Oct 14-28 : 10,000 Pageviews! Hiking; Spinx Volunteering; Last bit of Philly Training!

Big recap; lots to catch up on.

Before I begin, though, here's a rave for post-long run re-fueling.  Stuff tastes sooo good after long runs.  Sometimes, I get into moods where even though I think my body may be ready for refueling, nothing seems particularly appetizing.  After very long runs, everything seems delightful, and it's like a kid going to Disneyland, deciding what ride to try first.  I did my final 20 miler today, and I finished stronger than I normally do, I think, but I was feeling kinda run down afterwards as I refueled a bit with a pear and 1/2 a protein shake and drove home.  On my way home, though, I remembered that I had pickles, and the anticipation of getting home, having a hot shower, and eating pickles gave me a big buzz.  After my shower and the pickle, I had smoked salmon and garlic on tortilla chips and lentil and onion soup.  Oh man, soooo good.

Ok, going back...

Oct 14th, Sunday:

The day after the iRecycle Half marathon PR.  Still feeling really strong.  Did 9.0 in 1:16:28, 8:30 ave, in the park in 67 degree cloudy weather.  Legs were still feeling like they were recovering, but it felt good.  Just cranked it out, without needing any fuel or water (was a big hungry at mile 2, but could manage fine without fuel).

Oct 15, Monday:
Upper arms are sore, from the race, maybe, but that's good conditioning for the marathon.  I had started on the treadmill and ran 2 minutes, but I was feeling just a bit too bangy, so I biked instead.  I did 45:30, and I would've gone on longer, but the gym closed.  Legs are a bit sore from the past 2 days, but still solid. 

Oct 16, Tuesday:
60 min strength session.

Oct 18, Thursday:
6 on the treadmill in 48:48, 8:08 ave.  It was cardiovascularly tough!!!  Is it because I'm kinda tired?

Oct 19, Friday:
7.5 in 1:03:00.  So tired during the drive to the park and during the run that I was afraid I'd fall asleep while driving or running.  Ok once I got going, though.  The first lap, I was clumsy and stumbled a few times - seems to happen when I'm tired and not paying attention to footing.  Company coming later that night.

Oct 20, Saturday:
Minor hiking (1.4 mi) with family friends on the Blue Ridge Parkway, at the Craggy Pinnacle trail.  One of the friends has a really cute dog who's obsessed with food and spins around to get your attention so that you'll give her food, whenver she sees you eating or opening a package or the fridge.  We carried the dog along the trail in a little basket house.  We also went on walks with the dog.

(Cooked carrot)

(Looking up to the summit of Craggy Pinnacle)

View from the summit (~6K feet of elevation)

View from the summit (~6K feet of elevation)

(LION KIIING!!!  - for all you The Office or Modern Family fans.  Lion King used to be my favorite movie as a kid)

We also went on walks around the city.

(Mice on Main - it was really hard to get Stella interested in the brass mouse - we had to put food on the mouse to get this picture)

 

(Had to dangle turkey jerky for this picture)



Oct 21, Sunday:

Had to do a midnight run because the gym's 1 treadmill was occupied.  Bother.  Fartlek, as usual, for this course.  Wore a light jacket, since it was chilly at 54 degrees.  Got a bit warm later, but I just unzipped halfway down and tolerated it.  4.4 in 32:35, 7:24 ave.

 

Week's recap:

Man, this week, night calls for work mess up my schedule (very tired) and make runs hard to get in.  Just gotta get it done, though.  Home stretch.

 

Oct 22, Monday:

Did a mini marathon-simulator hill workout on the treadmill.  1 mile warmup in 8:22 at 1 degree, then [1.5mi @ 3 degrees (actual will be 1.3 mi of 2.5 degrees); 0.25 mi @ 1 degree recovery; 0.5 mi @ 7 degrees (actual will be 0.3mi); 0.25 @ 1 degree recovery; 1.1 mi @ 3 degrees] @ 7.5mph.  Had to cut that last rep short because the gym closed on me.... bother.

 

Oct 23, Tuesday:

6.4 mi in 52:53, 8:16.  Left knee's been acting up a bit for over a week now.  Landing under my body and not overstriding seems to help.  I think I compensate for it, which isn't good. 

 

Oct 25, Thursday:

60 min strength session.  Performance was very much lacking.  I don't know why I was so sapped today.  I lost strength!  Was it because of lunches I had to skip during the past 2 days b/c work was so busy I had not time even to eat while working?  Was it because of recent races?  The knee thing?  Don't think it was sleep... that's kind of as poor as usual.

 

Oct 27, Friday:

Carefully executed the 5 mi, with 3 @ 8:20 pace that the schedule called for.  My knee is still kind of wacky, and it started at mile 1.5.  Good form still helps, but it's still scary.

 

Oct 28, Saturday:

Because I had my last 20 scheduled for this weekend, and because I wouldn't be able to run in a race without trying to be competitve, I decided it would be a good opportunity to volunteer.  I've never volunteered in a race before, but it's been something I've always wanted to do.  For a long time, I thought that it would be very difficult to volunteer because the whole time, I'd be really wishing that I was running too, but I had good reasons not to this time.  It was good, anyway, because I was in no mood to race that day.  Still feeling a bit banged up; don't know if it's a result of compensations for my left knee.

 

I got to try lots of different race activities, actually, so it was a really well-rounded experience.  I got there at 6:20.  I was actually so excited about getting to volunteer that the night before, I breifly considered camping out at the parking lot, so that I could be there early and soak more of it in.  Anyway, they were going to start me off with starting line activities, since that was what I signed up for.  I like pre-race excitement, with everyone walking around in their gear and getting ramped up. 

 

There was some time before the race starts, so I helped to loop medals around their medal keeper, for easy access later on during distribution.

My job was to check that peoples' bibs were in the front, and if it was on shorts, that it was on the right leg and not the left leg.  Don't know why that's the case.  Don't understand the technology enough.  The readers looked like they were positioned flat overhead... maybe it's the placement of the chip or something on the bib.  Dunno.  I saw off the marathoners at 7:30, the halfers at 8:00, the kids' run (helping to make sure that the kids did a u-turn at the traffic light instead of running loose into the city) at 8:15, then the 5K at 8:30.  

 

(Marathon)

(Half Marathon)

(Kids' Run - the little kids running around in costume were ADORABLE)

(5K)

After that, I helped to hand out bracelets for the 5K finishers.  Before the halfers started coming in, though, I volunteered to help marshall at the last turn, where they had run out of cones and needed people to help point the way. That ended up being my favorite part.  One of my pet peeves during races is marshalls who don't point the way.  They just stand there, and you have no idea where to go, and you have to actually stop or at least slow down to ask them.  Ideally, they point it out even while you're kinda far away, because you want to be able to run tangents, and finding out if you should go left or right when you're 10 feet from the turn is waaay too late.  So, I waved my hands wildly for about 2 hours (fortunately, without back strain), and even recruited my red-socks legs just to make it more interesting.  It was fun to see in the back of the pack of the 5Kers, most of the halfers, and the front of the pack of the marathoners.  I wonder how far my arms ran, if you had put a gps or pedometer on my arms...

As I was leaving, I saw runners who had gotten caught behind a train... ouch.

Oct 28, Sunday:

Time for the last 20!!!  I really wasn't sure if I'd be able to run at all the night before and the day of, with how my left knee was whenever I tried to extend my lower leg.  But, somehow, praise God, I was able to run.  On long runs, you run slowly, and your legs stay more under you instead of over-striding, so it worked out.  I had 1 strawberry Clif Blok at mile 5, another at mile 10, and a Powerbar vanilla gel at mile 15.  I had water + lemon juice + salt at miles 2, 10, 15, and 18ish.  It rained for a couple of miles... way outer bands of Hurrican Sandy, I think.  It was also much windier than normal at times... not too bad, though.  It did get chilly during the rainy/windy part, but the sports bra was good the rest of the time.  So happy just to finish.  I also felt stronger at the end than I normally do.  Main bulk of training, DONE AND DONE.  Thank, you, God.

20.7 in 3:10:45, 9:12 ave.

And that brings us back to the pickles and good food.  The end.

In other exciting news, the stats tracker on Blogger showed exactly 1,000 [10/30/12 update - haha... read it wrong... it's actually 10,000 pageviews. I think it must be counting web crawlers, then] pageviews since whenever they started tracking.  Dunno what counts as a pageview.  Thanks for reading, everyone!  (all 5 of you, haha)