Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Race Drop & Other

I decided to pull the plug and do it... I changed my 70.3 down to the olympic distance in Williamsburg. It sucks a little, but it was the right thing to do. I know I'm not trained up for it and there's no sense in hurting myself.

I went to my first spin class in almost a year on Tuesday. Wow did that hurt! Makes me remember why I was going in the first place. I'm planning on going more often now that other meetings are no longer happening on Tuesdays. The instructor was great. She may even be a little crazier than the instructor I was going to!

I picked up another client, so I'm starting to get a little busier! Yay!

I've done 3 days of cardio this week, which is good for me. Maybe I'll try to keep it up for the rest of the week. (Craziness!)

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Randomness

I've been a horrible triathlete this season. I haven't been doing my training. It's going to come back to kick me in the butt. I'm considering dropping down to the olympic/international distance at Williamsburg. Alternatively, I need to kick my training into high gear and get actually prepped for the race. Either way, something needs to happen.

I'm learning the TRX suspension training. It's crazy hard! I can't use it with clients until I can show them what to do, so I have to get moving with that.

In other news, I finally got most of my seeds planted and out on the deck. Hopefully none of my neighbors complain... Reminder for next year, get the smaller bags of soil! Goodness the 64 qt bags are HEAVY! So far, I have tomatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce, cilantro, and chives. The potato tubers are on their way to being ready to plant. Sweet potatoes & garlic come later in the season. The strawberries in the window sill are finally starting to sprout. Yay!

The deck garden as of 4/18/13

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Race Report: St Charles Running Festival 10 miler - April 13, 2013

Today, I ran the St Charles Running Festival 10 miler "with" my younger brother. I say "with" because he's a speedy jackrabbit and I couldn't keep his pace for a mile, more or less 10.

I slept like crap last night. By "like crap", I mean I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep. Yay! (Sensing the sarcasm?) At 4:30am, we got up, got dressed, had breakfast, and were out the door by 5:15am.

We got to the Southern MD Blue Crab Stadium around 6:30am. Hardly anyone was at the site yet (packet pickup started at 6), so I got my packet & went to the bathroom without having to wait in any lines.

We sat in the car & waited for my brother and mom to get to the site. As they got there, they joined us in the car. We all chatted for a bit. I ran over to the bathroom again and then back to wait a bit more. At about 8:10, we started walking over to the start line. Adam (my brother) went for a warm-up run and barely made it back before the start. Silly guy! As we walked over, I discovered that despite charging my watch for about 48 hrs, it had a low battery. So tired of my Garmin. Can't wait until my Bia is ready! So, I was watchless.

I should also note that today was my first race with Infinit since we went to a real food diet. This will be important later.

Hanging out at the start line in my Z green
This race is super low-key. There were 234 finishers, so probably not too many more starters. The start "buzzer" went off and we all plodded along. I quickly found my comfortable running pace and just chilled there. I was behind this woman who is in her early 60s. Told her she was such an inspiration and that I hope I'm still running when I'm her age. We played leap frog several times in the race and ran together for a while.

Around mile 4, some dude on a bike was dressed in a Mr. Incredibles outfit and had a boombox blaring. It was a great pick-me-up. I wish he was around mile 8 too.

At mile 5, I walked a little bit after a hill. I was suddenly feeling kind of dizzy and lightheaded. I don't know if it was the warmer weather (given that it's been super cold here until this week) or the Infinit, but it was one or the other. After I regained my bearings, I started running again. I ran the 5 miles in about 55 minutes, and started thinking about Adam and where he was. I knew he'd be getting close to the finish.

At mile 7, there is what I like to call the "hill of death". For being a "flat" course the 2 major hills are killers! The one during mile 7 is just LONG. I ended up walking most of it... and I was fine with that. At mile 8, just before I took a second to walk and text Jon to let him know I was at mile 8.

When I hit mile 9, I texted Jon to let him know I was there. He had texted me after the first text with news that Adam had won FIRST PLACE. At first, I thought he was joking, but then I was just so proud.

First place brother!
Adam had said he may come back for me and sure enough, just after mile 9, he came bounding along. I made him run painstakingly slow for him, but it was so much fun to run with him. We never get to run together, and I really cherished every step of that .75 miles or so.

Coming down the last hill

Ready to be done. So thankful for this time with my lil bro.

Salty butt (again)

Yay finish!
I picked up my race premium and headed back down to see the family. We chatted for a few minutes and then went into the stadium.

Aiden with the cow - Rion was terrified today :(

Chillin at the stadium

Aiden with the lizard

Congrats Adam!

Congrats Adam!

Aiden showing Auntie Heather daddy's trophy
After the awards ceremony, we headed to lunch. I'm surprised I'm not sore, given that I didn't really train at all for this. Given that I was running an average of an 11:29 mile, I shouldn't be too surprised. That's apparently my REALLY comfortable pace.

I really enjoy this race. Next year, Adam's supposed to be at Boston, so we'll both miss it (likely). Too bad, but I'm sure we'll both be back!

Awesome email from the race organization (I wish other race organizations would do this!):

Congratulations Heather on finishing the St Charles Running Festival 10 Miler on April 13, 2013.  For your records, the weather that day was Sunny, 53 degrees with a N wind at 5 mph.
There were 25 finishers in the Female 30 to 34 age group and 234 finishers in the race.
Your 5 Mile Split was 55:14.64, giving you a place of 169 and a pace of 10:57 per mile.
Your overall finish place was   182 and your age group finish place was 19.  Your time of 1:55:17.81 gave you a 11:29 pace per mile.

Monday, April 1, 2013

A new week

This weekend was crazy busy. I had the JRU half marathon training group Saturday morning, then my normal weekend clients, then over to my mom's to hang things on her wall, and then to my 5 yr old nephew's birthday party at the pool. It was fun, just a lot of moving around! On Sunday, we had a "lazy" morning, followed by lunch out, and then Easter dinner with Jon's family. Another great time.

Today brought an early morning. Weight lifting with TNT and a 30 min run. Weights were a little much today, but it's all good. I think Trey was believing in me a bit too much! I put my butt on the dreadmill for 30 min and busted out a 2.5 mile run... or something. It was slow, but it was supposed to be a zone 2 run... and it was!

Tomorrow's a bike & swim. We'll see how it goes!

We're experimenting with salad in a jar this week. Hopefully it goes well!