Today when I went for my run it was 35 degrees, windy, and raining. Not exactly prime conditions for a phenomenal run, right?
Wrong.
I don't know what the hell was going on today, but I felt AMAZING. And I apparently wasn't just feeling fast, I WAS fast, averaging 7:16 mile pace...yet hardly feeling like I was putting in an effort. I was splashing through puddles like a little kid and just laughing at the wind and rain blowing in my face. Sometimes, I think I just run better when I feel like a badass just for getting out there - I mean, I saw ONE other runner out the entire time, and it was a Badger guy. And something about my designated "Thursday" route is just wonderful - around the UBay fields and down the bike path along University...it seems short somehow, even though I measured out the run today and even underestimated it a little, and it turned out to be 7.75 miles. But it just flies when I'm running it for some reason. Maybe it's because Thursdays are always just insane, and just getting out there and cruising for like an hour in my own little world gets me through it. When I got back to the Nat I realized that there was a definite hot spot on my right big toe...I'd been running through ankle deep puddles of ice water so I really wasn't too concious of what was going on with my feet while I was running, but sure enough, a GIANT blood blister. Ouch. But you know what? Worth it.
I couldn't help but smile as I came cruising down the hill by the UBay fields, with "Baba O'Reilly" blasting through my headphones, water splashing everywhere, and my legs feeling like they could go, go, go forever. I don't have to win races, I don't need people to know my name, when it comes down to it, I love running because of days like this.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
"If a McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese were running a marathon..."
May I present the most horrible commercial ever:
When I saw this commercial during House on Monday, all I could do was just sit and stare in horror. They seriously put a McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese and running a marathon in the same sentence? Those two things don't even belong in the same dimension. I have nothing against the occasional McDonald's binge when I'm hungover or after a meet craving pure grease, but running a marathon? Really McDonald's? It supposedly would "show up without even training, because its 100% pure meat and real cheese, it can do this". Well I'd love if I could run the 3K in 10 flat because "I'm really awesome, I can do this", or go out and run a marathon right now for the same reason...but sadly, that isn't the case. As my friend Jade said: "If a quarter pounder were running a marathon, it would die of clogged arteries at mile 5".
Awesome workout Monday. Does working at 6:30 and skipping class just make me ready to kick ass by 5:30? I don't know. We did 10 x [1 min @ 5K pace (uhh...which was kind of more like...somewhere between mile and 3k pace...) and 1 min easy]...I ran with Claire the whole time and it ended up averaging out to 7 minute pace, even with the easy parts....hmmm...win? I just suck at doing workouts at their proper pace. If I feel good, I want to go fast, and why not? I'm training to run fast, aren't I? It would be different if I was killing myself to run whatever ridiculous pace I picked, but I think I just took a relatively easy workout and turned it into an awesome one. I don't know. Long ago my high school coach told me "If you raced the way you practice, you'd be our 4th or 5th runner on varsity" (In reality, I was about the 2nd-3rd runner on JV) And still, I think sometimes I tend to push it in practices. But whatever...a month of no racing will not be a bad thing. Time to train hard, get strong, and not feel bad about running 7 mile tempo runs on Thursdays just because its sunny and I'm feeling good. :)
When I saw this commercial during House on Monday, all I could do was just sit and stare in horror. They seriously put a McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese and running a marathon in the same sentence? Those two things don't even belong in the same dimension. I have nothing against the occasional McDonald's binge when I'm hungover or after a meet craving pure grease, but running a marathon? Really McDonald's? It supposedly would "show up without even training, because its 100% pure meat and real cheese, it can do this". Well I'd love if I could run the 3K in 10 flat because "I'm really awesome, I can do this", or go out and run a marathon right now for the same reason...but sadly, that isn't the case. As my friend Jade said: "If a quarter pounder were running a marathon, it would die of clogged arteries at mile 5".
Awesome workout Monday. Does working at 6:30 and skipping class just make me ready to kick ass by 5:30? I don't know. We did 10 x [1 min @ 5K pace (uhh...which was kind of more like...somewhere between mile and 3k pace...) and 1 min easy]...I ran with Claire the whole time and it ended up averaging out to 7 minute pace, even with the easy parts....hmmm...win? I just suck at doing workouts at their proper pace. If I feel good, I want to go fast, and why not? I'm training to run fast, aren't I? It would be different if I was killing myself to run whatever ridiculous pace I picked, but I think I just took a relatively easy workout and turned it into an awesome one. I don't know. Long ago my high school coach told me "If you raced the way you practice, you'd be our 4th or 5th runner on varsity" (In reality, I was about the 2nd-3rd runner on JV) And still, I think sometimes I tend to push it in practices. But whatever...a month of no racing will not be a bad thing. Time to train hard, get strong, and not feel bad about running 7 mile tempo runs on Thursdays just because its sunny and I'm feeling good. :)
Monday, February 23, 2009
All we know is distance
I was geeking out so much over my race on Saturday that I couldn't really think of anything to post on this until now...even now, I'm not really sure how to explain my race or how I feel about it, but I'm going to try because I feel like it's significant to me, and if its any indication of how outdoor season is going to go, then I am really, really looking forward to outdoor!
One of the few nice things about having a meet at the Shell is not having to get up at some ungodly hour and drive somewhere. I woke up around 9:30, had breakfast, and just hung out goofing around with the BF for a couple hours - it did NOT feel like I had a race. I went over to the Shell around 12:30 which turned out to be kind of pointless since no one from our club was running until 2, but Jade and Brittany and a few other people were there so we just hung out, watched the invitational 1200 (it's always fun watching people run your 400 pace for a 1200. yup.) and the prelims of the sprints and whatnot. I didn't actually start getting nervous about my race until the women's mile started - part of me wished that I had run that instead, just so I could be done. Jade ran an awesome race, she ended up going sub-5:30, and my other teammates ran well too. We watched the guys mile, and then Claire, Brittany, and I (the 3K crew) went to go warm up.
Everytime I warm up for a distance race, especially the 3K, I wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life. And how I got here - wait a second, wasn't it just 3 years ago that I was a SPRINTER? And now I'm running a serious long distance event? This can't be right...this can't be right at all. Its always during my warmup that all my doubts bubble up to the surface, as the 3 of us jog silently around the McClain center, each lost in our own world of thinking about the race. All of your senses are in hyperdrive - is that a side cramp coming on? My breathing doesn't feel right...that left hamstring feels really tight - each random twinge signaling disaster for your race. And yet we jog on, as time ticks down towards the moment when we'll be on that line, staring down 3000 meters of track.
So we came back out to the track, and time seemed to just slooooow down...every race seemed to have more heats than it was supposed to, and I kept doing strides and stretching nervously because I had nothing better to do. In this race, as with most distance races, it wasn't so much running well that I was worried about, although obviously I hoped that's what would happen, but it's just knowing that what you're about to do is going to hurt very, very badly, whether you run your best race ever or your worst. We talked to our coach about what we wanted our splits to be - I said I was shooting for 12 flat-ish, and no splits over 50, and Claire joked with me that I was shooting for 11:50, which I laughed off - yeah right, dropping 22 seconds? That's hilarious. Finally, it was time. We lined up, and then, the gun.
Probably the strangest thing about this race was that I basically ran it alone. Everyone was seeded above me by a pretty large margin, and the one girl who wasn't ended up running a 10:52...and your seed time was a 12:16 why? I honestly can't even say what was going through my mind during the race. I started out in 44, and knew that I had to pull back a bit, but even so my next couple laps were 45 and 46. I came through the mile in 6:12 and all I kept telling myself was "don't slow down. DON'T SLOW DOWN". Of course, I had no idea whether or not I actually was slowing down, or where my competition was, or anything at all for that matter. My only awareness was of the red track stretching out in front of me, the occasional call of my name from a random point on the backstretch, and splits. I kept listening for splits. A couple of times, they didn't come, and I assumed that meant that I had fallen off pace; that my coach didn't want to tell me...but looking back, that makes absolutely no sense, since you would think she would want to alert me that I was off. But aside from listening for splits, only one thought ran through my head - the number of laps to go. Over and over and over...5, 5, 5, 5, 5, like some kind of crazy cadence in my mind. With 4 laps to go, I finally heard another split - "48!" It suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't dropped off pace. All I had to do was make it through 4 more laps without slowing down, and I would PR. After that there was nothing - I just ran. I ran, and ran, and with each lap and the call of another "48" I came closer to home. I had completely given up looking at the clock by the time I reached the last lap. KICK!! I poured it on with everything I had left in me. Coming into the final straight, I finally looked up at the clock and saw 11-something...my eyes were blurry from the dry air and the effort so I had no clue, and in my haze I thought it was 11:5-something...at that moment, all that mattered to me in the world was reaching the finish line before that 11 became a 12. And in one last glorious moment as I crossed the line before I bent down hands-to-knees and commenced sucking air like I would never breathe again, I saw the glorious, glorious number:
11:50.
A 22 second PR. I couldn't even believe it. As it turns out, I didn't run a single lap over 48. And that's the thing about this race - yes, I only beat 1 person. But I finally RACED. Even though there was no one else there to race with, I dug down and pulled out what I knew I had. I actually executed the race the way I wanted to - for ONCE in my life! And I don't even feel like I'm anywhere close to my peak this season, especially with the training I've been doing so far. So I guess I'm really going to have to work on that water jump, because I am ready to kick some 3K steeplechase ass in outdoor.
I love long distance. Who would have ever guessed?
all we know is distance
we're close and then we run
One of the few nice things about having a meet at the Shell is not having to get up at some ungodly hour and drive somewhere. I woke up around 9:30, had breakfast, and just hung out goofing around with the BF for a couple hours - it did NOT feel like I had a race. I went over to the Shell around 12:30 which turned out to be kind of pointless since no one from our club was running until 2, but Jade and Brittany and a few other people were there so we just hung out, watched the invitational 1200 (it's always fun watching people run your 400 pace for a 1200. yup.) and the prelims of the sprints and whatnot. I didn't actually start getting nervous about my race until the women's mile started - part of me wished that I had run that instead, just so I could be done. Jade ran an awesome race, she ended up going sub-5:30, and my other teammates ran well too. We watched the guys mile, and then Claire, Brittany, and I (the 3K crew) went to go warm up.
Everytime I warm up for a distance race, especially the 3K, I wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life. And how I got here - wait a second, wasn't it just 3 years ago that I was a SPRINTER? And now I'm running a serious long distance event? This can't be right...this can't be right at all. Its always during my warmup that all my doubts bubble up to the surface, as the 3 of us jog silently around the McClain center, each lost in our own world of thinking about the race. All of your senses are in hyperdrive - is that a side cramp coming on? My breathing doesn't feel right...that left hamstring feels really tight - each random twinge signaling disaster for your race. And yet we jog on, as time ticks down towards the moment when we'll be on that line, staring down 3000 meters of track.
So we came back out to the track, and time seemed to just slooooow down...every race seemed to have more heats than it was supposed to, and I kept doing strides and stretching nervously because I had nothing better to do. In this race, as with most distance races, it wasn't so much running well that I was worried about, although obviously I hoped that's what would happen, but it's just knowing that what you're about to do is going to hurt very, very badly, whether you run your best race ever or your worst. We talked to our coach about what we wanted our splits to be - I said I was shooting for 12 flat-ish, and no splits over 50, and Claire joked with me that I was shooting for 11:50, which I laughed off - yeah right, dropping 22 seconds? That's hilarious. Finally, it was time. We lined up, and then, the gun.
Probably the strangest thing about this race was that I basically ran it alone. Everyone was seeded above me by a pretty large margin, and the one girl who wasn't ended up running a 10:52...and your seed time was a 12:16 why? I honestly can't even say what was going through my mind during the race. I started out in 44, and knew that I had to pull back a bit, but even so my next couple laps were 45 and 46. I came through the mile in 6:12 and all I kept telling myself was "don't slow down. DON'T SLOW DOWN". Of course, I had no idea whether or not I actually was slowing down, or where my competition was, or anything at all for that matter. My only awareness was of the red track stretching out in front of me, the occasional call of my name from a random point on the backstretch, and splits. I kept listening for splits. A couple of times, they didn't come, and I assumed that meant that I had fallen off pace; that my coach didn't want to tell me...but looking back, that makes absolutely no sense, since you would think she would want to alert me that I was off. But aside from listening for splits, only one thought ran through my head - the number of laps to go. Over and over and over...5, 5, 5, 5, 5, like some kind of crazy cadence in my mind. With 4 laps to go, I finally heard another split - "48!" It suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't dropped off pace. All I had to do was make it through 4 more laps without slowing down, and I would PR. After that there was nothing - I just ran. I ran, and ran, and with each lap and the call of another "48" I came closer to home. I had completely given up looking at the clock by the time I reached the last lap. KICK!! I poured it on with everything I had left in me. Coming into the final straight, I finally looked up at the clock and saw 11-something...my eyes were blurry from the dry air and the effort so I had no clue, and in my haze I thought it was 11:5-something...at that moment, all that mattered to me in the world was reaching the finish line before that 11 became a 12. And in one last glorious moment as I crossed the line before I bent down hands-to-knees and commenced sucking air like I would never breathe again, I saw the glorious, glorious number:
11:50.
A 22 second PR. I couldn't even believe it. As it turns out, I didn't run a single lap over 48. And that's the thing about this race - yes, I only beat 1 person. But I finally RACED. Even though there was no one else there to race with, I dug down and pulled out what I knew I had. I actually executed the race the way I wanted to - for ONCE in my life! And I don't even feel like I'm anywhere close to my peak this season, especially with the training I've been doing so far. So I guess I'm really going to have to work on that water jump, because I am ready to kick some 3K steeplechase ass in outdoor.
I love long distance. Who would have ever guessed?
all we know is distance
we're close and then we run
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
She said, I think I'll go to Boston
I didn't get into Wisconsin. And I've never been so happy to get a rejection letter in my life.
I'm deferring for a year - emotionally, financially, its the better idea. And I'm moving to Boston in August, then starting PT school next May. It's going to be tough, but its going to work. Why do I bother working myself up so much about these things? Everything works out in the end. And though I'm not a big believer in fate, sometimes I do feel like everything happens for a reason. So I'm going on an adventure!! And I can't wait. :)
Yesterday's workout was awesome. I don't even know if it was that hard, or if it was supposed to be that hard, but it was genuinely fabulous. Maybe it's because I was just in such a good mood anyway, but I felt unstoppable. Minute runs of 6-5-4-3-2-1, with 1 minute rest, theoretically starting at 10K pace and working down to mile pace...well, I was already at sub-7 pace for the 6 minute run, and by the time I got to the 1 minute I was running something like 5:05 mile pace...too bad that's NOT my mile pace...hah. Anyway, I felt great the entire time. Like I was flying...so I'm hoping that bodes well for my last indoor race of the season on Saturday.
I have 2 exams on Thursday and studying is not going well, so I should get back to that. But everything is good. It's all good. :)
I'm deferring for a year - emotionally, financially, its the better idea. And I'm moving to Boston in August, then starting PT school next May. It's going to be tough, but its going to work. Why do I bother working myself up so much about these things? Everything works out in the end. And though I'm not a big believer in fate, sometimes I do feel like everything happens for a reason. So I'm going on an adventure!! And I can't wait. :)
Yesterday's workout was awesome. I don't even know if it was that hard, or if it was supposed to be that hard, but it was genuinely fabulous. Maybe it's because I was just in such a good mood anyway, but I felt unstoppable. Minute runs of 6-5-4-3-2-1, with 1 minute rest, theoretically starting at 10K pace and working down to mile pace...well, I was already at sub-7 pace for the 6 minute run, and by the time I got to the 1 minute I was running something like 5:05 mile pace...too bad that's NOT my mile pace...hah. Anyway, I felt great the entire time. Like I was flying...so I'm hoping that bodes well for my last indoor race of the season on Saturday.
I have 2 exams on Thursday and studying is not going well, so I should get back to that. But everything is good. It's all good. :)
Sunday, February 15, 2009
I wanna dance a tango with chance
I realize I haven't written in awhile and so this is most likely going to be a completely random assortment of thoughts...bear with me. There are lots of random things floating around in my head sooo I guess its about time they were spewed out on paper...or internet, or whatever.
First off, the never-ending Boston debacle. It's really complicated to explain the whole situation but basically its a financial thing and therefore pretty much completely out of my control. Which is the most frustrating thing about it - I am absolutely powerless to do anything about this situation. There's really no point in fighting with my mom about it - there's nothing to fight about, its just facts, there in black and white - she can't give me money that she doesn't have. Simple as that. But at the same time, I just can't accept the fact that I can't do this thing that I want SO badly because of the amount it would cost to move there. And I just can't spend the next 3 years of my life constantly regretting and wishing and wondering how much different and better my life would be if I had just been able to do that one thing. I'm sending in my $200 deposit tomorrow; my spot is saved. And I'm just hoping and praying that I'll actually get to take it. If it were at all reasonable to defer and take a year off, I would do it, but that would mean having to start paying back my undergrad loans, which would basically defeat the purpose of taking a year off to work - I wouldn't be saving anything. So yeah. Things aren't good on that front. I'm pretty much trying to exist with it in the back of my mind and not think about it unless I have to, because it just puts me in a bad mood and makes me feel like curling up in a ball and crying to think that I might not be able to go there.
But onto more exciting things - like running! So I never wrote a Stevens Point race report because I was lazy, but it was a pretty fun and interesting meet. I ended up having to run the 3K first because I was in the slow heat and they were counting on the meet to take forever, so they ran that and the slow heat of the men's 5K at the beginning. My legs felt kind of crappy on my warmup, but I was still excited - I think that's the thing that has made me decide to go LD all the way...because everytime I've raced the mile this season, I've absolutely DREADED it...but the 3K makes me all pumped even though I know its going to suck. I was seeded first in my heat which was really strange and wrong on so many levels...there were a ton of no time girls who I was pretty sure would be faster than me, but I ended up getting out in first and leading for a couple laps - WEIRD FEELING. Obviously I got passed after a bit, but my first lap was 44 and the next 2 were both 46. Then obviously I started to slow down - I was aiming for 48s, but by the mile I was right about where I wanted to be - 6:22. Unfortunately I couldn't hold the pace and I slowed down to 51s for pretty much the entire second half of the race....I was following behind this stupid UMD girl who was running on the inside of the track for like the entire thing which was really bothering me. I think when I race my mind just grabs onto weird things that annoy me - something stupid a girl near me is doing, a piece of paper on the track, the fact that my feet are hot - and just throws them around in a sad attempt to focus on something other than the fact that I'm killing myself slowly via running. But anyway, I don't know where I pulled it out of, but for my kick I rocked out a 40. I passed like 3 people in the last lap, and seriously, I really don't know where it came from...the jets just turned on I guess. I ended up running a 12:12...20 seconds faster than last week and basically 11 seconds faster per mile...yeah, that's a lot. Overall I was really pleased with my race, and I feel like with some more concentrated training I could definitely run under 12...because let's face it, starting out my time with 11 would just look much prettier. :)
Then I ran the mile. Which was a really unfortunate, bad decision. I pretty much knew from the moment I started warming up that things were not going to go well - I'd run an all out 3K, and even though it had been a couple hours I'm obviously not in the kind of shape where I can be doubling like that. And what a disaster it was. I was planning on trying to go out more conservatively (as in, 43 not 40)...well, I went out in 43, and I already felt like I was dying. I don't think I have ever wanted to drop out of a race more than I did from that one. I felt god-awful, everyone was passing me, and I knew that my time was going to completely suck. But there was one thing that kept me from giving up altogether - the Point girl who tripped me at Carthage was in the race. And she passed me. And there was no way in hell I was letting her beat me. Finally, with 2 laps to go I got ahead of her and stayed there, and despite the fact that my kick was a pathetic 43, I managed to pass 2 more people in the last lap. I ended up running a 6:10, and was basically left with an overwhelming feeling of never wanting to run the mile again.
So I didn't race this weekend because I wanted to take the weekend off for the sake of my legs, and of course to spend Valentine's Day with the BF. But of course being me and never being able to turn down racing (and wanting to get a workout in that I knew would be a lazy 5 miles otherwise), I ended up racing the UW Running Club Valentine's Day 5K. I pretty much ran it as a tempo run, my first mile was 7:11 and I actually negative splitted, which is kind of funny since I was just trying to hold pace. I passed a lot of people and only got passed once, ended up finishing in 22:08 and got 14th for women, 61st overall. All in all, not a bad performance considering I pretty much decided I wanted to do it like 20 minutes beforehand. And road races are so nice...I love being an a situation where if I don't feel like killing myself, I don't feel obligated to. :)
Today's long run was amazing. Basically any time I get into double digit mileage on a run I'm left feeling so good about myself that I completely forget how much it sucked while I was doing it. I was a bit hungover from the track club shindig the night before, and so the way out was extremely unpleasant...then on the way back, we were running into a killer headwind, but for some reason I started feeling exponentially better and by the time I got home I felt fantastic. My knees are hurting a little now - I really need to get some new shoes - but it was 12 miles of awesome. We ran up State Street around the capitol where they were having a cyclocross race which was quite entertaining to watch, then down around Lake Monona and onto the bike path past Olin Park. It was a really beautiful, sunny day, even though it was cold. The only sad part of the run was that I lost one of my awesome Nike running gloves! I had taken them off because my hands get ridiculously hot sometimes when I run, and at that point we weren't running into the wind, and I put them in my pockets...sometime about half an hour later, I realized one of them had fallen out. :( Luckily it wasn't the one with my house key in the pocket...that would have been really problematic.
I should stop rambling! There's so much other crap I should be doing right now, but I just get so excited about running that I go on and on. Today a girl in my biomechanics lab group was talking about how she did the Valentine's 5K and it was her first race ever, and she asked me how you build up to running 12 miles...and I seriously just get giddy when I talk about that. Running is truly my passion...whether or not I'm winning races or running fantastic times isn't really relevant to how incredible I feel when I'm cruising along some random path somewhere and feeling like I'm invincible.
I also had a glorious Valentine's Day. The BF and I cooked dinner from the "Intercourses" cookbook my sister got me, and now I understand why these foods are apparently aphrodisiacs. It was possibly one of the best dinners I've ever had. The coup de grace was the main course - seared sea scallops stuffed with this incredible basil puree and asparagus with some really wonderful spicy, crunchy topping. Mouth-gasm? Yes. And of course I'm lucky to be able to spend the day with my favorite person in the entire world. :)
OK, I think I'm finally done for now.
[Final random comment, I'm doing a dance to "Going North" by Missy Higgins for Optima, and its been in my head pretty much constantly over the past week, and I realize that it has nothing to do with running but the lyrics kind of make me think of when you're all along in some sort of beautiful, natural place (like the Arb) running and feeling like everything is perfect and right in the world.]
up where the hunted hide unseen
under the arms of eyeless trees
up where the answers fall like leaves
where your love is all i need
i'm going north
First off, the never-ending Boston debacle. It's really complicated to explain the whole situation but basically its a financial thing and therefore pretty much completely out of my control. Which is the most frustrating thing about it - I am absolutely powerless to do anything about this situation. There's really no point in fighting with my mom about it - there's nothing to fight about, its just facts, there in black and white - she can't give me money that she doesn't have. Simple as that. But at the same time, I just can't accept the fact that I can't do this thing that I want SO badly because of the amount it would cost to move there. And I just can't spend the next 3 years of my life constantly regretting and wishing and wondering how much different and better my life would be if I had just been able to do that one thing. I'm sending in my $200 deposit tomorrow; my spot is saved. And I'm just hoping and praying that I'll actually get to take it. If it were at all reasonable to defer and take a year off, I would do it, but that would mean having to start paying back my undergrad loans, which would basically defeat the purpose of taking a year off to work - I wouldn't be saving anything. So yeah. Things aren't good on that front. I'm pretty much trying to exist with it in the back of my mind and not think about it unless I have to, because it just puts me in a bad mood and makes me feel like curling up in a ball and crying to think that I might not be able to go there.
But onto more exciting things - like running! So I never wrote a Stevens Point race report because I was lazy, but it was a pretty fun and interesting meet. I ended up having to run the 3K first because I was in the slow heat and they were counting on the meet to take forever, so they ran that and the slow heat of the men's 5K at the beginning. My legs felt kind of crappy on my warmup, but I was still excited - I think that's the thing that has made me decide to go LD all the way...because everytime I've raced the mile this season, I've absolutely DREADED it...but the 3K makes me all pumped even though I know its going to suck. I was seeded first in my heat which was really strange and wrong on so many levels...there were a ton of no time girls who I was pretty sure would be faster than me, but I ended up getting out in first and leading for a couple laps - WEIRD FEELING. Obviously I got passed after a bit, but my first lap was 44 and the next 2 were both 46. Then obviously I started to slow down - I was aiming for 48s, but by the mile I was right about where I wanted to be - 6:22. Unfortunately I couldn't hold the pace and I slowed down to 51s for pretty much the entire second half of the race....I was following behind this stupid UMD girl who was running on the inside of the track for like the entire thing which was really bothering me. I think when I race my mind just grabs onto weird things that annoy me - something stupid a girl near me is doing, a piece of paper on the track, the fact that my feet are hot - and just throws them around in a sad attempt to focus on something other than the fact that I'm killing myself slowly via running. But anyway, I don't know where I pulled it out of, but for my kick I rocked out a 40. I passed like 3 people in the last lap, and seriously, I really don't know where it came from...the jets just turned on I guess. I ended up running a 12:12...20 seconds faster than last week and basically 11 seconds faster per mile...yeah, that's a lot. Overall I was really pleased with my race, and I feel like with some more concentrated training I could definitely run under 12...because let's face it, starting out my time with 11 would just look much prettier. :)
Then I ran the mile. Which was a really unfortunate, bad decision. I pretty much knew from the moment I started warming up that things were not going to go well - I'd run an all out 3K, and even though it had been a couple hours I'm obviously not in the kind of shape where I can be doubling like that. And what a disaster it was. I was planning on trying to go out more conservatively (as in, 43 not 40)...well, I went out in 43, and I already felt like I was dying. I don't think I have ever wanted to drop out of a race more than I did from that one. I felt god-awful, everyone was passing me, and I knew that my time was going to completely suck. But there was one thing that kept me from giving up altogether - the Point girl who tripped me at Carthage was in the race. And she passed me. And there was no way in hell I was letting her beat me. Finally, with 2 laps to go I got ahead of her and stayed there, and despite the fact that my kick was a pathetic 43, I managed to pass 2 more people in the last lap. I ended up running a 6:10, and was basically left with an overwhelming feeling of never wanting to run the mile again.
So I didn't race this weekend because I wanted to take the weekend off for the sake of my legs, and of course to spend Valentine's Day with the BF. But of course being me and never being able to turn down racing (and wanting to get a workout in that I knew would be a lazy 5 miles otherwise), I ended up racing the UW Running Club Valentine's Day 5K. I pretty much ran it as a tempo run, my first mile was 7:11 and I actually negative splitted, which is kind of funny since I was just trying to hold pace. I passed a lot of people and only got passed once, ended up finishing in 22:08 and got 14th for women, 61st overall. All in all, not a bad performance considering I pretty much decided I wanted to do it like 20 minutes beforehand. And road races are so nice...I love being an a situation where if I don't feel like killing myself, I don't feel obligated to. :)
Today's long run was amazing. Basically any time I get into double digit mileage on a run I'm left feeling so good about myself that I completely forget how much it sucked while I was doing it. I was a bit hungover from the track club shindig the night before, and so the way out was extremely unpleasant...then on the way back, we were running into a killer headwind, but for some reason I started feeling exponentially better and by the time I got home I felt fantastic. My knees are hurting a little now - I really need to get some new shoes - but it was 12 miles of awesome. We ran up State Street around the capitol where they were having a cyclocross race which was quite entertaining to watch, then down around Lake Monona and onto the bike path past Olin Park. It was a really beautiful, sunny day, even though it was cold. The only sad part of the run was that I lost one of my awesome Nike running gloves! I had taken them off because my hands get ridiculously hot sometimes when I run, and at that point we weren't running into the wind, and I put them in my pockets...sometime about half an hour later, I realized one of them had fallen out. :( Luckily it wasn't the one with my house key in the pocket...that would have been really problematic.
I should stop rambling! There's so much other crap I should be doing right now, but I just get so excited about running that I go on and on. Today a girl in my biomechanics lab group was talking about how she did the Valentine's 5K and it was her first race ever, and she asked me how you build up to running 12 miles...and I seriously just get giddy when I talk about that. Running is truly my passion...whether or not I'm winning races or running fantastic times isn't really relevant to how incredible I feel when I'm cruising along some random path somewhere and feeling like I'm invincible.
I also had a glorious Valentine's Day. The BF and I cooked dinner from the "Intercourses" cookbook my sister got me, and now I understand why these foods are apparently aphrodisiacs. It was possibly one of the best dinners I've ever had. The coup de grace was the main course - seared sea scallops stuffed with this incredible basil puree and asparagus with some really wonderful spicy, crunchy topping. Mouth-gasm? Yes. And of course I'm lucky to be able to spend the day with my favorite person in the entire world. :)
OK, I think I'm finally done for now.
[Final random comment, I'm doing a dance to "Going North" by Missy Higgins for Optima, and its been in my head pretty much constantly over the past week, and I realize that it has nothing to do with running but the lyrics kind of make me think of when you're all along in some sort of beautiful, natural place (like the Arb) running and feeling like everything is perfect and right in the world.]
up where the hunted hide unseen
under the arms of eyeless trees
up where the answers fall like leaves
where your love is all i need
i'm going north
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
I strolled alone through a fallout zone
I feel like the last few days have been like watching my dreams crumble. I'm not going into the details right now, because I feel like if I try to explain myself to one more person today my head is going to explode, but suffice it to say, I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated with running and my legs and the fact that I ran a shit, shit, shit mile time on Saturday (and doubling is no excuse for that kind of shit), and even when I kill myself in the 3K I'm still 20th/27, and I'm never going to be able to go to Boston because I don't have the money, but according to my mother things would be fine if I was paying $10,000 more a year for tuition in Chicago, because I could drive there for orientation so it would all be good.
I want more than anything else to be financially independent. All I want is to have the money to just DO THIS. I've spent my entire life in my comfort zone...in life, in running, in everything. I'm sick of it. I refuse to sit and wonder what would have happened if I had taken that one chance.
My head just feels like its going to explode right now. I have no idea what I'm doing, I don't know what I should be doing, and I feel like I have no one to help me. My dad says he supports me, which is great and all, except that's really not much use when all my problems are financial and there's nothing he can do about that. I don't think I've ever felt this frustrated, angry, upset...I don't even know. I wish I did. I need to, and I don't have a clue, and I'm on my own.
I want more than anything else to be financially independent. All I want is to have the money to just DO THIS. I've spent my entire life in my comfort zone...in life, in running, in everything. I'm sick of it. I refuse to sit and wonder what would have happened if I had taken that one chance.
My head just feels like its going to explode right now. I have no idea what I'm doing, I don't know what I should be doing, and I feel like I have no one to help me. My dad says he supports me, which is great and all, except that's really not much use when all my problems are financial and there's nothing he can do about that. I don't think I've ever felt this frustrated, angry, upset...I don't even know. I wish I did. I need to, and I don't have a clue, and I'm on my own.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Again to Carthage
I've run a race at Carthage College 7 years running. It's the place where I won the only race I have ever won: 55 highs and lows at Woodland Conference indoor senior year of high school. It's also the place where I came out of nowhere to place 2nd in 55 lows as a sophomore and fell in finals as a junior. Basically, there are a lot of memories for me in the Tarble Athletic Center, and when it dawned on me that this could be my last time racing there (at least for awhile), it made me a little sad. That said...I think this meet left a lasting impression...it seriously had to be one of the most ridiculous days/races ever.
First of all, I accidentally got drunk on Friday night. I promise, I did NOT plan on this. I was thinking I was being all good, drinking a couple beers slowly and drinking water constantly, etc. Well, as it turns out, I had 2 full pints of 10% ABV beer (Ale Asylum Mercy and Bell's Hopslam, which I must say, was absolutely spectacular). Then of course, Andrew and I stayed up talking for like an hour, and in the end I got about 4 or 5 hours of sleep....obviously, a GREAT start to a double race day. Before we even left Madison, we saw a hitchhiker and a man dressed up as the statue of liberty standing on the median of East Wash...clearly, this day was going to be ridiculous.
We arrived in Kenosha around 10, with the meet scheduled to start at 11. I was feeling exhausted and kind of sketchy at that point, but once we started warming up for the mile I started feeling better. We warmed up on this amazing path next to Lake Michigan, and the weather was fantastic - around 35 and sunny. It was so pretty I had to take a picture:
So we got done warming up outside, and just kind of hung around stretching and doing strides and stuff. 6 out of the 7 girls who went to the meet were running the mile, which was kind of ridiculous. Both of the girls in the first heat ran 5:43...pretty awesome. I was in the second heat with 3 other girls from my team...hoping to finish ahead of at least a couple of them, but sadly that was not the case. Once again, I went out in 40 for the first lap which I immediately regretted - my hamstrings started to cramp up terribly and I just couldn't keep pace with the other WTC girls who were starting to pull ahead. By the 5th lap, I was just trying to hang on and keep the girl in front of me in range. Finally, we got to the last lap, and I tried to drag something out of me for a kick. The clock was at 5:15 when I came around and I knew that I was going to be incredibly angry if I didn't run sub-6...so I started to try to pull something together for the last lap. In the meantime, I had gotten right behind this girl ("girl in the red shorts" and was getting ready to pass her, except this other girl from Benedictine was straddling the lane line and I could not for the life of me get around her. Obviously I could have just gone to the outside, but I didn't really feel like running the curve in lane 3, so I was just sitting behind the two getting increasingly irritated. Finally, we got into the final straight and I was so done with this situation - I squeezed in the gap between the two and passed the obnoxious tall girl first, and pulled even with the other girl...who then stopped short of the line and I ended up beating her by a 10th of a second. The thing is, I'm really annoyed that those girls were there...because I found out later that 2 of my teammates finished only a second in front of me...and I feel like if I had been aware that they were there, I would have pushed it harder the last couple of laps. But anyway, I finally ran a sub-6 for the season (5:58) and improved on my season best by 2 seconds again, so I guess I can't complain too much.
So we had some time before the 3K...I watched some other WTCers race the 600, 800, and 1000, then we went to warm up when they started the 200s because there were 20 heats of that or something. I spent way too long trying to figure out what spikes to wear...seriously, I brought every pair of spikes I own to this meet. I didn't want to wear my Asics that I wear for the mile because I figured my shins would hurt, and I didn't have time to clean out my XC spikes, so I ended up wearing a pair of spikeless Nike Zoom Janas that I stole from my sister's closet...I think she wore them once for indoor pole vault or something. They're identical to my XC spikes except spikeless, and they're silver and powder blue and awesome! They didn't feel too good with socks, but I took my socks off and they fit perfectly! In the meantime, we had also decided to enter a 4 x 400...which I was going to be in. Kickass? I think so.
Brittany and I were doing some striders and stuff waiting for the 200s to be done...I went to get some water when all of a sudden Taylor was yelling at me "they're starting!" So yeah....I almost missed my race. I had to sprint across the infield and arrived at the starting line with my heart pounding and completely breathless...an ideal way to start an almost 2 mile race. But wait, it gets better. The gun went off, and I went through the first lap in about 41 seconds. Everyone was in a pack, but people started to peel off, and by halfway through the second lap I was running with Claire just in front of me, a Stevens Point girl on my ass, and Brittany just behind her. And then, just before the second curve, it happened.
To be completely honest, I couldn't tell you exactly what occurred, but all I know is all of a sudden I felt something catch my back leg, and then I was down. On my knee that was already causing me problems. My guess is that SP girl was riding way too close and caught my leg. It was one of those moments that it takes you a second to figure out what's actually going on, but as soon as I did I was up and sprinting around the curve. I HAD to pass that girl. I got next to her on the curve, and for the first, and probably last time in my life, I threw an elbow. Unnecessary? Maybe. It's not like I hit her, I just made a little contact. I was pissed, and there was nothing else I could think of to do but that. The hilarious thing is some guys who were sitting on the side of the track definitely saw it, and so I heard "oooooh" coming from the sidelines as I passed her and went on my merry way...haha.
Well obviously this put me at a huge disadvantage - Claire was now a solid 15 meters ahead of me, I'd wasted a bunch of energy sprinting around the girl, and my rhythm was totally gone. I was trying to keep track of my splits but I kept forgetting to hit my watch so that was honestly no help whatsoever haha. I was trying to get myself back into some kind of groove. 15 laps is A LONG TIME. I kept pretending I was on the track at the shell...just count to 7 twice, and then kick for the last lap. The last half mile was basically torture - I had nothing left and it was all I could take just to stay on something that resembled my pace. Somewhere around my 2nd last lap, I LAPPED the girl who tripped me (hah), though this does irritate me because there's no reason she should have been riding my ass if I was going to beat her by a MINUTE. I had almost no kick, but I finally finished in 12:32. I wasn't that pleased, since I was really hoping to beat my seed, but I'm also pretty sure that between the sprinting across the gym and the getting tripped and falling, that's at least 15-20 seconds I could take off my time pretty easily. I'm not going to lie - I really, really liked the race. Something about the longer but slightly slower pace seems to be working better for me than the kamikaze death sprint of the mile...so I definitely think I'll be running it again. But for the first race in an event - holy crap, it doesn't get much more ridiculous than that.
But let's not forget that I still had to run the 4 x4! And seriously, I love that race. Always have, always will. I think the think I love about it is that I never really care if my team does well, or even if I run that well, its just the adrenaline rush of sprinting all out and it being at the end of the meet with everyone watching. And to make things even more ridiculous...I ran ANCHOR. Hahahaha...that's just silly. I smiled through my whole leg haha...even stuck out my tongue at Jade for a picture. It was pretty fantastic. Our all-distance crew did our best :)
We finally left at around 5 but the fun was just beginning...it was really windy so apparently all this snow had blown from the surrounding fields to build up to like 4-5 inches on the highway...and apparently so many cars had gone into ditches that the state patrol closed the road! Sooo we had to take a half hour detour through Kenosha to find our way back to the freeway...then I somehow got off of 94 but luckily it didn't end up being a problem...and THEN I got pulled over because one of my headlights was out. Seriously. And the cop thought I was in high school...sad! By the time I finally made it home I basically just wanted to lay..my legs were cramped up so badly since we didn't cool down after the 4 x 4, and my shins and knee were killing me. But hey! It was an amazing meet. I love Carthage, and like I said, I'll never forget that track...and it's sort of fitting that I would fall there :P. I mean, I was used to falling in hurdle races, but distance? That's just crazy.
And yet, even though my races weren't great, even though I fell, if there's one thing I'll miss when/if I move to Boston, it will be days like this.
First of all, I accidentally got drunk on Friday night. I promise, I did NOT plan on this. I was thinking I was being all good, drinking a couple beers slowly and drinking water constantly, etc. Well, as it turns out, I had 2 full pints of 10% ABV beer (Ale Asylum Mercy and Bell's Hopslam, which I must say, was absolutely spectacular). Then of course, Andrew and I stayed up talking for like an hour, and in the end I got about 4 or 5 hours of sleep....obviously, a GREAT start to a double race day. Before we even left Madison, we saw a hitchhiker and a man dressed up as the statue of liberty standing on the median of East Wash...clearly, this day was going to be ridiculous.
We arrived in Kenosha around 10, with the meet scheduled to start at 11. I was feeling exhausted and kind of sketchy at that point, but once we started warming up for the mile I started feeling better. We warmed up on this amazing path next to Lake Michigan, and the weather was fantastic - around 35 and sunny. It was so pretty I had to take a picture:
So we got done warming up outside, and just kind of hung around stretching and doing strides and stuff. 6 out of the 7 girls who went to the meet were running the mile, which was kind of ridiculous. Both of the girls in the first heat ran 5:43...pretty awesome. I was in the second heat with 3 other girls from my team...hoping to finish ahead of at least a couple of them, but sadly that was not the case. Once again, I went out in 40 for the first lap which I immediately regretted - my hamstrings started to cramp up terribly and I just couldn't keep pace with the other WTC girls who were starting to pull ahead. By the 5th lap, I was just trying to hang on and keep the girl in front of me in range. Finally, we got to the last lap, and I tried to drag something out of me for a kick. The clock was at 5:15 when I came around and I knew that I was going to be incredibly angry if I didn't run sub-6...so I started to try to pull something together for the last lap. In the meantime, I had gotten right behind this girl ("girl in the red shorts" and was getting ready to pass her, except this other girl from Benedictine was straddling the lane line and I could not for the life of me get around her. Obviously I could have just gone to the outside, but I didn't really feel like running the curve in lane 3, so I was just sitting behind the two getting increasingly irritated. Finally, we got into the final straight and I was so done with this situation - I squeezed in the gap between the two and passed the obnoxious tall girl first, and pulled even with the other girl...who then stopped short of the line and I ended up beating her by a 10th of a second. The thing is, I'm really annoyed that those girls were there...because I found out later that 2 of my teammates finished only a second in front of me...and I feel like if I had been aware that they were there, I would have pushed it harder the last couple of laps. But anyway, I finally ran a sub-6 for the season (5:58) and improved on my season best by 2 seconds again, so I guess I can't complain too much.So we had some time before the 3K...I watched some other WTCers race the 600, 800, and 1000, then we went to warm up when they started the 200s because there were 20 heats of that or something. I spent way too long trying to figure out what spikes to wear...seriously, I brought every pair of spikes I own to this meet. I didn't want to wear my Asics that I wear for the mile because I figured my shins would hurt, and I didn't have time to clean out my XC spikes, so I ended up wearing a pair of spikeless Nike Zoom Janas that I stole from my sister's closet...I think she wore them once for indoor pole vault or something. They're identical to my XC spikes except spikeless, and they're silver and powder blue and awesome! They didn't feel too good with socks, but I took my socks off and they fit perfectly! In the meantime, we had also decided to enter a 4 x 400...which I was going to be in. Kickass? I think so.
Brittany and I were doing some striders and stuff waiting for the 200s to be done...I went to get some water when all of a sudden Taylor was yelling at me "they're starting!" So yeah....I almost missed my race. I had to sprint across the infield and arrived at the starting line with my heart pounding and completely breathless...an ideal way to start an almost 2 mile race. But wait, it gets better. The gun went off, and I went through the first lap in about 41 seconds. Everyone was in a pack, but people started to peel off, and by halfway through the second lap I was running with Claire just in front of me, a Stevens Point girl on my ass, and Brittany just behind her. And then, just before the second curve, it happened.
To be completely honest, I couldn't tell you exactly what occurred, but all I know is all of a sudden I felt something catch my back leg, and then I was down. On my knee that was already causing me problems. My guess is that SP girl was riding way too close and caught my leg. It was one of those moments that it takes you a second to figure out what's actually going on, but as soon as I did I was up and sprinting around the curve. I HAD to pass that girl. I got next to her on the curve, and for the first, and probably last time in my life, I threw an elbow. Unnecessary? Maybe. It's not like I hit her, I just made a little contact. I was pissed, and there was nothing else I could think of to do but that. The hilarious thing is some guys who were sitting on the side of the track definitely saw it, and so I heard "oooooh" coming from the sidelines as I passed her and went on my merry way...haha.
Well obviously this put me at a huge disadvantage - Claire was now a solid 15 meters ahead of me, I'd wasted a bunch of energy sprinting around the girl, and my rhythm was totally gone. I was trying to keep track of my splits but I kept forgetting to hit my watch so that was honestly no help whatsoever haha. I was trying to get myself back into some kind of groove. 15 laps is A LONG TIME. I kept pretending I was on the track at the shell...just count to 7 twice, and then kick for the last lap. The last half mile was basically torture - I had nothing left and it was all I could take just to stay on something that resembled my pace. Somewhere around my 2nd last lap, I LAPPED the girl who tripped me (hah), though this does irritate me because there's no reason she should have been riding my ass if I was going to beat her by a MINUTE. I had almost no kick, but I finally finished in 12:32. I wasn't that pleased, since I was really hoping to beat my seed, but I'm also pretty sure that between the sprinting across the gym and the getting tripped and falling, that's at least 15-20 seconds I could take off my time pretty easily. I'm not going to lie - I really, really liked the race. Something about the longer but slightly slower pace seems to be working better for me than the kamikaze death sprint of the mile...so I definitely think I'll be running it again. But for the first race in an event - holy crap, it doesn't get much more ridiculous than that.
But let's not forget that I still had to run the 4 x4! And seriously, I love that race. Always have, always will. I think the think I love about it is that I never really care if my team does well, or even if I run that well, its just the adrenaline rush of sprinting all out and it being at the end of the meet with everyone watching. And to make things even more ridiculous...I ran ANCHOR. Hahahaha...that's just silly. I smiled through my whole leg haha...even stuck out my tongue at Jade for a picture. It was pretty fantastic. Our all-distance crew did our best :)
We finally left at around 5 but the fun was just beginning...it was really windy so apparently all this snow had blown from the surrounding fields to build up to like 4-5 inches on the highway...and apparently so many cars had gone into ditches that the state patrol closed the road! Sooo we had to take a half hour detour through Kenosha to find our way back to the freeway...then I somehow got off of 94 but luckily it didn't end up being a problem...and THEN I got pulled over because one of my headlights was out. Seriously. And the cop thought I was in high school...sad! By the time I finally made it home I basically just wanted to lay..my legs were cramped up so badly since we didn't cool down after the 4 x 4, and my shins and knee were killing me. But hey! It was an amazing meet. I love Carthage, and like I said, I'll never forget that track...and it's sort of fitting that I would fall there :P. I mean, I was used to falling in hurdle races, but distance? That's just crazy.
And yet, even though my races weren't great, even though I fell, if there's one thing I'll miss when/if I move to Boston, it will be days like this.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
"I've made a terrible mistake..."
A la Arrested Development, I may have indeed made a terrible mistake. I'm officially signed up for the mile on Saturday...oh yeah, and I'm also signed up for the 3K.
Oh my god.
The thought struck me randomly when I was walking home from class the other day - hmm, maybe I should run the 3K, it would be good training for steeplechase, and since I'm not really in shape to run fast, I don't want to run the 800 - but I still wasn't exactly ready to jump in and sign up for it until Sunday night, when one of my roommates decided that he NEEDED the BF and I to play beer pong with him. 1 game turned into 4, and suddenly I was at my computer sealing my fate and signing up for the 3K.
Why do I do this to myself? I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen with this...I seeded myself at 12:30 which I think is like 6:40 pace...that really doesn't sound too bad, but seriously, who the hell knows. 15 laps on an indoor track? AFTER running a mile? What the hell was I thinking? Oy. So, needless to say, its going to be very interesting. At least Brittany is running it too, so we can suffer together. There are quite a few really random teams racing at this meet, so hopefully that means there will be at least a few people slower than me? I have no idea. So that's the deal for this weekend. Running the 3K doesn't mean I'm going to hold back in the mile, since I'm probably going to be pretty cranky if I don't run sub 6 this weekend.
So yeah, I'm not especially happy with my race last weekend. It was OK I guess, but I feel like I could have done quite a bit better. Sunday was an 11 mile long run in 1 degree weather...we definitely all had ice beards at one point...but seriously, it was awesome. I actually really enjoy running in winter...I mean, it sucks getting out and the first 5 minutes or so are hell...but the fact that you see hardly anyone else the entire time you're out there, and everything is just so clear and cold...I don't know what it is, but something about it I just love. I mean, would I rather run in perfect fall weather? Obviously. But please, give me a crisp winter day over a humid summer one anytime.
Not much going on on the workout front. 2 mile tempo @ 7:10 with some 100 and 200 meter sprints on Monday, and a 30 minute tempo @ 7:25 (4.05 miles) today. The Shell was so ridiculous today...I spent half my time weaving around the 10 minute milers in lane 6 and dodging flailing arms and idiots standing in front of the weight machines, contemplating their next move. I'm all for people working out, but seriously, sometimes when I'm trying to do something and everyone is getting in my way, it gets really irritating.
Anyway, back to my 3rd hour of Top Chef of the evening, and possibly some biomechanics. It's Madison Restaurant Week, so I'm heading to Dayton Street Grille with the BF tomorrow night for what should be a fantastic 3 course meal of delights...for only $25! Now that's what I call a quality way for him to pay me for the cable bill. :)
Oh my god.
The thought struck me randomly when I was walking home from class the other day - hmm, maybe I should run the 3K, it would be good training for steeplechase, and since I'm not really in shape to run fast, I don't want to run the 800 - but I still wasn't exactly ready to jump in and sign up for it until Sunday night, when one of my roommates decided that he NEEDED the BF and I to play beer pong with him. 1 game turned into 4, and suddenly I was at my computer sealing my fate and signing up for the 3K.
Why do I do this to myself? I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen with this...I seeded myself at 12:30 which I think is like 6:40 pace...that really doesn't sound too bad, but seriously, who the hell knows. 15 laps on an indoor track? AFTER running a mile? What the hell was I thinking? Oy. So, needless to say, its going to be very interesting. At least Brittany is running it too, so we can suffer together. There are quite a few really random teams racing at this meet, so hopefully that means there will be at least a few people slower than me? I have no idea. So that's the deal for this weekend. Running the 3K doesn't mean I'm going to hold back in the mile, since I'm probably going to be pretty cranky if I don't run sub 6 this weekend.
So yeah, I'm not especially happy with my race last weekend. It was OK I guess, but I feel like I could have done quite a bit better. Sunday was an 11 mile long run in 1 degree weather...we definitely all had ice beards at one point...but seriously, it was awesome. I actually really enjoy running in winter...I mean, it sucks getting out and the first 5 minutes or so are hell...but the fact that you see hardly anyone else the entire time you're out there, and everything is just so clear and cold...I don't know what it is, but something about it I just love. I mean, would I rather run in perfect fall weather? Obviously. But please, give me a crisp winter day over a humid summer one anytime.
Not much going on on the workout front. 2 mile tempo @ 7:10 with some 100 and 200 meter sprints on Monday, and a 30 minute tempo @ 7:25 (4.05 miles) today. The Shell was so ridiculous today...I spent half my time weaving around the 10 minute milers in lane 6 and dodging flailing arms and idiots standing in front of the weight machines, contemplating their next move. I'm all for people working out, but seriously, sometimes when I'm trying to do something and everyone is getting in my way, it gets really irritating.
Anyway, back to my 3rd hour of Top Chef of the evening, and possibly some biomechanics. It's Madison Restaurant Week, so I'm heading to Dayton Street Grille with the BF tomorrow night for what should be a fantastic 3 course meal of delights...for only $25! Now that's what I call a quality way for him to pay me for the cable bill. :)
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
ACCEPTED.
So I was having a really shitty day today, and then I got an email that started like this:
"Congratulations on your acceptance to the physical therapy program at Boston University"
Cue me jumping out of my chair and shrieking, and that was before I even got to read the next part:
"As one of our top applicants this year, I would like to notify you of both your acceptance into our program as well as your Sargent Scholar Award."
Yes. An $8000/semester scholarship. ME! One of the best applicants! I honestly can't believe it. I don't even know what to do right now...and somehow I have to go sit through biomechanics at 2:25. I honestly have no clue even what to say right now. All I know is I am OFFICIALLY going to PT school. EEEEEEEE!!!!!
Also, this might mean I'm moving to Boston in 4 months. Um....I'm not going to go there just yet...
"Congratulations on your acceptance to the physical therapy program at Boston University"
Cue me jumping out of my chair and shrieking, and that was before I even got to read the next part:
"As one of our top applicants this year, I would like to notify you of both your acceptance into our program as well as your Sargent Scholar Award."
Yes. An $8000/semester scholarship. ME! One of the best applicants! I honestly can't believe it. I don't even know what to do right now...and somehow I have to go sit through biomechanics at 2:25. I honestly have no clue even what to say right now. All I know is I am OFFICIALLY going to PT school. EEEEEEEE!!!!!
Also, this might mean I'm moving to Boston in 4 months. Um....I'm not going to go there just yet...
Saturday, January 17, 2009
I survived the fast heat
6:02 mile to open the season...I'll take it. There's no way in hell I could have run that at this time last season (in fact, I was too much of a wimp to even race at this time last season), and since I ran a 5:44 by the end of indoor last year...only time will tell what's on the horizon for this season.
Failmile = complete. A more complete race report later, but right now there is a Lakefront Brewery and Smuttynose Brewery variety pack and 2 cases of cheap beer ready to be consumed by my roommates and I. Win.
Failmile = complete. A more complete race report later, but right now there is a Lakefront Brewery and Smuttynose Brewery variety pack and 2 cases of cheap beer ready to be consumed by my roommates and I. Win.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
iFartlek
I knew I needed to do a track workout yesterday but I didn't feel like doing intervals, so I decided I would do a fartlek type thing instead. It was actually quite fun - I put on my ipod and the first song that came up I ran hard, next song easy, etc. The catch was, I didn't let myself skip any songs, so if I ended up having to run a 6 minute hard/1:30 easy interval...well, that's the way it goes. It was actually a really good workout - it ended up being about even hard/easy and I was running at around 6:45 pace on the hard intervals, so it was actually kind of sweet. It also made running in the Shell a little less monotonous...it's kind of nice changing pace every 3-5 minutes!
So other than that, I'm signed up to race the mile on Saturday. Yeaaaah. I cannot even ballpark what time I think I'll run. I keep thinking I'm so out of shape, blah blah blah....but at the same time, I've done a TON more this break than I did last year when I was having all my IT band shit, and I still ran a 5:50 mile at Carthage...so who knows? Not to mention workouts can't always predict what I'll pull out when the adrenaline's flowing and whatnot. Whatever, I'm nervous. But I guess we'll just have to see! Also it's going to be really awesome having to basically finish my race, run to my car, and go straight to work...woo hoo! Speaking off work, that's where I'm off to now...so exciting.
So other than that, I'm signed up to race the mile on Saturday. Yeaaaah. I cannot even ballpark what time I think I'll run. I keep thinking I'm so out of shape, blah blah blah....but at the same time, I've done a TON more this break than I did last year when I was having all my IT band shit, and I still ran a 5:50 mile at Carthage...so who knows? Not to mention workouts can't always predict what I'll pull out when the adrenaline's flowing and whatnot. Whatever, I'm nervous. But I guess we'll just have to see! Also it's going to be really awesome having to basically finish my race, run to my car, and go straight to work...woo hoo! Speaking off work, that's where I'm off to now...so exciting.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Full speed ahead...
With my first track race looming less than 2 weeks away, I'm finally forcing myself to get motivated and start doing some real workouts. I'm not saying that I haven't done anything the past month, because I've had a few really good tempo runs and a couple of races, but speedwork? Yeah, that hasn't been happening. Zero motivation + feeling like crap when I try to do anything under 7:00 pace = no speedwork. I met up with Jade on Sunday to try to do a track workout, and wow, we failboated pretty extremely. We were planning on doing 800s, even like 2 of them, at under 6:00 mile pace. What ended up happened: stopping after 400 of the first 800, deciding 800s were a terrible idea, doing one more 400 and then taking it down to 200s for the last 2. FAIL. How the hell am I going to be in shape to race a mile when I keep screwing around like this? So today I threw myself out the door to do hill repeats on Copeland Street - my personal favorite because it's not a death hill like Topping, but it's no wimp either, and its a little over 2 miles from my house which gives me the perfect warmup/cooldown. It was actually a pretty good workout, though I can definitely tell its been awhile since I've run hills, except for one thing: ICE. Seriously, does no one salt their sidewalks? I almost wiped out like 6 different times, and there were a few spots where I practically had to skate to stay standing. Winter in Wisconsin....its....awesome, except not at all...
I keep looking at my workouts from like sophomore year and how I was rocking out all these workouts and stuff...thing is, I KNOW I'm a better runner now than I was then...but I think it's too late for me to go back to the 800...boo. I don't even know if I really want to run the mile but at this point it seems like the only thing to do...I think I'm too slow for the 800, I can't compete with the people who run the 3K, and I'd rather kill myself slowly than run a 25 lap race on an indoor track. I saw someone doing starts while doing abs at the shell today and it made me miss hurdling...I mean, distance is awesome but the lazy part of me misses having practices that didn't really hurt quite so much. I guess last year I didn't race at the first meet because my IT problems had pretty much screwed me out of running all break, so I MUST be in better shape than I was then...I just feel terribly underprepared. I really want to run a time trial this weekend or something, just to prove to myself that I can run even like a 6:10 mile...that will satisfy me enough to want to race. I just need to get back in season, because I know when I do my competitiveness will emerge again and I'll do anything to PR.
Speaking of PRs, a couple rough goals for 2009. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing with my life after May, so many of these kind of depend on where I end up, but running-wise, I always like having things to work towards...
-PR in the 5K and/or 6K (if I'm still in Madison/racing XC) - this past XC season was kind of disappointing, and I KNOW I can get below 20:45 in the 5K...even 20:30 (my goal for this season) would work
-run a marathon
This isn't happening if I'm still in Madison and still want/have time to do XC, but if I'm anywhere else and don't have the option of competing with a team, I definitely think it's high time I did a marathon.
-Run at least 2 half marathons
I don't think this one will be too hard. I'm already planning on doing the Madison half in May, so that just leaves one more to schedule in the fall wherever I happen to be...
-As far as track season, my current (and pretty randomly decided) goals are:
5:30 mile
sub-12 steeplechase
...and god only knows what other events I'll end up running...knowing me, I'll be throwing the javelin or going back to triple jump before we know it...
-Train smart, and injury free
My hip problems during XC sucked, and to be honest, I don't know how I made it through the end of the season. That one damn workout in the rain almost ruined everything. Basically, I want to make sure I'm stretching and not being entirely ridiculous with the mileage...though I think something in the 40s is what I plan to shoot for for the majority of the year...just because I'm a mileage whore
-And finally...
WIN MY FREAKING AGE GROUP!
Which might mean running a few more road races in '09, but that's OK. I only did 2 in '08, and that's definitely not enough t-shirts and samples for a whole year ;)
Not much more to say about that. Break is awesome, I'm loving being lazy and not having to work an obscene amount of hours. I've watched almost an entire season of House since 2009 began (season 1, thank youuu ninjavideo.net!) with the BF, and since I got season 2 for Christmas, that's probably not going to be stopping anytime soon...ohh goodness. So addicting.
Well, I might be sore after actually doing a workout today, so time to go use my new favorite running tool...THE STICK! I heart it.
[all glory comes from daring to begin]
ancient proverb
I keep looking at my workouts from like sophomore year and how I was rocking out all these workouts and stuff...thing is, I KNOW I'm a better runner now than I was then...but I think it's too late for me to go back to the 800...boo. I don't even know if I really want to run the mile but at this point it seems like the only thing to do...I think I'm too slow for the 800, I can't compete with the people who run the 3K, and I'd rather kill myself slowly than run a 25 lap race on an indoor track. I saw someone doing starts while doing abs at the shell today and it made me miss hurdling...I mean, distance is awesome but the lazy part of me misses having practices that didn't really hurt quite so much. I guess last year I didn't race at the first meet because my IT problems had pretty much screwed me out of running all break, so I MUST be in better shape than I was then...I just feel terribly underprepared. I really want to run a time trial this weekend or something, just to prove to myself that I can run even like a 6:10 mile...that will satisfy me enough to want to race. I just need to get back in season, because I know when I do my competitiveness will emerge again and I'll do anything to PR.
Speaking of PRs, a couple rough goals for 2009. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing with my life after May, so many of these kind of depend on where I end up, but running-wise, I always like having things to work towards...
-PR in the 5K and/or 6K (if I'm still in Madison/racing XC) - this past XC season was kind of disappointing, and I KNOW I can get below 20:45 in the 5K...even 20:30 (my goal for this season) would work
-run a marathon
This isn't happening if I'm still in Madison and still want/have time to do XC, but if I'm anywhere else and don't have the option of competing with a team, I definitely think it's high time I did a marathon.
-Run at least 2 half marathons
I don't think this one will be too hard. I'm already planning on doing the Madison half in May, so that just leaves one more to schedule in the fall wherever I happen to be...
-As far as track season, my current (and pretty randomly decided) goals are:
5:30 mile
sub-12 steeplechase
...and god only knows what other events I'll end up running...knowing me, I'll be throwing the javelin or going back to triple jump before we know it...
-Train smart, and injury free
My hip problems during XC sucked, and to be honest, I don't know how I made it through the end of the season. That one damn workout in the rain almost ruined everything. Basically, I want to make sure I'm stretching and not being entirely ridiculous with the mileage...though I think something in the 40s is what I plan to shoot for for the majority of the year...just because I'm a mileage whore
-And finally...
WIN MY FREAKING AGE GROUP!
Which might mean running a few more road races in '09, but that's OK. I only did 2 in '08, and that's definitely not enough t-shirts and samples for a whole year ;)
Not much more to say about that. Break is awesome, I'm loving being lazy and not having to work an obscene amount of hours. I've watched almost an entire season of House since 2009 began (season 1, thank youuu ninjavideo.net!) with the BF, and since I got season 2 for Christmas, that's probably not going to be stopping anytime soon...ohh goodness. So addicting.
Well, I might be sore after actually doing a workout today, so time to go use my new favorite running tool...THE STICK! I heart it.
[all glory comes from daring to begin]
ancient proverb
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Happy 2009!
I am in quite a bit of pain at the moment due to the ridiculous amounts of Smithwick's, champagne, and an irish car bomb consumed last night. It was a fantastic new year's, I'd say one of the better ones I've had, and staying in Milwaukee turned out to be a great idea. The drive back to Madison today was horrendous, and I am still hungover. Hooray, national hangover day!
So obviously I haven't run quite as much as I should have in the past week or so, but I'll be stepping it up now that I'm back in Madison. However, the runs I have done have been pretty awesome - all at pretty fast paces. I also busted out the new XC skis when I was in Elkhart Lake with the BF and that was pretty ridiculous/fantastic. We skiied 6.5 miles on this huge loop so when we got tired at 3 miles we couldn't stop. I fall a lot, and we go pretty slow, but its a lot of fun! And after 3 hours of skiing, I definitely did not feel like I needed to go running! I was sorrre.
I also did a road race on New Year's Eve, the RACC Run Into The New Year. It was pretty last minute, and I mainly signed up because you got a long sleeved t-shirt and a bottle of champagne (Andre...keeping it classy). It actually turned out to be an OK run though...I went out in 6:30 because apparently I enjoy being ridiculous. Obviously I wasn't going to maintain that pace...I'm not really in racing shape at all right now so that was just absurd. I ended up finishing in 21:58 which actually was quite a bit better than I was expecting! However a couple of things were just ridiculous: first of all, I got beat by a 10 year old girl who ran like a 21:30...she was a little powerhouse! And second of all, its pretty much my goal in life to win my age group in a road race - I realized that I've literally gotten 2nd or 3rd in virtually every race I've ever done, but the only road race where I've won my AG was the first 5K I ever did, which I ran in like 29 minutes or something ridiculous like that. They gave out medals for the top 10 in each AG at this race, and it was 4 year intervals, so I was basically guaranteed a medal, and I ended up getting second so my name was announced at the awards ceremony and that was kind of cool. BUT...the girl who got first beat me BY LESS THAN A SECOND! Yeah. 21:57.xx. Absolutely ridiculous. All I had to do was kick 2 seconds earlier...but what are you going to do. Anyway, it was fun and I got to try out all my fancy new cold weather running gear I got for Christmas since it was like 4 degrees out.
Well, happy 2009! I don't really do new year's resolutions but I hope this year will be happy, healthy, and full of PRs! =)
So obviously I haven't run quite as much as I should have in the past week or so, but I'll be stepping it up now that I'm back in Madison. However, the runs I have done have been pretty awesome - all at pretty fast paces. I also busted out the new XC skis when I was in Elkhart Lake with the BF and that was pretty ridiculous/fantastic. We skiied 6.5 miles on this huge loop so when we got tired at 3 miles we couldn't stop. I fall a lot, and we go pretty slow, but its a lot of fun! And after 3 hours of skiing, I definitely did not feel like I needed to go running! I was sorrre.
I also did a road race on New Year's Eve, the RACC Run Into The New Year. It was pretty last minute, and I mainly signed up because you got a long sleeved t-shirt and a bottle of champagne (Andre...keeping it classy). It actually turned out to be an OK run though...I went out in 6:30 because apparently I enjoy being ridiculous. Obviously I wasn't going to maintain that pace...I'm not really in racing shape at all right now so that was just absurd. I ended up finishing in 21:58 which actually was quite a bit better than I was expecting! However a couple of things were just ridiculous: first of all, I got beat by a 10 year old girl who ran like a 21:30...she was a little powerhouse! And second of all, its pretty much my goal in life to win my age group in a road race - I realized that I've literally gotten 2nd or 3rd in virtually every race I've ever done, but the only road race where I've won my AG was the first 5K I ever did, which I ran in like 29 minutes or something ridiculous like that. They gave out medals for the top 10 in each AG at this race, and it was 4 year intervals, so I was basically guaranteed a medal, and I ended up getting second so my name was announced at the awards ceremony and that was kind of cool. BUT...the girl who got first beat me BY LESS THAN A SECOND! Yeah. 21:57.xx. Absolutely ridiculous. All I had to do was kick 2 seconds earlier...but what are you going to do. Anyway, it was fun and I got to try out all my fancy new cold weather running gear I got for Christmas since it was like 4 degrees out.
Well, happy 2009! I don't really do new year's resolutions but I hope this year will be happy, healthy, and full of PRs! =)
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
In the immortal words of NSYNC: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays
My home internet connection is basically schizophrenic (ie, it tells me it is connected and not connected on the same page), but I got online just long enough today to discover that apparently one of my letters of reference didn't make it to the University of Puget Sound. ONE. I submitted 4 different references to PTCAS, and 4 references are marked "completed" on the page, not to mention this application only calls for three. So someone please explain to me how in the hell one of these letters managed to not make it? THEY'RE ONLINE! How hard is it to email a freaking letter? Seriously? I sent a rather unfriendly email to the PTCAS help department who I know will probably not get back to me until sometime in 2009, by which time I may or may not have located the PTCAS office and burned it down. In all seriousness, this could screw up my chances of getting into 3 out of the 6 schools I'm applying to, and I refuse to let that happen because some moron at a clearing house forgot where the enter key was. AGGGGH.
Rant over. I went on a glorious run at the Pettit today, slightly over 4 mile tempo at 7:12 pace. Yesssss! I love running at the Pettit. The whole 450 m track thing is awesome because it tricks you into thinking you're running less than you are, it's absolutely the perfect temperature, 50-55 degrees, and the fact that it's an Olympic training center for speed skating generally makes me feel badass when I work out there. Good workouts = happiness, and since my workouts over break are always questionable, its good to make the ones I do get in count.
So tomorrow is Christmas Eve, probably one of my favorite days of the year. Time to bake cookies, eat a lot, and enjoy hanging out with my family. Here's to peace, happiness, and love...and lots of fast running. :) Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Rant over. I went on a glorious run at the Pettit today, slightly over 4 mile tempo at 7:12 pace. Yesssss! I love running at the Pettit. The whole 450 m track thing is awesome because it tricks you into thinking you're running less than you are, it's absolutely the perfect temperature, 50-55 degrees, and the fact that it's an Olympic training center for speed skating generally makes me feel badass when I work out there. Good workouts = happiness, and since my workouts over break are always questionable, its good to make the ones I do get in count.
So tomorrow is Christmas Eve, probably one of my favorite days of the year. Time to bake cookies, eat a lot, and enjoy hanging out with my family. Here's to peace, happiness, and love...and lots of fast running. :) Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
7 x 7
7 x 7 laps around the Shell = 7 miles...it also equals me being bored out of my MIND. Indoor running and me don't get along so well, but then again neither do "-9 feels like - 30 degree" weather and me, so I was stuck inside after work. The laps actually passed pretty quickly - my strategy is pretty much to count to 7 and then start over again, not thinking about anything except the current lap/mile. I ended up running 7 miles instead of my planned 5, so I guess it worked out...not to mention though I was running pretty slow (7:56 pace) I was so ridiculously consistent and didn't stop or slow down at any point...I guess monotony has it's benefits.
I've definitely hit the winter running doldrums. With over a month since my last real race and a month to go before my next one, no team to train with, and the weather outside complete crap, eating and staying in bed are much higher on my to-do list than going for a run. I've been getting better the past couple of weeks, and I had better keep the motivation up over break because once indoor starts I'm going to be regretting being lazy. Either way, I'll probably be ahead of where I was last year after my IT band problem pretty much eliminated any chance of training over break. Hopefully I can get some speed work in in the next few weeks before I actually have to RACE! Although who knows what distance that's even going to be...oh well.
This semester has absolutely flown. I can't believe Christmas is in 4 days...where did that even come from? Ridiculously enough, in a semester where I put in virtually no effort whatsoever, I'm probably going to have my highest GPA of college. It still terrifies me that I'm entering my last semester of undergrad...wasn't it just yesterday that I was partying at the grandma house and going to Ed's at 2 am? A lot has changed since then, running wise and otherwise, and I like to think that the majority of it is for the better. I'm happy, I'm in love, I'm running like I could never have even imagined freshman year, I know what I want to do in life, and overall I'm just really pleased with where I'm going. Yay. It's also good to know that I'm going into a field that's fairly stable even in the midst of this horrible economic situation...though my own finances are in the crapper, at least I know I'll have a job when I finally get out of school...yipee!
And on a completely miscellaneous note, my glorious house has invented a drinking game called "Pointsetta" which resulted in a group trip to the OP to buy 40s, toasts to the freshmen who funded our beer, walking to Brother's in a snowstorm completely wasted at 9 pm, and no one remembering how we got home. A great end to the semester? Yes, I do believe so. Did I run the next day? You better believe it. ;)
I've definitely hit the winter running doldrums. With over a month since my last real race and a month to go before my next one, no team to train with, and the weather outside complete crap, eating and staying in bed are much higher on my to-do list than going for a run. I've been getting better the past couple of weeks, and I had better keep the motivation up over break because once indoor starts I'm going to be regretting being lazy. Either way, I'll probably be ahead of where I was last year after my IT band problem pretty much eliminated any chance of training over break. Hopefully I can get some speed work in in the next few weeks before I actually have to RACE! Although who knows what distance that's even going to be...oh well.
This semester has absolutely flown. I can't believe Christmas is in 4 days...where did that even come from? Ridiculously enough, in a semester where I put in virtually no effort whatsoever, I'm probably going to have my highest GPA of college. It still terrifies me that I'm entering my last semester of undergrad...wasn't it just yesterday that I was partying at the grandma house and going to Ed's at 2 am? A lot has changed since then, running wise and otherwise, and I like to think that the majority of it is for the better. I'm happy, I'm in love, I'm running like I could never have even imagined freshman year, I know what I want to do in life, and overall I'm just really pleased with where I'm going. Yay. It's also good to know that I'm going into a field that's fairly stable even in the midst of this horrible economic situation...though my own finances are in the crapper, at least I know I'll have a job when I finally get out of school...yipee!
And on a completely miscellaneous note, my glorious house has invented a drinking game called "Pointsetta" which resulted in a group trip to the OP to buy 40s, toasts to the freshmen who funded our beer, walking to Brother's in a snowstorm completely wasted at 9 pm, and no one remembering how we got home. A great end to the semester? Yes, I do believe so. Did I run the next day? You better believe it. ;)
Sunday, December 14, 2008
How far will you go? As far as you can.
Awkward triple post today, but I found this on another blog and I just had to put it up. Its apparently from a Nike ad (running shoe brands tend to do such a good job of putting into words what I for some reason can't):
You pretended the snooze button didn’t exist. You dragged your butt out of bed while other slept. While other ate their pancakes. You had a feast of protein, glucose and electrolytes. You double-knotted. You left the porch light on and locked the door behind you. You ran. 5ks, 10ks, 26.2 miles. Some days more, some days less. You rewarded a long run with a short run. And a short run with a long run. Rain tried to slow you. Sun tried to microwave you. Snow made you feel like a warrior. You cramped. You bonked. You paid no mind to comfort. On weekends. On holidays. You made excuses to keep going. Questioned yourself. Played mind games. Put your heart before your knees. Listened to your breathing. Sweat sunscreen into your eyes. Worked on your farmer’s tan. You hit the wall. You went throught it. You decided to be a man about it. You decided to be a woman about it. Finished what you started. Proved what you were made of. Just kept putting mile after mile on your internal odometer. How much farther will you go? As far as you can.
I also really like this one from New Balance...so true:
You pretended the snooze button didn’t exist. You dragged your butt out of bed while other slept. While other ate their pancakes. You had a feast of protein, glucose and electrolytes. You double-knotted. You left the porch light on and locked the door behind you. You ran. 5ks, 10ks, 26.2 miles. Some days more, some days less. You rewarded a long run with a short run. And a short run with a long run. Rain tried to slow you. Sun tried to microwave you. Snow made you feel like a warrior. You cramped. You bonked. You paid no mind to comfort. On weekends. On holidays. You made excuses to keep going. Questioned yourself. Played mind games. Put your heart before your knees. Listened to your breathing. Sweat sunscreen into your eyes. Worked on your farmer’s tan. You hit the wall. You went throught it. You decided to be a man about it. You decided to be a woman about it. Finished what you started. Proved what you were made of. Just kept putting mile after mile on your internal odometer. How much farther will you go? As far as you can.
I also really like this one from New Balance...so true:
"You didn't even look back!": Jingle Bell Run Race Report
Well that certainly didn't go according to plan...it went way, way better.
So I finally dragged myself home from the library at 6 am Saturday morning, fell headfirst into bed, and woke up at 8:45 (45 minutes before I set my alarm, may I add) ready to go...I'm assuming it was something similar to when I was little and would just laugh for hours straight at idiotic things because I was so damn overtired...that was the kind of goofy energy I had. The weather forecast was actually looking pretty good - it was supposed to be 36 or something, so I went with my running tights under my (amazingly badass) orange race shorts, underarmor, and my (free!) Mizuno cold weather top. BF made fun of me because "orange and purple don't match", and just for that I tied an orange ribbon in my hair. Sweet.
So I met up with the other WTCers at 10 and we got our bags and things and went off to warm up. I ran around with Nicole...when she asked me how fast I was going to run this, I said "just like we're going for a run in the Arb.
Oops.
We got to the starting line and apparently there was no starting gun, no announcements, no nothing...suddenly someone said go and everyone started running. We went through the first mile at the leisurely pace of 7:50 and were talking about Christmas shopping and just basically treating it like a normal run. Except for the one small fact that I always forget when I say I'm not going to try in a road race: if I have a number on, there's no WAY I'm not racing. So right after the first mile mark, Nicole dropped behind me a bit and I started passing people...really not putting any particular extra effort in but if I was close behind someone, I'd try and pick up my cadence a bit to just get past them and then fall back in. Apparently I did pick it up though, because my second mile was 7:25. The 3rd mile of this course is my least favorite of all time, including a long, steady hill for probably half a mile up Manitou Way...usually when I run the Arb I run it the opposite was as they race it so I get to run DOWN this hill...its damn tiring to run up. Hence my 7:43 3rd mile. Still, I passed at least 6 or 7 people on the uphill and I was happy with my situation at that point. When we turned the corner into the Arb I looked behind me and saw Nicole was probably 10 seconds back...I figured she'd probably catch up on the hills in the Arb but to be honest...I didn't really feel like worrying about it at that point. I was on pace for a PR, so my race strategy (run lazy) had changed.
As I passed the 3 mile mark, 2 older guys behind me who I had just passed were yelling to eachother "Let's go! 3 mile race now!" I figured they were going to pick it up and if there's one thing I hate, its being passed back, so I focused on an older man and a girl who looked about my age who were probably 10-15 seconds ahead of me. I caught up to them both and passed the guy, then the girl. A few minutes later, she passed me back on an uphill right around the 4 mile mark, which came up a lot faster than I remembered...gotta love those downhills. I finally got ahead of the girl, who I think ended up being the last person I passed. The race spread out a LOT in the last 3 miles...I had my sights set on "guy in red shirt" and got pretty close to him, but he pulled away a lot at the end. I was getting really tired...I'm sure that whole fact that I didn't sleep the night before had nothing to do with that...and I was starting to feel sick, which tends to happen when I race. But now that I knew that girl was behind me, there was no way I was letting up - I was NOT going to let her pass me.
We finally turned out of the Arb and passed the 6 mile mark...I was verrrry excited to be almost done running, and also pretty pumped because I knew a PR was coming my way. I also knew that the girl I had passed earlier was most likely gaining on me, and when I heard some people yelling for her at the finish, I knew there was only one thing to do - KICK!
It was probably the best kick I've had all year, and I beat her by 2 seconds.
Nicole came in about a minute later, and she wasn't too thrilled with me. Which is totally legit, since I was all "oh I'm not going to try, blah blah blah" before the race. And I wasn't PLANNING on trying, but when I found myself in decent position and feeling good, I figured there was no point in not going for it. The weird thing about the race was I never felt awesome, but I never truly felt bad...it was like the quote "it hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse". Overally, I was pretty damn happy with my race and overall time. I got even happier when I got home and found the results online - 8th overall female out of 126, 2nd in my age group out of 49, with the girl right behind me being 3rd...SCORE! I got 39th/266 overall. And that is why I love road races...because in cross country, you can run your best time EVER and get 204th, but in a road race you beat a TON of people. I also like 10Ks at Vilas Park because I know the course sooo well....I've run the Arboretum loop a million times. Weirdly, I also really liked running with the jingle bells they gave us on my shoes, because it seriously made me get into a really good cadence. And I also had the Manheim Steamroller version of White Christmas in my head almost the entire time...very random since its a pretty slow song, and I haven't heard it in awhile...but whatever! So in the end, I'm really glad I did it, even though at 5:30 am it seemed like pretty much the worst idea ever. Not to mention, this made me a lot more motivated to get out and run knowing that I'm not completely out of shape despite being in kind of a slump lately. PRing after an all-nighter...that is just plain ridiculous. WIN.
Jingle Bell Run 10K - Vilas Park, Madison, WI
46:30 (7:29 pace)
Splits: 7:50, 7:25, 7:43, 7:17, 7:22, 7:25
39/266 overall
8/126 women
2/49 AG (19-29)
So I finally dragged myself home from the library at 6 am Saturday morning, fell headfirst into bed, and woke up at 8:45 (45 minutes before I set my alarm, may I add) ready to go...I'm assuming it was something similar to when I was little and would just laugh for hours straight at idiotic things because I was so damn overtired...that was the kind of goofy energy I had. The weather forecast was actually looking pretty good - it was supposed to be 36 or something, so I went with my running tights under my (amazingly badass) orange race shorts, underarmor, and my (free!) Mizuno cold weather top. BF made fun of me because "orange and purple don't match", and just for that I tied an orange ribbon in my hair. Sweet.
So I met up with the other WTCers at 10 and we got our bags and things and went off to warm up. I ran around with Nicole...when she asked me how fast I was going to run this, I said "just like we're going for a run in the Arb.
Oops.
We got to the starting line and apparently there was no starting gun, no announcements, no nothing...suddenly someone said go and everyone started running. We went through the first mile at the leisurely pace of 7:50 and were talking about Christmas shopping and just basically treating it like a normal run. Except for the one small fact that I always forget when I say I'm not going to try in a road race: if I have a number on, there's no WAY I'm not racing. So right after the first mile mark, Nicole dropped behind me a bit and I started passing people...really not putting any particular extra effort in but if I was close behind someone, I'd try and pick up my cadence a bit to just get past them and then fall back in. Apparently I did pick it up though, because my second mile was 7:25. The 3rd mile of this course is my least favorite of all time, including a long, steady hill for probably half a mile up Manitou Way...usually when I run the Arb I run it the opposite was as they race it so I get to run DOWN this hill...its damn tiring to run up. Hence my 7:43 3rd mile. Still, I passed at least 6 or 7 people on the uphill and I was happy with my situation at that point. When we turned the corner into the Arb I looked behind me and saw Nicole was probably 10 seconds back...I figured she'd probably catch up on the hills in the Arb but to be honest...I didn't really feel like worrying about it at that point. I was on pace for a PR, so my race strategy (run lazy) had changed.
As I passed the 3 mile mark, 2 older guys behind me who I had just passed were yelling to eachother "Let's go! 3 mile race now!" I figured they were going to pick it up and if there's one thing I hate, its being passed back, so I focused on an older man and a girl who looked about my age who were probably 10-15 seconds ahead of me. I caught up to them both and passed the guy, then the girl. A few minutes later, she passed me back on an uphill right around the 4 mile mark, which came up a lot faster than I remembered...gotta love those downhills. I finally got ahead of the girl, who I think ended up being the last person I passed. The race spread out a LOT in the last 3 miles...I had my sights set on "guy in red shirt" and got pretty close to him, but he pulled away a lot at the end. I was getting really tired...I'm sure that whole fact that I didn't sleep the night before had nothing to do with that...and I was starting to feel sick, which tends to happen when I race. But now that I knew that girl was behind me, there was no way I was letting up - I was NOT going to let her pass me.
We finally turned out of the Arb and passed the 6 mile mark...I was verrrry excited to be almost done running, and also pretty pumped because I knew a PR was coming my way. I also knew that the girl I had passed earlier was most likely gaining on me, and when I heard some people yelling for her at the finish, I knew there was only one thing to do - KICK!
It was probably the best kick I've had all year, and I beat her by 2 seconds.
Nicole came in about a minute later, and she wasn't too thrilled with me. Which is totally legit, since I was all "oh I'm not going to try, blah blah blah" before the race. And I wasn't PLANNING on trying, but when I found myself in decent position and feeling good, I figured there was no point in not going for it. The weird thing about the race was I never felt awesome, but I never truly felt bad...it was like the quote "it hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get any worse". Overally, I was pretty damn happy with my race and overall time. I got even happier when I got home and found the results online - 8th overall female out of 126, 2nd in my age group out of 49, with the girl right behind me being 3rd...SCORE! I got 39th/266 overall. And that is why I love road races...because in cross country, you can run your best time EVER and get 204th, but in a road race you beat a TON of people. I also like 10Ks at Vilas Park because I know the course sooo well....I've run the Arboretum loop a million times. Weirdly, I also really liked running with the jingle bells they gave us on my shoes, because it seriously made me get into a really good cadence. And I also had the Manheim Steamroller version of White Christmas in my head almost the entire time...very random since its a pretty slow song, and I haven't heard it in awhile...but whatever! So in the end, I'm really glad I did it, even though at 5:30 am it seemed like pretty much the worst idea ever. Not to mention, this made me a lot more motivated to get out and run knowing that I'm not completely out of shape despite being in kind of a slump lately. PRing after an all-nighter...that is just plain ridiculous. WIN.
Jingle Bell Run 10K - Vilas Park, Madison, WI
46:30 (7:29 pace)
Splits: 7:50, 7:25, 7:43, 7:17, 7:22, 7:25
39/266 overall
8/126 women
2/49 AG (19-29)
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Shoot me?
Its 4:20 am. I have no intention of going to bed anytime in the next several hours. My current home is a corner on the 3rd floor of College Library.
Oh, did I mention I run a 10K at 11 am.
I am an idiot.
Oh, did I mention I run a 10K at 11 am.
I am an idiot.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
That was a final?
So I just took a final at a bar.
No, you didn't read that wrong. I just took my Kinesiology 615 (Lab Techniques in Exercise Physiology) final exam at the Blue Moon, while drinking a delicious Capital Amber provided by my professor. I also tried some tasty Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, which I actually really liked and thus completely changed my opinion that porters and me don't get along, and also some Spotted Cow and Winter Skal. It was absolutely ridiculous...basically, I'm pretty sure everyone in that class is getting an A, and my professor kicks ass. We had a lot of fun just hanging out and drinking and talking, I actually feel kind of bad that I don't know a lot of people in my kines classes as well as I should. After all, we basically take ALL the same classes for 2 years...so you'd think I'd at least know their names by now. So it was kind of nice just hanging out and talking...although, we've spent a lot of time doing that in this class anyway...haha.
I also went on a pretty decent 5.3 mile run...ran into Nicole over by the VA which was kind of funny. I've been really unmotivated when it comes to running lately, partially I think because this stupid cold has been sucking out my energy and I've just wanted to sleep. But it was good getting out their today, and drunk or not I'm planning on doing the death circuit tonight...in between drunkenly studying for my microbio exam tomorrow....yeaahhh....senioritis like whoa.
I can't believe that exam just happened...just more proof that this semester is beyond ridiculous.
No, you didn't read that wrong. I just took my Kinesiology 615 (Lab Techniques in Exercise Physiology) final exam at the Blue Moon, while drinking a delicious Capital Amber provided by my professor. I also tried some tasty Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, which I actually really liked and thus completely changed my opinion that porters and me don't get along, and also some Spotted Cow and Winter Skal. It was absolutely ridiculous...basically, I'm pretty sure everyone in that class is getting an A, and my professor kicks ass. We had a lot of fun just hanging out and drinking and talking, I actually feel kind of bad that I don't know a lot of people in my kines classes as well as I should. After all, we basically take ALL the same classes for 2 years...so you'd think I'd at least know their names by now. So it was kind of nice just hanging out and talking...although, we've spent a lot of time doing that in this class anyway...haha.
I also went on a pretty decent 5.3 mile run...ran into Nicole over by the VA which was kind of funny. I've been really unmotivated when it comes to running lately, partially I think because this stupid cold has been sucking out my energy and I've just wanted to sleep. But it was good getting out their today, and drunk or not I'm planning on doing the death circuit tonight...in between drunkenly studying for my microbio exam tomorrow....yeaahhh....senioritis like whoa.
I can't believe that exam just happened...just more proof that this semester is beyond ridiculous.
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