Wild West Relay + TNT Update

So... the Wild West Relay is quickly approaching...actually, it's in 13 days!

Although I almost backed out at the last minute, although I have absolutely no money, although I am moving the weekend before the race, although I have another test for work the weekend after the race, although two weeks after the race is my fundraising deadline for Team in Training, I am going and I'm excited about it.

For those of you who don't know about WWR, here's the rundown:

• 200 miles, 24 hours
• 12 runners per team
  
• 36 legs total
  
• 3 legs per runner
• From Fort Collins, CO to Steamboat Springs, CO
• 2 SUV's packed with granola bars, peanut butter, stinky people & G (that would be Gatorade now apparently)
  
• Lots 'o hills
• Lots 'o elevation
• Really, really challenging terrain but it promises to pretty amazing
  

We gathered runners from all over the blogosphere and then some! Here's our team, the Dangerous Dozen!! We have two guys on the team, hopefully they can put up with a lot of estrogen for a few days :)

• Amanda from Run to the Finish
• Melissa from Trying to Heal
• Bobbi from NHerShoes
• Shannon from Shannon's Scene: Take Two (and a Charlestonite :)
• Alesha my BFF from college (we also went to high school together!)
• Cynthia from Amber (Shannon's cousin)
• Julie (not sure if she has a blog, but I think she has run WWR before! or maybe that's Jennifer?? sorry guys)
• Jennifer (not sure if she has a blog either!)
• Jeri from JerBer Shares
• Moore (Alesha's friend)
• Dionne (Moore's friend and lives in CO)
• ...and yours truly

I am runner # 9 so my legs are 9, 21 & 33. Check out these maps! Holy elevation batman! These are gonna be tough for a sea level gal like myself.
Although it looks like I get my most challenging leg out of the way first, way to plan Kristin, way to plan :)
A longer run, but a gradual descent. Gonna be tough on the quads after all that climbing earlier. ...and the final leg! I'm sure this one will be pretty tough because it will most likely be the next morning/afternoon. We probably will have slept for all of 15 minutes on the ground somewhere waiting on our next leg. But that's gonna be the fun of it, right? RIGHT??

I will be running a total of 16.6 miles, with a total elevation gain of 1,608, total elevation loss of -2,180 with an overall difficulty rating of 9 on a scale of 1-12 with 12 being the hardest. Although my net elevation is -572 (the hardest leg's net elevation is 2,547) I'm pretty sure this is going to be a VERY challenging race for me. I actually would prefer to go up hills than down them, because descending always ends up hurting my knees and quads.

Last night I decided to start prepping for WWR and did some hill repeats. I ran about 1.5 miles to warm up (which included going to the top of my chosen hill-the bridge, obvi), then I started my 4 x .25 repeats, running back down the .25 each time. My Garmin died mid-run so I don't have my totals, but it was actually not that bad! I think total I ran a little over 4 miles? Maybe more, I'm not sure.

Next time I would like to do 1/2 mile repeats, which would be a lot tougher. The .25 mile was pretty simple and I could tell that doing at least 4 half mile repeats would definitely test my hill strength. I'm going be doing these a lot over the next two weeks to get ready!

Have I also mentioned that I haven't been running with an iPod in about a month?? Yeah, both of my shuffles are on the fritz and I just haven't had the time to mess with them. Plus, all of our long runs I run with people so there's no need for music...so it's just my solo runs that have been a bit quieter. It's actually been pretty nice...

Headed out tonight to Charlotte for my TNT fundraiser tomorrow night. Gonna be a quick trip, gotta get back in time for our TNT 14 miler on Sunday morning...then spending the day PACKING...as we're moving next Friday to....Mt. Pleasant! Yep, we're leaving our beloved downtown Charleston for a nice slice of suburbia. But we're not gonna be far away from downtown and I happen to love Mt. Pleasant, so I'm not upset about it. (For those of you not familiar with the area, Mt. Pleasant is just the town across the bridge from the downtown portion of Charleston, so, it's not like I'm actually moving away.)

***By the way...have you donated yet?? My running total is $1,867...so I'm onl7 $1,633 away from my goal! I'm also only $133 away from $2,000. Anybody want to make my Friday and help me reach $2,000 today????


Have a fab weekend lovahs!

Holy Windstorm Batman!

For any of you in Charleston yesterday, you may have noticed that it was quite windy. It had been drizzling on and off all day, and I think overnight it actually finally rained. But prior to rainstorms, we down south and on the coast get SERIOUS windstorms.

So yesterday afternoon when I was debating via txt with my bf if I should run or not, he said, "Don't go. This wind will cut you in half." So I was weighing my options, and thinking about how we are going out of town tonight for a wedding and I most likely will not be able to run again until Monday, and came to the conclusion that I had to go.

Although it was Wednesday, and usually my track workout day, I wanted to skip ahead to Thursday's workout which is an 80 minute run with 6-8 mins of uphill running. I always do my hill runs over the Ravenel Bridge, since its more like 30 minutes total uphill running, and since it's right here near my work. Plus, it's a nice view.

So I geared up and set out at about 5:40 PM, the weather was actually kind of sunny and warmish, and it didn't seem to be all that windy initially.

But once I actually started up the bridge, I realized that this was going to be quite a challenge. The bridge was considerably empty for the time of day, and I quickly realized why. As soon as I started climbing, the wind started whipping my ponytail around and basically pushing any way against me that would make the run harder. I passed another female runner who was coming down the bridge just as that nasty wind decided to blow my shirt almost over my head...I just smiled and laughed at her hoping she wouldn't be thinking how gross my abs looked in motion (actually, they probably don't look that bad, but nothing in motion is ever good). Definitely tucked the shirt in after that.


So to make a long and boring story short, it was basically a walk/run up the hill both times, and I cut it short quite a bit. My legs were killing me and I just wanted to get out of the wind and get home. It was even impossible to keep my ear buds in my ears, so eventually just shoved all of that into my sports bra and gave up on music. I couldn't really hear it anyway over the scream of the wind.

All in all it was a decent 5 mile run, with about an avg pace of 10:20 I think, don't have my split times right here. I do know I picked it up for the last mile and ran at about 9:30. Is it me or is this marathon training making me considerably slower??

I also think that it takes me longer than a day to recover from my long runs on Sunday. Maybe I should start doing those on Saturday so I have longer to recover? Both runs so far this week since the 15 haven't been great, my legs have just been so sore and heavy as soon as I set out.

So I have a few days to recover my legs as I travel to the great state of Kentucky for my bf's sister's wedding on Saturday, in which I am a bridesmaid (with a really horribly fitting dress). I am hoping to possibly get one run in while I'm there, but I'm not counting on anything.

This weekend's long run should be another 15 to catch up for being behind, so hopefully I can get that in Monday after work....eeek.

I really need a gym membership.

On another note, I tried out the Clif Kid Z Bar in Blueberry yesterday, it was pretty good but too sweet for my taste. I don't really understand why everyone is so gung-ho about all these bars, I mean yeah they're good, but I would much rather eat a piece of fresh fruit as a snack vs. something processed and pacakged. I have a thing about eating too much packaged foods. Maybe I will get into this further on another day...but the bar was decent, and I have another one with me today to try out later while we're on the road.


So I probably won't be posting anything until Monday (unless I get bored on the 10 hour drive...which is likely) but I will be Twittering!! All hail the iPhone.

Have a great weekend y'all!