March 2019 Monthly Running Challenge

I’ve got another monthly question, if it counts as one haha.
Inspired by a near faceplant during my run today, what is your most embarrassing running fall story, if you have one? Treadmill or outside counts.
I’ll start: a few years ago, before I started running, I was with a friend at a very crowded gym. We were trying to see who could go faster on the treadmill(we were 16 and dumb). I thought I was the *kitten*, until I lost my footing and fell backwards, and flew literally in midair and smacked into the wall behind the treadmill. Fortunately, I was okay, the only thing bruised was my ego. I swear, it was America’s funniest home videos worthy.

amirahdaboss wrote: »

I’ve got another monthly question, if it counts as one haha.
Inspired by a near faceplant during my run today, what is your most embarrassing running fall story, if you have one? Treadmill or outside counts.
I’ll start: a few years ago, before I started running, I was with a friend at a very crowded gym. We were trying to see who could go faster on the treadmill(we were 16 and dumb). I thought I was the *kitten*, until I lost my footing and fell backwards, and flew literally in midair and smacked into the wall behind the treadmill. Fortunately, I was okay, the only thing bruised was my ego. I swear, it was America’s funniest home videos worthy.

I've recounted my epic faceplant here a couple of times. It was fairly early in my running career and I was beginning to think I was hot stuff and adding in some faster intervals. My husband and I were sprinting along the wet, slimy boardwalk and I caught my toe on a loose board. I shot foward onto my stomach and slid about thirty feet as if I'd been launched from a catapult! Came to a stop at the feet of two older ladies and a very concerned dog which licked me all over to be sure I was okay. Nothing injured but my pride, but the injury to my pride was considerable!

March Goal: Shut up and move

3/1 Went to my first ever St. David's Day Party
3/2 3.13
3/3 stuff
3/4 4.00
3/5 rest
3/6 3.00
3/7 snorkel 3.5 hours: Octopus, octopus emerges from cloud of ink, eyestripe surgeonfish 3/8 3.35

Total: 13.48

@Elise4270 Best wishes for a quick and (relatively) pain free recovery. I know you don't like hugs, so here is a Ti Leaf lei, traditionally used for healing:


Ticker is my goal for 2019 and progress to date:

amirahdaboss wrote: »

I’ve got another monthly question, if it counts as one haha.
Inspired by a near faceplant during my run today, what is your most embarrassing running fall story, if you have one? Treadmill or outside counts.
I’ll start: a few years ago, before I started running, I was with a friend at a very crowded gym. We were trying to see who could go faster on the treadmill(we were 16 and dumb). I thought I was the *kitten*, until I lost my footing and fell backwards, and flew literally in midair and smacked into the wall behind the treadmill. Fortunately, I was okay, the only thing bruised was my ego. I swear, it was America’s funniest home videos worthy.

This is what I fear pretty much every moment of every treadmill run. But my most embarrassing moment was when my then 6-year-old "pacer" decided to abruptly change direction on his bike, right in front of me, and I flew through the air in slow-motion while thinking "hmm, this is gonna hurt". Yeah, people saw me... I really wanted to keep laying there but my kid was hurt, too. Now I try to keep more distance between me and my little cyclists.

3-1 Rest
3-2 10.5k easy
3-3 11k slow
3-4 10.5k recovery
3-5 Rest
3-6 7k slow
3-7 10.5k easy
3-8 Rest
3-9 11k easy

March Total: 60.5k
March Goal: 175k

Next year when you pop in here claiming your December 2019 mileage, what accomplishments will you have made?
Run at least 4 5k races.
Get under 30:00 and a PR for 5k.
Average at least 135k per month, which would put me over 1,000 miles for the year.

Run the Year Team: Five for Nineteen

Gorgeous day to run today: 32 degrees F; sunny; and a light wind.

2019 Races:

4-13 Shine the Light 5K
6-1 Freedom 5K
6-30 Strides for Starfish 5K

I'm at a high! I couldn't run a mile without stopping in high school. Now at 37 years old, I ran 3.55! I might be overweight (a work in progress) but I'm in the best shape of my life.
March challenge: 3.55
Total so far: 8.52

March Running Totals (miles)
3/1 – rest day
3/2 – 20.05 paced run + solo miles
3/3 – 8.28 easy
3/4 – rest day
3/5 – 10.27 warmup, speed work, cool down
3/6 – 8.75 easy
3/7 – 8.41 warmup, MP run, cool down
3/8 – 15.59 Around the Bay (Irondequoit)

March running total to date – 71.35

Nominal March mileage goal: 200 miles

Real Goals: Train well toward Boston. Cut back before St. Patrick’s Day weekend, run the 8K hard, use the half as a training race. Remain uninjured, even if it means cutting back on planned mileage.

Today's notes – It wasn't a race.

Today several local running groups organized the annual Around the Bay run, where we start at 7 AM from the boat launch parking lot at the north end of Irondequoit Bay, the run south on the west side of the bay, across the southern end on Empire Blvd, and north on the east side of the bay, finishing running west along Lake Ave to cross the swing bridge and get back to where we started. The "official" route is about 15 miles; I opted for a 15.6 mile variant, because that's about the mileage I needed today.

Oh, yeah. This run is traditionally done on the last (or near the last) Saturday before the swing bridge is opened for boat traffic and you can't get all the way around on foot for the duration of boating season. For reference, here's a picture of Irondequoit Bay looking south from the boat launch parking lot after I completed today's run:



The view from the bridge looking north toward Lake Ontario seems better for boating:



One of the attractions of this particular route is that we start a few feet above water level, run to the top of the Niagara escarpment, and run back down to near water level, four times. Some of the downhills are fairly steep, as roads go, and I wanted to practice running downhill smoothly without braking to be sure it's natural when I get to the drop at Lower Newton Falls in April. For reference, here's the Garmin elevation chart from today's run:



This is all on roads, except for a few short distances where I was forced to use sidewalks.

Weather: The forecast was for 15° F (-9°C) at 7 AM, rising to near 20° F over the next 2 hours. Garmin says it was 9° F when I started. Based on how it felt, I believe Garmin. The wind was forecast to be mild, 3 to 5 mph. That felt about right away from the lake, but it was stronger on the lake shore. This is a common phenomenon, but even the stronger lake shore wind wasn't enough to be a problem.

So I set out to run easy, and somehow there are only 3 guys ahead of me. I know who two of them are, and they ought to be ahead of me. This doesn't last. Runners catch up to me, and at first I think I'll have company. No such luck. They're better runners than me who happen to be weaker on hills than I am, and/or start slower than I do. But chatting with a few of them sucks me into running a bit faster than easy. I'm pushing marathon pace, and slow myself down a few times.

Get to the first long steep downhill, and it's time to practice running downhill without banging myself up. That went well, but I think I saw a 6:35 pace on the watch at the bottom of the hill. Get to the first steep uphill, and I start passing people even though I've slowed down and made a deliberate effort not to challenge the hill. There are more hills to come.

Second long steep downhill went much like the first, as did the second steep uphill. Chatted with another runner on the uphill; we had traded places with him charging up the hill then me catching him where it was less steep. I lost him at the water stop around mile 7.

Long downhill on Empire Blvd to the south end of the bay. Took a gel about 7.8 miles in, right about at the south end of the bay. Went to chase it with water, and the valve of my water bottle was frozen. Oh, well. I saw that the first time at Winter Warrior Half in 2015. Take the lid off, get my water the hard way, put lid back on. (The other bottle, with Nuun, never froze even though it has the same style valve.)

Long grinding hill up Empire Blvd on the east side of the Bay. I'm catching runners. End up treating the last one as a pace leader. We're running up the less steep part of the hill at 7:30 per mile. I sure don't need to go any faster than that uphill! He loses me when it gets less steep, because he's faster.

After that, I'm pretty much running in space. I can see a group of good runners ahead of me for a while, but they disappear before I get to where I need to turn off Bay Rd. That's okay, I know where I'm going and the potential confusing parts are behind me. I can just treat this as a training run . . . except I'm having great difficulty getting myself to slow down. Take the detour to make it the long route, and find that has a ways of level ground before the downhill happens at a different place than the standard route I've run before.

Get to the bottom of the hill. It looks like I'm almost there. Look at the watch. 1.6 miles to go, all flat, mostly looking monotonous. For a few miles, I've been running on determination, a bit beat up from running the distance closer to MP than easy, plus the elevation change. Now I can't help myself. I pick up the pace for that last bit, just a little. Estimate the point in the parking lot where I started running, and stop there. 1:57:24 for 15.59 miles. If I'd thought about duration, I might have kept running another 3 minutes just to get to 2 hours.

Average pace was 7:32 per mile, about what I ran at Wineglass last September. Slowest split was mile 1, 8:21 mostly uphill. Fastest split was mile 6, 7:10 but a half mile of steep downhill. The next fastest was the dead flat tag end, 7:11 for mile 15 and a 7:13 pace for the 0.59 mile tag end.

This was not a race. I did not run it as intended; good runners sucked me into running faster than I should have. But I completed it, and I'm feeling pretty good about my conditioning 5 weeks out from Boston.

On the cold hands front: I used hand warmers, and @PastorVincent 's favorite gloves. Put the hand warmers inside the gloves, and used the pocket to keep my gel warm. At the end of the run, my fingers were warm enough to pull out my phone and take pictures; didn't want to do that before the run, when the bay was arguably prettier. Put the hand warmers into the dry gloves I'd brought along to wear on the drive home. I did get cold fingers at home, but not nearly as bad as they have been in the past. I'll call it progress for tactics to deal with the fingers. The fingers are nicely warm now, but after I sealed today's hand warmers in a baggie for later, I took out the older hand warmers that have been on two runs and have been carrying them around to use when my fingers feel cold. That works, and I wouldn't have trusted them for a third run anyway.

2019 Races:
January 1, 2019 Freezeroo #2 (Resolution Run 7.5 mile) (Mendon, NY) finished in 50:55
January 5, 2019 Winter Warrior Half Marathon (Gates, NY) finished in 1:30:48
January 12, 2019 Freezeroo #3 (Pineway Ponds 5 Mile) (Spencerport, NY) finished in 33:10
January 26, 2019 Freezeroo #4 (Hearnish 5 mile) (Victor, NY) 4.9 miles, finished in 32:28
February 2, 2019 USATF XC Championship, Masters 8K (Tallahassee, FL) finished in 32:53
February 9, 2019 Freezeroo #5 (Tom Brannon 8 mile) (Greece, NY) finished in 55:55
February 23, 2019 Freezeroo #6 (White House Challenge 4.4 mile) (Webster, NY) finished in 28:34
March 16, 2019 USATF Masters 8K Championship (Shamrock 8K) (Virginia Beach, VA)
March 17, 2019 Shamrock Half Marathon (Virginia Beach, VA)
April 13, 2019 BAA 5K (Boston, MA)
April 15, 2019 Boston Marathon (Hopkinton, MA to Boston, MA)
April 28, 2019 USATF Masters 10K (James Joyce Ramble) (Dedham, MA)
May 19, 2019 Lilac Run 5K (Rochester, NY)
May 19, 2019 Lilac Run 10K (Rochester, NY)
May 25, 2019 Sunset House 5K (Rochester, NY)
June 7, 2019 Charlie McMullen Mile (Pittsford, NY)
June 16, 2019 Medved 5K to Cure ALS (Rochester, NY)
June 29, 2019 A Country Mile at Ganondagan (5-ish mile trail) (Victor, NY)
November 3, 2019 TCS New York City Marathon (New York, NY)