The Plan for 2015 (aka, I'm baaaack)

Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe it's been an entire year since I last posted -- sorry about that. I'm sure you were all very, very upset.  It was quite a year for me in my non-running life.  I (finally) wrote my dissertation and finished my PhD, moved to Newport, RI, and started a new job as an assistant professor. None of which I was planning on this time last year, but I'm definitely not complaining!

photo credit: my awesome sister

The downside of all this great stuff happening is that I majorly slacked off in the endurance sports (and particularly blogging about endurance sports) department. But now that I'm (mostly) settled into the routine here, I'm ready to jump back in to my favorite hobby, big time.

Despite my suddenly altered 2014 priorities, I did hit a couple of my goals:
Run a sub-60 10K

Why yes, that is a PR WOOT WOOT

Run a small marathon
Cape Cod Marathon, Oct 26 (we'll just ignore the time on that one ... hey look another turkey trot pic!)

photo credit: my awesome dad

But more importantly, on to 2015!  I'm going big this year.  The backbone of my race schedule is:
Providence Half (May)
Jamestown Half (July)
Ironman 70.3 Timberman (Aug)
Newport Marathon (Oct)

I'm still looking to fill in with some shorter races (especially sprint and oly triathlons) and I'd still love to get my first trail race in. Suggestions are welcome!

That's all for now -- back to enjoying my last day of holiday laziness ...

2014 Goals

I know that for a lot of people, New Years Day is the time to start fresh, hit the gym, start a new diet, etc.  But in my family, all of that needs to wait until January 2nd because January 1st is about two things: eating lots of food, and watching football on the tv (and this year, for me and mom, playing endless rounds of candy crush).  Our normal inclination to not leave the house all day was reinforced when we woke up to this:

when I uploaded this to picasa, google automatically added "snow" animation -- creepy

The day kicked off with a late family breakfast.

My dad has made eggs benedict every January 1st for as long as I can remember

Which of course must be followed up with Grands cinnamon rolls to complete the breakfast of champions

I did BRIEFLY leave the house to let the dogs play in the snow

Klaus playing with his "uncle" Rowdy

And looking like a wolf on the attack

But then it was back to bowl games and more food

Klaus creeping from up above while the rest of the family watched football

Mom's homemade pizza (taken from my Great Aunt Joan's recipe), which was preceded by nachos and mini-reubens

So now that I have pretty much bottomed out on holiday laziness, it's time to think about my athletic goals for next year!  Here's what I've got:

PR in the half marathon

This one scares me a bit since my current PR of 2:06:50 was achieved in August of 2011 on a day with near perfect conditions and the closest I've come since then is a 2:08:30 this past September.  But for the past two years I've really been focused on distance, not speed, so maybe there's still hope.

Run a sub-60 10K

I've done this once before, in the first 10K of the race where I also earned my half marathon PR.  My past two 10Ks were right around the 1:01 mark.  I haven't trained specifically for a 10K since October of 2010, and I had some bad luck weather-wise with my past few, so I'm hoping a little training and a few more tries will get me across the one hour mark again.

Break 3:40 in an Olympic distance triathlon

In my first (and only) Olympic tri last summer, I finished in 3:52:40.  I'd really like to get that time down to something in the 3:3x:xx range.  That race had a monster climb on the bike and a hot and sunny run, so just choosing a different race and getting lucky with the weather could get me a few minutes.  I've also discovered that I'm really weak on the bike, at least compared to my age group, so focusing on improving there could improve my time significantly.

Significantly improve my bike handling skills

Speaking of my struggles on the bike, I really need get more comfortable in the saddle and improve my bike handling skills.  Being able to drink on the bike would be a good start.  Maybe I'll even get ambitious and figure out a way to eat without stopping, too.  I'm also planning to get my bike properly fitted and add some clip-on aero bars (a nice tri bike will have to wait at least until I'm out of grad school) so I'll have a lot of work to do learning to safely ride in aero position.  Fortunately (?) it looks like I'll have a long winter of riding on the trainer to get used to it.

Run my first trail race

In the past few years, I've completed my first road race, relay race, obstacle race, and triathlon.  Hitting the trails seems like the natural next step.  It also seems like a good way to test out whether an ultra is in my future ... 

Run a small marathon

After having an awesome experience at the Chicago Marathon this past October, my obsession with the distance has only increased.  But I think I'm ready to change it up -- having run Chicago twice and Rock n Roll USA once, I'd like to try something significantly smaller and with some non-urban scenery.  I was tempted to set another time goal, but after the huge relief of finally breaking five hours in my third attempt, I want to shift the focus to something not time related, at least for this year.

I don't have anything approaching a full race schedule planned at this point (partly because as a sixth year PhD student my occupation and location for the next academic year are currently TBD), but I have a few ideas.  If anyone has suggestions for good races, especially in the New England or Chicago area and of the short trail race (nothing longer than a half), sprint or Olympic distance triathlon, or small marathon variety, please let me know in the comments.

Happy New Year everyone!

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.

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

At Boston Logan, waiting to board with plane carbs in hand

Straight from the airport to meet up with Kate and hit the expo

Me at a race expo = kid in a candy store

Where to begin ...

Packet pickup, of course!

Awesome race shirts this year

But I couldn't resist picking up something extra

Neighborhoods!

Chicago Runs for Boston

Saturday lunch.  They don't seem to have followed the "light on the cheese" instructions, so I probably shouldn't eat too much ...

JK, it's pizza -- I always eat too much

Saturday night pasta dinner

Race morning!

Creeper port-a-potty line shot

Trying to stay warm in the start corral

Chinatown, I think ...

Somewhere in the 20s -- smile for the camera!

Overhead shot

Finish chute!

Kate crosses the finish line

And I make sure to stop my watch to preserve that 4:xx:xx forever

Finally sitting after the seemingly endless walk for medals, food, and bee

I've never wanted so badly to be sitting down and yet had such a hard time achieving that position

Snack boxes

OM NOM NOM

Awesome care package from my boyfriend/pit crew who couldn't make it to the race

Monday morning donut at the airport, where all of my fellow marathoners were easily identifiable by their post-marathon hobbles

Monday night cheeseburger with the pit crew back in Cambridge

Followed by Tuesday night pizza with the pit crew to cover all required post-race food groups

It may or may not be Chicago, but a fall marathon is definitely in my 2014 race plan