Running in the Middle

My run this morning felt more like a punishment.  Did not get enough sleep last night and I started out feeling like I had no fuel in the tank.  Stayed that way the entire run.  Running up to the mouth of AF canyon was like a wind tunnel, and I swear I was being pushed backwards.  I'm glad I made it through, some days thats just the best you can do.

My new shoes feel great.  Started using them already cause I'm just too paranoid about my stress fracture coming back.  Seeing as I have picked my miles up to get ready for my second half, I feel like I have to be extra careful to stay injury free.  My legs felt so well rested and relaxed tonight, they had so much power.  I ran really fast and my lungs could just not keep up.  It was a great tempo run and I beat my previous 5k and 10k PR's.  In a training run, crazy.  

I decided to cut back on my miles and try and take it easy for a few days.  So many little aches and pains nagging at me I don't want to push too hard and get injured.  Maybe I got a little too excited about my 1/2 coming at the end of the month and upped my miles too quickly.  I have a habit of pushing myself too hard, I need to learn how to pull back a little.

Felt great to get out and run in the crisp fall air.  I wanted to go further but it was getting dark and I hate running in the dark.  Have a race coming up on Saturday at Thanksgiving point, women only run.   Its 6k which is kind of a weird distance.  Hope I can have fun and that it does not rain like it did last year.

Tried to get a bit of a long run in since I missed this weekend.  A calf muscle has been acting up the past few runs.  But my chiropractor showed me a new way to stretch it, he said it was the soleus.  That really seemed to help because I barely felt it my whole run.  I'm lucky enough to go to the chiropractor three times a week for the past month.  Got rear ended in Aug. and I'm being treated for neck and back strains.  Lucky me.

Never done a race report before so here goes.  Have not done a race since springtime and for some reason I was feeling very nervous.  I tried to keep busy yesterday and not think about it, but it did not help much.  Got up early at 5:50 for a yummy breakfast of toast and apple juice.  Got there at 7:30, half hour before start.  Did a little warm up job, trip to the bathroom before the lines got long and then some stretching.  It was pretty chilly out, I'm glad I brought a big coat.  My sister-in-law arrived with her family to come run the race with me.  It was fun to have them there, my brother took a lot of pictures with his paparazzi camera.

 We started right at the front and that was a good choice for me, I felt like I had a great start.  Ran in fourth position for more then half the race.  Then someone came sneaking up on me when we got to the hilly part.  I feel like hills always tend to be my weakness.  She was pretty tiny and I could see she just did not have to hull as much "muchness" us the hill as me.  We ran the last mile neck and neck passing each other back and forth a bit.  After we were out of moves we just ran side by side till the finish line fighting for fourth place.  When we turned the corner and saw the finish line about 50 M away we both kicked in to full sprints.  I gave it everything I had but she got ahead of me and finished just a few seconds ahead.  I was actually ok with her beating me because I knew I gave it absolutely everything I had.  I was really happy with 5th overall.  It was a women's only race by the way.  

My time was 31:27 for 6k or 3.72 miles.  That is 8:25 AP.  That was great, I ran this same race course last year with a time of 33:46 and 16th overall.  So took more then 2 minutes off my time.  I'm happy.  I felt like I was running a lot faster then that pace, some people were saying on their Garmins they measured the course a little longer.  I don't have a Garmin, not quite that awesome yet.  But plan to get one for Christmas.   Probably the only 6k race I have ever heard of, sort of a different distance to race.  I got a medal for 2nd in my age division, that was cool.  This was fun, I should do more races.  Now that I have this one out of the way, hopefully I won't get so nervous for the Provo Halloween 1/2 in two weeks.

P.S.  I would have added in a cool picture but have no idea how to do that yet.

My legs felt a little tired after yesterday.  So I just did nice long slow run.  There weather was perfect, the temperature was perfect.  Not too many aches and pains to complain about either.  Everything is going good.

Put in some quick miles on the treadmill.  Too stormy to go out this evening.  The best part of my run was that all the kids were in bed and I could just zone out to my music.

Had to sneak some miles in on the treadmill while my girls watched Disney Jr. Some

Days I'm just lucky to get a run in at all. Now to see if I can get them to be good so I can have a shower.

Did not get in as many miles today as I would have liked.  Just getting over being sick so I tried to take it easy on my run today.  Friday I had a horrible stomach bug and to be polite all I will say is that I lost 4 lbs in one day.  Well I did want to slim down a bit before my 1/2 on Sat but this was not really what I had in mind.  I hope I'm feeing good and back to myself by race day.  

Super fun treadmill miles.  My stomach was really upset tonight, that made my run less then awesome.  Guess I'm not fully over whatever I had this last weekend.  Hoping all is well and back to normal by Saturday.  

Did some fine tuning to my costume last night.  Took it for a test run down my street and back.  Wonder if any of the neighbors were wondering who that crazy person was.  Going as Link from the Legends of Zelda.  Just had to make sure my faux boots and green hat all stayed in place while running.

Got to the University mall just before 6:30 am and got to stand in line for the bus for almost an hour.  Can I say FREEZING.  At least the buses were heated when we finally got on. Met jpark from the blog who was fun to chat with on the ride up.  I spent a lot of time on my costume (Link from Zelda) getting everything just right.  But once I actually started to run in my costume I ran into a major problem.  My stupid pants would not stay up.  They were new running pants that I had bought for my costume because they were the white color I needed. But I never ran in them before and I guess that was a big mistake, we live and learn right.  During the first four miles or so of the race I had to stop several times to pull my pants up.  I almost nearly lost them once and that would have been pretty ridiculous.   Maybe it was because it was so freezing cold, I saw a few other runners trying to hike their pants up too.   Once I got down into the canyon and the downgrade was not so steep and I was warmed up a bit the problem was not as bad, they seemed to stay up better.  

It was still pretty frustrating though, I was so concentrated on keeping my pants up for the first part of the race I wasn't really focusing on my running.  I was pretty sure my goal time was gonna be pretty hard to reach after such a difficult start.  On the upside my costume was pretty good and authentic looking, I got a lot of cheers from other runners which was fun.  I was hoping to do the course in 1:55 but fell a bit short of that.  Guess I can always try again next year.  My legs are so much more sore then any other race I have ever run, I had no idea all that downhill would effect them so much.  This race was big and exciting and it was a lot of fun, also a really great learning experience for me.