Race #1

30:46! A new PR is a nice way to end the year.

Goal Setting

I've never run races two days in a row, so I'm not quite sure what sort of goals to set. I had a talk with hubby and he thinks that if I want to really push myself, I should do it on the second race. This makes sense, though part of me also thinks the first race is my best chance to get a PR. Anyhoo...

New Years Eve race-

I'm not setting a time goal. I'm just going to run at a comfortable pace and finish happy and fresh.

New Years Day race-

"A" Goal- a new PR, under 31:44
"B" Goal- under 34:00
"C" Goal- finish upright
"Pie in the Sky" Goal- under 30:00

I'm hoping it's warm enough for me to rock a running skirt both days. Unless my newest order gets here in time, I really only have two skirts that fit as *squeeeee* I've dropped to a size 8. I think I'll have to e-bay the three size 10 ones. Such a shame, as they really only got 5 months of use before I shrank out of them. Who knew?

Keeping the holiday pounds off.

Well, not really. I've run my three 3-mile runs and have a 7 mile long run today. However, I am completely indulging in holiday goodies. Seriously, I can't help myself.

In other news, my shins are killing me. I'm not sure how to correct it. I will have Sunday and Monday off. Next week I'll be tapering in anticipation of my back to back 5Ks on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Hopefully an easy week will help.

3 x 3

This is the first week that I've gotten all three of my weekday (T, W, Th) runs up to three miles each. The end result is than I'm exhausted, and my long run (7 miles) on Saturday feels very daunting. Tomorrow will be a much needed rest day.

On the bright side, it was warm enough for me to run in my new sparkly heart run skirt and *squeeeeee* it's so cute. What?

Blue & Grey 5K Race Report

I was awake by 3:30 am, so excited and nervous about this race. I wonder if races will ever get old, or if I'll always look forward to them this much. Anyways, I took a peek at the hourly weather forecast and realized that we'd be running in TWENTY-FOUR degree weather. So much for running skirts.

We arrived at the race by 6:45 am, and guess what? It really was twenty-freakin-four degrees. We shivered and shook our way through chip pick-up, and ridiculously long port-o-potty lines. A family friend was supposed to be running in the 5K with me, but he was nowhere to be found.

At 7:30 am, hubs took off for his half-marathon, and I did a light warm-up for my race (7:45 am). The gun went off, and I went on my merry way. I like to place myself at the back of the pack at gun time. I'm certainly not fast enough to warrant a place at the front of the pack, and I love to start picking off the runners in front of me who start running WAY faster than they can sustain. At about the .50 mile mark we hit a pretty serious hill, but I danced my way up with no problem and fell in with other runners who were at my pace. I was nowhere near the turnaround point when the front runners started passing us on the way back to the finish. Don't you HATE those guys? You can always spot them before the race even starts. They're long and lanky and are wearing shorts and tanks in twenty-freakin-four degrees. I was maintaining a 10 minute mile pace pretty easily at the turnaround, but I could see that initial beast of a hill mocking me in the distance. The backside of it was a loooong downhill, which I knew meant a loooong uphill. I hit it at a 10:09 pace, and started losing time rapidly. About 3/4 of the way up, I'd dropped my running buddies, but I was spent and began walking. Within 30 seconds, "Eye of The Tiger" came on my iPod. Dammit. I'm pretty sure there's a LAW that prohibits walking while that song is on, so I got dat ass moving to the top of the hill. Once I'd reached the peak, it was a quick downhill and one last turn to the finish. I picked it up a notch and finished strong.

Goal time 32:00. Finish time 31:44, which is over 2 minutes faster than my last race.

Official Goal Setting

"A" Goal- Under 32 minutes
"B" Goal- Under 34 minutes (this would still be a PR)
"C" Goal- Finish upright

Pie in the sky goal- 30 minutes. I know I can run a 10-minute mile, I'm just unsure if I can sustain it.

Packet pick up today and race in the freezing cold of tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Me vs. The Dreaded Treadmill

The weather is so bad today that I had to log my miles by treadmill. I am lucky enough to have one in my basement to use at my leisure, however I really do hate the thing. I started out Couch to 5K on the treadmill, solely to burn calories with absolutely no intention to hit the road. Once I'd completed the program, the obvious next step was to complete an actual 5K. Total disaster. So for all of autumn, I trained outside and learned to love it. Well, winter is here and I'll need to resign myself to running inside occasionally. Today, I found that 1) I'm actually slower on the treadmill. (WTF? How can you be slower when the road is moving for you?) 2) I am incapable of running on the treadmill without hanging on to the handlebars. (again, wtf?) and 3) The calories my heart monitor/Garmin tell me I burned are nowhere NEAR the calories the treadmill told me I burned.

However, being able to Facebook while running is pretty cool.

It's going to be one of those days...

... where you look out the window and try to make excuses as to why you shouldn't run. Blech.

The Nice Thing About Being A Newbie Runner...

...is that for a good long time, each race is a personal record (PR). I may be getting to the point that getting PRs is going to take some serious work. My 5K time has rapidly improved in 3 races. Going from 40:50 in August to 34:01 in October. I'm hoping to get below a 32:00 next weekend, would wildly love to run a sub-30 5K. Beyond that, I can't even imagine.

In other news, I'm sorta falling in love with long run Saturday. I almost feel that it really takes 3-4 miles to get warmed up and find my groove. Today's 7 miler (this time I carried water and Gu) felt awesome, and I didn't struggle like last week. Next weekend is race weekend, then the following weekend is my last 7 miler and I start builing up mileage to that half marathon. Eep!