Good Morning Sunshine

4 of 4 runs done for the week.
I went a lot slower than I initially wanted to but I more wanted to get in the distance than getting it in within a certain time. I love seeing all the people out there so early and already starting their day. Whenever in a couple years when we (sorry I) give in to the whole getting a dog thing, we 'll have to get a active one. To see people out there running with their dogs makes me eager for that. I also love to do some window shopping whenever I'm running down on Queen some of those stores are so nice but pricey eek like more than running room pricey and thats just regular stuff. It was so wonderful whenever I was running in the shade. The sun was already insanely hot out there at 7:30am but thats just more signs that summer is almost here.

Have I mentioned how much I love my fuel belt?

I'm apparently one of the weird people who are not a huge fan of handhelds. My hands sweat and then its all I can think of. Plus the the pocket for stuff is bigger so thats always a plus. Maybe I'll throw in one of those homemade Cliff bars I'm going to try and make tomorrow.

Next week is the official start of my training runs. I've planned them all out on a calendar and I'll have 67 runs to complete leading up to race day. It seems so far away still but something tells me its not.

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Beep Beep Beep

Ok pretend thats a alarm clock going off.

5 am comes early. This week the weather is insanely hot for May. So I decided what better time to try that whole getting up early so I could run thing. It was actually pretty nice. The weather was completely comfortable in a t-shirt and capris. The sun was just coming up. The roads weren't busy. As a matter of fact I'm sure the people I did see wondered what the hell I was doing so early in the morning as they waited for thier bus clutching coffee in their hands. And yes mom I was safe, I brought my phone and a water bottle with me. That early in the morning my rational was I could squirt any possible attacker with water and run away faster. It made sense at the time.

But yeah no it was great, I came home got a shower in and my breakfast and coffee all before the kids were up. Definitely think this is something I could keep up. For the hot weather anyways.

Pacing

When I was in the 5k and 10k running clinics, most of us didn't really use the website stuff. Apparently they had the training plans so at whatever goal you wanted to run the race at so you can figure out what pace you want to run at. I think it was halfway through the 10k clinic did we realize how to properly use it. Mostly we just ran. As long as you were ok to talk or not kill yourself you were good.

So I was doing my first real tempo run. For my training plan it said I wanted to do around a 6:30 pace so I decided to use an new to me function on my Garmin. So far I'd only used the interval lap thing so I could track each km better. On the page they showed a max pace limit and a minimum pace limit. That should have really been my first clue that I was doing something wrong but I decided that there was no way I'd go much faster then what I was supposed so I didn't put in a max pace. Just the minimum pace of 6:30 so that I at least couldn't go slower than that.

So off I go. My watch beeps and I pick it up somewhat and feel like I'm working but I figure part of it is because I was wearing my cotton yoga pants and just whatever I'm not really sure. Don't figure out that whenever my watch beeped because I was going "slow" I picked up the pace to much and didn't bother looking at my watch to make sure I didn't go to hard. Yeah my supposed to be 6:30 pace run was a 5:30 paced run. I was doing the speed that I'm supposed to do speed work at not tempo!

Lesson of the day - if your watch gives you two options for top speed and slow speed, use both. Don 't assume that you'll have an idea of how to properly pace yourself when you've never done it before.

Happy Dance!

I've been keeping track of my KM since Janurary. I started it because in my Running Clinc we had the shoe talk and was told that most shoes can last for around 500-900km. I at that point had no clue how far I had ran in my shoes. So I figured it would be neat to see how much running I've been doing so I made it one of my goals for 2010 to keep track of my KM for the year. Mostly so I could see how I progress throughout the year.

Today in my first offical run for my half marathon training schedule marked 300km since the New Year. It feels so amazing to see that.

I have another interesting post to put up later today about my run. Let me just say Learn to Pace properly!

GU-ey Gross

So after much thought I decided to pick up some GU gels to try. I figured it would be smart to try during a shorter run where I knew of possible bathrooms should my stomach not agree with the gels. It would be better than being on the running trail during a actual long run and have no clue where to stop.

I grabbed an orange flavour and strawberry-banana flavour. Don't think I'll be trying the strawberry-banana one. Orange was gross. and it wasn't the flavour really that grossed me out. The gel texure made me gag so much I wasn't sure I was going to keep the gel down. I got about 3/4 of the packet down and thought good enough. Took a run just over 6k run and at least there was no stomach issues. The run didn't feel any different than normal, so we'll see.

I guess next to try would be the chomps or the jelly bean cause yeah gels are nasty. I'm seriously still gagging just thinking of it.

Any one want a strawberry-banana flavour one?

Wakey Wakey.

So as I look at my lovely training plan I realize that soon I'm about to hit a big obstacle. And its not even running related. My children. See I've been doing my runs while they're otherwise occupied. I currently run Tuesdays and Wednesdays while Bug is at kindergarten and Handsome Pants is at preschool. Fridays I run while they are in a program at the community center. Sundays I do my long run while Daddy is in charge.

The catch is that after the first Friday in June I lose the community center activity. For the summer our city's centers basically become day camps for the older kids not in a day care of some kind. Then at the end of June summer break starts.

My solution = becoming an early morning runner. Running at night just gets me geared up and I hate showering at night since I have what I call crazy wavy hair if I let it dry on its own. I'm thinking if I can get up early enough to get my runs in before my husband has to leave for work I should be ok. The hard part will be getting up.

Anyone else do early morning runs? Its not going to be THAT hard right?

Apparently Running is GOOD for Thinking

Huh? Who would have thought.

While I was running this wonderful Mother's Day morning, and not being grossed out by the bits of snow falling from the sky, I got a lot of thinking done.
Mostly about running stuff. DUH.
I've decided to not sign up for the half marathon clinic. It was supposed to start this upcoming week or the one after, I forgot when. The goal race was supposed to be Scotia, but since this is GoodLife's last fall marathon before being switched to May next year they decided to switch it. No offense to GoodLife, but I had always wanted when I do my first full for it to be the same as my first half. I get sentimental like that. That would mean the clinic wouldn't start till June. Thats wayyyy to late for my tastes. I want to get on this offical training stuff like now.

So I'm training on my own and signing up for Scoita.
I'm even thinking of signing up for the 10 miler(16k) in July.

I've also become better at running without to many breaks. My 12k this morning which included 2 hills only had breaks at stop lights. Wohoo. Even with the crazy winds and stupid snow. Have I mentioned its May? Bah. Heres to a better week weather wise.

On the road again

Ok well more like the side walk. I went and did my first run since the 10k race. My legs were sore in the Holy crap I haven't run in forever sore. More like tired I guess. I did just under 5k and other than the legs feeling a tad sore it was great. Had I not had other stuff to do I would have kept going a bit more. I love those runs. You just feel good and in a "bring it on" mode.

I found something new out with my Garmin. I started it while I was in the preschool dropping Mr. Handsomes Pants off and it asked me if I was indoor so I pressed yes and didn't think anything of it. So when I got outside and it had the right screen up I just hit start and started running. Well apparenly I was supposed to hit a different button to find satalites or something once I got outside cause it just recorded the time and not the pace or distance. Thankfully I alreay knew I could do 5k in 27-30 mins so decided to just run for 30 mins and I'd map it at Map My Run afterwards.

First 10k Race

Sporting Life 10k May 2nd 2010
Chip Time: 56:56.9
Average Pace: 5:42/km
Overall Place: 5776/11901
F25-29 Category: 535/1407
F Category: 2242/6685

On the day before, I was so nervous. Like sweaty palms and pacing around nervous. So to keep me occupied we went and got Rohan a new bike helmet and that took 2 hours from walking to the store and back. Then I went out for a yummy dinner with Erin and her family and Marlene. It was great to finally meet some of the people I’ve been talking to for the last couple months. Saturday night just after I packed my bag and made sure I was already set, Tom reminded me that Dr. Who was on TV so I stayed up till 10. A bit later than I wanted to be up till but that was ok.

My watch alarm went off just before 5 and I am so glad I set it because my regular alarm clock didn’t go off at all. I ate some breakfast and got dressed and headed over to my friend Tania’s house. We grabbed Lorna and off we went to parking on Exhibition grounds so we could grab the shuttle buses up to the starting line. We got there just before 7am and had a driver who apparently didn’t know her way to the start line so it took us 45 minutes to get up there. One of the best things we did was to hit the first set of port o potties we saw. They were the furthest away from the start line and at that time there was a tiny tiny line that’s all. After that we walked down Yonge towards the start and our corrals. We talked about our running plans for the summer and fall. It wasn’t too busy yet when we first got there but the crowds were definitely forming, so we decided around 7:40-ish to get into our corrals. Tania and I were both in the blue one and she wanted to stay in the front and I was going to head to the back before the race started but it got so crowded so quickly it would have been pointless to try to get back there so I stayed in the front too. At 8am they got ready and started counting down for the 1st wave to go and that gave me some butterflies. Then when the 2nd wave got walked up to the start line we got to follow them and that was exciting to see them take off right in front of us. We were literally right in front of the starting line when us the 3rd wave got to go and it made my stomach flip to realize that we were next. Tania and I wished each other good luck and got ready to run.

The horn went and off we went. I planned to start out slow and that was working for me though it was hard to not get caught up in the crowd and everyone cheering. It was so great to see the excitement from the little kids on the side lines and to just be a part of that. I was still being passed by people around 2-3k and they were just huffing and puffing and it took everything I had to not tell them to not kill themselves by pushing so hard so early. Just before 4k I took a small walk break to take a good drink from my handheld (which was a life saver with all that humidity we had). I was able to keep going well and around the 5k mark my watch showed 27mins so far and that cheered me up to realize I definitely could be under 1 hour. The bands playing along the sides every so often helped a ton in keeping me in good spirits, 2 of them even had me doing a dance in the air with my hands. I took another walk break just after the 7k water station. The woman who was in front of me apparently tried to thrown some water down her back and basically missed her back and almost got me. That woke me from my zone and I realized how thirsty I was. Around 8k (realizing there were only 2 more to go) I got into a great mood. There was these two late teen guys in front of me and one looked like he was really dragging it at this point. A volunteer was trying to cheer them on to keep pushing and apparently they didn’t like that. In the mood I was in, I decided to help out and as I went past them I turned and said “Only 2 more to go. We can kill this. Whoo” I’m pretty sure they didn’t like me either after that.

When 9k came and you could see some of the people who had finished walking along the side of the course with the medals on, that just gave me the drive to go. So I picked it up and ran harder. Just before I saw the finishing line I happen to glace over and saw Erin’s daughter, but it was too close to the end to slow down a bit to try and see Erin. I just started sprinting towards the finish and starting passing a shit load of people. As I crossed I raised my arms in the air. The adrenaline that got me through that last bit was insane and I almost started crying as I walked with the crowd to the finishing area. According to my watch it was just under 58 mins and I was thrilled for my first 10k race.

I quickly went through the finishing area and got my medal and a banana and juice box. I got a quick stretch in and went off to find Tania and Lorna to see how they did. We all met at the car and decided that coffee and breakfast were on the top of the order list. We rode the way back to the Beaches all talking about how we did and things that were going on around us during our runs. Got to the restaurant and of course after I ordered my wonderful bacon and egg meal do I remember that I can only a bit at a time after doing any runs over 7k cause my stomach can’t handle it. So I had quite the take out bag to bring home. Got home and found my chip time from Tom since it was already posted online. I was so glad to be home and just hang out with the kids after that crazy morning.

I loved the race, and the experience. It was great course to do for a first 10k and I will definitely be doing that one again. Now I just have to figure out what to with my medal.