Hilllll No.

So this half marathon that I'm running is in the mountains.  That means hills.  And for a mountain race, I don't think it's really THAT bad, but I'll let you decide for yourself.  

So, two major hills and two smaller ones.  Columbia is NOT flat, which people don't expect, so I feel like I can handle some rollers.  I am not sure I can handle mountains.

That's why I decided to do some hill repeats today.  Guess what?  They were hard, and I did not enjoy them while I was doing them.  Right now, I'm thinking they were kind of fun, and I want to go run some more.  That's usually how it works.  

Anyway, we have a few "steep" hills around here.  I use quotes because you should remember that I am a Florida girl, so my definition of steep is probably a bit questionable.  

This is the hill:

{I told you.  Questionable.}

Need more proof?

Here is the elevation profile from my trusty Garmin...

{I SWEAR THIS IS NOT A CHILD'S DRAWING OF SOME HILLS.}

I did 5 repeats since it was my first time trying something like this, and I've read that hill work can be aggravating for shin splints/stress fractures.  I ran up as fast as I could the first time, and then just tried to hold that time or better.  I jogged/walked down, and then went right back up.  My rest intervals weren't exactly even, but I think I did a pretty good job overall.  

My splits...

Y'all... my hill isn't even a tenth of a mile.  

I am going to dieeeee.

High Five.

Only two runs happened this week, which is super lame of me, but sometimes life happens, right?  I really need to work on becoming a morning runner.  I get out of work at 5, generally, so I always feel like I have plenty of time to go workout, but then after work commitments tend to pop up and I feel like I can't say no, so then the gym doesn't happen.  Lame.


Anyway, on Tuesday, I decided to brave the outdoors (it's allergy season so outside is not my friend right now) and go running down at the river.  It was windy down there which was nice because it kept everything from being covered in pollen.  Also, there is wisteria blooming everywhere so it smelled delicious too.  However, that was about the only nice thing about the run.  It was seriously painful... my calves were SO tight and achy.  Probably because I wore some pretty ridiculous heels to work that day.  Not smart.  

{See.  Pretty!}

Anyway, the plan was 1 warm up mile, 2 miles at short tempo, which should be around 8:40, and 1 cool down.  That did NOT happen.  I started with a warm up mile, but when I tried to pick it up, it just wasn't happening.  I settled for MGP and did the 2 middle miles at 9:01 and 9:03, then cooled down and called it a day.  

Moving on.  Today I did 5 miles, also at MGP, my longest run since the stress fracture.  I somehow hit the lap button at some random interval, so my splits are all funky, but I averaged 8:58, so that was actually much better than expected.  J and I have had a bit of a boozy weekend, and sadly, I am way too old for that shizz.  Drinking multiple beers on consecutive days really wears me out.  So lame.

Friday's booziness:

{I know it's hard to tell, but that's Zac Brown. Eeek!}

Anyway, hopefully there will be more sweating this week.  We're headed to Charleston on Friday for the Cooper River Bridge Run.  I am so, so pumped.  I've never run a race this big before (43,000 people!), and I can't wait.  I've also never run a 10k, so it will be an automatic PR.

Hope y'all had a good weekend.  Happy Monday!

Race Report: Get To The Green 5K

On Saturday J and I ran the Get To The Green 5K, which is part of Columbia's huge St. Pat's festival.  The race started at 8am, so J and I got up around 6:45 to eat some breakfast and head down to the start.  I was a little worried about traffic, but we found a spot pretty easily and jogged down to the start with about 15 minutes to spare.  Actually, they didn't start the race til about 8:05, so we really had plenty of time.  

{Ready to Race}

Of course everyone was decked out in green, and there were some pretty funny costumes... one girl was dressed as a pot of gold, and I really have no idea how she managed to run with a giant black box around her waist, but whatevs.  I wore my neon green Zensah calf sleeves, which, although festive, ended up making me super hot.  It was about 60 degrees at the start, and I was glad I had them when we were standing around (I was just in shorts and a tank), but after about a mile I just wanted to rip them off.  Lesson learned.

{I put shoes on eventually.}

Anyway, I had originally planned to run this race just because - it wasn't really a goal race because I've only been running again for a few weeks.  As such, I didn't try to get up to the front and ended up being pretty far back in the pack at the start.  But after the first (crazy, horribly crowded) 500 yards or so, I was like, "Let's do this" and I started to pick it up.  My first mile was spent dodging walkers, strollers, and small children, but by then I was feeling good, so I decided just to go for it.  My last mile was 7:41, which is seriously fast for me. It also seriously made me want to puke, but I finished in 25:39, a PR by over 2 minutes.

I was annoyed yesterday because the results on the race website were only listing the gun time, which would still give me a PR by 90 seconds, but then what is the point of having a chip?  The race organizers finally sent out an email this afternoon with a different link to the "official" official results, which gave me my chip time of 25:39.

And the best part of all of this... my legs don't hurt!  Woo hoo!

Strategery.

So I am signed up to run the New River Half Marathon on May 5, which I am very excited about.  However, it was a little bit of a rash decision... I was feeling sorry for myself for not getting to run Columbia and maybe I had some wine and suddenly I was signed up.


The past few weeks I've just been trying to stick to the rules and get my legs used to running again.  I haven't done more than 3 miles at a time, but now the half is just 7 weeks from Saturday, so it's time to step it up a bit.  I decided that with such a short time to train, a taper doesn't really make sense - if I do that, I won't have time to get my mileage up unless I go way over +10% per week.  Right now my longest run is 11 miles and that is only because I'm breaking my rule about incorporating cut-back weeks.


This is the plan I came up with - feel free to chime in and tell me I'm crazy/stupid/awesome... whatever.  Seriously, though, what do y'all think about including speed workouts?  I've only got like 3 or 4 on the schedule, and I'm not sure if it's worth it.  There are some pretty serious hills on the HM route, so maybe I should substitute speed for more hill work?

March 2012

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11 3 mi @ HMGP

12 Spin

13 Off

14 KBs

15 Off

16 2 mi Easy

17 St. Pat’s 5K

18 Stretching

19 Spin

20 2 mi @ ST + KBs

21 Off

22 2 mi Hills

23 Off

24 5 mi Easy

25 Slow/ Stretching

26 Spin

27 Pilates/XT

28 Off

29 2.5 @ HMGP

30 Off

31 Bridge Run 10K

April 2012

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

1 Stretching

2 Spin

3 Off

4 4 x 800

5 XT

6 Off

7 1 Easy, 2 MT, 1 Easy, 2 MT, 1 Easy

8 Slow/ Stretching

9 Spin

10 2 mi Hills

11 Off

12 4 x 800

13 Off

14 2 Easy, 5 Progression, 2 Easy

15 Slow/ Stretching

16 Spin

17 2 mi Hills

18 XT

19 2 mi Easy + KBs

20 Off

21 2 Easy, 6 LT, 2 Easy

22 Slow/ Stretching

23 3 x 1600

24 Off

25 XT

26 3 mi Easy

27 Off

28 1 Easy, 9 LT, 1 Easy

29 Slow/ Stretching

30 Spin

1 Off

2 3 mi VERY EASY

3 Stretching

4 Off

5 New River HM