May 2017 Running Challenge

5/1 - rest
5/2 - 6 miles
5/3 - 4.15 miles (track workout)
5/4 - 3 miles recovery
5/5 - rest
5/6 - 6 mile easy run
5/7 - 10 mile taper week long run
5/8 - rest
5/9 - 4.5 mile recovery run
5/10 - 7 mile run
5/11 - 4.5 mile recovery run
5/12 - rest
5/13 - 2.5 mile pre-race shakeout run
5/14 - Tinkerbell HM (2:01:54 - PR’d by 8 min!)
5/15 - rest
5/16 - 3 mile sort of recovery run (a little too fast)
5/17 - rest
5/18 - 5 mile run (supposed to be recovery but too fast)
5/19 - rest
5/20 - 6 mile run
5/21 - rest
5/22 - rest

May Total: 74.75/140

564.85 miles/2,017 miles - goal for the year

Hi guys! I'm finally back! On the 14th I had my Tinkerbell HM in Disneyland, out in CA, but I continued my vacation through this past Saturday evening, and landed back home early Sunday morning after a not-at-all-restful redeye (I've never been able to sleep on planes, ugh). I'm still recuperating from that, and also the jet lag of the 3 hour time difference. I'm getting old, lol, it's taking a while to get over it. There's no way I'll be able to get totally caught up on this thread, but I've read the last few pages, and kudos to all the awesome race performances and PR's I saw!!!

Apologies in advance for any lengthiness of my race report, feel free to skip over it!

So, my race went fantastically well. I was in Corral B, based on my first HM time from Sept (2:09:58). Being a Disney race it was pretty big, with 6 corrals, and I believe somewhere around 10k participants. It started at 5:30am, but that was ok because I had just flown in the morning before, so it still felt like 8:30am to me. I had my full costume on and I took a couple chances, having never run in any parts of it. I hadn't even run in shorts since the last time I lost a bunch of weight, so I was really hoping I wasn't going to have any thigh-chafing issues (I didn't, huzzah!). Didn't even notice the wings while I was running, lol.

So I'm working towards getting a sub-2:00:00 HM, but I didn't think realistically that I had a shot at that this time, since it would mean shaving 9:58 off my first HM time from Sept. In my head I think I was really hoping for a sub-2:05. I was all set to go out with my pace goal in my mind, and focus on hitting or beating it for each mile, but the first few miles ended up discouraging me from that. This was because it was sooo crowded in the first few miles that I started off slower than I was hoping for, and kind of lost hope of being able to focus on my pace goal. So I pretty much ended up running by feel, and seeing where that got me on each mile. And it actually got me much better off than I expected it to!

I had also originally planned to use my hydration belt, but it honestly just did not work with my tank top with text on it and my tutu. Priorities, right? So I decided to just rely on the water stations, and I am happy to say that I seem to have finally perfected my 'drinking from a paper cup while still running' technique. I'd say I got between 95-99% of the water and powerade into my mouth, woot! And I did not walk a single step of this race, even while passing through water stations! I had also planned to eat something before the race, but it was so early I just had no appetite and wasn't able to take in more than 2 bites of a Clif bar. Again, this seemed to be ok, and in addition to the powerade/water while on the course I took in half a pouch of caffeinated Extreme Sport Beans and half a Gu gel.

The race itself was a blast! It went through both Disneyland parks, into downtown Anaheim, and ended up back at Disneyland. I got to run through the castle! On the course in the parks they had characters out that you could take pics with (I didn't because THERE IS NO STOPPING WHEN RACING! lol), a lot of Neverland pirates along the route, and Peter Pan and Wendy waving at us from an overpass. On the Anaheim sections there was a band with a singer, a marching band, a dj, and a couple MC's. Overall, just a really fun race.

So, I ended up finishing in 2:01:54. I finished 472nd out of 9234 female finishers. In my age division, women 30-34, I finished 87th out of 1644. I seriously couldn't believe how good I was feeling, especially since in my first HM in Sept I definitely was really feeling it by the end, and had no energy to push the last mile or sprint the finish line. This time around I basically negative split the race, kind of without even really focusing on that, and ran my last mile 28 seconds faster than my next fastest mile of the race! Which, of course, now has me wondering if I could have run the race even faster, lol. #runnerproblems But I was able to really rev up the engines for the last mile, and sprint the finish line, still with a smile on my face.

I am super duper proud of how I did, and ended up exceeding my own expectations. I can definitely feel that sub-2:00:00 HM coming up! I'm not sure I'll pull it off in June's HM, since it's significantly more hilly than this one was I believe, but I'm going to work towards it!

Here are my splits. I'm going to post pics in a separate post so this doesn't get too crazy long, lol.