2013 Wrap Up

Miles in 2013: 1038.44
Days Until Dopey: 9!

As 2013 wraps up I thought I'd take a look back at my year in running.  As I lay here resting some sore legs I can't help but be proud of how much I've accomplished.

I started running in 2011.  That year I ran 4 5k's and one half marathon.  I logged 339.73 miles.

In 2012 I ran 4 5k's, 1 10k, a 2 mile race, 2 10 mile races, 7 half marathons, and one marathon.  I logged 883.25 miles.

In 2013 I raised the bar.  I ran 7 5k's, a 2 mile race, a 5 mile race, 2 10k's, 2 15k's, a 10 miler, 11 half marathons, and 3 marathons!  I PRed at every race distance this year (some of them more than once!)  I took AN HOUR off my marathon time.  I raised almost $4,000 for the Pink Agenda as part of my NYC Marathon run.  I logged 1038.44 miles.

2013 was a great year for me and running.  I can't complain.  Is every race my fastest?  Uh no.  But I have made great friends, had a ton of fun, and was able to travel to Louisville, Anaheim, Cherokee, and NYC.

2014 holds a lot of promise too.  I'll be kicking it off with the Dopey, which is a 5k, 10k, half marathon and a full marathon.  4 days and 48.6 miles.  Then I'll take a short rest before the spring half marathon season kicks off.  I'm signed up for 7 half marathons in the spring.  I'll be "resting" from marathon training and just focusing on the half and speeding up.  Our group will be changing our intervals and increasing our speed and stamina.  Spring will be topped off with the Nike DC Women's Half Marathon.  The fall will have me hopefully training for the Chicago Marathon and as always, the Space Coast Half Marathon as a PR goal race.  I look forward to hopefully logging more miles and more PRs than I have this year.  I know I'll have fun on the road with my group and will be able to share in everyone's success!

Now it's back to tapering and resting before the Dopey Challenge in a week and half! 

Blasphemy: Sometimes Running Just Isn't Enough

Days in the Gym this month: 2

Pounds: 159

In addition to running and training for all of these half and full marathons I am determined to get consistent with heading back to the gym.  When I first started to lose weight 3 years ago I headed to the gym 4 mornings a week for several months straight.  I kept up with weights for several more months when I first started running.  I was running 3 days a week and strength training 2 days a week.  When I’d get really tired and run down the weights were always the first thing to go.  I started this fitness journey almost exactly 3 years ago and I was 234 pounds.  In the summer this year I got down to my lowest weight in about 7 years – 147 pounds.  This was after a 3 day juice fast that left me run down and tired.  I admittedly fell into some old habits and got lazy when it came to eating clean and lifting weights.  “But you run so much” or “those extra pounds must be muscle” is often what I would hear when I would say I felt lazy or “heavy.”  Sadly for me running alone is just simply not enough to get me to and keep me at the ideal weight, size, and body type that I would desperately love to have.  Looking back at my Nike Boom training app it’s no surprise that the pounds have crept back on, before Sunday I had only gone to the gym 11 times this whole year!

This weekend I weighed myself.  EEEEEEK.  I was 159 pounds – I hadn’t seen that high of a number in almost a year.  I’m terrified of seeing 160 again.  I pulled out the book (The Female Body Breakthrough) that had helped me 3 years ago when I was finally ready to be healthy.  I refreshed my memory of stuff I already knew but I had slacked off about doing.  Instead of the usual “I’ll get back on track tomorrow” that I would normally say, I drug myself out of bed, put on a cute gym ensemble, kissed the snuggly pups goodbye,  and drug myself to the gym.  I figured I would do the shorter and easier of my two typical workouts to ease myself back into this gym thing.  I did better than I had expected to do which was a relief.  From there I went straight to the grocery store and stocked up on all the right foods I need to be eating.  I didn’t stop there.  I came home and went to work in the kitchen.  I made 5 salads in a jar for my lunches this week, I cooked egg white muffins for my breakfast, and I grilled some chicken breast on the Foreman so it would be ready to toss in the salads.  My husband made spaghetti for dinner, instead of plowing through the pasta and commercial sauce, I cooked a green pepper and tossed in the ground beef and onion he was using for the spaghetti and added in some canned tomatoes, then I topped it off with a piece of Havarti cheese and melted it.  A successful and healthy alternative to what he was making.

Healthy Eats

This morning I woke up and got to my gym as it opened.  I did the harder of my 2 workouts (the metabolic acceleration) and did pretty well with it.  I also hopped on the recumbent bike and pedaled an easy 14 minutes and 3.5 miles as a cool down.  I’ve always liked the way the recumbent bike feels when my legs feel particularly tired.  It was a great start to the day and the work week.  I came home and drank my protein shake with ground flax and dark cherries blended into it.

I also set up my rewards system again.  I know it sounds like I am a five year old who needs a positive reinforcement system, but I don’t care.  I have a jar. Every time I hit the gym I put a dollar bill in it.  Last time I used this system I also put in a dollar per mile I ran.  Jason sponsored my weight loss, he contributed a ten dollar bill for every 10 pounds I lost.  So the jar has $2 in it.  I think I will wait until I hit my goal weight/size/physique and use that money to either get another tattoo, or make it the money I can blow at the Nike DC Women’s Half Expo.  The harder I work now, the more rocking that tattoo will be, or the more Nike stuff I can OD in April.

For some people losing weight or keeping yourself at a certain size is easy.  Unfortunately, for me it isn’t.  It is definitely a process that I have to continually work at.  My goal right now is to hit the gym 11 times in December – that’s right the same number of times that I have gone all year.  I’ll still be running three days a week – I mean I do have a 48.6 mile 4 day race series in month!  But it’s time to focus and reinvest in myself.

OUC Orlando Half Marathon

Miles in 2013: 992.7

Days Until Dopey: 30

So I’m working on getting out of my slump and back on track.  This Saturday I ran the OUC Orlando Half Marathon.  I had been signed up to be the 2:45 pacer for a few months now.  When I went to pick up my packet I was told that the other 2:45 pacer had to back out leaving me as the only pacer.  I have to admit I was a little nervous of the responsibility, what if I was having a bad day, what if I tripped and fell, what if I just didn’t have it in me?  Luckily, I was able to snag Leah the other pacer gig so I felt MUCH more comfortable having her as my security blanket!  We met up in the morning and used the very swanky Brooks sponsored VIP porto potties – if you know me you know I’m a sucker for a port-o-let!  We met our group of hopeful 2:45 finishers and headed to the corrals.  By the time we got there it was already a little crowded in the area of 10+ to the beginning of the walkers.  I swear about 30 seconds after the start I broke the pacer stick – you can’t take me anywhere!  As we started with our group we got to know some of it’s members.  One girl said “a 2:45 is a PR for me so I’m sticking with you” another was the mother of a student I had a school.  Most seemed to enjoy the 3:1 interval pacing “man this makes it easier.”  Each mile we would check our watches, true to form we were a little faster than pace.  Every mile we’d tell the group “we’re ahead of pace so we are going to slow down just a little” and we did, and yet at the next mile, still ahead of pace.  I blame it on our fast walking pace.  We also had budgeted an extra 30-60 seconds for each of the water stops so we knew we needed a little extra time in there for those.  One tough thing was that the 2:30 pace group had started a few minutes behind us in the corrals so we heard a lot of “how are you ahead of the 2:30 pace group?”  As the run went on we maintained a pretty steady pace.  One girl was particularly awesome – she had a group of people cheering for her that I swear made it to 5 or 6 places on the course.  The first time she saw them she started to cry “I was in the hospital yesterday with a Kidney infection” she told us.  I told her to suck it up she could cry at the end, she laughed and agreed.

At the start

Around Mile 10 I was struggling, it was SO HOT.  Even though I am a born and raised Florida girl, I cannot handle the heat well at all.  As the race progressed I got more and more over heated and felt worse and worse.  I knew I had to back of a little bit.  Leah and our pack of 15 were up ahead just a little bit so I sent a quick “about to puke” text to her to which she replied “I got this. Hope U feel better.”  Thank God for Leah, I could breathe a little easier.  I kept plugging along.  A few times people would come up on me and check to see if we were still on 2:45 pace  - I could always reply “yes!”  As I hit mile 11 I started picking people to push along “c’mon Jorge we are running to that stop sign!”  Poor Jorge, I heckled eh motivated him for miles.  He told me his original goal was 2:15 – I told him that wasn’t happening but we could still get 2:45.  He stuck with me for most of the rest of the race.  I came up on the finish line at 2:41 and change.  Leah had kept the whole group and they finished in a 2:35.  She told me she kept offering to slow down and they all said “no way, this is AWESOME!” and kept going.  I never came up on any of them so I know they all finished ahead of their goal!  Leah luckily got all of the sweaty stranger hugs and I didn’t.  I did however see poor Jorge about a minute after me who just smiled and gave me a fist bump. I also saw a girl from our marathonfest pace group who held with me for almost all of the race sail in at a 2:42 and a very happy 10 minute PR!  I’ll call that a successful pacing job.

Leah and the people from the pace group finishing

It was a tough race on a hot day, I’m glad that I could help others achieve and exceed their goals!

With our medals and we had to get a pic with Bisquits!

Post NYC Blues

Miles in 2013: 979.4

Days Until Dopey:  34

A quick recap of the past month.  After the NYC Marathon I fell into a little bit of a post marathon slump.  I guess it happens to the best of us.  If you start to type into a google search engine “post marathon” it suggests “depression”, “blues”, and “slump.”  I know you are supposed to rest and recover after a marathon.   Trust me, I enjoy the sleeping in.  But, I found myself drained physically and mentally.  I had been looking forward to NYC for most of 2013, even when I wasn’t officially “IN” I knew that I would be going and running that race. Now that it was over, what did I have to look forward to?  Yes, I have that crazy Dopey 48.6 coming up in just over a month, but having done the Goofy last year it doesn’t seem quite as exciting or intimidating, plus Disney is just down the street.  I’d have to check my Nike+ log, but I think in the month of November I only ran about eight times, and 3 of those were races!   Who is this person I was becoming?  I only went to 3 of our weekday work outs all month!  December is here and I haven’t started out much better, I skipped yesterday’s workout too!

The second weekend of November, Leah and I volunteered at the finish line of the Wine and Dine Half Marathon.  It was lots of fun and I enjoyed being on the other side of the race.  We also didn’t plan very well and had signed up for the Baldwin Park Half Marathon the following morning.  Since our shift ended at 3:30 in the morning we drove to the race and slept in Leah’s car.  Yeah. We are those girls.  So on two or three less than quality hours of sleep we rolled out of the car and headed to the race.  I didn’t go into the race planning on doing anything other than finishing – I mean I had just PRed a marathon the week before.  Leah took off and I lost sight of her about 3 miles into the race.  I ran most of the race by myself, and just went along at a pace that felt comfortable.  I spent the last half of the race looking at the person ahead of me and just trying to pass one person each interval.  I was super surprised when I finished with a time of 2:37!  It was my fourth best half time ever!  I couldn’t believe that a week after a marathon I ran one of my top half times.

But man, the next day I could tell I was going to pay the price for it!  I was so sore.  I felt worse after the half than I had felt after my past few marathons.  I knew I was in trouble.  I took it easy and didn’t run for a week and a half.  My first run back was terrible.  I was miserable and bailed after 4 miles.  I skipped Thursday that week.  We met for a Dopey Double on Friday, and I took my 6 miles easy.  Saturday I was supposed to run 14 miles.  By the time I was 5 or 6 miles in I knew 14 wasn’t happening so I bailed and did 10 miles.  I started to get worried, I still have a very busy Fall/Winter schedule ahead of me and I was worried that all of these less than stellar runs meant something.

I got up (while on Thanksgiving Break!) and ran Tuesday morning (mostly because I had about 4 people’s race packets for the weekend that I needed to give them).  The run was tough, but I did better than I had been expecting to do.  Thanksgiving morning I woke up to temps in the high 30’s/low 40’s and was in heaven.  It is no secret that I run considerably better in cold weather.  I met Krystal in Deland for the Thanksgiving 10 Miler which is one of my favorite races.  I like to get up on Thanksgiving and run more than the usual Turkey Trot 5k, it makes me feel like I can eat my face off later at dinner.  I ran the race at what felt comfortable and improved my time from last year by 8 and half minutes!

Sunday was the Space Coast Half Marathon.  This is also one of my favorite races.  Last year, Leah and I had huge PR’s there and both ran our first under 2:30 half.  The goal for our group was to run an under 2:15 half, but being in the slump I’ve been in I was doubtful that was possible for me that day.  I still tried to give it a go an attempted to keep up with the 2:15 pace groups.  I was only a few miles in before I felt like I was going to throw up. I backed off my pace a little and watched Leah disappear ahead of me.  I still was running a pretty strong pace for most of the race.  Space Coast is one of my favorite races because at about mile 5 I start to see all of my fast friends headed back and it starts to take my mind off the running.  As I make the turn around I get to see other friends who are a little slower than me.  When I saw Leah she was ahead of the 2:15 pace group and wound up finishing with a monster PR and our group half record.  Then, I get to see my REALLY fast friends running the marathon and cheer them on.  As I came up on the turn near mile 13 I saw a bunch of Track Shack people there cheering us in.  After I finished (with a 2:30! – my third fastest half time) Leah and I went and got ready for a long day of cheering.  We stayed to cheer on Rumen and Rebecca in their first full marathons!  Both of them did awesome jobs and I’m so proud of them both.

Then it was back to the slump… I didn’t run Tuesday.  I was sore and tired.  Yesterday I went to go get a much needed massaged and was benched for this morning’s run by both my massage therapist and my coach.  While I enjoyed the extra three hours of sleep it is not helping the mental slump that I am in!  Hopefully I will snap out of it soon and be back on my regular 3-4 days of running a week!

Looking ahead:  This Saturday I am pacing the 2:45 finish pace group at the OUC Orlando Half Marathon.  I think I even convinced Leah to take it easy and run with me, let’s just hope Dennis and Lauren don’t reclaim our group half record at the race or Leah might kill me.  The following Sunday we have the Mount Dora Half Marathon, and I’m also running a “Beat the Stress” Christmas Eve morning 5k.  After the Dopey I might still have a crazy half schedule!  I’m signed up for 7 more half marathons and a 10k in the span of 3 months.  One series I’m particularly excited for is the Best Damn Race series.  We ran the first Best Damn Race last year in Safety Harbor and it was beautiful.  This year they’ve stepped the medal to a beautiful spinning sailboat and added a race in Orlando.  If you do both of them you also receive at spinning medal showcasing both cities.  It’s pretty awesome – if you want to join me (and want to save some money) go sign up and use the code “MOREHEAD” to receive $5 off your registration fee (it also works for the 5k and 10k if you’re just not up for a half).

One thing that will help snap me out of this slump is that our group of 10 ladies made it into THE NIKE DC WOMEN’S HALF MARATHON!  A group of us tried to get in last year and didn’t make it.  If you know me the lure of that swoosh and a Tiffany and Co. necklace at the finish line is my idea of heaven.  So instead of wearing myself out and training for a spring marathon this year, I think we will work on getting faster and focus on the half marathon distance and start back on the crazy marathon schedule in June when we will hopefully be training for the Chicago Marathon!