Saturday, April 30, 2016

4/30

4 easy ones on the TM; started outside hoping the rain wouldn't be too bad, realized it was cold enough that it was like icy droplets, and went right back inside--the last thing I need right now is a cold! DH started last night with the stomach bug our kids had last week, so it's been a long day. Just glad I got my run in so I could quit worrying about it.

29.1 for the week; 131.74 for the month; 393.74 YTD.

Friday, April 29, 2016

4/29

8 hilly miles with the jogging stroller and Nathan this morning. 50 degrees and windy; hard to believe the forecast for the Mini! I kept my LS shirt on the whole time--every time I started to feel warm enough to take it off, the wind picked up. 10:29/mile; the jogging stroller is obviously a good tool to keep my pace down where it ought to be. ;-)

Thursday, April 28, 2016

4/28

Woke up this morning feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. All the exhaustion of sick kids/end of semester craziness/tons of church responsibilities this week seem to have hit at once. So glad it's a SRD--yoga and that's it for me today.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

4/27

Jules threw up most of the night, so planned outside run with Nate in the stroller turned into 5 inside on the TM. Ran intervals; avg pace 10:09. Comfortably hard.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

18 weeks, 4/26

5.5 at easy pace on TM. Pretty tired at the beginning; didn't sleep much last night, thanks to sleeping 10.5 hours the night before (sleep of exhaustion the first night of 4 that kids weren't sick!).

Signed up for the Indy Mini yesterday, which is a week from Saturday.

Monday, April 25, 2016

4/25

6.6 on the trails today with Nathan. It was an interesting run after a weekend of very sick kids. I didn't think Nate and I would make it out today (he ate breakfast and then it came right back up again...and again...and again), but when I suggested a quiet morning at home he got super upset and insisted we get out with the stroller, so out we went (with an emergency kit of Popsicles, Ziploc bag, change of clothes, baby wipes, lots of water, and a few applesauce pouches...thankfully we didn't need any of it other than the food and water!).

I ended up getting 6.6 out of my 5.3 trail thanks to all the detours he wanted to make (we visited a school bus, a bridge, two stoplights, and two train mailboxes). Then when we got home I settled him down with a Popsicle in his camping chair on the front lawn and ran another 6/10 up and down our street (three laps) at 8:56 pace, which was much nicer than the 11:06 pace I was doing with the stroller on a gazillion hills against the wind! Our last mile, which was fiiinally downhill with a tailwind, was way faster than the others. Avg pace 10:52. Lots of stretching while I pushed him in the swing to follow. :-)

ETA: 2.1 walking

Saturday, April 23, 2016

4/23

Quick 4.1 with yoga to follow very early this morning--my Garmin battery died about 1.12 in so I had to double-check with mapmyrun when I got home; fortunately I know the mileages pretty well on that trail so it wasn't too bad. Pace a little faster (8:48 last couple of miles, not sure before that since I didn't note when the Garmin died and turned on the timer function 1.53 from home) than it would have been if I wasn't worried about getting home to find out that someone else had thrown up! (It was a loooong night.) My legs were pretty tired when I started (lots of yardwork last night--mowing, mulching, weeding) but felt much better by the end.

32.4 running/8 walking this week...will probably add another couple of walking miles today depending on how kids are feeling! 102.64 for the month.

Friday, April 22, 2016

4/22

6 easy on the TM. Was planning to do this outside, but one of my kids has a stomach bug, so looks like I'm not leaving the house! Thank goodness for the treadmill--had to stop a few times to make sure my sick kiddo was doing okay, but I'm just thrilled that I managed to fit this in! Legs felt heavy for the first 3 and great the second half.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

4/21

Rainy and muddy 11 miles--first half was pretty rough with rain and cold (low visibility) and I almost wimped out and did it inside--but I'm so glad I didn't! Second half it cleared up and was beautiful--almost too warm by the end. Ran about 3 miles through the woods, which were gloriously muddy and messy and beautiful. Mud to my knees. :-)

Really worked to take it easy the first few miles and not push that aching leg; picked it up the last few miles. 10:23/mile overall

11:07 (warmup)/10:57/10:16/11:07(entered woods)/11:17/11:01/10:44(exited woods)/9:51/9:23/8:59/9:40 (cooldown)

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

4/20

SRD in preparation for (hopefully) long run tomorrow. Walked 3.5 miles (60:47) and then 30 minutes of yoga.

ETA: another .66 miles later with Luke, so 4.16 total for the day.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

17 weeks; 4/19

5 miles speedwork. Did the same intervals I did last week, but they were much harder today after the hilly 6.2 yesterday! Had to take it down after 3 miles for 5 minutes (got a little dizzy on the TM) and then back up again. Planning to do yoga this afternoon after I take my kids to the park this morning. Also going to start logging my walking miles (not steps, but miles walked for exercise) since I will probably start doing more of those as pregnancy progresses, so 2 miles Sunday and 2 yesterday.

I need to figure out how I can run outside earlier in the morning--my husband leaves at 6 am so I may be getting up pretty darn early to run this summer...

Monday, April 18, 2016

4/18

6.3 miles with Nate in the stroller--the first few minutes I honestly felt like death. It was SO hard, and my ankle was aching, and it was hot (okay, only 75, but this time last week it was 22 and I have not acclimated to the sudden jump in weather temps!), and just miserable. But I kept pushing. And then after a mile I realized the stroller wheels were completely flat (slow leak, and I totally forgot). Which explains a lot...so then I felt like I could do this after all (did I turn around to pump up the tires? No).

This route would normally be 5.33, but I decided to get a little bonus in there--took the long way home and then once I got home parked Nathan on the front lawn with a couple of popsicles and just ran loops up and down my street. I thought about going to 7 but decided I'd already been obsessive enough. :-)

6.3 miles; 10:57/mile...believe you me I was darn happy about that thanks to the flat-tired stroller!

Saturday, April 16, 2016

4/16

Easy-paced 5 on the TM that felt pretty hard after the late-night 10 last night. .5 walking to cool down (plus another 1.5 with the kids through the woods this morning). Yoga to finish. Starting to see some of the difficulties with getting a full intake when I breathe, thanks to the baby shifting things around. 

32.1 miles for the week; 70.25 for the month. 

Friday, April 15, 2016

4/15

10 miles on the TM, 10:30/mile. Finished a little after 11 PM. Fun way to spend a Friday night...walked a mile to cool down.

Yesterday was SRD; mowed the lawn and cleaned out the chicken coop.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

4/13

5 total

10 minutes warm-up, 3.1 miles target pace, 1 mile cool down + .3 walking

We'll see how this version of speedwork feels later...

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

16 weeks; 4/12

5.1 easy on the TM, .3 walking to cool down, 20 minutes yoga to stretch out. Starting to get that fun stomach-acid-in-the-mouth business going on. Just one of the delights of running in pregnancy...right-side stomach ligaments a little achy too.

Monday, April 11, 2016

4/11

7 on the TM + .5 walking. Tried something different with speedwork in hopes that it will be easier on my leg, which is a little achy from all the concrete and hills on Saturday--ran a mile to warm up and then just bumped the pace up .1 every mile, until I ran the last 1.5 at my target pace. Nice to get over 5 for a weekday run--it's been months since I was able to do that!

73:33; started at easy pace and ended up at 6.1. I wish my leg would stop aching so I could actually run fast. :-(

Saturday, April 9, 2016

4/9

8 cold miles this morning! Snow actually accumulated and there was a sheen of ice over everything, so that was a little exciting, but beautiful. Met up with the local runners' club this morning and it was a little frustrating bc only one guy was actually running (other 3 people who showed up were all walking), so I ended up running 6 with him faster than I would have liked, and then a slower 2 on my own. Next week I'll probably just run solo since it took so much longer to wait for the group meeting time, wait for people to get there, get going, etc. By the time I got home it was about 80 minutes after I would have been home had I just gone alone when I woke up. Oh well--it was nice to have someone to talk to!

9:52/mile

25 miles for the week--pretty good post-race recovery week. 38.15 for the month.

Friday, April 8, 2016

4/8

This should have been at easy run pace, but I was hoping to be able to get in enough miles to make it a LR--which didn't happen thanks to Nathan refusing to nap. Argh! So now I still have to do my LR but I didn't do today's run right in preparation.

Seriously felt awful the whole run. I have a low-grade fever and I think I've got whatever made Nathan throw up yesterday. Leg aching thanks to spending 2 hours standing on concrete yesterday waiting in the passport line.

5 miles at 10:36/mile (53 total)

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

15 weeks

Second post-race run; cranked up the pace a bit and it still felt pretty good. Mile warm-up, then standard interval series at 5.6, 5.6, and 5.8. Finished at 6.1 in 42:08 for 4 miles.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

4/2--Race report



Half-marathon this morning (well, half of a marathon relay...I actually ran a little further than the half mark but I stopped my watch at 13.1). 2:05:30, 15 weeks pregnant with baby #6, 4.5 months after tibial stress fracture. Neil ran the other half, bless his heart. That man sure does love me!

Goals for this race:

A: beat my last half time while pregnant with Nathan (2:08:19; I knew I didn't have a shot at the 1:58:54 I ran while pregnant with Luke. Thanks a lot, broken leg--but hey, I've only been running solidly for 8 weeks after all the time I had to take off for the fracture). I've now run 6 half-marathons, 3 of them while pregnant.

B: finish under 2:10

C: just finish at all.

I am happy to say that I smashed all 3 goals. :-) Citius, Altius, Fortius!!


Good prep last night--I was asleep before 10 and only woke up a couple of times. I got a pretty solid 7-8 hours and felt good when I woke up at 6 for a 7 am race start (oh my goodness, I LOVE living 2 miles from the start line...that was so nice! And parking was a breeze). Going in I knew two things: it was going to be REALLY cold and REALLY windy. So I mentally geared myself up for that but holy cow, it was so cold when I got into my car this morning! Got my timing chip and then waited 25 minutes in the cold for the late timing people to arrive--they got a flat on the way there, so the timing clock didn't even get set up until about three miles in, but I had my Garmin so it didn't bother me. RD announced at the start that one guy there was running his 1,645th marathon...I can't even figure out how you can logistically do that, since he ran 244 last year (does he count 26.2 runs alone? Or only official marathons?). I couldn't see the crazy marathon guy, which is a shame because I wanted to catch up with him and ask a few questions!

Mile 1: 10:07--This was my slowest mile and that was exactly how I wanted to play it! Just took it easy warming up and let all the people who wanted to go out like crazy pass me (then I passed them all a few minutes later when they were walking and gasping for breath). There were 3 start times offered and everyone who wanted a BQ had to start at 9 am, so the 7 am start was pretty slow-paced, which was nice because I passed people hundreds of times and only got passed myself less than a dozen or so! But there was never a time where I was running next to someone and could talk for a minute or two, which always makes the race feel longer for me.

Mile 2: 9:29--Let myself pick it up a little. Felt better than the previous lap as I was warming up.

Mile 3: 9:13--Settling into the pace a little too much. Faster than I wanted to go.

Mile 4: 9:21--Took water and a honey stinger during this mile (about 3.2), slowed a few seconds to find my bottle. Water table arrangement was interesting--they wanted a zero-waste race so we all brought water bottles, picked them up off tables (labeled spots EXCEPT for relay runners, which the website didn't mention, so that was a little frustrating when I first got there--I ended up with a spot at the very end of the last table which was just before the drop-bottle zone, so I had only a couple seconds to drink before the drop zone). Volunteers then refilled the bottles and put them back on their spots.

Mile 5: 9:13 again.

Mile 6: 9:21--Water/honey stinger at 5.2

Mile 7: 9:25--loop course started to get really old mentally by this point. About a third of a mile was down a long straightaway sidewalk where we had to run single file and pass on the left; I was mostly passing people and they weren't being very careful about running to the right, so it was a pain saying "ON YOUR LEFT" every few seconds. Just a really long boring stretch that was all on concrete and then the wind picked up and I spent the entire sidewalk thinking, "This stinks, still a lot of miles to go" kind of thoughts.

Mile 8: 9:34--Water/honey stinger at 7.2. Wind started to pick up and the 1/3 mile concrete sidewalk started to slowly turn into a wind tunnel. Mentally calculating how much "banked" time I had and how much I could slow to compensate for the wind in order to still hit my goals.

Mile 9: 9:34--Wind tunnel; just kept reminding myself that I only had 4 more miles.

Mile 10: 9:52--Water/honey stinger at 9.2; wind picking up more and more. Walked for ten seconds  when I grabbed my bottle so I could actually swallow with the wind buffeting me in the face. Kept reminding myself to run by effort and let the time take care of itself. This was probably the hardest mile--the wind was just miserable and there was still a 5K to go.

Mile 11: 9:49--9 am runners started and the course got way more crowded! Lots more weaving around people, and sadly not just runners--there were TONS of people walking the opposite way from the runners on the part of the course closest to the parking lot. The ground was super muddy and sloppy, so I understand why they were doing it, but it was still super frustrating to be dodging spectators and I definitely lost some time in consequence. Saw my kids & DH at the very end of this mile and I was so tired I didn't even recognize them at first until they started yelling "Go Mommy!" Wind increasingly worse.

Mile 12: 10:06--Water at 11.2--except my waterbottle was empty!!! Volunteers hadn't refilled it, and I had to turn around, double back, and grab the bottle I'd brought for my husband, which took a good 20 seconds and was SUPER frustrating. (Would have skipped it if I wasn't pregnant, but I get a little freaked out about dehydration during pregnancy since it gives me super bad headaches.) Couldn't take a honey stinger because my stomach wasn't feeling too hot. This was also when the RD decided to tack on the .2 so we ran against the WORST WIND of the entire race to get the .2. Ugh! So not at the point when I wanted to break from the loop part and run something new headlong into the wind...

Mile 13: 9:27--3 of my kids ran parts of this mile with me off and on (they were on the grass so they were SO muddy by the end!). Totally cried watching their little smiling faces bouncing along next to me (my five-year-old kept handing me flowers to hold so that was a little interesting...haha!). I was so happy to be done with that darn wind! I was pretty sad though when my husband was a little further on than 13.1 and I had to keep running to hand off my timing chip...

Mile 14 (not really, but it felt like it!)...getting all 5 of my kids the half-mile to the car when my two-year-old wanted to be carried and my hands were so cold I could barely close them around him to keep him from falling off my hip...I did NOT think about that take-the-kids-home aspect when we planned this! It was probably the hardest part since I was so tired and not quite mentally ready to shift back into being a responsible person who had to keep track of other people and then get them all home!! Fortunately my older kids were great helpers!

Overall, I'm really happy with how the race went. I definitely ran as hard as I could run today, and I felt pretty evenly crummy throughout but could still pick it up just a bit at the end, which is always my measure of whether I'm running hard enough--if I'm enjoying it the whole time, I know I'm going too slow.  I did purposefully run a little faster in the first half since the forecast said the wind was going to be 22 mph faster in the second half and I knew I would have to slow down to keep the effort consistent (I know, I know, the dubious time-banking strategy!)

9:35 overall which was only 5 seconds/mile slower than my fastest run this entire training cycle (and that was only 6 miles). And I'm SO glad that I'm done with the nausea of early pregnancy, since most of my training runs were pretty darn miserable! It was interesting doing the loop course--in some ways it was really nice since I always knew what to expect and there were NO HILLS. But it did kind of stink to have the only cheering people/interaction with anyone located in a 20-meter section of the course. I did really like the multiple start times and the RD was absolutely outstanding! Definitely one I would do again, especially since it was so inexpensive!

Training: this was probably the pregnancy where I have felt most nauseated, so some of those runs were REALLY hard, coupled with the fact that I'm still trying to build back from the fracture and so it was a really tricky balance between running long/fast enough to train for a race, and not running so much that I spent the night awake with throbbing pain in my leg (yes, that happened a few times, and it was so not fun). But on the bright side, I did NOT have ovarian cysts bursting during my runs like I did when I was pregnant with Nathan, so that was pretty darn awesome!!!! All in all I am SUPER proud of myself for building back to running this kind of distance at a time when it took some serious willpower to get myself out there since I was starting from nothing (I had to go all the way back to running 1 minute, walking 2 minutes) while also dealing with the nausea and fatigue and general pregnancy pain/lack of sleep.