Posts Tagged ‘races’
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How to Obtain a Personal Worst
Hello! I can hardly believe how long it’s been since I’ve updated. I have been keeping myself busy by:
- Lurking on other people’s blogs
- Watching HGTV
- Staring at my cuticles and split ends
As you can see, hardly enough time to blog! Well, I am still very, very busy doing those above things, but I have too much advice to share to just let myself sit idly — I mean, busily.
You see, I am now the proud owner of a new personal worst in the half marathon. So many people have been asking me how to get their very own personal worst that I figured the best thing would be to write a blog post about it. That way I don’t have to repeat myself too many times.
Now, I don’t think you can pick and choose circumstances leading up to a personal worst. It really is a culmination of factors that leads to a breakthrough of this kind. However, if I don’t write out the factors in a numbered list,
- People will stop reading and go read other blogs with numbered lists.
- In fact, it’s a miracle if anyone has read anything before this numbered list.
Without further ado, here is how you too can achieve a personal worst.
- Pray to the weather gods for weather about 20 degrees warmer than what you’ve trained in, with extra humidity.
- Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to train in warmer, outdoor weather in an attempt to acclimate to increased temperatures. Stay inside and train in your comfortable basement on your treadmill.
- Blow off training runs in the month leading up to the race. You can do this. It’s your seventh half marathon after all. 13.1 miles is NBD.
- Screw around with your diet during your training period. Go on Paleo diet. Go off it. Go on it a week before the race. Go back off it the day before your race, in an attempt to carbo-load. Your GI system will be fine. If you wake up at 4 in the morning on race day and your stomach loudly revolts to this idea, don’t worry about it.
If you are lucky, these steps will lead to the following results:
- A very hot, humid day to have an endurance event
- Being graced with the presence of several thousand other people pushing fluids and needing to use ALL port-o-potties on the race due to their extra hydration and/or sympathy pains
- Needing to stop at almost every rest stop on the race yourself and wait in a long line for your spot in heaven
- Being unable to keep a good pace due to your stomach issues, and due to the periods of waiting in line, and the glorious heat
- If you are really lucky, you will get something called “cheek on cheek action“
- The crowning achievement of a personal worst 13 minutes slower than your last personal worst.
Thank me now or thank me later.
So, that concludes my race recap of the Go! St. Louis Half Marathon 2011. I am not sure I will ever run this event again, and instead, am considering only participating in endurance events in Canada. I am also not sure I will ever speak again without laying the sarcasm very heavily.
The good news here is that I have another opportunity for a personal worst at the Lincoln Half Marathon in a few weeks. A very optimistic person reminded me that my St. Louis half experience could serve as a good training run for that half. I really don’t know if I have it in me to do another personal worst but I will try my best.
But seriously - I think I know what I need to do. Nothing in the above lists.
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Lewis & Clark half marathon & Anniversary
It was COLD this morning! I’m happy that I’m now sitting at home freshly showered and in my fleece drinking chai. Today is special for two reasons: I finished my 5th half marathon and it’s the first anniversary of my wedding!
Months ago, I made sure that Mark was okay with me running this race on the anniversary of our big day – he said he was — and then today, he got up with me on a Sunday at an unreasonable hour to sit in the cold with me. I know how to pick them, don’t I?
I was nervous about this race. I did not feel like I had trained well – I skipped a couple of long runs, skipped a lot of speedwork, and a few weeks ago, started to feel burned out on running. I was just ready for this race to be over before it started.
Once it did start, things were smooth sailing. Even though it was cold at 42 degrees – I warmed up within a few miles. Most of the run looked like this – it was a clear sky and we ran most of the race on various highways.
Mark played race photographer and surprised me at mile 1.
I saw a bunch of people I knew at and during the race which was fun. One guy, who I didn’t know, was wearing a shirt that said “In my mind, I’m a Kenyan.” As I was passing him, I was going to comment on it, but he was too busy trying to take a call on his earbud! Apparently, in his mind, he is too important to remove the phone from his ear for a few hours to run a race.
All smiles! Look, I can do this race with my eyes closed! …
This is at the home stretch. My legs felt really good the whole race – I had that Forrest Gump leg thing going on. Sometimes you just feel like running.
Finished! And with my knight in shining orange armor.
Mark and his mom were at the finish cheering me on. I’m glad they were there. Last year I ran this race all on my own! It wasn’t a big deal but I do prefer the support
Thanks Mark & Jean!I was surprised, considering how unprepared I felt, that I came in at 2:02 according to my Garmin. I’m happy that I was able to run a fairly consistent pace, too. (Mile 2 is a bathroom break…)
When Mark and I got married last year today, we had one hell of a wedding cake:
This was actually Mark’s pick! I loved his choice. I have a thing about bows.
Our wedding was probably the happiest day of my life. There just aren’t words for how lucky I was to be surrounded by family and friends that loved us and had come from all over the country to see us tie the knot. Mark made me feel very beautiful that day, more beautiful than I had ever felt in my life.
Love you Mark!
Now about that wedding cake…
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Ambulance Chase 5k recap
This morning I ran the PILG Ambulance Chase 5k (perfect name, right?). I signed up for it earlier in the week because I wanted to inject a little running enthusiasm back into my veins. The race was at 9 in the morning, which is a pretty late start. It was nice to not have to wake up super early for a race.
My unofficial race photographer (my husband Mark) sat this one out. I think we made it in quite a few official pictures but it might be a while before those are up. I took this one though, before we started.
Dogs were allowed! I saw a volunteer from my team on Girls on the Run. So random!
It took a while for us to get started, so Ada was raring to go. For the first quarter mile or so, we were following an ambulance with its sirens blaring (this was part of the race). With that noise and all the excitement, Ada was all over the place and she tripped me. My knee and hands were scraped up but I got back up and hoped Ada would fall into line.
The race, after that, was pretty uneventful. I was a bit dehydrated so I think I could have done better. 5ks go by so quickly and I feel like it was over before I even had time to think about it all. I’m not sure if we will get official times or what my official time was, but my garmin had me at about 27:52. It was about 30 seconds slower than my PR. After that time I regretted not pushing myself just a little bit harder. The hills on this race were pretty challenging though. There’s always next time!
I hadn’t mentioned this but a couple of weeks ago I decided to stop the Weight Watchers program. It wasn’t clicking for me – I was pretty much documenting weight fluctuation. I really liked the meetings and the camaraderie with other people. I think the concept of counting points is fine and I agree with a lot of their concepts. It’s a great place to learn about fundamentals of nutrition. On the downside, I often was surprised by how little other members knew about nutrition, and I was dismayed by how little exercise is discussed. But that wasn’t the reason I left – I left because it just wasn’t clicking and I didn’t like seeing my money disappear. A structured program isn’t going to force you to get your head in the right place. I have to do that myself.
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Peaches with Blue Eyes
Hello & happy Monday.
I’m not sure what “the case of the Mondays is” (Who says that? I think you’d get your ass kicked saying something like that, man) but I think I have it. I have been really tired and copious amounts of caffeine hasn’t fixed it.
Also, ice cream does not fix it. You can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes at myself. I should put a note on the freezer to that effect.
On a different note, when I was little, I constantly confused nectarines and peaches. Today, while eating a nectarine at lunch (and reading wikipedia), I discovered why.
(those are nectarines, at least according to the sticker)
The nectarine is a cultivar group of peach that has a smooth skin. Though fuzzy peaches and nectarines are regarded commercially as different fruits, . . . they belong to the same species as peaches. Several genetic studies have concluded in fact that nectarines are created as the result of a recessive gene, whereas a fuzzy peach skin is dominant.[7] Nectarines have arisen many times from peach trees, often as bud sports.
So, the only visible difference is the lack of fuzz. Genetically, they are like peaches with blue eyes.
Let’s talk race training.
Training plans I’ve previously used include the Furman Institute plan (FIRST), to made up, to Hal Higdon. I have been looking for a good half marathon plan, and have been disappointed. In the latest issue of Runner’s World, there is a plan to get you in shape for a 2:00 or less race. Looking at the plan, all of the long runs are 1:30 over race pace. There is very little speed training, and a few medium distance runs at race pace. The rest of the runs are quite slow.
The Furman Institute plan includes one speed training run per week. While doing it, I didn’t necessarily enjoy it, but I did like pushing my limits that way. The FIRST half marathon plan also had long runs much slower than race pace. What I would like to do is to run my long runs at race pace. I know that there is wisdom to training below race pace – avoiding injury/burnout/overtraining. But I’m starting to be part of the “train slow, you race slow” school. I just don’t pick it up that much more on race day.
Honestly, I am not even sure how close I stuck to the planned pace for long runs during marathon training – I think when I got to double digit runs, I disregarded pace a little.
I have a plan printed out, the next step will be to add it to my Google Calendar. This worked well for my marathon because I could see my workout anywhere I went – on my iPhone.
But first, I think I might take a nap.
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Multi-sport weekend
Hi! I’m still around! I just don’t say as much. (Sorry.)
I haven’t had much to say in the way of running lately so I’ve been absent. I still don’t have much to say about it but I’m forcing myself to write because it has been a while since I’ve visited my own blog.
It’s not to say that I haven’t been running – because I have, a few times a week still. I even ran a 5k with a friend on July 4th. It was the Firecracker 5k in O’Fallon – which was a lot better this year. Last year it was rainy and thunderstorm-y and the course was super boring and even involved partially running around a subdivision (twice, actually, since the 10k was the 5k loop times two).
This year, the weather was ok, if not a little muggy, but the course started outside a baseball stadium, made a pretty pleasant loop and ended at the minor league baseball stadium’s home plate. Plus, PLUS, I got to run it with another human being. Usually I’m the odd (wo)man out in my circles and everyone else would rather sleep in than run a race. It was her first race so I had fun jabbering on during the whole thing trying to entertain her and distract her from feeling tired. It’s all part of the plan to convert people into runners… When we were running, I was reminded of my running history and I thought putting together a little story about how I got into running might be interesting to you (mostly to me), so be on a lookout for a post about that soon.
This weekend, I got to ride bikes with my husband for the first time ever. We recently got a mountain bike for him since a friend was getting rid of his. Unfortunately the bike puts my husband at a disadvantage compared to my road bike when we’re on a paved trail, but I don’t mind this too much. *wink* The weather was really good for a bike ride and a 5k, and all the fresh air made us enjoy our three day weekend that much more.
About Me
My name is Michelle and I like to write about running, food, and fitness in general. Check out my About Michelle section for more!
