The past two days, I have been rocking the morning workouts – go me! It feels so great to get the workout done and out of the way, without the pressure to fit something in after kids go to bed when I’m really exhausted and just want to sit down and relax.
This week, Eat Pray Run, DC, blogged about 5 steps to turning a night owl into a morning runner. These suggestions really resonated with me – hellllo, #2! I’m the worst at just going.to.bed (as evidenced by this post being written at 11:40pm the night before a 14-hour workday).
Yesterday morning I felt so new. I wore my new shoes and gave my new Garmin 10 a whirl. I’ve been ogling running watches for a long time and fully intended to get something while training for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in April. In fact, this was the exact watch I almost bought the week before the race.
I didn’t end up buying one back then since I decided to get something that could also handle cycling for the triathlon training, but after doing research on triathlon-style Garmin watches, I’ve decided that I really can’t splurge like that when I also need to buy a bike. So I went with the running-only watch since it does what I want it to do for running.
PLUS: IT HAD ME AT PURPLE.
I ran my Nike+ app on my phone to compare. The two devices were not in sync for the distance. I didn’t pause at any intersections or when I adjusted my watch once so the time and pace are a little inflated.
The shoes – wow they were really, well – ORANGE in the box, but on my feet they were more like a fun splash of color. I loved them overall, they feel so different from my old Asics. They are way lighter but still pretty cushiony and supportive in most areas. However, after mile 3 I developed some pretty bad toe/foot pain. It could be related to my Morton’s Neuroma – I’m not sure if it was the shoe.
This morning I was just snoozing my 6am alarm when F, my 17-month-old cutiehappyboy, decided it was a great time to wake up and scream loudly. He shares a room with his 3.5 year old brother, so i scooped him up, made him some breakfast, and took him in the jogging stroller for a little run. We only did 2.25 miles because I had to get to a meeting, but the foot was just starting to act up.
Nike+ and the Garmin were pretty in sync today. Someone please tell me to stop running my app and obsessively comparing the GPS accuracy of both devices. I cannot stop with stuff like this (obsessive much?).
Off to bed so I can get up early and workout, Eat Pray Run’s #2 is haunting me. Go…to…bed!
The crickets have been chirping on my blog since I had a crazy several days on a business trip. My business trips involve 120 people, arguing with airlines and bus drivers, and I am constantly on the go, so computer time can be limited. I managed to get a workout in on Saturday thanks to a good hotel gym and the Nike Training Club app on my phone.
Most importantly, my exciting news of the day: I registered for the Army Ten Miler! Registration opened last night at midnight, and I fully intended to stay up to sign up since I heard it sells out quickly. But I had a double-fail: I fell asleep in my workout clothes while putting kids to bed, so it was not only an exercise fail, but an Army Ten Miler registration fail. Thankfully there were still spots this morning when I woke up, since I had coordinated with a few friends to sign up together.
I’ve always wanted to do this race! I thought I’d be pretty much done with crowded races after my recent Nike Women’s Half Marathon and the potty lines, but this is a race I really want to do at least once. And the 10 mile distance seems like a great fall goal after my sprint triathlon.
Do you have a race bucket list? Which race have you always wanted to sign up for?
On the Nike Women’s Half Marathon result page I’m now listed as a 2:29:12 finish. Time to celebrate – I gained 2 seconds!
But staring at those results a realization sunk in: this was my last race in that age group: “F35-39”. Yep, 40 is coming, and fast. Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually fine with turning 40. I’m headed into my 40’s with 3 great kids, a career I love, and I feel like I’m getting on track personally with weight loss and fitness.
I’m already mentally crafting my birthday Facebook status:
“Suck it, 40, I’m in the best shape of my life!”
I have a little work to do before I can actually post something like that, but I’m motivated. I am losing weight but mainly I’m getting stronger and more fit. But I still have a ways to go.
Before I had my first kid I lost 43 pounds through a self-created plan that I officially dubbed “Operation: Get Off The Couch“. I’ll definitely write about that another day, but at the start of it I couldn’t even do yoga without stopping for a breather, and at the end of it I ran a marathon. And I ran it well, in 4:17:03. And also at the end of the plan, I was 43 pounds lighter.
However, this realization of the age group change is getting me to think of signing up for a race before my September triathlon so I can sneak in one more running race in a 30’s age group. There’s a 5 miler in my area in a couple weeks that I’ve done before, and I could practically run to the start, so I’m hovering over the registration button…
Do you notice when you move into the higher age group? Does it bring you down or fire you up to meet new challenges in the new age range?
I’ve been MIA a couple of days since I had an incredibly busy weekend. For some reason I thought it would be great timing to have a dinner party the night before a half marathon. It was incredibly lovely to spend time with our dear friends, but another weekend probably would have made more sense. Did I mention I tend to over-commit?
Our cleaning person had canceled on Friday due to illness, so I spent Saturday cleaning the house, vacuuming, mopping floors, chopping and cooking, and barely got in my 2 mile keep-it-loose run. I was a little distracted during the evening dinner party since I was gathering my things for the race, pinning my bib to my shirt, and also needed to excuse myself to get to sleep early.
My alarm was set for 4:45am, but something woke me at 4:30am. Robbed of 15 minutes of sleep! But I was energized for the race so I got moving. My two bigger kids were sooo crazy excited to see me run that they got up and dressed at 5am. I was so excited to have them, my au pair, my friend from California, and my dad driving me down to the race start and watching me run!
I was dropped off near the start at about 6am and felt READY!
I was really happy with the amount of portapotties near the start – there were lines closer to the corrals but I used one right near where I was dropped off = no line. I didn’t need to check a bag but it seemed as though there weren’t any lines at that time and they were well marked.
In the race packets we received a colored wristband indicating which pace corral we were to start in. I thought the corrals were pretty well marked and they had indicated on the map in the packet exactly how the start would be laid out:
At about 6:30am, my pace corral looked pretty empty:
I turned around and behind the crosswalk, the next pace corral was already packed! This was literally taken 20 seconds after the pic above!
Maybe all the 9-9:59’ers were using the potty one last time. Speaking of which, I decided that I should go again so I headed back to the potty area. And whoa, when I came back my corral was PACKED. I squeeezed in and found a spot to wait for the start. I was in front of a bride and her bridesmaids, and next to a woman who was 9 weeks pregnant and had a feverish toddler at home. She was inspiring!
I loved seeing the Capitol in the background of the starting gate:
I couldn’t understand the loudspeakers with the pre-race warmup and other announcements, but we did have a moment of silence for the Boston Marathon bombing. I loved seeing this sign at the start:
Then, of course, the National Anthem. Since I couldn’t understand the announcements, I have no idea who was singing:
And we’re off! The race course was great – I love running through DC! As I was running the race, I really appreciated the sights and had these moments where I thought that it really is the most beautiful city to run around.
Apparently my kids were waiting near the entrance to the first tunnel holding their signs, but I didn’t see them (and they didn’t see me) since there were SO many people! Here come the leaders:
Mommy? Where are you?
So many women – they didn’t see me at this point:
The main thing I loved about this race was the on-course entertainment. We headed into this tunnel and there were drums beating. The energy was amazing! Shaky photo ahead:
I had two issues during the race.
1. Dodging people and avoiding crashing into people who suddenly started walking during the race. I was corralled with the 9:00-9:59 pace, but during the very first half mile, people started walking. Don’t get me wrong, I am supportive of the walk/run combo for anyone who wants or needs to do the race that way, but if you are walking in the first 5 minutes, please, please, PLEASE move off to the side.
2. Portapotties. While they were ample at the start of the race, they were NOT during the course. The sheer number of women running created lines like this at mile 4-5:
That was my first pit stop. I still don’t have a running watch and was trying to avoid messing with my phone during the race, so I’m not sure how many minutes I lost to this and the other portapottie stop, but it was AT LEAST 7-10! AT LEAST!!! I could not believe it as the minutes just ticked away and I stood there watching the crowd run by.
It also meant that after passing tons of people, I just had to pass all the same people again when I resumed running. After having 3 giant babies (they were GIANT, I tell you!), I can’t run for long before I have to stop. I just can’t. And I was NOT going to squat in the bushes in the middle of our Nation’s Capitol.
The good thing is, I felt great throughout the whole race. I felt strong, solid, and my pace was faster than my long runs in training. The course support was excellent and really energized me, and I loved reading all the spectators’ signs. Tons of entertainment that helped the miles tick by faster. And since there were tons of Team In Training people, there were many of the coaches along the course cheering them on – this gave me a huge boost too!
I loved having Nuun AND water at each stop – after the first aid station they were great about explaining where you could grab water vs. Nuun. I totally missed the Cliff Blocks since I didn’t need fluid at that time and didn’t realize they were handing out the blocks, but I had Gu and jellybeans on me so I was set.
There’s one really hard area to get through at DC races, I remember it well from the Marine Corps Marathon. Hains Point. It’s a pretty boring section of any race, but Nike really perked it up with fun signs along the way. I loved this one so I had to snap a pic:
One thing that I noticed along the way was that my Nike+ Android app was calling out the miles before the mile markers. I thought maybe it was because I had veered off to the bathroom and spent some time weaving, but others were chatting as we ran about the same thing. In fact, sometime on Hains Point my phone called out the mile at exactly the same second as another runner – a quarter mile before the mile marker. Maybe we had both taken the outside instead of the inside on turns, but it seemed odd. My app says I ran 13.51 total rather than 13.1.
As we got back into the downtown area, we knew we only had a 5K to go. And I knew my family was waiting near the Capitol. I was so excited to finally see my kids that I barely noticed this section of the race. My legs felt good, but I just started to have some pelvic or public bone pain that has sometimes flared up during the longer training runs (not sure what that’s about?!).
Finally, the kids! High fives all around.
Then it was Hello, US Capitol, I’m running around you!
After the Capitol, the pubic bone pain was starting to really get intense. I had this pain when I first started running after my last pregnancy, it felt like someone took a hammer to that area. Maybe kid #3 broke me. He was 11 pounds, after all.
I tried to ignore it and pick up the pace as I saw the finish line:
At last, the FINISH! I was seriously bummed at my time, the slowest of all my 5 half marathons, because I knew that I had lost tons of time at the bathrooms. But I felt really happy with my running – my pace per mile was decent. And I’m happy to say that I felt stronger than any of my training runs, and felt GREAT until the end of the race and the pubic bone pain.
I came in at 2:29:14 chip time. I know they said not to turn around after going through the finish, but I couldn’t resist:
After the finish, they handed each person a bottle of water:
Scanned our bib for the chip in it:
And then the part that seems to justify the $$$ race fee: A Tiffany Necklace. I had told all my friends and coworkers that I had bought a Tiffany necklace and just had to run 13 miles to pick it up.
They had men in tuxes handing them out (I heard they were firemen but I don’t know if that’s true):
Lots of helpful people handing out the heat sheet thingys:
But after this is when it got a bit crazy for me. Crowds, crowds, lines, lines. It was really congested and hard to get to the food tables. And later we got a bag to carry it all. Remember, we had been handed a bottle of water, a Tiffany “Blue Box”, a bagel, banana, Luna bar, fruit cup, and heat sheet. Then we got a pretty Tiffany bag. One genius lady near me had her own bag since she knew from previous races there’s a lot of stuff to carry. I thought “Aha – I’ll try that next time!”
The finish area seemed to have some neat things, but the lines were really long. I got my Finisher’s Shirt, but then didn’t wait in the lines to purchase anything else. I had already bought a shirt at Fleet Feet and was anxious to see my kids. Here’s the pretty shirt:
Paul Mitchell had haircuts for a $15 donation to charity:
And a Bare Minerals makeup station, but the line looked long and I wasn’t sure if it was free or if there was a fee. Plus, I was sweaty and gross and didn’t really need makeup put on me at that moment:
I really loved the Kaiser Permanente Stretching Lounge. They were leading people through post-race stretches, but again: Very Crowded.
I didn’t get a mat so I did some informal stretching in the corner, but they had little stress balls, smoothies, fruit flavored water, and a few other things they were handing out. Was someone actually riding this bike to power the blender?! Totally cool!
I checked my unofficial race results on computers they had in a Nike+ area, and headed out to meet my family.
I love the Finisher’s shirt and Tiffany necklace – both are things that I will actually use!
It was a fun race, lots of hype and excitement. I felt like I was on track for a decent (for me!) finishing time aside for the bathroom lines. My best half marathon time was my first one: pre-kids, it was 2:05. My other three were in the 2:12-2:20 range, so this was slower overall but I think my pace was similar to those timings, aside from my lengthy pit stops.
Yesterday, I went to the Nike Women’s Half Marathon Expotique to pick up my race packet and check out what they had going on there. I thought I might buy a few things, but they didn’t really have anything for sale other than a small Fleet Feet stand with race day essentials (buy BodyGlide = check!). They were directing people up the hill to the Nike store in Georgetown for shopping, but I was short on time so I didn’t make it up there.
They gave us a card with a code in our race packet, and you could enter it into a few places to try to win a prize. I didn’t win anything [insert sad face here]. I took a pic as I entered (from the back, the wrong side, oops!):
I’ve been Tweeting but I didn’t stick around the video wall of Tweets long enough to see some of mine:
I love running in DC – this course looks great and it’s the main reason I was interested in signing up for this one as opposed to another half marathon. Look, it’s a foot tour of DC!
They had a lot of cool things at the Expo, like printing customized signs for your spectators to hold, hair and makeup stations, and a big wall where you could sign with Green Sharpies, with the header: WHY DO YOU RUN?
It better be warm enough to wear my new shirt on Sunday! Our local Fleet Feet Sports had a Nike Women’s Half Marathon party last week and I decided I needed a new shirt for the race. I love black shirts for running (yes, even in the summer) since they go with any bottom, and frankly I look better in black. Better concealment of the postpartum belly. Now I just need to figure out the best bottoms – will it be cool and I’ll want my running capris on? Or shorts? Or my favorite running skirt, which I love but it’s getting a bit too big (yay).
Tomorrow the Nike “Expotique” opens in Georgetown and I’m going to pick up my race packet. I’m going to try not to get too swept up into the craze and buy anything else. I have to remind myself of these things in order to keep my wallet shut:
1. It’s not my first half marathon (I think I’ve done 4 or 5? I’ll have to count someday!)
2. I’ve done two marathons and didn’t pony up money for race items – not even for the Marine Corps Marathon, and they had tons of merch!
3. I’m sure I’ll want a memento from the triathlon, and I have a feeling the sprint won’t be my last Tri.
4. If I bought stuff specific to every race I’d be broke.
The one thing I might buy tomorrow is the Nike+ GPS watch. I’m still torn between that and the Garmin 10 but I want one of them on my wrist for Sunday’s race. I do not want to be messing with my phone during the race, I’ve had bad luck with phone apps for my long runs recently.
As a form of self-punishment for over-eating donut holes in the office kitchen this morning, I ran farther than my scheduled 4-5 miler (I’m a bit loose on my training schedule since my week has been crazy…).
I did 5.2 miles but I was slow. Really slow. Like so slow I’m worried I need to readjust my half marathon goal time.
My Nike+ app on my phone called out my average pace every half mile as planned, but I didn’t like what it had to say. I must have looked nuts shouting at my bicep – “NOOOOO I HATE YOU! YOU MUST BE WRONG!!!” I was in wooded paths for part of the run, so maybe it just didn’t pick up all my mileage. Yeah, I’ll go with that theory.
I parked at my parents’ house and ran from there, since I was in the mood for a change of scenery – they live in a cute neighborhood with great paths around little lakes. The sky was getting really ominous and I was worried I’d get poured on, but only a few drops hit my hat.
When I hit mile 3 I started to feel great and broke into what felt like a REALLY fast pace, totally pushing it with a nice, powerful stride.
At mile 3.5 Nike+ called out my stats: umm, that pace sucked too, although I could consider it less sucky than the rest of the run.
My goal for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon: I’d like to do the half at a pace of 10:00-10:30/mile, finishing within 2 hours & 15 minutes, which wouldn’t be my best half marathon by any means, but it would be respectable for my first post-partum race. I’m now confident there is no way that is happening. Mentally readjusting using online pace calculators now.
Even without speed work, I thought I’d resume my previous pacing of 10:00/mile on average without running with a group and doing track speedwork. I guess after 3 babies, being older, and with foot pain, my expectations are totally out of whack.
My next race is the triathlon so it will be a short run (3 miles). I have no clue how to estimate my pace for that because although it’s a short distance, I’ll have already had a swim and a bike segment!
12 miles done. Well, my Nike+ app says it was 11.57, but I think the GPS gets lost in the park a bit. If I’ve been wrong about the mileage of the park loops all these years, and therefore all my Marine Corps Marathon training was off, I think my head will explode.
So let’s just call it 12 since I have always trusted what I had clocked with my little distance calc on the jogging stroller, the computer on my bike, and the map of the park SAYING the mileage of the path.
I had a few good miles in there, really I did. But after mile 8.5 when I started to head out of the park towards home, all sorts of aches and pains started popping up. Pubic bone pain, knee pain, Morton’s Neuroma pain, foot pain, general stiffness. I think when the neuroma acts up I change my gait so it causes other issues. I stopped a few times to stretch but it didn’t seem to help much – only made it harder to get going again.
I had to really focus mentally – mind over body – and keep going with one foot in front of the other. I don’t think I’ll beat any pace records of mine from previous halves at the Nike Half, but I’d like to finish strong.
I returned to find the toddler was awake in his crib, but I couldn’t make it up the stairs to get him so I sent my husband up there. Here’s hoping I don’t look strange hobbling around the office tomorrow!
Let me be clear: I don’t have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. But I am fairly obsessed with the NEED to know exactly how far I ran, what my pace was, and my total time running. I start the app when my feet start moving, I pause it at stop lights, I obsess about it. I need to hear the app tell me my average and/or current pace while running, I mentally note that pace and see if I beat it during the next time. And I often run the same route so I can see if I beat my pace for each mile or in total.
I used to spend time mapping routes on the computer, and before the websites or awesome map sites existed, I would drive routes to figure out where I’d go running the next day to get the mileage needed for my training schedule. So imagine how thrilled I was when technology caught up with what I wished existed. I was *thisclose* to buying a GPS watch when VOILA! my phone provided me with my dream come true – the ability to track my route with an app.
I’ve tried several: CardioTrainer, Endomondo, and have recently moved to Nike+. I really loved it for a couple of weeks but today – I’m irritated.
After spending half the day taking care of kids and feeling sluggish, I finally got out for the run during my toddler’s nap time. It was a gorgeous day and my first run of the year in shorts. What a treat! After about 2.5 miles, I paused my app at a stoplight (I cannot stand it ticking away for 4 minutes while I wait for a walk signal, thereby making it seem like my pace that mile was horrendous).
Suddenly – POOF! It was on the start-a-run screen. WHAT?! One reason I love Nike+ is that you can pause easily, but to finish the run you have to swipe deliberately. Anyhow, I had a bad signal there, which might have been the problem, so I couldn’t get it going again and went to Endomondo. Ran 0.7 until I got to a restroom and UGH – stopped it instead of pausing since the stop button is literally ON the pause button. A reminder of one reason I switched to Nike+.
By this point I was so frustrated, after more than 3 miles I was starting a run fresh again, with no fun badges from Nike+ to tell me how awesome I was today, and my progress broken up into several runs on two different apps. I wasn’t sure exactly how far I had gone since I had lost that first 2-something, so I went out of my way to go a bit longer.
When I got home, I obsessively mapped it on mapmyrun. Turns out my 9 miler was 9.96. If I had known that, I would have jogged around 0.04 to make it an even 10! (Honestly, I don’t have OCD…)
How was it? Awesome. My Morton’s Neuroma didn’t act up, only some numbness. I had some pubic bone pain. Otherwise, I loved the run. It felt great and I feel more secure for the half marathon in a few weeks!
You Signed Up For What?! 