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.