catherine's running efforts

Woah. It's July. 

Three miles in a loop around my house. I left at about 8:00 and it was already warm. I wore my Altras and my feet were happy, but maybe I felt twingy in my left knee? But I wonder that every time I run. I feel like the shoes pull me down into a midfoot strike, so I'm maybe going to try some insoles that have a little bit of a heel. But maybe that won't help; in my other shoes, there's kind of a sweet spot at about the balls of my feet that almost propels me forward, so maybe that's what I need. And now I feel like I'm being a drama queen about my shoes.  

9:21, 9:08, 9:02 

Three mile loop. My legs felt pretty tired. 

Friday 5 with Eric and Elliott. I taped up the spot on my toe that's been blistering so it wouldn't hurt, and I didn't have any knee or leg pain. The last half mile of our out-and-back is always a little hard for me because it shifts back to a slight uphill and we're trying to make the last mile our fastest, but I felt rested and springy and enthusiastic even though it was hard. I wish I felt that way all the time. And I wish I could remember that feeling when I'm trying to make myself get out of bed and out the door in the mornings. 

9:34, 9:20, 9:07, 8:24, 7:34 

A fun morning run with Toby. I was really glad because it was earlier and harder than the run I would have done by myself, and it was fun to have someone to talk to. The hills were tiring, and the wind near the canyon felt like it was in our faces no matter which way we were going, but we pushed through and conquered. Plus, the route she had planned had potties and drinking fountains. Best!

9:50, 9:43, 10:07, 9:48, 9:36, 9:48, 10:20, 8:54, 8:47, 8:58

I've been having this goal to run a little more each week, so I kind of planned to go out for another couple miles later on, but we had a little family hike instead. Also I realized that I didn't run more miles this week, but I *did* more - on Tuesday I did the 4-mile Stewart Falls hike wearing Elliott and her carrier on my back (an extra ~25 pounds), and 3-mile family hike was brisk. I'm not putting those down for running miles, but they still helped me get stronger. 

This isn't true. I just wanted to fill in something for the week for my graph. 

I didn't run at all last week. A couple times I got all ready to go and then decided I didn't want to. We found a place to move to in Provo, though, and I got a bunch of my stuff packed up. 

So today's run probably felt harder than it would have if I hadn't taken last week off. At the gym, 9:30 pace, 2% incline.  

Some speedwork with awesome Toby. She's so consistent. And tough. She kept getting faster while I kept getting slower. 5 laps with a half lap in between (this was nice because yesterday when she said 400s I had it in my mind that that was 2 laps), and some running before and after. 1:27, 1:30, 1:29, 1:31, 1:36 for the laps. Everything else was nice and slow. 

Another fun run with Toby. Plus it's great to be all done and showered by 6:30. 

Eric drove me to meet her because I was afraid of the dark, and then we did a nice out-and-back. 4.43 miles for me.  10:03, 10:10, 9:12, 9:29, 9:29 for the 0.43. 

My hamstrings, upper quads, and inner thighs are sore from yesterday. But absolutely no knee pain. Best.  

Today's hopefully the peak of the soreness from Tuesday's run. Three mile loop from my house after sleeping in until 7:00. :) 8:52, 9:43, 9:06. 

To and from the post office. 10:07 (with books), 9:13 (without books)

There was a woman there shipping something to China and the post clerk was being kind of jerky to her because of her accent. Then the clerk said, "They don't have powdered milk in China?" (I guess because she thought it was weird that the girl was spending 60+ to send this little package.) And the girl (girl? woman? probably early 20s) said that she was sending it to someone whose 11-month-old is really small because the mom wasn't making enough milk and in China they don't have medicine to increase a mom's milk supply like they do here, so she was just hoping that what she was sending would help. Yeah, I cried a little bit before it was my turn in line. 

I'll write a report later, but the little story is that I made my goal of a post-pregnancy 5k pr, I should run more if I want to run faster, I was 2nd in my age group (but 6 minutes slower than the person who was 1st), and Eric got beat by a couple of strollers because he and Elliott ran with me. 

*The report that I wrote later:

I was nervous about this race because I wanted to have a post-pregnancy PR (PPPR) even though I totally didn't deserve one. I was pretty consistent this year until knee-gate (*cough* altra-gate *cough*), and then I totally fell off the wagon. I've had weeks in the past few months where I didn't run at all, lots of weeks where I ran just a few miles, and I haven't run more than 22 miles in a week since the end of April. FRB keeps me honest, so this wasn't a "I'm going to PPPR even though I haven't trained because I think I can beat the system." I was just hoping I hadn't regressed. I was up late the night before looking up running stuff, and I found a comment thread on JakeK's FRB about how he would never race in Kinvaras. I had a mini freakout about my shoes, but then Eric reminded me that I'm not the kind of runner where the structure of my shoes is going to really matter. :)

I knew the course pretty well - it passes our house, and I ran it and drove it a few times before the race. The first about .75 is easy, the next about .8 is uphill some, and the rest is a gradual downhill. In my mind it's similar to the BYU 5K course, so I thought it would be fair to shoot for faster than 7:17/mile (what I did at BYU in March).

Usually in a 5K I start too fast and I get this funny feeling in my head and arms and stomach (also happened at Tuesday's track workout with Toby) where I feel like the blood is rushing away and I wish that I had eaten something. So I had a gel about 20 minutes before the race. I didn't get that feeling, but I also didn't start as fast. I knew the hill was coming, so my goal was just to have the first mile under 7:00 (other 5K first miles this past year have been 7:44 (up the BYU hill), 6:51, and 6:59). When we started on the uphill part I was watching my watch and saw that our pace was creeping up. I kept increasing the effort, but I couldn't keep the time down. Our (Eric and Elliott were with me) first mile was 7:12. I knew that we'd hit the downhill before the second mile was over, so I tried to push through and not watch the time until we were going back down. Second mile was 7:31. 

I like thinking about using downhills to rest my lungs and push my legs, so even though we were too slow after the 2nd mile I thought we'd be able to make up some time before the end. We did, but we also didn't pass very many people. We were both surprised at the big group that was with and ahead of us; usually a lot of people start faster than they can sustain, and we pick them off before the end. But we never saw a ton of people that were ahead of us. We did pass the purple shorts girl (Eric called her grape butt) I had picked out to beat early on, but she sprinted at the end and beat us anyway. We didn't ever catch the two stroller guys ahead of us (sorry, Eric). Third mile was 7:02, and the last bit was 7:23 pace. 

So...I'm glad I (barely) made my goal. I'm glad that I have some fall races planned. I'm glad that even though I won't PR at the Des News 10K, I'll still be a lot faster than I was last year. I'm glad that I'm not injured. And I'm glad that I'm happy with where I am and where I can be in the future instead of bummed about where I'm not. 

A mile around the neighborhood at noon. Hot, but I wasn't out for very long. I wanted to just run easy since we're doing the 10k tomorrow (and this was kind of just running to not have 0 on the calendar), but I saw that I was going at about a 9:00 pace and I thought, "self, maybe it's time to change your easy speed." So I finished in 8:30. And then I thought, "self, let this be a lesson - you can always find 8 and a half minutes in a day. Don't be such a slacker." 

Good luck to everyone running/racing tomorrow! Say hi to me and Eric if you see us.  

We met my parents at the race start this morning so my dad could watch Elliott, and we were all able to make our potty stops before the race began. I remembered that I hate weaving through all the people at the beginning, but at least I wasn't stressed about it like I was two years ago - my goal was just to be faster than last year, so losing a few seconds around people wasn't going to make a big difference. Once the people spread out, I had a great couple of first miles. My first mile was 6:32, so I made a goal to keep the same pace for the second mile (6:29). I had a gel at 2 miles because I think they really do make me feel less tired (I swear I felt it kick in at 4.5, but that's also when I was running slower so who knows). Then we were on some flat and uphill parts, so my goal for the third mile (7:34) was to keep my overall pace under 7:00. Then I wanted to see if I could have a fake 5k PR, but I was about 15 seconds off. I did my first-ever running water grab at that aid station on South Temple and it was intense. My next goal was to have the first four miles under 7:00, and I got it with a fourth mile in 7:19. Then I told myself I just had to stay at that pace until 4.2 so that I'd only have two miles left. I didn't really stop trying for the last two, but I gave myself some slack for the slight uphill (7:34, 8:12, 7:47 for the last bit (0.18 on my garmin)).

I was pretty confused about the course toward the end; at some point on 300 E I asked someone next to me if we weren't supposed to be on the parade route, because I remembered always turning onto that from South Temple, but he said that we'd merge into it. So for that whole stretch I was trying to think of reasons why they wouldn't have wanted the runners to do that whole part next to the parade-watchers (my best guess was that the race organizers were afraid of runners slipping or tripping on spills or garbage). Then when we did go down to 200 E there were people running on the other side of the cones, and I was afraid I had gone the wrong way. But there were tons of people around me, and someone asked the people on the other side what they were doing, and they said they were 5K runners. Except that the 5K shouldn't have started yet. So maybe they were confused about which race they were in. After reading people's race reports it sounds like someone messed up and sent some people the wrong way at the beginning? I'm glad someone figured out how to fix the distance problem by the time I came along, but I'm sad for the people whose races got shorted. 

After the race Eric and I and Elliott saw RAD and Glider Girl and met JD and someone else? (I'm sorry for forgetting who). We hung out and saw Fritz win (remember when the race talker made him run back onto the course after he was finished?) and Allie do awesome and Sasha say "CROCKS!" and had an accidentally long walk (and fun talk) with Glider Girl back to our car. 

I'm happy with how my race went. I'd like to get stronger/have more endurance so that my pace doesn't blow up, but I'm glad that my legs could go as fast as they did at the beginning (even though the hill helps so much). I was surprised that my first two miles were so similar to two years ago. And for sure the endurance will come if I just run more consistently.  

Also, overall I'm happy with where I'm at. The FRB (and, you know, Des News articles about women who win races after having a c-section 4 months ago) makes it easy to compare one's self to other people. Sometimes this can be bumming, but most of the time it's helpful to see how A leads to B, and people don't get to B without A. And some people get to C, but those people have pre-A. Or something. Anyway, maybe I should chide myself for not trying to be excellent, but right now I'm enjoying running and am glad for its place in my life.

2009: 55:32 (pre-garmin, no splits)

2010: 43:49 (6:28, 6:31, 7:20, 7:16, 7:10, 7:29, 7:32 (0.2))

2011: 57:01 (8:33, 8:11, 9:05, 9:07, 9:37, 10:14, 10:54 (0.2))

2012: 45:04 (6:32, 6:29, 7:34, 7:19, 7:34, 8:12, 7:47 (0.2)) 

A very pleasant recovery(for me)/taper(for her) run with Toby. I'm always so glad to run with her in the mornings - last night Elliott woke up for a bit, and if I hadn't been meeting someone there's no way I would have woken up early to go run. But now it's done and I don't have to stress all day about when to run and the world is a happy place. 

I was really afraid that today my knee would hurt from all the downhill yesterday, but it totally didn't! My legs were sore and tired, but so far they're not even *that* sore. I've been doing lots of hip stretches and foam rolling on my butt and quads to try to keep the can't-lift-my-legs soreness away, so we'll see if it works. 

9:57, 10:07, 10:18, 10:33 for .35 

Still sore, still afraid that my knee will start hurting, but still in the clear. Elliott's been super needy lately and it makes me crazy trying to figure out what to do with her in our apartment, so as soon as she woke up we jogged over to the park. I'm pretty sure she sat in some dog's poop, but at least she was happy for awhile. I was super slow with the jog stroller and our dog who likes to suddenly stop every 5 minutes or so. It made me appreciate all the races Eric's done with Elliott. 

A half marathon was pretty close to my house and Toby was running it, so I told her I'd meet her and run part of the race with her. I didn't realize that there was also a marathon, so I was confused for a bit when I was running backward on the course and the first people I saw didn't seem very fast. But then I saw the half people coming, and they were super speedy. I met Toby at about the mouth of the canyon and tried to think of some stories to tell for the next couple of miles. But then I got the poops and I had to leave Toby to find a potty. Bad race buddy! But I found her again at the end and she looked like she had had a good race. And I was home by 8 with the miles (including some nice up and downhill) I needed for the day. 

9:43, 9:50, 10:30, 10:03, 8:42, 8:48, 9:19, 9:33 (9:34 ap)