Jill Will Run

Another Saturday long run with the TNT group. It was definitely a mixed bag today, with good and bad points.

Good: It was supposed to be a 13 mile run, which means .1 less than last weekend’s run. We could totally lie to ourselves and say it was a fall-back week.
Bad: Um… we missed a turn on the route. One of our coaches flagged us down and got us back on track, but we ended up doing 13.5 – 13.7 miles. (Conflicting numbers on Nike+ and Garmin systems, is anything truly accurate?) Oops…

Good: The temperatures were pretty nice throughout the entire run, so it wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. I think it was probably around 80 (which is hot to many people, but was pretty reasonable for us desert-dwellers.)
Bad: Jim had a bit of a cold, so he wasn’t feeling that great. Fortunately the cold wasn’t in his chest much. That would have made running really rough (and probably unwise) for him. About 7 or 8 miles into the run, Melinda tripped on some stupid metal loop and fell. Her knee is banged up and she has a bruise on her hip. One of our coaches had to drive her back to the start point. Hopefully both Jim and Melinda will be feeling better soon. They’re my best running buddies, I need them! (Wow, that sounds incredibly selfish. I want them to get better because they’re great people and I love them as well!)

Good: I finished this run in about the same amount of time as the ET half-marathon last weekend. Pretty good, considering we ended up going further than we were supposed to! Plus we were very pleased that we finished it by 7:30 AM. Whole day still ahead of us!
Bad: My toes were on fire by about mile 10. All of my muscles from the waist down were burning (a good burn though) at the end, but my toes were so uncomfortable. They just felt hot and uncomfortable. They have felt like this by mile 10 the past several weeks. I need to figure out something to alleviate this!

Overall I’m still going to have to rank this as a good run. I finished feeling strong. I drank Cytomax the entire run and actually came to appreciate the flavor (it’s not as overly sweet as Gatorade, something I have a hard time stomaching).

My husband is finishing up his treadmill running now. I’m looking forward to a nice big salad at Cafe Rio for lunch. They make the best whole-wheat tortillas.

On Monday, the day after the half-marathon, I did a short 1.5 mile run on my treadmill. I knew I wanted to get some movement in, but I also knew there was no way I was going to get up super early to run after the exhausting day before. I also knew I didn’t have a lot of time to do a workout since I had to work a full day and then drive to Utah to work for the rest of the week. So the short treadmill run was the solution.

Today I went to a track and calibrated my Nike+. After that I ran 3 miles around the track and it felt pretty hard. I don’t know if that was due to residual fatigue from the weekend, being at a higher altitude, or the fact that I had to sit through hours of “Harassment Prevention Training” at work today. I’m blaming the training. But after the 3 miles I walked a couple more laps around the track with my mom, so I really did cover nearly 4 miles tonight.

After the run today I did my Yoga for Runners routine and it felt soooo good. I didn’t do it after the ET run or after yesterday’s short run. Both times I finished running and then proceeded to sit in a vehicle for a couple hours. Not really the best plan. All day today my legs felt tight and a little tingly at times. But getting a pretty good run and then some nice stretching accomplished has made all the difference in how I feel now.

Hundred Push-up Challenge:
Week 5, Day 1: 30, 24, 22, 20, 31 = 127
Um… I’m repeating the week again. I think I’m just scared of Week 6. But I didn’t get the chance to do the exhaustion test with all the weekend’s festivities and it’s still really hard to do so many push-ups. I would have died if I had to repeat something in school over and over like this, but for some reason I don’t mind repeating the push-up challenge week. I can feel myself getting stronger each time and I am really just competing against myself anyway. I can flunk myself if I want.

Last night (early this morning?) I ran the Extraterrestrial Full Moon Midnight Half-Marathon, an event that takes place in the middle of the night alongside Area 51 in the Nevada desert. It truly was a unique experience and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to participate in this event.

Packet pick-up was a wee bit chaotic. Participants were divided into three separate lines to check-in; marathon, half-marathon and 10K. But then we were forced to walk through the check-in lines to get our shirts. Prizes in sponsor drawings were awarded before the race and winners were supposed to pick-up their prizes at check-in, but nobody really seemed 100% positive where to pick up the prizes. I won a bottle of Udderly Smooth cream, one of the sponsors of the event. Our t-shirts were nice long-sleeve technical t-shirts (with A LOT of loud graphics all over the front) made by Zorrel. Included in our check-in bags were some small samples of the same lotion I won, a packet of Hammer gel, a card to subscribe to Runner’s World and our bib number/timing chip.

Our group met at Fleet Feet and rode together in a big 15-passenger van. The ride took about 2 to 2.5 hours to get to the marathon start. From there we used the porta-potties, got our glow necklaces and were bussed to the half-marathon start. Just before the half-marathon started, you could see the lines of men wearing glow necklaces off the side of the road, taking the opportunity to relieve themselves in the bushes. It was kind of funny, made me wish I had my camera there.

The course took place on the Extraterrestrial Highway, we had to stay off to one side of the road and make sure we were out of the way when cars came through. We also needed to worry about dodging roadkill, keeping an eye out for livestock/rattlesnakes and being careful on cattle-guards in the road. It’s also amusing when a course says that porta-potties will only be available in a few spots, but informs the runners that darkness and bushes are always available. All runners were required to wear headlamps, wear reflective clothing and encouraged to wear a glow necklace. The glow necklace was annoying after about 1.2 minutes as it bounced up and down. It promptly ended up looped through my Fuel Belt where it would be slightly less annoying through the rest of the race.

Temperatures during the race were in the mid-60′s or maybe low-70′s. It was so nice to be able to run in temperatures that weren’t scorching. It was amazing how different my heart-rate was during this run. I’ve noticed that the higher heat, the higher my HR goes during the run.

The route was uphill for the first 6 miles, then a downhill coast into the town of Rachel, NV ending at The Little A’Le’Inn. The uphill was pretty steep, but it didn’t feel overly difficult (even though we did comment that the hill was B-A-N-A-N-A-S at one point). The steepest part came at about mile 5. The downhill was actually harder, since gravity wanted to just pull me down at a pace that would have been too fast. I had to work hard to keep myself at a pace that was more comfortable for my knees. They served Hammer Heed on the course along with water, and at the “ultra” aid stations they provided Hammer gels, pretzels, oranges and bananas.

The finish line was a little confusing. They had a line of glowing green lights on the ground, channeling us toward a series of cones. The first two cones had purple lights glowing on top of them, thus I assumed they were the “finish line”. So I started slowing when I got past them only to realize the timing mats were at the end of the cones. I tried to speed up again to cross the mats, only to have somebody step in front of me almost immediately to rip the tag off the bottom of my bib number. Ideally, I would have been given a little bit of extra space to slow back down before. My official time was 2:20:14. Since this was my first half-marathon, it’s automatically a PR and I’m pleased with that time, especially considering I was running when I would normally be asleep!

They had a breakfast spread at the Inn after, including bagels, fruit, eggs, pancakes, biscuits & gravy, sausage, potatoes, etc. Even though it was still the middle of the night and not a typical “meal time”, I was starving and I had a little bit of everything! Except the gravy… I am not a gravy fan.

After breakfast, that’s when the morning started to go a little downhill for me. The person who drove our van was volunteering at an aid station and had to stay until the last half-marathoner went past. I learned that we might have to wait a little upon completion once we got to the start line, but I had no idea it would be about 3 hours long. Unfortunately my bag was in the van, so I waited for too long to get my jacket, getting colder and colder as the evening went by. I have been experiencing hot and cold flashes ever since as my body tries to figure out how to regulate its temperature.

I think the distance from this race was harder on me physically then it would have been in a typical training run for two main reasons. 1) The first being the lack of sleep since the race took place in the middle of the night. By the time I got home, with the exception of a couple minutes or sleep mixed throughout the day, I had been awake for over 24 hours. 2) The other reason it’s been kicking my butt physically is the time delay at the end of the race before I could attempt to make myself comfortable. I had to wait around while getting colder and colder, then I had to sit in the back of a van for 2.5 hours to drive back into Vegas which kind of caused my muscles to cramp up.

Overall it was a pretty fun experience. I think Calico Racing puts on a pretty good event. There are things they could improve upon (check-in, finish line, their website), but for a pretty young group they are doing an amazing job.

Last night I met some friends for a run after dark. We could delude ourselves and say we were practicing running in the dark in preparation for this weekend’s half-marathon, but really we were making loops around the running path at a soccer park illuminated by tons of ultra-bright lights.

Yesterday felt really warm all day, more so than other recent days. When we met at 8:30 PM it was still 104° outside and the atmosphere felt heavier than usual. All of us were feeling pretty drained too. I think it was decided before we even started our run that we would cut it short, but we didn’t decide exactly how much we were “cheating” until mid-way through our run.

We were supposed to run for 40 minutes tonight, but after we had done about 3 miles, we capped it off for the night, ending our workout after about 28.5 minutes.

I did calibrate my Nike+ in my neighborhood on Wednesday night. Not 100% accurate, I was about .02 off from my friend’s Nike+ SportBand mileage, but that’s not too bad. I’ll calibrate it on a track when I have convenient access to one next week.

Hundred Push-Up Challenge:
Week 5, Day 3 – 12, 12, 12, 12, 10, 10, 9, 30 = 107
I managed to do the bare minimum on the required push-ups for this week. I’m still debating about whether I will repeat the week yet again, just to build up more strength or try forging ahead. I guess I’ll see how the exhaustion test goes and make a decision from there.

I tell ya… celebrating your birthday for 4 days straight really starts to take a toll on you. I couldn’t bear the thought of waking up early on Tuesday to go running. Normally I go run at night on Tuesdays, but my running pals and I all went out to dinner with our spouses to celebrate birthdays last night. And even though we ate way too much, I still dragged myself out of bed at 4:30 to go running. It was hard, I’ll be perfectly honest with you, but I did have a driving force that pulled me out of my slumber and made it easier to hit the pavement.

My new Nike+ SportKit.

Yeah, my husband has finally gotten tired of me talking about pace and distance (and he picked up on my not-very-subtle hints about wanting this) and got it for my birthday. I couldn’t resist pulling it out of the packaging, putting on my running shoes and testing it. Even if I did look like a giant dork in my skirt/top that I wore out to dinner while holding my iPod in front of me. It was that exciting for me.

As I was making loops around the house between my living and family rooms, my husband had to pull out his iPhone to capture my running dorkiness for posterity. And then, being the glutton for punishment I am, I am proving my dorkiness but posting that picture on the internet!

I definitely need to get myself to a track in order to calibrate it properly. All of the tracks around here are locked up though. But I’ll figure it out, if I have to vault over the fence (barbed wire and all)… I will get it calibrated.

And now I need to sleep. Seriously, I am about to tip over. Better run at night tomorrow, huh? Catch up on a few zzzz’s….

Hundred Push-Up Challenge:
Week 5, Day 2 – 15, 15, 14, 14, 12, 12, 10, 30 = 122
Holy cow… I did all of the requirements. Barely…

Since today is my 30th birthday, I decided to allow myself to sleep in a little before my run. So instead of waking up at 4:30 AM, I got up at 4:45. Alright, so that’s not much of a difference, huh? Surprisingly, that little bit of difference marked a significant change in the amount of cars and other people out.

I don’t know if today was just an anomaly or if everybody usually emerges at this time. I think I was acting in the ‘Chipper Jen’ role this morning (from the book The Nonrunner’s Marathon Guide for Women – one of the author’s friends was really excited and cheerful about getting out to run each time so she refers to the friend as Chipper Jen). As I was running past other runners/walkers/bikers on the roads and calling out, “Good morning!” and “Hello!” they all just kind of grunted at me.

I did 4.23 miles in 41 minutes. It felt great, I’m glad I got up early to do the run. But, since it is my birthday and I’m taking the day off work, I’m also going to catch a nap. My gift to myself.

Hundred Push-Up Challenge:
Week 5, Day 1: 30, 24, 22, 20, 30 = 126
Why isn’t this week getting any easier? I keep “flunking” myself so I have to repeat the week, and it’s still tough!