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.

Park to Park 10 Miler

Today I ran the Park to Park 10 Mile Race.

This is the first year of the race, so you are never quite sure of what you are going to get. I made sure I had my own drink (and enough of it so that I wouldn't need anything else) and a post race snack.

This race was unusual for me. Usually I go into a race after a taper and looking for a new PR. This time it was different. I had no taper other than skipping Sunday's 30 minutes of easy cross training. I actually ran 13 miles on Saturday for my long run. I had a non-official time PR time of 1:31 that I was NOT going to try to beat.

My goal was to run this race as a training run and to see how my planned marathon pace felt.

All in all, a lot of credit goes to the people who planned this race. It started on time, the course was handled well, markers were in place, and aid stations were where they were promised. The food afterward was excellent!

All in all, I am looking forward to running this race again.

My official time was 1:37:00, BTW. That reflected a perfect 9:31 average pace--my target marathon pace.

Thursday's Magical Mile

Every year in my summer running program there is a point in the program where you are encouraged to run 1 mile all out.

If you want an actual race, they encourage you to run the Pearl Street Mile up in Boulder. I really don't ever feel like driving for an hour in rush hour traffic for a 1 mile race, so I run the mile down by me.

Last year I had no concept of how fast I could run, I went out to a trail and ran my mile in 8:17.

This year I went out to the local middle school track for the mile. I tried to push out any ideas of how fast I was supposed to go. I ran my warm up, stretched and even ran a few strides. I hate strides, but they say they help, so I did them, probably much to the amusement of the moms of the local football team.

I started my run. I have a real issue with running the first part of any speed work too fast, and it happened here too. I did manage to slow it down a bit, but was quickly running myself into an oxygen hole. I reminded myself to breathe deep. I swung my arms and reminded myself that I only had to do 1 mile. I gasped for breath like a landed fish. I ran hard until I heard my Garmin beep.

I looked down--7:33!

P.S. It took 2 days for my throat to stop hurting.

I like Bananas!

Saturday is long run day in my training plan. This was a 2:00 run and I covered 12.61 miles in that time. Even though I train with my group, I often run by myself at times during these group runs.

Do you ever go into a run with a song in your head?
"I like bananas"
"I know that candy is sweet"
"I like papayas"
"But nothing can beat"
"The sweet, sweet love of God"

This was the song we all sang at church before our Children's Musical last Sunday.

I was tired and ready for next week's step back week. When I run distance by myself, I find my mind going to a lot of places. Books I read when I was a child, songs, things I have read. It is a lot easier to run when my head is full of good things.

Distance running is very mental. You spend a lot of time with what's in your head. It's important that it is good things.

My coach caught up with me for the end of my run. We talked about books, philosophy life, iPods and life in general. It's good to run with people, it's good to run alone with what's in your head too.

Cruddy Tempo Run

Boy, did I have problems with this one! I missed my Thursday tempo runs the last 2 weeks because we had to replace the microwave 1 week, and last week I experienced the worst part about being lactose intolerant and the consequences of not asking what was in something before I put it in my mouth.

So anyway the workout was 2 sets of 3 miles at tempo pace. I had trouble finding my pace, ran too hard at the beginning (again) and just felt super tired the whole time. It was certainly tempo effort, even in my mile splits didn't show it.

Yuck, some workouts you just want to be done! Glad this one is.