Suuuperbowl Weekend: 14 Miles

Last week was a bit...hazy, which would explain for the lack of posting regarding last week's runs.

Before I started by current job January 5th, I was working a contract marketing job that lasted until beginning of February, and last week was our deadline week to finish up (i.e. drive around the entire 50 mile radius of the Lowcountry delivering boxes to people) so with two jobs and trying to fit in training, I was a bit worse for the wear.

But, as of tomorrow we should have everything officially done, and I owe it all to my fantabulous, couldn't ask for better, big manly sweetie with a pickup truck that will do anything for me, boyfriend, who spent all day Friday driving around delivering boxes of this medicine to people, without much organizational help on my end...I am a procrastinator, big time, and didn't have things ready for him when I left for work Friday morning...so anyways, last week was NOT fun, but today if already looking a lot better. Between the two of us this morning we almost have everything delivered, and this week is looking sweet.

Last week's runs were out of order, which annoys me, and I didn't get in my track workout or my tempo run. I ended up running 8 on Monday and then running 6 on Thursday. This past weekend I did a quick 4 Saturday morning, and yesterday completed the dreaded 10 miles including over the bridge and back.

Sunday's run was pretty slow, I think I messed up by eating some trail mix beforehand...I have a VERY sensitive running stomach (actually just a sensitive stomach all around...ugh). Then of course the Superbowl was on, so the BF and I ordered D'Allesandro's which is by my definition, the best pizza in Charleston, possibly best pizza EVER (and thei cheesy bread with home made marinara sauce is amazing, I could put that sauce on cardboard and I think I would lick it up) so we lounged about all night watching the Steelers win, then The Office, which I didn't think was too funny.

Early Thursday morning I will be heading out of town to CHICAGO!! on a business trip, and couldn't be more excited.




But this will mean I have to move my runs around a bit. Instead of taking tonight off I'm going to do my tempo run, then tomorrow the track workout, and then Wednesday evening before packing do the 6 mile hill workout over the bridge. Then I can relax on Thursday in the Windy City, and possibly get in a good city run Friday at some point.

Then, on to 12 miles Sunday morning! Hopefully it won't be too bad...

Weekend Roundup: Slooowww 4 Miler and Lazy 8 Miler

We had a great time this weekend visiting some of my best girl friends up in NC. One was turning the big 3-0, and the other came down from Washington, DC to celebrate with us. It was the first time that all three of us had been together with our boyfriends in tow (both friends have relatively new boyfriends, and not everyone had met) and I think I enjoyed it more than anyone, because for once, my boyfriend of almost three years wasn't the only guy tagging along. :)

Saturday morning, my running buddy and I (the birthday girl) got up around 9 AM (a bit later than we had hoped...) to tread out on a quick run. I know I said I wanted to talk her into running 8, but neither of us could stand more than about 4 in our current conditions. We spent Friday night out at our old stomping ground, Chapel Hill, where we probably drank too much and ate too much late night veggie nachos at the institution that is Cosmic Cantina on the famed Franklin Street.

So we set out to do an out-and-back 5 and at about mile 2 I was checking the Garmin to say, "It's cool with me if we turn around now..." So that was the end of that, but at least we got a short run in during a busy weekend. (I won't mention how long it took us to run 4, we weren't in top form.) We then proceeded to make blueberry pancakes and bacon for everyone (and banana buckwheat pancakes and turkey bacon for us health nuts) which ended up leaving the house in a burnt-bacon smoky fog and us in a comatose state on the couch for the rest of the afternoon, which I cannot say I minded.

Our big night out was Saturday, which the birthday girl had us scheduled for an early dinner at a new Lebanese restauraunt in town, Sitti, and then a night out at the rooftop lounge of the new bar Solas in the Glenwood district of downtown Raleigh. We had a great time catching up and spending time with the friends who mean the most to us. It was good for me especially, because since moving to Charleston I miss having girls around who really know me inside and out.

Sunday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed (or off of our air mattresses in the living room floor that we were sharing with Birthday Girl's deaf white cat, Pharoah) and got ready to say our goodbyes. The DC folks were heading to the train station and we were looking forward to a greasy Sunday morning feast of Bojangle's before our almost five hour drive down south. Anyone who has ever tasted the greatness that is Bojangle's, knows that it is definitley the best hang over food imaginable, and we definitely feasted on it, and with great pleasure. It was for that reason (and possibly the Andnolini's we picked up when we rolled back into Chucktown...oops, blame that one on the bf) that I missed my weekend long run on Sunday (scheduled for 8 miles) and felt like such sluggish crap Monday morning.

So last night after work, although I was tired and cranky and came home to a severely dirty apartment, I persuaded myself to go out running, and I was hoping I could crank out an easy 8 miler so I wouldn't feel like I was already failing (a measly two weeks in) on my marathon training plan. I am one of those people who likes to do everything in order if I have a set plan, I don't like to switch things around, or miss a day here or there, because I feel like once I start to do that, everything else will just fall out of place (like they did last time I tried training for 26.2). I told myself that if I started out and I just felt off, that I would chop it to a 4.5 mile run, and run a bit more Tuesday night.

But it turns out that the 8 miles felt fine, and I finished in a relatively good time of 1:20:44, with my fastest mile being mile 8 which came in at a 9:44 pace. Not too bad for being a late in the day run after a weekend of gluttony and laziness. I think my only saving grace was that I drank almost a gallon of water yesterday. Woo hoo hydration!

Tonight's run is scheduled for 2 miles GP, 2 miles T, and 2 miles GP. I might either take tonight off to get some work done, or just go on a short 3 mile tempo run, depending on how much time I have. All in all, I feel like I am getting back into a good running rhythm, and I still feel like I have the motivation to get this done.

Yesterday my grandmother asked me, "Are you sure you want to do this?!" (in reference to said marathon) and I replied, "No! But I want to accomplish it." I hope I can prove myself right after a few more months of this...

Thursday's Hill Workout: Ravenel Bridge

I am extremely excited that today is Friday, for two reasons:

1) I don't have to run today!
2) I'm heading up to NC for my friend's birthday this weekend, and only have to work a half day!

A quick update on last night's run, didn't have a full hour to commit even though I was scheduled to run an hour with 4 to 6 minutes of total uphill running time, so I cut short my bridge run by a measly .2 miles....yeah that really saved me some time, I know. But I figured since running the bridge gives me, oh, about 20-30 minutes of total uphill time, I was okay with cutting the time a bit short.

Made it over and back in 5.35 miles in 52:37, with average pace being 9:50, with 8:01 as my max pace. It took me a while to get started last night, running up the first hill was pretty slow going with the first mile coming in at 10:04, and decreasing from there with last mile coming in at 9:12. I also must not have been working that hard (as I noticed while I was casually "jogging" down the first time and thought, wow I'm really being lazy and slow right now...but of course I didn't pick up the pace too much :) I felt a lazy day was in order ) because my average heart rate was only 171.

For anyone who has never witnessed the magnificent beauty that is our Arthur Ravenel Bridge...


Although I was a bit unsure about moving down here, one thing I am completely certain of is that I am extremely lucky to be living in such a beautiful and scenic place. After all, I get to witness the above every evening driving home from work. :)

This weekend's running is scheduled for 4 miles Saturday and 8 Sunday, but since I will be away that might have to be tweaked a bit. The birthday girl and I will be running Saturday morning together (my original running buddy whom I miss living close to!), and I think she wants to do 5. If we have as much fun as I think we will Saturday night, I might not be running Sunday at all, so I'm going to try to convince her to do 8 that way I won't have missed my long run. :)

Happy Friday all!

Here's to motivation

My running experience started way back when in high school cross country. At my school, it seemed like every body ran XC (or at least started out the season with the intention of doing so) and a few of my good girl friends ran as well, so I decided to join in.

I would say that my motivator was always to get in shape, because in high school, I wasn't exactly the fittest person. I was very involved in theater and chorus, and had never been the sports star. I tried soccer for a while, but our women's team was best in the county so that didn't last very long. I had done some track and field in middle school, and I still felt like there was an athlete inside of me (underneath a bit of fat, unfortunately) so I wanted to do something that would "force" me to get in shape.

My friend Jess and I embarked on the XC season our sophmore year with not very high hopes. We cheated on our "long" runs, stopped off at friends houses, and basically made a mockery of the sport as much as we could. When track workouts came up, we usually did a few of the workouts and then ducked behind the bleachers and headed home. We didn't do this because we were bad kids, we acted this way because we weren't in shape and instead of being embarrassed at being the worst on the team, we made jokes and laughed it off like it didn't mattter.

Needless to say, when our meets came up they were nothing but miserable, gut-aching, torture.

For some stupid reason one day, Jess and I decided to sign up for a Saturday out of town meet. Why would you do that if you hated it so much, do you ask? Good question, and I have no good answer. I guess we knew inside that we wanted to do better at the sport, so we signed up for something extra thinking it would motivate us to improve.

Morning came the day of the meet and we did everything we could to get out of going, (this in itself is a great story, maybe I will put that out here one day) but to make a long story short, we had to go.




So we get to school and load the bus that cold morning, and play "What's worse?" all the way there because we were THAT miserable.

When we get there, our coach is telling everybody their goal times. When he finally gets to me, he says, "Kristin, your goal is just to finish!" He laughs it off, and I do too not wanting to look hurt and embarrassed, and I end up posting my best meet time of the year that day.

That one sentence has stayed with me ever since that morning, and has probably been the main reason that I keep pushing myself to constantly improve. After I finish my marathon, I plan on calling him up and telling him the story, and letting him know how much of an inspiration and change to my life that one sentence has made.

So back to the here and now, last night was my first track workout of my marathon training plan, and I headed to the Mt. Pleasant track to run 3 miles and then 4x100s. I was originally going to run a quick 3 mile loop around Mt. P, but then decided since I didn't really know the area, just to suck it up and run laps.

I was immediately brought back to high school, when we would all gather on the track to do a sprint workout, and Jess and I would be sucking so bad that after a few sprints we ducked out (deathly afraid of our coach catching us and yelling at us in front of the team) and headed home, or to a friends house to do something "more fun." In reality we were just completely lazy.

But now, I actually have some confidence in myself and in my running ability, and when I arrived at the track to find a large group of runners waiting to start a practice, I wasn't nervous at all to be running amongst them.

I summised pretty quickly that this was a group of beginner runners training for the bridge run in April, with their "Get Over It!" t-shirts giving them away. Most of them seemed to be very new to running and were completely way too bundled up for an running workout.

As I went through my workout, slowly they trickled onto the track, some walking, some barely jogging. Some of them were my age, some were older, but they all had one thing in common--they wanted to be better.

Although I was quicker and more in shape than they were last night, I haven't always been that way. Running there with them last night I was thrown back to that time when all I wanted was to be in shape, to be able to run a 5k easily, to be better, and I know that's how they were probably feeling as well.

It has taken a few years, but running has completely changed my life. It has given me more confidence in myself, given me more energy, it has changed my body and my outlook on life.

In 4 months when I am running those last 6.2 miles after already running 20, and I just don't know where that extra push is going to come fron, I know I will be thinking about that cold morning back in high school when my coach thought I would never finish a 5k, and I know I will be able to push through.

Here's to motivation, here's to making it through, here's to running.