It sure has been a while since I last blogged! One main reason being, I now have a job again! The days when I could just fit in 3 workouts a day and still be able to sleep 8+ hours are over! My life of a pro triathlete wanna be is done – at least for now. My mission however continues! J
My new routine that I am trying to get into ROCKS!!!!! Or maybe not so much as 4:55 am alarm clock every morning comes way too fast! I get in either my bike or swim workouts done before I leave for work around 7 am. My commute to and from work can be anywhere from an hour and 15 min to 2 hours depending on the traffic! My bum hurts and my eyes cringe as I am typing the word “traffic”. Then if I can’t squeeze my run in at lunch, I end up running when I get home which is usually after 7 pm, and the rest is history. Pack the bags for the next day, and do it all over again. Then there are days like today, when you just want to scream!!!!!!! I really just wanted to get to work on time but the idiot with the blue camry had other plans!
Needles to say, I made it to work an hour late after the lady behind me left!
Few things I learned today:
· Meter maids in Boston only work when they want to! They give tickets 10 minutes after midnight for a registration that just expired on previous day, they will write you a ticket if you are 30 seconds after your meter expired, but when over 50% of the car is parked on a side walk all night and morning, they do not care!
· A car even though illegally parked cannot be towed without a ticket or else whoever calls to tow the car has to pay $75!!!!!
· It takes Boston police at least an hour to switch shifts, so if you are up to no good, anytime between 7 am and 8am is the time to do it! Just Czech your nearest Dunking Donuts!
· Next time – I may not be as patient!!!!!!
· And finally, I would really LOVE to meet the dumbass that “moved” my car into the SUV behind me even though I had my parking brake on, and then proceeded to back their car into me but still ended up being parked half way on the sidewalk! What was the rational behind their move?
Needles to say, weekends can’t come fast enough, which finally brings me to the Hyannis Half Marathon I ran this past weekend!
It was my first open half marathon ever, and even though I should have been excited to test my running fitness, I really wasn’t all that into it. The timing really just couldn’t be any worse. I had just started my new job 2 weeks ago, travelled much of the 1st week, and spend the rest of the time trying to go to bed at a normal hour so that the 4:55 am (not 5:00 am) wake up call, doesn’t scare the crap out of me too much. I had just finally gotten rid of a cold, and so my energy levels weren’t exactly there. I mean what should I expect after 2 weeks of consistently getting anywhere between 5-6 hours of sleep. The weather forecast wasn’t exactly favorable, and all I wanted to do was sleep in! Not this Sunday.
Good thing was, the 7 am wakeup call actually felt like sleeping in! The weather condition however made me want to go back to bed! It wouldn’t be winter 2011 if we didn’t have another snow storm! In any case, I had my usual breakfast – bagel with almond butter and jelly roughly about 3 hours before the race start and then drove down to the Cape with my friend Rod. We got to Hyannis about an hour before the race, but the last stretch proved to be deadly! We ended up parking almost a mile away from the start so we could even make it to the start line on time. The start was about a mile away. Minor glitch was – we didn’t have our numbers yet! My friend Jim picked them up for us but we didn’t find him till about 5 min before the race started! Being a rookie, I kept wondering, where the timing chip was, and since I thought they didn’t give us one, I started to think more and more that this race is just going to turn into a training run.
The race had close to 4,500 participants between the 10K, ½ marathon, and full marathon so the start was quite crowded. The weather itself really couldn’t be any better – you guessed it. It snowed, rained, and snowed on and off again pretty much the entire time except for the last 3 or so miles. You gotta love running with soaking wet feet!!!! Is it spring yet?
None less my competitive drive and adrenalin took over, and off I went. The 1st mile was a mess of dodging people, and puddles! The plan was to run 7:30s or so for the first 3 miles, then drop it down and settle into race pace at 7:15s, and the last 3 miles bring it home! My running inexperience showed through very quickly! In triathlon by the time you get to the run, people are scattered all over the place and you are not being crowded. You don’t have to negotiate your route, or worry about getting tripped or tripping people. You don’t hear other people’s breath trying to either keep up with you or pass you. Since my first mile ended up being an easy 7:40, I decided to speed up … to hell with 7:30’s why not sub 7:10s!!!! Miles 2 through 7 were awesome! I wasn't really pushing the pace (okay – maybe a little bit), I was feeling great and I was running just below my targeted 7:15s. I only looked at my watch when I heard the beep! I kept seeing sub 7:10s and I was still feeling great. I felt AWESOME and began to have thoughts of actually running sub 1:35!
Then Mile 8 came, and my legs just decided to quit! I was in the hurt locker for the rest of the day. I was just trying to hold on! When I saw mile 8 click of at 7:30 pace, my positive attitude took turn for the worse! I started to play mind games with myself, and I tried to focus on the positive. I “tried” to follow a girl that went by me or at least keep her in my sights, but that didn’t last long! There were few rollers on the back end of this course – nothing major at all, but those bumps hurt! And no – you really can’t even call them hills! The mind games continued … It was at about mile 11 or so when we went by the BTT tent again, and that is where coach Jorge was! It was the last 3 miles when it was time to suck it up and as he put it go "nuts". He ran with me for a few yards, and yes – that actually gave me a bit of energy to try to go faster, but unfortunately that didn’t last long. I went "nuts" but my splits didn't quite show it! No excuses, just a statement here – at this point my feet were soaking wet, and frozen, and my legs were hurting! My right quad and left calf felt like they were both about to cramp up, and I really couldn't wait to be done. I tried to keep telling myself that I feel GREAT, but my legs just didn't want to listen. I was pushing hard, but my damn legs were not moving. Totally 100% my fault and looking back at it now – STUPID, STUPID, STUPID mistake, I didn’t take in any nutrition at all. I was running out of energy fast! I was going to take a gel at about the 1 hour mark which is what I normally do on long training runs, but I didn't do my homework and had no idea where the water stops where. The idea of actually spilling any water on my frozen self was enough to make me run the entire race without taking any fuel in! Just call me STUPID!!!!! I could have used the extra kick for the last 3 miles to say the least.
I went through 13.1 miles at 1:35:45, but my official time is 1:36:20 (13.2 miles from my garmin) so roughly around 7:18, 7:17 pace.
Overall, as much as I was dragging the race, and it wasn’t the greatest timing, I am very glad I did it. I learned a few things, and I will never NOT fuel again! I mean I held on to that freaking gel long enough!!!!
I spent the winter really just building up my mileage while running at an EZ (7:45 – 8:00) pace. I have yet to do any speedwork, and last time I ran remotely close to my avg. pace was back in November in Clearwater. I believe as I keep running more and build my mileage, I should be able to keep the sub 7:10 pace for the entire race and one day I will be running sub 7s – I know it! There is more work to be done folks and I am ready to take my running to the next level. J
As far as my splits go you can see, I hit a wall at mile 8 - gigantic wall, but I am happy that I let my pace slip to 7:20s and 7:30s and not any further. You can also see I kept trying to pick up the pace, but really wasn’t able to hold it for very long hence the toggle between 7:30s and 7:20s. Like I said – I was trying to speed up.
Mile 1: 7:40
Mile 2: 7:10
Mile 3: 7:04
Mile 4: 7:10
Mile 5: 7:09
Mile 6: 7:08
Mile 7: 7:06
Mile 8: 7:30
Mile 9: 7:22
Mile 10: 7:24
Mile 11: 7:30
Mile 12: 7:20
Mile 13: 7:32
Mile 14: 6:32
And how did I compare to the rest of the peeps?
Overall: 246th place out of 2,689 (Top9%)
Females: 60th out of 1,156 (Top 5%)
Females 30-39: 19th out of 456 (Top 4.5%)
And if we went by the triathlon age groups:
Females 30-34: 11th out of 245 (Top 4%)
And because I can, there were 54 30 year old chicks competing and I came in 3rd! J
Sub 1:30 I am gunning for you! For now, I pretend like my legs are fine, when I can barely straighten them! My quads and hammies are garbage and I strongly dislike the foam roller or really anything else that is suppose to help speed up the recovery proces! I am living in the my awesome Zoot Recovery Tights! Till next time! J
