Need to Make a Change!

So here it goes again...

Last Summer I thought I knew what I was doing--I was coming off a half marathon PR and a BB10K PR. I felt pretty good and truth be told, I was feeling pretty full of myself. I ended up with a disapointing Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring running season. I over-reached, over-trained and injured myself and I watched my pride goeth into my fall.

They say you improve for 7 years after you start running--this means I have 3-4 more years. I don't think these are just going to happen for me though. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got. I really think I should be able to do better than I have lately.

Here are my goals:

• My weight is up to the point where I have had to pay for my monthly weigh in at Weight Watcher's since February. by my June weigh in, I want to be back in the "free zone"
• My cross training workouts have been getting too easy--I want to increase the intensity
• I need to incorporate weight training into my schedule and keep it there.

I'm hoping that putting these goals out here will help keep me accountable.

No Ego Food for Me!

Today I ran my 4th Bolder Boulder 10K race. I apparently was not as recovered from my sinus infection as I thought and ran a disappointing 58:16.

The bright spot of the race was that I beat my 5K split time from my Colfax Marathon Relay last Sunday. This is especially great because Colfax was downhill and this was uphill.

For those who don't know the race, the terrain goes like this:

Mile 1--starts downhill for nearly the whole mile. It is hard to not start too fast.

Mile 2--a gradual uphill that you still feel okay about because you are still kind of fresh

Mile 3--a steeper uphill where you are really not liking the race

Mile 4--rolling hills up to the highest point of the race

Mile 5--downhill nearly the whole mile

Mile 6--starts to go uphill again, you have a sharp uphill to go into the stadium.

So by mile 3 I started seeing my PR running away from me. It was cool and I expected to feel better than last year because of that.

The Memorial Day tribute was well done.

The elite race was fun to watch. I was disapointed that neither Deena Kastor nor Ryan Hall won their races. I would guess this wasn't a goal race for them.

Pre-Race Jitters

Tomorrow is my 4th Bolder Boulder. Each year I have done this race I have had a huge ego-feeding PR. Tomorrow I'm not so sure. Maybe my ego doesn't need any more food?

My first BB was 1:27 (I was severely anemic and walked a lot of it). My next BB was 1:07 and I ran every step of it! Last year was 54:51.

One of my stated goals for my running is that I want to do a sub-50 10K while I still am sub-50 years old. A 50 minute 10K is about an 8:17 pace. This year this goal is most likely out of my reach. I just hope I can chip away some time this year and pull out a PR.

I've been obsessively watching the weather report for tomorrow. Every time I look it is getting just a bit worse. Last year was hot, so cooler will be nice. Rain and wind may come into the picture here--those won't be fun.

I'm worried that I don't have the drive I need to keep running hard when running hard just stinks. I try to think of the pros when I start to feel this. I'm not sure if it's true, but I tell myself that it's hard for them too--that they have to run at the same effort--that this brings us together as runners, even though we aren't running anything close to the same pace.

Deena Kastor is one of the elite runners who will be running the professional race. I'll have to say that I am definitely a fan! I think she is inspiring and I am really looking forward to seeing her run. The elites will run the same course as we will for the first time since 1979. As an added bonus, I will get to see my mile splits in comparison with hers. This both interests and terrifies me.

I find it interesting since I will get to see if Deena's pace will slow when she goes up the hill on mile 4 or if it will just stay the same because she is an awesome and strong runner.

Of course it's terrifying because I will see that Deena probably runs twice as fast as I do. I see how she runs and how others I admire (my coaches) run and wonder if I am running to my full potential.

No matter how well I do, I always like to think that maybe I could do better next time.

Long Dry Spell

I've talked about my injuries before. After the DisneyWorld Marathon in January, my ITB pain was so bad I basically couldn't run for almost 2 months. I had to drop from the half to the 5 Mile run at Canyonlands. I was really upset. I loved running Canyonlands last year and was looking forward to running it again.

It's strange how I thought that I was somehow only supposed to share my successes on my blog--my wonderful mile--the next PR... and that if I said I was hurt and and angry about it, that was somehow less noble.

I still don't know if I am running as well as I was last year. The bad thing is that I don't know if I'm okay with that. I guess I have to be.

The Hair

You would think that hair has nothing to do with running. We've had quite the hair subtopic going on on the marathoner thread at Weight Watchers.

It's important to me to have hair that doesn't get in the way of what I'm doing--doesn't flop in my face when I type, doesn't stick up funny...

When I run I want to keep my hair out of my face. When I was starting to run, I wouldn't tie my hair back and once this big piece of wet, sweaty hair fell right across my face and stuck to me. Totally gross! Since then I have had the "ponytail rule" with my stylist--all hair lengths must fit back into the ponytail. I usually wear a hat too--gotta make sure that hair stays away!

Lately the hair has been getting longer and longer, and I wasn't sure that it still looked good. I went out and got my hair cut. The pictures don't look as drastic as it feels to me. The nice thing is--it still goes in the ponytail!

Ouch! It is my feet!

My feet, especially my left one, feels like there are marbles under the ball of my foot.

Many of the coaches in my running group are in school for the Doctorate of Physical Therapy. My coach worked on my feet. Basically I have some tight muscles in my calves, some ITB issues, and had some bones out of place in my feet. She put them back in place--those were the marbles I was feeling and the pain in my feet during the race.

I need orthotics. I'll work on getting those soon.

Denver Marathon--not the race I wanted!

Well, I had visions of doing really well at the Denver Marathon, sadly this was not to be.

My time was a disappointing 5:08:41--meeting my worst case goal--to beat my Vegas time of 5:08:58.

I only had 5 miles around my target pace of 9:45--I can truly say that each of my training runs was better than my race.

According to the news, it was 34 degrees at the start, I'm not sure if that included wind chill, but I completely agree with that. The weather was cold, windy and the level of rain only changed during the race. If it stopped, I never noticed.

I'm not sure if it was the cold that affected me or not. I had pains that I did not really have in training. I had foot cramps, and knee pain that I have never had before. My stride was shortened by this and I kept hoping I could run through it and it would get better. My legs felt fine. They are only a little sore today, but my feet are extremely swollen.

I'll have to put this behind me, figure out what I can learn from this, and look forward to Disney--targeting a 4:30 for that race.