Foto Friday

I am a little bitter after last night's run, so I am in no mood to post any running or tri related photos today. So you get my dogs :)

Last night's run did not go so well. I had 4 miles planned, and was looking forward to it becasue it was so nice out. About 75 degrees, just beautiful. I loosened up really quick and just zoned in and cranked out the first 2 miles in 19 minutes. Yeah! 9:30 pace! Man, I was so excited. Then I turned around. And my legs were like "eff you!", so I had to slow down a bit. Then my stomach was like "eff you!". Uuuuggggggghhhhhh! I tried to keep going, but you get to a point where your only options are either walk it in, or start looking for a large bush to go behind. Since I was in the middle of a residential neighborhood, plan B was not an option. So I ended up having to walk about the last mile. Feck! I was really excited about the possibility of doing 4 miles in 40 minutes or less. But, if I'm going to crap myself, it will not be on a 4 mile run!

Tomorrow I've got my 20-miler planned. I'm looking forward to the Chipotle burrito that will earn me!

This and That

Oh boy have I been slacking. On updating my blog anyway. I was PLANNING to run 12 miles last Sunday, but that didn't happen. I had a good reason, I swear! I help out from time to time with Mid-America Boston Terrier Rescue with transporting dogs to where they need to go. I had volunteered to pick up a dog from her foster home on Saturday morning and give her a ride part way so she could meet her ride for the rest of the way to Omaha where she was being adopted. Well, long story short, I ended up picking up TWO dogs on FRIDAY night, whom I kept all weekend, then had to pick up the original girl on Sunday morning and drive them half way to Omaha. Which was farther than I had originally been planning anyway. Really, who could resist these cute little faces!?

Poor girls, both of them were totally terrified and didnt come out of their crates all weekend. Until I left their crate doors open on Sunday morning while I was getting ready and the little red one crawled in with the black one so they could snuggle. Both are doing well, and are available for adoption if anyone is looking for a little friend! :)

And the reason I had to skip RE on Saturday morning? Well, I was hosting a baby shower. And this was not just ANY baby shower. This was an all out fetus party! We didnt start out intending to have a fetus themed shower, it just sort of evolved. First with the discovery of fetus shaped cookie cutters, and then it just went from there. You know it's a good party when the guest of honor shows up wearing a fetus shirt, one of the drinks being served is called Bon Drunkage, there are fetus cookies complete with umbillical cords and placentas, and people are still at your house partying at 11:30 at night. Fun times! Some highlights:

Some fetus cookies:

A rousing game of "pin the fetus on Jules"

Baby R likes the Absolut Pear already! (isnt that fetus shirt kind of creepy!?) And not to worry, no alcohol was consumed by the mom to be, she was just lamenting the fact that she couldn't partake :)

So, I may not have done any running, but I did have a fun weekend. Now back to reality. I have a 20-miler for this Saturday that I'm actually looking forward to because it's supposed to be like 70 degrees out. Talk about spring fever! I did 6 miles on Tuesday, and came out with an 11:15 pace. But that includes me having to wait quite a while on both my way out and way back to cross a really busy intersection. So lets just say it was more like an 11:00 pace. Which I'm really happy with.

Foto Friday

Time for Foto Friday again over at Nike Mom's blog! She picked a them for this week: America's Next Top Runner. Hmmmmm. I was trying to think of ways to get all creative, but I couldn't come up with anything. So you get a picture of me running! This is leaving T2 at Heritage Park in 2007. I couldn't remember if it was 07 or 08, but based on my shoes it was 07. They were my one foray into Mizuno's, and then it was back to Adidas for me.

This weekend I'm skipping RE on Saturday because I'm hosting a baby shower at my house in the afternoon that I need to get ready for. So, I'll be doing my long run on Sunday all by my lonesome. I'm scheduled for 12 miles, and I dont know that I've ever run that far by myself. I think the closest I've come is doing my first 10 miler with just Court a few years ago. So, I'll strap on the ol' fuel belt and make sure my ipod is charged up and see how it goes. Maybe this would be a good time to figure out the "training partner" function on the Garmin. Guess I should figure out a route too!

The Biggest Liar

So I admit it, I love watching the Biggest Loser. Even last season with horrible Heba, Ed, and Vicky did not diminish my love for the show. Well things have changed, my friends!

A couple weeks ago when Blaine got kicked off, they filmed him at the end preparing for an "Ironman". Except, they showed him talking about the race, and the numbers didn't add up. They didnt even add up to a half Ironman. Whatever, I just chalked it up to him being a newbie and not knowing what the deal was. I was a little irritated though when NBC stated that he would be competing in an IRONMAN, when that clearly wasn't what he was training for. Why exaggerate? Doing a half ironman is an amazing accomplishment. They dont need to diminsh that by making it sound like he was planning to do a full. Not to mention, NBC airs Kona every year, so you'd think they know what is involved in an actual full Ironman!

But last night took the cake. Blaine's cousin, Dane got kicked off. In the clips at the end, they show him talking about doing a marathon with his wife, and then SHOW them "finishing" a marathon. The clock shows a time of 5:53. Then, NBC states that Dane and his wife completed the marathon in 3:53. The hell?

Wellllllll.......come to find out, they didnt even run the whole damn thing! They got picked up at some point, it sounds like around mile 17, and then dropped closer to the finish. They didnt even tell the race officials they got a ride, they collected their medals. It took other racers reporting them to the race officials before they were DQ'd!

Here is what pisses me off. If this formerly 400+ lb guy ran even a half marathon, that is AWESOME. But for NBC to blatantly lie about his accomplishment is a slap in the face to everyone who HAS actually trained for and completed a full marathon. I dont care how long it takes you, I mean, look at my times. I'm slow as hell. But finishing a marathon is a huge effing deal, and NBC just completely shit all over it. But, for a show that promotes "average" weekly weight loss to be double digits, and trains contestants to think that a 5lb loss is somehow poor, I shouldnt be surprised.

There have been a lot of cleberities in the past few years who have gotten some press for running a marathon. That has just led to the perception by the general population that completing a marathon is no big deal. Well, it IS a big deal. And it takes a LOT of hard work and effort. It really saddens me to see a major network feeding into the misconception of how NOT a big deal doing a marathon really is.

Here's some more chatter on it:
http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/2009/02/the-biggest-los.html

I cut it short AGAIN

I was SO not feeling an 18 mile run on Saturday. I didnt feel like running at all, let alone 18 miles. I went out early to do 2 miles before starting with the main group at 7, just to get myself done a little quicker at the end. I almost just went home after those first 2 miles. It was cold (about 20 degrees) and windy and my legs were tight after just a mile. Fantastic. I had even doubled up on my pants, had a layer of tights on under my wind pants, and my muscles were still not having any of it.

But, I decided it would be ridiculous to wake up so early and drive over to Grandview just to run 2 miles, so I kept at it. I ended up only doing 16 instead of the 18 I had planned because the other two gals that I normally run with were doing 16. That's a bad habit I find myself falling into, and I need to get out of it. They arent doing the same races I'm doing, so of course they won't be doing the same mileage on our Saturday runs. I will most likely be skipping this Saturday's long run because I'm hosting a baby shower at my house that afternoon, so I'll have to get it done on my own Sunday.

Our course started off at Grandview High School and we made our way up to the trail at Longview Lake. I HATE that trail. It is so broken up and uneven, it is just a really poor runninng surface. So by the time we got done, my ankles and feet were killing me. I felt a lot better after stretching out and taking a shower (and of course consuming my usual 1100 calorie Chipotle burrito), but my left foot was still pretty painful. It's much better today though, so I'm thinking it was probably just a tendon or something that got a little over-used.

I finally loaded the Garmin software onto my computer last night and got all of the data from my last few runs uploaded. It is so cool! I can totally see where all the aid stations were based on my speed, and it's neat to see how a change in grade affects your speed. Although, Garmin better check yaself, because I do not appreciate my pace being classified as a "slow jog"! I need to spend some more time playing with the actual unit, because I know it's got a bunch of features that I haven't even touched yet.

Foto Friday

Time for Foto Friday again! This week it's one of my wedding pictures. The hubs thinks I never talk about him on my blog, so here ya go! We got married Thanksgiving weekend in 2006, so it's been a little over 2 years. Some days it feels like not a day has passed, and some days it feels like eternity ;) Just depends on my mood I guess, and if you ask him, he'll probably tell you that I have a lot of "moods"!

Up this weekend, an 18 mile run, and of course, Chipotle! My original plan had been to lift on Sundays, but it is hard to get motivated to go to the gym after doing a long run the day before. Especially when I usually spend the rest of the day on Saturday laying on the couch watching Lifetime movies or catching up on my DVRd shows, which leaves me with the cleaning and grocery shopping to do on Sunday. I keep reminding myself that when I was training for IM, I'd do my long run on Saturday and then turn around and spend all day Sunday on my bike. I dont know how I got anything done then.

Speedy Gonzales

So, it turns out that I can run a little faster than I actually have been. *gasp!* I dont know why I always thought that I HAD to be so slow, but thanks to my handy dandy Garmin (which is about the best thing ever invented, by the way), I've discovered that I can in fact run faster than 11:30-12:00 min miles.

Saturday our run was up at Cliff Drive. Which I LOVE because it is such a pretty run, but, those of you in KC know it's not exactly the best area. We're talking, a mile away from Independence Ave where all the hookers hang out, it's been a dumping ground for dead bodies, that kind of thing. And Cliff Drive itself is pretty isolated, in fact, they gate it off on the weekends to keep cars out of there. So it was nice to be able to run without worrying about traffic. But I definitely wouldn't want to run here by myself.

Anyway, Saturday I had volunteered to be pace group leader (PGL) for the 11:40 group since Kristi was out of town. Every session, the Cliff Drive run is not very well attended, so we ended up with only about 6 people in our group. Our course was a 5 mile loop instead of the usual out-and-back set up, I assume for safety reasons. Everyone else in the group was only doing 5, and I had 10 scheduled (well, 12, but decided to make it 10 for simplicity's sake). So I stuck with my normal group for the first 5, and honestly, I felt like I was crawling. Something about being able to actually SEE what pace I was running made it feel really slow. I wanted to go faster, but since I was PGL, I tried to keep on pace.

After we finished the first loop, I was able to hook up with the 11:20 pace group for my second loop. Now, the 11:20 PGL is known for going faster than 11:20. But I didn't realize exactly HOW much faster. Pretty much ever time I looked at my watch, we were under 10:30. And half the time, we were under 10:00. So, for me, that is a little quick. But you know what? I felt just fine. In fact, it felt downright COMFORTABLE to be running at that pace. Did I mention that pretty much the entire run was uphill? The first mile was flat, then there was a really sharp downhill before we got on Cliff Drive which was completely uphill for the 3 or so miles we were on it. But I still felt good going faster than what I'm used to.

So, that is pretty exciting! I did 2 last night and finished with an overall pace of 10:46, which included walking up part of this hill by my house and then having to wait for a bunch of cars before I could cross the street. So, I actually RAN faster than that. I feel like I for sure can break 5 hours in a marathon this year, and I know I can blow my half mary PR out of the water too. I think I'm going to do the Olathe Half next month just to see how I do.

And this is off topic, but for those of you that have seen the new Friday the 13th, how is it EVEN appropriate to take a 10 year old kid to that!? Dan and I went to see it Sunday night, and there was some woman there with her son, he couldnt have been over 10. All good classic horror flicks follow the same formula; sex, drugs, and gore. And this had PLENTY of all 3. I'd even venture to say that it had more than any of the earlier versions. It's not the 80's any more, films have gotten raunchier. Maybe I am just getting old, but there is no way in hell I would take a 10 year old kid to see that! Oh, AND she didnt even make him sit with her. The theater was pretty empty, and she let him about 4 rows behind her. Which meant that he could (and did) get up and move around during the movie without her seeing him. And then she didnt bother to make sure he picked up his trash after the movie, and he left a half full bag of popcorn spilled out on the floor. Parenting at it's finest.

Foto Friday

Time for Foto Friday again. And since Janice over at Run Far & Strong posted a pic of her tat, I thought I'd share one of mine (I've got 3 more, but I'll save those for another day).

When Corky got married last fall, she had her photog snap a picture of us and Robo lined up with our Mdot tats. Way cool. And I loved my shoes (I'm on the right), but seriously, I will take my running shoes over a pair of stilettos any day. I still need to get an actual copy of that pic from Court (I snagged this one off her photog's website) so I can put it up in my red room/bike room. I've decided that's where I'm going to hang all of my race stuff, at least until it turns into a baby room. Shhhh. Yes, I said it. Everyone that comes over to the house says "oh, this would be a great BABY ROOM!!!" when we give them the tour. So yes, I will admit it, thats the plan. At some point. Just not quite yet!

Doing Your Best

As I was finishing my run on Saturday, another group of girls was finishing at the same time. I overheard them talking about their 22 mile run. And for a second, I was embarassed that it had just taken me the same amount of time to run 16 miles that it had taken them to run 22. Just for a second. I remembered an article I read a while back about doing your best. I've read that article a number of times, and I just read it again. To remind myself that there is nothing embarassing about how fast or slow I run, even if there are people out there that run twice as fast as me. I think we all need to be reminded of that from time to time.

http://www.active.com/running/Articles/Penguin_Chronicles__Doing_your_best.htm

New shoes!

Having to take Walter to the emergency vet for stitches on Friday night at 10:00 did not bode well for how the rest of the weekend was going to go. Luckilly, that was really the only bad part of the whole weekend.

Saturday was another BEAUTIFUL day. We've been pretty lucky with our weather this winter. Aside from a few really cold snaps here and there, it has been pretty mild. It was a little chilly starting out, but was supposed to warm up to over 70. And since I was running 16, I knew I'd still be out there when it warmed up. No long sleeves for this girl!

Now, I dont know WHAT I was thinking, but I didnt take any GU or electrolytes with me. I guess I am just not in "long run" mode yet. Stupid! I felt pretty good the first 5 miles or so, but by mile 6 I was getting pretty warm and wishing I had something with me. They do have Gatorade and pretzles and such at all of our aid stations, so that saved me. But still, I really could have used a few GUs. I was with several other people the first 8 miles, but when I turned around, I was all by myself. I usually have at least one other person to run with on those long runs, so it was a little weird. I'm also used to having my ipod when I'm running alone. So this actually reminded me a little bit of Ironman....running a long way by myself with no music. It really wasnt that bad, but I do prefer some company.

By mile10 I was really wanting to be done. It was so much warmer than I'm used to, and my feet were blistering up BAD. Before I headed out that morning, I had meant to paint up the sides of my big toes with New Skin. I tend to blister there on my long runs, and the New Skin totally helps. And of course I forgot. It didnt help that my shoes were in dire need of replacement. So, in addition to the bottoms of my pinky toes which blister up no matter what, I had some rockin' blisters on my big toes too. Awesome.

Right after I left the mile 12 aid station, I passed a couple of high school girls running the other way. Obviously, not with our group. I looked back, and sure enough, they were stopping at the aid station. Despite the huge sign that says "Reserved for Runners Edge Participants". UGH! I HATE people that break the rules. I am a little weird in my love for rules. I felt like hollering something at them, but didnt want to be "that" lady. And given that I'm about twice their age, I would in fact be a LADY. I really hate that term. And ma'am. Anyway.

Made it back to the start hot and tired and blistered, but really no worse for the wear. Since we had started at Garry Gribbles, and any time we start at a GG store we get 25% off instead of our usual 20%, I decided that it was time to break down and finally get some new shoes. I had been running in the same shoes since about August of 07, and they were the shoes I did IMFL in. Plus, they were the shoes that I bloodied up. So, I guess you could say they had a little sentimental value. And really, I barely did any running last year. So it's not like I put in a huge amount of miles on them after Florida. But it was definitely time. They were really broken down and starting to make my arches hurt. New kicks are always fun, now I cant wait to dirty them up a bit!

I met Erin out for Chipotle that afternoon, and I'm embarassed to admit that I actually wore my Crocs in public. But hey, my feet were swollen and blistered and just wouldnt cooperate with me putting anything else on them. I know I promised to never wear them in public, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!