2 Weeks Left

Well, less than 2 weeks now, until our first half marathon! Which means we’re in taper mode. But don’t tell my legs that, because they won’t believe you! Here’s the recap of the last week:

Monday:
4 miles (9:16 avg pace)
Rare Solo Run. Since J had just run his heart out the day before, I went out on my own for a solo 4-miler. This was an “easy” run, but my pace doesn’t really reflect that… It felt really easy, though, so I was shocked to see that pace! Where’d that come from? Maybe I was just inspired by J’s super fast race? Or maybe it was Lady Gaga pumping through my head? Whatever it was, it made me feel good! :)

Tuesday:
Free Yoga at Lululemon
This class kicked my butt. And I could still feel that butt kicking the next day! Holy smokes! The class was run by Tiffany Cruikshank-Viehmann, who I think teaches others to be yoga instructors, and has written a book about yoga, so she didn’t take it easy on us! This was J’s first yoga experience ever, and I think it was a positive experience, although it was definitely a difficult session. Hopefully he’ll join me for yoga again in the future!

Wednesday:
5 miles (9:22 avg pace)
I thought it might be a good idea to try a run at Half Marathon Pace. I used the McMillan Running Calculator to calculate a “realistic” pace based upon our 10K PR (although, it seems that race ran a little long). This puts us at about 9:30, but for some reason I thought we’d try for 9:20? (I can’t remember my though process on that one…) Anyway, I figured we’d warm-up for the first mile, then get into the HMP for the next 4 miles. The first mile was a nice warm-up, then we tried to pick it up a little… 8:59. Whoops! Slow it down! The remaining miles were a little better, if I were trying for a 9:30 pace, but for some reason I was going for a 9:20 pace, so I was getting frustrated. Overall the average was what I was going for, but that hadn’t been the goal of this run…Oh well! At this point I think we’ll start with 9:30 pace for the race, and see what happens from there. I usually speed up as the race progresses, no matter what, so no harm in starting conservative!

Mile 1: 9:41
Mile 2: 8:59
Mile 3: 9:31
Mile 4: 9:29
Mile 5: 9:11

Thursday:
4 miles (10:13 avg pace)
Another waterfront loop. Nothing too excited about the run itself, but we did spot Alisa and Jen on their bikes. I love living in my little big city! :)

Friday:
Driving through Memorial Day traffic on the way to Sunriver/Rest Day

Saturday:
9 miles (10:17 avg pace)
We didn’t have any huge plans for this run. I mean, it’s only 9 miles ;) (Amazing how it doesn’t seem so long the weekend after you run 12 miles!) So we just ran from the front door of my Dad’s house, and let Garmin tell us when to turn around. I had seen that the whole of Sunriver was about 8 miles around the outer edges, so I figured we’d stick to that plan. Construction got in our way a little, but we made it back safe and sound, although we were a bit winded. Elevation training! I always have a hard time with the elevation up here.

It was neat to see the paths we had run back in December. I took some pictures as a comparison:

December: May: December: May:Sunday:
Rest Day

Overall, a successful week. Our total for May (after 3 miles on Monday), will be 98.4 miles, which is by far our most ever! (April was 55.7.) Next month probably won’t be as much since we’ll be recovering from Helvetia, but we’ve also got some new plans.

We’re going to be taking part in the Epic Oregon Relay (formerly the Prelay) on June 25-26. There will be 12 of us in the group, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve been wanting to try a relay out for awhile now, but didn’t think we were running enough to be an asset. But a lot of the legs on this relay aren’t too hardcore, and I’m pretty sure we’d be getting some of the “easier” legs. (Hopefully)

Also, I’ve been toying with the idea of adding a Marathon to our Race schedule in October. It would be the weekend after the Nike Women’s Half, which we are just running for fun. I don’t think it would be too much to run an easy (but hilly) half marathon the weekend before a full…but maybe someone out there has some good advice? I definitely won’t be signing up for anything right away. And I’m definitely not making any decisions until after Helvetia is over. I’ve just been milling it around this past week.

Anyway, here’s our schedule for next week:

Monday:
3 miles in Sunriver

Tuesday:
Drive back home/Yoga at Lululemon (maybe with Jen and Alisa?)

Wednesday:
4 miles

Thursday:
3 miles

Friday:
Rest

Saturday:
AM: 8 miles
PM: Starlight Run 5k with GOTR (most likely a slow walk, hopefully we make it!)

Sunday:
Rest

Peak Week

This was our “Peak Week” in more ways than one! Not only did we complete 26 miles this week (our most EVER), we also stayed very busy, socially! Here’s the recap:

Monday:
4 miles (9:49 avg pace)
I was worried about my hip (see last weeks post…), so I tried to keep it pretty easy. Well, my pace doesn’t really reflect that, but I swear I was trying. Nothing too exciting to report, but I was feeling pretty good!

Tuesday:
Free Yoga at Lululemon!
This was so much fun! There were probably around 15 people there, so it wasn’t too crowded, and by the time we were done, I was feeling really good! The guest instructor was focused on having the more advanced part of our group do hand stands (I worked on other stuff). It was interesting to watch other people go for it, but I was scared... J didn’t want to come with me, since he was afraid he’d be the only male. But there were definitely a few guys there, so I think I’ve convinced him to come with me the next time! Hopefully we can get back there soon!

Wednesday:
5.71 miles (10:40 avg pace)
We were invited to participate in a Beer Mile, but we had 6 miles on the schedule (and I was too scared to even try it…) so we said we would just come and watch. We met up with a friend (who was participating) to run the first 3 miles. She then split off to do the Beer Mile, while we finished up. We watched the very start of the race, and the very end. (The rules are: Drink a beer, run a lap. Drink another beer, run a lap. Until you get to a mile and have finished 4 beers…I’m pretty sure I would puke during the first lap… :/) We didn’t quite complete the last mile of our planned 6, but it was close enough. Afterward, we went to eat with all the drunkies, which was fun! (We drank our beers, afterward ;)

Thursday:
4.3 miles (10:12 avg pace)
This was a nice easy run, although we were kinda sore from our run the day before. (We also finished the 0.3 miles we had missed on Wednesday!) Afterward, we went to a friends house for Game Night, and stayed up way too late! Who needs sleep when you’re in the midst of peak week?!

Friday:
Rest Day + Journey Cover Band (Stone in Love)
Again, we stayed up way too late, but I only had one beer because we had an epic run scheduled for the next day!

Saturday:
12 miles (10:19 avg pace)
Yeah. I finished. Woohoo!!! What a relief after last week! We ran south along the west bank of the Willamette River (from Downtown) for about 4 miles, then ran across the Sellwood Bridge and South/East along the Springwater Corridor, and then back North along the Springwater Corridor back to Downtown. It felt pretty good until about mile 8 when my hip started aching. I know that I had said I was going to work on my flexibility this week, but I totally slacked (especially during the middle to late portions of the week, when we were especially busy). It never hurt so bad that I had to stop (like last week), but I could definitely feel something brewing. Strangely enough, it felt better as I picked up the pace. We were slowly passed by a pair of runners at around mile 9 or 10, and I subconsciously held their pace. My breathing was a little heavier, but my hip felt a little relief. I tried to slow down again, but once I’m at a pace, it’s kinda hard to slow down again… :P Overall, I’m happy with the run. Only 1.1 miles more for our half! We got this!

I accidentally hit “Lap” on my Garmin midway through, so my splits are kinda wacky. But here’s what I got:

Mile 1: 10:56
Mile 2: 10:38
Mile 3: 10:02
Mile 3.41: 9:56 (avg pace)
Mile 4.41: 11:28 (stupid short steep hill = walking)
Mile 5-ish: 10:49 (avg pace)
Mile 6-ish: 10:39
Mile 7-ish: 10:18
Mile 8: 10:15
Mile 9: 9:58
Mile 10: 9:38 (following the group that passed us)
Mile 11: 9:47 (trying to slow back down)
Mile 12: 9:32 (to be fair, there was a downhill here)

Later, we went to go see Kooza. We have been bummed for awhile, because we didn’t think we would be able to afford it, but we got our hands on some 50% off tickets, and made a date night/afternoon out of it! So much fun, and very entertaining. Look how close to the stage we got!

Sunday:
Volunteer/Spectator at the Rum Run 10K/5K
We helped out at the Bag Check again, with one difference. J was also running a 5K, solo for the first time, and let me just say…he absolutely smoked it! First of all. Wow, the bag check was packed today! We actually had a line! Holy cow. I think we still did a good job, regardless, and everyone got their stuff back! Woohoo! While we were sorting the bags, I heard the call “5K runners are about 5 minutes away,” so I hurried over to the finish line. I watched as the top speedsters crossed the finish line. At about 21:00-ish, this quick little 12-year-old girl crossed, but I didn’t even have time to say “Wow, that little chick is fast!” because soon afterward, there was J!! He finished in 21:34. Holy schmoly, what a speedster. He blew his previous 5K out of the water! (27:41) He also got 10th for overall males and 1st in his age group. Yay for J’s first medal! He didn’t wear my Garmin, so we have no idea what his splits were, but I am so proud! What an amazing time, and that after running 12 miles the day before! I have a feeling he’ll totally go under 20:00 one of these days. Who knew he was so quick!? :)

Later tonight, we’re going to be sucked into hours of television, watching the Lost Series Finale extravaganza. Hopefully I can get some sleep beforehand, because I am exhausted!

Here’s our planned schedule for next week:

Monday:
4 miles

Tuesday:
Movie? (we got free passes)/Yoga?

Wednesday:
5 miles

Thursday:
4 miles

Friday:
Rest/Travel to Sunriver

Saturday:
9 miles

Sunday:
Vacay!

I’ll leave you with some pictures I took at the Rum Run:

J kicking it in to the finish!

J with his sweet new medal (1st in his age group!) My mojito. I think I worked hard enough for it! ;)

Hmm…

After the great week we had last week, this week had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, it came nowhere near. In fact, it was a pretty poor week overall. Here’s a recap:

Monday:
Skipped a run because we were “sore” and basically lazy… I would regret this after Tuesday.

Tuesday:
Track. This is where it all went wrong. Here was our workout:

Start at L pace. 400-400-400-400 (500)
Then 2 sets: 400-400 (300) at M pace
Then 2 x 400 @ S pace (400)
Then 4 x 200 @ S pace (200)

5 miles (3 fast) (Add in our warm-up and cool down, we ran 6.71 miles.)

Looks easy enough, unless you aren’t sure what your pace is, and totally run too fast…for the whole thing. I was quite sore for the next few days, which I think was in part due to going too fast during the workout, as well as not having a recovery run after our long run.

Wednesday:
1.6 miles (10:44 avg pace)
This was a slow run which I had hoped would effectively work out whatever kinks were left over from Sunday and Tuesday’s runs. It did not work. My lower legs felt almost numb during the run. Maybe it was more of a “tingling”. It was enough to make me have to stop. (We’d only planned on running 2 miles since we were both feeling pretty worn out.) The weird “tingling” pain lingered for a few days. It felt better by Friday, but I didn’t want to chance anything, so we held off running again until Saturday (our planned long run for the week.)

Thursday:
Rest/recovery

Friday:
Rest/recovery

Saturday:
Planned- 11 miles
Actual- 9 miles (including 1.5 miles of walking; at least I was on my feet?!)

For this run, we decided to try out the Banks-Vernonia Trail. I’ve heard such great things about this trail from Jen, and we’ve been wanting to try it out for awhile now. It really is a great trail (regardless of how I felt that day…) We’ll definitely make the trip out there again! We might just try a different trail head (the paved portions were wonderful!) We parked in the empty parking lot of the Tophill trail head (which should have been a clue, I guess) which gives you access to a gravelly trail in both directions. We ran out of water on our 10-miler last weekend, so we were planning on running 3 out-and-back to refill our water bottles at the car, then 2.5 out-and-back in the opposite direction. The gravel only lasts for 1-2 miles in each direction, but I don’t think gravel was the best idea for the condition of my legs yesterday…

It took awhile once we got started, but my legs were somewhat warmed up a few miles into the run. We were sloooooow (11:00+ min/mi avg, more plus than anything…), and I never really felt that great. First, I was nervous about any sensation I felt in my lower legs. They were actually not a problem during the run (thank goodness!!), but I was still paranoid they were headed toward a lingering injury. Next came the hamstring cramp. I’ve noticed my hamstrings becoming more and more tight over the past couple of weeks. I have been stretching them, but I have definitely been giving much more attention to my trouble spots (aka my lower legs). I easily cramp up in this region, and really need to focus more on stretching these guys out (as well as strengthening their neighbors, my quads!) I was able to stretch my hamstrings out, which successful solved that problem (yay!), but another one was just around the corner.

So, as I mentioned above, I learned something this week. The best terrain for sore legs is not gravel. Gravel running is apparently my body’s worst nightmare… especially my hips! As soon as my hamstring problem subsided, a new pain slowly started creeping into my right hip. I tried to see if the pain would diminish if I continued running, but focused on my gait. Unfortunately, it only got worse. The pain became so bad 7.6 miles into the run that I had to stop. I tried stretching it out, which made it feel sooo much better, but only temporarily. As soon as I started running (or walking for that matter) the pain would start up again. It was very frustrating!

Since it was on the way home from our run, we decided to stop for lunch at the Helvetia Tavern. They will be serving the post-race food after our half marathon, so we thought a run-through was appropriate! The tavern is also located along the race course, so we drove the course after our stomachs were satiated. There are definitely some “rolling hills” but nothing I think we need to worry about, hopefully!

Last week was so great, and this week was, well, a bit of a disaster. Next week is our “peak week” (*fingers crossed*). My hip is definitely feeling better today, but it is in no way pain-free. I’ve been taking ibuprofen, icing, and stretching. I’m hopeful that this is just a cramp, and nothing more serious. I haven’t had any previous hip pain, so I can’t see how it could possibly be anything worse. Overall, my legs are a little sore, which I guess is to be expected after a long run (cut short) :’(. So, as long as my hip tolerates some running…. here’s our plan for the upcoming week:

Monday:
4 miles

Tuesday:
Yoga? (Must…get…limber ;)

Wednesday:
6 miles

Thursday:
4 miles

Friday:
Rest Day

Saturday:
12 miles (Total for the week: 26 miles!)

Sunday:
Me = Volunteering at the Rum Run
J = Running the 5k (without me!)

After last Tuesday, I’ve decided to hold off on Track workouts until after our Half. You have to have a good 5k/10k time to pace off of, and I don’t really have an accurate one, at the moment. I know that my current 5k/10k time would be faster than my current PRs, but I don’t want to break my body trying to find the right pace; at least not until we’ve successfully finished (and rocked!) the Half! :) At this point, I think it’s most important for us to get through our scheduled runs. We’re not (and should not) be aiming for a specific time, anyway. Our number 1 goal is to finish, and as long as we do that, we’ll PR! (Isn’t it great to be a newbie?)

I also want to make sure I keep up with my stretching. I can get quite focused on my “trouble spots”, but I wouldn’t have so many if I treated all my “spots” equally, now would I? I know of some free yoga classes nearby that I would like to try out. I’ve done yoga before, and really liked it. It could be a great way to cross train for increased flexibility and strength. Here’s hoping anyway!

And now for some pictures from the weekend:

Gravel…Cure for a lousy run? / Practice run for our post-race fuel! After a lousy run, before beer/food: Beer: Food: After beer/food:

Cheers to next week!

And…We’re back!

This was a busy, but successful week! So, lets get right into it.

Monday:
Rest day in Cali. We took our rest seriously!

Tuesday:
We flew back home this day. J was too tired to run, so we skipped track and I ran on my own. Nothing too exciting to report. I felt good during the run, and held a decent pace.

3 miles (9:34 avg pace)

Wednesday:
Since we skipped Track on Tuesday, we tried out our first tempo run on Wednesday. I had 5 miles on the schedule and thought a 1 mile warm-up, 3 miles at tempo, and 1 mile cool-down would suit us just fine. The only question I had: “What is the most appropriate tempo pace?” Calculations based upon our 10k PR, would put our tempo pace at about 9:15-9:20. But since that race was probably “a bit” off, and we ran 8:00’s as our T pace at track, I figured somewhere between the two would be our best bet. I picked 8:30’s as our goal pace. Here’s how the run broke down:

Mile 1: 10:04 (Warm-up)
Mile 2: 8:23
Mile 3: 8:13 (We turned around during this mile.)
Mile 4: 8:24
Mile 5: 10:01 (Cool down)

5 miles (9:01 avg pace)

The next day, I was curious to know how a tempo pace should feel. (I wanted to make sure I hadn’t gone too fast.) I found this description on the Runner’s World website: "Talk Test: A question like "Pace okay?" should be possible, but conversation won't be.’” That’s pretty accurate, but it was more like, "Turn left...[heavy breathing]...$%&!!!" :P Curiously, the last cool down mile felt soooo slow, I was shocked that it wasn’t more like 13:00! ;)

Thursday:
First Thursday! This was a LOT of fun. At 6pm, they put up a map of several near(-ish)-by businesses that you can run to. When you reach one of the given destinations, you are given some raffle tickets (more tickets the further the you go). You are given one hour to collect as many raffle tickets as you can. You put your raffle tickets into the bin, and shortly after 7pm, they begin the drawing for several running related prizes!

When the map was released, we formulated a plan (and by we, I mean someone else in our group who is a veteran to these runs!) Now, you can run as far, and as fast as you would like on these runs, but we just went with the flow of our group. We started off by heading out to the Lower Macleay trail stop; 0.8 miles for 4 (?) tickets. Next up was the Leif Erikson Trail head up on Thurman; another 0.8 miles up a nice long hill. The hill didn’t actually seem too bad, I actually enjoyed running up a hill for once! :) Next we headed back to NW 23rd and hit up several of the businesses near to the finish location. We got a nice pile of tickets in the hour, and I kinda won some new socks! :) (And we got to enjoy some free beer!)

4 miles (avg pace 10:00?, probably)

Friday:
Rest day

Saturday:
Work :( And then BBQ :)

Sunday:
10 miles!! WOO! We decided to head over to the Leif Erikson trail this morning. Although it was mostly an uphill climb until the turn-around, it was nowhere near as bad as our last trail run attempt… I forgot to turn off my Garmin’s auto-pause until about half-way through, and since the signal is often “lost” when we’re up there, I do not have accurate splits. I didn’t even have an accurate overall time (auto-pause fail). So I took the time we had and added about a minute to get an estimated average pace. (There was probably about a 400ft elevation gain on the first half, and descent on the 2nd half, so the pace probably wasn’t “even” throughout, but the effort definitely was!)

10 miles in about 1hr34min (9:24 avg pace!)

Overall, it was a great running week! 22 quality miles on the books, and we continue to climb for another couple weeks! Only a little over a month until the big day! Here’s the plan for the upcoming week (completely subject to change, of course):

Monday:
4 miles? (Monday or Wednesday, we’ll see how we feel tomorrow.)

Tuesday:
Track?

Wednesday:
4 miles? (Monday or Wednesday, we’ll see how we feel tomorrow.)

Thursday:
4 miles

Friday:
Rest Day

Saturday:
11 miles (hopefully flat :) [24 total miles]

Sunday:
Rest Day

Here’s to another great training week! :)

All not according to plan, Part 2

And now for Part 2:

Firstly, we flew down to California (again!) on Saturday for my final dental appointment (and of course to see family!) We needed to get 8 miles in sometime over the weekend, and I wanted to get it over with on Saturday, since we had a Birthday Party to go to on Sunday. (Birthday parties are important when you’re 4 and 6!) I was just planning on having us run along the beach, like we did the last time we were down here, but J wanted to try something new. So he talked his friend into driving us down to South Orange County (Aliso/Laguna area) to try out a trail. Not the best choice.

J thought the trail would start with an uphill climb, then level off when we got to the “top”. The trail started out friendly looking enough, but that didn’t last very long. It definitely took off with a very brutal climb. We didn’t run this first section. (I’m pretty sure I would have tripped and died, if we had.) So we waited for the summit, but it never came… Eventually we started running, but after 1 mile of climbing straight upward, we called it quits, and made our way back to the parking lot. I was kind of upset. I really wanted to get a quality 8 mile run in this week, since last week was such an utter failure. So we decided to wait and try again on Sunday.

After the party on Sunday (about 5pm), we finally headed out for our run. I was a little nervous to start so late in the day, especially down here. (It’s hot for us!) But it actually turned out pretty well! We took off straight from my mother-in-laws house, and made our way to the the mighty Santa Ana River (lol). There is a dirt/rock path that runs alongside the “river” with beautiful views of a playground, a plant nursery, and a sewage treatment plant! We even got to wind our way over to Costco, and run under the 405 freeway. What beautiful scenery! (Sense any sarcasm? We are definitely blessed in the NW!) The first half of the run was kind of rough with the sun on our backs, very little breeze, and minimal distractions in the form of scenery. But, when we turned around, the run got much better! There was a heavier (and very welcome) breeze that cooled us off immediately. We were also able to refuel with Espresso Love Gu. (Better than Mint Chocolate!) We somehow lost J’s Gu, either along the way, or in the house, so we ended up sharing. I definitely want to try other refueling sources during our next several long runs. I’m still not completely sold on Gu.

We made our way back feeling pretty good and very accomplished. We ran 8 miles today! That’s farther than we’ve ever run before! Here are our splits:

Mile 1: 9:55
Mile 2: 10:27
Mile 3: 10:23
Mile 4: 10:11
Mile 5: 10:14
Mile 6: 10:01
Mile 7: 10:15
Mile 8: 9:46

Maybe not our most consistent run ever, but we were still able to negative split it! (Thank you wonderful breeze!)

Sunday:
8 miles (10:09 avg pace)

I’ll leave you with some pics of our failed run on Saturday:

The very beginning of the trail, with nice shady trees and a flat path (this section was quite short):
Stupid Hill:
Pretty view:
More view:
J, after we quit, on the stupid hill:
Bunny:
Later that night

We fly back up to Portland on Tuesday. Here’s a rough schedule for our week:

Monday:
Rest Day in Cali

Tuesday:
Track (probably)

Wednesday:
Easy 3 miles

Thursday:
First Thursday

Friday:
Rest Day

Saturday:
Work :( / BBQ

Sunday:
10 miles (Double Digits!)

All not according to plan, Part 1

I started this week by shifting some runs around early on, but really, the whole week was one big mish-mash, which is kind of disappointing, since we had a not so great finish to last week’s plan.

J really wanted to do a track workout on Tuesday, with some of the people we had met the previous weekend when we were volunteering. I had wanted to add in some speedwork this week anyway, so I acquiesced. This meant, however, that we would be running 3 days in a row (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) which would be our first time ever doing that. I was a little nervous about how my legs would handle 3 days in a row (the first day being a “long run” and the third being a track workout), but they performed beautifully.

Monday:
3 miles (10:07 avg pace)

Tuesday: (Track Workout)
This was planned as a 5 mile run, with some speedwork added into the mix. We decided to join a group at the track. This was our workout:

11x600’s with 20-25 sec rest at T pace

Here’s where it gets really good. J had checked out the sheet that was supposed to list our T pace for 600’s, based upon our 5k PR. It is clear that we are faster than our current 5k PR at this point, so we had used McMillan’s calculator to convert our 10k PR into a more “accurate” 5k time (27:01). J saw that we were supposed to finish each 600 in 2:56. Now, I am a Garmin newbie. I could not figure out at the right time, which buttons were supposed to be pushed when. Luckily, J had our “back-up” watch, and was keeping track of our splits, with which we were dead on. (I always held a very consistent pace when I was swimming; I think it’s rolling over into running, too!) The one time I think I had the Garmin doing what I wanted it to, it told me we were running at 8:00 avg pace.

Hmm… “J [heavy breathing] I think we’re going too fast… [heavy breathing]… aren’t we supposed to be holding 9’s…?” “No, we’re doing great!” Well, we later found out that the chart must have had a wee bit of a typo in it… Like, it told us to do each 600 in 2:56, when what it probably actually meant was 3:56. OOPS! So, that means were were holding 7:49 avg pace, which is probably why I kept telling J how much I hated him during each rest break… Truth be told, I didn’t know I could run that fast, so that’s exciting! And I was able to hold the same pace the whole way through; 4.1 miles! Looks like I’m going to have to push a bit harder in these 5k/10k races!

Summary:
1.71 mile warm-up
4.1 mile tempo @ 7:49
0.25 cool down (I’m thinking this should be more, next time)
Total: 6.06 miles (That’s longer than last week’s “Long Run”! :)

Wednesday:
Rest Day

Thursday:
GOTR 5k (Oh boy…)

So, it’s not that I didn’t have fun, but it’s not exactly what I had hoped for. I showed up on time and met my girl with plenty of time to spare. She was very hyper and energetic as we were waiting for the 5k to start. She was a bit clingy, which was a little weird, but J has 6 nieces and nephews, so it’s not my first time around the block. Soon enough, we all headed over to the “starting line”. My girl wanted to line up at the front, which I am always hesitant about, because I never start up there, and she didn’t seem to be in the best of shape… Well, I couldn’t deny her, since the leaders were telling everyone to move in. Before you knew it, we’d started. We started running, hand-in-hand. I was surprised; she was holding a decent pace, not sprinting with all her life (like some of the other girls). I heard my name called from behind me, just after the start, and it was Alisa. I wish we could have chatted, but my girl was still charging ahead, so I waved instead. Soon, we were at the hill, and that was when the running stopped…

My girl had a side cramp. I told her my tried and true solution for this (smell the roses, blow out the candles), and soon her cramp was gone. We were walking at a nice relaxed pace, made it up the hill; “water!” Our first water stop of the day, 1/2-way through the first of 8 3/4 laps. We continued walking and finally finished the first full loop. “How many more do we have to go?” “Only 7 and a little bit.” “7!!!!!?????????? We can’t do that!” [Insert super bubbly and motivational Marya] During the second lap, she had a calf cramp, but she was able to walk it off. The next few laps go by without much of a difference. More walking; slow walking. During the 5th lap (and the remaining laps) we have to take a standing rest break on the hill. Since we were at least 45 minutes into this thing, my motivational pep talks were needing their own motivational pep talks, and we were only halfway through!

Eventually, other volunteers jumped in (Hallelujah!) and tried to inspire her. We got nothing. She continually told us that she wanted to quit, but I kept telling her, “No way! We can do this! We’re gonna keep going until we’re finished!) Well, as we were nearing the finish line along the loop, and had but 1 lap to go, one of her coaches ran up and said “This is it! You’re almost done!!” I slyly replied, “We still have another lap to go.” You could see the defeat in the coaches eyes. “Well the van is leaving, so this has to be it.” So we finished our less-than-5k. Yes, we were the last to finish, but J says we were probably only 1 lap behind the next to last finisher.

Well, chances are I won’t have to worry about being physically drained the week before our Half. Emotionally? I hope we can finish the Starlight Run 5k! I was sad that my girl’s family wasn’t there, like some of the other girls’ families, but from what she told me about them, I’m not surprised. I would be surprised if they showed up at the Starlight Run… I guess that’s why she’s in this program!

It was a good experience, and I’m sure I’ll try to do it again next year. We’ll see what the Starlight brings!

Summary:
3-ish miles of walking (I’m counting it! I was definitely on my feet, emotionally drained, and I certainly wasn’t going to run after that!)

Friday:
Happy Hour :)

I’ll recap the weekend in a separate post, since this one is already so long (and the weekend is not yet over!)