Maybe Better than a Skort...

I really like running skorts. Girly, and functional. I've had issues with the waistbands on these beauties. I like my pants / shorts / skirts and skorts to fall below my bellybutton. The jeans I wear are usually the low-rise style from Old Navy. I have a few pair of Ultra low-rise, but seriously, I've had two kids - depending on where my tops fall, no one needs to see that... Most of the skorts I have tried out have had extremely high waists - Not good. I'm considering taking three that I have to the tailor to have them adjust the rise. It would be worth the investment...

A few weeks ago, I decided to give boardshorts a try. These are like boys swimming trunks, but there are some made for girls by brands like Roxy



They are made for the water, so they dry out really quickly. Another bonus: the pair I have is loaded with pockets - there is a place for my car key... And come to the knee - there's no short creep there.

They aren't as girly as I would like, but they did the job. I wonder if I could find a pink pair.

****

As far as my running goes. Still hanging tough and sticking to my training plan. well, okay, I ran an extra three miles on Monday for a total of eight, but other than that I've been sticking to my plan. I swam some last night for cross-training. Nothing crazy there. My office is moving and Tuesday afternoon we were moving furniture - Lots of lifting - kinda like cross-training.

This morning I had speedwork on the schedule. I am really enjoying that aspect of the training. And for the first time in three weeks - I ran my Thursday run on Thursday. No misplaced run this week.

Saturday morning I am meeting the Team in Training crew for a group run at the Cady Way Trail.

So far, so good!

Marathon Training Week Two

Week Two was relatively uneventful, but there were a few highlights. I ran a total of 20 miles, because as I mentioned, I was going to try really hard to stick to the training schedule because I have many many long runs ahead of me.

Cross Training on Wednesday didn't happen. It's still dark when I get up and even with the pool light, I'm creeped out to swim in the dark. I'm really thinking that for Wednesdays I might need to get some sort of video workout - I can't find my super old Tae Bo VHS tape (yes, it's that old) and my husband told me the VCR wasn't even hooked up.

We went to Animal Kingdom and the Magic Kingdom on Sunday, so if walking and walking and walking counts as Cross Training ( I'm maybe thinking not...) Sunday I was active - meaning I wasn't sitting on the couch all day...

I had another misplaced Thursday run. I ran that one on Friday instead. I really need to get in the habit of making that happen on Thursday. As I get into the higher milage weeks, I think that rest day on Friday will become more and more important.

Friday I did my first experiement with speedwork - on the treadmill. I ran my standard pace of 7.0 mph and for the speedy part I moved it up to 8.0 mph. I'm not so sure that's fast enough? Any ideas?

Saturday, I met the team for the group run. The majority of the people had a four mile run scheduled. I had a six mile run scheduled. There were no problems at all and I actually felt really strong out there. The coach was running a lot of out and backs to make sure he had an opportunity to chat with most everyone. He met up with me with a little less than a mile to go. He's a little faster than me, but I was able to keep up and it really felt great. I think that with enough push I could maintain that pace for much longer, I just have a tendency to slow down, which means I am not putting everything I have into it. And I really want to. another thing to work on.



My iPod Sport kit isn't calibrated correctly. It runs behind on my treadmill, and runs ahead on the road. For five miles inside, it runs about .12 miles behind. After honest miles (according to the trail markers) My iPod said 6.4 miles. What????

I think next week I will need to calibrate again on the trail rather than the treadmill.

I'm feeling like I need a longer run. The longest run I have had in May was the 15k at the begining of the month. With today's run still ahead of me, I may go longer than the scheduled five. No harm in that, right?

3 X 20 = Too Much?

Irish Blue and Lisa asked me to share with them the training plan I had. Which I did. TheTeam in Training Coach had given everyone a beginners and intermediate training schedule. I mde the decision that I would use the intermediate schedule because it was closer to my skill level.

I started thinking about the schedule yesterday and the fact that there are three 20 mile long runs on the schedule. The first one is on week 13, the next one is at week 15 and the final 20 mile run is at week 20.

I met another runner at kindergarten graduation last night. She is the sister of one of the other moms, and everyone kept saying we should met... It turns out she is the team captain for the summer Team in Training program. I mentioned that I had three 20 mile runs on my schedule and she said she had never heard of anything like that before.

So, here's the deal. I'm not complaining about this. If I have to run three 20 milers before the race and it will make me a better runner in San Francisco, then I'm totally cool with that and up to the challenge. I would rather be prepared when I running the marathon, as opposed to struggling my way through it. But if I'll be running 20 miles three times just for the sake of running 20 miles, than why?

Any thoughts on this one?

Marathon Training Week One

First of all, if you haven't seen Petra's latest post, check it out! You will never believe what our Rockstar accross the pond did this weekend. You Go Girl!

My training went really well this week.

I ended up with a 7.25 long run yesterday. I was thinking about running more - my shcedule called for a measly five miles. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought that there will be plenty of long, long, long runs in my future and I would be happy with a short long run (The best oxy-moron of all time...)



I was supposed to run five miles on Thursday. The alarm was set, my running clothes were laid out and waiting. The alarm went off at 4:30 AM and I made it out of bed at 6:00 AM.

So what happened?

About a year ago my alarm clock broke. In a pinch, I started using my cell phone. Over the course of a couple of weeks, I went to Target on several occaisions to gt an alarm clock. I would go during lunch and know that there was something I needed. I got soap, shampoo, birthday presents, bathing suits for the kids whatever, but I always forgot the alarm clock. I soon figured out that cell phone worked good enough.

Thursday morning I was dreaming I got a phone call. No wonder I didn't get up. I made up the run on Friday, which was technically a rest day. I'm not going to count that as a missed run, but maybe a misplaced run.

Because I have generally had my long runs on Sunday, I woke up this morning feeling a little empty. One of those "So, now what..." types of feelings. I had all this pent up energy and I wanted to do something, so I decided to do a little cross-training. I swam laps in the pool. My pool is on the smallish side. I can get about six strokes in before I reach the wall. But it beats no pool at all. I swam for about 30 minutes. And I felt pretty good about doing that.

The saga continues as we head into Week Two!

Mother's Day and Marathon Training

I had a fantastic Mother's Day weekend. I didn't really touch on it in my last post, but it was really a fantastic weekend. The kids (with Darrell's help) suprised me with an iPod Nano - pink of course.


My crew

No one was sure exactly what I needed or wanted to go with it, so Monday I bought the Nike Sport Kit and the Arm Band. What fun toy. I uploaded my morning run to the Nike site tonight. I wish I had data from yesterday, but that's okay.

Kevin - did you really email my husband? It seems like you two were thinking alike...

Two days into my official training I am enjoying the structure. I have a feeling that I would have "been too tired" to run this morning, but I got up and had five miles in the books - before 6:15 AM. I have a purpose and a goal and if the schedule says to run, then I will have to get up early and run.

My training schedule calls for cross-training on Wednesdays. Hmmmm. I haven't decided what I'm going to do about that. Tomorrow my plan is to calibrate my iPod accessories - it was about a tenth of a mile off after 5 miles this morning. Which means, I will run 1 mile and walk 1 mile - technically not really cross training... I was thinking about swimming when I get home tomorrow night. Another option is Tae-Bo. If anyone has any other ideas, I'm open to them.

Thursdays call for speed work. I've never done that before. But I am excited at the prospect of getting faster. I have never done it before and feel a little lost on where to start. Thursday is 4 x 400 - no track in sight so my plan is figure out a quarter mile outside and take my run outdoors... Again, suggestions welcome...

One thing I am planning for is success!

Getting Ready

Yesterday was the official Kick-off meeting for Team in Training. My marathon training officially begins tomorrow.

Instead of the ten miles I had thought about, I decided for a moderate three. It's mother's day and I wanted to chill out a little too.

The program on paper looks like a lot. Okay, it's 754.2 miles between May 14th and October 21st. Did you really think I wouldn't add it up?

I haven't participated in a structured training schedule in a year and a half. I have been able to keep up with my long runs, even through last summer with all of my planned races sooooo far away.

There are some things I will have to adjust. According to the training program the long runs are on Saturday, I have traditionally run long on Sunday. and taken Monday as a rest day. I'm sure that will be a relatively easy switch.

Some concerns are the seven, eight and nine mile runs scheduled on Thursdays. That doesn't happen until late in the summer, August maybe... I'll cross that bridge when I get there.



I'm really excited as this gets underway. I am looking forward to working hard, running strong and staying healthy.

This is going to be a truly amazing time.

And I'm glad you will all be along for the ride

San Francisco here I come!

Three - Double - Oh

I probably wouldn't have run on Monday anyway. When I have a long run on Sunday, I take Monday as a rest day. Good thing because somehow I turned the alarm off. The whole house overslept. Darrell woke me up with a startling "MADDY" at 6:45 AM - somehow the kids were out the door on time and no one was late.

I was planning on running Tuesday, but I was having trouble getting out of bed. I was determined to get a run in, so I had my sights set on Tuesday night. After work I had to stop by the grocery store. By the time I got home and got something to eat, it was almost time to but my daughter to bed. No time to run...

I knew this morning was out. The insurance company nurse was coming to my office this morning to take blood to make sure I qualified for suplemental life insurance. That meant no eating or drinking after mindnight. That meant no run this morning.
o
Tonight, I flew out of the office, headed home and ran 5 miles. That put me just over the 300 mile mark for the year.

I thought I would be at this point sooner, but I'm okay with that.

The kids will be out of school in just a few weeks. That means they'll be sleeping in, or at least not be on a tight schedule to eat, get dressed and get to shcol. That will give me the flexibility to run further in the mornings - and maybe get an extra fifteen minutes of sleep myself.

The Team in Training Kickoff is Saturday. The "coach" will be there and I'll get my training schedule. Depending on what the schedule looks like with regards to "group runs" I might run a 5k across the lake in Leesburg on the 19th. One of the few races close to my house. It would be a shame to miss it, but I also understand the importance of building community with the team.

Women Run the World Race Report

This weekend took a great deal of coordination. Darrell's best friend celebrated his birthday on Thursday and Darrell asked me if he could go to North Port for the weekend to see his friend. I reminded him that I had already registered for the 15k. Darrell dropped our son off to spend the weekend with his sister in New Port Richey on Friday afternoon. I dropped our daughter off at my dad's last night.

I don't know why, I was surprised that everything fell into place so easily

Friday my daughter and I headed out to the Expo to pick up my race packet we looked at everything there was, and she had a chance to play Dance Dance Revolution at the New Balance booth (After I signed a liabilty release...) We headed to Downtown Disney and ate dinner at Wolfgang Puck's. It was a really fun girl's night!

Last night, after dinner out with my friend Colleen, I laid out my clothes
for this morning. It occured to me that I hadn't gotten my key holder. I tore the house apart and I couldn't find it. Unfortunately, I don't have a key that you can just tie to your shoe. I drive a Volkswagen and the keyless entry and key is combined and the key folds in with the press of a button. It's really convenient for storing in my purse, it is not convenient for runnning. And with no pockets, I was getting concerned.

I remembered that there was a baggage drop off and claim feature at the race. I did that. checked a backpack so I had somewhere for my key to live while I was running.

I made it to bed at 10:15 PM last night. an hour later than I had planned, although I knew I would never make it to bed by 9:15 PM. The alarm went off at 3:55 AM. The roads to the Animal Kingdom were going to start closing at 5:45 and I wanted to be sure I had enough time to check my bag, and make one last bathroom stop.

I woke up and was out the door at 4:30 AM. Everything went as planned and I arrived without incident.

During the first mile, I was wondering I my hamstring was going to hold up. It didn't hurt, per se, bu it is still not 100%. I would say, it's between 80 - 85%.

Days like today (when I'm not running on the treadmill) I wish I had a Garmin. I would love to report my splits, but I have no way to track them. I need to read the manual that came with my watch.



It was an extremely humid morning. The course started in the parking lot of Animal kingdom and headed to the entrance to Wide World of Sports and it we made a U-turn heading back the way we came. At that point a guy (there were 109 of them registered) directly behind me started coughing. And coughing. And coughing. Thinking of how awesomely classy Susan was yesterday, I was paying more attention to this guy. After a few minutes, I turned and asked if he was alright. He said it was his asthma and the humidity. We talked for a minute as we ran along and I wished him luck and I was off. - He beat his asthma - TI saw him after he finished the race.

The course made a few more turns and we were inside MGM Studios and running through the costuming tunnel that is part of the Backlot Tour we wove through the park and as we neared the path that would take us to EPCOT there was a water stop, where I proceeded to get powerade up my nose. I laughed and just kept on running.

As we got to the Boardwalk area there were at least ten hot air balloons in the sky, it was so neat to see that.

We ran in through the back of EPCOT straight into England. We crossed the bridge and we were in France. The moon was still in the sky, I saw one hot air balloon and the Eifell Tower. I wish I had a camera, it was breathtaking.

I cruised through the rest of "the world" and worked my way toward Spaceship Earth ( the big EPCOT ball) and I kicked it up for the last .3 miles - One of my late race goals was to pass the Race-walking man that got past me in Italy. I passed him with .1 mile to go.

My final time was slower than I had hoped: 1:35:08 - A new official 15K PR. 1 minute and 18 seconds faster than last year. (but slower than my half marathon 15k split.

And how it all breaks down? Pretty Darn Good:

Age Group: 116 out of 334 - 34.73 Percentile

Gender: 508 out of 1,882 - 26.99 Percentile

Overall 543 ou of 1,991 - 27.27 Percentile

Yay!

Falling Short

I was aiming for 100 miles in April. I fell short by 27 miles. Was my goal too lofty? I think not. I missed a long run one weekend in the midst of six days with no running at all.



I have a feeling that with my training over the next several months, I will be running my fair share of miles.

This week, has been pretty good. Four miles yesterday, at 6.5 MPH and three miles this morning at 6.7 MPH. My hamstring has been feeling somewhat better. I have been using the foam roller quite a bit and I took Shirley's advice and have worked on shortening my stride. Between the stride adjustment and the roller, things are looking good bright for Sunday.

Last year I finished the inaugural race in 1:36:26. My 15k split from the Disney Half Marathon was 1:31:50. I think it will be interesting to see where I end up Sunday morning. Of course I will provide a full race report.