Friday, August 27, 2010

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! :)

3 comments:

No Longer Using said...

i just realized i never commented on the post you did after i tagged you :) and YES it was totally to get you to post :) hehehe. also i just wanted to tag you :)

anywayyyyy CONGRATS on finishing up summer classes!!!!!!!!!! i'm so glad you got a mini break by going home before fall kicks back in. HILARIOUS beer mile. i can't believe that exists. you have to drink 4 beers????? can i do shots?! hahahaha.

glad running is going so well, too. LIFE!! sounds great!!! :) cheers :)

Anonymous said...

yay for posting :)

double yay for beer miles :)

J said...

I almost did a beer mile while i was in college but it didn't work out. Too bad..I bet it would have been fun!