The 2nd Annual WTC Beer Mile: A "Race" Report

Look you guys! A post! Yes they are a bit few and far between these days but I'm sure you understand - pretty much this blog for me has always been a place to aimless ramble about whatever strikes me, when the mood strikes me...and that can be once a week, once a month, once a day, whatever.  Just know that I don't think I'll ever "give up" this blog - it's too much fun having a place to write race reports and fly off on random running related tangents - but that there may be some unannounced hiatuses...never fear, I'll always come back eventually. :)

Well I am proud to say that in my absence I have set my first PR in quite a while....not in a real distance per se, but I am still kind of proud of myself nonetheless...I PRed in the beer mile by over 2 minutes! I don't think I ever got around to writing about the first ever WTC beer mile held last year, but I kind of spearheaded the idea as a fun summer event for the club, we had a huge turnout and some pretty impressive performances.  For those who don't know, a beer mile is where you drink a beer...then run 400 meters...and then repeat x 4.  It's quite the test of both running and drinking endurance and usually the winner is someone who has the right combination of both of those things. Last year we had a HUGE turnout, with 2 heats and a bunch of non-runners included in the competition.

                   

Last year's beer mile finishers...an impressive crew

So I finally finished up with summer PT school classes on Thursday, and decided attending the 2nd annual beer mile would be an excellent reason to make a trip back to my glorious Madison, see my track club friends, and have a great, relaxing weekend to follow up 3 months of summer school.  I got into Madtown on Saturday and after spending some time at the terrace and heading out for a 6 mile tempo with Jade, it was race time!  There were way, way fewer finishers this year...5 to be exact.  I didn't really think I was going to be successful at all, but apparently a year of savoring good beer instead of downing crappy beer (and maybe a little help from the 3 marathons I've trained for in the interim) has made me an unstoppable force.

Me leading the women's race (of 2), my friend Jade (a much faster runner) behind me

After about 2 laps, I may or may not have been a little tipsy, and running seemed wayyy more fun than it had before. The guy who ended up winning lapped the entire field, finishing in 7:04...you have to admit, that's extremely impressive.  I finished 3rd overall in 11:06..a 2 minute PR!  And yes, believe it or not, PRs are still exciting when they're in completely pointless made-up races.  I still got excited trying to beat Jade.  The beer mile really sums up our club pretty well - we are pretty hardcore about running, but we are hardcore about having fun too. 

2010 beer mile finishers! Looking only slightly worse for the wear.

Of course we went out afterward...there was beer pong, Topper's pizza, cheese curds, beer stock exchange, shuffleboard, and a late night trip to the OP among other things.  However, none of that Madison insanity kept me from running 18.6 miles on Sunday...which to be honest, I am amazed I actually accomplished that.  Another girl from the club was running 21 for marathon training, and Jade and my friend Claire were each doing 13 or so, so we went out in the arboretum, hit up about 3 miles of trails, finished the loop and then went out towards Lake Monona/Monona Bay just in time for sunset...gorgeous!  I spent basically the entire day completely dreading the run, but it was incredible how fast 2:32 flew after the first 45 minutes or so.  Having friends to run with was just a blast and once again reminded me why I adore my WTC girls so much. :) 

So fantastically, despite this weekend being a "vacation" for me - I made it pretty much to 60 miles last week - 59.7, YAY! It was funny how 60 miles just added up without me even thinking about it...I had like a 4 mile day thrown in there somewhere but it balanced out with the 10 and 13 mile days to make a solid week of mileage! I am finally, finally starting to get sort of excited about running a marathon in October...all summer it has been like this chore to get the miles in, get workouts done, etc, but I think I'm in much better shape than I realize and I just don't have the race results to show it - yet.  Last night I went out on the Boston course for what I planned to be 7 miles...which then turned into 10, because I felt AMAZING.  Like completely unstoppable.  Heartbreak felt like a little bump in the road, that was how super my legs were feeling.  I ended up at 7:21 pace for the entire thing, which is just utterly ridiculous, and I couldn't really chalk it up to stopping a lot or anything because...well...I didn't stop much at all!  So it was pretty exciting to see my legs kind of getting into gear and to actually feel mentally into it! Long run wise so far I have a 17, 16.5, 15.1, 19, 18.6....I am amazed at how consistent I've been with just getting the miles in no matter if I want to or not.  Time for those 20s pretty soon....as the weather cools down, maybe I'll actually look forward to them! :)

Tag!

So I was tagged by Lacey to post 10 random things about myself...my first tag, hooray :)  Actually she was probably thinking "maybe if I tag her, she will actually POST!" And apologies again for my incredibly sporadic posting...PT school has me in its grip and won't let go! I am as it turns out still training for a marathon and though I had one week of pretty much complete failure 2 weeks ago (24 miles total? 10 mile long run? Er....let's not talk about that) but admittedly I had an excuse, since I had an exam at the beginning of the week, then my mom and sister were visiting for the weekend and so I spent a lot of time walking...not so much running.  But no worries, I brought it back this past week with a solid 56.5 miles, including a 19.2 mile LR. Woot woot!  The "relaxedness" I'm letting myself have in this training cycle hasn't exactly been inspiring me to hit the track for any killer workouts, but for some reason I'm still getting long runs in. I will be completely honest - I have NOT been at the top of my mental game running-wise.  For some reason, the past couple weeks especially, it's like I've had to absolutely drag myself out the door to go running, and when I do get out there I have no desire to run fast(er) than my "easy" (which is still about a minute per mile faster than it should be...in case you were worried lol). I think that's been part of my lack of desire to write anything on here too, since running itself has been so "meh" there's really been nothing worth sitting down and writing about. I'm trying to focus on the times when running has been great to me lately (like my most recent long run, which, despite being hungover and run on almost no sleep, was KICKASS in a way that only extremely hilly, tiring, and yet fantastical long runs can be) and just forcing myself to get out there...this, like all slumps, will end soon enough. :)

But anyway...the point of this post is to enlighten everyone to 10 random things about myself...sooo...here goes! I tried to make none of them running related, because I think you all know enough about my running life. :)

1. I met the BF completely randomly when he called me off the street to do a kegstand at a Badger football party and I accepted.  Instead of going home to (drunkenly) make a notecard for my physics exam, I decided to stick around and befriend him...we went on an actual date a week later and it's been over 2.5 years since. :)

2. I started dancing when I was 3 and danced competitively all throughout middle and high school, then was involved with a dance student org in college.  I miss it a lot and I choreograph dances in my head whenever I hear a song that inspires me - in college, I choreographed part of a piece while on a run.

3. I want the song Don't Stop Believin' played by a string quartet as I walk down the aisle at my wedding. (And I know such a thing can be done because one of my friends in college played in a string quartet that did exactly that)

4. I cannot stand the sound of ripping cardboard or touching my nails to porcelain (like trying to pick up a bar of soap in the tub)...just thinking about either of those things make me cringe.

5. When I was 4, I broke my wrist jumping off an upside down laundry basket.

6. I'm sort of out of the college phase of partying hard, but I am kind of a beer snob. I love craft beers, my most recent favorite variety has been imperial stouts, which everyone seems surprised by coming from a girl.

7. I absolutely LOVE dogs - worked with them for a little over 2 years, and met sooo many amazing puppies - and I can't wait until I'm in a life situation where I can have one of my own and be a good dog owner. My childhood dog was a mystery mutt (our best guess was black lab/schnauzer) named Corky and he was the best. dog. ever.

The Corkster...he deserved a pic :)

8.  I have really terrible luck when it comes to electronics, and in the past 4 years have managed to lose/have stolen/break 4 cameras, 3 phones, 1 laptop, and 2 ipods. A lot of them weren't my fault (most recently, someone dropping my camera in the ocean) but some of them most definitely were (running in the rain with my ipod...)

9. I'm named Audrey after my grandma who is pretty much the coolest lady ever.  She is 88 and still works because she loves her job, has traveled all over the world, is an amazing cook, dresses with style and class, and is the most positive person I've ever met - I really hope to be as awesome as her when I am old!

10.  My favorite flavor of ice cream is gold medal ribbon, which is a flavor from Baskin Robbins that is chocolate and vanilla ice cream with a vanilla swirl. Sounds pretty basic but you cannot even imagine how good it is. YUM!

Alright...well writing this list has been a good source of procrastination from the run that I need to to today...and then it's off to a well-deserved night out after two exams and a practical at the end of this week.  Hopefully I'll have an exciting long run this weekend with more to tell you about after that.  Happy Friday!