This race is the first time I’ll be doing the same race. My first 5K (well not actually my first but my first in a long time) was a year ago on Thanksgiving. My time was 43:15. DJ and I walked a lot of it, especially all the up hills and there are a lot of them. This year I didn't walk at all. Not even during the water stop. I’m very impressed with race. This year it was just Juliette, Eric, Chris and I. I ran the race alone. Eric and Chris went together and Juliette was way ahead of us again.

The Beginning

It was colder this year at 16 degrees but there was hardly any wind so it didn’t feel colder. It was cloudy though where last year the sun was out. This year felt warmer and I was better prepared (clothing) for the race. A year of cold weather running has helped in this department. The start was different from last year. We started at the top of the oval in the park and ran down, around and out of the park. The first mile was mostly up that stupid hill. I really wanted to walk but thought to myself NO! So I pressed on. I past a lot of people on the uphill…all the people that sprinted down the hill at the start couldn’t run up the hill now. Since I was alone, I had to keep myself going. I’m impressed at how well I did. The first mile was rough as my hands were freezing. I didn’t wear gloves, I didn’t think about it. So the first mile my hands hurt so bad. But soon enough they were roasting and I was glad that I didn’t wear gloves (I didn’t have pockets to put them in so I would have been carrying them.) Even with the big up hill, my first mile pace was 11:11…not bad at all!

The Middle

I don’t remember much about the middle. I know my hands were warm so that was good, I wasn’t getting over heated so my clothing choices were right. I past some people as they walked and then they past me as they ran faster but eventually I got ahead of them for good. I kept picking new people to pass and that kept me going. There was also a water stop in there somewhere. I stopped briefly to take a drink but remembered not to drink too much and kept on going. My pace for mile 2 was 11:21. I was a little concerned about it going down but then I remembered the hill…oh the glorious downhill. I loved the hill last year.

The Finish

So the hill was awesome as always, my watch says I got up to 6:42 pace briefly but averaged around 8:45-9 down the hill…that helps the pace! Unlike Mankato’s hill which is long and not so steep, this one is just plan steep. I ran past so many people on the downhill. I don’t know if they were holding back but I let it go…maybe my excess weight with gravity made me go faster, I’m not sure. LOL! Of course what goes down must go up and there is a bit of an uphill afterwards. I was still passing people. We turn the corner and headed down to the park (down part of the uphill we ran at the beginning of the race).  This year they were mean. The finished required us to go around the circle, uphill. Yes it was an uphill finish. I was surprised I still had enough in the tank to make the final push to the finish. I ran past many people on this uphill too.  I came across the finish with a time of 33:36!  It is incredible that I finished that well. The time was 3 seconds slower than Chocolate Frolic but that race was also shorter. My average pace was 10:55. Yes….that is another “10”!! This was my fastest pace ever…and it was a hilly course!

Pictures, Maps, Elevation and Splits

   

This week has definitely been interesting filled with fun projects.

The Painting

I took a PTO day on Tuesday and had big plans to clean the house, run far, bike on my new trainer and eat healthy. I really failed. I went to the community center for a run. I thought I’d do 4 miles. It started out good but around mile 2, the kids in the gym below were eating pizza.  I was toast. The smell of delicious pizza was waffling up to the running track. I quit after 3 miles and went to Kwik Trip for pizza. I was just going to do a slice but the nice bakery lady said, I just took this whole pizza out of the oven…I bought it. I ate 2 slices before I even left the parking spot. It was so good. I ate half of it before I got home. Stupid kids and their pizza.

So after failing on my run and gorging half of a sausage pizza, I called my mom. After a 20 minute call, I was painting her a snowman picture for her bathroom. It was good, I haven’t painted in a while and really need to keep up on my skills. I ran to Joann Fabric to buy some supplies and 2 hours later I had a beautiful snowman painting for my mom.

The Basket

After last weekend’s failed attempt to find a suitable basket for our stairs, I decided to weave my own. I ordered reed and was so excited when it arrived on Thursday. Sadly, I had to go to band practice first. As soon as I got home from practice, I started measuring and cutting reed, soaking it and weaving it. I forgot how much fun it was to weave baskets. It was a struggle in the beginning and I almost gave up but I preserved and the basket started to take shape. I have to say my Intermediate Accounting textbooks came in handy!  This was 2 hours of weaving (I had to quit because it was past 11pm and I had to work the next day):

Friday, after dinner with the Stayers, I continued on the basket and here is almost the finished product. It is basically done. I just need to hot glue the final reed. I started but ran out of glue sticks. I’m very happy with it.

The Delivery

Saturday morning I enjoyed the beautiful weather…well not really beautiful but it was over 30 degrees so I went for a long run. It was great. I did 6 miles and never walked. My pace was under 11:45…that is incredible. I took a quick shower and we were on our way to Wisconsin to deliver the snowman painting. My mom is clever at getting me to come home for the weekend. :) We went out for dinner as “payment” for the painting and delivery. After dinner we just watched TV and went to bed early. I was exhausted.

Crafts, crafts and more crafts

Sunday morning, Mom, my aunt, Betty Jane and I went to the Annual Rainbow Homemakers Holiday Fair in Independence. They had a great crowd. I got a lot of new ideas for crafts to make. Eric and I hung up a Christmas sign that my dad made many years ago and we made our way home. It truly was a week of art adventures.

Map and Splits of My Long Run

I'm happy to announce that Danielle Williams was born November 14, 2014. Another niece named Danielle!!! :)

Yesterday DJ and Brenda came up for a little shopping. We met at Caribou for some breakfast. Stopped at home to register Brenda and her friend for the Zumbrota 17 Mile trail run in April and then off to shopping.

Where did all these people come from?

IKEA was crazy. We had to park in the back of the lot and the place was buzzing. I’m not sure what was going on yesterday but it was busy. We looked at all the rooms, getting ideas for DJ’s house. A 1920s era house…no closets. I’m not sure what people back in the day did without closets! I was looking at their cabinets. I’d love to get a new kitchen but I don’t have $12,000 to do it! We ate at the restaurant…Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes…yum! We picked up some items in the bed and bath area. I picked up a rug for the bathroom and a basket for our gloves and scarves. DJ got a comforter and pillow case set. We got the checkout line and the line was all the way to the back of the store…there were 3 lines that long. It was INSANE! We decided we didn’t want to waste an hour checking out so we bolted without any of our stuff. :( Eric and I will head over during the week when it isn’t so crazy!

Nike Running Store…how I love thee!

After we bolted from IKEA we headed to the new Outlet Mall just over the river from the Mall. We stoped at the Nike store. I found some amazing running pants, I can’t believe I bought them. They are not something I would normally buy but I love them. I also got a bright pink long sleeve top to match…and a pair of boring black running tights. I spent way too much money! But don’t I look “sassy”? (As DJ would say)

Winter Wonderland Run

It snowed most of the day so my run was very snowy. It was great. I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go because the ice from Monday’s storm was covered with snow. But I kept going, running on the streets. When I got the community center, I decided to try the trail. It was great, I never really felt like I was going to slip and fall on ice. My time was great and I felt great. I’m not sure if it was the new running outfit or what, but it was amazing. I never walked the entire 5 miles. And mile 5 was my fastest! I hope I have a day like that when we run the 15K in April!

A post that is not about running…amazing! Well maybe I’ll mention it a bit about running. This weekend was great. We didn’t have to drive anywhere and there were no races to run. It was a nice change. Friday night we did a speed workout (see I’m talking about running). It will probably be the last one outside for a while. We are getting hammered with snow today and they don’t clean the path. :(  Saturday I went out for a long run when Eric left for work. I did 6 miles and it felt good. I ran the first 5 miles without really walking and the last mile was into the wind so I walked a bit more. I dressed perfect for the run, except for the last mile...I was cold.

Bridal Shower

After the run Eric came home and I made a quick lunch and then got ready for my the bridal shower. I’m a horrible friend. I haven’t seen Angela in 3 years. It was so nice to see her and her mom again. DeAnn, another college friend and roommate was also there so it was nice to touch base with both of them. Angela is marrying a dairy farmer from La Crescent! It is crazy that after 14 years she is moving into the country from the big city. I’m happy for her. It was a good shower. I didn’t get out of there until 3 hours later.

DeAnn, Angela, Kim, Kim and Angela's cousin...I can't remember her name :(

After a quick dinner we headed off to church. We have been going to the country church lately because the 7pm Mass is a good time and I like the church. We got home from that and watch TV and relaxed the rest of the night.

Folding Clothes, My Nemesis

Sunday morning I woke up early and folded clothes for over an hour and watched to a couple weeks of Mollie B Polka Party. I hate folding clothes and because I hate it, the clothes collect on the spare bed until I'm desperate. I know it would be easier if I just folded them when they come out of the dryer but I don't. Every time I waste a weekend morning folding clothes, I swear I'm never going to let the clothes get out of hand again...but I don't follow through with it and here we are, weeks later and I'm wasting another weekend morning. ARGH!

Christmas Lights

Most of the day we watch TV and I did some things around the house. We tried to put up the Christmas lights but most of them were dead. So we ventured out to Lowe’s (twice) for some Christmas lights, garland and candy canes.  Of course we forgot things the first time so we had to go back. I’m so thankfully we live so close!

We got all the lights outside up, in the tree, the bushes, the entry way and around garage door. We are not very creative! We got some groceries and I made roll out sugar cookies…I’m not very good at rolling out cookies, I think I’ll stick to Monster Cookies. They tasted really good though but I decapitated almost all of the moose. :( After the 6th headless moose, I went with just round shapes. 

That was about it. A nice weekend with not much to do…I’m even bored reading about it. :)

Running!

OK I said no running but I'm happy to report that I'm only 7 miles away from 500 miles this year! That is crazy!  Last year I only did 158 miles for the whole year! I know I didn't start running in earnest until September but that to me is amazing!

The Start

It was a chilly morning…I know it is nothing compared to December-February but still it was around 40 degrees but a nasty wind made it cold. The race was in St. Paul again. I’ve had enough St. Paul races to last me a while. I’ve done three in a month. The start was downhill to Shepard road. I’m really getting used to running on Shepard Rd. I’ve done many races on Shepard road including last week’s Monster Dash. We ran down a ways, there were cars coming at us…say what?  Apparently they only closed the one side and we ran down both sides. The volunteers eventually got us all on the one side. But that just caused crowding and points were I just had to walk because I couldn’t get around the walkers. There were a lot of walkers! My first mile wasn’t bad, 11:15.

The Middle

So that hill I  had so much fun running down last weekend for Monster Dash…well I had to run up it this weekend. Ugh. I hate hills. I guess it is preparing me for the Omaha Race in a few weeks. I started to get momentum up the hill when we had our water stop and first chocolate stop. Really? I think this would have been better near the top of the hill but whatever. It was very crowded as people were taking pockets full of mint chocolate (yum!) and water so it was another bottleneck.  I learned from last week not to eat the chocolate while running. I don’t want to have a repeat of that horrible feeling. See I’m still learning. Mile 2 was very slow because of that, the pace was around 11:32. Not great but it was mostly up hill and had that water stop. Once we got to the top of the hill we hit the Wabasha Bridge across the Mississippi River. This was new for me. I’ve never crossed the Mississippi in St. Paul.  The bridge was downhill the whole way which was awesome

The Finish

At the bottom of the bridge we looped around on to Harriet Island. At the entrance was the Caramel Chocolate stop…I love caramel! I grabbed a bunch but kept going. I really struggled on the island. I’m not sure what my problem was. I was tired and my pace was bad. I had my front pouch full of chocolate, maybe that was weighing me down?  I was overheating because I dressed wrong. I know a lot of excuses but I was just not feeling it today. I walked a little but kept moving forward. I was very happy to see the finish. I didn’t even stop for the last chocolate stop, dark chocolate, I just wanted to finish and get it over with. The race was short, not quite a 5K so my time of 33:33 wasn’t really a PR but I’ll take it. (UPDATED: I mapped the route on Map My Run and it came out as 3.08 miles. So my watch must have lost connection under the bridge)

The Chocolate

There is such thing as too much chocolate. After we finished we headed inside the pavilion for our share of the chocolate fountain. It was so delicious. I dipped my bananas, Oreos, Nila wafers, animal crackers, pretzels….everything in it. I wasn’t feeling so hot on the walk back to the car…I really ate too much.

Maps, graphs and pictures:

  

Runs: 17

Miles: 53.4
Races: 3 (TC 5K - 35:13; Mankato 10K - 1:07:43; Monster Dash 5k- 34:56)

Outdoors: All!
Indoors: None

Longest: 6.1 miles
Average Pace: 12:04

October was great! I started out the month with the TC 5K. It was a cold windy morning but I tied my PR with 35:13. We took a weekend off and traveled to Rapid City where I did a 5 mile run with Eric. Many of the October training runs were with Eric. I’m very happy he joins me sometimes. That also explains the faster average pace for the month. I also started doing a speed workout once a week. These are great. I run 400 meters fast (about a 9:20 pace) and walk for about 80 meters and repeat. I do 5-6 of those at each speed workout. I think it really has made me faster. Look at my amazing times at the Mankato 10K and Monster Dash 5K!

Trophies for October