty proud of how it ended! Got shin splints the first 1.5miles though...
May 10: 4mi 40:18...nice easy run. Got shin splints the first 1.5 mi AGAIN! This has me concerned about my shoes...they only have about 200miles on them.
May 12: 2.5mi 25:30 (mill run)...no shin splits! YAY! Also ran with a new music player my hubby got me...a sansa disk something or other. Its super petite so I kina sorta idolize it. =)

***First 1/2 marathon is coming up on Sunday! However I think I may be getting sick. Froggy throat, a little coughy etc. I am PRAYING its just some type of allergy thing (which I usually dont get), and am taking loads of C, zinc, ACV, etc...***


I have been counting calories alot lately to try to lose some extra baby flub on my tum tum. It's working!! I am down a few pounds and can fit into some of my jeans that were shoved in the back of the closet incase I ever got the stomach flu again, or was blessed with a tummy fat eating bug...

Incase you were wondering, here's what an ounce of potato chips looks like (on a plate next to a CD for a better size comparison) This is 150calories...

The sandwich that dooms me-the BLT. Seriously, you could slap bacon on anything but candy I would CHOW. IT. DOWN

My new favorite lunch. Life Balance tortilla shell (120), mustard (0), buddig ham (30)-ok so its not healthy but it gives it a good flavor =) and some lettuce and tomato (about 20cal)...baby carrots (15), pretzels (70) = 255 cal. Low cal and its actually very filling! sometimes I will have a cup of yogurt w/ fresh fruit in it for an extra 130 calories.

My oldest and myself enjoying the FAB weather last weekend. Which abruptly ended today. Boo.

*drumroll please*.................................

First 5K of the season!!!! LifeGate 5K Run/Walk

I actually got to run this race with some wonderful friends of mine which made it THAT much more enjoyable. I finally have running friends!! HOORAY

Well, the morning started off pretty chilly. The pic of above is pre-race. It was overcast too. Bleh. But thankfully it cleared up during the race and the sun came out!

This was a women/girls only race-fairly small as they only accept 200 participants. This race is in its 2nd year. Very well organized and lots of prizes given at the end. No timing chip though, only a finishline clock.

So we got started and lined up according to what we were doing. 5K runners at the top of the line, run/walkers next, walkers after that and the 1mi walk/runners after that.

So. We get started and literally not more than .05mi into the race my hydration belt comes FLYING off and all the bits and bobbles I have on it go with it (it has NEVER done this before). So I stop to pick it up thinking 'I'll just hold it and run' and then I thought 'are you nuts lady? You cant run holding on to all THAT!'

So I stop off to the side and get all hooked back up again (which is why there is such a difference in my watch finish time and the finishline time)....

As I am getting hooked back up, I see everyone FLYING past me and I am thinking 'this can not be happening, this can NOT be happening!!' So I get all set and then go FLYING past most everyone to get back up to the head of the line. This was a big mistake as it pretty much DRAINED me. I looked down at my watch at the 1.5mi mark and it said my avg pace was 7:55!!! That is INSANE for me. So I knew I was in trouble.

the photographer caught me at that moment and I was a HOT. MESS. I didnt get my belt hooked up right so it was hiking my shirt up, along with my bib and had settled right under my rib cage making me look like SUCH a tool. HERE it is if you want to see it. (I seceretly hope that link doesnt work)

Oh and what else totally stunk was the last .2miles or so was ALL up hill, like a GOOD sized hill. Wow. Totally kicked my tushy.

Splits were OBVIOUSLY very positive, and not in a good way =)

Mile 1(7:33-what the??) Mile 2(8:58-dying a slow death) Mile 3(8:38-SO glad its over)

Everytime I run a 5K race I think 'What on EARTH am I doing here?? This is the WORST experience EVER!!!!' and then when its over and that pukey feeling passes I think 'WOOHOO, whens the next one???' =)

**When you give your camera to a random guy and ask him to take pictures 'of us', you should specify that you want the WHOLE group....

HERE is a link to me after the race was done, trying SO hard not to puke


The hard work is paying off! Just this week I was able to fit into these size 0 Aeropostale capri's that I havent worn since having baby #5 (nursing a baby was an AWESOME calorie burner).

The dime-store-water-pistols that I am trying to trade in for some BIG guns! That's the most intimidating face I got. I'm workin' on it!!