8 at 8

I'm just going to start this with a huge disclaimer. When I was prepping for last weekend's 10 miler race, I made sure to eat my go-to pb and banana on whole wheat bread 2 hours before I ran and kept fueling throughout the run. When I prepped for this Saturday's planned 10 miles? I ate a Mojo bar at 7:15 and was running at 7:40 with limited fuel on me. Can you see where this is headed?!

I ran from Huck's house to Fleet Feet, where I joined up with their Saucony Grassroots run. It was a special event designed to join local (and 30 min away "local" ) run groups with people that might be interested in having people closer to home to talk to when they jog. I looked at all the routes and the main difference between them all was where the turnaround point was. Mentally frustrating for me?! They all required me to go back the direction I'd just come from!

SC wanted me to do 10, but after getting exhausted in a "dear heavens I have no calories to burn after 8 hours of sleep and 2 miles of running and a FRICKIN GRANOLA BAR!" way, I figured I'd go and see how everything felt. I ran with someone I'd never met before, which was a challenge to keep talking as we explained what we did, how we got into running, etc. I'm so used to running with Huck or KR that it was a challenge to remember that not everyone knows that I like to be on the edge of the sidewalk, to your right, and that I'll let you go first when we need to go single file.

Our path took us through Meredith College, over the 440 bridge and through the dreaded NC Art Museum trails/hills :/ I wimped out on them going out, but after we turned around to make the route 6 miles, I bucked up a bit and ran all the way up the longest hill coming back. When we got out of Meredith, I turned right, thanked my running partner for the entertainment, and trekked back to my car at Huck's.

This run took a looooot out of me. I did one round of speedplay, and when I got over a hill and on to where I could do a 2nd round, I didn't trust my balance enough to keep going that speed, but at least I kept going, because Huck drove by!

End result: 8.1 miles in 1:34 on a friggin' empty stomach with hilllllllsssss!

Here's to the next TV timeout!

-Syd

PS- Huck was out getting pallets, and look what he and his buddies made on a Sunday afternoon :)

Maybe the chair was a bit big?!

Downtown Challenge

Remember when I did the little Easter egg hunt around town? The same store and organizing group had a different challenge this past Thursday. In their Tuesday e-mail, they sent out the clues for Thursday's run, the text of 10 historical signs located around DTR- downtown Raleigh. There are over 32 signs in Raleigh, so knowing which 10 could give you points was key. Oh, as was finding out just WHERE the signs were. And then you had to make the most efficient route as possible to try to max out your options. Ohhh the strategy!

I looked up the clues and sign locations, completely messed up on one of the clues' locations, but still managed to map out a route that hit 8 of the 10 signs and was 5.3 miles. KR agreed to come with me, and since DTR is safe, but not exactly where I'd want to be with just another girl and my running gear, Huck agreed to be our running bodyguard as well. I kept looking at the map on Thursday and managed to cut out .4 miles of running, but keeping all 8 signs. By the way, you had only an hour to do this and get back to the store.

Huck and I loaded the mapmyrun route onto our phones and I had this scrap piece of paper with the turn by turn directions and little stars to remind me that hey, somewhere around here you should be looking for a sign! There were only a few signs that we had all to ourselves, making the process of finding exactly where on the corner our target was super streamlined. Our little trio took pictures at each stop, then figured out where to go next.

KR and Huck are about the same pace, so they ran ahead of me, chatted and every now and then turned around to go "hey, where do we go?!" or "come on!" Lol, I kept up with them pretty well, but I know they had to restrain themselves a bunch with me! In his boredom, Huck ran up a ramp and leaped over the railing at the top of the ramp onto the concrete sidewalk below where his minimalist shoes did jack squat to protect his heel when he landed. He now has a really pretty red bruise not on the heel that hurts, but on the inside of his ankle and chides me to slow down when we walk places together :/

When we got back to the store, 4.83 miles and 55 minutes later, we showed off our pictures for tickets. See the pretty pictures?!

It should be noted that my app never stopped, even when we paused to take pictures, cross the street or figure out just which way to turn and where! A free beer and mass amounts of water  made the pain go away, and I put my tickets in to try to win a foam roller, ice pack, visor or t-shirt/pint glass combination. KR was going for socks and the foam roller, and she did this squeal when they drew for the foam roller first and on her first attempt at the Downtown Challenge, she won the first item! She also won her pair of socks, so she was double happy!

Overall, it was a pretty fun run! Having Huck AND KR run together went very well, which I realized was a gamble since they've only met a few times even though they both hear tons of stories about the other one. Those two swapped notes and realized I can go faster than I have been, so I have this evil feeling I might start getting pushed more soon!

Here's to the next TV timeout!
-Syd

Because sometimes I wing it

And by winging it, I mean I use SC (smartcoach) as a guide when I'm recovering from the 10 miler. Monday was icky and rainy and while normally I'd love that, it seriously shot down my motivation to go run. Even the roomie wasn't going to hold me to our 2 mile date. Crap.

But then I committed a cardinal sin of running- I double booked myself! I asked both the roomie AND Huck to do 2 miles on Tuesday!!!...except the roomie went during the day since she had it off and that left Huck and I to do whatever for the evening.

When I thought I'd be double booked, I mentally moved Wednesday's tempo run to Thursday, figuring I'd do my Thursday miles on Tuesday. Confused yet? Don't worry, it'll all be working out in the end :) Instead, I went right instead of left as I left Huck's place (he lives in a valley so its pick a hill to walk up as your warmup!) and he suggested we do a route we'd mapped out a while ago. It meant we had to survive an evil hill, but at least it was done and over with at the beginning of the route, and relatively flat from there.

Huck asked what our goal pace was, and I told him "survive?!" after the gray shaded (aka evil) hill. Surprisingly, we talked from the start through that hill. I'd gotten details of the news from Saturday and I shared them with Huck, along with what I will and won't be doing. Right now, it looks like I'm going home for a very special holiday in June, both to be there for my family and run a race with some of them! I was so focused on the run as we talked that I didn't have any extra energy to cry :)

The mapmyrun lady told me our pace kept dropping... and dropping...even as Huck and I chatted a bit and I focused on NOT crying, so when we got a little bit beyond this awesome photo op, Huck went all Super Coach on me. It was neat having him coach me with fixes that I could do without messing up my form or other crazy stunt. He pushed when I needed it, and we agreed on start/stop points to test out our sprints.

Our fartleks were focusing on one step per sidewalk "square." When the squares were uneven- two where there should've been three- it was hard to keep at it, but to keep up the momentum of such long strides, your speed had to really ratchet up. I don't really know if my turnover increased that much, but lengthening my stride considerably dropped the average pace for our last mostly downhill/fartlek-ing .25 miles a 8:19 mile pace.

Overall, 2.25 miles in 22:10. I'll take it! Fun run for tomorrow night. I've already nerded out about it!!!

Here's to the Next TV Timeout!
-Syd

PS- My tech shirt for my half marathon? Unisex medium and I can swim in that thing. The Tarheel 10 miler tech shirt? I ordered a medium, thinking it was unisex and even if it wasn't, I'm an Old Navy (tall) medium, so even if its tighter than I like, its still not baring everything. When I got to packet pickup, they said these shirts ran small, so they bumped everyone up a size. I should've gone up 2. or 3. the front barely covered my belly button! I've lost most of this tummy and gained a defined waist since I started running! WT...! AND, I realize I have relatively broad shoulders for a girl, but the sleeves started on top of my shoulders by a good inch on each side. Combine that shirt with shorts that are a bit big, oooh dear I was self conscious. Someone yelled something at me from their car as they turned into their apartments but it was during the speed time and they can bite me, so I flashed them not one but two fingers in a gesture of peace- no really, the peace symbol! not two of the same finger but on different hands!- and kept going.

TarHILL 10 Miler

First off, someone else coined the title of the post, but its more PG than what I wanted to call Saturday. Namely, its one vowel too far, but a lot of that has to do with how much I just doooon't like Chapel Hill.

Annnyway. Easiest race recap ever. Ya ready?

The more detailed version goes like this:

Lined up in the endzone of the field at Kenan Stadium, UNC-Chapel Hill (better known to everyone outside of NC as just plain "Carolina"), behind the 10:30 pace group sign. My goal was 11 min miles. Ran into a few people I knew and had last seen at the NC Half in Charlotte, which made me feel slightly less alone! I tried to ignore the people lined up behind me talking about hos compression gear was all a placebo effect, as I had my fancy hot pink compression sleeves on my shins :( Listened to Meb give some inspirational advice, and then, we were off!...sort of. I had to travel the from my endzone to the other one, around, and halfway back down the field before I hit the start line. It was quite an antsy while, which you'll see in my chip vs. gun times.

The course was pretty, well laid out, tons of volunteers making sure you were going the right place, and many chances to see other runners. For one part of it, the 2nd loop around was 2 lanes of the street and the slower first loop around was the other half of the street. I had to keep reminding myself to run MY race and also not get distracted looking at the form of the faster runners.

Water breaks were at the 2, 6 and 8 mile marks, with Gu at the last one. I made the mistake of taking the Gu last, so the last taste I had in my mouth was the vanilla bean Gu, which is a good taste, but I had to climb an evil hill- no really, they do a split time of just that 1 mile stretch because the hill is *that* evil- and finding water after the finish line was like hunting it in the Sahara sooo I should've rethought that strategy. Or they should've had the Gu lady first, not last at the station.

Anyway, I almost stopped at 3 miles in. Not because I hurt, but because a family member I haven't talked to in nearly 3 years called. Other people had been keeping me in the loop, but still, to get the call directly from them was enough to make me break down in tears on the side of the course. I read the Google Voice transcript of their voicemail and had this moment of "what the crap do I do?!" I could've walked back to the stadium, but the more I breathed and thought logically, the less good I figured that would do. I had trained for 10 miles, knew I had it in me, and I'm pretty sure that the way I will deal with this news is running, so might as well get used to it now. Besides, there was nothing I could do, so I might as well just keep running. Yes, the irony of getting a phone call 3 miles into a race that raises money for a cancer research center from someone calling to tell you they're dying of cancer.

I cried, a lot, and pretty sure between my already red-hot face, sunglasses, and my location solidly in the 2nd half of runners, people just thought I was tired and injured. What hurt first, however, were my hips. Just like in my half, I was super excited that what came to my "um...ow?!" senses first wasn't my shins or my knees. My shins felt fine and my knees weren't painfree, but whatever. There were hills, if I haven't mentioned that yet, and some of them were steep mofos, so I don't blame the hip flexors for hurting first. Later that day, my glutes would also scream their "hey, remember us?!?!" message :/

Where am I in this seemingly meandering race recap? Uh, how about if I just get to the end. I was running 10:30 miles until I hit the hill, and I just didn't have the mental focus to keep running, no matter how slow. Only a few short walk breaks, but dang, that killed my pace. My clock time had me doing 11:41 miles, but chip time was better than that :) You can see just how flipping long it took to actually start!

1:56 is my gun time, 1:47 is my chip time, 10:47 is my pace. First 2 numbers are start and end of the eeeevil hill!

I wasn't the happiest camper at the finish line. There was a pause in handing out the medals, so I had to wait on the field surrounded by other recent finishers, no water, no liquid refreshment, and seeing medals finally getting handed out halfway up the stairs with people completely oblivious to the horde waiting for them to MOOOOOOVE below. When I finally got my medal, I was still ready to strangle every volunteer who HADN'T run up Laurel Hill since the last time they had water and told me "oh its not very far"... If I can pass 2 tents of volunteers between you and the water, don't lie to me!

Good race, don't know if I'll do it again, just because its a weird distance, I detest Chapel Hill and UNC especially (hazards of being a State alum) and that hill is nothing but evil.

Here's to the next TV timeout!

-Syd

Flat Speed

I got behind. Lots of reasons, but Wednesday's speed workout was one I'd been scared to do. I asked the rehabbing KR to be my pacer for it. We built a mini-girl date out of it, so quite fun :) I did just what KR suggested- drank my water and held on tight when we took off! She was keeping track on her wrist GPS and I deliberately turned off my GPS app from telling me average pace. Because we ran on trails, my phone would occasionally tell me my current pace, alternating between 16 and 6 minutes per mile. The 6 was never accurate, although when I took my walk breaks, the 16 might not have been off, but I got told that during my fast times!

The goal for the day was 4 miles total, with 2 single mile fast runs, with 1/2 mile in between. The fast miles I was aiming for 8:45 pace, which was my fastest single mile EVER! KR kept us between 8:15 and 9 pace, occasionally giving me hand taps to slow down (hee hee, never thought I'd have to write THAT!) but even more, especially the 2nd mile, gesturing the "gimme more!"

KR sort of chided me, a lot:/ Her point, methinks, was that I could do the fast miles and not die. Or puke. Not puking is a good thing! IT might be painful, but enh, running for 2 hours is painful. Running for 2.5 hours is a different pain. Be the fast pain. Get back to views like this faster:

Here's to the next TV timeout,
-Syd

A case of the Mondays

SmartCoach told me to go run an easy 2 miles, at a bit faster pace for Monday. When I looked at the weather forecast for Monday at, oh, 11:50pm while reading an old Runner's World magazine Sunday night, I realized that I'd need to be out the door by 8am to have any chance of finishing my run before it got to 70*, and yes, I am still a heat wimp when it comes to exercising. Only then. Other times I'm the first person to be cold in a room and deathly hate all air blowing on me.

Back on track... I put my magazine down and set my alarm for 7am, and figured that if SC wanted me to run 12:31 and I've been trying to go 90 seconds faster, that was 11 min pace...which I knew I could do, no big. Then I looked forward to the speedwork for Wednesday, and well, I'm panicking. Staring down only my 2nd glass of water for the day (whoops!) and remembering what KR wrote to me " Anyone can pump out an mile at a time with a rest, so quit stressing, hydrate and just prep for it, then cling on for dear life when we take off on wed :)"




Wrar, so, alarm went off, I put on my awesome new compression sleeve (story about the uber pinkness some time), made a cute little claw to make sure I got a full 2 miles in, and I killed the final hill so I had to run up and OVER the hill, with a nice long recovery walk back to the house and sleeping roommate :) The entire time, I had this in my head:

And I busted out 10:11 min miles with serious up and down hills. Even MapMyRun calls my standard hill a scorcher! Showered, got on with my awesome day, and generally did my happy "woo!" dance for the day. I did before 8 am more than lots of people do all day :)

Here's to the next TV timeout!
-Syd

When the GPS gets stuck, just keep going

SmartCoach, my new best frenemy, told me to go run 8 miles at a 12:35 pace today. Since I'd been shooting for ~1.5 minutes faster than what SC tells me, I wasn't too worried when RunKeeper told me I was running an 11:34 pace, I figured I would pick it up as I warmed up. For these long runs, I figured since I was getting tired of campus, the evil NC Art Museum hills and near where I live, it was time to go on an ADVENTURE!

I've hiked quite a few miles of trails at Umstead State Park and the only time I'd really been on the bike and bridle packed gravel trails was to cut short a hike but there are lots of races that go through there, so it was time to go try it out!

I parked near the trail heads on the bottom of that map piece. We took the orange dots east to the road, then onto Reedy Creek Lake Trail. I'd read somewhere that the Airport Overlook was 3.1 miles, so I knew somewhere after that, we'd have to turn around. I part spaced out and part didn't want to have the voice in my head telling me how fast or slow I was or how much more I had to run.

Ignorance was total bliss! Huck and I passed these two guys running up a hill and smiling when we weren't even 1 mile in. Crazy guys, smiling while going up a hill! Except... we figured out why they were smiling! They were all DONE with hills! Seriously... I'd heard people say some crazy things about these hills, so I should've been more clued in, but this hill just kept winding around and going up and for every crest, there would be 2 seconds of downhill, NO FLATS and then more hill!

At 3 miles in, Huck got a call from his roommate explaining that he'd locked himself out and he needed to do X, Y, Z and etc. Huck explained we were 3 miles in and thus 3 miles away from a car, but we still had more to do. It was at this point that the GPS app stopped, which we didn't realize for who knows how long. Having never been on the trail, I wasn't certain of the random open space as the airport overlook, sooo we kept running. We were about to just say "enh, screw it!" when we saw a billboard shelter thing with a map in it, so we ran to that and realized we'd gone to the park's edge! Yeah, we ran to the right edge of that map slice which connects to a county park and a Cary greenway, definitely past 4 miles.

I was flat out deliriously happy at this point and both Huck and I turned on our GPS apps so we could figure out the "out" from the "back." Plus, we knew that all those hills we'd had to climb up the first 2 miles were going to be nice easy downhills to cruise down! ... except we forgot about that first hill, the one where we cruised down and Mr. Happy smiled up :/ I tried, oh how I tried, to kill that hill, especially since I know next Saturday I get a 1 mile uphill 8 miles in to my race but when we rounded a corner and Huck's "motivational" gasp was "yeah, don't look up" because we still didn't see the top of the hill, I winced and realized I couldn't quite keep my breath :( Some other runners passed us (sad face) and I had this "enh, good for you" which is neeever a good thing!...until we saw the pavement, our agreed upon stopping point. We kicked our butts from walking into "dear heaven, let us just be done" with a little friendly sprint race to see who would be first through the gate and we were DONE! (Huck won, which isn't all that surprising- he's faster/stronger but doesn't have the pink shoes like me ;D )

The final "back" stats were 4.3 miles at 10:53 pace, 500 calories burned for moi. For an 8 mile 12:35 long slow run, my 8.7 at sub-11 has me deliriously happy! Ice, NSAIDs and compression sleeves are my best friends, especially since the muscles around my butt are sore! Guess that's how you gain/lose a butt, going up those hills?! Good thing I got my interview pants taken in this week!

Here's to the next TV timeout!
-Syd

to Grandmother's house, we GO!

You know how I like freaking out when one thing throws me off my game? I was bound and determined to not have two bad runs in a row, and when it started to get dark, I figured I'd just throw on my gear and get my 3 done around home, not around the very evil lake with even more hills around the lake. Seriously, that lake is cursed! Anyway, I was fully charged, shoes on, when I got a "I'm on my way" text from Huck. Figured I'd rope him into running around home, but he reeeally wanted to do the trail around the lake and I it was part of the bargain from Monday. Argh... k.

Huck promised me trail, so I thought we were on the other side of the road, but no, we started running on the paved path, across the wooden bridge towards the evil cursed hills. But then we turned. I've gone past this spot a hundred times and never knew there was a trail there. Apparently Huck mountain bikes it often. Sooo it was over the roots, through the woods, splashing through the streams we went as the sun went to go keep people up in Australia. I had a headlamp on me (super awesome Christmas present from my aunt!) so I could better know when I was going up a sheer hill or down a root littered path.

A wider than normal creek bed as I officially couldn't see without light made me yell "okay, I'm done!" but I was promised that we were over half done. Thinking that meant it was shorter to go forward than go back, I sucked it up and kept going. When the shrubbery made a tunnel and Huck got further ahead of me than normal, I freaked. Darkness, woods enveloping me, unfamiliar terrain?! To a girl that's been told by society all her life that the way to prevent an attack is to not be out at dark in strange places,  this situation was CUH REEPPPPPY! Huck told me I was fine, I had nothing to fear, and started telling me "this one time, I saw this guy-" yeah, don't tell girls those stories until you're in a well lit area with lots of people around! Things like this still happen!

At which point the trail opened up to the asphalt path. "See! We're done!"...except there was still a mile to go around the lake. Huck and I were on different pages of "half way"- half through the trail or half through the lake?! I was scared and off my game, so I ran. No clue how fast, and every now and then I walked, but whatever.

Date night tonight and icing my shins as I prep for a long run tomorrow!

Here's to the next TV timeout!
-Syd

...so THAT's why!

I learned why the SmartCoach plan had me running every other day at that pace and that I definitely need to make Tempo runs my b**** the reaaaalllllly fun way Tuesday night! Huck and I met up at one of my favorite route spots where the houses are HUGE, partially on a greenway around a lake and sort of idyllic for our 10:30 first "warm up" mile. My shins were SCREAMING at me as we went down the hill from where we parked our cars, but I figured it would be fine once it leveled out.

Well, sort of. I had a mini freak out when we didn't know whether to go straight or turn around the lake, and once my "go! go! go!" focus gets messed up, its pretty darn hard to tune out the feeling of being lost while your shins hurt and now your knee hurts and TADA your surprise for THIS run is your hamstrings are tightening up while you're pushing pace. While literally saying "something generically motivating", Huck got to watch the side of me saying "yeah, see! go go! you've got this! tune out the pain, focus, you've only got 2 more miles left at this pace and then a super easy mile cool down!" try to take down the "expletive EXpLETIvE this HURTS!" side.

Unfortunately, the answer was solved by salt water, namely the tears that started streaming down my face as we kept running, finally knowing the route. We walked around a bit, looked at houses that we will probably never be able to afford and their lovely gardens, and plotted what to do. I finally let Huck convince me to do p90X plyometrics workout, which has lots of jumping around since "even though you might hate Tony Horton, he really does just want the best for you, and there's lots of low impact modifications you can do" according to the boy. We walked back to our cars, played on a swing set, got leftover Easter candy at CVS, and then conqured p90x- and I only did modifications for the very last set of stuff.

Different parts of my legs hurt last night as we saw Daniel Tosh, and now my cheeks and abs hurt sooo much from laughing, but it was totally worth it. Trying to conquer Lake Johnson with its 3 evil hills this afternoon. Thankfully this run is "easy" and it shall be treated as such, darnit!

Here's to the next TV timeout!

-Syd

You want me to do WHAT?!

Prescribed run: 2 miles at 12:35 pace
Actual run: 2.11 miles at 10:26 pace

How did I get that "prescription" you ask?! Well, you see, on the heels of that "ok, let's run a 2 hour half!" conversation with Huck, I explored around Runner's World website and found their "Smart Coach." The target race is Nov. 4, and it took some finagling, but I finally input all the right stuff to get the end race distance to 2:04, the closest it would get me, based on my first half results. And yeah, it spit out this for the first week. Yes, a 30 week plan starts with this :

PS Mom? If you put in my 8k time (55 mins), it starts you out at 12:30 pace and finish out at a 2:10 half, just sayin'!

It was supposed to be "easy" but Huck and I kept pushing each other. As he pointed out, a couple months ago, I'd yell at him, tell him he was fired, if he pushed pace. Now?! When my shins KILL on the uphill and I switch to the balls of my feet, I match his stride length and turnover and he warns me "don't push pace too much!" because our "easy" run has quickly turned into a "I'm not backing down, are you?!"

Running at 6pm was kind of BLEGh especially when you add the fact that maybe 200 feet of the run was flat?! It was 72, pretty sure cars kept kicking up dust into my eyes as I ran, and my mouth was parched by the time I was half up the hill. Loved that beyond the half point, Huck turned around and said something generically motivating and we had a hilarious "this is how I hurt" ... and kept running.

If I stayed on the balls of my feet as I ran downhill, I could match Huck's turnover and it hurt WAY less running! I also made sure to stretch like crazy when I got home. Like always, I have to remind myself that I just have to get past the first 5 minutes of the run and life is ... well, life?!

Oh, and as for the prescribed plan? I'll play it by ear, do what feels easy, even if its (hopefully) way above pace for SmartCoach :)

Here's to the next TV timeout!

-Syd

"Oh my gawd, you're beautiful"

I'm still in that post-run high, so with apologies for the scatterbrained, here goes the list:

1.  Loving that song right now! Hit play, and keep reading :D
2. Also super happy the weather in NC cooled back down a little so I didn't have to wake up before the sun to beat the sub-50's to start my run. Started out around 9am when it was sunny but 48*. As a "thank you" gift for mentoring for the 8k program, we got Brooks compression arm sleeves, and I had one on my right arm. No real reason except I wanted to rock the one sleeve look?! I took it off when I started warming up, about 2 miles in and tucked it into my shorts. Was suuuuper tempted to tuck it into my back and give myself a tail but when you're already wearing a neon green shirt that says "I got lucky..." on the front, well, I was standing out :/ Oh, and I totally rocked my aviators! I got "sport" sunglasses but they keep  trying to slip off my face, so I decided that even though my $10 polarized metal frame aviators aren't DESIGNED for running, if they work, go with it!
3. Totally about to make these babies when I'm done, although I am lacking green chiles. Good thing the Grub Cat around the corner has less than zero standards for my post-shower high fashion!
4. 
   Had an AMAZING post run high going on (will explain later), and even realizing that Huck and I had been locked out of his place didn't dim it much. Again, the weather was BEAUTIFUL, so we watered the new plants in the front, the food garden in the back, even the brussel sprout plants the bugs are devouring, and sunbathed on his deck as we relished the fact that at least BOTH of us stank :) Huck now has lantana and a blue (fave color) hydrangea (favorite flower) growing in his front yard. It looks super put together now. He's raising the bar for all his neighbors, muwhahahaha.
5. I'm going to probably keep running for as much as I can this summer, even if it means dying in the heat. Might have to do the run 6 days a week thing and make the runs short and at the crack of dawn...so I say in April when July's heat and humidity hasn't begun to wreck its havoc, but if I build up momentum, I won't want to lose it. I've decided the next goal is a 2 hour marathon, which equates to about a 9 min pace. Keep in mind that I just did a 2:30 half, which is a 11:20-ish pace. That's 2 minutes/mile over LONG distance to cut. Oh, and the goal race is a nice and hilly one in November and has just become the NC Half Championships- no pressure! If I increase speed, doing long runs will be less annoying and time consuming and I might start being in the first half of the finishers for races! If I want to keep running into my 70's, I've got to build some speed to lose over the next half century! So, 7 months (including the brutal NC summer) to drop 2 minutes off my race pace?! That's why Huck said "suck up the pain for your legs and let's go." His lower calves are killing him, so going up hills was painful for him and watching Huck admit pain isn't something I see that often, especially since he likes to be all macho and tough for me ;) Meanwhile, my shin splints make hills somewhat of a relief. Yes, my gluteus maximus and thighs kill, but at least the shins go "wheee!!!" for a bit. Yin and Yang, Huck and I are!
6. Out of somewhere, which now that I think about it, I have no clue where that came from, Huck decided our magic min. distance for today should be 5 miles. I mapped out a course from his place, threw in a killer hill that's about a mile and when you've almost conquered it, ratches up the incline just as a "hey, how do you like me NOW?!" I always have to tell myself to just. keep. running. even after I get to the top, teach myself that yes, you can kill the hill and then keep going :) For speed nights with the 8k training group, we used to go .15 miles down the street and RUN up that hill, then do that 6 times. That makes ANY other hill you ever have to do seem like a breeze, straights feel like downhills and downhills feel like you're more than coasting :) Oh, and this hill was about the halfway point of our run. But, once we got to the top, I caught my breath and gave Huck the "we're through the worst of it, I promise!" and he kept plodding. 
7. We walked through the shopping center a bit after the aforementioned evil hill. Don't want to tackle/dodge Whole Foods Saturday morning shoppers! Oh, and its the complex where Fleet Feet is, I was wearing a shirt that boldly proclaimed my FF allegiance, sooo I decided to set a great example!
8. We had to stop to cross a super busy road, and we knew from about that corner to our stop corner was 2 miles, straight shot, a few busy streets to cross, so Huck and I looked at each other and just said "kill it?!" We know I can run 10:30 miles for a while, so our goal pace for this 5-er was to drop the pace by 10 seconds. Not much, but enough to make it a little uncomfortable but attainable. If we'd set 9:30s or even 10s for the goal pace, when we kept going too slow, I'd have burned out and gotten way too frustrated. 7 months to drop pace, this was a long steady run, so only slight pressure. I'd started my running app (I'm on to Map My Run now, btw since I can load my pre-determined routes onto it and then make sure I'm on track if its roads/turns I'm not familiar with mid-run) before we actually started, so it kept telling me I was doing 12, then 11 min average pace, while Huck's more accurately started app said we were doing 10 somethings. He hadn't given me an update in a while, so standing at the stoplight, we agreed to start leaving more of ourselves on the sidewalk- major hill killed, less than 2 miles to go, knew the pace needed to drop a bit to be on goal. Green light...
9. GO! Slight downhill, and I was just re-warming my legs up after standing at the stoplight for longer than my shins liked. About halfway up past Meredith College, Huck suggested we kick it up, but we were a bit too far from the stoplight for me to steadily maintain the burst I knew I had. There was this patch of shade and it looked like around there was where the sidewalk got another few degrees of incline, so I spit out a "not yet." We kept plodding, although this plodding was quite an attack, but under that tree, I just ZOOMED! Out of Huck's mouth? "Oh my gawd, you're beautiful," even as I had to maneuver behind a car that was coming out of the intersection and threatening to derail my utter slaying of the hill and leaving the bf in the dust. Best. running. compliment. ever?! 
10. We had to stop at the light at the almost apex of the hill and Huck paused RunKeeper, saw our new average pace and said "flippin' A, we're killing it, but I'm not telling you because I don't want you to slack off. Let's just keep going like this and... wow!"
11. Nothing like the past minute to keep you motivated, so we kept going... and going...and going... hit one more stoplight and plotted. "Leave it all out here? Less than a mile 'til home? Its okay if we can't keep it up, but let's just see..." as we faced these rolling hills. They sort of suck because you can't see the valleys from even 1/4 mile away. It just plain seems EVIL, darnit! We got down, up, down, and I eeked out a "I make no promises to X street", the next top of the hill "driveway!", telling Huck I promised the driveway halfway up the hill. But then we got there, and I was letting out some growls to remind the hill that I that it was my b**** and just. kept. going. I could see the top of the hill and downhill slope to our stop point, sooo why not keep it up? 
12. I pointed out a car that was a bit before our stop street to end at, just to make our cool down longer since we'd gone beyond 5, so really, the harm of an extra 200 feet of cool down? Nada. Huck agreed and after the last cross street it was ON! We raced and sprinted to the end and it was about this time that Huck checked his phone, stopped it IMMEDIATELY to not let our lazy walking interfere with this apparent miracle we'd pulled off. 
13. 5.3 miles. 9:56 average pace. Goal pace de. STROYYYYED.

14. Yeah, I sort of feel like the bug now. Half that, and half "I wanna go dance party it UP!" But its amazing to have that under your belt and know that your 600 calorie burn for Saturday morning is dunzo :) 

Have an AMAZING Saturday!

Here's to the next TV Timeout,

-Syd

Bunny Ears and Easter Eggs

I'm signed up for this baby and I realized that 10 days is plenty of time to rest my poor shins and that today was as good as any to get back on the horse. Plus... there was THIS : http://www.capitalrunwalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Easter-Egg-map.pdf

I mapped out the best route I thought I could do in the 1 hour. I'm going to let you guess and figure out what I could do, keeping in mind that the top of the Dan Allen deck is like... 4 floors?! I won't tell you until the end so go, search!

Huck came with me and I wore bunny ears and a pink top, getting into the Easter spirit- it was Maunday Thursday, anyway :) At each location, you picked up an egg, and different colored eggs meant different numbers of raffle tickets. We got back after our 3 stops, 4.8 miles (we got off my pre-planned 4.21 mile route a few times) and had 14 tickets (figure out where we went yet?!) so we dropped them in different raffle bowls. I went for a foam roller, pint glass and t-shirt, and visor and Road ID giftcard- I was totally thinking of you, KR! They had 1 hour with a yoga instructor, 8 week course for Yoga for Runners, and free Brooks shoes, but I do yoga on my own and love my Mizunos.

People LOVE talking to Huck because he's got Fila toe shoes, not Vibrams. This is also about when we discovered that both Huck and I had dropped some of our "Keep this Ticket" stubbs into the bowls. Oops...I won nada :/ BUT Huck got compression sleeves for his legs in S/M and (worst of all) Carolina blue. BLEGH! He got to trade them for large red ones- go WOLFPACK! I also ran into people I know thanks to the roomie and Fleet Feet-ness.

This run felt really good. We were going a 10:30-ish pace until we had to make sure we found the egg keepers and just where my super-awesome pre-planned route took us. The person for our final spot WASN'T THERE, and we had to sort of take some pretttty risky street crossings, so we were super bummed until we ran into the lady halfway back to the store. Nothing like last minute let down and then win :) My shins ached, but I made sure to stretch afterwards and just sort of realized this was the suck level, the music rocked, focus on the eggs and maybe a bit of chit chat with Huck ;)

Sooo we went to White Memorial Church, Fred Fletcher Park and then the Belltower. 14 tickets :) 28 total, 1 win, 4.8 miles, great night :)

Here's to the next TV timeout!
-Syd