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October 2013

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Location:

Tucson,AZ,USA

Member Since:

Aug 30, 2007

Gender:

Female

Goal Type:

Age Division Winner

Running Accomplishments:

PR's

5K: 21:26 (2005)

4 mile: 28:10 (2005)

10K: 43:33 (2010)

10 mile: 1:13:35 (2009) (1:12:15 split in 1/2 marathon, 2011)

1/2 marathon: 1:34:31 (2011)

marathon: 3:19:15 (2013)

Short-Term Running Goals:

 

3:20 marathon - Eugene Marathon, April 28, 2013 (can I say I really want a sub 3:20? but I will be happy with 3:20-3:23) -- whoohoo!

Some good intermediate races 15K - 1/2 marathon, to gauge my fitness level (done this, hit a 1:34:35 1/2 marathon in March 2013, on a hilly course)

Going after my 10 mile PR in Fall 2013

Maybe some good 10K races after the infernal Arizona summer is over! 




Long-Term Running Goals:

I want to be one of those runners who is still running in their 80s (or 90s?).  You know the ones, who look all grisley and fit?  That is what I would like!  Until then, I just want to work hard and be as fast as I can, for as long as I can.


Personal:

50 year old, trying to defy gravity and time

Used to be faculty at the University of Arizona (biostatistics).  Currently manager of the statistics and data management group for companion diagnostics (biomarkers) at Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (Roche diagnostics).  We evaluate protein biomarkers that can be used to direct drug therapy that would be most effective based on individual characteristics (personalized medicine).

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
285.000.000.000.000.00285.00
Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
11.000.000.000.000.0011.00

AM: 8 miles, in a hurry - what else is new? :)

PM: easy 3

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
7.000.000.000.000.007.00

I found a new favorite route today -- I have run this before, but not often.  It basically is a nice slow grinding uphill for ~3 miles and then nice easy downhill. I think I have described this before, but we live in the mountains, there are quite a few homes, but mostly they are spread out over about 2 acres each, and there are mountain stretches were there are no homes -- sort of like Emigration Canyon area.  This road has homes, but most of them are at the end of the road -- in a canyon slot  ... where they have spectacular views of the city and the mountains to the East and North (the Northeast side is home to Mt. Lemmon, a 9000ft peak that has skiing in the Winter - and not 110F days in the Summer).  Anyway, the road up to the canyon is just filled with smaller hillsides full of saguaro cacti -- and it is SO beautiful in the morning - when the moutainsides look red from the sun.   It is a perfect spot!

How can I not have a good day??!!

Happy running bloggers.

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
12.500.000.000.000.0012.50

AM: 9 miles - 1:20:12

PM: 3.5 miles

 

So, one of my projects hit a very big milestone today -- we got an Investigational Drug Exemption (IDE) filed with the FDA.  We are the companion diagnostic test for pharmacutical drug that is going to start being used in clinical trials.  It is very exciting, and the drug has the potential to save the lives of people with lung cancer - it was in the news this week.  This was a huge project - we have been working towards this for 6 months -- there are probably about 40 people working on the project.  I am part of the leadership team, so I think I might get a plaque or something -- oh boy :)

Anyway -- it is not my only project, but it has been the one that has been most challenging to me, because it was something I had never done before.  So, I am excited to have been able to finish this part!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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Took a nice birthday stroll up "the beautiful grind" -- woke up stiff and sore, but by the time I was running - I felt better than I had in months!  happiest 51st birthday ever!!

 

Good luck at St. George my fast friends!!

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AM: 8 miles, soooooo nice to be able to sleep in, I messed around and did not get out the door until nearly 10AM -- and it was only 85F!  Heaven -- "oh Arizona, I love you this time of year" :)

PM: easy 3.5 miles WITH DEAN!!  sweetness.  It was awesome running with him!

Congratulations on the most amazing St. George times, bloggers -- so many PRs!!!

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Beautiful run, so grateful I can run my usual hilly route again! (though I am trying to keep it on the short side, while I evaluate how my body handles the mileage.  So far, not bad at all!! Yea!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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AM: 9 miles -- usual, usual, 1:20

PM: 3.5

 

where oh where has the week gone!??!?!?!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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up the beautiful (and yet painful) hill!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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I am indeed in a rut :)

AM: 9 miles, 1:20

PM: 3.5 miles

It did not get hotter than 80F today!!!  HOLY COW, Fall is here!! YEA!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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53F 53F 53F  LOVE 53F  so happy  53F

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
11.500.000.000.000.0011.50

AM: 8 miles -- another beautiful morning

PM: 3.5 easy

 

I seem to be ok with this current mileage, but I will admit I am truly exhausted.  I can't tell if it is clinical, or because I have worked nearly 53 days straight, or both :) - I am going to running camp in two weeks -- I can't wait, I am going to try to leave my work phone at home.

So, tomorrow is Dean's birthday - I have done something way too extravagent ... but I have done it because for the previous 3 birthdays he has gotten the short-end of the stick for birthday dinners.  I have always gotten to go to my favorite restaurant - which is always perfect - and I have tried to take him to good ones, but they have fallen short.  Tomorrow we are not only going to a restaurant that is quite fancy, but I have organized a "chef's table" too!  The head chef at this place is my hair-dressers husband.  I called him a couple of weeks ago, we laid out favorite foods - and he is going to prepare a menu just for us.  It is a 5-6 course affair, and they really pamper us.  I have also invited a couple that I know Dean really likes - to provide social activity (so I don't have to :) -- actually, they are simply much more interesting than me - unless I am talking about the color of Lucy's poo, of course).  It is going to be a complete surprise (keeping this a secret has been really really hard!!!).  Fifty-three (and not paying for college anymore) has its privilages!!  


Happy Saturday, bloggers!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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Same as last week -- still feeling pretty good, maybe better since it is cooler these days.  Yesterday was very exciting on the homefront ... funny, but long story.  

Jake and Lucy (brown dog, blond dog) were lounging on their beds enjoying the siesta time (I, of course, was working).  All of a sudden Jake jumps up and goes insane!  Dean just gets frustrated with him, I actually recognize some annoying behaviors as "interesting" :).   Remember, we live out in the mountains, so we don't really have close neighbors ...  so I look outside and there is a guy (one of our neighbors) in our driveway - and his wife is on the other side of our property  on the phone.  I ran outside to see what is going on and my neighbor says, "you have horses near your garage" -- ha ha -- they were our other neighbors horses! and they were in front of our garage.  

First, we corraled them into our fenced yard ... and then spoke with our horse-owning neighbors over the phone -- luckily, I am not afraid of horses (unlike the other neighbors!) - so I just used apples to entice them into the yard.  It was quite the fun - using the rest of the afternoon inspecting the corral to see how they escaped (gate was left open), trying to find rope to lead them home again (up the hill over the game trails that link our driveways), and feeding them hay (both in our yard, and after we got them back home).  You know, now that I am writing this it doesn't sound nearly as exciting as it was that day :-) -- believe me, it was a couple hour ordeal, and caused no end of excitment in dogs, cat, and humans of the house!

 

Happy week, bloggers!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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what a day -- I had very early morning meetings, so I decided to run my easy 4 in the morning, and then was planning on running ~8 miles in the evening.  I had to give a talk, I ended up roped into a series of meetings ... and before you know it -- it is 6PM and I am starting my run.  Drat -- it was dark by the time I got 2 miles into it (for those of you who have never been to Tucson, or heard me tell you this, Tucson is a low/no light city - which means there are very few places with street lights, when it is dark here - it is really dark - and I was not prepared for this - no reflective material, no headlamp, no nothing, just old eyes :)).  Bummer.  The only thing that made me feel a tiniest bit better about this was that there is some sort of virus going around work - and now that I am one of "those" people with  a compromised immune system (because of my medication) I have to be super careful, so taking it easy is probably in order anyway -- but still -- I was incredibly disappointed!

 

AM: easy 4

PM: easy 4.5 

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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Hilly 8 -- beautifully cool morning!!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
13.000.000.000.000.0013.00

AM: 9 miles

PM: 4 miles

Spent most of the day at the car dealership, getting my car serviced, luckily, the have nice little cubicles to work in :-) 

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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3.5 up and 3.5 down ... Cool, beautiful!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
12.000.000.000.000.0012.00

AM: 8

PM: 4

First day off work in nearly 2 months ... Yes!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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whoops where did the week go???  nothing much to note in the earlier parts of the week, the real exciment was the later part of the week when I went up to Flagstaff to running camp with Greg McMillan. Now THAT was fun!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
13.000.000.000.000.0013.00

AM: 9 miles - 1:20

PM: 4 miles 

 

Loving the Fall, it is so fun!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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easy run on the hills (which made it not really "easy").

 

I am very pissed.  I work in a "cube" environment -- usually doesn't bug me because I am in meetings all the time, and the only time I have to work at a desk is at my own desk at home :). So, we have had a few new employees over the past few weeks, one of them was hacking away at his desk. I asked if he had allergies -- because that is common when people first move here, it is really really dry (even drier than SLC) and there are some weird trees that a lot of people need to get used to :).  He says, "no, I have a cold".  Crud!!! one of the worst parts about the medication I am taking (besides hair loss which is sucky I tell you) is that I don't have an immune system -  arrrrggg.  I am very glad I am going out of town, but you know - we have a very lax "work from home option" - I wish people would use it when they are sick!  I know he is new and worried about taking sick leave and might not know the "rules" -- but seriously.  Ok, rant over.

 

I am on my way to running camp!!!  YEA!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
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AM: 9 miles

PM: easy 4 with runners at running camp!!

Where did the week go, bloggers?  

Here was the camp itinerary:

Thursday, Oct. 24th

3PM:  check-in and run on the Flagstaff Urban Trail (wonderful dirt trail that goes for ~30 miles around the city). We got a nice McMillan Running spike bag filled with goodies.

5PM: 1 hour discussion on 'meeting our running goals' (this was a followup camp for people who had been to the previous camp so we updated everyone on how we were going since last time we met).

6PM: Dinner with the group

Friday:

7AM: drive down to Sedona for a run, and have lunch. (I suck, and had work, so I missed this fun)

1PM: we went to a local gym and learned about some injury reduction exercises, foam roller stuff, and core building - the teacher was a guy who had been a trainer for the US ski team for 20 years, smart guy.  We then did an hour of yoga! (I couldn't do much of this because of the arthritis in my arm, but I enjoyed the leg stuff) - runners are not the most flexible people :-) 

5PM: gluten-free pizza and a movie (http://www.ws100film.com/) about the Western States!  it was a blast

Saturday:

7AM: run in Aspen Corners -- beautiful place up at about 8,000 - 9,000 ft.  One of the other campers got lost, and we all ended up standing around, running back and forth on the trails, and driving up-and-down the road leading up to the various trail-heads (of which there were numerous -- I mean really numerous numbers of them!) looking for him.  He ended up about 6 miles off down the wrong trail!  weirdo :)

12noon: late lunch 

1PM: Nutrition talk -- it was very lively.  Many of us runners have strong views about our diets, and what types of nutrition when we run.  Greg is an advocate in training our bodies to use fat instead of carbs in training -- the "run with no carbs in training, forcing you bonk" theory, in hopes that it will train your body to utilize more fat than carbs on race day.  Also, we talked about Paleo diet (which Dean advocates), carb-free diets (which I advocate), etc.  It was fun!

4PM: afternoon run

6PM: dinner with huge group at a Greek restaurant.

Sunday

Long run on one of the most amazing dirt roads ever -- ok, well it was an amazing dirt, forest service road of which Flagstaff has thousands :).  It was so much FUN!

Farwell (sniff sniff) brunch ...

long, sad, ride home.


There you go!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
7.000.000.000.000.007.00

already describes this day yesterday :)

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
11.000.000.000.000.0011.00

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
14.000.000.000.000.0014.00

Yea, 2 hours in the altitude!  over hills, over dale, it was spectacular!

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
13.000.000.000.000.0013.00

Sorry bloggers, I have been bad.  I have been running, but not blogging.  Just so busy at work, it really sucks.

9 in the AM, 4 in the PM

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
7.000.000.000.000.007.00

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
13.000.000.000.000.0013.00

9 in the AM, 4 in the PM

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Easy MilesThreshold MilesMarathon Pace MilesTrack speed mileageHill mileageTotal
285.000.000.000.000.00285.00
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