I'm horrible at posting, and since I'm so enraptured in school, I haven't figured out how to pull a post from Runnersworld.com loop to this. Here are my recent entries on the loop:
Prior to my running days, I was a big fan of the gym. As an undergrad, I worked as a lifeguard at the Campus Rec Center, so was always at the gym. I loved doing cardio for an hour, lifting then stretching out in the matroom. Although I wasn't running as much, I was certainly more rounded. When I get back from a run, it's a lot harder to motivate myself to lift, stretch or do abs in the living room than it is when everything is right there.
This past week, I've been doing the ellipitcal instead of some of my running miles as a recovery from the half last week. I've been doing the elliptical a lot, but today I tried something new. I'm not sure what it was, but it was freaking hard! I only last five minutes, although it was a lot more of a running motion than the elliptical. Since I'm trying to give myself a little bit of a rest, I let that be my excuse to move back to the elliptical.
While the next month will be dedicated to running (1 month from today!!) I can definitely see myself going back to a lot more crosstraining once I'm done.
Two years ago the Baltimore Half Marathon was my first race ever.
I had no idea what I was doing, I just wanted to beat 2 hours. I had done one run over 10 miles, without any water, Gu or saltsticks, was probably averaging about 15-20 miles a week and had bought my shoes over the internet. Somehow, I managed to run in 1:52:59, propelling me into a love affair with distance running.
A year later, I had two more halfs, a ten miler, and an actual training plan under my belt. I was ready to dominate, PR and move onto to bigger things (like marathons), but I didn't. I had a horrible race day and finished a few seconds worse than the year before. No PR, no domination, just a lot of angry feelings and cursing the heat, humidity, and my boyfriend's roommate's friends who had kept me up the night before.
Over the course of the past year, I ran a marathon and decided to register for marathon round 2 in Philly, which conveniently falls about 5 weeks after Baltimore. Perfect. I'll be in great marathon shape, finally break 1:50 in Baltimore, go on my merry way and improve on my first marathon time when I run Philly in November.
As the summer turned to fall, I decided that I'd if I'm going to be working my butt off, I might as well try to BQ while I'm at it. I hadn't raced since June and as I've mentioned before, had a pretty frustrating summer. I decided that if I actually have a shot at BQ-ing, I should be around 1:45 in Baltimore.
I have to admit, I wasn't super confident. The course if eff-ing tough, that tme is over 4 minutes faster than my PR and 8 minutes faster than I've ever run Baltimore. But I had a score to settle. I wanted redemption. Normally when I race, I find a cute hair ribbon to match my outfit. Not this time. I wore a black ribbon, to remind myself how BA I am.
The weather was perfect. I was pumped. My only issue in the race was that I hit the wrong button on my Garmin and therefore didn't start timing until Mile 2, so I actually had no idea what my overall time was (I conservatively added nine minutes to get an estimate). My mile splits were ranging from 7:50s-8:10s. I felt incredible. There's a picture of me at mile 8 with the biggest grin on my face, and three guys grimacing in the background. I usually mug for the race photographers, but for once, I felt as amazing as I looked.
I finished with a clock time of 1:47:50 ish, 1:37:16 on my Garmin. After getting food and water, I bee-lined it to the results tent. 1:45:26. (18 of 604 in my division.) I was completely estatic! I PR'ed by over 4 minutes, got my revenge on Baltimore, and gave me confidence that I can BQ in Philly. If I can run that fast on an extremely hard course, I have a lot of faith in my abilities in a flatter, faster city.
So naturally, my BMore high had to end at some point, and that was today when I checked out runnersworld.com and saw that Boston had filled in record time. I was already prepared to not be able to run until 2012 anyway (should I qualify), but now I'm worried that I will and then the standards will change, leaving me in awkward Boston limbo. So maybe I'll be able to tell everyone that I BQ'ed, but before I ever got to race, the qualifications changed. (Of course, this is assuming I will or else all of this will be a moot point).
My idea, since there seem to be an abundance floating around RW.com, is to give preference to first time BQers. I might not make a lot of friends with this, but I think it should be something that all runners (who qualify) should experience, and therefore, there should be limits on how often you can run. Like maybe only once every five years or something.
For now, I'm going to work hard for the next few weeks. Since I know I have the speed, my focus is going to the be long runs. I'm crosstraining a lot this week to recover, with another hard week and then my Philly taper. Bring it City of Brotherly Love.
9/22/2010 9:21 PM CDT Tags: deodorant I was in Target this afternoon, and per usual during Target trips, I ended up browsing aisles entirely unrelated to my shopping list. In addition to a toothbrush, multi-vitamins and blister band-aids (hello, I'm such a runner), I ended up with the Secret Clinical Strength deordorant. I've always contemplated buying this in the past, but I've noticed lately [POSSIBLE TMI DISCLAIMER] just how ridiculously sweaty I get, working out and in general. Since summer is making a comeback, I decided it would be nice, not only for exercising, but also my walks to class. Because, honestly, I'm ok with sweating on a run or at the gym, but no one wants to be that girl who has wet spots on her polos.
Despite the fact that I was a marketing major, I'm still easily swayed by packaging, thus went for the box with the runner's silhouette on it. It was after I got home that I realized that my new super deodorant is scented "marathon fresh scent". So I'm pretty sure there is nothing "fresh" about a marathon scent. I bet the marketers at Secret mean that the fresh scent will last you through a marathon, but the entendre made me chuckle a little.
While this isn't directly running related, I wanted to take the time to acknowledge how time is a great equalizer. This past weekend, I went to a wedding which was attended by several people I knew from college. One girl in particular had always been a bit of an enemy of mine (at a party, my friend commented on how she looked pregnant - oops) and we never really got along. I spoke with her for a while at the reception, and it turns out that she has gotten into distance running too. It was nice to know that after a few years, we were able to put aside really stupid differences and enjoy a wedding together as adults.
Also unrelated to running,I attempted to make crepes for the first time this evening. I was surprised at how easy and yummy they turned out. They were a snack, so I put some fruit inside, but am excited to experiment with more savory dishes. Does anyone have any good healthy, runner friendly ideas?
Well, I'm off to bed. I have an early morning set of Yasso 800s to look forward to :)
I was running along a fairly secluded and unused portion of a trail this morning, when I came across a large group of foreign tourists. Since I live near a large research university, this is not uncommon. There was a large group walking together, but I noticed a few stragglers off in the distance, one of whom was taking pictures. As I approached him, he shot a picture of me as well. It was a little weird to have my picture taken during an everyday thing for me, but I guess when he goes home he can show his friends how much American women love running. I smiled for him, I'm used to hamming it up for race photographers :)
The rest of my run was a lot less exciting. I've been focusing on really finishing my runs (particularly long ones) strong and I did that today as well. My last 2 miles of a 12 miles run were about a minute/mile faster than my average. All in all, not a bad way to start a Friday. Now if only I could be as productive with my school work...
9/16/2010 3:14 PM CDT
When I'm not particularly thrilled about an upcoming long run, I like to reward myself by downloading a few songs from iTunes so I'm pumped to hear them come up on my Shuffle. This is how I ended up with a litany of songs that will some day come in handy during a 2010s party, like 3OH3, Cascada and La Roux.
Not feeling the 18 miler on my schedule, I downloaded the new Nelly song,
Just a Dream, and
King of Anything by Sara Bareilles and set my iPod to charge.
At 5:45, I got dressed, checked the weather (ok, checked facebook) and headed out the door to drive to the trail.
I parked, and while I let my Garmin find it's satellites, I did little warm up around the parking lot. It was chilly, and as someone who likens being cold with going to the dentist, I didn't want to part with my Nike pullover. The something worse happened, I realized that I had everything but my iPod. I had left it charging on my lap top. I panicked... how would I ever get through 18 miles without music? Especially without Nelly!? Sure, I've done some short runs sans Shuffle, but never anything this long that wasn't a race (disclaimer - I always follow ALL race rules, including not taking my headphones. It's one of my running pet peeves when people blatantly disregard the no headphones rule).
Then, all at once, a calm came over me. I would do this run regardless, and enjoy it. I would observe the weather, other runners and simply do it on my own. I also decided that I wouldn't check my Garmin. Not. even. once.
I really enjoyed myself. The weather was awesome (50s-60s, low humidity, sunny) and I just focused on me. I had planned on taking the run easy, my long run last week was awesome, but after my first attempt at running stairs in two years, I knew it would be slow. I ran even splits (despite the downhill there, uphill back), without checking myself constantly. I overheard some juicy conversations. At the end, I used motivation to push through by telling myself I would be able to check my Garmin. Nelly and Sara would have to wait until my sprint workout.
