2017 is mere days from ending. I still have 6 more runs and 14.4 more miles to complete my year. I'm taking the boys to visit my parents for a few days - where the temps are barely in the single digits. I have a feeling I'll be hitting the treadmill each day for the three days I'm there. Meanwhile, it's time to evaluate my 2017 so that I can start firming up my 2018. Running Get back into the local race scene. I knocked this goal out of the park. I ran 5 races with Pacers Running - my favorite local race company. Over the years, I have run many of their races and never been disappointed. This women led organization ROCKS the DC area race scene. Find some speed again. I did pretty well with this. I hit my goals at the GW … [Read more...]
Things that make you go hmmm…
This week has been, well, a week. My older son turned 16 - on the same day he had to take the PSATs. Poor kid. I've barely been running. I've just lost all motivation plus suddenly all the things that I ignored this summer are suddenly needing to be done. So today's topic of "Things that make you go hmmm..." seems perfect for where I am mentally right now. Swedish Death Cleaning - I came upon an article about this on Facebook. I'm not sure if it's legit, but I love the idea. The theory is that as you age, you start going through your things and start getting rid of stuff so that you don't leave your family with a ton of crap to dispose of. I have to admit that this resonates with me a lot more than the KonMari method. We've lived in … [Read more...]
Rating my year at the 6 month point
At the end of each month, we've been asking you to rate your running month as part of Tuesdays on the Run. As we close out June, I'm also going to check in on my annual goals too. As far as June goes, it started off strong and then flatlined. My body didn't bounce back as well after the Heartland race series as it has after other series. I really have no one to blame but myself. I did a lot of speedwork this spring, but I didn't do a lot of back to back runs. I also didn't do as many double digit runs as planned. Just this past week, I finally started feeling more like myself on the run. I no longer feel like I'm running through mud. I'm quite thankful for that as the I need all the energy I can find to start Hansons Marathon Method in the … [Read more...]
Lifetime Half #67, State #38, Heartland Series (IA)
Heartland Series: Iowa June 1, 2017 2:23:21 Temp: Low 50s to mid 60s What I wore:hat, tank top, a Skirt Sports Happy Girl, compression socks, and Altra Escalante Because the Illinois race and Iowa race were literally across the river from each other, we were able to stay in the same hotel for two nights. This meant we could spend our day after the race checking out the local area, rather than doing much driving. Know what was in the local area? The shop from American Pickers and a brewpub, as well as the Buffalo Bill museum. Our final race of the series was going to be followed by an 8 hour drive as we needed to head to Annapolis for the ZOOMA half marathon. In order to buy us some extra time, I decided to take the … [Read more...]
Lifetime Half #66, State #37, Heartland Series (IL)
Today's Tuesdays on the Run topic is "scenes from your run". I love to see the cool places people run on a regular basis. Unfortunately, life has been INSANE lately and all of my runs have been straight out the front door and loops through my neighborhood. Yes, my "run this town" project is going great. I have my neighborhood done at least 8 times now, sigh. So, I'm taking the "link up any running related post" option and writing about race #3 that I did at the Heartland Series. Or maybe I should say race #3 and #4... Heartland Series: Illinois May 31, 2017 2:28:19 and 36:00 Temp: Low 50s to mid 60s What I wore:hat, tank top, a Skirt Sports Happy Girl, compression socks, and Altra One 2.5 Once we finished the Indiana race, we headed … [Read more...]
Lifetime Half #65, State #36, Heartland Series (IN)
Heartland Series: Indiana May 30, 2017 2:18:23 Temp: High 60s to high 70s What I wore:hat, tank top, a Skirt Sports Gym Girl Ultra, compression socks, and Altra Escalante After I finished the Ohio race, we took a day off from running. I already had a Michigan race and I'd already run many back to back races, so we did some touristy stuff instead. We went to a windmill museum, drove by Michael Jackson's birthplace, visited several brewpubs, and visited a beach on Lake Michigan. It was nice to have a full day off to relax, but soon enough it was time to run again. We were now in Central Time, so race start was 5am. However, we decided to keep our bodies on Eastern Time and sleep and eat as if we had not changed time zones. … [Read more...]
Lifetime Half #64, State #35, Heartland Series (OH)
Heartland Series: Ohio May 28, 2017 2:28:09 Temp: High 60s to high 70s What I wore: visor, tank top, a Skirt Sports Gym Girl Ultra, compression socks, and Altra Escalante After two days of driving that included a some fun in Pittsburgh, Beer Geek and I rolled into small town Ohio. We stopped by packet pickup, where I couldn't resist buying myself a new medal hanger, specifically for my Mainly Marathon medals. Then we headed to dinner at the local brewpub. We did a sampler of all of their beers, which prompted the owner to come over and chat with us. Then I proceeded to eat a bison burger as big as my head along with a crazy number of tater tots. (It was so big that a random woman actually stopped by our table to ask me if I ate … [Read more...]
Lessons learned at another multi-race series
I've finished another multi-state adventure. It went both better and worse than I expected. I also learned a few new things at this race. Don't worry, I'll tell you all about each and every race soon. For Friday 2.0 with Running on Happy and Fairytales and Fitness, here's what I learned this time. ChafeX is amazing. Not only does it help prevent chafing, but if you chafe (because you didn't think to put it someplace), it helps you survive the next day's race without crying. When you are running out and backs multiple times, a hilly course is killer. I was quite literally counting how many hills I had left, rather than laps. Salty broth and noodles are better than Gatorade. I swear nothing tastes better 10 or so miles into a … [Read more...]
Rating May: my month long taper
As you can probably tell from the title, May was not a training month. It was supposed to be a training month, but no. Since it's our monthly "rate your month" post for Tuesdays on the Run, here's how my month went down. I wrapped up April with a Master's PR in a 10 mile race. Then I rocked out 20 miles on the trails at Ragnar Trail Richmond (ok, given the heat, I did not rock out anything. I finished the miles. I'm proud to have even done that.) And then my running came to a screeching halt. Despite a training calendar that included multiple double digit runs, my longest run in May was 6.7 miles for Ragnar's Chase the Moon. I'm still not sure what happened. It took me longer than expected to recover from Richmond and then … [Read more...]
Packing and planning for a multi-race trip
Time always seems to fly so fast. It seems just yesterday we chose the Heartland Series as our couple vacation this year. Yeah, I know we are weird to go traipsing around the country, running races, as our vacation without kids. Whatever. It works for us. Since we are driving this time, packing is a good bit easier. I can take all.the.things. Or most of them anyways. I did still lay out all of my running outfits and will shortly pull out the gallon bags. Because gallon bags are the best way to pack for a trip that involves running (I use it for Ragnar too.) It keeps the outfit together before the run and then corrals the scent post run. I'm a tiny bit nervous about this series. I'm not worried that I can't run all the miles … [Read more...]
5 Reasons I’m excited about 2017 ZOOMA Annapolis
This year I hit my 9th year as a blogger. In that time, I've run 6 marathons and 62 half marathons. But what you might not know is that prior to starting this blog, I'd only run a small handful of races, with the longest one being the Army 10 Miler (and I could barely walk after it.) I started my blog because I wanted to run the Marine Corps Marathon and Beer Geek was tired of hearing about my training. That's right - I decided to run a marathon despite being a newbie runner and never having run past 10 miles. Luckily I gave myself plenty of time to train. Enter ZOOMA Annapolis. I decided that if I was going to run a marathon, I should probably run a half marathon first. I targeted ZOOMA because it was in the right place in my … [Read more...]
Setting 2017 Goals not Resolutions
Here we are at the start of another year. It seems like 2016 flew by. For me as a runner, it was a really awesome year, but I chose goals that played to my strengths: back to back half marathons, trips to races, etc. I also chose typical things like manage my time better and drink more water, which feel more like "resolutions". Today's Tuesdays on the Run topic is "Runner Resolutions" (yes, I know I need to update my page), but I'm going to talk about some specific goals instead. For several years now, I've used this format and it really works for me. Running Get back into the local race scene. I've been really busy with the traveling and racing and only running half marathons. I used to love to run at the local races, so I've … [Read more...]
