Cooper River Bridge Run

Tomorrow, I'll be running the Cooper River Bridge Run - the largest race in the state. Who knows what my time will be but I'd be ecstatic at 60 minutes so we'll see.

Here are some pics from last year when my hair was straight up wild.

we made our own t shirts and they were awesome!

I seriously walked around Charleston with my hair like that - for real

I mean, I can't stop looking at it. WTF? 

okay, let's just move on now from the haircut

My friend Jeanne & Lori 

Mom & I & a better version of that haircut

This really is a fun run. It's mostly flat (my fav) with one major hill close to the beginning. 

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I don't know these people but I mean, why not throw a Clemson flag in here, right? 

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Namaste y'all!!

Stoix Training - day I don't know

Total Mileage - 3.4 miles
Total Time - 45 minutes (I think, I don't have my garmin)

Warm up - .75 miles at a 10:30 pace
6 sets of out & backs
Cool down - walk .25 miles

I actually READ THE INSTRUCTIONS for my workout today and I think I actually did it right. Another thing that's kind of funny about it, I started out real slow because today was my "taking it easy since I have to race saturday" day. What happened, I ended up doing it the way I was supposed to.

The first 3 sets, I started off slower than I thought which was around a 9:30-9:45 pace. I was returning at around a 9:15 pace. By the last 3 sets, I was running out around a 9:15-9:30 pace and returning at around a 8:45 pace. Let me explain -

Out & Backs - "the objective is to control your pace on the way out and then return 2-5"/minute faster on the way back. i.e. if you ran out for 2', then your return trip shouldn't be faster than 1:50. If so, then run out harder on the next set. The recovery is 60". "

Each set should get further like when we perform strides/repeats. So I should be negative splitting all the time. And I actually did it today. The last set, I was done. I didn't want to do anymore. So that's mean I did it right! Yay!


My other issue for this weekend - 


I am doing the Cooper River Bridge Run. I have not been training for a 10k distance. My longest run since my last half marathon (at my own pace) has been 3 miles. So, what to do. Should I attempt to run the whole thing or should I split it up into a run/walk?

THE DREADED WALK/RUN


If I walk, then I'm not a runner
Only casual runners walk
blah blah blah


I hear this so many times but I will say some of my PR's have come from a walk./run. To quote Jeff Milliman:

"Why do walk breaks work? 

By using muscles in different ways from the beginning, your legs keep their bounce as they conserve resources. When a muscle group, such as your calf, is used continuously step by step, it fatigues relatively soon. The weak areas get overused and force you to slow down later or scream at you in pain afterward. By shifting back and forth between walking and running muscles, you distribute the workload among a variety of muscles, increasing your overall performance capacity. For veteran marathoners, this is often the difference between achieving a time goal or not.

Walk breaks will significantly speed up recovery because there is less damage to repair. The early walk breaks erase fatigue, and the later walk breaks will reduce or eliminate overuse muscle breakdown."

Last year, when I ran this race, I ran the whole time at just under a 10 minute pace BUT I had been half marathon training, so my long runs were typically longer than 5-6 miles. This year, I'm not in that same shape, so I'm thinking walk/run. I think my ratio will be run 3 minutes/walk 30 seconds. I can always adjust during the race. 

So I'll report back on Monday and let everyone know how it went. My ideal time would be under 60 minutes but since i haven't been training for it, I can't get that upset if I don't hit it. In my mind though - we're going 59:59. 

What would you do in this situation? 

Namaste, y'all!

Lunes, Lunedi, Lundi, Montag

It's Monday!!! How different does German look from latin based languages? It's like, one of these things is not like the other. Anyways, today's post is going to be mainly focused on Race etiquette because 1) I still have yet to add my photos to my computer and 2) that's on my mind right now. A couple of things first -

1. Check out Tina's post about spandex and obesity. Let me know your thoughts, I'll probably post something about this later.

2. One of my yoga buddies, Peggy (who is so awesome), let me borrow a couple of vegan cookbooks. I'm not going vegan, but I'd like to try out some different recipes because there's a whole land of food out there that is different from the way I eat and I'd love to try all of them. So this morning, I made "Oatmeal Medley" from one of the books, of course I can't remember the title so I'll have to find it and give tell you about it.

Recipe -

2 cups of rolled oats
4 cups of water
1/2 cup coconut (it calls for unsweetened but of course, I accidentally bought the sweetened)
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
blueberries

Just cook all of the ingredients together on the stove for about 10 minutes. Add the blue berries and cook another 3 minutes.

It was delicious. I did add some honey which is not vegan, so whoopsy, but you get my drift. It was really really good and I kind of struggle with rolled oats, so I was pleasantly surprised about how delicious it was. I'll be discussing some other recipes on here as well. I also should've taken a picture.

obviously, this isn't my oatmeal and we'll just pretend that's what it looked like image source

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Now to our main topic, Race Etiquette. 

As I was running in Las Vegas, I saw a number of things that could have happened to make the race much more enjoyable for everyone involved. I was not upset because honestly, how do you know what to do if you've never raced before. And even if you have, if it's never been explained to you, then again, are you just supposed to use psychic powers? So I'm hoping this post will come across as something more helpful vs bitchy because I mean it all in a nice way. 

1. Choosing a Corral 

If you're in a race that's actually big enough to have corrals, i.e. any RnR race, you have the option of choosing where you start. This may not seem like a big deal, but actually, it's huge in making sure that you are comfortable as well as others around you. And this goes to runners at all paces. Here are the issues if you sign up for the wrong corral - 

You are rushing past every one in the first 3-5 miles. If you're in mile 5, and you're still running past everyone and weaving in and out of traffic, you signed up for the wrong corral. If you're in mile 5 and people are rushing past you still, you're in the wrong corral. If you're a 8 minute mile runner, please don't sign up for the 2:15 finish. You're going to be rude and weave in and out of everyone because you signed up to slow. If you're an 11:00 mile runner, please don't sign up for the 1:45 finish. And lastly, if you sign up for the pace you actually are, then start in your corral. If you get there and realize that your friend is in a different corral than you, you either need to run at the pace of your friend or not run together. 

2. How to pass

Honestly, I'm not sure the rule for passing. The one thing I do know is that if you need to walk, then typically, you should be on the outside edge of the road so that you are not prohibiting people that are continuing at their same pace. So my assumption is that faster runners stay towards the middle. One thing that gets my goat is when people do a walk/run ratio and they walk in the middle. No, you need to go to the side and walk, out of the way of others. So the other side of that is this, if you are a faster runner - especially if you've signed up for the wrong corral - whizzing by slower people on the outside. It ends up being a cluster when it really could be a lot more organized if we all followed the same rules. 

3. Finish Line

Once you cross the finish line, keep moving. Move out of the way until you get to an open spot. The fact that people got trampled at the RnR Vegas is so absurd to me because most of the hold up was that people were stopped in the road talking to other runners. One thing I will say, RnR typically has you take a pic with your medal after the race so that slowed the process way down. They need to fix that. But after I passed through the picture taking part (I went around the outside because I didn't want one) and people were still just standing there. I can see how people get frustrated but to get crazy and start trampling people, that seems a little wild. I guess people just felt trapped. I know that when I was walking through Mandalay Bay, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the crowd. 

4. Extras

This is a little bit of common sense, but don't push people out of the way. When I was running, someone pushed me out of the way. Not Appropriate. 

Listen, I get that we're all competitive and we're trying to beat our times and all of that but people and how you treat them are more important than your time. Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Why are you running this race? It's an extra curricular activity unless you're an Olympic runner and if that's the case, you're not running in corral 18, so let's get real. Sometimes, as runners, I feel like we get a little caught up in our time and lose sight of the fast that this is for our health and it doesn't matter at the end of the day. If you don't PR, you're not going to die. So, please be nice to others, stay calm and remember this is all temporary. You'll run a different race, you'll have a better time at some point, you'll get out of the crowd, you'll get your race t shirt and your medal, just chill. It would be a good time to practice deep breathing and meditation. :)

RnR Las Vegas Review

I'll go ahead and do this review because I never took any pics of the race anyway, so it's not like I have to wait to upload those. I took pics, just none that had anything to do with the race. 1. it was just me, by myself. My husband doesn't do distance running and my other peeps didn't end up coming, so it was my first half marathon that I've run by myself. 2. I didn't bring my phone because I DESPISE carrying things. I don't like to carry water or anything. Hence, no pictures. I'll just use the internet :)

The Expo
The expo location was pretty good. It was easy to get to, easy to find, and big enough to house all of the people. I didn't spend much time at the expo because I just went to one in Savannah and really, they don't differ much from each RnR race. The one gripe I have, I like to get a t shirt when I go to the race but the last 2 races, they have not had anything but smalls and extra smalls.

1. Brooks t shirts tend to run small anyway
2. I would say that at least 60% of the runners there do not wear a small or an extra small
3. To assume that the people there are only smalls or extra smalls kind of pisses me off.


Dear Brooks,

 Not every runner is emaciated. Maybe you should reconsider they size of t shirt you sell at the races.

Thanks,

 A runner who is mad that you only have smalls at a damn race



The Race Course
It was AWESOME. Basically, it was just up one side of the strip, circle around downtown, and back down the other side. There were lots of distractions which I liked and the Bellagio had this light/fire show going on as I was passing it coming back to the finish line. It was flat and had I trained at all, could've been fast. I ran in between mile markers and enjoyed the scenery.

My only complaints -

1. There were just so many people that even though I was running slow as molasses, I still was held back a lot because of people in front of me. I tried to pass, but it was almost impossible
2. Water stations - they hadn't run out of water by the time I was running through places, but they were getting low. They had a lot of water, so it's not like they just put one table out, but I guess the underestimated how many people were going to need it, I don't know. There was hardly any Cytomax which I thought was weird. Normally, that stuff is everywhere. I actually don't drink it because I despise it, but this was the first one I've done where it wasn't everywhere.
3. The whole marathon/half marathon situation. I guess they had it where the fast marathoners and the slow half marathoners were running together and the slow half people were getting in the way so the fast marathoners were mad. I have a couple of thoughts on that and they're probably unpopular but I'll discuss that later. I don't understand why they had us split up like that because in Savannah, they had all of the pace people together, no matter their distance. I don't know.


The Finish Line
It was crowded and bottle-necked so it got a little hairy at the end. A couple of thoughts -

1. It's like that in every single RnR race I've ever done, so why is everyone so upset about this one
2. There were options to get out through the sides if you didn't want your picture taken.
3. If people would've just kept moving instead of stopping right in the middle of the lane where people were trying to get out, then it wouldn't have been crowded.

When I crossed the finish line, I didn't have that many issues so I'm assuming the major ones came a little later in the evening? I don't know. Evidently, people were trampled? Do I think that's RnR's fault, or people's fault? It's probably a combination of both. When you run in a huge race like this, you have to keep moving until you get to a free space. I repeat, you CANNOT stop and talk to your friends/family, etc. People are sick, tired, cranky, hungry, and they're trying to get to an open space. You are clogging it up and people freak out in crowds.


Mandalay Bay
This was my biggest issue. Casinos are known for being confusing and difficult to get out of. When I entered Mandalay Bay, there were thousands of people walking around in there and it was hard to see, hard to get out. I got lost and almost started crying because I just wanted to get back to my room. Had I known it was going to be like that, I probably would've just walked on the street to get back but I was cold and it was raining so I wanted to try to take the warmest route back. Mandalay Bay is a BIG casino and I was frustrated trying to get through there.



I guess this wasn't as much a review on the race as it was a review of other' reviews of the race. On RnR's facebook page and in lots of reviews, people were just dogging out the race so I just kind of wanted to respond. Other than overcrowding, I had no issues with the race. It was crowded just like it was in Nashville, New Orleans, and Savannah. It's a big race. If you don't want to do a big race, there are tons of other races to do that are way smaller. Oh by the way, you're not going to have the crowd support and it's still probably going to be annoying because there won't be as much support personnel out there. I think they ran out of race t-shirts and medals. That's the only thing where I'm like, why did that happen? It didn't happen to me. But I guess it did happen. Maybe they ran out of smalls, haha.

I would say my BIGGEST irritation was lack of race etiquette. Because of this, I will dedicate an entire post on race etiquette and what to do in a big race.

We got lots to talk about

Ok, so I'm back from a little hiatus. My bad! When I got to Denver, I was able to write a blog post because we were snowed in, but after that... no computer or phone for several days. It was kind of nice, even though most of the time, I was gambling in a casino :)

I have SSSSSOOOOO much to write about that I think I'll have blog posts for days. Some subjects that I will discuss and things you can look forward to -

1. Colorado University - Jane had to work one morning, so James & I walked around the University on a snowy morning and took lots of pics. It's a BEAUTIFUL campus

me with Ralphie the buffalo

2. Rock'n'Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon review - if you haven't read a million reviews already, I'm going to do one and this one will be a lot different than what others had to say. All I can say is people are crazy. 

3. Las Vegas, the Matts Style - 

I have better pics than this but they're on my camera & this was on my phone

 Depending on how detailed I get with details, I may dedicate a post to the different games we played as well as the different casinos we visited. It was SO MUCH FUN. Remember how I said I wasn't sure what I was going to do since I didn't drink or gamble? Well, I still didn't drink because I don't, but I gambled my face off. We did not leave the strip except to go to the old strip. 

4. My total RnR half marathon meltdown. 

Well, I didn't have a meltdown at all, but the time for my half was so bad that I don't even want to post it. I mean, it was bad. In my defense, I have bought and sold a house in the last month, gone to Richmond for a wedding and spent 4 days in CO before racing, even still... it's bad. 

So, as you can see, there is a lot to talk about and once I get my pics up and all of that, I can begin. In the meantime, in case you didn't know, the Clemson Tigers won the ACC Championship for the first time since 1991. Some people are saying rude things about it like that it's about time since we haven't won in 20 years or that the ACC is a weak conference so we shouldn't be proud of it. And what I have to say is this. Kiss it because I'm excited about it. Maybe we don't win every year or maybe our conference isn't the toughest (in football because that's about the only sport we're not one of the best) but that doesn't take away from the fact that the Clemson Tigers are 2011 ACC Champs and we get to go to a BCS bowl and our school gets a LOT of money which will only help our football program. So all I have to say is....

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RnR Savannah Race Review

Rock'n'Roll races are my favorite. I've only done 1 half marathon that was not an RnR event, so I was super excited when I found out they were going to be in one of my favorite cities. Lots of people were there, especially bloggers, so you'll probably be reading a lot of race reviews. I think you're going to get a different perspective from everyone because, this being Savannah's first RnR, there were a couple of hiccups. Depending on one's patience, understanding and affinity for the city will probably help shape what they thought of the race and how it was put together.

Crowd - 


Let me start of by saying that when I saw that the race had sold out in August with 23,000 participants, I was a little nervous. Savannah is small. It's smaller than Charleston, which itself is small. The historic district is a little bubble, similar to New Orleans French Quarters, but on a much smaller scale. I've been to RnR's before, have seen the crowd, but they've all been in bigger cities that are used to having thousands of people. I also knew that this was Savannah's first big race, so again, my expectations were managed. 23k people in Savannah is A LOT. I mean, A LOT.

This was corral 19-20. So, at least 18 corrals were before us and I dont' know how many were behind us, but I think, at least 5-10 more. The streets were covered with people. Crowded. 

Honestly, for the amount of people that were there, I felt like it was fairly well organized, minus the expo fiasco that I will discuss in a minute. We started on time, and the corrals were moving up pretty quickly. The streets were crowded but I never felt trapped into the speed I was running, I could easily speed up or slow down at any point, and since we were running a 2/1, we were doing that a lot. Again, RnR has a pretty good system in place for making races run smoothly day of, Savannah was no exception. 

Expo - 

Here's where there was trouble. Savannah has an expo center across the river that's on it's own little island. It's obviously worked out well for them before, so they probably haven't had a lot of complaints. The major issue this weekend was that most runners probably couldn't get there until 3-4 pm, and they all tried to get on the ferry at the same time. The line to the ferry was wrapped around the riverfront and it seemed like we were never going to get to the expo. My fear was that we wouldn't make it in time to get our numbers and our race t-shirts. Obviously, they knew this was happening, so they made adjustments and opened up one of the dinner boats. That boat fit 600 people and I promise, that's how many people were on it. They took us across and we made it to the expo with 1 hour to spare. So, I got in line at 4:15 and arrived at the expo at 6 pm. 

Getting into the expo wasn't a big deal and getting my number was easy too. They had plenty of personnel and of course, lines went quickly. The expo itself was fairly crowded and annoying at times, but that's how every expo is at every big race I've ever done. I just know going into a big race, the expo is going to be wild. But I got a couple of cute shirts and found a yoga place in Savannah, so it was worth it!

Lastly, when leaving the expo, they had trolleys lined up outside waiting on us. We sat on the trolley for a good 30 minutes. I think they knew the masses were getting restless because they had a police escort clear the way and we got back to the historic district by 8 pm. So, it took 3 hours and 45 minutes to get to the expo, look around and get back. 

I am sure they will have an answer next year, I'm not sure what it will be. 

Race Course - 

I kind of struggle with this. I LOVE Savannah. It's one of my favorite places ever. It is so beautiful and I really can't think of another city that even mirrors anything like Savannah. Maybe Charleston, but I still like Savannah more. The architecture is beautiful, the huge oak trees with Spanish Moss and the artistic influence from Savannah College of Art and Design. I was HOPING the race course would primarily be in the historic district but sadly it wasn't. Actually, the first part of the course was going through a bad section of town. The thing that I thought when running through that area was how I felt bad for the people living there. There were people picking up the throw away clothes runners had thrown to the side. I just felt like there was so much more going on than the stupid race and I really wanted to just go up and hug all of the people on the street. That being said, they were all out there, in their yards, cheering us on, screaming, yelling out numbers and names and had such great attitudes and personalities! That was the best cheering section during the whole race. People were high fiving and they had 2 cheerleading squads that were so fun! So, obviously, my judgment on where they live was misguided as they seemed to be very happy and supportive people. 

It was pretty cool but it started to warm up the further we ran. At no point was I hot, so I obviously dressed appropriately! There were water/cytomax stations every couple of miles and  a Gu station between 8-9. I brought swedish fish with me which seem to be my favorite fuel right now. They're just more fun to eat. 

We finally ran through the historic district which was quick but beautiful and then headed to the rich side of town. The crowd was no where near as fun and supportive, although the trees/houses were beautiful. We ended running into Forsyth Park where they had lots of food and a concert. 

this was the nicer area, and I wanted to take a pic of the trees. They are so beautiful and this is what the streets look like everywhere!

Music - 

A couple of the bands were awesome, a couple of them were weak. I was wondering what kind of musical theme Savannah would offer, and there wasn't one really. I liked the bands on mile 3, 7 and 10 but haven't had a chance to go back and see who they are. Honestly, my fav part were the cheerleaders. And the spectators giving high 5's. that was my fav part. seriously. 

Mom - 

I had a really good time running with mom. This was her first half marathon and she is 54!!! Her goal was 2:45 and her official time was 2:45:02. She told me she struggled, especially at the end, but she seemed strong to me the whole time. We ran 2 minutes, walked 1 minuted and averaged at 12:38 pace. She was sore afterwards, but had no major injuries. Her hamstring has still be bothering her, but I would say, after your first half, to have one small nagging injury isn't half bad. She only yelled at me once, and that was at the end when I told her to pick up some speed. She did great and I had a really fun time running with her. 

me, post race

mom, post race, with her water bottle

All in all, I had a really good time. I would definitely do this again and hopefully, next year, they'll solve some technical issues. I'll probably also come a little earlier. 

You Go Girl Sprint Triathlon Recap

Today was my first triathlon and it was awesome. The Life Center put this on with a local cycling store for women, Pedal Chic. It was an all women triathlon targeted to beginners who are new to multi sport racing. They held free training clinics, which I've discussed before. I felt like this one might be a good one to try (no pun intended... lol) since it was a short distance and since most participants were beginners.

oh lawd this pic... lol

Distance:
250 m swim
10 mile bike
2.5 mile run

I arrived around 5:45 am because I want to set up early and warm up in the pool

After putting my stuff up, I went and got my timing chip and got marked. 

my iPhone camera was sucking at 6 am

The WHOLE time leading up to this race, i was freaking out about swimming. I knew that this was weak for me because 1. I've never really swam and 2. I didn't start training until about a month and a half ago. I was worried I'd be in everyone's way and it would be a hot mess. It didn't feel like a hot mess. I swam pretty slowly so I could make it 250 meters but it seemed to go so fast.

My time: 8:17 which was 108 out of 135

*eh, not so great but I mean, I have never swam so I didn't care, I was just glad I made it out without being too much in people's way


The bike felt good. I was passing people all over the place and I felt strong. I was averaging about 15-16 mph. I didn't know how that compared to others, but it felt good to be "in control" a little more. I felt a little more experienced on the bike.

My time: 35:14 - I actually placed 35th out of 135 on this so I was right in what I was feeling

Run: I thought this would be cake for me. In my head, I'm a runner - piece of cake. This is was I train in, I'm going to kill it. Welp.... everyone must've been a runner because I placed like, 50th in this. But my time was 22:50 which was like a 9 minute pace. What's amazing about that is that my legs were shot and I ran 2/walked 1. So even with all the walking, I was averaging a 9 minute mile... wow

So overall I finished 46th out of 135. I would say not to shabby but all of us were beginners. I think I was 4th in my age group so I felt pretty good about that. If I could've swam just a little bit faster, I think I could've placed. The 3rd place person was 107:52 and my time was 108:22

I absolutely LOVED doing this. As for my next one, i think I'd like to work on my swimming. I really really really enjoy swimming and I think if I train in the pool the way I train in my running, I can speed it up. I also am impressed with my bike and I think if I can actually train in that, maybe I can really do well on that portion.

All in all... I'm hooked

Red, White and Blue Shoes 5k

So, it's taken me a long time to write this post but that's just because I've been doing this:

yes, I am THAT sexy

So back to the review... I LOVE THIS RACE

1. It's at Furman University which is absolutely gorgeous. If you've never seen it, here is a pic of the campus:

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2. It was probably the flattest course I've run in a while. I train downtown and it is hilly, hilly, hilly, hilly... So the one hill towards the end was a piece of cake

3. I totally PR'ed. I ran it in 27:53 (according to my Garmin) which is fast for me and exciting because I've been trying to get faster over the past few months. The official time was 28 something but it was a gun start so i'm going with my Garmin... Woot woot!! I read so many blogs where their times are like, 22 min, 25 min, etc etc. I don't know if I'll ever be there but to be reaching a goal of mine which is 27 minutes, I feel pretty good about it. 

4. This was Go Run's goal race which means new people ran their first 5k. And then some PR'ed their first 5k. I love working with new runners because seeing people accomplish something they didn't think they could is very rewarding. 

A few pics from the race:

that's my mom with the Go Run shirt on!! This was her second 5k, plus she's done an 8k and a 10k. She's also signed up for the RnR Savannah Half Marathon!!

One of our leaders, Holly Di Giovine in the back 

Our other Go Run leader, Melissa, and our endurance group leader, Nova Robb

Woot Woot Denise!! She's signed up for the RnR Savannah Marathon - but she's no newbie, she's done a marathon before 

Helen - she ran the Candlelight 5k with me 2 weeks ago (in the GO Run shirt)

I'm the tall one :). Mom's to my right and Helen is to the far left

Holly (in white) and Melissa (in the sassy glasses) created Go Run and made an awesome beginner 5k program. I'm using Holly's marathon training program for the RnR Savannah this year. Nova (with the visor) leads our endurance training group, Val (white shirt at the bottom of the pic) is a triathlete who completed her first half ironman earlier this year leads the Go Run group in Greer and I'm beside Holly. I lead the Wednesday morning speed group. 

Fun, fast race.. definitely doing it next year... 

MIdnight in the Garden of Good & Evil

Marathon training has officially started. Just so you can get my title, I'm training for the Rock'n'Roll Savannah full marathon This will be my first full so I'm excited and a little nervous. I have said over and over and over, I do NOT want to run a full. But, after seeing Al Roker do it on the Today show, I thought, I could totally do this.

I'm using a training plan developed by Holly Di Giovine that is geared towards beginner marathoners. I'm also training with a group so that should make it fun!

This week's plan:

Monday: 4-6 sets of 30 second sprints with a warm up and cool down mile (done)
Tuesday: cross training 30 minutes: my plan is to bike after work
Wednesday: 4-6 sets of 2 minute repeats, recover 2-3 minutes, with a warm up, cool down mile
Thursday: cross training 30 minutes - i plan on swimming thursday morning
 *I may do a strength workout at lunch just to keeping building strength - only functional body weight movements - nothing heavy
Friday: long run (sometimes these will be saturdays, but because I'm going to cheer my friend, Lori, on at the Caine Halter Triathlon, I'm doing it friday) 45-60 minutes steady pace, yoga at night
Saturday: I'm going to try to swim for 30 minutes
Sunday: rest

Monday's workout should consist (and did) of high intensity running. This is helping increase my anaerobic threshold. On a scale of 1-10, my exertion should be a level 8-9... and it was... (faster than my 5k pace)

Wednesday's workout should consist of medium intensity running. This is pushing my aerobic threshold to a point that I could not sustain for long periods of time, say 6 miles, but could sustain for longer than 30 seconds... this is a level 7... (10k pace)

Friday long run: this is pretty self explanatory but here's where my training will probably differ from most. What I've found in my running is that I'm more comfortable running at about a 9 minute mile, but that is not something I can hold for 13 or 26 miles. I honestly can't even hold it for 3.1 miles, but we're working on that. I think my 5k is probably more like a 9:30 mile... So, when I try to slow down, it feels really uncomfortable and my hips are all crazy, I can't get in a rhythm and it just feels bleh.. SO.. i use a run-walk method that helps me keep that pace and then rest so that I can pick it up again. It's appalling to people that anyone would use this as opposed to just running the whole time but here's my experience and why I am fine with it...

first half marathon: I finished in 2:26
second half marathon using this method, i finished in 2:17

So, with a 9 minute improvement and the fact that I stayed injury free, never hit a wall once, and could still walk after the half, I'm going with the run/walk.

*if you're interested in learning more about this, check out Jeff Galloway and his method...

Normally, I use a run 4 minutes, walk 1 minute ratio but I think I want to change things up a bit. So my early long runs are going to be experiements. My goal is to train the first 10 miles at an 8/2 ratio, then change it up to see which one I like best. Either way, it'll probably even out, but what I don't want to do is start out with an 8/2, then bonk out the last 10k of the marathon, so we'll see how it goes during training. What I'd like to do at the race is the first 10 miles - 8/2, the second 10 miles - 4/1, and the last 10k - we'll see how I feel. It may end up being 3/1 or something worse!!

I'll keep you posted as I train.

The first time I used this method, I felt like an idiot running race and stopping while everyone was running. But I ended up passing the people that whizzed by me in the beginning and my final time was a 9:48 mile which was the best I'd ever done in a race (8k)...

so.... that's what's going on.

Are you training for any big races ?
What training plan do you use?
Do you have to walk in big races?

Race Calenders suck....

One of the biggest issues I have is trying to find races in other areas. I'm not a local race kind of gal, haha. I like two pick 1 or 2 big races a year and train for them. And I like for those races to be out of town. My major races have been a half marathon trail run in Ft Yargo (GA), the Rock'n'Roll Country Music Half in Nashville and the Rock'n'Roll half in New Orleans. I have 2 other big races scheduled, the RnR Full in Savannah and the RnR full in New Orleans 2012.

All that being said, the reason I am writing about this today is because people ask me all the time about races and 5ks they can do. I never know where to look and while there are a lot of race calenders online, they're not my fav. So... my friend started a website that is kind of like facebook for runners. In fact, it links in with facebook.

Race Bucket

It's cool because I can see the races that my friends are doing. It's in the early stages right now, so people are continuously adding races. I'm blogging about it so people across the US can join and start adding races in their community. Once it's built up, it'll be a great way to learn about new races, coordinate races with friends, etc etc etc.

Visit this site and start adding races... NOW!