300 miles logged

Forgot a little note from yesterday... I now have 300 miles under my belt, according to my training logs at the Daily Mile.

What's 300 miles from here?

EAST: Niagra Falls

NORTH: Flint, Mich. (why I'd want to go there is beyond me)

WEST: Terre Haute, Ind.

SOUTH: Roanoke, Va.

I got my Asics Kayanos at 70 miles, so I still have a good month with those shoes.

Race Report: A Nu Race Trail Run

My first 1st Place finish!! Yea ok there were only 11 women running my distance but still I was SOOOOO excited! Time was 1:28:33, wouldn't have been a good time on the road, but given the hills I'm happy with it. Full results here.

I did the Nu Race Trail Run at Mohican State Forest in Perrysville. The had 3.5, 8, 13.1 and 31 mile distances. It was an inaugural run, about 25 people in each distance, to benefit Camp Nuhop, a camp for children with developmental disabilities.

I hope this event grows. It was well organized, a beautiful and challenging course, and for a good cause. It was far more challenging than the Hocking Hills Indian Run last month. They had all kinds of goodies at the aid stations -- I decided not to find out what would have happened to my stomach had I eaten the peanut M&Ms on the course but having them out was a nice gesture. And they gave out long-sleeved tech shirts, which is amazing.

My only complaint was the same one I had for the Indian Run, there were no mileage markers so I had no idea where I stood the entire time. Also the last two miles or so doubled back on the same narrow trail, that wasn't bad because it was a small field but if it gets more crowded that might get messy.

The 5-day-a-week dilemma

I'm using Cool Running's half marathon training program right now, though I've modified it pretty heavily. At the moment I have no use for speedwork. I'm not actually training for a half (yet), this program works perfectly though for the 10-mile trail run I want to do in December.

My biggest dilemma is how many days to run. I've wanted to go up to 5, but I think I've decided that four days of running plus one day of cross training is more practical. Every training program I look at for distances longer than a 10K calls for 5 days running.

The problem lies here: I want Fridays and Sundays off completely, because I'm either doing my long run or racing Saturday. So, if I'm a 5-day-a-week runner, that means four of those days are consecutive.

Warrior Dash 2011

Hey kids!! It happened, I completed the Warrior Dash! Check out my race report here.

Original post:

I checked my traffic today and I have gotten a surprising amount of hits this week. Seriously, I'm shocked that many people care but thanks for reading! (Hi Mom.)

So to sum up: I'm running 8 miles at Mohican this weekend and after looking at a topo map of the course I realized how completely insane that was.

But even though it's just a third of the distance, this upcoming race tops it.

Meet the 2011 Warrior Dash. 2.91 miles in Hocking Hills... with a windstorm, tires, a junkyard, logs, tunnels, something called "hell's hill", a plank, a wall, hay, a river, a cliff, a net, fire and barbed wire. In that order.

15 heats of up to 500 people, and you have to sign a waiver. I'm intrigued. But that insane? Umm, maybe. Stay tuned.

What I want for Christmas

I am drooling over this... the Garmin 405 is incredible.

Want............

People who do amazing things

I just wanted to wish all the luck in the world to Alexis Mundis this Sunday. She's running the Marine Corp Marathon near (in?) D.C. to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, with Team in Training. She has lost over 200 pounds in the process, check out her blog here for pics. All after being diagnosed with Lupus.

Alexis and I both did the same Washington, D.C. internship program in 2006. Didn't see her after, but she did a wonderful job keeping everyone posted on her training via Facebook.

I'm sure my tiny little blog won't generate that much interest, but if you are interested in donating on her behalf, you can do so here.

Good luck Sunday!

Distance in donuts and cheezburgers

That's "cheezburgers", with a z.

I use The Daily Mile to track my runs, which generates all the widgets you see on the side of this blog. (Thanks, Kerry!)

I just added two more...

With the 278 miles I've logged so far this year, I've earned:

It'll update as I continue to log miles. I have no clue how accurate that is, they base it off calories burned, but it's a fun way to look at things.

10 miles!

So I just collapsed on my couch with a couple of ice packs and decided not to move for a few hours. Feeling pretty good... did my second 10 mile run. That makes 25 for the week, my highest yet.

Toward the end I kinda felt like I could have kept going... maybe I should have. I just read an article about overtraining, I was out of gatorade and my ankle has been hurting on and off, so it was probably best that I didn't, though of course now I have that nagging "how far could I have gone" mentality. Next time.

Ran with a runners club out of Granville. Very good group of people. Some were way too fast but I fell in nicely at a 10-minute pace with the slower group. We did 6 miles through the Denison Bioreserve, which I never knew existed until today. Definitely going back, beautiful area and good practice for upcoming trail runs, which I hands down prefer to the road.

Most of the group did the marathon a few weeks ago, and they stopped after 6 so I cut down to the bike trail on my own. I don't like running without my iPod, the silence was eery, but I got it done.

Got breakfast and then went right to the gym to do my strength training. Was definitely a little slower on that but now I'm done done done done done for the weekend.

Testing...

Just checking to see if the application I used to autopost to Facebook works.

This is my running partner, Crazy Lizzie. She's up to four miles with me. By definition she's a retired race dog, though she flunked out of racing school and came to live with me at age 2. Now she's five and still a pup at heart.

This is my other girl, Gigi. She doesn't run with me, she's getting old and likes to sniff too much. She had a short racing career.

Oct. 30 course

At work yesterday we had one of those find-your-personality-type training sessions.

I came up with this description: "You live in the here and now and your impulsiveness drives everything you do. You love competition and you never miss an opportunity to make a deal."

So maybe that's why I sign up for stuff like this? Topo map of the 8-miler I'm doing Oct. 30.

Yalp.

In 207 days

Cleveland marathon May 15.

Gonna join Fleet Feet's MIT this winter. Gonna do it.

Back to it

This was a bit of an off week... I was down for a couple days with a stomach bug and was definitely a bit dehydrated on my runs Friday and Saturday. I managed to get in all 8 miles of my long run in today, just had to stop a couple extra times. Took a little detour so it ended up being 8.5 miles.

It was a beautiful fall day and it was really nice to be outside. I ran the bike trail starting in Granville and heading out toward Alexandria.

Even before I started feeling ill Tuesday my runs were a bit slow. I barely managed hills Monday and just couldn't force myself beyond a mile Tuesday. Friday I felt strong going 4. Lizzie the greyhound came with, that was her longest distance yet and she was a champ. That made for a total of 17 for the week.

It was kind of an off week in general. I did boot camp at the gym this morning and then the long run so I'm really sore and have a nagging pain in my shin, time to find the ice pack and absolutely taking tomorrow off!

I added Cleveland's Turkey Trot to my upcoming races. It's a 5 miler, I may do it with my sis. It looks like a blast.

2010 Bowman Cup

I met up with a friend from college to do the Kent State Homecoming 5K this morning. It was a fantastic day to be out and about, in the 70s, sunny. Finished in 26:17 by my watch, 26:30 by the official race time (I like my time better since it took a few seconds to get to the start because there were so many people -- there was no chip timing!)

Except that it was a day of near misses! Only the first 400 people got the really cool tshirts, I was #408. My 5k PR is 26:06, so I was 12 seconds off. And when I went to Ray's Place afterward to dutifully replace carbohydrates lost, like every good little runner should, they had just run out of the Centennial Alumni glasses. *Pouts.*

Seriously, though, it was a really good day. It was by far the most crowded race I've done... almost 1000 people. The first mile was pretty slow, around 9:30, just because there were so many runners. I started out in the middle of the pack. I picked it up the second mile, but there was a bottleneck when the race turned onto a narrower trail, so I was just under 18 minutes at the marker. Kicked it up toward the end even more but the finish was all uphill.

Registration complete!

Registration complete... Oct. 30... an 8 mile trail run at Mohican. Yelp. It's a new event but Premier races has been promoting the heck out of it so it will be interesting to see how many people show!

Gotta get back training on those hills :)

24 miles logged this week

What a beautiful fall morning... I did 10 miles in Granville. Slight soreness but it's tolerable.

I logged 24 miles this week over 4 runs, and surprisingly that wasn't my highest week to date... a couple weeks ago I totaled 24.7. Both Monday and today I pushed my long runs a little further because it has just been so nice out, managed 8 on Monday and 10 today. On Wednesday I did hill repeats on the treadmill and my legs seriously hurt so I barely eeked out 3 Thursday.

Saturday mornings in Granville are marvelous. The farmers market is always packed, there are a ton of people out on the bike trail and there's this wonderful little coffee shop with great fair trade blends. Such a stark contrast from Newark.

I've been feeling really good on my long runs... usually I fall into a good rhythm after the first 2, around a 10 minute pace, and the rest of the way is a breeze (as long as the iPod is charged up... the Hold Steady's new one is my latest favorite). I need to find some hillier routes for my shorter runs, though. Dawes is always good, I'll try to get there next week.

I'm shaking things up, trying to decide if I want to move up to 5 days of running or stick with one day on the elliptical.