Girls Weekend, May 21-23 2011

I can't miss an opportunity to hike in Zion National Park

We didn't have much time, so we hiked a short hike to "Hidden Canyon" Love it....

7 mile loop

I received a call at work today that Ian rolled his ankle playing basketball at recess. This is the second sprain in two weeks. He wanted me to come wrap his ankle with the ace bandage, so I finished a few things at work and came home.

Since I was home early, I thought I would get me run done before the boys got out of school. I ran the 7 mile loop, it was sprinkling just a bit when I started out. I headed out into a head wind and up hill, like always. The temp was not to cold, it was just the strong wind.

I could feel the fast miles in my legs from yesterday so I started out slow and walked up two hills. Once I turned to run south I had a tail wind and I was WAY to hot. I was glad to turn east again and have the cross wind back.

Ran 7.5 miles in 1:11
avg Hr 177
Max Hr 188

3 mile test

It is the start of Keena's track sessions on Monday nights. Jason and I went out to get our workout on... blah. Keena wanted to get our times so she had us do 3 x 1 mile repeats with a minute rest between.

My first mile was 7:22, oh mama to fast. Second mile was 7:45, third mile was 7:48. Keena said that came to about a 7:35 average mile. She will email me all of my track paces to follow throughout the summer. I will have those posted when I get them.

I think I will like her track workouts, it will definitely help me do speed work every week.

Avg Hr 183
Max Hr 188

Suncrest

We decided to do two runs back to back this weekend, we are just having a hard time setting the time to get really long runs in. Jason is at the end of a project remodeling his mother's house, and after work most nights we have soccer. I need to just suck it up and run in the dark by myself or go late in the evening(when I'm tired).

But, the run today was not the funnest. It is April 30, but still feels like February 30. We woke up to a couple of inches on the grass. Ian's soccer game was canceled, so I did my cleaning early. I knew I was going to run in the afternoon anyway today, but was glad to run with the sun out because it is cold.

I headed out the garage and up my hill toward suncrest. I didn't feel quite right, almost numb, today. Couldn't figure it out, but I think it is because I wore my music. I rarely run with music, only on special occasions. I guess today was one. I figured because I couldn't hear my feet or my own breath it threw me off just a little. Oh well.

Oh boy, the head wind was bad today. I just kept telling myself "at least you get a tail wind on the way back". By the time I got to the base of Suncrest I think I was already at mile 3.5ish. I only planned to run 10 so I was glad I only needed to run 1.5 up. It just was so difficult to run up such a steep grade(7-10%) with a strong headwind. I actually ran to 5.5 miles before I turned around(why do 10 when you can do 11, haha).

The way back down was of course better. Nice to have a downhill break.
Stats:
Distance - 11.00
Time - 1:50:53
Avg Pace - 11:00
Avg HR - 177
Max - 188

End of April!

Looking back at my runs, I really feel not prepared for my race in one month. I need to up my miles and not let the weather get me down.

Sat. Long Run

Not really long for a long run, but we were on a time schedule today. Ian had a soccer game 30 min away this morning, which started at 8:30 am. We needed to be there at 8:00, which has us leaving the house at 7:30.

Jason and I decided we would run after the game, but he also need to be to work by 12:00. So our plan was to drop Ian off at Jason's sister's in Orem so that we could run closer to his work.

We got started just after 10:00 and were going to run 2 hours. We headed toward the canyon. I miss running up the canyon trail. It's almost like running on the real trail but with sure footing, :) I felt better today than on thurs, even though my cold is setting in. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be so I did stop at one point to roll up my jacket and slip it into my nathan pack.

For my nutrition, I had 1/2 packet of N-0 before I ran. I took one accel gel an hour into the run. I drank water from my nathan pack,( was thinking of starting to use a calorie drink from now on for my long runs, carbo pro or EFS)

Stats:

Distance - 10.25
Time - 1:34:34
Avg HR - 172
Max HR - 184

Evening run.

Thurs., April 20. Have not felt to well this week, I have had a sore throat since tue. I did not enjoy this run. I got home at 4:00 pm from work and got dressed for a 6 mile run. I was hungry but didn't want to eat to much because it make my runs worse. Jason and I got started about 4:30, we took 1/2 packet of N-0.

Headed up the hill and never got better. My heart rate felt high and I had hunger pains the whole time. Don't know what the problem was.

Ran 5.75 mile, 54 minutes
Avg HR 176
Max HR 185

Salt Lake City Marathon

I had the great opportunity to get to run another race with my sister's. This was my sister Janice's 15th marathon and Frances' first. This is not one I specifically trained for but thought I couldn't pass an opportunity to run with my girls.

At the last minute, my darling hubby jumped into the race to join the party. He just always impresses me with his ability to just do things without training. I think his longest run was 14 miles in February.

The weather turned out very nice, started in the 40's and ended in the 50's. We did have maybe 2-3 minutes of rain but wasn't bad. I just missed my visor that I normally wear. I was sporting the cute "Active Band" that my sister made us to coordinate with our outfits.

I wanted to use this day to test my nutrition. To begin the day, I had one packet of oatmeal and about half a mango. I took two sport legs hour before race start. I planned to take a gel every hour. At all the water station's I only took water(I have a hard time with a lot of Poweraide). I was able to eat according to plan, I ate a strawberry flavored Accel gel the third hour and found out I don't like that flavor. Good thing to know before I bought more. At hour three, I took my two thermo lytes and they seemed to settle ok. I didn't have an appetite at hour four, but at my last gel anyway. Glad I did, it tasted good(vanilla) and I thing it kept me going the last 30 min.
Race Stats:
Distance: 26.2
Time: 4:32
Avg HR: 171
Max HR: 189

10 mile recovery

I am so lucky to have siblings who also run. This morning I met up with my two sisters who are about 18 months younger than me, Janice and Frances.

Janice is the first one in our family to have ran a marathon(2002). She is the one who convinced me that I could, even though I wasn't even running a mile. She currently lives in western Kentucky and we see her only occasionally in the year. Last year when she came out in the summer, we ran our first marathon together, Deseret News. What a blast! She also came out two weekends ago and ran Antelope Island 50 miler. I was able to run the first 25 with her before I dropped out. She finished and I am so proud of her.

Frances is her twin, she has run many half marathons, I don't know exactly. She lives only 20 minutes from where I do, but we don't run together much. I am envious of where she lives because she is about a mile from the trailhead to one of my favorite trails I run. I keep trying to convert her to the trail, maybe this summer. She is training for her first marathon, which is next week, Salt Lake Marathon.

This morning was a little taste of what our marathon will be next week. Other than the weather, next week should be cool and dry. This morning was wet and snowy. :(

I started the morning with half a cup of rocket fuel in half a cup of milk. The girls got here a little early to take some N-O before we ran. Fueled and dressed we headed up my street.

I was testing how the food would settle on my stomach and I felt fine. We took a gel at mile 5. I hesitated just a second, I think it's still a mental thing for me. Got it down and on our way. Continued great until we were at 7 .5 miles and stopped at Lowe's to use the bathroom. Refreshed headed down the street and finished the loop ending uphill to my house at

10 miles in 1:39:33.

Average pace 9:57
Average HR 169
Max HR 184

Stairmaster

45 min, heartrates similar to tues. :( hipflexers are getting sore. I think to much time on the stairmaster...cut back to 30 minutes next week.

Stopsign-Stopsign

This is a hill repeat run. I have a hill just down from my house and it is almost exactly half mile. 1 mile Wu 4 hill repeats - max heartrate 184 CD

Tuesday Stairmaster

My next big race coming up has a lot of hiking, so I am incorporating the stairmaster twice a week for 45 min.-1 hour. I didn't pay attention to which level I was on, I just watched my heartrate. 10 min @ 150-160 10 min @ 160-170 15 min @ 175-182 10 min @ 170-175

7 Mile Tempo

Ok, I know I didn't want to be on the dreadmill again the rest of the year, but it snowed yesterday. Last night I knew it would be cold this morning so I didn't want to set myself up for failure so I ran inside.

• 1 mile WU - 155-160 heartrate


• 3 @ 7.0 - 175-180 heartrate


• 1 @7.6 - 180-188 heartrate


• 2 mile CD

Got up at 5 am, gym by 5:30.

Pre-run fuel - half a packet N-Zero and water.

* Next workout I will have half a packet of N-O and an Accel gel(felt hungry and need to get my stomach use to nutrition on the run again.)

** Plantar in the right foot was bothering me on Sat. and this mornings run. IB profin and massage.

Out and Back

Sometimes when you have a running partner who doesn't have the same goals, or is not exactly where you are in your training it might hinder your workout. I have been running with my husband, don't get me wrong I am not the stronger of the two, but I have been putting in more miles during the last month than he has. Because of this he doesn't want to increase long miles to quickly. I had a plan in my mind for a three hour run on the Shoreline trail and he wanted to run shorter on the road. YUCK!! But of course every good marriage and running partnership has compromise. I ran on the road... We ran a shortened out and back that we use to do a lot. 8.5 miles in 1 hr 15 min. my average heartrate was 175 bpm. I really tried to keep it lower, I wanted to be 170 or lower but I have to run so slow to do that, ugh. As we were stopped at the gas station which we determined to be our turnaround spot, Jason committed to running 4 days a week with me, no less than 6 miles. We have some good loops that I like so we will do those during the week and then on the weekend make sure to get on the trail and gradually increase our time. We only have 7 weeks until P50, and I anticipate it to take me 13-14 hours. That's as my brother put it, "Longer than driving to Disneyland!"

You have to start somewhere...

So...My first post to my first running blog. I am using this blog to track my training along with my goals. I am hoping it will be more interesting than my notebook.