The Wall

It's been awhile since I've posted a photo of my wall. It has since grown a second tier.

Click here for blogs about the races! 

Top
Warrior Dash hat, Logan, Ohio 2011

First tier (Left to right):
Flower City Duathlon, Rochester, NY 2013
YMCA indoor Triathlon, Rochester, NY 2013
Flower City Half Marathon, Rochester, NY 2013
Quakerman Duathlon, Orchard Park, NY 2013

Second Tier
Hocking Hills Indian Run, Logan, Ohio 2010 and 2011 (my favorite medals, made of clay by school kids)
Holiday run at Sharon Woods, Columbus, Ohio, 2010
Buckeye Classic, Columbus, Ohio, 2011
Cinco de Julio, Columbus, Ohio, 2012
Flying Pig Marathon, Cincinnati, Ohio 2012
Cleveland Marathon, Cleveland, Ohio 2011
Warrior Dash, Logan, Ohio 2011
Columbus Marathon, Columbus, Ohio, 2011
First on the First, Westerville, Ohio 2011
First on the First, Westerville, Ohio 2012

Bottom:
Sticker from the Highlander Cycle Tour, Canandaigua, NY 2012
Rochester Autumn Clasic Duathlon, first in my age group, Rochester, NY 2012
Tough Mudder sweatband, Attica, Indiana 2011, atop a photo of my Columbus friends
Keuka Lake Triathlon race bib, Penn Ya, NY 2013
Reindeer run antler ears, Rochester, NY 2012
A Nu Race Trail Run, Perrysville, Ohio 2011, first overall female

Race Report: First on the First 5K 2012

I didn't PR at the First on the First this morning :( I finished in 27:10.

But it was still a good race.

There were a number of factors working against me, mostly that I was sick all week with a stomach bug. And it was really windy.

I held the pace for the first mile and a half and then fell off. Just didn't have it in me!

I really enjoyed seeing everyone from Run DMC, too! I'll snag some pictures from Facebook once they're posted!

Here are my splits by half mile:
.5 mile: 3:47 (7:34)
1 mile: 3:53 (7:47)
1.5 mile: 4:08 (8:16)
2 miles: 4:42 (9:24)
2.5 miles: 6:14 (12:28)
3 miles: 4:06 (8:12)

2012: The official goals post

As this is auto-posting, I'm getting back into a familiar routine.

While most of the world is sleeping in on Saturday morning, once again I'm up early. Before dawn early. I'm putting on my cold weather gear, packing a bag of warm clothes to change into after, and warming up the Fit.

I'm driving 40 minutes to join the long procession of cars turning into Thomas Worthington High School for the Marathoner in Training program (MIT). Jeff's going to gather all 400 of us in the gym to kick the winter season off. He'll call out "10:30s!!!" then we hit the Olentangy Trail, sun, rain, sleet or snow. We'll yearn for the heat of summer, just as we yearned for the cold of winter in August.

I'm going to stop with the "I must be crazy for doing this" posts. It's a foregone conclusion. We're all crazy in our own little ways. I just choose to blog about it.

All 400 of us share one same personality trait: We're all goal oriented, some to the point of obsession. The magic number is called a PR, a personal record, and each one of us is there because we're determined to beat it.

The PR could be a goal distance, for many first timers it's simply to run as far as you can, to the marathon or half marathon point. That was my ambition my first season of MIT, training for Cleveland. 

But once you complete that distance, you now have a time to beat. Some simply want to beat their time, others set a new goal time. I ran a 4:32 in Cleveland, and sought to run Columbus in 4:20. That was the number that was burned into my head in my second season of MIT. I smashed through that goal, running Columbus in 4:13.

First on the First: A PR attempt for the new year

Jan. 1 I'm going to attempt to whittle down my 5K PR of 24:27 at the First on the First in Westerville. I'd love to beat 24:00, but even shaving a few seconds off would make me happy!

To run a 24:26 I'd need to run a 7:51 pace. To run a a 23:59 I'd need to run a 7:43. So I'm going to stick with the old strategy of starting the first half of the race with the 8 minute pacer then kicking it up!

I'm in the middle of a 2-week hiatus that ends with the kickoff of MIT Saturday. Looking forward to training for the Flying Pig!

After reacquainting with my pillow and my TV, here's what's next!

Me and running buddy Karl showing off our
marathon medals at Brews.
I'll do an official photo post soon!! 

I can't get the 30 Rock theme out of my head. Because making it through the end of Season 2 (love the episodes with Edie Falco) and most of Season 3 has been hands down the most productive thing I've done since the 2011 Columbus Marathon. (Tracy Morgan just tried to kill Jimmy Fallon. Very nice.).

**Warning: Pointless, scatterbrained post ahead**

That's outside of work, that is. I did get to cover what will probably be the story of the year, when a bunch of wild animals were set free in Zanesville, Ohio. In between chuckles over the increasing absurdity of the story, I managed to get one of my stories picked up by USA Today, and another by the Cincinnati Enquirer. (Insert shameless plug for professional Facebook page here.) 

"It's like Noah's Ark wrecking here in Zanesville." Jack Hanna

And here's some more news: I'm now a certified Spinning instructor. Starting in November I'll be teaching at the Newark Y, 6 a.m. Wednesdays and 6:30 p.m. Thursday. So if you're in my neck of the woods come see me!

Spinning was the only activity I did last week, so my DailyMile displayed a whopping one workout. I proudly posted this shining accomplishment on Facebook and Kim B. promptly responded: "Hey...you are supposed to be taking it easy."

Facebook post from Monday 10/24. 

Spinning Thursday was fun but slightly nerve-wracking. Jamie let me be in front of the class with her. Once I'm settled in and on my bike I realize I'm in a 90-minute class. But Jamie ran Columbus too (and we wore our twin shirts that day to prove it), so if she could do it, I had no excuse. I survived the first half no problem. Most of the class left at the break, leaving just a few brave souls. Jamie let me cue some jumps, and I learned that it is not easy to talk and count in my head. 

The other side of the fence

Sorry for the lack of updates. I regret to report that I put Gigi down last week. I'm working on a goodbye post but, well, it's hard to write. I have several posts planned, I've been running with Lizzie more and I want to blog about that, and we had our 20-miler Saturday and I want to blog about that run.

But last week I had the awesome experience of volunteering at a race. I'll admit, my motives for doing so were a bit selfish -- you get a free race entry (maybe for another PR at the First on the First!) and a t-shirt. But hey, I figured I'd be at the Emerald City Half and Quarter Marathon a week ago Sunday because I had so many good friends running that I'd be there anyway, so I might as well make myself useful.

Myself, some others from MIT, and other random people worked the water stop at Mile 1 and 11 for the halves and Mile 4 for the quarters.

It. Was. Exhausting.

Setting up in the dark. Kim Villena I stole this from you!

I woke up at 4 a.m. to be there by 5:30. The race started at 7. This was my second time working a water stop -- the time before I did it with a bunch of people who don't run and man, being able to do it with runners made so much of a difference. Setup went like clockwork. One person sets the cups, one person pours, a third organizes. We had time to kill until the runners came.

But, being at Mile 1, when they came, we were slammed. They trickled in slowly then we were hit by the speedy folks concerned about every second. Cups of water were snatched out of my hand before I could get into position, sometimes taking my arm with them. I tried to cheer on Karl, Kim, Shona, Larry, Susanne et al but we were busy running back and forth. The steady flow turned to the slower runners, who tend to slow or walk through the stops. Then the walkers, who took their time to stop and rest.

If there's one thing volunteering has showed me, it's that it is much more fun to be slow! It's the slower runners who were hanging out in groups, talking and laughing. The faster runners were too serious :)

We had a short lull to recover from the rush. We set up the cups again and relaxed. Then the quarters started to trickle back. This wasn't nearly as bad as the first rush! I was actually kind of bored standing at the end of the line! It was nerve-wracking waiting for the halves because two of my good friends were trying to PR and I started to get nervous when it was time for them to show up!

I'll admit to being really bored waiting for the last walkers to come through. But on the other side of the coin, I had more and more admiration for people coming by as time moved forward. The slower the walkers got, you knew that meant the more they overcame to be there.

I thought I'd feel bad for the person in last place, but I didn't. She walked 13.1 miles. Even though she came in last, she did it, and that's all that mattered.

My fledgling wall of accomplishments

It's cleaning/organizing day in the new apartment, and I finally did something with the small collection of medals from various races, and of course my 1st place plaque from the Nu Race Trial Run! 

A closeup of the medals: 

From left to right: Holiday Run at Sharon Woods, First on the First, Cleveland Marathon, Hocking Hills Indian Run. 

Maybe I'll put a small shelf up and display the beer glasses I got from Salt Fork and the Beerathlon! 

Race Report: First on the First, Westerville

I'm kind of a numbers wonk, so the fact that I can get all these graphs and stuff off my Garmin is the greatest thing ever.

I ran my first race with the Garmin today, the First on the First 5K in Westerville, and blew my last PR, 26:06, out of the water. It was a flat, easy out and back course and I rocked it, I finished in 24:27 and I was second in my age group. Full results here. My average pace was 7:46. Next time I'll use the lap button so I can figure out my splits.

I followed the 8:00 pacer the entire time until the very end when she slipped back (probably to finish on time since we were going a little fast). At the beginning I simply thought "oh dear god I'll never keep this up" but then I settled in. I was fine for the first 2.5 miles and then started to feel a little queasy. I realized I was way ahead of my goal pace so I started to drop back. But the guy running next to me kept urging me to keep up, and I did. Whatever was brewing in my stomach fortunately calmed down, and I finished at just under an 8:00 pace. Then they fed us yummy pulled pork sandwiches and black eyed peas.

First on the First

I caved.

I've been feeling pretty good this week, so I signed up for the First on the First 5K in Westerville (near Columbus) Saturday. Since I have to cover seven that day my plan is to run four slowly with MIT and then run the race. I think I'm going to race it too, in between my new GPS and having pacers maybe I can break 26!

I figure it will be my last opportunity for awhile, once we get into the really long runs there's no way I'll be up for a 5k.

A long sleeved tech shirt and pig roast after kind of makes it worthwhile, don't ya think?

The weather looks... well, not lovely, but not horrible either.

A few quick notes and then a Merry Christmas

Looked for a running Santa. Settled on this. 

This post is the online equivalent of me talking out loud about nothing important whatsoever. Enjoy.

I'm starting to look ahead to 2011 runs, I'll post a list later on. There won't be much flexibility for 5Ks and such leading up to May because my long runs will always be Saturday.

Still, I'm very tempted to do the First on the First on Jan. 1. It just looks like a lot of fun. Plus I know there will be pacers, it would be cool to see how I do following the 8-minute pacer, I'd love to get my 5K time under 26, which means I need to go at an 8:22 pace.

I should know better. I've had a lot of random aches and pains this week, I know they're just caused because I'm back to it after two weeks off, but it's a reminder to take it slow nonetheless.

Plus I need to cover 7 miles that day. So, I'd need to run 4 before the 5K even starts. No, I'll just stick with my plan.

Training this week... been following my plan. It's been good.