2012 Miles

Sunday, October 30, 2011

READY for 26.2

After a slight scare of a sickness : ( Aleeve D Sinus/Cold to the rescue! I was able to get in my 13.1 this weekend and I killed it! I wish it had been a real half marathon because I ran faster than my PR. My old PR was 8:34 pace for a total time of 1:52:?? but today I ran 13.1 in.....

1:51:41 (8:32 pace)

Super excited and ready for West Virginia. Not saying I am going to PR there or do anything spectacular but it just nice to show up for a 26.2 with a "I am a strong runner" attitude! Looking forward to seeing all the other KY runners that are going to be there. State #5 down only 45 to go!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Some updates.... 7 to be exact


Since BBD from tagged me for 7 fun facts I thought I would turn it into a quick update on my life with some random thoughts and updates on myself!


1. I have a new house! Well actually I have a 70 year old house : ) Scott and I moved to a house "in town" and I am LOVING it. It had recently been fixed up and has lots of charm about it. I already feel like it is a home instead of a house. The best part is I live in my favorite area to run. I know lots of great little running routes from my house and I can easily go for a night run when Scott is home. My weekend runs are shorter because I do not have to drive to run. I can actually run 7 tenths of a mile to meet my running buddy.

2. My running mojo has left me : ( Actually just the treadmill running. If I can run outside I am all over it but I loathe the treadmill right now and that is odd for me. It is in the garage now but I was starting to feel that way before the move. Hoping the in town living will help me get 3-4 outside runs a week and then I can cross train the other days inside.

3. I am so Type A it is crazy! You would not know I have been in my house only 2 weeks. Minus the garage everything has a home and I can not stand to wait to get something done. So I have been super busy with house stuff. I think my OCD like tendencies get worse with age.

4. I have no idea how many miles I have ran : ( I was trying to keep putting in my miles once I went over 100 but just haven't cared that much about putting in my miles. Guess I should have made a bigger goal! I have also been running "naked" a lot. So my runs during the week are 4-6 miles. I just run familiar routes and enjoy myself.

5. I have BIG Plans for 2012! Like crazy ambitious. No one get all IronMan excited or anything. It is 100% running : ) Hoping to have a final PLAN soon.

6. I don't think it is real money if I buy it online. Drop $100 on 2 pieces of running clothes in a store NO WAY! Log in to running warehouse and throw down $100 on tights and jacket; no problem! That can get you in a bad situation pretty quick! Usually I check the credit card balance and box stuff right back up once it comes in.

7. I use to really like the color brown for clothes and home goods but now I am more into lack and gray! How is that for random??

If you read my blog feel free to blog about yourself. I would be very flattered to find out people actually read my blog. Here are the blog I stalk:


Plus I read the blogs that are in my sidebar : ) Thanks for following along! Ready for a cold Marathon #5 next weekend with my running buddy who is running his first marathon!! Then I will take a little "time off" and then at the first of the year I will begin training for my BIG PLANS :)



Saturday, October 22, 2011

Quick Update

So I am not blogging at all for many reasons! After Bourbon Chase we finally moved! Pictures are coming : ) So between moving, unpacking, closing (that was a drawn out process), waiting on cable guy, waiting on internet guy, hooking up internet, decorating a house, learning where stuff is in a new house and shopping for the new house : ) I have also had you know work and raising the kid : )

No really life is great! I recovered for a few days after Bourbon Chase then started working my way back towards my marathon in West Virginia. I have had a few decent medium runs and one killer 18 mile run! I ran the first 10 miles in a 8:29 pace and then the last 8 I was able to stay at like a 8:50 or something. Should have pushed out 2 more miles but I saw my house and quit.

Today I ran 22 miles (actually 22.7 since I ran to the meeting spot) and it was great! Okay as great as 22 miles can be. I wanted a 9:40 pace just to have one last slow long run but ended up with a 9:48. Not sure what West Virginia will hold and I really do not care. If you know anyone running West Virginia on November 7th send them my way.

More detailed updates in the future! I have been reading when I have been able to with my super slow high speed internet : ( and wireless is another issue!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Bourbon Chase Recap


Bourbon Chase is hands down one of the best experiences of my life! It was fun, exciting, funny, challenging, impossible, exhausting, and rewarding! Above is one half of me team. Our name was Running Under the Influence (RUI). I was runner #7 in Van #2.

Getting ready to leave for Maker's Mark. Our Van #1 took off at 11:15 am and was predicted to be ready to hand off around 4:30 pm. Check-in was quick and to the point. We just had to sign our waivers, check our equipment and get our bibs. There was a little bit of wait time to check out the distillery until my time to run since I was the first runner in Van #2. Our first van did well minus loosing a few minutes due to the insane heat and there were a few hills that were more"difficult" than their "easy" rating. I was super pumped taking out of Maker's Mark and went out a little fast because there were HILLS waiting on me. I am 100% sure those were the worst hills I have ever ran in my life and there are not words for how challenging it was. I was suppose to stay around a 9:10-9:20 average. I have no idea what I ran because my Garmin was all wonky and did not keep signal and stopped working : (. I was projected to finish in 58 minutes and nailed in right over an hour! SWEET! Considering I had blistering 4:00 sun beating down on me and there were ridiculous hills. Van 2 continued to kick butt and knocked out almost every other run below the predicted time! We ran to Perryville, Ky to hand off to Van 1 around 10:00 pm and Van 1 headed to our houses to sleep. The split time showed we were running a 9:49 pace at that time.



Sleeping at our houses was the best idea ever! There was nothing better than crawling into a big ole' queen bed at my parents house and snoozing hard for 3 hours! (All the sleep I would get)

Good morning 3:40 am! I hopped out of bed ready to go at 3:13 and was ready to kill my run #2. It ran right out of Danville where I live! I was even more pumped to find out Van #1 was taking even more time off our total time. We were getting nothing but faster! Split times later showed Van #1 had taken our pace down to 9:42 : )

I killed my second run and ran it at an 8:50 average which gave us another 3 minutes for the good side! Our Van smoked these six legs bringing our team pace down to 9:28! We handed off to Van #1 at Four Roses and were hoping their 2 hour power nap would keep them strong for their third and final leg. Most of their runners did great and were able to kill their runs. However, the heat was picking up and took some wear and tear on a couple runners. It was 85 degrees! I do not know our time for those legs but there is going to be a dip in the pace because we had an injured runner on leg #30 : ( While I was waiting for my hand off a volunteer comes yelling team # 372, #372 and I get ready to take off BUT she hands me a a pair of SHOES! WHAT?!?! The guy before me is in so much pain he is running in his socks! The officials would not let me run to him so 2 of our guys go get him and find him killing the final mile at a 7:00 min something pace! What a trooper! It cost us some time but I was ready to take on Duncan Hill!

No picture of my leg 3 outfit but here is where we napped to get ready for our third and final run. We loved lounging in the grass at Woodford Reserve. We met some awesome people and had a blast just relaxing. Some people were able to sleep but I was not. My final leg was suppose to be a killer! The whole run if people see that you are runner #7 they would all talk about the run up Duncan Hill and a runner on my team had been in Van #2 last year and told me it was basically a mountain for 1.5 miles. When I was able to take off out of Woodford I promised my team I would do it in an hour! It was 5.6 mile run so that would be slightly over a 10 minute mile. I ran out of Woodford at a steady 9:20-9:30 pace for the flat 2 miles leading up to the hill and then there it was. Straight up hill! I just took it a chunk at a time! I would take a few walk breaks in the shade to keep from overheating. Many vans stopped and cheered me on a van stopped and filled up my handheld with ice cold water. When I started the descent I dumped some cold water down my back and picked up the pace. I was hitting some 8 minute paces so I felt great! There was one last climb until the exchange and then there was my van. I gave them the 1 hour I promised!



We continued to hit our times on the nose! The last runs were the best! We were so sleep deprived and pumped up on the thought of finishing. I got a nice pick me up when I took a little cooler shower on the side of the road. Nothing like a big tarp, cooler full of water and some baby wipes to make you feel 100% better. This is the only shower I had the whole weekend. Can you say BO? Our van was quite smelly!



We dropped off our last runner and hauled it to downtown Lexington for our final run in as a team! AWESOME! We finished around 7:30 Saturday night! Needless to say we were not wanting too party to hard. A few guys went and had their free shots of bourbon and then a few members of Van #2 went to grab some Mexican on the way home. I was finally in bed at 11:00 that night..... whew! I was tired!!

Will these Wild Turkeys do it again??? This turkey has been saying no for weeks that this was a one time event BUT I think I could be talked into it : ) There are many members who are already wanting to sign up on January 2nd for next year. I am going to check out marathons for 2012 and see how it looks for me. I do know this much.... I am going to go find the nearest Mountain and run myself up once a week every week for about 6 months if I sign up again.



Final time for Running Under the Influence: 32:16:00 which was a 9:32 pace. I am so proud that we were able to kill our runs and ended up actually speeding up the entire race! On the final 12 legs we only lost 4 seconds off our average pace which I think it great!



All in all I loved my team! the volunteers (most of them), the officials and my favorite people were the other runners! Runners who help other runners are the best! I met so many wonderful teams that were so encouraging and pleasant to be around. It made the trip that much better!



I will end with best quote of the trip:

Setting: Pulling up to an exchange to hand off to the next runner

Me: "Is everyone ready to get out of the van?"

Most people: "Yeah, lets go!"

Some silence

John from the back of the van: "Umm I am naked ("neck-it")

More silence : )



Guess he was needing a little cool down!

Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Good Things of the Week


This week has been slightly stressful with the moving issues but there were a lot of good things too! Bourbon Chase is here! We run our 12 person, 203 mile relay next weekend and I am super excited. Our shirts finally came in and they are great! We had a sponsor buy us tech shirts and t-shirts with our team information on them. We went with a drinking theme since it is the BOURBON Chase and we run from distillery to distillery. I do not drink bourbon and will not drink any of the free bourbon but we wanted to honor the theme. The back of the shirt is in the shape of a Maker's Mark Bottle and has all of our names, sponsor names and running words. We also had some additional sponsor money so are vans are only costing us pennies and we have some free food/snacks for the race. I was really worried the Bourbon Chase was going to cost a lot but honestly it is the cheapest race I will run all year!

NEW SHOES! I never did blog about this but Brooks are the DEVIL (as far as my feet are concerned!) The Brooks felt like there were nails being driven into my arches. I ran in them a couple of time and liked them but once I hit the road for a long run I was feeling differently. Fortunately I was able to sell them to another runner who likes Brooks. I went back to my Saucony but was still feeling like I needed something new. SO I went to a local running store and had my feet measured and talked about my running and where I have aches and pains. They brought out a lot of shoes but the Nikes felt the best. I was very shocked but I have worn them in the house all day and ran on the treadmill and they seem like they are going to work for me. I am so excited about all the colors they come in. I am not fond of the neon pink I have right now but it was the only color they had for me and I wanted to buy from them since they took the time to work with me. Good thing is I will need another pair in about 4 months.
I also broke down and spend some major $$$ on work shoes. My feet are killing me at the end of the day. So I bought some of those hideous looking Dansko shoes that all the teachers and nurses wear. They too feel great! I am hoping for happier feet at the end of the day.