September 2019 Monthly Running Challenge

September 28, 2019
Hoptown Half Marathon
106 of 356
Gender Place 39 of 214
F 45-49 6 of 32
Time: 2:10:12
Pace: 09:56 min/mile

Back of my leg (left) and thigh and really cranky. Walked, sat on ice, but pretty sure I will feel it in the morning!

September goal: try to keep up

9/1 3.30
9/2 2.00
9/3 rest
9/4 4.70
9/5 rest
9/6 3.12
9/7 Travel to> O'ahu CME conference<travel from
9/8 3.00
9/9 snorkel 3 hours
9/10 lazy
9/11 4.5
9/12 rest
9/13 2.80
9/14 3.30
9/15 rest
9/16 2.50
9/17 long workday, long band practice
9/18 5.00
9/19 2.50
9/20 3.30
9/21 Managed and played in a Kanikapila (music jam)
9/22 exhausted and wiped out from herding cats (see above)
9/23 2.80
9/24 SICK!
9/25 (less) Sick
9/26 (recovering) sick
9/27 2.85
9/28 3.70

Total : 50.47

Upcoming races:
Revel Kulia Half Marathon 1/18/20


Ticker is my goal for 2019 and progress to date:

I had another half marathon today. I was originally planning on doing the 15k distance as a final hit out before the Auckland Half in three weeks, but this is one of the five runs in the Half Marathon Series so I had to do the 21k if I want all the pieces of the fancy interconnecting series medal, which I do.

Anyway, to preserve my legs I kept my pace a little lower than I expect to run Auckland - aimed for between 5:15 and 5:30, and finished in 1:53:04. It was nice to be running, and running well and reasonably quickly, without the pressure or pain of race pace. It also meant I had plenty of gas in the tank to run the final kilometre in 4:46 and pass about 20 people!

It was a nice day out after a week of wet and wild winter weather, and the temperature was perfect for running. However, as today was the first day of daylight savings, I had to get up an hour earlier (5:40am old time) on an already early start and, on top of that, we went out for dinner last night and got to bed an hour later than usual so missed my preferred 9 hours sleep by a good 3. Consequently I am now completely shattered.

Race report/summary:
As is usually the case when I look forward to something, the stars were not aligned correctly for it.
My race was at 8pm in the nearby city, with number pickup at 6. The idea was for the 3 of us to set out at 5.30, pick up my packet, have a coffee, wander about for a while then for me to change and for us to go visit Taco Bell for dinner afterwards (yeah I know, but they just opened the first Taco Bell round here and the novelty hasn't worn off yet cause we've only been twice lol).
My daughter came home from school on Thursday with a stinking cold and had to stay in bed on Friday. My husband called that he had to work late. So I not only had to drive myself into the city (side note: I have an irrational phobia about driving at the best of times, let alone in Friday afternoon rush hour in a city!) and do it all alone, I also had to enjoy the guilt trip at leaving my sick daughter home alone to go running. Yeah, she's almost 14 and she had a snotty nose, welcome to the paranoic world of living with a hypochondriac Spanish family. I almost didn't go, especially when my phone decided to die after lunch, but ended up thinking kitten it.
Managed to get there in one piece, albeit a sweaty tear-stained nervous wreck, and find my way into the underground carpark. Although they had asked us to leave plenty of time to collect numbers as there were 1,200 people signed up, there wasn't even a queue so I was able to walk straight up to the nice young man in uniform (did I mention this is a race organised by the National Police force?) and ask him for my number. Then, with almost 2 hours on my hands, I found myself a coffee and sat by the harbour watching the world go by. Around 7.15pm there were a lot of serious looking people running up and down and stretching, so I thought I'd better find a bathroom then try to look the part. When I stood up my cranky knee started grumbling, just to really put the icing on the cake. Walked and jogged around behind the area the stuff was set up hoping to warm it up until the helicopter arrived. I think the helicopter (and the men in uniform) are my favourite thing about that race, along with the sunset views. Surprisingly for Spain, the start was on time which caught a lot of people out! I placed myself right at the back with the strollers and stuck to a slow steady jog with them for the first half mile or so. Knee was sore but nothing horrific, but I decided to be sensible and go into my run-walk intervals. As it happens, for a slow, back of the pack runner I do much better than way than just trying to keep going. I think I really pissed off a few people, I would pass them, then they would catch up to me when I was walking, then I would run again and pull ahead. Repeatedly. Though I left them all behind after a few minutes of that. I wasn't racing though, the best I could do given the mood and knee was to take it conservatively and enjoy the run. So I looked at the boats, I watched the sun set behind the mountains, I looked at the lovely views of the city as it switched its lights on. Then the police helicopter, which had followed the leaders, came back to find the rest of the pack and started picking each of us out with its spotlight. Hilarious, people were throwing their arms in the air and pretending to surrender. Before I knew it there was just a kilometre to go (Garmin told me later it made it 4.79km rather than the 5.019 it should have been) and I my competitive streak did kick in a little then, enough to pick up the pace and run the home stretch, passing a few people on the way. I didn't even look at the clock by the finish arch! Grabbed a drink, went to get the car, got hopelessly lost trying to get out of the city. Ended up on the wrong side, had to drive all the way round the back on the motorway in the dark, then when I finally got home it took 20 minutes to find somewhere to park. And I forgot to stretch. Ah well, I do still love that race.
Off to see if my legs still work now, they didn't feel too bad yesterday but knees are definitely not my best friends.

9-1 4k recovery
9-2 7k easy
9-3 6k easy
9-4 rest
9-5 7k moderate
9-6 rest
9-7 7k moderate
9-8 7k easy
9-9 rest
9-10 7k easy
9-11 7k moderate
9-12 rest
9-13 rest
9-14 7k threshold
9-15 7k moderate
9-16 rest
9-17 7k easy
9-18 7k moderate
9-19 rest
9-20 7k easy
9-21 rest
9-22 6k all over the place
9-23 rest
9-24 7k moderate
9-25 10k slow
9-26 rest
9-27 7k threshold
9-28 rest
9-29 8k moderate

September Total: 135k
September Goal: 135k

January Total: 131k
February Total: 159.5k
March Total: 183k
April Total: 126k
May Total: 128k
June Total: 161.5k
July Total: 151k
August Total: 133k

Monthly average: 146.6k

Next year when you pop in here claiming your December 2019 mileage, what accomplishments will you have made?
Run at least 4 5k races. Completed 8-31
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 Completed 9-28

Cranky knee was fine today. Achieved monthly goal.

Congratulations to all the racers. Well done!

It was a year ago today I ran my first 5k race.

2019 Races:

4-13 Shine the Light 5K - 31:12 chip time; First Place male 65 and older
6-30 Strides for Starfish 5K - 31:34 chip time; 31/77 overall; second male 65 and older (no official category)
7-27 Solon Home Days 5K - 31:11 chip time; 95/141 overall; 4/6 age group (male)
8-31 Race for Freedom 5k - 31:39 chip time; 32:00 Garmin time; Third Place male 60 and older
9-14 Gift of Life 5k - off the schedule; insufficient recovery time
10-13 Haunted Hustle 5k

@AlphaHowls and @ContraryMaryMary Congratulations on your races.
@eleanorhawkins Way to go. You are amazing!
@Tramboman Congrats on your racing anniversary.

September Miles - 47.61/?, walk 10.8
09/02 - 0.88; walk 2.69
09/04 - 3.67
09/06 - 1.54; walk 0.5
09/08 - 4.91
09/10 - 2.88; walk 0.78
09/11 - 3.78; walk 0.32
09/12 - walk 1.4
09/13 - 3.41; walk 0.47
09/15 - 3.59; walk 1.88
09/16 - walk 1.06
09/18 - 3.5
09/21 - 3.29; ST
09/22 - 4.81
09/23 - walk 1.7; ST
09/24 - 3.09
09/25 - 4; 50 minutes for D
09/29 - 4.26

The forecast was right: it snowed yesterday. We're in the valley though so it didn't stick. This morning it was 36F when I started out and though I knew I probably would need to peel off the layers, I still started with long sleeves, tights, jacket, hat and gloves. Within a mile, the gloves and jacket were off... the hat followed them not long after. I ran half the distance with Jackson, went home and dropped him and all my extra clothes, picked up Kira and ran another loop. I even mixed in a few strides.

The forecast calls for below freezing temperatures for the next few days, then it warms up a little (but still below 40). I'm looking forward to the cool weather for running!

01/09 2.58 miles
07/09 3.28 miles
08/09 2.52 miles
10/09 3.29 miles
11/09 3.18 miles
12/09 2.05 miles
18/09 2.36 miles
29/09 2.14 miles - Well at least I've done 20 miles for the month.

I'm really behind on reading the posts. Its been a hectic few weeks, been to 2 music festivals one which included Sinead O'Connor performing. I've bought a spin bike because our winters can get very stormy and make it awful to get out for a run. So I'm going to try and mix both for the winter.