Random Thoughts

I love how my mind wanders when I run. Here are some thoughts from my last run:

 

1. Clearly, we need to move. A lot of my longer, out and back runs are downhill on the way out and uphill on the way back. This definitely sucks.

 

2. Why do hills look like this when you're driving in the car:

 

 

And like this when you're running:

 

 

3. Lights change at the most inopportune times...always. When I'm having a great fast time, feeling wonderful and red light. When I'm moving slower than a snail, but stopping would be pain and having to start again, red light. It's brutal.

 

4. The minute you lift your sunglasses up to wipe away sweat, a bug flies right into your face. Really???

5. People drive like nuts, especially during rush hour!!!

What do you think about when you run?


Training this week and an Injury

I'm into week two of my training for the Niagara Falls Half Marathon.

 

Well, I'm supposed to be in Week 2, but instead I had to do my long run of Week 1 today instead of Saturday due to lots of family obligations.

 

Here's this week's training:

 

Monday: 3 miles 4 miles

Tuesday: Rest day (moving furniture at work)

Wednesday: 4 miles (might be 3, see below)

Thursday: 3 miles

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 5 miles

Sunday: Rest

 

Seems doable! On Sunday, rest day will be spent at the beach with great friends, my husband and my boys so I'm quite looking forward to that!

 

Now to the bad part of the title, an injury.

 

I definitely overdid it at the Midsummer Night Run 15K. My knees and pelvis were in a lot of pain by the end of the run. My pelvis seems to have recovered and I thought my knees were in pretty good shape, but apparently not.

 

I'm always aware of pain in my knees. I notice it when I sit down cross-legged with my kids (both at home and my students) and it's starting to crop up while I run. However, the pain when I run is different from the pain when I'm sitting, which is what is causing me concern.

 

 

Sorry for the stock photo, but the green circle is highlighting my area of pain. When I'm walking/sitting, no pain there. When I get up or run, pain. It's on both knees as well, which I'm not pumped about at all. I'm going to ice them, see how training the rest of this week goes and if it's still bad, off to the doctor.

 

What are you training for right now and how is it going?

 

 

My watch said "WHAT!?"

I plugged in my Garmin to upload the recent runs I've done.

 

It's a sad, sad state.

 

Between July 18th and August 17th, I have done a total of 4 runs including my last race, A Midsummer Night Run.

 

Ooops!

 

It could explain what felt like a complete poop of a race.

 

My splits are absolutely nuts compared to what I normally run.

 

 

Clearly, I need to work on my endurance. Speed during a 5km race is nothing for me. I try to stay around a 6:15/km split. Not possible for me during the 15K.

I've definitely learned from this for my half marathon. I need to start working on my pacing now as I begin doing my longer runs. I'm using the Running Room pace band and I'm hoping to get a half marathon time of 2:30. Do-able, I think.

Yesterday's workout was a little light 4km jog around the neighbourhood. It was supposed to be a 3 mile run but my legs definitely couldn't handle it. They needed the slow speed and the lower mileage. I'm hoping that the 5km that is planned for today will not be too taxing.

What did your first long race look like? As ugly as mine??

What was today's workout for you?
 

My new candy store!!

You know that saying

 

"Like a kid in a candy store"?

 

That was me, except the store was the Saucony outlet and the candy...

 

SHOES!!

 

Lots and lots of running shoes!

 

I've become a Saucony fan and I absolutely love my running shoes.

 

The inspiration for the blog name!

 

Granted, they're the only pair that I've ever run in, but why mess with a good thing right?

 

I know they come out with new versions of shoes every year and the salesperson at the store told me what upgrades were made to the Ride 5s to call it Ride 6s. I couldn't bear to part with the Ride 5s so I decided to buy a pair from the outlet.

 

So these are my new shoes.

 

Unfortunately, I couldn't remember if I was size 8 or 8.5 so I went with the 8.5's but need to head back to the store to swap them (they don't quite work with the blog name, but since my pink ones were my first, I'm sticking with it).

 

I still have a whole bunch of miles to put on the pair that I'm currently using so they won't be retiring for awhile (until at least after the half marathon). I'm only at 124 miles so I've got lots of wear left. I just wanted to make sure I was covered in case something happened.

 

Here's the big question though. The Ride 5s will eventually no longer exist and I'll need to get a new pair of shoes (hopefully in a couple years but not soon!!).

 

How do you choose your shoes??

 

I ask because there was a very mad man at the Saucony store today who didn't like the Hurricanes, wore them for 10 days outside and wasn't able to return them. I don't want to end up like this angry man (although I wouldn't have worn them outside like that man).

I chose the first pair by heading to The Running Room, getting analyzed by the salesperson and being told which shoes would work for me according to what he saw and what I told him. He showed me the recommended section for me to pick from and I went with style from there!!

I'm so pleased with my decision.

Half Marathon training begins (kind of)!

So there are approximately 11 weeks until my first half marathon in Niagara Falls on October 27th.

 

I found a 10 week training plan that I'm going to follow and have that one extra week for laziness/illness/life. It's supposed to start today.

 

However, I'm still quite sore from my 15km that I did on Saturday. My legs are tired, my knees are achy and a good chunk of the pain has actually moved up into my shoulders and neck. I'm assuming that means that I'm tense up in that area when I'm running so it's something I need to work on for sure. Therefore, I'm skipping today's training and I'll run on Wednesday. I figure I won't be losing any fitness.

 

Here's my schedule:

 

10-Week Half Marathon Training Schedule

Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total
1	3	Rest	3	3	Rest	4	Rest	13
2	3	Rest	4	3	Rest	5	Rest	15
3	3	Rest	4	3	Rest	6	Rest	16
4	3	Rest	5	3	Rest	8	Rest	19
5	3	Rest	5	3	Rest	10	Rest	21
6	4	Rest	5	4	Rest	11	Rest	24
7	4	Rest	6	4	Rest	12	Rest	26
8	4	Rest	5	4	Rest	9	Rest	22
9	3	Rest	4	3	Rest	8	Rest	18
10	3	Rest	3	Walk 2	Rest	13.1	Rest	21.1

 

 It only lays out the miles I need to run and it'll be up to me to add in the cross-training and types of workouts I feel like doing. I figure that's the easiest way for me to do this and it's fairly easy to get back on track if something goes awry.

 

I also have two more races before the half. I'm doing a 5K at the Zoo and the CIBC Run for the Cure at the beginning of October.

 

I'm going to be aiming for a 2:30 half marathon. My friend, Lisa, told me about the pacing bands on the Running Room website and I'm so excited about being able to use it.

 

I've also added a countdown to my sidebar so that I can see the days go by!

 

I'm getting excited!!

A Midsummer Night Run 15K Recap

Yesterday I ran my first 15km race.

 

 

A friend of mine encouraged me to sign up for this 15km way back in May and I figured I had time to train for it. In stepped life and while I wasn't completely prepared, I wasn't completely unprepared either.

The day started out with a drive down to Toronto, where I met my friend Lisa (the encourager!) and my sister (who had picked up my race kit for me but she wasn't running). We hoped on the shuttle to get to the island ferry. The drive was horrible due to traffic, but we got on the first ferry and made it over to the islands quickly.


Pulling into the Islands

We walked to the starting line area and waited for about 2 hours before the 15km race was supposed to start. Of course, it gives me time for my nerves to build up and think about wanting to quit before even beginning but I didn't. We also waited in some ridiculously long washroom and bag check lines.

 The race began and I stayed up with Lisa for the first 6km. She had set a goal time of 1:52:00 - 1:58:00 whereas I set a goal to run as much as I could and get across the finish line.

At 6km, Lisa began pulling away from and I lost sight of her but secretly kept pushing her along in my mind. She ran 10:1s and I needed to stretch them out to 1:30 of walking. She actually ran it in 1:47 and managed to beat the goal time she'd set out for herself.

The course was nice. It went all over the Toronto Islands. The only bad part was the large number of people that were on the Islands since it was still open to the public. There were lots of walkers, bike riders and picnickers. It was pretty crazy. We ran on sand, grass, asphalt and even a wooden boardwalk. I hated the boardwalk. It was too uneven and when other people ran on the planks beside me they would lift up under my feet.

I finished the race in 2:03:01 (although I'm not sure because my chip and gun time are the same and I definitely wasn't at the front of the line). I came in 1209 and was 251 out of 279 females ages 30-39. Honestly, I'm just glad to finish and to not be on the last page of the results, even though I was cutting it close.

My finisher medal

 

Then came the bad part of waiting to get back home. We had to wait for 3 ferries and in a mass of people. It was quite nuts and after running for 2 hours, the last thing I wanted to do was stand in line.

Toronto on the way home!

I finally made it home at about 11:00 pm (after leaving at 2:00). It was a long day. The race was very well organized and I'd do it again, if it wasn't on the Island or they figured out some better way for the ferries on the way home. That was the only downside I saw the whole day.

Now I just need to figure out how to get rid of the ridiculous pain! I can barely walk down the stairs!

Up next is the start to my half marathon training!! I'm looking forward to it!

What were you up to this weekend?

Hydration, Hydration, Hydration!

During the day, I'm really good about drinking the water I need too. I constantly have a water bottle filled up and once I go back to work any break I get will be spent filling it back up again.

 

During my last long run (8k) I was constantly thinking about water and how I would have killed someone for a small drink.

 

When I started thinking about the longer runs I'm going to need to do for the half marathon, I started to get worried. I'm going to need something to help me out because I know if I stop at home to get water I'm going to stop and not go back out (more than likely one of the boys will be crying).

 

I've also thought about gels and chews and how to carry them if I'm running.

 

I've decided that I need to look a hydration belts or water bottles if I'm going to survive my half marathon training.

 

The issue is there are so many!!

 

2 bottles, 4 bottles, colours, hand held, etc!

 

 

 

 

Do you use a hydration belt or hand held one??

 

Which one do you use?

 

Any tips?

 

 



I'm back and ready to run!

So this past week has been a little nuts.

 

We went to my aunt's cottage for a few days (Thurs to Mon.), came home, did laundry, did an 8k run, bathed/showered and then headed back for another trip to another cottage (Tues - Sat).

 

My eldest son looking like a turtle stuck on his back!

 

I'm exhausted and miss running. There wasn't much of an opportunity to run and I thought I was going to lose some fitness but honestly, I never stopped moving. Taking two little boys to a cottage where there is fire pits, beaches and lakes I was always heading somewhere.

 

Eating wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible either. There were lots of choices which was fantastic but a lot focused around meat and booze. Water was a little scarce because we couldn't drink the tap water so we relied on bottled water, but that was needed more for the baby bottles than my consumption.

 

Anyway, we're back and I'm ready to get training into high gear!

 

I have a 15K on Saturday that might require some walking but that's ok. I've accepted it at this point.

 

After that race, half marathon training will completely begin and starting tomorrow eating will be amazing. I'm quite excited actually!

 

Here's my training for the week:

 

Monday - 11k run

Tuesday - rest

Wednesday - softball

Thursday - 5k run

Friday - rest

Saturday - 15 k Midsummer Run

Sunday - rest

 

What's your week looking like?