Sunday Funday

First things first: I have completely neglected this blog for a month! Today was the BWC 5k down by Key highway... 4th place (first place age group) and my second best time ever of 19:36! Woo hoo! It was also very hot but I do well with the heat! I did a 3 mile warm up which i was afraid was too long, but apparently wasn't and I was perfectly warmed up. Plus I got to see the whole course as I warmed up on it which was an advantage. Legs feel great now too! I should beat my 19:21 PR very soon. All of those 400s and 800s are paying off! I rewarded myself with a TRUE sunday funday by participating in drinking activities. Back to hard work this week! 400s and 800s for Wednesday workout. Debating doing Arbutus 10k this 4th of July weekend (saturday) but will probably skip it since I raced just today and I prefer to have more than a week between races. Now I need to find another 10k this summer so that I can get one of those in too, since I only have one under my belt!

Duel in the Sun

...that's what today's race felt like. I haven't written on here in over a week with traveling and honestly not very exciting training. Today, in Fort Myers, FL me and my sister's BF ran a Memorial Day race on a golf course. It was actually not very hilly (nothing long and steep at least) but it alternated between the cart path and the grass which was tough. Plus it was incredibly hot, as it is ALL the time down here. I came in second behind an amazing phenom, a freshman highschool girl who ran somewhere around 19 flat. I ran something like 20:16 which isn't bad, but could have gotten under 20 if my third mile didn't suck. Splits for mile 1 and 2 were 6:21 and 6:29, but didn't get the last mile which was probably 6:40 (ugh) considering .1 is usually around 45 seconds. All in all, it was a success: I kept good form, stayed positive, kept my stride rate high, but didn't kick as much as I needed to. That just goes with getting used to 5ks! If I keep up with the 5k training this summer I should be back down near my PR.

Looking to do a 10k in July, still choosing between a few. FL should be fun because I'll get to cross train a lot (biking, tennis) since my mileage isn't so high. Also I'm going to use the excuse that that highschool was acclimated to the heat since she lives down here.

One last thing: big props to FHS track's state meet qualifiers. At the state meet Josh get a new high jump PR for 5th place and Jon got 2nd for shot put. Ash R and Esanye had great efforts in their events and are only sophomores.

Much Needed Recovery Week

So today marked the end of my much needed recovery week. I only did about 20 miles total I believe, and cross trained more than usual for a good change of pace (no pun intended). However, I guess I really had been putting my body through hell, because if I felt the urge to run more than intended this week and starting to do an extra mile during a run, my legs were hurting. Guess I needed the recovery week more than I thought! It pays off to listen to your body.

Last night I actually had a few drinks to celebrate bday/graduation and was reminded why as a runner, I typically don't drink. Just 4 LIGHT mike's hard lemonades and I woke up dehydrated and slightly hung over. Did not make for a very enjoyable run this morning! However my legs are still feeling relatively fresh except for a little sore from spinning but that's just because I hadn't done that in a while. Looking forward to starting up some more 5k type training and doing a 5k or 10k in June to see how that works out!

Tri-day Friday!

...Meaning triathlon type training. Since this week is my recovery week, today was one of the days I was supposed to xtrain instead of run. So, I did some stuff I haven't done in a while... practice RPM (spinning) and swim. And let me just say... I felt out of shape (for those specific sports) as I was breathless 5 minutes into both! So I concluded I should cross train a little more.

Also my 4 mile run yesterday was good, I actually felt fresh and my legs felt great from all of the rest! Then there's Bay to Breakers Sunday which went well. The Hayes Street hill, which occurs about 2.5 miles into the race, was BRUTAL! I thought I've seen hills... until this one. It must have taken like 5 minutes to climb, and it is so STEEP. After that, the following mile was even slow because my legs were still recovering. Luckily, the rest of the race into Golden Gate Park was mainly downhill, allowing me to throw in a 6 min mile for mile 7. All in all it was very fun, lots of costumes and even some naked runners. Plus I managed to sneak in with the elites while they were warming up even though I didn't belong there.

Splits were 6:33,6:38,7:31,6:59,6:44,6:32,6:00,3:15 for a total of 50:13. I sort of felt like I had some left at the end and really kicked hard, but I wish I would have known better how to pace myself for a 7.5 mile race as well as this unique course. Oh well, I'm doing it next year so I will destroy that time then!

If You're Going to San Franciscoooo

...be sure to run Bay to Breakers like I am on Sunday (or wear flowers in your hair)! Tomorrow morning I leave for San Francisco, where my mom has a work meeting conveniently the same weekend as Bay to Breakers, the huge, famous 12k race in which participants have ranged from elites like Deena Kastor to people wearing costumes and groups of "centipedes" who have to run linked together.

I have not really tapered much for this race, because it's not crucial (or at least not to me) to do really well here. First of all, it's SUPER hilly, plus it's a distance I've never done before so it's a PR no matter what, haha. Also, it's the end of my racing season so I'm not really in peak performance condition.

I am trying not to push too hard since my body is pretty worn out by the months of high mileage I've been doing, so mile repeats, long hard tempo intervals, and things of that sort are not really good to do right now. So, I did 10 miles today: 3 mile warmup, 4 miles that consisted of 15 x 1min 5k pace/1min easy, then 3 miles easy, which felt like I was trotting because I was so tired. I must have been going hard on the 5k pace, because my 4 miles ended up being 7:11,7:22,7:20,7:16. This meant that since the ratio was 1:1 of hard/easy, my hard was probably at 6 min/mile or less pace and my easy was probably at 8:30 min/mile or more pace. My heel was started to hurt a bit but I think it was just because I was probably extending my stride a lot and possibly heel striking. It's fine now though.

Bed time... have to be up early for airport!

Eat, Sleep, and Run.. with less emphasis on sleep lately

So this week is already insanely busy, causing me to wake up pretty early in the morning to run which we know I already did Saturday. Sunday I ran at Loch Raven and my butt was pretty sore to be attacking those sort of hills, but I guess I brought it upon myself. Then mother's day which was nice. Monday was sissy and mommy's law school graduation, which I then went straight from to go teach at the gym. Today I woke up early to go to the trail and did some tempo work but nothing too crazy since i'm sort of in post-season mode and also the glute is miserable right now.

The workout was 2 mi WU/CD and intervals of 3 mi, 2 mi, and 1 mi in that order, with 90 sec jogs between. Times were 20:37 (6:51, 6:51, 6:54), 13:34 (6:46,6:48) and 6:40. My goal is to be able to really get that 1 mile time down. Obviously it's not one mile all out, but I should be able to blast my last mile. Although, once I start doing more speedwork during June, I should have a much better kick... or so I hope.

Can't forget the most important thing tonight... my brand new car! Loving XM radio :-) Off to bed to catch up on sleep then massage tomorrow after my morning run!

Little Darlin' Here Comes the Sun...

Being a lyric person, I thought this was appropriate with how I started my day. Woke up at 5 am to have a GU gel and banana before getting ready to head to the trail for my long run. Didn't get light out until halfway there.

My dilemma today was, with counties starting at 9 am (which I knew would be a long and tiring track meet, surely not fun to run AFTER), should I change my long run to Sunday? I decided that I should just stick to my usual schedule, especially since doing my long run closer to my next race (next Sunday) would not be best for me. So, I sucked it up and figured out what time I would need to get to the trail and eating breakfast after, which I never do... but hey, waking up even earlier than 5 am to eat was not worth it. I was also surprised to find several other people out on the trail at 6 am!

The run went well, running almost all 16 miles in the 7:30s and 7:40s and dropping the last 3 (before a mile CD) to 7:22,7:08, and 6:59. The only drawbacks from such a good run today were that 1) I was hobbling around at counties (I actually managed to plop myself down at the 200m mark to give splits and not get up), 2) now my butt hurts even MORE, even when I'm just laying down, and 3) my hill repeats might totally suck or not even be doable tomorrow. And obviously a drawback of running that early is that I was exhausted all day.

The track meet went well particularly for JV girls who had a ton of PRs. That's what good competition will do for ya. Also Jenna is improving consistently on her mile (I think she got 3rd for JV?) and should be under 6 min very soon.