GOALS

Miles in 2014: 100

Days until Nike DC Women’s Half Marathon: 88

Recently I posted a picture of my 2014 Running Goals on my facebook. It’s a funny thing about goals.  You make them for your own personal growth, but to help with accountability you almost have to share them.  Goals can be nerve racking if you put them out there for everyone to see.  If you don’t reach them – people might judge you.  If you do reach them there is always someone hating on your accomplishments. 

I was admittedly not a very strong runner when I first started.  I hurt, I couldn’t breathe, I was too slow for the group, I couldn’t keep up, I couldn’t finish a run using our 3:1 intervals, the list goes on and on.  If you were to ask my parents, I’m sure that they would agree with this next statement.  I’ve always been incredibly stubborn.  So I was not going to let this running thing get the best of me.  Every 5k I ran the goal was the same “I want to go under 40 minutes.”  I came close on my 3^rd one.  At the 3 mile marker the time was 39:30… I yelled and cursed out the man with the clock.  Finally 2 months later during my next 5k I was able to finally break that elusive 40 minute mark.  After my first half (in my defense I ran it sick and had my fever break during the race) a new goal was in place, this one was achieved in my next half.  Running my first marathon I came nowhere near my expected time goal.  I’ve learned about goals, you don’t have to reach them right away, that’s why it’s a goal.

2013 I knocked things out of the park.  I PRed EVERY SINGLE DISTANCE I raced! That’s not normal.  I took my marathon time down by an hour and 14 minutes.  That’s CRAZY.  My half marathon time came down 4 minutes since my previous PR (and almost an hour from that miserable first race.)  My 5k PR was 31 minutes and change – I can run a 5k under that once elusive 40 minute mark without “really” trying anymore.  In short, it was a good year.  In the past I have been accused (here come those “haters” I mentioned before) of only caring about myself and my own personal times, or only running to improve and not to have fun.  So let’s tackle those misconceptions.

I know I’m not perfect, I’m no running saint, BUT I do genuinely want to see everyone I meet through this running adventure do well with their own goals.  It’s one of the reasons I enjoy being a group leader.  In 2013 I walked a half marathon with my best friend, threw time out the window to just enjoy being able to do that with her.  I ran a few different races with people new or coming back to running so they wouldn’t have to go it alone, I helped officially pace a race almost 20 minutes slower than my PR.  I RODE A ROLLER COASTER DURING A MARATHON.  So clearly time isn’t always important, sometimes people need support more than I need to shave some time off of my PR.

Now to the one that really gets me.  Yes, sometimes I want to kill it out there on the road.  I was a swimmer in high school.  One thing that taught me was yes, I’m swimming against the other 7 swimmers in this heat, but I’m also swimming against my own best time.  I carry that notion with me when I run a race.  Yes, sometimes I want to beat someone in front of me (sometimes I know them, sometimes they are just a random target I’ve selected) but truly running is an individual sport.  When you’re at the level of running I am it is very unlikely that I will be in the front of the pack or a contender for any awards.  So really I just want to improve on myself.  I work very hard to get better at what I’m doing.  My parent’s would also probably agree to this next statement.  When I start something I dive in head first and take it to the extreme.  People have called me too competitive.  Sometimes, yes, I am competitive.  But I think it really boils down to this:  If I’m going to spend this much time on something – why wouldn’t I give it my all?  I know plenty of runners who are happy with where they are.  It’s comfortable and they enjoy it.  That’s great, they are out there doing something wonderful.  However, for me, that’s not enough.  I know I can be better.  Sure it would’ve been easy to stay where I started.  Running a few 5k’s and some 3 hour average marathons.  For some people that is there goal.  I know myself well enough to know that if I stayed there in the 13-18 minute miles I wouldn’t be happy with myself and I would quit after a while.  So for me the answer was to put in the work religiously and improve.  What I don’t understand is how people think you can’t have one without the other.  Yes, I can push myself hard in training and targeted races AND STILL HAVE FUN.  It’s possible.  I’ve picked up a pretty amazing group of people that I train with.  Sometimes I’m up front and sometimes I’m the sweeper, but I ALWAYS enjoy the time we spend together.

So here they are my 2014 Running Goals:

1: Be at the third milestone in Nike+ by the DC Women’s half – this means I need to run about 356 more miles before April 27.  Looking at my training, it’s totally possible, I just need to sneak an extra 35 or so miles into my training.

2. Get to the Black Level in Nike+ - I expect that I will be Leveling up sometime in August.

3: Run 1200 miles in 2014 by running an average of 100 miles a month.  I still have one run left this month and I’m already at 100 miles!  Right on track!

4: Here are the big ones  - THE TIME GOALS:

5k – under 30 minutes

Half Marathon – under 2:15 in the spring and under 2 hours in the fall

Marathon – Under 5 hours at the Portland Marathon in October

These may be difficult.  That’s why they’re goals.  I know that if I achieve them some people will be ecstatic for me and some will be “haters” I’m ok with it.  And if I don’t reach them, that’s ok too, I set some tough goals in order to really push myself into continued success. I mean, why shouldn’t I? 

Back on Track!

Miles in 2014: 93.3

Days until Nike DC Women’s Half Marathon: 89

After over a whole week of rest after the Dopey Challenge, I hopped right back on board with training!  Tuesday I opted out of the track workout and chose to do mile repeats instead to work my tired legs back into running.  Thursday we did our "hill loop" with a hill repeat thrown in.  This week we also switched our intervals from 3:1's to 4:1's.  When I first started running two and a half years ago I struggled with the 3:1. Most days I could not run an entire 3 minute interval to save my life.  It took me a very long time before I was able to complete the bulk of my training runs where I was able to run the 3:1 interval for the entire time.  As we have been training this past season we came to the realization that we are reaching a point with our running that we will be unable to run those 3 minutes much faster than we are and the only way to continue improving our times is to increase our running intervals.  After the Dopey we agreed to try and bump them up to 4:1's and then again to 5:1's by the end of the session.  While the 4's were challenging, I was able to run all of my intervals for our 2 week day workouts and our 8 mile run on Saturday.  It really seems to be a much easier transition that I had expected.

Saturday was the first weekend long run of the season and I am a group leader I had to go to the run even though I had a race the following day.  We had a great run at a comfortable pace which was great since many of us are either still recovering from recent races or just coming back to training.

First Weekend Run of Amanda & Leah's official group!

The next day was the Inaugural Celebration Half Marathon.  We had a huge group running the race and I truly loved this event.  The course was pretty and well supported.  We ran our 4:1 intervals for the first half of the race before switching back to 3:1's. At mile 10 we decided to walk it in the rest of the way to help Leah's knee which is still a little tender after her tumble at Dopey.  The after party had a great sampling of food from all of the local Celebration business.  Overall it was a great race.

What a great group!

Amy captured this classic cup toss of me!

This week it's back to work.  I need to continue cleaning up my diet for sure.  It's amazing what an important role that plays in this.  Tomorrow's track combo workout looks BRUTAL but I'm interested to try it out.  Thursday is our usual neighborhood run.  Saturday I'm headed to Safety Harbor for the Best Damn Race.  Last year this was a great event so I am definitely looking forward to running it again.  There are 6 of us running the half and another friend will be running his first 10k ever!  I'm so proud of this accomplishment and I hope I can beat him back to the finish line to see him cross (I'm gonna have to run really fast to achieve that!)  I know I have lots of other friends running the 5k and 10k so I hope to see them all there! 

August Virtual Races

Miles in 2013: 656
Days until NYC: 67

August in Central Florida is typically way too hot to have races longer than a 5k and even those are miserable.  Unfortunately, I still have some really long runs to complete as part of my NYC training.  Virtual races become a very motivating training tool.  The first of my two August Virtual races sponsored by Jost Running was a 5k with a really fun hot dog medal.  I used it to push me to do another set of 800's during our track workout one day.

 

 

 

I had a 20 mile training run this weekend. 20 miles in this heat and humidity is NO FUN.  Luckily for me I checked my mailbox on my way out to run and was greeted with the hot dog 5k medal and the cool spinner baseball half marathon medal!  I took that as my cue to run the 20 really well to earn my half marathon medal.  Of the 5-8 20 plus mile runs I've done I hate to admit that Sunday's was the best I've run.  After the run I tossed on my hard earned medal, it felt really great to be able to reward myself with some sparkly bling at the end!  Both the hot dog and the baseball medals were really well done!  I love sparkly medals and these both had a lot of shimmer to them.  The half marathon baseball medal was perfect size, sparkle, and a spinner!  I am really looking forward to seeing the September "Soaring" medals.

 

 



Medals and a sweet card

Hot and Sweaty but look at that medal! It's huge!

 

Not too shabby for it being 8,752 degrees outside!

 

 

Track Shack-O-Holic!

Miles to Date: 318

This week has already been a busy one!  Monday Night I went to The Track Shack for a Meet and Greet with Bart Yasso.  I met him at the Pittsburgh expo, and I have to say in terms of the Running World he is one of my favorite people.  He tells the best stories and is really entertaining, but also is laid back and down to earth and seems like a guy you could go grab a beer with.  I offered him the highly thrilling chance to pace 4 girls who run real slow and swear alot while doing it in the Mickey Marathon.  Not sure if I convinced him - but hey it's worth a shot!

 

 

Tuesday morning we met for a short run and skipped our usual 3 mile warm up.  Leah and I ran a fast for us 2 miles in the low 11 min mile pace and walked another mile and half.  Tonight was Ladies Night at the Track Shack.  Our entry fee went to the Florida Hospital Breast Cancer Care Fund which helps women afford to get mamograms.  With a raffle, snacks, fashion show, and a goody bag of Betsy's favorite things I knew it would be a great night!  I also won an entry to the Disney Princess Half Marathon and the Royal Family 5k in a silent auction.  I paid less than it was worth online and my money went to the cause, so I could truly feel great about running for a reason!  Leah also went and bought one of the flamingos that Florida Hospital was selling.  One goes home with her, and the other gets tagged and goes out in a flock to somewhere in Winter Park, so she let me stick Jen's name on that one.  We run past a flock of flamingos every weekend and it always makes me smile!  Up tomorrow is another easy morning run and then 14 miles this weekend!

 



215 miles to be Cancer Free!

Miles to Date: 242

As I mentioned in my last post we finally were allowed back on the track on Tuesday mornings.  I don't try and hide the fact that I love the track!  For some reason this running nonsense makes sense to me on the track.  I think it has something to do with being a swimmer in high school - the measured laps make it easy to visualize how far I have to go and gauge how much I can push myself.  Last week was 800's at 10k pace and this week was "the puker" as it is referred to in Marathonfest.  I did don my Nike "TRACK HEAD"shirt for my return to the track as promised.

 

On our weekend run we did an easy 8 miles which was a welcome break from all our usual double digit weekend runs.  This week we did our usual warm ups and had a timed 5k run on Thursday.  I almost went home instead of running it - but Leah and I toughed it up and started out running it at a pretty easy pace.  After the first mile I picked up our pace and by the time we were done (35:00!) we had run each mile faster and faster.  For a sweaty, hot, humid morning I'll take a time that is only 24 seconds slower than my PR.

 

Jen's surgery went pretty well with only a few minor hiccups.  By removing what was left of the tumor the doctors said that she is technically CANCER FREE! So if you are keeping track that would be right at the 215 miles run mark.  That sounds like an amazing donation amount  $215 or even $21.50 for 10 cents a mile.  Now she's at home resting and recuperating. She used words like machete, knife, and baseball bat to describe the pain she had to go through.  Makes me think my sore calves and knees are nothing and that I should put on my big girl panties and suck it up.  I am still constantly amazed by her strength and attitude through of all this - she is the most amazing and beautiful person I know.

 

Tomorrow morning is another 10 mile run which will put me over 250 miles already!

 

Passed by this on our weekend run

 



Track, Yasso, and a Double Mastectomy OH MY!

Miles to date: 209

This week brought me over 200 miles run! That number is only going to get a whole lot bigger in the upcoming months as we train for Disney's Goofy's Race and Half.  Last Sunday I did a pretty impressive ten miles after 3 straight days of running including my super fast for me 5k!  All the girls decided it was ok to take running on Tuesday morning off and get in some much needed rest.  We were back at it with 6 on Thursday and 12 not so pretty miles on Sunday.

Tomorrow is the first day we get to run on the track instead of running mile repeats on the road and I have to admit that I'm pretty excited!  I even have a track shirt I've been saving to wear to commemorate being back on the track.  On top of that it's also a work out of Yasso 800's - I was lucky enough to meet Bart Yasso at the expo for the Pittsburgh Marathon in May, so it seems fitting that my first track workout in months is his!

 

Tomorrow also is an important day for Jen, she goes in for surgery - a double mastectomy!  I love her attitude and outlook on this process she'll "do this once - but not again"!  I'm so proud and in awe of her bravery!  So after the run in my special track shirt I'll be sporting purple at work for her.  So put on some purple and send her positive thoughts, prayers, wishes whatever it is that you're in to, because I know that I will be!