Fall Races!

I just registered for two more Half Marathons this fall bringing the total to three!

I finally registered for Toronto which is my goal race for PRing. I also registered for the Rochester Half Marathon. The friend I did Boilermaker with is doing this one. It'll be her first Half Marathon and I wanted to do it with her. There is not time in mind, just finishing. 

I am also registered for the Philly Distance Run (which happens to be the weekend after Rochester). I was originally going to run this with a friend from High School but she has had a busy summer and hasn't trained so I'm going to this one on my own. My plan is to trot along with my camera and just enjoy the race. I watched and cheered for friends/family last year and it looked like so much fun. I knew I had to do it. 

It's going to be a busy fall but I'm excited. The only race I'm really focusing on is Toronto. The others are just training runs with a whole bunch of other people. :)

I guess I shouldn't do math at 5:30am

Yesterday morning I went out to do 6x800m at about 5K pace. I got outside and set my watch to do 6 intervals with a warm-up and cool down. I set the interval distance to .25 miles (see my problem?) and off I went. After a nice warm-up I started the intervals and felt good. I kept thinking that this is going by way faster than I thought it would. Soon I was done the intervals and jogging home. 

Later, I'm sitting at work thinking about running and wondering what I have planned for the rest of the week when I realize I set my watch for .25 miles instead of .50 miles! I did 6x400m instead of 6x800m. Ugh! I don't know what made me think that .25 miles was about 800m. I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that it was 5:30 am and that I'm not thinking as clearly then. Now I know to set my watch the night before!

Either way, my 6x400m intervals went well. Here are my average paces for each:

1) 8:09

2) 8:32

3) 8:08

4) 7:58

5) 7:47

6) 7:49

I think that's pretty good. And sorta consistent.....

I was thinking about doing 6x800m when I got home last night or this morning but I thought that would be a little much. Today I am cross training. I already did an hour of Jillian Michaels' DVDs that kicked my butt and I'm planning on heading to the gym after work for some more cardio. 

Tomorrow I have a 6 mile Tempo Run scheduled. I'm a little nervous but am definitely going to try my best.  

In other news this week I have gotten back into the habit of cooking dinner every day. I used to cook a lot but sorta fell out of the habit. Last weekend I planned all our meals for the week and have been holding to it. Monday was a healthier Chicken & Broccoli Alfredo. Tuesday was delicious Turkey Burgers. Last night was Apricot Glazed Chicken Thighs. And tonight will be Shrimp Stir-fry. 

I feel so much better when I eat right and am happy I've been sticking to it. The boyfriend and I were supposed to go away Saturday through Wednesday but due to his job we had to cancel it. At least I'll be able to stay on the cooking kick and not have to worry about getting my runs in. Though, I was looking forward to a little vacation and running in a different place. Oh well. 

Sunday Long Run

Good Morning. I didn't get a chance to write about my long run last night so here goes...

Sunday morning I woke up around 6:30 to eat and head out for the run. I was supposed to do a 20K (12.4 miles) increasing my pace every 5K. I decided to do 2 10K loops around my house so I could come back and get some water. I also brought Jelly Belly Sport Beans with me and had some every 5K. This is the first time I ever used these. I have had them sitting around for a while and figured I'd give them a try. I usually use Clif Shot Bloks or Luna Moons.

So I headed out for my run around 7:30 and felt pretty good. It started raining a bit but not too bad and I ran in a cemetery with lots of trees. The first 5K was just about the right pace as was the second 5K. I got home and drank some water (I forgot to buy more Gatorade) and headed back out. I did the next 10K on a somewhat different route so I didn't have to run in the cemetery again, I like it but there are a lot of rough hills and it can get lonely. It had also stopped raining which was nice. The third 5K was just a little bit slower than the pace I should have been at and the last 5K was where the third 5K should have been. My legs were tired and couldn't go anymore. I figured since I haven't run 12 miles since before my marathon in May (Wow, really?), that it was OK that I not hit the pace exactly. 

I came home and drank some Chocolate Milk, made a Smoothie, and stretched for a while. 

This morning I'm not really sore. My abs and back are a little sore. I'm not sure if that's from running or if I slept weird. Tonight I have 5K Coaching and maybe a little upper body. We'll see.

Progression Run and Hills

I switched my Friday run to Saturday. I slept in Friday morning and just wanted to relax after work. So Saturday morning I woke up semi early and headed out for a run. I didn't quite wake up early enough cause it was pretty toasty.

I started with a 25 minute progression run. I have trouble with these type of runs. I generally increase my pace but I don't go as slow as I should in the beginning so the increase is only a little. I also did 3 sets of 300m, 200m, and 100m hill repeats. The distances were definitely not exact. I went to a hill in a park near me. It was the only hill I could think or that was bug enough for 300m. So I ran up the whole hill for 300m and then estimated 200m and 100m. I kept it consistent for all 3 sets. I didn't set my watch for the repeats so it's hard to tell how long they each took me but I'm thinking they were pretty slow. 

After the hill repeats I jogged home. All-in-all I ran 6.5 miles in 1:03:36. 

This morning I did a 20K run but I'll write about that a little later today. Time to go grocery shopping!

Intervals

After reading an article about Intervals in this months Runner's World I decided to try them Thursday morning. I started off with a 10 minute run and then did 2 minutes running as fast as I could and 2 minutes walking. I did this 6 times. I followed it by a 10 minute jog. 

It really wasn't that bad. I've done stuff like this before but not this exact thing. I don't do enough speed work but when I do I enjoy it. It sucks and is hard to run so fast but I just keep thinking about the 2 minutes of walking I get to do after. My fast running was between 7:30-8:30 minutes/mile. I tried to stay more consistent toward the end but it didn't work out all that well.

This run, reading other blogs, and looking at the training plan RW has for Half Marathoners looking for a PR has made me think I need a new training plan. The plan I get from my running group really doesn't have any speed work with it. They tell you to run part of your long run at HMP and do a Tempo run once a week but I don't think that's enough for me. I've been looking for a plan that will still let me run with the group on Sunday's but give me more quality workouts to do during the week. 

I think I am going to use this plan from RW but with a few tweaks. It seems to look a lot like the FIRST plan, I've seen and read good thing about from many bloggers, except that there are 4 key workouts a week instead of 3. My first tweak would be moving everything back a day so that my long run would be on Sunday and I would be off or doing a Recovery Run on Monday. My next tweak is I think I would make some of the Recovery and Aerobic Runs Cross Training instead. I still want to work on strengthening my upper body and core and I would like to get to the gym more to bike, get on the elliptical or swim. 

I still have 12 weeks until my half marathon. This training plan is only 10 weeks but I still think I am going to start it next week. I can foresee myself needed a week to work up to all the speed work that comes with this.

What do you think? Is this a good plan?

5K Coaching - Day 1

Yesterday was my first run as a coach of a 5K beginners group. The group consists of about 110 people. 15-20 of them are either returning or beginners that can run for a complete mile. The rest are run/walkers. 

There are 6 coaches. Alice is in charge of the group and hangs out during the run, watching everyone's stuff and setting up water. Dan goes with the runners. And the 4 of us (all girls) go with the run/walkers. 

We took them on a 5 minute or so walk to get warmed up a little then onto the run. This week we did one mile with 1.5 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking. Not everyone can run for the 1.5 minutes but they try their best. Myself and another coach had a bell to ring when they should switch from running to walking or walking to running. 

I was in the middle of the pack so I chatted with a few people but most people had friends/family doing it with them. There was a woman in front of me that was walking and we only had a few more seconds of running left so I called out, "Only a few more seconds" hoping that would make her run for the last bit. It didn't. I caught up to her and asked her if everything was ok. She said yes. When it was time to run again she didn't start so I said, "Come on at least for a little." She complained about her shins but started running. I told her to run to the curb, then the next curb, then the driveway. We did this for about minute and I knew she probably needed to stop so I didn't say anything more and she did. But we were about to cross a street and I did look behind to see her running to cross. 

Afterwards several people asked us about stretching so I got down on the ground and showed them the stretching I do.  It was fun and weird to be the one who they were coming to with questions. 

I'm excited to see where the next two months goes for them. I feel happy and lucky to be apart of it and hopefully I'm able to help them at least a little. The goal race is Sunday, September 27th. 

Boilermaker 15K - Race Report

This was a fun filled weekend. The race went well and we had a great time. 

It started on Saturday morning. I headed out to Rochester to meet up with my friend D then we headed out to Utica. We got to the race expo and tried to find where packet pickup was. Since it was supposed to rain they had moved the packets from inside a tent to some garage near the start which was about half a mile away. So a bunch of us were standing there trying to figure out where to go to get them. The volunteers were very helpful and let us get our goody bags first before heading over there. They just asked us to please remove the goody bag tag on our bib and not to get another one. That was fine with me. The goody bags consisted of a Walmart reusable bag and a pint glass. I'm glad they didn't get us the regular mass of papers and junk but I was expecting a little more. Oh well. Not a big deal.

So goody bags in hand D and I headed over to find the packet pickup. We realized when we got there that we took the long way. But it was the most straight forward for someone to explain. We also got to pass the start and I got to take this "lovely" photo. 

We made it to the packet pickup and there was a mass of people because they were still setting everything up. We eventually got in the garage and got our packets. I also happened to see a coworker through the crowd so we chatted for a bit. Then D and I walked back to the car. We had a few steps to get back to the car and it started to rain. Good Timing! We headed back to Syracuse where her parents live and we were staying for the night. It's about an hour drive so not too bad.

We woke up bright and early (4:50) Sunday morning, got ready, and left by 5:30. I ate in the car, D had eaten before we left. I just had some dry Special K Strawberry (or Red Berries?). I realized I didn't bring any Clif Shot Blocks or Luna Moons. So I planned on drinking Gatorade during the race. I usually drink mostly water during races so that I'm not all sticky when I inevitably spill it all over myself.

We got into Utica around 6:30 and headed to the finish. We decided to park near the finish and take the shuttle to the start instead of having to worry about it later. We found some random overpass to park under. People we parking everywhere. Luckily it was a Sunday and I doubt any businesses were open.

Here's a photo we took before we left the car:

We started walking in the direction we thought we should go. We saw a police officer and asked him where the shuttle pickup was. He knew exactly where the closest one was and gave us directions. I love that people actually knew where things were. In Buffalo I doubt the officer would have known. 

We got to the shuttle pickup around 7:00 and there were a lot of people but the buses were coming every 2-3 minutes so the line moved really fast. 

We got to the start and threw our jackets in my bag and dropped it of at the baggage truck. Then headed over to the porta potties. The line was long and wasn't moving very quickly. We finally got there and luckily mine had toilet paper. D wasn't as lucky :(.

We got to our starting corral (the last one) 2 minutes before the start. It took us 11 minutes to get to the starting line anyway so it didn't really matter. We were finally off and it was going well. HIs and LOWs from the race:

- All the people cheering pretty much the whole way

- Lots of music. Bands, belly dancers, etc

- Hoses and "rain machines"

- Spectators handing out water and ice

- Spectators handing out popsicles

- Passing the Utica Zoo and seeing a Donkey. The zookeepers had brought it out to the sidewalk.

- Running up a hill and being able to see the top then making a left turn and running up an even steeper hill

- Running up hill and seeing people to your right, across a golf course, running downhill. However, they were a lot higher up then we were.

- The hill to get to the highest point was gradual and not as bad as we thought it would be

- The downhills :)

- Fireman hitting the horn on the fire truck and laughing when everyone jumped

It was a great race. The first half was slow for us. And it took me a while to start feeling good. Once we hit the downhill at the highest point of the race we cruised doing well under 10 minute/mile pace. We kept that pace the rest of the way except on a few hill and when we walked to drink water. 

The crowd support was great and I solved my lack of block shots problem by splitting a popsicle with D. 

We finished in 1:35:03. Not a PR for me but with all the hills I wasn't expecting one. For me it was a fun race. For D it was the longest race she's ever done! She ran track in high school and college as well as cross country a few years but had never run more than 6 or so miles in a race. She was tired but excited and is even planning on doing a Half Marathon in September. She said, "It's only 4 more miles". Yay!

We gave our chips back and got our finishers pin and started walking with the crowd. We figured out where we were and where the car was so we went back to the car to change into flip flops and get my camera. Here is us back at the car:

We headed back over to the party and the mass of people. We got my bag and BEER :). I got a pair of sweatpants that have the Boilermaker logo and I bought D a hat since she drove us around all weekend and wouldn't take gas/toll money.

We finally found food (we passed it the first time). They only had sandwiches left but at least it was food. We walked around for a while. I got another beer and we enjoyed the music. Then headed back to the car and back to Syracuse. Then Rochester and me back to Buffalo. 

It was a great weekend and a great race. I would definitely do that race again. I might even spring to say in Utica though driving from Syracuse wasn't bad at all. Here are some more pictures from the post race party. 

Hills, hills, and more hills

I currently live in Buffalo, NY but I am originally from a suburb of Philadelphia. Whenever I come to Philly I make it a point to run as much as I can. This area is full nice big, steep hills where Buffalo (at least in the city is not). The problem is I'm never here for more than a couple days. There are plenty of things to do, people to see, and late nights out. 

I'm down here for the holiday (Happy 4th of 

July!) and enjoying a more relaxed visit than usual. Yesterday morning I went out for a 4 mile run with a ton of hills. I did the run I usually do when I'm here backwards and WOW. I never realized how many downhills there were in the route until I was going uphill for all of them. It was definitely a workout. I even had to walk some and I still did the 4 miles in 40:08. That's definitely not the pace I need for the half marathon but with all the hills I was surprised I pulled a 10 minute mile. 

Here is the elevation chart but I really don't think it looks as bad as it felt:

Goals

Lose Weight

Get Strong

Be Fast

These are the three things that need to happen in order for me to reach my goal of completing a half marathon in under 2 hours. 

Lose Weight - I need to focus on my calorie intake a lot more than I currently am. I would like to have at least a 250-500 calorie deficit each day so that I can plan on losing 0.5-1 pound a week. When I lost weight before I kept track of everything I ate each day. I need to get back in the habit of doing this. 

Get Strong - I know that having a strong upper body and core will only help my running. I've been doing circuit training/weight lifting workouts about twice a week. I can already feel a difference in the strength my arms have.

Be Fast - This is what my goal is all about. Being fast and getting under 2 hours. I want to start making hill workouts a weekly part of my training. I have joined a Track Club in my area and have been to one track workout. It was fun and completely different than anything I normally do.

Focusing on these three aspects of my training should get me to my goal in October.