I’ve hit the “wall”. Normally you hear of the wall when talking about marathon running but I’m going to say I hit the “wall” of training. After the Gorilla Run, my running has been lacking. Yes I did 7 miles on Monday and it just about killed me. So much so that I didn’t run or bike or do anything for that matter the rest of the week. Friday I told Eric he had to go run with me to push me since I had taken 3 days off. I struggled to get 2.25 miles. Thankfully, my pace was back in the 12s.

The Long and Winding (and Hilly) Road

Eric and I went for a 4 mile run yesterday at the Spring Lake Regional Park. You know my hill work out place. It was so humid I struggled to breathe. I wasn’t happy during the run at all…running blues. I even struggled on the down hills! And walked up some of the up hills. Somehow, by the grace of Eric, I got my pace right at 12:31 but after 4 miles I was dead and we stopped. I had planned on doing 5 but just couldn’t muster another mile…running blues. Apparently the first two miles were good and the last two not so much. But the first 2 were mostly downhill and the last 2 were mostly up hill. See:

Fat Bottom Girl Riding a Bike

Yay for the bike, sick of the wind. So I actually went on 2 bike rides this week. Neither was very long. I need to go on a longer one but I think I want to do it myself without the company of Eric. So Sunday’s ride was around 9 miles but included a stop at Caribou Coffee. Like I said before…hot chocolate and bike ride don’t mix!

Saturday after a day of shopping and playing at the park with Stayers we really didn’t do much physical and I was feeling like I need to do something, it was too nice of a day to sit inside. So we dragged the bikes for a ride. It started out fine with a nice sun. We biked about 3 miles to Lions Park and went down the hill, turned the corner and bam…wind. It sucked! I got to use my aero bars a lot to keep myself low so I had less wind resistance. But, man, it was tough. And we had a long way to go into the wind the whole way. No wonder the first 3 miles were so easy…we had the wind at our back! So we weaved our way around the path, still managing to keep a good pace considering the wind. Thankfully that meant we didn’t go very far because as we were making our way to home it started to lightning and thunder and less than 5 minutes after we walk in the door it started to pour. Our nice day went to heck. We mustered a measly 7.5 miles…I almost ran further than that on Monday!

Eating…a 3 week challenge

Well today starts a 3 week challenge in the eating department. Tonight I’m meeting my volleyball friends for dinner at Green Mill, we got a $25 gift card as a team to use. Tuesday is a Twins/Red Sox game so hot dogs, nachos, etc…no healthy eating at the ball park. Wednesday is a pedi with Celeste so that might be a cereal night. Thursday is band and Eric is watching my friend’s kids so that means eating out beforehand and Friday is another Twins game. We are going to 7 baseball games in 2 weeks…lots of stadium food.  Plus our vacation! This is a food/eating nightmare! I’m sure I’ll gain a lot of weight over the course of the next 3 weeks so I’m sure I’ll be Debbie Downer. :( You have been warned.

Training Update

Miles ran in 2014:  222.5 miles (only 177.5 miles left to go)

Weekly Mileage: Swim = 0 mile; Bike = 16.5 miles; Run = 9.3 miles; Total = 25.8 miles 

Well I purchased a new hydration pack for my running. I thought I would like it, but I'm not so sure after the first run with it. Monday after work was a beautiful day. I thought it was a perfect time to go on a long run, which I missed this past weekend, and try out my new hydration system. It didn’t go so well.  I got a 7 mile run in but my pace plummeted. I struggled to keep my overall pace for the run under 13:44 (the marathon relay time limit). I’m not sure what my problem was. I had water, which I desperately need on my last long runs and I had some salted nut rolls so I could keep my hunger at bay. It was great having the water and the salt nut rolls were great. But I don’t know what my time was so slow. Maybe I was having a bad day?  Possible, I did a fast run on Saturday at the Gorilla Run so maybe I was still recovering. Maybe it was the water pack. I really don’t know. I don’t want to wear it again but the thing was expensive so I have to give it another shot.

Also this week…

Sunday I took Mike and Mom to The Running Room to see if we could get Mike some new shoes. His shoes are in bad shape and he needs a good shoe that will support him. He bought some dry fit socks so that was a start but the store didn’t have shoes his size. After that Mike and I went for a 2 mile walk on the Minnesota River Bluff trails. It was nice to take him to a real trail away from traffic. A nice change of scenery. After our walk we had Subway for lunch and that was about it. It was a nice weekend with the family.

Biking around

After they left on Sunday, Eric and I went for a bike ride. We biked to Caribou Coffee for a hot chocolate. We couldn’t finish the drink so thankfully I have a 2nd bottle holder on my bike. That was a mistake…my bike, as well as myself, was covered in hot chocolate! Oh well. We only managed 9 miles.

Splits and Badges

So here are my splits…yuck! And my La Fiesta Badge for running on Cinco de Mayo. :)

Imagine over 1,500 people dressed as Gorillas in a small area…yep that was the Gorilla Run. These novelty runs are interesting. Everybody was dressed up in some way or another. There was Marilyn Monroe, cowboys and cowgirls, princess, etc. I wore my Mauer jersey. The race was not organized very well, at least not the official counting for the Guinness World Record. It took forever to get into the count area…over an hour. The race started an hour late because of it. So once we were all counted and in the baseball field to have our picture taken, it was time to get to the starting line. Unlike most people, I stripped my costume for the run. There was no way I could run 3 miles in it. It really restricted my movement and I’m still a newbie runner and I want to get a good idea if my running is getting better and in the suit it wouldn’t have been accurate. I wore an yellow shirt so I said I was Eric’s banana…he ran in the suit.

On the Course

The course was flat. So it was felt fast.  The first mile was strong. I thought I was going to break the 10 minute barrier. I was so close too. The whole time my watch was say around 10:54 so I thought for sure I got it but after the 1 mile mark I looked at my watch and it was set to current pace, not average pace so my first mile was actually 11:02. :( I was so close! If my watch was on the right mode, I would have pushed to get under 11. Next time I have to remember to look for that. Mile 2 was still strong, I slowed a bit, I was disappointed in not getting the 10:XX in the first mile. Mile 3 was tough. I think the first two miles really wore me out at the much faster speed. I actually had to walk a bit. I didn’t walk at all in Goldy’s. It wasn’t very long, maybe 10 seconds. I cruised into the finish for an “official time” of 50:28…wait what?  So my actual time was about 36:58 but for some reason the timing chip didn’t register me crossing the finish line. But it must have got me when we walked past the finish line on our way to our car. I was so disappointed that that time is out there for everybody to see and it isn’t accurate in the least. Even my first 5K was 7 minutes faster than that.  Argh!

Here is my splits and map. You can tell I really slowed down on Mile 3. The line is red.

Here are pictures of the day:

  

Training Update

Miles ran in 2014:  209.2 miles (only 190.8 miles left to go)

Weekly Mileage: Swim = 0 mile; Bike = 0 miles; Run = 9.3 miles; Total = 9.3 miles 

It was a wet, cold windy week so I didn’t go biking and I wimped out on swimming

Runs: 15

Runs: 15

Miles: 50
Races: 1 (3.1 miles) (Goldy's 5K - 37:37)
Outdoors: 12 (42 miles)
Indoors: 3 (8 miles)
Longest: 7 miles
Average Pace: 12:40

I saw major improvement in April. I had some runs with an average pace under 12! Mostly outside, where I much prefer to run but the last few have been inside. Yes, I've run when it was -5 degrees but this past week has been a wash out and cold and windy. So I took it inside. I had some really good, long runs. I did 5 miles in Rapid City along the creek, I did my longest run ever of 7 miles on Good Friday and my fastest 10K run this past weekend.  Here are my trophies from this month: