I Will Survive

I survived my 16 mile training run today.  It was not sunny and warm like they said (boo hiss) although I was still able to get away with shorts so it was warm enough.  I decided to run a course that I'd never done before - thinking this would help with my horrible mind which gets the best of me when I know the routes.  We're kind of limited as to where we can run here in the country so I know most of the roads like the back of my hand.  Anyway, started out strong, probably a little too strong, but I felt good.  Hit a few hills which was nice and shitty at the same time... it was a tough run for Ohio and I'll remember that in the future.  I was definitely challenged.

My splits were:

8:27

8:29

8:26

8:36

8:55 (the first substantial climb for me)

8:42

8:27

8:57 (the next few miles were pretty good rollers and a new road for me to run on)

8:39

8:49

8:47

9:03

9:13

9:12

9:19

9:34

Total Run Time - 2:21:33

Average Pace - 8:51

I totally can't complain about that, in fact, I'm super thrilled with it!  A couple of things happened that were not so great.  First, I got a blister and could really feel it about mile 8.5.  Around mile 10, my left quad started to tighten up and I really had a hard time from there.  I knew that my pace was getting considerably slower and that frustrated me a bit.  I saw a few bikers out on the roads, one walker and possible 3 cars total.  In 2+ hours.  It was lonely.  Tom came up to me after my run (He was biking and I didn't do a phenomenal job of mapping out my course, as I was .40 of a mile from home when I hit 16 and just walked it out).  I started crying when Tom came up to me.  I don't know if it was because I was just done, mentally and physically, or if I was a little frustrated with how I felt the last few miles. I know training runs aren't supposed to be easy and I remembered that when I was in my last few miles.  It's just me and the road.  I'm sure I'm not drinking as much as I should be or would in a race since I don't carry a bottle and have them strategically on the course, although only 3 times.  I'm not chasing people down who are in front of me to take my mind off the time and the starts of my aches and pains.   I'm not running to crowds cheering and the thrill of the finish line, but...

I freaking ran sub 9:00 miles for 16 miles.  What could I possibly be upset about???

NOT A DAMN THING!

I'm off to relax, rub these sore legs down and get a good night's sleep!

March 26th

March 26th is a special day for me. It was 6 years ago that I went on the scariest blind date of my life (not like I had a ton of blind dates... this might actually have been the ONLY one in my life, but who's counting?) It wasn't because the guy was a freak or that I feared for my life (although I had met this person online and I think some of my family members might have been a little worried that he was a complete stranger and that they'd never see me again... we met at a public place, in daylight, at the request of some people!) Anyway, I wasn't worried about being part of an Amber Alert, I was worried because I had gotten to know someone and fallen in love with someone I hadn't even met and hoped that he lived up to my wildest expectations. I left the date knowing that I had found the man I would marry. Someone once said you just know... and I knew! A year to the day after my blind date, I got engaged to this man. And it's funny... you never know how much you are missing in life until you have someone who is as wonderful as my husband. He knows all the right things to say and do, all the right ways to encourage me and challenge me. He puts up with my bull shit (and there's a lot of that), loves that I'm outspoken and wear my emotions on my sleeve, and best of all, makes me smile each and every day of my life. If I hadn't taken the risk of meeting him on March 26th, I never would have known what was missing in my life. I love you Brady! :) (And these were delivered to me today...)

Enough of the mushy gushy stuff though. Tomorrow is a big test for me and quite frankly, I feel like I want to puke. :) I'm running 16 miles, my longest run of the season. I've run this distance (or longer) at least a dozen times. Why am I so petrified of it? It's supposed to be a beautiful day tomorrow - perfect for a run actually. I've seen such great progress in every run leading up to this so it should be a walk in the park, at least that's what I'm hoping. There's something exciting about the fact that I only have 3 more long runs until I get to show off how far I've come since my last marathon. Now if I can only get through those runs without crapping myself before hand! :) Wish me luck... I'll post my results tomorrow!

New Camera

So I took advantage of my new camera to capture a little bit of my weekend. Friday night we met our very dear friends Sarah and Patrick for some drinks and dinner at a new place called The Pub. It's a really great English pub with awesome food, a huge beer selection, and guys in kilts (the girls are in really short plaid skirts, but that didn't make me smile as much). Reminded me a little of my time overseas! Sarah and Patrick are planning their wedding and we hadn't seen both of them since before the Ironman. It was fun getting to catch up with them! Afterward, Tom and I went to BW3's to watch OSU get beat by Siena College. I proceeded to carb load (because I had 2 runs this weekend) and somehow found it amusing that there was a piece of food in my beer that seemed to be alive.(no, at the time it didn't gross me out, but thinking about it now... I wonder who's food that was!) YUCK!

Saturday we had a great run and then finally went to my mom and dad's. We'd been planning to see their remodeled bedroom and bathroom for a week but they had been sick. Everyone was feeling better and it was a beautiful night. We got to play outside for a little while and I proceeded to do what every good wife and daughter does - beat both my dad and hubby at HORSE and then beat my hubby at a foul shooting contest.

Sunday, we went for another great run, did some work on my MIL's pond, hopped on Flicka and Boom for a short bike and then plopped ourselves on the couch with some great food (umm... pretzel bites and pizza) and basketball.

Tom and I always fill out brackets for the NCAA tournament. I am in charge of highlighting the ones that I get right and the ones he gets right. After round 2, I'm up by about 10 points! :) The winner will owe the loser dinner or something. We haven't decided yet.

All in all, it was a great weekend and by Sunday evening, we all felt kind of like Buddy...

My funk

I'm in a funk today. It's a beautiful day, my hubby is biking to basketball and I feel like doing NOTHING. This is a relatively easy week for me training wise and I think my body knows that and is being lazy (yes, I've convinced myself of that my body is telling me something. Sounds like it makes sense right?).

Got outside on the bike on Tuesday for the first time since the Ironman. Tom told me I looked like a rookie on a really nice bike. Lovely - it's weird how strange I felt and that I needed to relearn my bike handling skills. I have to get used to the ungodly noise my wheels make when I'm not pedaling - it's like they know that I'm coasting and are bitching at me to get moving. If being yelled at is a reason that I don't have a coach, why did I pay money for these wheels? :) They look good, I'll give them that, but I think they are going to make me work this year! By the end of the 2.5 hours, I felt like myself again, bitching about the wind and all. :)

Yesterday I got annoyed about something stupid and went out for a sluggish 5 miler. 52 minutes later (yeah, that's 8:35's again) I was home. I don't think that Tom likes running with me anymore. He said that I didn't give him fair warning that I was going out for a speed workout... sorry to bust your bubble honey, but I didn't feel like it was a speed workout! Hehehe... I'm just getting better.

I'm super excited for my weekend. Of course b-ball is on so we'll watch that. Tomorrow night we're meeting friends at a new restaurant called The Pub. It looks awesome and the menu... let's just say I better be motivated to work out tomorrow because I could eat everything and I'm sure the drinks will compliment the meal well. Then 2 easy workouts this weekend, some relaxing, hopefully a visit to my mom and dad's and nothing else! Gotta love weekends like that!

Changes come...

to those who work hard.

I've been busting my tail lately running. Dropping a few pounds helped, but I've really focused on speed work with regard to my marathon training and I've been pleasantly surprised with the results (yes, I have known all along that speed makes you a faster runner duh, but actually doing it is another story). 2 years ago, I never ran faster than 10 min/miles. Last year, 9:20's were typical. Today I had a 14 miler on my schedule. Tom had to bike 4 hours so I know I'd be at it alone. This is something I'm definitely getting the swing of because for 5 years, he's been by my side dragging me through all my long runs. This year, its just me and the road. The weather was perfect for a long run. I cranked some tunes and just took off. 14 miles later, you've got one happy runner! Check out this time and average:

Mile splits were:

8:28

8:31

8:38

8:31

8:23

8:32

8:24

8:26

8:50

8:48

8:44

8:34

8:52

8:39

Did you notice that there were NO 9:00+ miles! I'm so excited to see the progress that I've made! Plus it puts me just that much closer to a substantial PR in May and possibly beating my MIL's marathon record (which of course is sad since she's 54, but that would probably bring me the ultimate joy!)

My hubby is the best. On his way out of town on the bike, he dropped my water bottles for me. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to my water stops to see my decorated bottles:

(If you can't read that, it says "Keep on truckin' my little Turduckin!")(Notice that I have 2 sets of knees as I'm crossing the finish line - that's the key to my speed!)

Oh and other exciting news... Tom and I got certificates for a free pair of New Balance running shoes for winning the tri last weekend. We went to the local running store yesterday and both we're pleasantly surprised when Jerry, the store owner said that we could have any pair of shoes we wanted, not limited to NB. Truthfully, I just bought a brand new pair of Brooks that are still in the box which I'll probably bring into circulation right after the marathon so I didn't need a new pair of shoes, so I broke a cardinal rule of running and went with looks. These shoes were bright pink... I couldn't pass them up. They are going to be my new kick around shoes. I'm a bit smitten...

Ugh...

Reason #8,597 that I hate Ohio.

Tuesday I ran 8 miles outside (in 1:08 by the way, but who's counting) in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. I overheated a little because it was 75 degrees! We went for a walk that night with the dogs and I work shorts and crocks with a tee shirt and a hoodie.

Right now as I look out my window, it's snowing.

Really Mother Nature? What did I ever do to you?

A family of winners...

Tom and I (as well as my in-laws) participated in the Grady Memorial Hospital Indoor Tri yesterday. We kind of decided last minute to sign up, but were happy to see they had about 70 people registered. That's a good showing in Delaware! :) Word around Delaware was that we had a good chance of winning the thing so the pressure was on! It was held at the local college and since we have never done an indoor tri, didn't know what to expect. We knew that we would swim 15 minutes, bike 15 minutes, and run 15 minutes, with 15 minutes of transitions in there. They then would convert our paces to resemble a sprint tri of 750m swim, 20k bike and 5k run. I don't get it, but I didn't question it! :)

Anyhoo, my swim wave started at 7:20 and there were 6 people in a wave (that's how many lanes the pool had and how many trainers they had for the bikes... we're small town, don't laugh!) I sized up my competition (well not really up, they were all smaller than me and looked pretty fit!) They were super nice, saw my Ironman swim cap and of course asked me a bunch of questions about it. The swim went well... I giggled underwater a few times thinking that I must have looked like a total dork from on top of the water and praying my suit hadn't crept up my butt or anything because everyone would have seen cheek, but I think I was alright. I did 16.5 Laps (up and back) in the pool (which was 825 yards and they some how converted that to meters and then 750m and well... again, I didn't ask questions.) I'm in the pink waiting for them to say go.

I had 10 minutes between the bike and swim which went surprisingly fast. Got to the gym where the bikes where (which was a different building) and had to wait. They didn't expect mountain bikes to be there and they bike store didn't have enough of the right skewers or something. Anyhoo, my 10 minute rest ended up being 17 minutes which was fine. I had brought my Orbea down because that's really my only bike and I get a few comments on how nice of a bike it was. (One guy commented later as I was sitting by my bike something to the effect of "oh, he has you watching his bike now". I mumbled that it was mine and the guy walked away. As we were riding home, he pulled up next to me, rolled down his window and with a look of shock, said "that's your bike?". Yeah dude, girls can have kick ass bikes too you know!) I digress...This was a very beginner friendly tri and I think I might have stuck out a bit. Anyway, the 6 of us mounted our bikes and were off. I covered 5.7 miles in 15 minutes so that was 22.8 mph. I knew that I would probably win that by a pretty large gap, but it's hard to tell when you are not covering any distance.

Off to the run - it was an 1/8 of a mile track so I hoped to go 15 laps in 15 minutes, which was an 8:00 mile. That would be good for me. We toed the line and this is where I got a little arse kicking.I did just as planned 15 in 15:00, but 3 different girls lapped me, 2 of them lapping me twice. DAMN... they were zippy little things! I felt good about my run though and was happy overall with how it went.

Tom started right after me. He swam 17.25 laps in 15 minutes, biked 6.5 miles in 15 minutes (the fastest biker of the day 26 mph) and then cranked out 16.3 laps on the track. A few guys came up to him and told him what a stud he was... he secretly loved it I think! He did have the funniest newbie comment of the day though. A guy next to him on the bike said "how far did you go?" Tom told him 6.5 and the guy's response was "well that's weird. I only went 3.5 miles and my legs were going as fast as yours." Dude... there's these things on your bike called gears. We chuckled. Here are the guys in his heat getting ready to swim (Tom's in lane 1):

My mother in law did great in her du (came in 1st in her AG)and my father in law did great in his tri. We waited around for awards and guess what???

THE KINGERYS CAME IN 1st OVERALL!!! Tom won the overall male and I won the overall female. It was totally fun being winners together and they called us up as a couple to get our awards (free shoes from the local running store... NICE!) We've never outright won a race so it was pretty cool and we enjoyed talking about it the rest of the day! :) That will probably never happen again! (Notice Tom decked out in his new Team Type 1 gear!!!)

We came home, went out for a tough 6 mile run (cause that's how we roll) and splurged with a dinner of Chinese and a bedtime of 9:30! It was a great end to a really fun race day!

It's race time

I'm feeling 10 times better and it's warm outside (nearly 70 today and tomorrow!!!). And I'm actually super excited for my tri tomorrow. I know it's not a conventional tri, but I'm anxious to push myself for 45 minutes. It'll be fun to kind of gauge where I'm at this early in the season. Not holding my hopes too high for anything exceptional, but a fun time none-the-less. Then it's out for a 9 mile run when it's all said an done.

I think I'm going to sleep well tomorrow night.

Will post pictures and a review of the race later in the weekend!

Slow and sick...

It's been a long couple of days. I had a great 12 mile run in the cold windy weather on Saturday morning and then proceeded to get sick. Cold sick. You know the "major snot clogging, headache having, achy body, run down" kind of sick. It's gross. I spent most of Sunday and actually part of Monday just laying low in hopes that I start to feel better, all the while avoiding the hubster like the plague because I know he doesn't want this lovely stuff. :)

Yesterday I started feeling a little more like myself. My head wasn't in a bubble and I felt like I had enough energy to bike with Tom during his interval session. NOT A GOOD IDEA! I warmed up for 20 minutes then went into 2 sets of 4 reps of 3:00 hard and 3:00 active recovery. He does this every Tuesday and Thursday as part of his RAAM training. My legs were burning. I felt good when I was done, had a great dinner and didn't think much of it.

This morning... the semi hit! WOWZERS! I had an 8 miler planned and dragged my arse (and Tom's) out the door. I felt good for about the first 10 steps and it went downhill very fast. I was snotty again, choking, wheezing, gasping, hurting, whining. You know... all the things that a person who is either a. out of shape running for the first time or b. still sick and trying to get over a cold would be doing. Now my throat is scratchy again and I'm super sleepy. Ug... not fun!

I'm hoping I feel better by the weekend. Not only is it supposed to be in the 60's here in Ohio the next few days, but Tom and I are doing an indoor tri sponsored by our local hospital and the university here in town. Word has it that we've been outed as having tri experience and that people are slating us to win. Yikes... and I was thinking that I'll be happy to live through it!

PS - I bought a new camera yippie and hopefully will be able to upload a bunch more pictures soon. My blogs have been boring lately and I apologize for that! :)