Nuttier Than Squirrel Poop: December 2013

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2013 Recap

It's New Year's Eve, which means it's time for a 2013 training/racing recap -- the annual post in which I review my training/racing goals and whether I accomplished them. So here we go:

Run my third marathon
Yup, that happened. On October 13th at the Chicago Marathon, to be specific.

Racing to Stop MS

Run a sub-5 marathon
YES THIS FINALLY HAPPENED TOO!!!!

Just in case it's blurry, that says 4:52:54 :)

Finish my first triathlon

To quote Ducky from the Land Before Time, YUP YUP YUP! Escape the Cape on June 8th.

Showing off my water bottle and my tri suit

Finish an Ironman 70.3

Heck yeah. 70.3 Racine on July 21st.

Just look at the FINISHER part, not the time ...

Run a sub-28 5K

Yessireebob. Winter Classic 5K on December 8th.

Run a sub-2:10 half

Mmhmm. I never posted a recap of this one, but I ran the (then) Allstate 13.1 Boston race as a tune up for Chicago. I beat Frank Shorter. It was awesome.

Me: 2:08:30. Frank Shorter: 2:09:31. We'll leave age out of this.

Turn Klaus into a proper running buddy

Not quite on this one. Poor Klaus tore the canine equivalent of his ACL at the end of February and had repair surgery in March, followed by physical therapy and a long recovery time. By the time he was allowed to run again, I was well into 70.3 and marathon training and my runs were mostly too long or too focused to bring him along. But I've taken him for a few short runs, and he seems to (maybe?) be figuring it out. And best of all, he's healthy again for the moment.

Klaus at PT on the underwater treadmill

I was a little shocked this morning when I went to dailymile and discovered my mileage for the year was as follows:

swim: 32

bike: 998

run: 781

I know my rides are longer than my runs, but I run so much more frequently I was sure my running mileage would be more than my cycling mileage! This was an amazing year for me race-wise, and my first without a major running injury, so maybe I'll finally take the hint about this cross training business.

That's all for now! Back tomorrow with my goals for 2014. Happy New Year, everyone!

Fitness Christmas

The 2013 winter "fun run" season didn't go QUITE the way I planned. Mom, Kate and I kicked things off with the North Shore Turkey Trot 10K. And it was COLD. So cold, in fact, that Kate and I had pretty much unlimited access to the port-a-potties before the race because no one else was stupid enough to be standing outside for 20 minutes before the race started.

brrr, it's cold out here

But we all still managed decent performances (Kate despite a bum knee). I finished in 1:01:06, which is about where my 10K time seems to be stuck these days. Maybe one of these days I'll actually train specifically for one again ...

Post-trot second breakfast

After the Turkey Trot, I was planning to go for a holiday 5K trifecta. But life intervened, and I ended up missing the Yulefest 5K when a family emergency kept me home for Thanksgiving longer than planned, and then missing the Jingle Bell Run when a winter storm forced them to push the date back a week to Dec 22, when I was once again home in IL.

But I did still run the Winter Classic 5K in Central Square. I of course forgot my watch in my rush to get out of the apartment, so I just ran with no idea of my pace. I crossed the finish line right as the clock was rolling to 29:00, and was immediately disappointed -- the effort felt hard enough to be at least in the low 28 min range. But then I got home and checked my phone, where I had a text message with my official time of 27:38, a new PR for a 5K road race (aka excluding my hard to believe sprint tri running leg). Much better!

Since I missed the Jingle Bell Run, that takes us straight to -- Christmas! I got a bunch of awesome fitness related gifts:

Fitbit Flex!

So far I've mostly used the Fitbit Flex to passive-aggressively compete with my mother, who also has one, over who got the most steps or the most sleep. But I'm sure the data will help my training, too ...

Mom also introduced me to Shred 415, an intense workout class where you alternate 15 minutes of treadmill intervals with 15 min of weight lifting and body-weight exercises for an hour. I've been twice -- the first time I thought I was going to hurl, and the second time I almost enjoyed it. But not as much as a nice outdoor run. Of course, workouts in a sauna-like gym require different attire than mid-winter outdoor runs:

New workout outfit from the Nike outlet!

But those outdoor runs are much easier when you have awesome waterproof, super traction spacerunner shoes:

Saucony Razor waterproof running shoes

And no training would be complete without some recovery time :)

And new pjs and a pedicure!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and is ready for the new year -- I'll be back soon with a 2013 recap and my goals for 2014.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

2013 Chicago Marathon

I realize that this Chicago Marathon post is way, way overdue. 26.2-mile-long story short, this race went really, really well. It was my third marathon, but the first one that just felt like a race. No existential crises or panic attacks, just running. A lot of running. Kate was primarily concerned with finishing, but we were both shooting for a time under 5 hrs. Our only real race plan was to start together and see what happened.

I had some jitters at the very beginning, especially when Kate's knee started acting up and she wasn't at all sure how far she would be able to run. I lost my breath for a minute when we went through the Loop for the first time and ran along a section of State St with cheering crowds behind metal barriers that made it look a heck of a lot like the Copley Square finish area of the Boston Marathon. Kate picked up the pace a bit around mile 8 and I started to panic, but managed to settle in and stay with her. For the first half, the aid stations seemed to fly by and we had to force ourselves to slow down for water, knowing that skipping it would come back to bite us later. We both hit a mini-wall around mile 15-16, but powered through. Around mile 18, the side stitch that had been threatening for most of the race forced me to walk through all of a three-block-long aid station, and I lost Kate. But after the stitch was gone, I felt surprisingly good, picked up the pace a bit, and caught her around mile 21 (partially thanks to a brief sprint to try to find the owner of a really nice single running glove that had been dropped on the course). Kate's legs were hurting pretty bad at that point, but we kept plodding along. Around mile 23, MY legs rebelled, and my quads and hip flexors screamed at me with pretty much every step. But by that point, we were nearing the turnaround and knew we only had a 5K left to Grant Park. Walking didn't make the pain much better, so we just kept shuffling along, walking briefly through aid stations to get water. Just after mile 25, our mom jumped out on the course and said "You're going to make it! You're going to get your four!" I looked down at my watch and saw that we had something like 18 minutes left to complete the last mile. Instead of being discouraged by the fact that Mom was easily keeping pace with us in street shoes and Oxford shoes, I was incredibly relieved to think that one of us could probably break an ankle and still crawl over the finish line in time. After dragging ourselves up Mt Roosevelt (which was even worse than I remembered), we crossed the finish line together in 4:52:54.

A huge, huge thank you to everyone who supported us through training and our fundraising. In the end we raised $3,295 for the National MS Society, more than twice our original goal. And special thanks to our family and friends who came out to cheer for us during the race and celebrate with us afterwards.

And now, for the part you all actually care about, the photos.

Chicago Marathon 2013 in Photos