Ragnar + Fall Racing Goals

Ok, ok, so I haven't posted in almost a year, but grad school consumes my life and I make no promises I will post again anytime soon.  BUT I want to, because I feel like I train better and am more in the running mindset when I write about it and think about it more frequently than just my daily runs.


In less than two weeks, I'm running the Ragnar Relay with my awesome friend Hannah and 10 complete strangers.  I'm really excited, despite the fact that I have the hardest leg of the race (1200 feet elevation gain in 4 miles, yikes!)  I've been doing some hill work, some long runs (hitting 14 miles last week) and then this past week, I ran 18 miles over the course of three runs within 24 hours.  As someone who has trained for marathons, I know that 18 miles at one time is tough, but it was almost worse to spread it out over three runs.  Once you take a break, it's a lot tougher to get going again, especially when you shower, read for class, sleep etc between those runs.  I'm glad I did it so I have at least some prep for the race.

My other fall races are the Richmond Half Marathon and the Hot Chocolate 15k.  My very lofty goal for Richmond is to break 1:40 so today I'm hitting the gym for 800s.  It's two months from today, but I've already hit 14 miles with plans to do two 16 milers after Ragnar, but my speedwork has been lacking.  I'm also going to try to step up my strength training and yoga routines.  It all sounds good on paper, hopefully school won't get in the way!

75 Mile Challenge - from 1/29

I decided almost 2.5 weeks ago that I would run 75 miles over the course of the next month. I used to run a lot, to the point that four mile runs were short, but I had become complacent over the course of the winter. I decided that if I reached my goal, I would reward myself with a training shirt from irunlikeagirl.com.

In October, I ran the Baltimore Half Marathon and two months later, I ran a local 10K. Since then, my runs became shorter and shorter, where over the holidays I was down to 3 miles, three times a week. Already registered for the Maryland Double, I knew that a race in May wasn’t going motivate me the same way a cute t would.

I was off to a decent start, running 16 miles my first week, 17.5 the next, then after a promising start to this week with a 5+ miler, snow and ice struck leaving me stranded in my room with a pilates video. I’m hoping enough ice will melt today that I can run for at least four miles, go on a short run tomorrow then attempt my first training run of the season (a 6 miler) on Saturday. I’d prefer to rest tomorrow, but want to get my mileage up.

At this point, I’m also considering running in the National Half Marathon (March 21). It will get the miles before Frederick so I can focus on speed work between the two. We’ll see!