Monster Mash Half Marathon - Race Report!

After my major training slump this spring/summer, I made a promise to myself. I would be in shape enough to run a half marathon every year for as long as I could. Although I've run a marathon this year, I still wanted to make sure that I added a half marathon to schedule. I know myself, I know that if I start making exceptions by saying "oh well this marathon counts..." I'll start bending rules in other ways.

Since we just moved to the greater Philly/Delaware/Maryland/Jersey area, I wanted to find a local race to do up here. Timing worked out pretty well for doing the Monster Mash half marathon in Dover, DE. It supports the Wounded Warrior Project, which I would really love to support. Also, the race has sort of a Halloween-vibe, which seemed kind of fun.

Our race report begins not the weekend of the actual race (Oct. 17), but the Saturday before. I'm not exactly sure how I got the weekends mixed up, but I was up at 4:00 on Oct. 11 with my shoes laced up, my gels packed with my water bottle, my watch was all charged, and I was pumped and ready to go. I opened my computer to make sure I had the right address to plug into my GPS, aaaaaaand the date on the website said Oct. 17. "At least I figured it out before I got in the car", I said to myself, and promptly went back to bed in my running clothes.

OK - fast forward to Oct. 17. My husband woke up and made my breakfast (apple cinnamon oatmeal) and coffee, and filled my water bottle up (he's a nice guy :) ). The weather was pretty chilly, so I packed an extra long-sleeved layer just in case.  I made the drive to Dover, and finally arrived at the Speedway, and was greeted by Miles the Monster!

Miles the Monster at the Dover Speedway

When I got out of my car and went to packet pickup, there was a great music selection playing. I heard the obligatory Halloween staples, Thriller and Monster Mash, and a lot of great classic rock. It really created a vibe that was exciting, without being intimidating or too intense. It was a good place to mingle. I've never been able to chat so easily with fellow runners leading up to a race. There were some incredibly seasoned runners, some ultra runners, some people like me who have done a handful of races like this, as well as some total newbies. When we were starting to fill the starting chute, I was talking to a woman who has run several hundred milers, and was running the marathon to go towards her "50 marathons in 50 states" challenge! It was so cool to hear from her what her favorite races were, and which ones were still on her bucket list.

Oh... that reminds me.... the start! The race (both the half and the full) started on the actual racetrack.

It was so awesome. We could see the sky gradually change color as the sun rose, and it was beautiful.

Before we knew it, we heard the starting buzzer. The first mile was a lap around the Dover Speedway. The sun was just coming up, and a beautiful sunrise was visible over the stands as we ran. There was so much to look at, it made the first mile go by really quickly! After we left the speedway, it wasn't long before we were out in the city of Dover, and we were running through some really beautiful neighborhoods. I had no idea that there were so many lovely, well maintained Victorian houses in that part of town. Shortly after, we went through Wesley College, which is a truly beautiful campus.

Then, out of the blue, we were in farm country! Around mile 6.5 the marathoners and half marathoners split, and we started to run through soybean country. I felt right at home. We hit this point around 8:10am, so the sunrise was truly beautiful. It was so peaceful. I felt energized. During the last half of the race, we gradually transitioned back into the town. At about mile 11, the speedway came into view! Then we ran over the overpass, through part of the parking lot, and zipped up to the finish line. Several people who are much faster than I had already finished, and actually stood along the course leading up to the finish and were cheering us on: "You're almost there!" "Looking good, finish strong!!" It was great.

My official time was 2:17:11. About 12 minutes slower than my PR, but it is almost 40 minutes faster than the last time I ran a half marathon as a training run! Not a PR, but I still felt really good after this race. I still felt strong. I had signed up for this race to help me regain some of my confidence, and it absolutely helped me do that.

So... half marathon for 2015: done!

Reese's Cups are my new favorite recovery food

This medal was enormous, and has moving parts. It's pretty sweet.

The only downside to this entire experience is that I have had a lot of pain on the outside of my right foot, which hasn't gone away since I got out of my car after the race. I'm not sure how that is going to impact my plans for the Richmond marathon in 3 weeks, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm just trying to make sure that my foot gets back to normal, so that I can have a little longevity in my "keep Catherine fit" running career. Even if I can't do the Richmond marathon, I can't say that I regret running this race. It had a really fun start/finish line, a good group of runners that made for a really fun environment, and it helped me regain a lot of my confidence. I needed this. I'm excited to come back next year!

Gear:
Oh also - this was my first race in my Topo Fli-lytes, they were definitely up to the job! I've gotten a lot of mileage out of those shoes so far, and I've been incredibly happy with them so far. I also used my Amphipod handheld, which I really like. It had plenty to keep me hydrated between aid stations, and had room for one or two gels (I only took one). I wore a Nike technical t-shirt, but the goodie bag contained a really really nice New Balance shirt which might be my new favorite running shirt.

I had my first long run since my last marathon, and it wasn't a total cluster.

In a previous blog post, I mentioned that between my last two marathons, my training was totally insufficient. My longest run was 10 miles, and I went for pretty long stretches of time without running at all. As a result, compared to my first marathon, my performance wasn't super great. My recovery wasn't that stellar either, for that matter. Stairs were scary for a very long time....

I promised myself that I wouldn't do that leading up to the Richmond Marathon. I really meant it when I said it too. However, here I am about 10 weeks away from said marathon. I've done a lot of solid (mostly slow) mid-distance runs, but my longest run before this week was about 7.5 miles. And even that 7.5mi run was supposed to be a 10-mile run that I just wasn't able to tough out. I was starting to take a lot of comfort in the cushy 7-hour course limit to finish the Richmond Marathon this fall.

I noticed on that, on Strava there was a half marathon challenge for the month of September. I told my husband, and he said "DOOO IIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!"

So I made sure to carb up and hydrate the night before, and I set out to do my half marathon training run on Sunday afternoon. I was really surprised, the first 11.5 miles went really well! The weather was nice and cool, and I was able to run the whole thing while maintaining a relatively consistent pace. At mile 11.5, I sort of hit a wall. I felt really dehydrated and pretty depleted. I hadn't brought my water bottle or any gels, because I hadn't needed them for this distance in the past. Now I wanted them more than anything. I was listening to an audiobook on this run, and I swear the only thing they talked about from mile 11 until the end was water, flowing springs, gentle rivers, cool refreshing beverages, and swimming pools (stop taunting me!). I walked the next half a mile, and then managed to finish out by running the last 1.2 miles of the run.  I earned my strava badge, but I've still got a long way to go (read:run) before The race in November.

Pretty Running Pictures

Some pretty pictures from my trail and road runs this week :)

Hard to complain about this site on the trail earlier this week! Even though this run was not super stellar (characterized by a very slow pace and a very ungraceful fall), it was still nice to get outside. 

Today's run, which almost didn't happen. There was, literally, a little black rain cloud that hung around for most of the early afternoon. Just as I had resigned to coming inside to the treadmill, the sun came out and I had one of the best runs I've had in a few weeks! 

Proof that playing hooky is fun once in a while, my husband and I went on a field trip this week to one of our favorite hikes. It's a little hard to see, but most of the little yellow things in the middle are actually Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies on the fire road leading up to the trail! 

The top of said favorite hike (Virginians might recognize Old Rag when they see it). Not another soul in sight :)

Well that didn't go according to plan....

Well today was supposed to be my first long run of my "let's dive back into marathon training" schedule. My mid-week runs went better than I had expected, and I decided that today I was going to do a long run of 10 miles.

Here are the reasons that I thought I could do it
1. I knew I needed to take it slower. I wasn't going to run hard, I had just planned to keep going.
2. I've been taking better care of my nutrition and my hydration. I've had a lot of water to drink all week, dehydration was not going to be a problem.
3. I've run 2 marathons! 10 miles is no problem, right?

Here are the reasons that I think this didn't work, and my run stopped at 7.52 miles.
1. No breakfast. run on an empty stomach I said. I will burn more body fat I said. I'll at least bring a gel next time.
2. I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was. While I think that I have retained some of the fitness from my previous marathons, I think that I have more to rebuild than I had previously thought.
3. I need to do more stretching, strengthening, and take care of my nutrition better between runs. I think I need to do more to set myself up for a successful long run by preparing in advance.
4. I decided to forgo my rest day, and spend 30 minutes on the elliptical. I think my legs might have been a little too tired.

Oh well. Better luck next week. Time to restock my gel supply, and to get my hands on some yummy Nuun tabs :)

I went ahead and laid out my training plan up until the marathon. In general, here is the formula that I'm going with -
M- Cross train (walking, cycling, or elliptical).
T - 3 mile run, speedier than my other runs.
W - 6 miles.
Th - 3 miles.
F - Rest
Sa - Long run (peak at 18 miles)
Su - 3 miles.

I want to add a run on Sunday after my long runs so that I can get used to running on tired legs. I know that ideally, I should be peaking my long runs at 20 or 22 miles, but after today I feel like this would be a more reasonable goal to aspire to.

On making myself a priority, and other overused running expressions.

Well this summer has been pretty insane. I got married. I moved. I wussed out in the heat. I gained weight.

I also ran a couple of awesome trail races. I found some beautiful new shoes (review to come). I'm in a good place with my mood and self-worth.

This has been a rough couple of months, but it has been a wonderful couple of months. I am exactly where I need to be and wouldn't change a thing.

If you looked at my MapMyRun profile, you'd see a lot of slower runs and empty weeks. I'm getting better though. This was a 20 mile week for me, so far! They were not my fastest runs, but I ran the whole time. I deliberately went on some hilly courses and some technical(ish) trails to challenge myself. It has been a long time since I've been able to push myself, and risen to my own challenges.

"I'm putting myself first"
Yeah, this is cliche. Like - I would judge someone for actually saying this. It sounds selfish. It sounds like an excuse to abandon other responsibilities. However, I recently needed to realize that I have completely spread myself too thin. With work, moving, getting ready to move again, teaching, writing my dissertation, adjusting to married life, and keeping up an apartment for two all vying for my attention, things started to fall through the cracks. Earlier this summer, even THINKING about running made me feel guilty. I started to realize, however, that the drop in physical activity messed with my metabolism, my sleep cycle, and my ability to focus. A couple of weeks ago, I took advantage of the cool weather and my temporary unemployment to....

"Just start running"
I didn't necessarily want to. But I knew that I didn't feel good, and that when I was running I felt good. So I laced up my sweet Topo Fly-lites and went out for a 3 mile run. While I had gone on little runs characterized by "run a little bit, stop my watch catch my breath, repeat", I made myself keep moving on these runs. I made myself promise that once I started my watch, I would not pause it or stop it until I had finished the mileage that I had set out to run. It paid off.

"Practice makes perfect"
Something that had been pretty discouraging all summer was that my endurance and my pace wasn't as high as it had been all summer. This fall almost none of my runs had been over a 10:00min/mile pace. Now they're almost all over 11:00min/mile. More often for not I would just throw in the towel. "What was the point?" I would find myself thinking. Eventually I was able to step back and say to myself "Yeah, idiot, of course you aren't going to run as fast as you did back then. Of course you won't run as far as you used to. You've been sitting on your butt since March." Even though I didn't particularly want to, I was going to have to revert to my earlier skill level, and work back up to where I had been before.

I'm still building myself back up. I have 9 weeks left until my next race - The Anthem Richmond Marathon. This means that I'm diving right back into the middle of the Hal Higdon training program, and doing a 10-mile run this weekend. Let's see how that goes!

Shamrock Marathon and 8k (Whale Challenge) Race Report

I've been on a pretty long hiatus. Honestly it's because I didn't have a lot that I wanted to talk about. I had been having some pretty serious stomach problems, and it really took a major dent out of my training. Honestly, my longest run leading up to race weekend was 10 miles. Other than that I had a couple of 8 mile runs, and handful of 6 mile runs. I'm not proud of that at all. I didn't deal with these issues as proactively as I should have, and as a result I didn't perform as well as I should have. But I'll get to that in a minute.

I had been looking forward to running the Shamrock Marathon since the moment that I finished the Outer Banks Marathon this fall. I was so determined to train for it, and I had planned on having a major PR and basking in the glory of all of my hard work. However, as you may have noticed from my last few posts, that simply didn't happen. For physical and psychological reasons, I was not able to get the training in that I needed to. So as the time approached for race weekend, I realized that I would need to make a decision. I could either forfeit my entry and stay home that weekend, or I could go rough it and see what happened. For reasons mostly unrelated to running, I decided that I needed to push myself and do what I could do, whether that meant finishing with a really slow time or not finishing at all. I had signed up for the Whale Challenge, which was going to be especially hard, because I was going to have to run 5 miles one day, and 26.2 the next! I basically walked into this race expecting to fail, but wanting to find out one way or the other.

My mom came down to hang out with me that weekend, and I think it really helped. I'm a grown-up, but I will always love my mom in the stands cheering me on, or there for me afterwards ready to kiss my boo-boos and give me a big hug. Worst case scenario (DNF), I would still get a fun girls' weekend out of it!

On Friday night we went to the race expo, checked into our hotel, and had a wonderful dinner filled with all of the seafood that we didn't have access to while living in the mainland. We were NOT about to pass up an opportunity to get truly fresh shrimp, oysters, scallops, and crab. It was awesome.

Expo goodies!

The 8k took place on Saturday morning. Our hotel was gracious enough to provide a shuttle, so I took that to the starting line. When I got there, the sun coming up over the ocean was picturesque.

The race went pretty well. I ran at an average pace of 9:31/mile, which was frankly better than I had expected. I really wanted to treat that race as a warm up/shake out for the marathon the next day. It was a lovely day, I felt very fresh, It really was like a nice easy training run. Except that I got a medal at the end!

Later that day we were able to get our toes in the sand, and enjoy some mother/daughter relaxation time. I think we both really needed it.

See what I mean?

The next morning was absolutely scary. I couldn't sleep the night before, I hadn't trained as much as I should have, and there was nothing I could do about it now. I pinned my bib, packed my GUs, and got on the shuttle.

I don't remember a lot between getting there and the race actually starting, except that it was sort of cool to see Mike Wardian starting off. He was participating in the King Neptune Challenge, which meant that he ran the 8k on Saturday, and the half marathon and full marathon on Sunday. After following him online it was pretty inspiring seeing him run in person.

Once the race started I felt ok for the most part, but around mile 6 I was thinking "oh crap. This is going to be the worst, longest, most failure-filled day ever. I cannot wait for this to be over so that I can sleep in the car on the way home." However, around mile 8 the course had wound its way through Camp Pendelton, and we were greeted and cheered on by lots of servicemen and women!! That was a huge pick-me up. By then the sun had come out, and the breeze was nice, so it really had turned into a lovely day to get out and run.

Around mile 13, my stomach started to feel really lousy. For the first time during any race EVER, I needed to stop and use the facilities. Also I'm a girl, and that thing that sometimes happens to you when you least expect it.... totally happened. Oh well. You move on. Thankfully, at about mile 13.5, the course ran by the hotel where my mom and I were staying, so I was able to see her! She gave me a big hug and it meant the whole world to me. I just kept chugging.

I'm not sure what I was thinking after that, but I remember waiting for it to get psychologically worse, and it just didn't. Looking back, miles 13 and 14 were probably the lowest points in the race, but after that I turned off my iPod and just soaked up the scenery.

We ran through the woods, and ran past a mile marker for the site of the first colonists landing! The history geek in me was really excited to see that.

After that, they lined the course with what can best be described as a huge number of leprechaun puns, one after another after another for at least a mile. The daddy's girl in me laughed at every single one of them.

Next we ran through Fort Story, past the lighthouse that Alexander Hamilton had built in 1792.

Then we ran past the community of military families, who had awesome signs and were cheering us on the whole way, even though at that point they had been outside for at least 2 hours watching people run by. That was awesome.

By then, we were looping back on the course that we had run before, I knew we were getting close. Every building was familiar, and a sign that I was getting closer to the finish. around mile 23 I just started booking it. I passed person after person. One runner said "Wow you've got a good run going!" and I replied "I'm really close to a PR, and I don't want to leave anything left on this course!"

I gave it everything I had until I reached the finish. That's right, I made it to the finish. I finished the marathon in 4:48:56, which is a 2-second PR from the marathon this fall. I took my medals, my packet of snacks, met my mom and we drove back home where my awesome fiance was waiting for me :)

Such bling. Much challenge. Need beer. Wow.

Disclaimers
Ok, now that I've documented how awesome it felt to do what I did, I need to clarify a few things. First of all, I do not endorse running with the amount of training that I put in for this race. I think it helped that I had run a marathon 4 months before, and was able to ride on that fitness. However, my recovery for this race has been significantly longer and more painful than recovering from the last race. I hurt much worse for longer, and I was, in general, more exhausted. Exhausted to the point that I needed to call home from work on Monday afternoon, which is simply don't do.

I went out for a 4 mile run today and felt like I was starting at square one. I honestly felt like I hit the wall during this run. WHO DOES THAT?! I just ran a marathon and more than a week later I'm bonking at mile 3.5? What!!!?! Honestly, these are the side effects from under training. I am now working significantly harder to resume training than I should have because of it. Thankfully I don't think that I'm injured, but I do think I've done temporary damage at the very least.

Time to start training for the next big thing. Anyone know of a good 50k training program?

Winter Running

Over the last few days, I've managed to get in two really great runs in the snow. On Sunday, I went on a nice 4.5 mile run, when the snow was melting and the sun was shining. On Monday, I had a break during work and I was able to squeeze an 8.2 mile run in before heading back. Here are a few things that I learned:

1. Trail shoes work really well for keeping your footing in snow/slush. Having a little extra grip was really helpful.

2. Be prepared for wet feet. Snow will melt on your shoes, but as it warms up there might also be melted water underneath the slush. It's not hard to deal with, but it can be alarming.

3. Switching between the roads and the sidewalks can be a little scary. Not everyone has their sidewalks cleaned, and that's ok. Running in bike lanes and on road shoulders usually are usually par for the course. However, snow plows usually don't usually prioritize bike lanes and shoulders (again, that's ok). Just be aware that this may cause some awkward hopping back and forth between the snowy shoulders and the clean road to avoid traffic.

4. Running in the snow is beautiful. Honestly, running this weekend was so invigorating and exciting. I was running on a route that I run all the time, but with the snow this route was like I had never seen it before. My routine had become something special.

The snow is gradually melting. I'm not sure if we're going to get any more this year, but I'm going to put my shoes on as often as I can to play in the snow while it's here.