2017 - First Quarter Recap

Well, the first quarter of 2017 is over and TransRockies is just a little over 4 months away. EEEEEK! I feel confident about my training though and I think it will be an enjoyable experience. So far this year, I have logged 367.89 miles, which is slightly over my total for all of 2016. To say I’ve really upped my mileage would be an understatement. Five times during this quarter I ran at least a half-marathon. My longest run to date is 16 miles, I really ran 17 miles that day, but the first mile was a “warm-up” to test my knee and I stopped my watch and waited about 30 minutes before starting my 16-mile run that day. What’s crazy is that over the past three months I’ve only “climbed” 18,428 feet and TransRockies is supposed to be 20,000 feet in just six days, it looks like I need to quite literally step it up in the elevation department. I started treadmill running once per week at an 8% incline to get some “hills” in on a more regular basis. I only started doing that a couple weeks ago, so, hopefully adding that weekly will get my elevation numbers up. My average speed for the first quarter was 4.9 miles per hour, I really want to see that get to the 5-6 range in the next month. Coming up in the next few months, I have a 33k (20.7 miles) in April, a 50k (30.07 miles) in May, and a marathon (26.2 miles) in June. Yes, you read that right, I am skipping the marathon distance and going straight to Ultra in May and then in June I back down to a marathon, except that the marathon will be over 10,000 feet in altitude and have over 6,000 feet in elevation gain. I would say that the Leadville Marathon will be a true test of grit even more than the ultra or TransRockies. We have an 8.5 hour cutoff for that one and it’s the primary reason I really want to increase my speed and efficiency moving uphill. Wish me luck and injury free running in the 2nd quarter! Bring on the heat and the elevation!

2017-03-15

Wow, I have really fallen behind on the whole blogging thing. My last post was on 02/07/2017. So, I'm going to hit the highlights from the past 5 weeks and then hopefully be better moving forward.  

February 19-28, 2017

The remainder of February was pretty uneventful. I did set a new half marathon PR on the 24th. So as of the end of February, my records are:
5k: 28:02
10k: 1:06:22
Half Marathon: 2:30:03
Longest Run: 14:41
This month was a month of trying new hydration vests, more on that later, but I’m currently running with the Ultimate Direction Adventure Vesta and really love it!

Cross Timbers Trail Race - 02/18/2017 - Gordonville, TX

This has been my favorite trail race so far! I loved it! We got to packet pickup with plenty of time on Saturday morning and picked up our packets, shirts, etc. I guess we dawdled a little too long when we got back to the cars to drop off our packets and gear up for the run because we were late to the start! I had to laugh at us because the runners had to run a small loop around the parking lot before getting on the single track trail but there was no distinguishable start line so we were just running around like a bunch of airheads trying to figure out where to start from, going against the flow of runner traffic. On top of that, I hadn’t attempted to start my watch yet and it still needed to locate satellites, so from the very start I had to say “oh well, it’s just for fun!” I ended up at the very back of the pack when the single track stuff started, that was a site! I have always considered myself slow, but now I had the opportunity to see what the people in THE VERY BACK did. It seemed that some of them weren’t there for a trail “race” at all. Some people were in cargo pants and wearing normal backpacks, not the hydration vest and breathable athletic wear I was used to seeing. It made me wonder what their story was, are the back from the military, preparing to go to the military, trying to train for their son’s trip to Philmont this summer, are they fighting their way back from addiction or depression and just trying to get outside with whatever opportunity they can find to motivate them? I supposed the possibilities are endless. I know we all do this for different reasons, and while I always noticed the different sizes and ages that these events attracted I never noticed the types of personalities attracted to a trail race. When I looked at the people around me, I felt less like I was running a trail “race” and more like I was awkwardly walking through a high school cafeteria of people trying to find themselves. I know it sounds like I’m being critical of the people around me, but I’m not, I was truly intrigued by what brought those people out to the trails that morning. On to the actual run . . . I met two women and since I don’t know anything about them and they’re not a part of my daily life, I’ll use their real first names. Gretchen was really cool, she paced someone on a 100-mile race before and I thought that was so neat! She said is was in the dark and going slow, but for some reason pacing, someone on a 100 seems more intimidating to me than actually attempting the whole thing myself! I told her about my TransRockies goals and my experience with volunteering last year and she was so excited that she decided to volunteer this year, I don’t know if she really will, but it was cool that she got that excited to be interested in it. I know I’ll remember her name, unfortunately, she probably won’t be wearing the same hot pink apparel to help me identify her, but in August I’ll be keeping my ears peeled for a volunteer named Gretchen. The other woman I met and ran with for a while was Angelique, and I remember her name because, well, duh, it’s close to mine. She was out just having a nice time. She said that she was consistently getting pain in her leg at mile 7 so she was hoping to not have that happen that day and to work through that. She had done an Ultra Ragnar, which I thought was AMAZING. I know it’s judgey of me, but when I’m in the 13.1 distance I really expect to meet average people, I guess since it’s a stepping stone for me and my bigger goals, I don’t really expect to be impressed by their experiences and both of these women proved me wrong. Unfortunately, the gap grew bigger between Gretchen, Angelique, and myself and I never found out if Angelique had pain at mile 7 or discussed any more of Gretchen’s goals and experiences. I pulled ahead of them around mile 6 and ran by myself most of the remainder. I didn’t get passed by anyone except marathoners and I was pretty excited about that. Around mile 8 I came up on someone I didn’t know would be there but was excited to pass, and I knew C would be glad I passed this person also. I think my motivation to continue walk/jogging the course was so that the person wouldn’t catch me. There was a lot of ups and downs on the course, but they were short. It was one million times better than Rough Creek. Cross Timbers was in the trees the trail was a nice dirt singletrack that I like and the weather was great! It weaved in and out along the bank of Lake Texoma, and it was beautiful. I anticipated being done at 4 hours since that’s what Rough Creek and TransRockies Day 4 were and I was right, 4:03:22 for 13.8 miles. When I was finished I was admittedly disappointed that my time was “just as slow” as August and September of last year. I felt like I had really upped my training and I had hopes that I would start seeing results. However, I FELT so much better after this race than I did after Rough Creek and EM said that she thought this course was a lot more difficult. It wasn’t until later that I realized it was nearly THE SAME elevation gain as day 4 of TransRockies and 1,200 feet MORE than Rough Creek, and the fact that I ENJOYED it was a win in my book, I felt affirmed that my training is paying off even if my time on the clock was pretty close to the same.

February 12-17, 2017

A week of rest. My knee was really hurting and I decided to take a break until I could have it checked out. I went to Airrosti on Wednesday morning and after evaluation she determined that I had a popliteus strain and maybe some IT band and meniscus stuff going on. If the meniscus was affected she felt it was minimal and I just needed some rest and therapy. After she treated me she said to rest and ice for the next 72 hours, I said "well, I have a 13.1 mile race in 70 hours, will that be OK?" she said that it would likely be fine.
On Friday I headed to my parents’ house so they could keep D while I ran on Saturday and then I headed to Sherman for an evening with the girls. I had such a good time going to dinner and shopping at Target with some friends whose paths just happened to cross because of our love for getting on the trails.

February 8-11, 2017

This started out as a pretty normal week, I needed to get 10 miles in on that Friday, so I coordinated with TG to meet out at the bike trails that afternoon to get our run in. She had some work stuff come up and was unable to make it last minute, so it was just me and Cooper, the Wheaten Terrier. It was hot that day. I know the summer months will bring even hotter temps, but it was 90ish degrees, which is worth mentioning this time of year. Cooper started off wearing his pack so that he could carry his own water & bowl. Less than 3 miles in, his water bottle opened or leaked and was completely empty. So after the 3-mile loop, we stopped at the car and left his pack there. I offered him water from my pack every 2.5 miles, and texted an updated to C and TG, I felt like things were going pretty slow. I stepped funny on my left foot twice and felt some pain shoot through my ankle and up my leg. I didn't really twist or roll anything, just one of those steps where you feel like your ankle didn't flex like it should and everything just jams. After the second misstep around mile 7, my knee started hurting pretty bad. The back and the outside part. I last saw my car at mile 5, so I thought, "I'll go out to 7.5, and then turn around and backtrack to my car," at mile 7.5 I stopped to give Cooper some water and there was a sign that said "only 1 mile left," if that was the case I would just continue forward and get back to the parking lot and then head down the 3 mile loop until I needed to turn around. Well, mile 8.5 came, mile 9, 9.5, 9.75 and still no parking lot. Ugh. I had the front gate saved as a location on my phone, so I started trying to "navigate" back to that pin, but the trails aren't on my phone and iPhone isn't good at navigating a bushwhack through cactus. I was tired, hot, and hurting, Cooper was dragging, and covered in cactus needles and "porcupine eggs," we crossed paths with an armadillo, but we finally made it back to the car with a total mileage of 10.55, which isn't bad considering, but mentally I was done way before that. Average pace was 14:37. I met up with C and took D swimming while he worked out.
The next morning I met AW to finish up the week with a 5-mile run that hurt SO BAD. My knee and my calf were KILLING me. I think she had 8 miles to do that day, so after 4.5 I left her and headed back to the car, when she was out of sight I started walking/hobbling nearly in tears. It was awful!

2017-02-07

Ouch, ouch, ouch! Today hurt, especially afterward. My left calf is killing me tonight! While I was pounding away 6 miles at the school I started thinking about the different aches and the drag that I feel and when it started. I ran 10 less miles last week than I had planned and I took an additional rest day, I really though this week I would be back at it, feeling good. But, that's just not the case. One thing I changed about 10 days ago, was my intervals. I was running .35 miles, walking .20 miles and I started walking .20, then running .80. Nearly cutting my walk distance in half per mile. I didn't start doing it on purpose, I think I started doing it when time was tight before my childcare ran out and it worked so I just adopted the new interval all the time. I hope that the interval change, plus adding four miles per week is what did it and if I change my intervals back I can adapt to the increase in mileage. I changed the mileage last week without much long-term success, so, fingers crossed, changing intervals will give me the change I need.