Run Like a Fool 5k

And that is exactly what I did this morning!

Amy @Pumpkin to Princess sent me an event request on Facebook for this 5k run to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. It's a virtual 5k so i got to run it this morning around my neighborhood- and I get a snazzy medal to go with it! Woohoo! I managed to finish in about 43 minutes. Maybe it was because I know the area well, or the fact that I was excited about my new shoes, but it was a great run!

My new shoes are the Saucony Powergrid Cortana.

They are heavier than my Kinvaras and have more cushioning, but I like them better. I also got them a half size bigger than normal and I'm glad I did. Maybe my feet grew since I got my Kinvaras but lately my toes have been smushing into the front of my sneakers and I lost part of a toe nail after my 5k last Saturday. Boo!!

Last night, besides being a giddy school girl and opening my new shoes, I was graced with another awesome surprise. I was lying in bed, relaxing and watching Netflix when my mom came in to talk to me. She pointed to the vase I keep on my dresser (which usually has one fake flower in it that my boyfriend gave to me) and asked where all the flowers had come from. I looked up and realized my vase was full of pink roses! I was so confused! At first I thought her and my dad had gotten them for me, but she assured me that was not the case. Then, it dawned on me- my boyfriend! He had texted me earlier saying that he wanted to know what time I was working til so he could drop off my mom's charm book I had left in his truck. DEVIOUS! He didn't want to drop off the book, he was delivering flowers for me! It all came together (after I called him up and asked if he had given me the flowers- at first, he denied it, but then finally gave in and said they were from him). On the phone he told me he had wanted to surprise me and make me smile because he knew we both were running around crazy lately with our work schedules. Isn't he just the sweetest thing ever?!

Okay, enough gushing over that- I was perusing the blog world today, when I stumbled upon (Just) Trying is for Little Girl's most recent post. She was talking about how she had kind of lost her mojo and was advised to find her running identity. It made me realize that I need to sit down and really try and find my running identity. I want to run for fun and I try to do this as best I can but, it's hard to keep my competitive side out of it. I feel like I need to do better and get faster and be more like all of my friends and bloggers who run 8 or 9 min miles. I think I really just need to come to the conclusion that I am a slow runner and that that is okay! Not everyone needs to be fast, right? I want to solely run to enjoy myself and destress and have fun.

New Shoes

It has been decided!

You all voted and to reward myself once I lose these pesky 10 pounds, I will reward myself with a new pair of shoes. Sweet!

I already bought myself a new pair of running shoes (they come in tomorrow!!!!) so I will buy myself a new pair of heels. HOORAY!

Anywho, I did my first 5k of the 2012 year this past Saturday. It was the Savin Rock Half Marathon and 5k. It was absolutely gorgeous out! And even though the wind made it feel a little chilly while I was waiting for the 5k to start, it felt nice when I started running. The course was 1.6 miles out and 1.5 miles back, all along the coast/shore. Yep, I got to spend my Saturday morning running along the beach- it's okay to be jealous ;)
I was dragging from being on my feet non-stop all week long and having worked over 50 hours, but I managed to finish in about 44 minutes. I actually crossed the line before they changed it over for the half marathoners. Go me!

It felt really good to run a race again. I took it slow and just enjoyed the view around me. Such a nice, flat, pretty easy first race of the year for me. I came home, showered, and promptly registered for another 5k in May. It's the Color Me Rad 5k in Hartford. Check it out HERE- how awesome does that look?! I'm so excited for it!

I've got another super busy week this week, but I'm hoping my new shoes coming in will give me the motivation to get back out there and get some runs in. I'm aiming for 2 runs before Sunday.  

That's my goal- can I do it?! What do you think?

How Do You Like Them Fins?

I have compression sleeves!!

 

And I'm starting to look like the little mermaid!

source

 We are almost like twins, right? HAHA!

Ok... maybe that second part isn't entirely true, but I've got a good start to my outfit for the Disney Princess Half. And, it's all thanks to Kristin @HollyWood Runs. She did a Zensah sleeve give away and I won! Woohoo! Since we live relatively close to each other, she decided to stop by my store to drop off my prize to me. It was nice to catch up with her again as I know she has been too busy to keep up with her blogging. (Which is sad, because her blog is a lot of fun!) As soon as I was on break, I slipped my sleeves on and I felt instant relief and comfort for my legs (feet not so much, retail is a killer, but my legs definitely felt awesome). I cannot wait to use them on my long run tomorrow!!

My entire running schedule has, once again, been thrown out of whack because of work and rehearsal. But, I've stopped worrying over it. I have just enough time to run 13.5 miles before my rest week for the half marathon so I'm not going to stress. Stressing over getting my long runs in makes me not enjoy the actual runs and I don't want that to happen.

On another note, I was reading an article in Runner's World that mentioned how a study was done on athletes who drank chocolate milk after intense workouts. It was quite interesting, so I figured I would share it with you and get y'alls opinions on the matter. The article stated that: "About 30 men and women participated in a four-and-a-half week training program at the University of Texas at Austin that included cycling hard for an hour a day, five days a week. Right after their ride and again an hour later, subjects drank chocolate milk or a carb beverage. The 2011 study found that chocolate milk? drinkers gained more lean muscle and lost more body fat (thanks to milk's protein) than those downing the carb drink.
ACTION: To help shed body fat and boost muscle gains, follow long workouts with a tall glass of chocolate milk." (source)

One of the blogs I follow,  RDM (Running Diva Mom) has used chocolate milk as her refueling beverage of choice for a good long while and she loves it! She was even contacted by Refuel with Chocolate Milk to see if they could sponsor her for a race. How cool is that?! Read all about it on her blog HERE. So, apparently, chocolate milk is the thing to drink after a long run or race. But what about for those of us who can't have chocolate? (Chocolate literally makes me ill. It sucks.) Will regular milk do? How about strawberry? Or should I just stick with a Gotein powder or Gatorade?

Red Dress 5k Run and Blogger MeetUp

Saturday was a FANTASTIC day!

I woke up bright and early (after having a night of excited insomnia- you know, where you can't sleep because you're so excited for the next day?) My mom and I both got ready (in our pink clothes, of course) and waited for my grandmother and aunt to join us. I had a whole posse going to the race with me haha. Love it!

We eventually got in the car and headed to Hartford for the big event. The directions to the parking area were rather lacking and there were virtually no signs to point the way, so we ended up having to do a few U-turns, but eventually found where we were supposed to be. At the same time that we were lost, Stephanie @ Running To Health was trying to find the parking area as well. We ended up parking at the same time and met in line for the shuttle to the race. Once we were in the park, we met Kristin @ Running to Somewhere at the registration tent and started chatting in nervous excitement. We only had a few moments before the race began so we headed to (some super nice) park bathrooms before getting our places in the starting line.

My mother got in line with the walkers 

 Lookit her, all raring to go!

Kristin and Stephanie started further up in the mass of runners and I stayed towards the back because I knew with the humidity and my low iron, I was going to be even slower than normal. I met some fun people, most especially a bunch of ladies wearing red tutus and waited patiently for the run to begin.

I want a red tutu now!

I have to say, the course was absolutely gorgeous! 

 The Rose Garden at Elizabeth Park

And, thankfully, most of it was downhill (the only kind of hill I like). I hit the first mile at 15:35, grabbed some water around 1.4 miles and trucked on to mile 2 by 30:10. Somewhere between miles 2 and 3, I looked down and saw a squashed turtle on the side of the road. YUCK! I literally jumped over it (before I ruined my pretty pink shoes) and continued on. I finally hit an uphill that took me back into the park, but the last 0.4 miles or so was allllllll down hill and in the shade. It was a beautiful thing! I had been playing tag with this older woman in a blue tank top the entire run, I would jog past her and then she would jog past me. Then, I would jog past her and so on and so forth. As we closed in on the end of the course, I let her pull ahead of me for a bit and then I sprinted past her to the finish line. HA! Take that! It might sound mean, but it made me feel good to know that I actually beat at least one person to the finish.

I thought I had crossed at 47:15, but according to the official results, my time was 46:27. That's a 14:57min pace. Not too bad considering the heat and my traitorous iron levels. I placed 810 out of 943 overall and 95 out of 123 in my age group. I think I'm getting a little bit better! Yay! Kristin and Stephanie finished way before me (28min and 30min respectively) but they cheered me on at the end (Stephanie even took a God-awful photo of me running down the finish haha. Seriously, read her blog and check it out). Afterward, I poured a bottle of water over my head to help me cool down, we took some super awesome blogger photos,

 Myself, Stephanie and Kristin

and then we hit the parfaits!!

 Stephanie is modelling the correct way to truly enjoy a post-run parfait.

(Though I still maintain that while a parfait is yummy, a margarita should be a mandatory give away at the end of all races.)After we finished eating, Kristin gave Stephanie and myself a ride back to the parking area and we parted ways- but not before promising to get together again for more fun runs!

I also have to add in here that my mother did a superb job on Saturday. She walked her butt off and got a finisher pin and everything. SO proud of her! I made her promise she would do another race with me again sometime. She agreed! (Honestly though, after having had 5 strokes in the past 9 years all of which left her with no feeling on her right side of her body, the fact that she even attempted to walk a 5k is beyond amazing.)

On another note- this is my 99th post, which means my next post is going to be a give away! Yay! Get excited! And while you are excited, enjoy some more photos from Saturday:

A good amount of people showed up to the event. 

If you look closely, this woman is yawning. I feel her pain.

 My mother's superior photography skills.

 I just crossed the finish line and I'm looking for a place to pass out.

My grandmother tried to take a photo of me running past her.

Now we know where my mother got her picture-taking skills from....

Pre-Race Jitters

Tomorrow is the 5k Race in The Park for Breast Cancer

I am nervous. I know I need to calm myself down, because I should be sleeping right now so I can be rested for my run, but the jitters have latched on and are refusing to let go. I need to be up in about 7 hours. That's still enough sleep, right? Right.

Anyway, I am excited for this run, on top of my nervousness, which is always a weird feeling. One part of me wants to keep my same time as before (if not drop a few seconds off) but I realize that I need to just calm down with the pacing and just run for distance. My frustration with how I've been running lately has me terrified that this won't happen and that I'm going to freak myself out on the course somewhere. Oy.

I appreciate everyone's advice and feedback about my frustrations- I'm taking it all into consideration and have vowed to focus solely on distance as opposed to speed from here on out. I have to remember that I am still a beginning runner and I'm not going to be hitting anywhere near an 8:00min/mile pace anytime soon, as much as I would like to. Therefore, my goal for tomorrow is to slow myself down, run at a comfortable pace, but to try and run the first mile before stopping to walk. As of this moment, I'm going to force my competitive nature into a padded room and lock the door because tomorrow is not about racing, it's about running. I didn't enter the 5k to win anything, I entered as a fun way to complete some training and I cannot lose sight of that fact or I very well may end up in a padded room of my own. *Deep breath*

I am excited for my race day outfit though!

It may not look it, but it's all pink in honor of breast cancer... except the shorts. 

They're like an orange-red color... and I've got blue shoes. Bwah Bwah.

I checked the forecast and it looks like some thunderstorms are rolling in for the weekend (go figure! Rain when I'm going to run a race?! Surely you jest!), but according to the weather station, the showers shouldn't start until the afternoon. My race starts at 9am. So, here's hoping that the rain holds off and I can finally run a 5k in dry weather. Wouldn't that be a miracle peachy?

 

What I am not looking forward to, however, is the 8 hour shift I have to work at my retail job right after I run. Yay! I'm just worried that my legs are going to snap off at some point during my shift and that would just not be fun (despite how entertaining it sounds). 

Well, I suppose I should hit the hay now. 

Good luck to everyone else who is racing this weekend! 

And a Happy Mother's Day!

Running For Life 5k Race

How did the race go?.... Well,

I finished!

That's the good news.

The AWESOME news is that I finished in 42:55 (unofficially). Which is about 4minutes faster than the 5k I ran in December! Hot Diggity Dog! Also, it is right within my goal time. 

Yay me!

I woke up at 7 and even though I had all of my clothes laid out, I still had to grab a towel and a change of clothes because it was POURING outside. (Second 5k I've had to run in the freezing rain. Gotta love it.) My friend Chris met me at my house and my dad drove us to the park where the race was being held. I managed to have half a banana and a 100 calorie bagel in the car but completely forgot about hydrating beforehand (note to self for next race). It was cold out but it had slowed to a soft misting by the time we got to the race- though it did go back to pouring right around the time the race started.

As we pulled into a parking spot to go register we looked around and realized there was NO ONE to be found! We drove around for a bit longer, searching for the registration tent and/or people, when we finally found it all the way down the road. It seems they were running behind schedule; they had just finished getting everything set up as we walked over. Chris and I were the first ones to get our number bibs and chips (hooray punctuality). They also gave us these awesome tech shirts with their logo and race name on them, (I know normally 5k races give out just regular tees, but these were super awesome!) we grabbed all of our stuff then we headed back to the car to keep warm and dry.

 Two freezing cold, but smiling, excited runners!

The kids race was supposed to start at 9am, but it ended up starting at 10am (when the adults were supposed to go) and we started about 10minutes or so after them.  

Look at them go! That boy in the front has BOTH feet off the ground!

Chris and I, naturally, headed to the back because we knew we were going to be slower than most runners. (I don't know if it was the weather or if there was just a lack of participants this year, but I'd have to say not that many people ran.)We kept up a good pace for awhile, but then it kind of went downhill...

Oh! There we are (I'm in blue and Chris is next to me in black)

I had a rough run, even though I did make good time. The cold air was wreaking havoc on my lungs and my legs felt weak. Around mile 3 I got a massive cramp in my right side. Needless to say, I ended up doing a lot more walking then I had anticipated. When we hit the first mile marker and the volunteer told us we were at 13:30, I almost ran back and kissed him! I was so excited to hear that, he made my day! Our second mile was 15:30 (we hit it at 29:00 exactly, which means our last mile was a little under 14:00. YAY!) At one point, a female police officer came riding up, asking if we were the last of the runners. When we told her we were, she wished us luck and then offered us a ride back if we wanted to cheat. HA! I almost took her up on it, but decided not to and kept running. Chelsea was a darling and came out to cheer us on and take some photos for me (she was completely soaked, poor thing!). 

 Check out that major heel strike we have going on. Ouch!

Running the straight away to the finish line!

We crossed the finish line at 42:55, where they promptly untied my shoelaces to get the chip back. Good thing they got the chip for me, because after booking it down the straight away, I wasn't going to be able to bend down and then bring myself back upright again. Even though I had pushed it for that last stretch, I still recovered rather quickly and managed to snag a banana, some oranges (and a donut- shh!) after the race before heading to go change into dry clothes. Chelsea snapped one last photo of Chris and I, right after we crossed the finish line

We were rather soaked and very tired, but we still managed to strike a pose (holding up our finish time nonetheless!)

All in all, it was a great day. I hit my goal mark, Chris kept me feeling positive (I have a tendency to get rather negative during a race apparently- though I'm fine when I'm doing training runs... go figure) and even though we were the very last people to finish, we still DID finish, and that's what is important! This race gave me high hopes for my next 5k in two weeks. Here's hoping it doesn't rain for that one as well!

I May Be Getting In Over My Head

I've been sensing a theme in people's conversations lately- cycling.
I know a lot of people are training for triathlons and the weather is getting nicer so people are more likely to be doing outdoor activities, so cycling seems like a natural topic of conversation.
Kurt at Becoming An Ironman has already competed in a few tri's and my friend Chelsea is training for her first tri. Amanda at 5 Miles Past Empty had a rather scary biking accident today. She is, thankfully, no worse for the wear (read about it HERE) and I hope that her injuries get better soon. Her story almost put me off riding for a bit, but I've taken a nice tumble or two myself and I know that getting back on is the hardest part, so power to her!

Chelsea recently just bought a bike and today was discussing purchasing a bike rack. She said she was going to get a 3 bike rack (because it was oddly cheaper) and said I should get a bike as well (so she had a valid reason for having a 3 bike rack). Kurt decided to climb aboard the persuasion train and continued to let me know what great cross training benefits I could get by riding my bike. So, in lieu of the fact that I am indeed losing my mind, I am now considering getting a bike to ride. My sister's fiance gave her a bike last summer that she never used, so I may try and dig that one up.

I would love to ride tomorrow but apparently it is still winter-time in CT and we are going to be getting SNOW. That's right- SNOW! "But, isn't it the beginning of April?" You may be asking yourself. Well, funny thing that- it's been rumored that Mother Nature may have sent out a memo and I came across it (with the help of a insider). Allow me to read it for you:

To: All Employees/Humans/Animals/Vegetation

Please be advised-

Snow is here to stay. 

Suck it. 

Sincerely,

Mother Nature

Now, I agree, that wasn't a very nice memo, but at least it explains the weather.

In other news, my friend Chris found another 5k for us to run. This one is on May 7th (yes, I know, it is Mother's Day Weekend. But, what better way to say 'I love you, mom' than running 3.1 miles) and it is for Breast Cancer (see it HERE). The race is right across the street from Chris's apartment so I don't have to worry about parking, or where I am going to collapse afterward. Double sweet! So, that's two 5k races so far, now I just need to find a 10k or two to do and I am good to go! Hooray!