Running Chick

2:08:27

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:01:22 -0400

Hello, I’m still alive! This last month has been a whirlwind of packing, moving, crappy weather and trying to maintain the last of my training schedule along with my sanity. I’m happy to report that I survived.

I ran Journeys half marathon two weekends ago. I ended up finishing in 2:08:27 which is about a 9 and a half minute PR over last year. I honestly have no idea how I pulled that out. The weather, Josh’s injury and moving really made it next to impossible to stay consistent and unfortunately, running had to take a backseat. My mileage wasn’t even close to where it should have been, but I did focus on lots of hills and I was able to get in six 10+ mile long runs so maybe that helped? Or, maybe it was the tailwind. I really have no idea.

The weather on race morning was unpleasant to say the least. 34 degrees with about a 15 mph wind, plus intermittent rain/snow.

I dressed in full February running gear and I was still cold but there were some ladies up in the front of the line (read: fast) who dressed like it was 75 degrees outside. Runners are nuts.

This was my fourth time running Journeys and this damn course never gets any easier, no matter how many hills I run during training. But, looking at my stats, I did manage run a pretty textbook successful race. My second half was faster than my first, and I ran negative splits for the last six miles. I took gels at 4.5 and 9 and had a bunch of Swedish Fish in-between. I had water at every aid station, except the first, and I ran through all but two. Running that distance at under 10:00 minute miles is really fast for me. In hindsight, I probably should have taken one more gel had I anticipated maintaining that pace, but I figured I’d end up gradually slow down in the second half and noodling my way across the finish line somewhere around 2:20. But, my legs kept working and I didn’t feel like I was going to have a heart attack or anything, so I just kept going. When I crossed the finish line, I was spent. After a hot shower and a two hour nap (oops, bad move), we headed out for our traditional post-Journeys boozing.

Anyway, next year I’m contemplating skipping Journeys in favor for the Green Bay Cellcom HM. I know a couple of people who do it every year, and it sounds like a lot of fun. Lots of time to think about that, though.

Company

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 19:39:02 -0400

Josh got cleared to ride his bike again (and do some short runs), so he biked along with me on my 12 miler this afternoon.

The weather was great, it was nice to be outside in the sun & warm breeze.

Quite a difference from yesterday, when we had hopefully our final Snowpocalypse of the year.

I didn’t meet my mileage quota this week, I’ve been having some IT band related knee issues so I took a few days off to let that simmer down. Thanks to a few sessions with my foam roller my knee was fine and dandy on today’s run.

Packing has been a priority since our moving date is coming up fast and we have a lot more boxes packed. This week, we only needed to break into three boxes to retrieve packed items. We had success with two items, but not the last, which explains why I just pulled banana cake out of the oven instead of banana bread.

At least the cats have been having lots of fun.

Anyway, weekly recap. Monday, 3 @ 11:36, Wednesday 6 @ 10:26, and Sunday 12.3 @ 10:52 for a total of just over 21 miles. I ended up about seven miles short. Next week I have 28 miles on the schedule, but I’m already anticipating not making that. Oh well.

Zombies

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:51:39 -0400

Happy Easter, or Happy Zombie Jesus Day, whichever you prefer. We are having ham later on today, depending on if I packed my roasting pan. We’re moving at the end of the April so we’ve been packing like crazy and my life currently looks like this:

Our new place is on 10.5 acres about 5 miles outside of town, and our only neighbors will be critters and trees. It’s going to be so awesome. Packing up the kitchen has been interesting. I take something out of the cabinet, try to decide if I’ll need it in the next month, decide that I won’t so I pack it up. Two hours later either Josh or I are standing in the kitchen trying to figure out why we can’t find the thing that’s now packed away on the bottom of a large, sealed box. So far, I’ve only had to break into one box.

Anyway, since it finally stopped snowing, I had a much better running week than the last two. Last week I was only able to manage 15 miles. 5 miles on Monday right before Snowpocalypse IV hit and then 10 miles on Saturday. This week, I finished up with just over 25 miles, including a 10 miler in a steady drizzle that turned to sleet half-way through. The roads were slippery, but not too terrible. Running in frozen clothing was unpleasant. Check out the ice on my glasses, compliments of a MUB bathroom glamour shot.

Weekly recap: (last week) Monday, 5 @ 10:16; Saturday, 10.25 @ 10:11. (this week) Tuesday, 5 @ 10:12; Wednesday, 5 @ 10:00; Friday 4 @ 10:38; Saturday, 10.50 @ 10:33.

March (good riddance) ended up being 83 miles @ 10:30, and so far for 2013, I have 178 miles. Next week is a big one. I have 28 total miles on the calendar, with a long run of 12. Woot.

Ugh, Snow

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 20:39:56 -0400

Thanks to the bunch of snow we got early last week, I was only able to complete two out of my four runs. I had a not-so-great run on Thursday where I felt like the upper & lower halves of my body just couldn’t get in sync and then a 10-miler on Saturday that was pretty okay, aside from having to climb into a snow bank for a potty break. Incidentally, the snow is up to my knees on the side of this road.

It’s not looking good for making my runs this week, either, seeing as we’re right in the middle of Snowpocalypse IV. I did have a really good on Monday just before the snow started, so that felt good.

Weekly recap: Thursday, 5.14 @ 10:23; Saturday 10.14 @ 11:05 for a total of 15.28 miles. This week I’m supposed to do 23.50, but it’s unlikely I’ll make that.

Lots O Updates

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 20:45:03 -0500

Happy Snowy Saturday, Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy March and Happy every other day I missed since my last post. Let’s jump right in with the updates, shall we?

Training officially started at the beginning of February, and I’ve been using the same schedule that I did last summer, running four times/week. I had an okay fitness base built up from December & January, but it still felt like a bit of a struggle to hit my paces. Combined with lots of snow and some cold patches which forced me to have several dates with the treadmill, and that equates to February turning out to be not that pleasant of a month. Still, I only missed one run and ended the month with 61.50 miles.

I’m feeling a lot stronger and peppier now, and so far this month I’ve logged 27 miles, with a little over 20 miles this week. The roads are mostly bare now, which is such a welcome state after spending the last couple of months slogging away in the squishy snow. There are still some spots which are super icy and I had three close calls this morning on my long run where I slipped and ended up skidding on the ice, arms & legs flailing around. I had to remind myself to proceed with extreme caution because I’m currently helping Josh as he recovers from this:

You can hop on over to his blog to get full story, but the short version is that he crashed his bike and broke his collarbone. He had surgery last Thursday where they inserted a plate to repair the bone. He’s bionic now, but laid up for the next few weeks. Sounds like it’ll be about three months before he’s back to full strength, so I’ll be running on my own until probably May or June.

Random photos from my phone.

Pippen is now 1.5 years old. Here he is at three months, when we first got home. See how cute and teeny?

Here he is now. Godzilla! He barely fits in my lap anymore, and when he stretches out, he’s as long as my legs hereby proving that everyone’s taller than me.

Found a great new brewery in Marquette, Ore Dock Brewing Company. The place is pretty small, but the beer is really good.

We had a pretty good blizzard at the end of February that closed MTU for 1.5 days. That was pretty significant because MTU does not close down frequently. The last time was in 2007 and that one was on Josh’s birthday! I forget how much snow that storm brought us, but it seemed like we were shoveling a couple of times a day for a week straight before we got a break.

I found the most enormous bottle of Sriracha I’ve ever seen in the hospital cafeteria. That was about the only interesting thing I found there. I might add that it also did not look like the cafeteria in Gray’s Anatomy, nor did any of the doctors look like McDreamy. Such a disappointment.

I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled weekly posts starting next week. Until then, think Spring! And don’t forget to turn your clocks back an hour tonight.

Snowy Sunday

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 19:40:56 -0500

Happy snowy Sunday. We’ve been receiving a lot of fluffy lake effect snow today, which bodes well for our winter sports enthusiasts. Yesterday, the temperature reached 45 degrees and my deck was completely bare. Here it is this evening. I’d say that’s about 10 inches. We (meaning Josh) did snow twice today, but I did venture outside to brush off my car and shovel the sidewalk and steps. That’s our weather station on the pole. We put it up earlier in the week and it’s been pretty interesting watching all the measurements. We’re on Weather Underground and we have our own weather site, so check us out.

We had some good runs this week, partly due to the bare roads. I’m not officially training yet, that doesn’t start for another couple of weeks, but I am trying to stick to 10-15 weekly miles to get good base. Speaking of training, I was on the fence about whether I wanted to run a half or full in the Spring and I decided that I’m not ready to jump into marathon training just yet so I’m going to stick to the half. Anyway, we managed a little over 14 miles this week including one hill session that saw my heart rate peak at 190. I didn’t puke or die but my legs were pretty sore the next day.

Gear review! ICESPIKE

Last winter, I switched from using Yaktrax to sheet metal screws for traction. They worked pretty well, but I was hoping find something that would last the entire winter. Josh pointed me to ad he saw for ICESPIKE, essentially a sheet metal screw on steroids. I did a bit of reading and decided to buy a set. They were a bit pricey ($16.99 for 32 spikes and a couple of bucks for shipping), but since they advertised that I could potentially get 500 miles on them, I figured it’d be worth it. I installed eight in each shoe and headed out for a run. My first impression was that I could feel each screw through my shoe, even with a fairly thick insole. That was a little strange at first, because I don’t remember feeling the sheet metal screws quite as much, but I figured I’d get used to them over time. The spikes provided good traction on the hard-packed snowy roads and aside from being able to feel each screw which was mostly weird, they were fine on pavement as well. When I got back home, I looked at the screws and I was disappointed to see that they showed quite a bit of wear. My run was only 3.5 miles long and of that, probably about a half mile was pavement. I decided to keep an eye on them after each run and note the wear. As of today I have 23 miles on them and some of them are worn to the point of being completely flat and the rest aren’t far behind. I contacted the company and they told me that they have sold thousands and thousands of sets and not one person has reported the same issue that I had. I found that to be a bit condescending, but they did end up giving me a full refund, so there’s that.

I think that if the wear wouldn’t have been so outrageous, I would have just kept them, but there was no way I was going to get 50 miles out of them, let alone the 500 that the company advertised. I can buy a box of 100 sheet metal screws for $2.99 from the hardware store and get more wear out of them for a fraction of the cost($0.30 per shoe with sheet metal screws vs. $4.25 with ICESPIKEs). I won’t go as far as to call them a gimmick, although that’s what Josh says they are, but I will say that based upon my experience they aren’t worth the money. I’m sticking with my trusty sheet metal screws. Two thumbs down.

2013 Goals and Whatnot

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:12:03 -0500

Happy New Year! What the heck happened to 2012? Is it just me, or does it seem like the last year went by at an alarming rate?

It’s been rather quiet on the running front. I took a ~~two~~ six week vacation from running and started back up again in the beginning of December. Not a great idea as my little break left me huffing and puffing through runs that are at my usual easy pace. Hrmph. I’m starting to feel better after logging around 40 miles for December. One of my runs was with Josh on Christmas day, we ran 4.5 miles through campus and downtown, which was obviously very quiet. I stood in the middle of the main street and took a picture.

Then we ran hills and I almost had a heart attack and died.

2012 recap. The pinnacle of my year was that I made it through the entire running season without an injury. That’s never happened before, so woohoo to that. I did have a minor issue with my right foot in the beginning of the year which I thought was a stress fracture, but turned out to be a subluxated cuboid bone. A few sessions with my PT put the little rascal back in place and got me back on the road. I logged just over 600 miles and ran five races.

2012 by the numbers:

Total Miles	605.82
Total Time	110:28:38
Average Pace	10:56

Journeys Half Marathon	May	2:17:46
Canal Run (5 mile)	July	54:38
Fox Cities Half Marathon	September	2:12:19
runningchunk.com 5k	October	30:54
Whistlestop Half Marathon	October	2:21:36

Goals for 2013. M-A-R-A-T-H-O-N. I figure that it’s non-committal if I spell it out. Truthfully though, that distance scares the hell out of me, so I’m really hesitant to commit to anything. My other goals for 2013 are eat less junk, exercise more, lose weight, bla bla bla same old same old.

Training starts in a couple of weeks, so here’s a picture of my cat’s booty to tide you over until then.

Whistlestop HM Sanity Check Oops I Mean Recap

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 16:21:15 -0400

Hey, how goes it? Did you know I moved? I live in Jpigjtpm, MI now. It used to be Houghton, MI, but somebody at the Ashland Chamber of Commerce decided to shift their fingers one key to the right when typing my city so now I will forever be known as being from the strange and mystical, far away land of Jpigjtpm.

So, race recap. It was ... I dunno. I have yet to come up with a word that describes it accurately. I supposed “fine” will suffice for now, in lieu of “sucky” and “rotten”. The weather was pretty crappy – cold & rainy for most of the way. Not completely unexpected for this time of year, but there were times when I was questioning the sanity of running 13.1 miles in cold & wet weather when I would have been home in my warm bed. Sanity checks told me that this was the last race of the season and every step I took was one more step closer to RUNNING VACATION. Don’t laugh, it got me to the end.

We arrived in Ashland in the early afternoon on Friday. Puttered around the town a little bit, checked out the race area, finish line, bus & packet pickup areas, all that stuff. We spent some time poking around in the downtown shops. This race is a big event for Ashland, so we heard “Where are you from? Are you here for the race?” frequently. We had a very disappointing (not to mention expensive) lunch at the Deep Water Grille, but their beer was really good (they ended up comping it, which was nice). Packet pickup was a bit of a disorganized frenzy, but we made it out alive.

The race starts out in the little town of Moquah and follows the road for a mile a half or so before and then we get on the Tri Corridor Trail back into Ashland.

We checked the trail out on Friday and the surface was hard packed. Unfortunately, we discovered that by the time we got on it, and 50% of the people in the race had already gone through, it had turned soft & loose. My quads started complaining around mile 4 and didn’t stop for the rest of the way. Getting out of bed this morning was painful.

Since this was the final race of the year, I decided to run with Josh. The first mile was mostly downhill, so we started out a little fast (10:09). Once we got on the trail, our pace evened out to around 10:30, which we held onto until around mile 10. Then, the soft surface started to take it’s toll and our pace started dropping as our legs got more sore and our blisters got worse. For some weird reason, I started to clip the inside of my right ankle with my left shoe so I had painful, bloody and muddy ankle. My quads were complaining loudly as were the blisters on my left foot thanks to the rocks in my shoes. Josh wasn’t faring much better. In fact, in the last two miles or so, everybody around us looked like the walking wounded. There were lots of people either walking slowly, limping, stretching something out. We saw one guy being hauled off in a stretcher. It was pretty crazy.

Finally, FINALLY, after 11.5 miles, the trail turned to pavement and I think I can honestly say that I was never so happy to see pavement in all my life, except for maybe this time.

Josh was hoping to make 2:20, but he ran out of gas in the end and my legs were too trashed to keep up any sort of wild 2 mile sprint to the finish, so we settled for 2:21. It was still 3 minutes better than he did in Appleton, so that was really great.

Race swag was a cool duffle bag.

And a non-specific medal.

The aid stations had plenty of water & Gatorade and the volunteers were very well prepared. Also, for the course basically being out in the boonies, there were a surprising number of spectators along the way. Less than Appleton, but way more than Eagle River. The finish line was also set up very efficiently and there was plenty of food (donuts!). We did have to shuffle around a while before we figured out where the drop & duffle bag pickup was, but we eventually found it. The cost of this race was $84 (we registered after the price break periods). Was it worth it? Eh, probably not. Appleton had better swag and a better course. Would I do this race again? Probably not. Regardless of the weather, the trail just didn’t agree with my legs and the whole straight line in one direction for endless miles ended up crushing my soul after a while (sanity check, see above).

Up next is....nothing. I’m taking a vacation from running for one, maybe two weeks. I can usually go one week without a problem, but two makes me twitchy so we’ll see. I have no more races on the schedule for 2012. Unless something really interesting comes up, I’ll just derp around until January and then dive back into a schedule for Journeys in May 2013.

Until next time, I will leave you with this last bit of whining. This is how my legs feel, y’all. Running is fun!

Chassell Trail Run

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Sun, 30 Sep 2012 20:29:14 -0400

All signed up, t-minus 13 days. I believe there was snow on the ground back in 2009, hopefully that won’t repeat for 2012.

Running has been a struggle this week. I’ve been flipping between wanting to rest the entire week, and needing to keep on running because of Whistlestop. My legs were feeling a bit sore & tired, so I didn’t end up running until Wednesday evening. I ran again on Friday, and then did a 10 mile long run this afternoon on the Chassell trail. I don’t know if it was the slight incline of the trail or the loose gravel surface, but my quads are really feeling sore and achy.

Josh added another bike to his collection (it’s a sickness, I’m convinced) so he rode along with me while I ran. Anyway, here’s a shot of the trail. Still a lot of greens and yellow leaves on the trees.

And the bridge at the end, which I find rather scary to cross. It’s a long way down!

Thank goodness Josh has a helmet cam and could capture how much of an idiot I looked like when I crossed. In my defense, every time I looked down through the rails at the water, I was all "Woo scary!" so I was focusing on looking at the rails and my feet.

I got more brave on the way back, here’s a shot from the middle of the bridge. Scary!

Here’s Mr. Show Off carrying his bike across like it ain’t no thang.

Weekly recap: Wednesday, 4 @ 10:25, Friday 4 @ 10:19, Sunday 10 @ 11:02. Tapering starts next week and I’ll top out with 12 miles which will include the 2012 runningchunk.com 5k. There’s still time to register, you slackers.

Finally, I shall leave you with one of the many reasons Fall is my favorite season.

Fox Cities HM Recap

nospam@example.com (Running Chick) — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:24:01 -0400

When I ended up finishing in 2:17:45 in Eagle River, which was a 2-ish minute PR, I set a secret goal of finishing in 2:15 for the Fox Cities HM. I figured that four months of training, adding in speed work and bumping up my running days from three to four per week would allow me to pull it off. But then we got hit with a heat wave that lasted all summer long and wreaked havoc on my body. I struggled through my speed sessions, suffered leg cramping during my peak mileage weeks and overall, my pace wasn’t showing any improvement. The closer the race got, the more I felt like my 2:15 goal was slipping away.

I had been mulling over joining the 2:15 pace group, but since I wasn’t feeling very confident about being able to keep up with them, I didn’t officially sign up. I figured I’d find them at the start, hang with them as long as I could, then finish by myself. Both the marathon and half marathon started at the same time, so the starting line was just a sea of people (around 5,000 participated) and it took me forever to find the 2:15 group. I finally joined them about 45 seconds before the start, just as the leader was giving out instructions which included not passing her, keeping her in sight at all times, and following her lead through aid stations. Next thing I knew, the gun went off and we were making our way to the start line. I think it took three minutes to cross the timing mat.

I spent the first three miles weaving around & dodging slower traffic in order to keep up with the pace leader. I could sort of tell by the chatter around me who was in the group, but for the most part I had no clue, so I kept a close eye on her. We skipped the first aid station, but hit the rest of them. The plan was to walk through, so the pace leader would tell us when to start walking and then tell us when to take off. I don’t think we walked for more than 10 seconds through any of them. It was really efficient. She also told us when to take our gels, but I was taking mine at different intervals.

My legs started feeling a little fatigued around miles seven & eight and I figured that this would be the point where the group would leave me behind and I’d be on my own, but I took my last gel and I felt fine. In fact, I felt way better than I imagined I would. We were averaging right around a 10:06 pace, which is fast for me for that duration, and I didn’t even feel like I was pushing it. Then we were at mile eleven and the pace leader told us that her job was done and we were on our own. I looked around and there was just three of us left in the group. I noticed that people started to fall back around mile six, but never really paid attention until that moment so I have no idea where they went. The three of us continued on to the end, picking up the pace in the last two miles and I crossed the finish in 2:12:16 for a new PR. Here are my splits:

I’m really pleased with my time, I didn’t really expect much because of how my summer training went, but I guess all that suffering did end up paying off in the end. Feels good, man!

Speaking of PRs, Josh earned a HUGE one. He finished Eagle River in 2:45:11 and finished this one in 2:24:55 for a 20 minute improvement! I’d better start putting in some serious training, or he’s going to end up leaving me in the dust before too long.

Overall, this is a great race. The course is mostly flat with three hills (one highway overpass and two bridge crossings). It starts in Appleton, and winds through residential neighborhoods in Menasha and ends in Riverside Park in Neenah. There was lots of crowd support the entire way from the spectators. All the aid station volunteers were energetic and enthusiastic and I especially liked the multiple DJs along the course. The finish line was quick and efficient – you cross the line, somebody wraps you in a space blanket, another person puts your medal around your neck, you get herded over to get your t-shirt then into the food line and then you get released into the crowd. I guess it has to operate that smoothly with that many people coming through or it’d be a disaster. I wish it would have been a little warmer so we could have hung around at the finish line longer, but it was cold & windy and generally unpleasant for someone wearing damp, sweaty clothes so we left right after we collected our drop bags.

Up next is the Whistlestop HM on October 13th, which is 18 days away. I’m not quite certain how I should go about training for it, I guess I’ll see what the intertubes have to say and play it by ear.