May 2016 Running Challenge

5/1 - 5 miles
5/2 - 4 miles
5/3 - rest day
5/4 - 6 miles
5/5 - 5 miles
5/6 - rest day
5/7 - 5 miles
5/8 - trip to Nashville
5/9 - 5 miles
5/10 - family day
5/11 - 5 miles
5/12 - 5 miles
5/13 - family leaving I'm sad day
5/14 - 4 miles (5K and 1 mile warm up)
5/15 - 6 miles

50 of 100 miles

I explored new trails with a friend by the rivah in Richmond this morning, followed by $1 mimosas at an Irish pub. Not half bad.

Today was supposed to just be a 6 mile recovery run, but I cut it short at 4 miles. I felt fine and could have done 6 but a little before mile 4 my Garmin low battery alert came up and about that same time nature started calling. I figured since I might not get the record of 6 miles and the last two ahead of a down/recovery week aren't going to make much difference that I would call it a day and go home.

5/1 - 13.1 miles
5/2 - 6 miles
5/3 - 6 miles
5/4 - 9 miles
5/5 - 6 miles
5/6 - Rest
5/7 - 10.5 miles
5/8 - 10.5 miles
5/9 - 6 miles
5/10 - 6 miles
5/11 - 10 miles
5/12 - 6 miles
5/13 - Rest
5/14 - 13.1 miles
5/15 - 4 miles

106.2/200 miles



2016 races:
4/9 - Rock the Parkway half marathon (Kansas City, MO) 2:30:17.6 new PR
4/16 - Garmin Wickedly Fast half marathon (Olathe, KS) 2:28:39.52 new PR
4/23 - Heroes for Hope half marathon (North Kansas City, MO) 2:19:14 new PR
5/1 - Buffalo Bell Stampede half marathon (Leavenworth, KS) 2:25:06
5/14 - Running with the Cows half marathon (Bucyrus, KS) 2:17:38.4 new PR
6/2 - Hospital Hill 5k 7pm PRE-RUN (Kansas City, MO)
6/3 - Hospital Hill half marathon 7am RE-RUN (Kansas City, MO)
9/25 - Broadway Bridge half marathon (Kansas City, MO)
10/15 - Kansas City Marathon 26.2 (Kansas City, MO)
11/5 - Jenks half marathon (Jenks, OK)
11/6 - Kansas half marathon (Lawrence, KS)
11/12 - Longview half marathon (Kansas City, MO)
11/13 - Gobbler Grind half marathon (Overland Park, KS)
11/19 - White River half marathon (Cotter, AR)
11/20 - Pilgrim Pacer half marathon (Lenexa, KS)

@kristinegift - Glad to hear you're playing it smarter than I did in marathon recovery. The runners that I know who took a second run at BQ a month after missing a BQ don't have a very good success record on the second attempt. One buddy tells me his PR marathon (and BQ for the 45-59 age group, at the time) was after he took a year off from running marathons. When he ran 10 marathons in 3 years, he had to age up to BQ.

I took a DNS for Lilac Run 10K today. Went to volunteer at 6:30, ended up handing out bibs and shirts for the 5K and 10K. Had some nice conversation with other runners, recognized some of the names on the bibs, and actually got to hand out 3 bibs without having to ask who the runners were. Guess I've been hanging around the running community a while.

This year, the races were run by the Lilac Festival people instead of by running people. They ran out of some sizes of shirts at early packet pick up, and told people they could exchange on race day. Minor difficulty; we had the same shirts to hand out that were available for early packet pickup. So we had Youth Large, Women's Large, Women's XL, Men's Small, and Men's Medium. If someone really needed a different size, we had to tell them to send an email to get one after the event. A lot of runners tested the sizes we had and took something today, and everyone was really nice about it; but there it is.

After the 10K started, I was done. Walked back toward my car, past the post-race food. Would have liked a cup of coffee at that point, but the 5K runners had used all the cups the organizers had. I didn't hang around to see the 10K runners arrive to coffee with no cups.

Came home, brewed my own coffee, and looked up the results. Overall winners of the 5K and 10K are my teammates. Looks like the team did well at several levels. Top 2 guys in my age group are my team members. If I'd been healthy, I would have been competitive with the guy who finished first and ahead of the guy who finished second, i.e. I would have improved the supervet team results for the USATF Niagara 10K Championship even if I didn't win the age group. Sigh. Hopefully I'll be healthy for some USATF national events later this year.

Meanwhile, I can feel that the exercises the PT gave me are helping; I'm just not to the point where running any distance is a good idea yet. Maybe next week I'll get an estimate on how long it will take, based on progress from the initial visit Friday.

@shanaber I had a look at the She Power race - the virtual race kit swag looks awesome. Definitely something you can look forward to wearing!

@Orphia Wow, the photos are so cool! Foregive my cluelessness - but that's a wallaby, isn't it? Or something else? And a 15 km PB the day after climbing a mountain, great job!

@kristinegift I know that kind of stress you are talking about with the whole finishing/get a new job/find apartment/move stuff - I went though that last year. My running dropped down really low during that time. Which, looking back, I don't understand at all, because running is usually a great way for me to deal with stress, but somehow it seems I switched to reading romance novels in the bath tub for relaxation for a while instead... *ahem* Guess what I want to say is you've deserved a time-off, and after a little break you'll suddenly enjoy running again and won't remember anymore how you could ever not have felt like it!

@MobyCarp Glad to hear that the PT exercises are helping; I hope the estimate you get next week will be a positive one!

---

I only went out for my long run yesterday in the afternoon - before, I was lying in wait for the delivery guy, who brought my new Sauconys. As I went out, I caught the last 5 minutes of some cool, soft drizzling rain. And then the sun came out, and it got first humid, and then hot. Well, not really hot, a little under 20°C(~70°F), but somehow, it felt really tough to be out there. Especially since I was sore enough from Fridays strength workout that I was already moaning and cursing every time I stood up or sat down since Saturday morning ^^ As usually, I picked my route to have the uphill parts first and downhill on the way back, so I actually felt much better during the last 5k of the run, and nearly would have kept on going. But in the end I decided to be good and stick to my plans of a cutback/recovery week after my half marathon.

Those good recovery intentions were also the reason for me to be unfaithful to running today! It was supposed to be a no-running day, but the weather was absolutely lovely (sunny, but colder than yesterday), so I was itching to go out. In the end, I compromised by taking my bike for a ride instead. Usually, I only use it to get to work and back, and it felt kinda weird to be riding around in a long circle (26km) without the intent of going somewhere. Mostly it was nice, except for the part in the middle where I found myself on a mountain bike trail and found out that me & my road bike were not up to that kind of excitement; I had to walk for maybe a kilometre and got a nice collection of scratches and nettle burns on my legs. Without the bike, it would have been a nice trail, I might have to come back there for running!


e.t.a.: forgot the most important part! Here's a pic of the new shoes, Saucony Xodus 3. They are very ... pink. Like bright fluro pink. But for some weird reason, the black ones weren't on sale, only the pink ones, and for 30 Euro less I'm willing to deal with the color. I'll just have to get them covered in mud really fast, to avoid blinding people with all that bright pinkness - the picture doesn't really do them justice...

@Virkati Congratulations on your first half!!

@Virkati great job!

@Elise4270 "They were on sale because there's a surplus" sounds nicer than how I would have put it - my thoughts were actually "the shop wanted to get rid of them really badly, because they realised that nobody wants to buy trail shoes in that screaming color"

whatang wrote: »

Today was supposed to be my first half marathon, but I didn't run it.

Back in March I was in great shape, running decent distances and planning for my half today. On April 3rd I did something horrible to my hamstring and knee in my right leg while playing football, as well as pulling a calf muscle in the same leg. I then got a cold! I haven't run at all since.

Until today. I didn't do the half I was planning, but I did get out for my first run for 6 weeks tonight: just a 5k, and very slow at that, but at least I was out running, and nothing broke! Hoping to get 30 miles in by the end of the month.

Way to make a tough day into a new beginning!!

@ddmom0811 It sounds like many of us need a little break! But you are a champ for doing ANYTHING after being up til 1:00 at prom! Oof!

@_nikkiwolf_ Haha I spent my Wednesday doing that EXACT same procrastination activity. The most I moved all day was from my bed to my desk to my kitchen to my bathroom, all with Kindle in hand. Sometimes you just need to take a day off and waste a day reading when everything else is just too much to handle!

@Virkati Congrats on your first HM! No matter the time: YOU DID IT! So... when's the next one?

@kristinegift funny you should ask because I'm already signed up for a half on Labor day and Rock-n-Roll Denver mid October! However, for those I'm going to make a plan and stick to it. AND I'm going to do everything the phys therapist says so that I don't have any more issues with the hip muscle. I'm positive that tomorrow, walking will be done with deliberate caution. My body HURTS right now!

DATE...............MILES.............TOTAL
5/1....................REST................00.00
5/2....................REST................00.00
5/3.......................5.00.................5.00
5/4.....................10.00...............15.00
5/5.......................3.00...............18.00
5/6....................REST................18.00
5/7.....................12.00...............30.00
5/8.......................6.00...............36.00
5/9....................REST................36.00
5/10..................REST................36.00
5/11.....................5.00...............41.00
5/12.....................4.00...............45.00
5/13..................REST................45.00
5/14...................31.50...............76.50 GRT 50k Ultra
5/15..................REST................76.50








2016 Races
5/14: Glacier Ridge Ultra -- 50k (Portersville, PA)
7/9: Buckeye Trail 50k -- 50k (Brecksville, OH)
7/16: ColorRun --5k (with my 15 year old)(Pittsburgh, PA)
7/17: Presque Isle Half-Marathon (Erie, PA) -- This is a maybe.. road races have too many people...
9/10: 1st Annual Possum Glory Endurance Race -- 50k (Northern Cambria, PA)
10/1: Cloudsplitter 100 -- 100 Miles (Pine Mountain, KY)
10/15: Buffalo Creek Half Marathon (Sarver, PA) -- This is also a maybe.. because people...

1---0.5 test run, 6.0 walk/trail runnish
14---6.48 walk
15---2.3 another walk. Hooray!


15.28/anything

Upcoming races:

11/05/16 Jenks Half Jenks OK
12/11/16 Dallas marathon, half
Run the year 2016  749.96/ 2016

Congrats to all who raced! I read all of the posts yesterday so apologies to all I miss but way to go to those I recall right now @7lenny7 @PoppetsMaster @Virkati

Sorry about the pup @Elise4270.

@kristinegift - Enjoy a well earned running break, you'll be back better than ever as soon as you're ready!

@MobyCarp hope you heal quickly! And I recall one or more others had some issues recently, I hope none of them keep you down long.

Thanks all for the race kudos. @Ohhim you may be right. I have wondered what might have been possible if I had not decided to hang back with the lead 2:20 pacer. Granted by the time I broke away at mile 10 my HR was up at 150 steadily but that was all uphill too. I try to race between 140 and 152 building up slowly through that range at first then a kick towards 160 at the end. So it may not have made much difference since I was in those ranges but may have spent some miles in the lower range that could have been more in the middle of that range. I have nothing but hilly races from now until my series of 6 halfs in 3 weekends, so I may not make an earnest attempt at a race PR this fall, but it could just still happen with continued training and weight loss as you say.

@Virkati You did it! Nice job. Wishing you a rapid recovery!