Hot weather walk

It was 90+ degrees last night and super humid so Brian & I decided to walk at VF instead of running. I'm not sure that was the best decision because there was a surprising amount of wind along the trail and we saw more runners than we usually do in that kind of weather.

Either way, I got 5.5 miles under my belt. I hope to get in at least one real run this week but tonight I need to meet the cable guy so I probably can't do it tonight and tomorrow we're supposed to get a ton of serious thunderstorms. I think I might have to actually go to the gym. Yuck!

Sunday - Our first PA hike in years

On Sunday Brian and I went up to Green Lane park to do some easy walking and hiking as the first step in our training for the Megatransect. On a scale of 1-10 in terms of difficult hiking this was like a 1. There was one section that might be called a 2. But it was rocky with roots and uneven terrain so it was a good way to get back into the swing of things without getting too far away from home.

We started the day easy with a casual walk on the Perkiomen and covered about 5 miles. Then we had a picnic before moving to the part of the park with trails. The map called the round trip on the trail 6 miles but I'd be kind of surprised if it was really that far.

Overall, it was a nice day out, we got some good slow miles under our belts and I learned that I absolutely need new trail shoes for this race because I got an icky blister on my heel from my trusty Merrells. I love those shoes and they've taken me to a lot of cool places but they have had it.

I'm frustrated that none of those miles counted towards my Nike challenges. I really wish that you could set it to track walks or runs so a long walk/hike would count but wouldn't totally tank your average pace. Then again, why do I really care about the average pace? It's true considering that I do quite a mix of walking/hiking and running and will continue to have this type of mix through September. I'm really going to have to think about this because I look lame having only a 7 mile weekend when I really did more like 17.

Update on Monday morning:

I can't believe it but that lame hike actually made me sore! The back of my heel -- I guess it's the achellies tendon area. It's not awful but it's new and it's gotta be from the hiking. Very interesting.

Brian is considering doing the Baltimore Marathon 2 weeks after the Mega. Not sure if that's such a good idea but I hope he decides to do it so I can run the half there!

Saturday Run w/PhillyFit

Saturday was just the most perfect day to run. It was cool, there was no humidity, it was just great.

We ran for 7 miles out on the Perkiomen and according to Nike+ we came in at an even 10:00 pace for the day. I think that's off a bit since it gave us credit for 7.33 miles when it probably wasn't quite that far. Still, I think we were at or below 10:30 and for 7 miles that's pretty good for me.

What's perplexing is that my friend and I were running pretty solidly and while we were chatting we weren't going slow enough to have a regular conversation. Still, we were left in the dust by the majority of the red group (10 min pace and slower) and they finished a few minutes ahead of us even though we all started at the same time. The real mystery is that one of the guys running in the lead pack of runners said his Garmin gave a pace of 10:40. There is no way they could have been running slower than us and finished so far ahead of us. And while my Nike+ might not be perfectly accurate it's not a minute off the pace.

I think both of our devices are inaccurate but I'm still puzzled by how things turned out. I don't know why I care. Even if the Nike+ is wrong, it's always rating me against the same calibration scale so if I'm improving on Nike+ I'm improving for real.

Another Virtual Half Marathon!

This one is the Nike+ Women's Half Marathon where they will give a Tiffany & Co. keychain and a tech t-shirt to anybody who registers (and pays an entry fee) and then completes a half-marathon using their Nike+ on October 21, 2007.

I love it! It's called Run Together.


In other news, I walked last night instead of running. Tonight I'll probably do nothing and then I have 7 on the schedule tomorrow morning.

Evening Run

I skipped my run on Tuesday because it was 90 degrees and looking like a thunderstorm. I went out for dinner with my Mom and sisters instead. That was fun but not good for my calorie count -- especially when we added a trip to the ice cream place on after dinner.

Last night I was hoping to hit the trail at Valley Forge and was about 5 minutes from the park when I got a call from my sister (who is staying at my house this week) to tell me that I left my running clothes at home. This was very bad news since the weather was just PERFECT for running last night.

Luckily it was the longest day of the year so we had plenty of time to detour back home, grab some dinner, get changed and still get to the trail for about a 6.5 mile run before dark.

It was a really good run. Easy walking warmup for about a mile, then slowish walking and chatting until I felt good and my legs took me out a little ahead of Brian. I had some fast stretches along the way and kind of lost my edge in the last half of the run but I tried my best to hang in there and keep on running and as you can see from the Nike+ chart I did a pretty good job of staying steady. My average pace for the whole run was 10:48 and considering that I walked more than the first mile I think that's pretty good effort.

I'm at 340 miles for the year according to Nike+. I know I'm really 13 miles more (because of the half marathon I ran when the Nike foot pod didn't work) but I have to go by what the computer says. I'm in a challenge to run 1001 miles in the year. I'm obviously off the pace but it's not as bad as it could be, especially since I hope (and expect) my miles to really increase, especially in the fall when I start to prepare for Goofy. I really want to hit that goal even though it doesn't mean a thing.

Weekend Run

PhillyFit met on Saturday morning for a 6 mile run. Brian & I decided to head out early and we got in a nice warm-up walk of about a mile and a half and then about 3/4 mile running back towards the group meeting spot before we ran into the runner's heading out. I really liked that chance to warm up slowly and it made for a really good outing for me.

Those first two sets wound up at about 8.5 miles long and during the 7 mile segment I averaged a 10:18 pace which is really pretty good for me.

Following that run, after rehydrating and chatting with the group for awhile we decided to head out for a couple more miles with my sister (who is training for Baltimore) and needed a couple extra miles. What started out as a short stroll turned into a 5+ mile pretty decently paced walk.

Overall, it was about a 13 mile day. Really very good overall.

I wore this new skirt in yitro print and it felt great with a pair of cheapo Target compression shorts underneath. The flaw is that my water belt kind of rubbed some spots the wrong way so it kind of screwed up the fabric. I'm surprised, but I still really like the skirt.

Sunday I had great intentions to ride my bike and do a run (my first brick!) but I never got around to it because I was getting my house in order for my houseguests. (Sister and nephew visiting for a week or so.)

Other exciting news is that we made our plans for the Disney marathon and we'll be staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge on our trip. I can't wait for January!

Bald Eagle Mountain Megatransect

I did it! I signed us up for this adventure. According to the website the Megatransect is a 25 mile wilderness hike/run that is second to none! It's not a race, it's a personal challenge. According to their website:

"The Megatransect is designed to appeal to the hard-core trail runner, dedicated hiker or those reasonably fit persons out for a real challenge. You will be given 11.5 hours to complete the course. Runners' times will from 3.75 to 6.5 hours. Hikers are likely to take 6 to 9.5 hours. Those that do a bit of jogging in the easy sections should be somewhere in the middle. Although timed, the Megatransect should be considered more of a personal challenge rather than a race."

We're not trail runners so we'll be doing this just as a timed hike. The course is open for 11.5 hours and I think we're going to need most of them. It starts off with an oatmeal breakfast and ends with a pig roast and we even get commemorative coffee mugs.

I love everything I've read about this event except the part where it says to watch out for rattlesnakes. I hope it's chilly day and not a muggy nightmare.

Get a load of those rocks!!

We have until September 29 to get ready for this. That's 15 weeks away. It's going to be interesting getting in my training for New York and getting ready for this -- I think it's going to really help prep me for the back to back days of the Goofy Challenge.

Celebrating Entry with a Day off!

I blew off my first run after getting into New York. We were having thunderstorms and I didn't even think about going to the gym. I'm not sure why I didn't.

Anyway, no run yesterday. I have my stuff with me today, so maybe I'll run tonight as long as the weather cooperates. I have to come up with a training plan. This is one of my favorite parts of the whole marathon experience -- filling in the calendar with all my long runs and figuring out who to arrange my life around them.

It'll be more complicated this time since we're going to have to plan some long hikes too so that we can get ready for the Megatransect. I guess the back to back long workouts will help me get in gear for the Goofy Challenge in January.

Nike+ Thing

I just posted a widget so that you can see my last 5 Nike+ runs.

The graph that shows is my most recent run and if you click on the tiny little gray arrow to the left of the green graph line you can scroll back to the previous run.

Pretty nifty!

New York, New York!

I got into New York again! I am 2 for 2.

My sister got in too -- which is also good news.

The bad news: my husband didn't get in.

I feel just awful about that because I really want him to experience the whole race. It's not fair that we're getting 2nd chances before he even gets his first chance.

I might defer so that we can run a different race together.

This is such a different feeling from last year when I was jumping out of my skin. Now I'm sad about Brian and worried that I won't like it as much as last time if I do run.

Worldwide Half Marathon

I just signed up for this while I'm anxiously awaiting the results of the New York Lottery. It's driving me CRAZY not to have a real marathon goal for the fall. I'll either have a half-marathon training run or I'll sign up to run the half at Baltimore to participate. I think I'm going to e-mail the Phedippidations guy and get the logo so I can have a t-shirt made for myself at Running Banana.

I've been doing a mix of running and walking in the past few weeks. Partly because I was burned out and partly because I've been a little under the weather and running was a little too difficult for a couple of weeks. I think I'm getting back on track now though -- just in time for the high temps and humidity! Lucky me!

We're considering doing the Bald Eagle Mountain Megatransect in September, which will be a fun (maybe) alternative to the kinds of races we typically do. I think I can pull that off and still run Philadelphia or New York in November just as long as I don't get a rattlesnake bite during the hike.

I think I failed to post any comments here about the Broad Street Run back in May. I was in a big snit because my posted time didn't match my watch because of a chip malfunction. They recently updated their site so now my real time shows up! yay! I get credit for my 1:43 run!

Belated Report: Lehigh Valley Half Marathon

That's me wearing the magical Quadrathon shirt that powered me to a big PR at the half marathon. It's kind of a miracle that it happened since I spent the week leading up to the race in Jamaica. I landed in Philadelphia at about 6:30 on Saturday night and at that poitn I didn't even know what time the race started on Sunday morning!

Anyway, we drove up to Allentown and checked into our hotel where I had the worst night of sleep ever. It had nothing to do with the hotel -- except the change from King bed on vacation to double bed at this hotel really did not work for me. Brian on the other hand, had a great night of sleep and had his very own great race on Sunday morning.

Weather was ideal for racing: slightly overcast, light breeze, mid-50 temps. We had no problem at all picking up our stuff pre-race (nice long sleeved tech shirt and free teddy bear (?) and best of all Goldenberg's Peanut Chews!) and we checked our stuff before heading to the start line.

At this point I discovered that my Nike+ had died. My iPod had been acting funny in Jamaica, freezing up at times, but I determined that was due to wild fluctuations in humidity. This was something different altogether. After I tried to start my workout and the lady says "walk around to activate your sensor" nothing happened. Try as I might, I couldn't get it to link. I tried to reset it a few times but no go -- I had to just run without it. I did manage to time my race with the iPod stopwatch (which even has lap features but I am not sure how to do that) and that was good since I wasn't wearing a watch. Of course, even if I did know how to work the lap counter, I couldn't have used it since I saw almost no mile markers all day long. I was the only one to miss them, so I must have been in some kind of zone.

I positioned myself between the 2:20 and 2:30 pacers and my plan was not to get in front of the 2:20 pacer until the very end. This turned out to be an ideal plan because I started slowish and then caught 2:20 lady but didn't pass her. She dropped me at about mile 8 when we hit a pretty big hill but then I caught up again and passed her.

I felt really good through most of the race (until that hill) and those last few miles are hillier than the beginning portion of the race and I found myself walking on hills and running the rest. I just listened to my body until the final mile and then tried to push as best as I could. I still walked a bit towards the end of the final mile because the race finishes on a high school track with lots of spectators and I did NOT want to walk during that segment. Instead, I walked a bit on the lead up (and the nasty Marine Corps Marathon-esque hill into the stadium) and then ran as fast as I could to the finish. I even tried to nab the inside lane but I didn't quite get there.

Post race food was really good (soup, vegetarian sausage, muffin tops, bananas, and water) and we even got mylar blankets which felt great because the wind was kicking up and it got kind of cold waiting for everybody to finish.

I really enjoyed the race and can't wait to do it again next year. The course is pleasant too, mostly through a park. Some people did not care for the gravel path that a large portion of the race is run on but that didn't bother me since it's my typical running surface.

Broad Street Run: good, bad, and ugly

The good: beautiful day, good race, another PR

The bad: we were late, the race felt almost as awful as a marathon

The ugly: we were late, which caused me to be in a HUGE snit, and made us at least 5 minutes late to the start, and now there is a glitch in the results reporting so my 1:43 PR is showing up as a 1:51 Personal Worst.

Still, this is a good race, and I'm happy with my (unofficial) time of 1:43:44. I figured I'd run 1:45 and considering how much I struggled, I'm thrilled with 1:43.

I'm going to have to do a lot of training for the Goofy Challenge because this race was way too hard after yesterday's Urban Dare.

Urban Dare Philadelphia - Super Fun!

I'm pretty sure we came in 6th place yesterday at the Urban Dare. I was sort of in a daze as it finished so I'm going to have to re-check with the race director to be sure.

Pictures, clues and story to follow soon.

Trying something new! (If I don't chicken out)

I signed up for the duathlon event at the Philadelphia Women's Triathlon. I'm fascinated by triathlon but I really can't swim well enough to even consider doing a tri this summer. The duathlon distances are certainly in my realm though, even with my lame granny bike, and I think concentraing on the 2 and 3.1 distances required for the run will help me stick to some speed training that will help me overall to get ready for my fall marathon. (I can't wait until they pick the lottery in New York. It's driving me crazy not being able to make a plan for fall.)

This reminds me that I'm considering registering for Marine Corps on May 9 figuring that I can just defer until 2008 if I get into New York. If Brian gets into New York, and I don't, I think I want to run Baltimore in October so I can get the crab medal and avoid the hassle of back to back out of town races.

Decisions, Decisions!

Lehigh Valley Half Marathon - Great Race and a PR

I ran without a watch, without my Nike+ (it's been acting crazy since I left for Jamaica), and somehow I managed to set a PR. By quite a lot!

I ran 2:19:24 on Sunday in a really fun race, on a nice course, in perfect weather. It was a great ending to a week of vacation!

More details later on both the trip and the race.

Super Cute Medal

I know I have two other races to do on this weekend, but isn't this the cutest medal ever???

I think this might have to go on the list for next year. This and the new Tower of Terror run with the glow in the dark shirts.

Who is the Sole Survivor? I AM!

By some sort of miracle, I managed to beat Stevo152 by a measly .43 miles to become the winner of the Nike+ Survivor Challenge. I am a little embarassed about how happy I am about winning.

Running, Nike Survivor, and the Bachelor

I've been logging a lot of miles but they haven't all been running. In fact, most of them have NOT been running. I've been meeting Brian for walks after work and while I'm not getting my hill workout at VF I'm having a lot of fun just unwinding and talking for an hour outside after work. It's nice and I'm not quite ready to give that up in favor of slogging over those hills. I probably should though.

I had a hard but good workout on Saturday, about 11 miles, broken up into a couple of different legs to satisfy my Nike+ challenges. It was overall pretty good but strange. I started slow, walking with Brian but then got really too fast for myself (because of the music I was listening to I think) and I never really got into a good rhythm. The strange part is that overall it was a fast workout even though I had to stop for walking more than usual.

This week I'm trying to win the Survivor challenge on Nike+. That took me out for a walk on Sunday at a set of nearby trails that we've never explored before. Monday I couldn't log anything but last night I did the VF loop and tonight I plan to hit the treadmill for a more focused running workout. It'll be really fun if I win!

We watched the Bachelor last night and Brian commented that Andy has the "biggest lower chest I've ever seen". That's a strange comment and yet it's true! He looks very strange with his shirt off -- it's like he's got unusually large muscles over his ribs and then a tiny waist. It's also totally bugging me that they all say tri-ath-a-lon. I thought that was a huge pet peeve of the tri-folk. I thought it should be called tri-athlon. Even Andy says it and who am I to argue with a 6 time Ironman?

I'm not sure who he's going to pick but right now I like Tessa best. She's cute, a triathlete, and finds the whole concept of the show upsetting and bizarre, which is the only normal seeming attitude one could have about that dumb show.

The Gym

I finally joined a gym. This means that I will be able to run in inclement weather and in the dark. No more excuses.

It also means that I might start to do strength training. I've been saying I was going to start strength training since I started planning my wedding -- I've been married for 3 years and I still haven't started! I am the Queen of Procrastination!

I hope this will help me win the Survivor challenge. I am one of the top dogs remaining (gotta love a challenge slanted in favor of the mid-pack runners!) after the merge so I've got to kick it into high gear this week. I'm the only girl left so that makes me want to win just a tiny bit more than before.

Unfortunately, I also have a pesky calf injury so I might have to run even slower than usual or walk to get in the miles. I guess they all count though in the Nike world.