Catching Up!

So it's been a while since I've posted. Since the last post, I spent a week in Delaware with my kids and my mom. We had a great time, and I got to run in a flat state... yay! It was HOT and I found myself running at night after the kids were in bed. I could even do long runs because it is safe to run on Rt. 1 which is a well-lit major road with a running path in between the road and the beach!!!

I'm pretty Type A. So when I missed a run because I had to spend 8 hours driving across 4 states, I combined a few runs the next night so I didn't miss my workouts for that week. I did the same last week when I was crazy busy with Vacation Bible School and the kids' swim lessons. And I'm planning to combine workouts this week, too. I hope that's ok. I'm just finding it's hard to consistently run EVERY day and other things take priority. So the next day I make up for lost time. :-O

A friend lent me a great book called Run Like a Mother - I couldn't put it down!

So I'm 4 weeks into my training and it's going well. I opened up my long run schedule to the Ragnar group and a few of us have been meeting weekly to run together. They keep me accountable to my goals, and it's awesome! I've come to truly enjoy the long runs we do together early Sunday mornings. Then I have the rest of the day for church and family fun. It's a good thing.

On Track

Things are still going well. I'm finding my greatest lesson learned so far along this journey is that even when I don't feel like running, I do it anyway, and I never regret it! I'm saying that just about 3 weeks into the training - I'm still "on track" - still doing what I need to do every day. I'm a very Type A kind of gal, so a daily routine is good for me. School and activities are over now for both kids and I'm happy that the only commitment I really have is to playing with them all day long, then running when Daddy comes home! Summer has arrived!

This week I did some speed work and the 4-hour marathon is seeming more possible than ever before!

Our Ragnar team went out for a very belated post-race celebration Wednesday night and just being around the team gets me pumped to continue training hard. One of the guys on our team even commited to running the Hartford Marathon this fall! So Greg and Kim are going to do their first marathons and I'm determined to be there for them at Mile 20 - I can not wait!

I'm also making plans to run the Hartford Marathon on a 5-gal relay team - we did it last year, it was an amazing experience, and I look forward to doing it again. This time with additional runners so we can hang out at the exchange points together. Should be so much fun!

Now I'm working on finding new and fun routes for my long runs since I'm getting sick and tired of running along the trail I run just about every time!!! And I'm working on doing these runs with friends. It's all coming together, and I'm happy to find kindred spirits who want to sweat it out together. Really thankful God has given me many friends who love running!

Enjoying Things...

This was a great week and since this blog is in part to keep me accountable to my training plan I want you all to know I stuck to my plan, and I feel wonderful! I even found a different plan in Runners World, it is somewhat similar to the Hal Higdon one I'm following now, but I"m comparing the two to get the most bang for my buck. Runners World had an awesome issue this month, lots of great articles. It is the one magazine I actually enjoy getting because it is not all advertisements but rather full of awesome stuff! It even had an article about hill training. :-)

Pretty much each week I do the following... one long run (between 8-24 miles), 2 or 3 5-mile runs, 1 day of interval training and 1 tempo or pace run. It's specifically focused to help me run my next marathon in under 4 hours. I'm feeling stronger lately. Tonight I ran an easy 5 miles and I felt great and even got way faster at the end, I just wanted to speed things up. I consider it such a gift to be able to call a 5-mile run an "easy" run given I had never even run a mile until 4 years ago. Really getting excited about my long run this weekend as it isn't as hot as last week, we don't have much on the calendar, and I'm feeling pumped.

Plugging Along

I may not post every day but things but are going well. :-)

Bill's parents are here for the weekend, we're celebrating his 40th birthday. Yesterday was sweltering hot and I didn't feel like going for my 5 mile pace run until night time, but I ended up doing it on the treadmill instead which proved to be a bit challenging - usually i do more leisurely runs on the treadmill. I'm just not crazy about it, but the pace run needed to be done and they were calling for thunderstorms. I didn't get around to running until 8:30, which made me not tired at all to go to bed. Which made me go to sleep much later than normal. Which made waking up EARLY today to get my 10-miler in before church not so fun. My lesson for this weekend... don't do a 5 mile pace run on the treadmill. And if you must, don't do a 10-miler the next morning after getting very little sleep! I love running 10 miles normally, but I struggled this morning and the treadmill just wore me out - I always feel like I'm going MUCH faster on the treadmill at the same pace I run on the road, and I hate all the pounding! Anyway, I got it all "done" and tomorrow is a rest day. Whew!

I love the Christian group Casting Crowns and this morning I listened to one of their songs "Voice of Truth" a whole bunch of times to get through my run...

"But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story. The Voice of Truth says DO NOT BE AFRAID. And the Voice of Truth says this is for my glory! Out of all the voices calling out to me, I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth." Love that song and love it's message. It's amazing how often I listen to the "voices" (i.e. influences) of the world, even in my running - I'm thankful that God allowed me to get into running in my late 30s, it's such a gift, and I want to do it to glorify Him.

Enjoying my new plan...

I've had a few great days of running - Tuesday was my "hills" day - I ran hill intervals on Hollister Drive, one of the hilliest roads in our town. Amazingly my quads are not hurting. I think I'm getting used to hills!

Last night I did an easy 3 mile run, and yes, it's almost 9 p.m., we're watching the Flyers game, but I need to do a 30 minute tempo run. Ragnar cured me of my fear of night running, so I'm grabbing my headlamp after this quarter and heading out....

A New Plan...

Today was insane. I'll spare you the details. Let's just say I was supposed to meet my friend Shirley this morning for a run in Collinsville, then coffee afterwards at Lasalle market. I had been looking forward to it all weekend. Had some issues with my car, planned to have Shirley meet me at home instead so we could run around here (since I had to drop my car off - we do have 2 other cars I "could" have driven to Collinsville but they are both manual and I have yet to learn to drive manual... pathetic, I know!). Ended up having to cancel our run because of the car issues and having to take the car in, and Bill's car stalling on the way to Pep Boys (he was following me over so he could take me home after I dropped off my car) - can you believe HIS car stalled on the way over!!! OK so I'm not exactly sparing you the details. I could write a mini novel about our car situation today. There's more to the story, amazingly, but I'll stop now. Totally crazy morning and I do believe it was all because I had to cancel my run with Shirley in the first place - my day would have still been crazy, but at least I would have gotten my run in! Oh well! The moral of this story is my day is always happier when it begins with a run, and things that are normally really crazy are less crazy when I've gotten a run in!!

Today I began a new training session. Another long story. In short, the plan I found before after searching for a while (and one I bought off the internet) - it was not the right plan for me. WAY too intense and I know I would have gotten burnt out. I found another plan that I believe will help me achieve my 4 hour marathon or at least get me closer to achieving it, without making me a crazy person. I'm excited to start. I'm going over the plan with some friends from my running club who are going to tweak it for me so it's absolutely perfect and tailored to my needs.

I did end up running this evening - a quick 3 miles. Today is the first day of my official training (this plan is an 18 week plan - 2 weeks ago I started a 20 week plan). I'm excited for the challenge.

I have to go take a Claritan now - the pollen was awful tonight!!!

Before I go I have to tell you the wierdest thing about the car situation - the whole reason we took my car in was because my husband noticed grease all over the bottom of the driver door - he figured there was something wrong with the axle, or something like that (I'm not too good with cars, but it sounded serious). He noticed this on Saturday after we had driven 2 hours to Rhode Island, and he didn't want me driving it yesterday at all. Well, when we went to pick it up the guy at Pep Boys said he couldn't find anything wrong with it - he thinks I may have run over a pile of grease. So all that craziness for NOTHING lol!!

Ragnar in Retrospect

I'm just now getting a minute to write about my most amazing weekend, running the Ragnar Relay with 9 other runners... we ran in legs, a total of 190 miles from New Haven to Boston. I'm not even sure how to describe it! I'll try...

There were 10 of us - should have been 12, but 2 of our runners had to cancel. The extra legs they would have run were split between various runners. I had 3 legs, a total of about 16.5 miles. I thought it would be no big deal. I've run marathons after all, I thought running 16.5 miles over the course of 24+ hours (broken into 3 legs, with time to rest in between) would be no big deal. I hardly trained for it. Did my easy runs since I'm only just beginning training for my next marathon right? I was thinking it would be kind of a like a party (which it was... for sure) with a little bit of fun running involved. Boy was I in for a shock!

My first leg was hilly, and it was hot. I had gotten up extra early that morning to leave for the relay - I had been stressed out all week preparing for it. And I've had a whole bunch of other commitments leading up to this race - the weekend before was exceptionally busy - I've had a lot on my plate. In my life, the first thing to "go" when I'm extra busy is the running. I was unprepared. Anyway, the first leg was hilly and I felt like I was dragging. My second leg, the one I was most worried about, occured in the middle of the night - we wore headlamps and reflective vests with flashing lights on them. But that leg was awesome - I had gotten my second wind, it was cool in the night air, I felt strong and I ran strong. I felt that runner's high which is just so hard to describe. I loved that leg because of all the things going through my mind... how much I enjoyed this activity, how much I was loving everyone's company, how happy I was that the van was shadowing me throughout the leg so I wasn't alone in the dark streets, and the relief over not seeing critters! It was an odd feeling running at night, which I do every so often, but not a whole lot. I loved it. We slept outside in sleeping bags, some slept in the van. Just getting a few hours sleep felt great. We woke up the next morning to the sound of runners coming to the exchange point where we were expecting the other members of our team, just finishing up their leg.

My 3rd and final leg was also tough because of the hills. I finished, but I hated it. I was ready to be done.

In retrospect, my key mistake was entering into this situation without being prepared for the hills. I admit... I just don't like hills. I run the Philly marathon which is a pretty fast course. Running is hard enough - marathons kill you. Why pick races that are hilly? I just never "got" that. I've never trained on hilly roads, literally almost never! If I had trained on hills, I would have enjoyed the course a whole lot more. Lesson learned. Amazingly, after 2 days of hurting quads, I feel great and in an odd way my body is sort of "craving" for hills. Running the hilly roads made me want to commit to doing it more often.

My teammates... I can hardly describe the dynamic between us. Picture this... running with 9 other people, many of whom you've only met a few times. Picture being stuck in a van with them for 27 hours! Picture how awful that could be if you didn't get along with these people. You're tired, hungry, and cranky. Can you picture this?

Well, I was elated to discover that these 9 other people are some of the most wonderful folks I could ever have the pleasure of knowing. We did such an awesome thing together. I learned tons from them. My teammates looked great on the hills. I looked at them in awe. I will start training for hills because I want to do better, and to be a better runner. I want to train harder. They inspired me a lot and I'm grateful to them. It's unmistakable that God puts people in your life for a reason.

Another wonderful thing about this relay was the course and how beautiful it was! We ran through many little beach towns in Connecticut like Old Saybrook and got to drive through some lovely areas. We saw a fox hunt outside Boston which took my breath away. These are things you just don't see every day, and that was a great part of the experience.

We're planning a post-Ragnar party and I can't wait for my family to meet this bunch of fabulous runners. And we're talking about doing another overnight relay next year. I'm looking forward to it!