solar squirrel

Sunday was our SERC running club banquet and the Youngstown Half marathon.  Last year I did pretty well - finishing 10 min faster than the year prior.  I approached this year knowing that I would probably be slower due to the fact that it’s been difficult to get a regular running routine down since being laid off.  I know that doesn’t make any since at all, but it’s really hard when each week is different than the last.  I’m balancing an incredibly intensive course-load this semester - 3 classes that all require TONS of work outside of class.  Adding to that are random interviews, career fairs, networking events, etc. that require prep. time and travel time.  I never know what my schedule is going to be from week to week.  It makes it difficult to plan a regular workout schedule.  I’ve been putting tons of miles on my car driving back and forth to school, interviews, networking events, presentations, lectures, class group meetings, class interviews, and class presentations.  My time on the phone has also increased.  I had to increase my monthly minutes from 450 to 900 because I’ve been on the phone so much trying to nail down things for my class projects and getting tons of calls from recruiters who I wish would not bother me.

Side note on recruiters:  I hate you all.  You don’t care one micron about helping me find a career - you only care about getting your freakin’ money.  You are worthless and don’t understand software.  You mispronounce industry terms and don’t say acronyms correctly.  You are totally and completely without credibility or tact.  You are nothing but a poorly trained telemarketer who is lacking social skills and industry knowledge.

Anyway - needless to say I’m having issues staying focused on training.  Sunday at Youngstown I was reminded that I need to start putting more miles in.  I was only a few min. slower than last year - but I was really sore afterwords.  I’m still sore today - 2 days later.  My finish time was 1:47:13 (8:11 pace).  I’m not too terribly disappointed with this, but I would have like to have been faster or equal to my time last year.  In order to do that I need to run more - but I DREAD running by myself.  I just can’t do it.  I’ve only gotten better as a runner because of running with others.  Running alone is like running on the treadmill - I don’t like it one bit.  I used to religiously run Tue and Thurs with work friends at lunch.  I don’t have that anymore and boy do I miss it.  I can’t tell you how much I miss it.  It’s like a part of me is missing.  Ugh.

So here’s the good news:  It’s going to stay bright later now that the time has changed so I can start going to the track again Tue nights.  I’m planning on going tonight.  Bad news is that I’m moving out of Solon because I don’t have an income and my sister and I both don’t have jobs.  Solon is a great place to live if you’re a member of SERC because that’s where the Sunday runs are and we do track workouts at Solon High School.  What am I going to do in April when I don’t live there anymore?  I guess I’ll just enjoy these next weeks that I have while I still have them.  Hopefully I’ll get a job near solon so that I can at least still do track workouts after work without a long drive.  I know I won’t do them if I don’t have anyone to do them with.

Three Sisters: Me, Gretchen, Ashley (friend), and Katy

Friday was my sister Gretchen’s 20th birthday.  Thinking back I can’t even remember my 20th birthday…I must have been right in the middle of some crazy semester at school, trying to work and handle a full-time CS undergrad load.  I do remember my 21st birthday, though.  I had a huge test the next day - I think in either Calc II or DSAII (Data Structures and Algorithms — good lord, it could have been both I took them the same semester…)  Anyway - I remember being incredibly frustrated because I had to spend so much time studying and working on programming assignments when it seemed like a lot of the other majors were going out and having fun.  I remeber thinking - that’s ok - after I have my degree it will all be worth it.

Since then I have realized that sometimes it’s just best to live in the moment.  Who knows what would have happened if I would have partied through college (I would have probably failed a lot of classes and had to graduate later.)  Certain things require dedication and responsibility, but there isn’t this binary black and white border.  There are some greys that I really missed out on because I was so dedicated to school back in the day.  (I was valedictorian of my high school class, too).  Who knows what my life would be like now if I would have spent more time doing ‘fun’ stuff…  Things are different now - even though my GPA is pretty good at Case (3.7), I know I could have a solid 4.0 if I really tried.  I don’t care that much about it anymore, though.  What good is it to spend that extra time?  If it’s between hanging out with my family and friends or having a 3.7 vs. a 4.0 I’m taking the B every now and then!  Getting laid off has really taught me that success means more than job title, grade point average, and your salary.  It’s your overall LIFE that matters; your health; your happiness; your satisfaction with your accomplishments both career and personal.  It’s too bad that it took me a while to realize these things, but I feel like I know a secret now…one that’s so obvious but so hard to realize.

So - we went to the Melting Pot for dinner.  If you’ve never been there I recommend NOT going there for dinner, but instead dessert.  Dinner is overpriced and not very good (they give you raw meat/seafood and you cook it in this pot of broth on your table).  The dessert is also overpriced, but the experience is fun and it’s very tasty.  We decided to do this thing where you get an appetizer, salad, entree, and dessert.  It was $88 per couple.  (I told Gret she could get whatever she wanted).  Here are some pictures:

Spinach and artichoke cheese appetizer

Entree plates (each couple gets one) with seafood and meats

Dessert! 2 pots of different flavored chocolate and plates with strawberries, marshmallows, rice crispy treats, brownies, bananas, and cheesecake!

And yes, we did eat ALL of it!  I may have eaten more of the dessert plate than Gretchen did!  It was nice, though, because going here is more of an event than most dining.  We were there for close to 3 hours.  It was fun to have tons of time to talk and have fun in-between the courses.  We took lots of pictures of each other and at one point were being really silly and taking fake myspace pictures.  (If you have a myspace acct you know what I’m talking about — the over the head self-portrait where you’re trying to look good - yet another reason to make fun of myspace.)  Oh - and no, I won’t be posting those. 

I was out pretty late, but decided I really HAD to get in a long run and there was no way I was doing it by myself so I decided to run w/ SERC .  Daisy and Espeed are too fast for me and Barb was only doing 10, so I joined Dawn and Rich at the 6 mile mark.  They were planning on doing 20 and they weren’t going too fast for me so I ran with them.  They are great to run with because they talk most of the time and made the miles go by pretty fast.  Towards the end I was pretty tired though and barely made it up the big hill in the park.  Luckily Rich gave me one of his gu’s or I would have likely died because I was expending so many calories trying to stay warm!  Man it was frigid!  The wind was crazy and it was snowing pretty steadily so my fleece was soaked from the melting snow.  My eyelashes were covered with snow and ice and I could barely see!  Rich said my ponytail was like a barometer or something because it had so much snow on it that it was an indication of how long we had been running.  I know neither one of them read my blog - but they are such great runners and I’m really appreciative that they ran with me.  (They’ve both done many ultras including hundred milers).  I’m so happy to get that 20-miler over with.  Now I feel like I’m really training.  Let’s see where the rest of the weeks take me!

The DREADmill

So I’m getting over a cold which I am sure would have turned into pneumonia or worse if I would have done the 50k.  I am so so so happy that I listened to my body and rested.  Nevertheless - there is still this small matter of TRAINING FOR BOSTON that I seem to have been avoiding lately.  Yesterday I decided to try the treadmill again since I don’t think I’m quite ready to run outside.  (I don’t want to risk getting too cold and subjecting myself to getting sick again).

I went to the Severance Bally’s since I was already in the area (had a meeting at Case for school).  That place is really nice!  I’ve only been there a few times, but it’s really clean and the locker room is HUGE and has high ceilings and tons of lockers and bathrooms and even seperate changing stalls.  They have TVs hanging from the ceiling and it’s really open and big.  The other nice thing is that they have like 20 treadmills…maybe more, so you never have to worry about not getting on one even during the super busy times.

This time I brought my MP3 player in hopes that it would make running more enjoyable - it actually did help a lot!  (But still wasn’t the best running experience).  I did a 1 mile warmup at 1.5 incline and a speed of 9:03 min miles.  That felt really easy so for mile 2 I increased the speed to 8:12 pace.  That felt pretty good but soon into the 3rd mile I was already getting side stitches!  ARgh!  So I changed the speed to 8:19 and did miles 4 and 5 and then decided I had enough and did the last mile at 9:03 again.  So I did a little over 6 miles.  The music definitely helps A LOT.  Still, I have a hard time knowing how to move my arms because I’m scared they’ll hit something and I also can’t seem to get into a good rhythm.  At least I did it - I was thinking that I was just not capable of running on the treadmill after my last try.  I couldn’t run for more than 4 or 5 min without having to stop and walk.  Must have just been a bad day.

I’m definitely not planning on making a routine out of this - but it’s good to know it’s an option when I’m getting over being sick or when there is freezing rain, 10 ft. of snow, etc.

I’ll be in Solon Sunday morning - hopefully I’ll be able to run with someone!

Yesterday was SERC’s annual New Year’s Eve run in Bedford Reservation.  Since I missed the Christmas Eve run I was definitely not going to miss this one.  (Missed it because of my 5 day flight delay).  When I went to bed the night before it was cold, but there wasn’t any snow on the ground.  Overnight the wind was howling and when I looked out the window at 5 am it was white powder wonderland!  The wind was insane and blowing the snow everywhere!  After my near death freezing experience a few weeks ago I intentionally over-dressed myself with a long-sleeve technical shirt, long-sleeve turtleneck fleece, and a wind breaker jacket.  I wore tights, wicking socks (didn’t have any clean smartwool) and my road shoes because I left my new trail shoes at Todd’s.  I figured there would be NO WAY I could POSSIBLY be cold.  Boy was I wrong - I forgot about the fact that my FACE would be exposed!

Starting off the run was fine - it was slushy and hard to grip the ground, but I was warm and even ended up taking off the jacket.  As we continued running the conditions got worse and worse!  I was running with a small group of people and when we got to the 5.25 mark (turnaround is ~6.5) we decided to turn back early.  I AM SO GLAD THAT WE DID!  The conditions were out of control!  I couldn’t see because the wind and snow were so hard and the right side of my face was so cold it was numb and beginning to collect ice and snow!  My eyebrows and eye lashes were ice shelves and when I turned to look at Barb she looked like she had aged 50 years due to the collecting snow!  At this point I was getting a little worried that cars wouldn’t see us because it was that difficult to see due to the blowing snow.  We were running REALLY slow and in single-file most of the time.  I was lucky to be short so I could hide behind the taller guys and try to get them to block the wind, but it didn’t really help much since the wind was coming at me from my right side.  It was definitely a tough run, and I felt like I had ran more like 18 miles rather than the 10.5 that we did.  We all looked so funny afterwords with all of the snow stuck to our faces.  Frank and Elizabeth got some pictures so I’ll add or link to them when I see them.

I love the fact that I run with such a crazy group of hard-core people!  SERC rocks!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I’m so excited that it’s finally snowing and wintery! 

I have been pretty lazy for basically the past month with regard to working out.  I don’t know how it’s possible, but I haven’t gained any weight according to the scale - something tells me that muscle has been replaced with fat, though.  I’ve been eating like the piggiest pig EVER - just ask Todd.  Seriously, I’ve gotten to the point where I can eat 2 meals worth of food in one sitting and still have room for dessert.  I am an obese person trapped inside a work-out-aholic’s body who isn’t working out too much these days.  I would go over the astonishingly large amounts of food that I’ve eaten the past few days but it’s too embarrassing, so you’ll have to just take my word for it.

In other news I signed up for the winter Buckeye 50k.  Todd is also signed up and I’ve been slowly starting my training with Bridget and Steve on the trails.  If you go to the list of entrants, Todd is listed as ‘Mark Blackhedge’; my name is spelled wrong, though phonetically correct (and they have me as 29…wonder if I forgot how old I am or if it’s a mistake), and Bridget is listed as being 281 years old.  Regardless - we all signed up on time and I’m looking forward to beating my previous winter bt50k time.  (It’s sold out!)

School is out of control demanding so much of my ‘free’ time it’s not funny.  I’m taking the 2nd part of my sustainable business class, as well as doing an independent study, and finishing up my Org. Beh. class.  In the spring I will also tack on an entrepreneurship class.  I’m doing this because if all goes as planned I’ll be finished with my MBA in Fall 09.  Yippee!  Now if I can just manage to scrape up the >$4k for each class…

OH!  I signed up for Boston and I got my registration confirmation email!  If you go to the website and search for my name I’m listed!  I’m super excited and I can’t wait!  It’s official - I’m going to do the Boston Marathon!

Here’s a rundown of the past week (11/3 - 11/9):

Monday:  40 min. spin in the am. w/ Joe
Tuesday: 8 x 400 on Solon Track w/ Bridget - ~1:30 pace; 2 mile warm up, 1 mile cool down
Wednesday:  5 mile run at lunch ~8 min pace
Thursday: 5.5 mile run at lunch ~8:30 pace
Friday:  School all day - no time for exercise
Saturday:  School all day - didn’t even get home until almost 10pm
Sunday:  Trail run - Pine Lane (8 miles) - with Steve, Todd, and Bridget

Totals:
Run:  23.5 miles
Bike: 10 miles
Swim: (for you, Brian) big fat 0!

Well kids, if you hadn’t heard this past Sunday I qualified for Boston for the first time!

Thanks to Elizabeth for catching this action photo!

I woke up early and had already had planned what I would have for breakfast - a turkey burger on a whole wheat bun with ketchup.  I know it sounds weird, but when I was training for the winter 50k earlier this year I had a turkey burger for breakfast and I had great energy and no stomach issues.  Todd and I both had our turkey burger breakfasts and were prepared for a good run!  One thing I’m going to have to change for the next marathon I do is that I will need to figure out what I can eat during the race.  The only nutrition I took in during the marathon was a swig of my stashed Heed at mile 15 and 2 salt tablets- one after about the first hour and a half and the second at about 2.5 hours.  I think this could have been the reason why I started to fade at mile 22…

My plan was to run just fast enough to qualify for Boston.  I didn’t want to risk running too fast and then bonking.  That meant that I needed to run a 3:40 at the slowest, 8:24 pace.  That was the plan for all 3 of us.

Janet, Bridget and I started off together, but Bridget was recovering from bronchitis so she didn’t do as well as she could have so after the first few miles it was Janet and I.  Wow were we consistent and Elizabeth was right - the first miles felt SO easy - it was incredible, my legs felt so fresh and I didn’t even feel like I was running, or walking even.  Even though I felt good I knew better than to try to pick it up - I forced myself to go at the planned pace, which Janet and I decided should be somewhere between 8:10 - 8:24.  The first half marathon was a piece of cake and as we made the turn around point at about mile 20 I still felt decent.  At least good enough that I knew that I would be able to keep running at my planned pace of no slower than 8:24.  The weirdest thing happened around mile 22, though.  I walked through the aid station to drink some water and then my dumb legs didn’t want to start running again!  I was tired and knew I had to start running soon because Janet was getting further and further away and I didn’t want to run alone especially when I was so spent.  I forced myself to pick it back up and got back to my pace, but wasn’t able to catch Janet or the posse of people that was running with Mel.  The one guy (I can’t remember his name) was so awesome, though, he slowed down and waited for me to catch up to him and was so encouraging!

When I got to mile 26 I looked at my watch and saw 3:37 and knew I only had 3 min to run .2 of a mile so I was cutting it close, but I made it!  My final time was 3:38 and I even managed to get 3rd place in my age group.  (Mel beat me by 2 seconds at the very end!!  Way to go, girl - I didn’t even realize I had caught back up!)  I got this cool little picture of the towpath as a prize.  I love stuff like that.

I am so happy that I had Janet to run with.  She basically talked the whole time and it made the miles go by so easily and quickly.  I really loved the course and the volunteers.  The weather was perfect and afterwords we just hung out and chit-chatted.  My legs were sore and I was tired but definitely didn’t feel awful.

Here are the splits!

1    8:18
2    8:13
3    8:16
4    8:20
5    8:18
6    8:16
7    8:12
8    8:11
9    8:13
10  8:13
11  8:15
12  8:12
13  8:08
14  8:14
15  8:11
16  8:24
17  8:15
18  8:17
19  8:12
20  8:16
21  8:20
22  8:18
23  8:14
24  8:25
25  8:28
26  8:20
.2   3:23

Total time:  3:38
Pace:  8:18

Boston, here I come!

The past few days have been action-packed and full of fun.  Here’s a quick review:

My weekend started on Thursday night because I decided to take Friday off of work.  I got out of class and took my time getting home and when I got home I stayed up later than usual laying around and watching episodes of The Office that I’ve rented on Netflix.  I slept in on Friday and got some errands done and then around 7pm got ready for my own personal ’spider walk’ with Todd.  Todd does a spider walk for the public every year, but I had to miss it this year because of class, so Todd promised me my own personal spider walk.  I decided to invite Joe F. from work and his family since they didn’t get to make it either.  We had a fun time wandering around the park in the dark and finding spiders:

This one is an Argiope that is actually pretty common.  Elizabeth took this picture today, but we found it on Friday during our walk.  It’s so fat!  We even got to see it poop!  I didn’t even know spiders pooped!  LOL!  Friday night ended pretty early because Todd and I had to get up super early (4:30 a.m.!!!) for the Akron Marathon.  Todd did the full marathon and I was part of an all female 5-person relay team - Five Fast Femme-Fatale Freaks.  I was hoping for our team to come in top 3 (we got 2nd place last year).  I had the 3rd leg - a 10k - and I was hoping for around 7-min miles.  For some reason I wasn’t thinking strait and Janet got there earlier than I was expecting so I had to hurry up and drop my stuff and sprint to the relay exchange point.  (Seems to be a common theme for me this year…)  Anyway - my 10k went pretty well.  I was hoping to be sub 7 pace, but it wasn’t happening and I ended up with a 7:04 pace - which IS a new PR for me!  We took 2nd place female team overall and celebrated by hanging out in the awesome weather and drinking the free beer.  Todd looked awesome at the finish and had negative splits the 2nd half.  (I Think his time was 3:27 - and he felt great and didn’t even try).

I’m finishing up this post 2 weeks late but stay tuned for the Tow Path marathon recap coming soon!!!!!

I’ve been meaning to give a more detailed recap of the greater cleveland half ironman that I did last week. First of all - the day started EARLY - I had to wake up at 4 am. in order to get there in time to get all of my stuff ready in transition (transition area closed at 6:45). Well, no sooner do I get my bike out of my car then some guy walks by and tells me that they canceled the swim. What? Ugh…darn it. That means it’s not going to be a triathlon! Oh well, can’t blame them that the lake was choppy and they didn’t want us to drown. So I find out that we’re going to do a 1.2 mile run instead, which means that I want to warm up before the start. Scheduled start for the 1/2 iron was moved up to 7:30, so Janet and I decided to do a warmup beforehand. On our way back to the start all of these people start running towards us - but it wasn’t 7:30 yet - so I thought did they just start the guys first? Nope. They started the race early. So Janet and I sprint back to the start and then turn around and run after everyone else. I would guess we were about 3 min. behind at this point. So I get to my bike stuff and there is Steve right next to my stuff - I thought I only had girls next to me, but maybe he squeezed in after I had already had my stuff setup - nope - he just went to the wrong row. Although it sure was funny seeing his giant running shoes sitting there with my stuff. So I get on my bike and Janet flies out of transition ahead of me. I’m thinking - I’ll just try to keep her in site on the bike, because there is no way I’m in as good of biking shape as she is. Then not even 500 ft. out of the transition area there she is off of her bike. I thought she had fallen or something - but no, she got a flat tire already!!! I felt SO bad for her. What a way to start the bike. So I just go off by myself, trying to get into a rhythm. It never happened. The bike was VERY tough for me for some reason. After 30 miles I was just done. I knew exactly how many miles I had to go because I had on my garmin (actually had it on run mode so I was getting an alert every mile…) so I was fully aware of how many more miles I had to go. I was SO tired and not only did my shoulders hurt which always happens on the bike, but my hamstrings were not happy AT ALL. Finally the bike was over at pretty much exactly 56 miles according to Garmin, and I headed back to transition area. I stood there for a few min trying to stretch out my neck and then I switched shoes and headed out for 13.1 miles of bliss!

Why do I look like I’m scared?!?!

Wouldn’t you know it - there was Elizabeth and Melissa out cheering us on. Those girls ROCK. I was pretty tired when I first saw Elizabeth, but I tried to look like I wasn’t. She was cheering and screaming like crazy and I was super happy that she was out there. She ran with me for about 1/2 a mile and then said she would see me later because she was afraid that she would get in trouble for running with me. I said ok, and just tried to keep a pace that didn’t feel like it would kill me. The majority of the race was me trying not to think about the fact that I had to run 13.1 miles. Going from bike to run is NOT EASY. It’s definitely a feeling that you have to get used to, and since I had done a total of 0 brick workouts in preparation for this race, I was NOT used to it. I just kept on trotting along - and then Elizabeth caught up with me and ran with me, which helped me A LOT because she was talking. I can’t really remember all of what she was talking about, but it was nice to have her running with me. It made it easier for sure. I got a side stitch and she walked with me, and was very encouraging the whole time telling me she was impressed that I wasn’t complaining. (I just learned to keep it inside - trust me I was in pain.) We saw Janet and I only had about 3 miles left, so Elizabeth went out with her and I finished up the rest on my own. I think final finish time was 5:04 - OMG - I just checked online and they have posted splits - and how completely AWFUL - because of the early start that Janet and I missed, my first 1.2 miles took me 10:43!!!!! That is absolutely hilarious!!! Janet and I had our garmins on and I think the first mile was ~6:40 for us. Oh well. So I’m going to say that my time was exactly 5 hours for this triathlon.

I look like I’m sleeping - that’s how tired I was…

Looking at my splits - I’m pretty happy with my performance, and no wonder I was in so much pain on the bike - my speed was 18.7 mph! That’s pretty fast for me. I’m also happy with my transition times, which aren’t that great in general, but for me they are good compared to what they usually are (I think at Steelhead one of my transition times was like 7 min…tee hee). So here are my splits (GCT - sorry I complained that you didn’t have splits - I guess it just took you a little longer to post them to your website):

Greater Cleveland Half Iron Triathlon 2008

Run 1.2 miles (swim replacement): 10:43 (really it was probably ~7 min)
T1: 1:39
Bike 56 miles: 2:59:37 / 18.7 mph
T2: 2:17
Run 13.1 miles: 1:50:19 / 8:25 pace

Finish Time: 5:04:35

Here’s a link to the online results.

Now onto some more fun stuff - the Twilight Trail Run! Elizabeth, Melissa, Janet and I all did this one last year and had a complete blast, so of course we decided to do it again. This year Elizabeth and I returned as team Two Trail Freaks confident we would take first.

Two Trail Freaks took FIRST PLACE again, baby!!!! (Yes - that IS sweat.)

Actually, Elizabeth was confident for 1st place, I was a little worried since, oh, you know, she’s WAY faster than me!!! So I was nervous that I would cause us to loose - but not too nervous since Elizabeth was sore from an upper-body workout so if she tried to beat me up I could easily take her. Hahahaha.

We did about 15 min. of warming up and then headed over to the start to watch all the old people go first. (This race is unique in that they do staggered start based on gender and age.) Our team started with the 18-39 women group. I could have started earlier since they had me down as 46 years old - but I decided that would be cheating and started with my real age group. They started us and immediately Elizabeth was out in front - I stayed with her for about 1/4 mile and then settled into a pace that I was able to keep relatively comfortably. The first mile has a nice big hill and Janet caught me on it and passed me (I’m just not good on hills). Once we got to the top I caught her and we stayed with each other the whole time. I was sure she was going to pass me at any moment but I just tried to keep a consistent pace so that I could have my final kick at the end. This race is so awesome because it’s all on the bridal trails at N. Chagrin Reservation. There is one really steep up-hill and several rolling hills with one steep down-hill. The big down-hill is near Squire’s Castle and my toe was killing me as I flew down it - I kept thinking of how lovely my black toe was going to look after this! Janet stayed right on my back the whole time! I was sure I would loose her on the downs because I have gotten pretty good at them, but she was right next to me the entire time pushing me to keep my pace and not slack even though I was getting tired. I knew we were close after Squire’s Castle, because it’s where we warmed up, so I picked it up a little bit - not realizing they were going to make us do a big loop in the grass at the end! I am VERY disappointed that this dumb guy flew past me at the end and I didn’t have anything left to race him. Darn it! If there is one thing that I will not stand for is some guy beating me with only a few hundred feet left in the race and I just didn’t have anything left at that point. Blah. I think my finish time was 37:00 exactly based on garmin, which is a 7:26 pace. I wish I would have been a little faster than that, but at least it’s faster than last year’s time. Janet finished right behind me, maybe one or two seconds behind. It was great that we pushed each other, because I really think I would have slowed down if she wouldn’t have been running with me. Elizabeth is screaming to us from the finish something about ‘I already chugged a beer!!’ So I finish and the guy hands me a beer and I’m like - man do I love this race! In came Melissa and Laura and Bridget and all the rest of our buds. I think Janet even cheered for peanut as Laura was finishing! (Laura is a super fast hard-core runner who is pregnant and she calls the baby ‘peanut’). Todd of course did great and finished in 33 min. probably not even trying to run hard and stopping to gather spiders and walking half of it. (I’m exaggerating here, but it sure seems like he barely tries and still runs super fast!!)

Don’t I look glamorous?! Elizabeth said to take a ‘funny’ pic. too bad I was the only one who posed like a FREAK!

So they did the awards and Two Trail Freaks took FIRST female team! Sweet! We each got a certificate for any pair of Saucony running shoes that we want! How cool is that? This race is awesome. They have a cheap entry ($20); great stuff (headlamp and do-rag); great prizes; great food and beer; great well-marked course; and a great cause. Anyone reading this MUST do this race next year!

Todd took the last brownie but was so kind as to share it with me… OINK - OINK!!

Ok - that wraps up the last two races I have done.  Now it’s time to get serious with my Towpath marathon training.  I want to qualify for Boston!

I’m training for the Towpath Marathon. I want to finish fast enough to qualify for Boston. That means that I have to have a mile pace no slower than 8:24 min-miles. I’m using the FIRST marathon training program and tweaking it a bit based on my triathlon training. (So if I ride 100 miles, I’m not going to do my long run the day before, etc.) I was also informed that I should be running more than 3 days a week, so I decided to tack on another easy day, generally running about 4 miles at a relaxed pace. My off-days are either swimming or cycling; sometimes aerobics class or rollerblading, etc. (or nothing if I’m really being lazy.)

Generally the longer runs (18+ miles) are supposed to be done slower than your planned marathon pace (PMP). This is great, right? You can relax, chit-chat with your running pal about nonesense, look around, say hi to other runners… WRONG. I have found that running 45 seconds slower (and some of the runs even allow for 60 seconds slower!!!) than my ‘planned marathon pace’ is outright excruciating.  My legs can’t take it - it’s like torture for them for some reason!  Is that the point????  Am I supposed to be in so much pain from running slower?  Today, as an experiment for my 20-miler I decided to just run whatever pace felt comfortable.  Wouldn’t you know it it was 8:22.  Very consistently 8:22.  My slowest mile was 8:50 and my fastest was 8:11, but overall I was at a pretty consistent pace.  I felt comfortable pretty much the whole time with the exception of when I ran out of Heed (yep - I am drinking Heed now - I think you actually acquire a taste for the stuff after a while!!!) 3 miles away from my jug that I had hidden behind a rock off of the towpath.  Now - is this bad?  Am I going to negate my training because I am not going slow enough?  I just can’t imagine running over a 9-min mile for 20 miles.  I get into this nice rhythm around 8:30 pace.  I feel like I can keep that pace very easily.  Can I use that as my long run pace since it’s comfortable for me? (Going slower if I need to.)  Or is the point of the added time to make you suffer and have bad leg pain to make you used to being on your feet longer…PLEASE my running friends - I need advice!!!

For the time being I’m just going to stick to the training schedule but modify my long runs to be at a pace that is comfortable for me, and if that pace is way faster than 45 seconds over my planned pace then I don’t care.

In other news - yesterday was the 2nd Annual 100 mile Burning River ultra race.  I volunteered at E-Speed’s incredibly well organized aid station that the runners went through at miles 56 and 60.6 at Boston Store.  Huge congratulations to ALL of the runners - especially Melissa T., Dawn M., and Steve Hawthorn.  Steve - I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT!!  YOU ARE SO HARD CORE!!!!!!