Distance: 3.1 and Expo with the run buds!
Course: Greenway
Avg Pace: 10:20 (10:48, 10:18, 9:51)
What hurt: Legs made of lead during; Serious 'Top of Foot' pain after.
The plan for the morning was that Kyle, Michele and I would meet up, do a quick 3 easy to keep loose, then drive to the expo, and finally do a course drive, maybe grab lunch. Fun pre-race morning bonding time. :)
In hind sight, this little run served its purpose. On Saturday, though, it scared the crap out of me! It was perfect weather, flat, and I was hangin' with my buds. But while we set out to do a 'very easy' run just to keep things loose, I was actually SHOCKED that all my legs seemed like they COULD do was run an easy three! Eeeep. Since when. The legs just didn't want to turn over. Michele and I stayed together, though, and that's always fun. When we were done, as usual, the thoughts in our heads were along the lines of: I will never be able to run faster than this .. and for 10 MORE MILES???! Never. But we got the run off our to-do, and next up .. off to my 1st Expo! :)
Jeff Galloway, the father of run/walk! :)
We're not mean to each other .. really! ;) But here's the story behind these pictures: .. someone started a thread on Facebook about accountability, and goals for the Publix Half/Full Marathon. I had very modest expectations. We've spent months hearing about how hill-a-cious this course is, and not much has really changed from this session since the last in terms of overall speed for me, such that I could concretely say I'd banked a PR. (Not like, say, from half-marathon #1 to half-marathon #2 one year, and 15 lbs later .. I didn't count on shaving 40+ minutes, but I knew I'd PR last Fall, right?). This go around, not so much. So, my PR is 2:14 and something seconds .. comment Judy: 2:13:59.
Enter Kyle comment: 2:13:58 for Michele and 2:13:57 me.
LMAO! Commence epic text / thread / picture shenanigans. He swears that by setting a 2:13:59 goal, I was trying to take the lead 1/2 PR for our little mini group (never mind that all our times were 2:14 and seconds. I was surely thinking of breaking HIS PR and not MY PR when I made the comment. LOL.) Anyhoo, it was the big joke that got our minds off of the race. #crushkyle hashtag is born.
Then, the story on this one goes like this... Michele and I are in B corral and Kyle is in C. Helpful Michele tells Kyle he needs to sign up at the 1:50 pace group to get into B so we can all start together. So he does. And now heeeee's baaaaack. So I'm joking around that I don't want him anywhere near me. This is a crush-off! Haha. She says "we would have to be at 1:45 to be in corral A". While we had no aspirations of being in that pace group, it was another perfect opportunity to tease Kyle. The take away for Kyle is, if you didn't keep stopping to buy stuff we wouldn't have had so many opportunities for mischievous pictures!!!
After the expo we decided to drive the course. ALL 13.1 miles. Boy was that torture. BUT! It helped A LOT with envisioning the elevation & route the next day.
By the time we got to lunch, I was hobbling. :/ Top of foot pain. After lunch, I decided to take a risk. Pedicure with some foot massaging to make it all better? Fingers crossed it didn't make it all worse! Then I started up with Ibuprophen, and that through Saturday night and Sunday morning shut Top of Foot pain up good. Hurrah!
Me: Don't touch the callouses. I need those.
Wonder Woman fast!
I spent the rest of the day organizing .. pre-race gear, my run drawer, the laundry. The cleaner my house, the calmer I stay. Ultramarathon Man put me to sleep at the desired time, and pre-race day could not have gone any better!
Sunday
Course: Publix Half Marathon
Official Finish Time: ******* 2:10:12 *******
Avg Pace: 9:56 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Overall: 2708th of 5941
Female: 1080th of 3168
Female 35-39: 195th of 528
BOOM!
Oh the joy. The sheer and absolute joy! What a fantastic race!! :) I was WAY early to carpool; oops. But that ended up being the only mistake of the morning! Yippy. I started the race with familiar faces all about me. I gave Michele my first mile and change, but she really took off from there. Before I knew it, we were running under 9s before mile 3. Time to say Good Bye to Ms. Michele already! It was going to be too much of a risk to try and hold her pace, hoping she'd fall into something more reasonable sooner rather than later; I knew I couldn't bank on that. So as much as I love running with her for more of the race, the only chance of it would be if I worked my way back up to her in the next 10 miles, after she'd finished her going out fast phase. That ended up not being the case; she had the under 9 start under her belt solid. And I never saw her again. Woo, Craig!
Next was Kyle. And oh dear, it only took me 2-3 more miles to say good bye to him also. Can't even be mad at the dude. lol. He knows his long-distance strengths, and boy has he sped up. Much progress for me in that this didn't even phase me. :) (No toddler tantrums in running. Haha) I was actually completely confident in deciding to let each of them go; I had a race plan strategy of tightening up my pace delta / spread, and of running positive with fairly consistent splits, due to the lay out of the course. If running with them didn't help me in that effort, I had to let it be.
Marjorie (behind Michele and I in start picture) proved to be my best hang time bud. We were together for about the entire thing, with her leading the way through maybe mile 8 or 9, and me out in front by a hair the rest. In hindsight, I might have been able to give a little more in middle miles, but never having actually run this race, I would not have known how much would have been TOO much. Too much would have meant a walk late in the race, and maybe forgoing my PR all together. Couldn't risk it. And the actual race, maintaining the average pace I was coveting, in its entirety did not completely kick my ass. I felt fueled, I felt hydrated. There were a few moments where now I wished I would have dug a tiny bit deeper .. in the park, and before I could see the finish line. More PR than expected is ALWAYS a good thing. But per watch, I was already solidly maintaining a good bank on 2:13; there was not motivation to possibly risk it all and end up (eep) without a PR. So maybe, just maybe, I can PR some races without complete puke-fest efforts? Maybe that's reserved for special special occasions, and shorter distances? Or maybe I have to train on that more; getting more comfortable with 'losing my shit' so to speak, and knowing what that looks like for each distance, while still knowing I won't end up with a DNF. Whichever it is, this race, with its -4 min ~30 second shave on the PR goes down as both a major win, and even more learning. HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!!!!!!
And .. and ... and. HAIR GAME! Hair PR for sure! ;) Emily made these for me the night before, and with enough hair spray .. they stayed in overnight! Woo. :) :) :) One 2016 resolution goal down. And hair game is for sure now a part of pre-important-race ritual. More boxer braids in this girl's future. Haha!
Women's 5K Training & Other Nonsense
Distance: WU .5, 3 miles at 2-1 intervals.
After the show, its the after party, right? More running!! This is the LAST Sunday training run for Women's 5K. I was a little emotional. *^_^* I could hardly run/walk, but I tried my best because there were for sure enough participants in the 2-1 intervals in need of a lead. So Involuntary marathon training, Day 1, check! As soon as we returned to Armour for the final stretch, I started to walk. Run-leading from behind because one tight calf said NO WAY to anything else at that point. The ladies were so awesome; I'd call an interval, and the participant in front of me would call it for the participant in front of her. Run-lead hack. Picked up a jog again, and finished off the 5K. During stretching, I also found myself a pod of trainees to run the race with. Very excited. They have a goal of coming in under 40. We .. of course .. are going to CRUSH that. ;) I think they're capable of under 35. But ssssshhhh, we won't tell them that right yet.
Good Measure Meals "After" Weigh-In
Drum roll please. When we started the Women's training session, Good Measure Meals had us use their Tanita scale for Body Composition metrics. I <3 numbers. :) I didn't really think that there had been enough time to see measurable results, especially as a lead who already was working out pretty intensely before training started, compared to say the participants who probably would see the most rapid of changes, as they were just committing to all of this for the first time. But I am very happy to report these changes:
1/20
Weight 145.6
Fat % 36.4
Fat Mass 53lbs
Metabolic Age - 49
BMI 28
3/20
Weight 140.4
Fat % 34.7
Fat Mass 48.8
Metabolic Age - 44
BMI 27.4
WOO!
Ongoing Target Goals
BF % 27
Target Weight: 125
Fat to Lose: 15
Other Nonsense
And then .. just when the weekend (and this accounting there of) could not get any longer, I noticed that I had 37,800 steps on FitBit upon landing at home. The Walking Dead or walking around the living room and kitchen to hit 40,000? I choose both! :) If he didn't before, my husband now thinks I am COMPLETELY BONKERS. "You ran a half marathon? Why are you walking around in circles?" Well .. ummm.. because badges! ;)
Coming Up
A break! As much as I have enjoyed both spring training sessions, I am also very excited to put the doubling up to bed for a while! We'll take it easy this week; even the Women's 5K will end up not being at race effort. Next week, we'll go back to whatever corresponding week will get us to the Flying Pig 1/2 marathon on May 1 in race shape. (I think this puts us 'back' at 11-12 mile long runs starting this or next weekend). I'll be out the week of 4/4. SPRING BREAK. WOO. Still running, though. But running along highway 30A, without work and other responsibilities sounds A-MAZING. My idea of a vacation, for sure! The Saturday we come back is the 1st day of In-Training for Peachtree. Kyle & I will be leading up the 10 minute pace group out in Suwanee. Very excited to get that started. So coming up summary: Women's 5K race day, Peachtree Kick Off, Spring Break, Peachtree training start, Singelton 5k/10k, then Flying Pig 1/2, and post Pig, kick tri-training into the next gear.
Did I say break?
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