How Did I Do?

Time for the obligatory look back at 2009 and see how well I did in achieving the goals I set for myself a year ago. Surprisingly I accomplished very few of them. That's not to say my year hasn't been a success, though. It just means that it took a turn that I did not expect!

Here are the goals from a year ago and how I did.

Run the marathon that I trained for and finish it strong enough that I want to run another one.
-Yes!

Train for and run a second marathon.
-Did that too, although this one was almost 40 minutes slower than my first one.

Log at least 2000 miles.
-Checked that one off, too. I ran a grand total of 2146 miles.

Run a sub 30 minute 5K.
-I came close, ran a 31:05 AND placed first in my AG (only one in my age group)

Run a sub 60 minute 10K.
-Didn't even run a 10K this year, probably because I ran 5 ultras instead.

Stay injury free.
-Check.

Lose 10 pounds.
-Nope, but I didn't gain any weight, either.

As you can see, I did pretty well meeting my goals, but my running took a turn towards the darkside of running ultras, something I did not anticipate at all, but a turn I'm glad I took.

A Treat For My Readers

Since I am in the home state of Gayla Peevey, I am sharing my favoritest Christmas song. Enjoy!



Also, I finally got a hippopotamus for Christmas this year. My mom sent me a blue webkinz one :)

Maybe I Don't Suck

The last couple of weeks have not been good training weeks. Especially my long runs. Every time I run longer than 2.5 to 3 hours, I end up having to take walk breaks. This was not looking good for attempting a 4:45 marathon in Arizona in January. Then today I decided to do Yasso 880s. Basically Yasso 880s are half mile intervals at your goal marathon time. In other words, since my goal is a 4:45 marathon, I should run my half mile intervals in 4 minutes 45 seconds, or a 9:30 pace. I planned on doing 10 of them, but I had a back-up failure plan of backing off the pace if I needed to. I warmed up for a mile, then started. Since it was about 20 degrees outside, I did these on the treadmill. The first couple almost seemed easy, and even after 6 or so, I was still going strong. I finished the last of them at the same 6.3 mph on the treadmill and then finished at an easy run pace for a total of ten miles. A very successful workout that tells me one of two things. Either I don't suck as much as I thought I did, or the treadmill wasn't calibrated correctly. Either way, I still need to get in a couple of good, solid long runs in the next couple of weeks in order to meet my goal.

What Was That?

Either I ate something bad, or I had a some sort of stomach flu bug. Last night I woke up at 2:30 AM feeling terrible. I was drenched in a cold sweat, my stomach hurt, I was nauseous, and my bed was spinning like I had a three martini midnight snack. I managed to stagger to the bathroom where I spent about 30 minutes, and made it back to bed. This morning I was feeling better, but it was obvious my planned long run was not going to happen today. But then I got to thinking. I've read a lot of 100 mile race reports and talked to a couple of 100 mile veterans. There will be a 99.9% chance that at some time during my 100 mile run attempt next year, something will go wrong. It may be blisters, it may be muscle cramps, it may be fatigue, it may be nausea, but at some point, I'll have to make myself continue when either my mind or body is telling me to quit. So, I decided today would be a perfect time to make myself run while not feeling 100%. The run totally sucked, but I did it. My pace was slower than my slow run pace while my heartrate was faster than my tempo heartrate. However, I managed to slog 4.11 miles in 50 minutes. I'd like to report that the run made me feel better, it didn't, but at least it didn't make me feel any worse. Tomorrow, the long run is back on the schedule.

TWO THOUSAND MILES

I did it, met another one of my goals. With my run this morning, I now have a grand total of 2005 miles for the year, and there are still three weeks of running left. The bad news is, this was the view for my 2000th mile.



I'm in Wichita, KS and the windchill is a bone-numbing MINUS 2 degrees. I have to pack four days worth of stuff in one rollie bag for my trips and that doesn't leave much room for cold weather running gear. Not that I would have run in this cold even if I had a parka, snow boots, and full face mask with me!

Pine Mountain 40 Volunteer Report

Yesterday I got to spend some time freezing my buns off and cheering about 100 runners making their way through the trails at the FDR State Park near Pine Mountain, Georgia. I do have to say, volunteering at an ultra run is as much fun as running one (minus the endorphin rush of course). I got a really cool fleece cap, got to eat good quality junk food and awesome chili, got to cheer on some amazing runners, and soaked up as much ultra running information as I could from very experienced people.

There were four of us working the Rocky Point aid station which was the 17.5 and 24.5 mile point for the runners. Our supplies had been delivered earlier, so we just spread out the bounty and then waited for the runners to arrive. My job was to write down the times that runners arrived and to take pictures with my IPhone. While waiting, I got to talk to Mike who has run several 100 mile races. I soaked up as much information as I could and added another "easy" race to my list of possibles for my 100 mile attempt next year. So far the list includes Lean Horse, Heartland, Javelina Jundred, and now Burning River.

Soon the runners started arriving. Since the leaves had fallen already (and were covering the numerous rocks and roots) we could see them approaching from 100 yards away. We gave them welcoming whoops, then saw to their needs and sent them on their way. Most looked great, but there were a lot of bloody knees and more than one twisted ankle, but all them continued through our station. Apparently there were some stream crossings on the loop that went out to the TV tower and returned seven miles later. The first couple runners complained about the 4 stream crossings, but that increased every time someone came through, I think we reached a high of 20 stream crossing by the time the last runner returned. Kind of amazing what ultra running does to math skills.

Another thing I noticed was that no matter how bad someone looks, there is no telling when they will get a second wind. We had one dude come through that looked like death warmed over, just a few minutes ahead of cutoff. But, his spirits were good and he was quickly on his way. Later after we shut down the aid station and headed for the finish line, we got to see him finish well ahead of the cutoff and with a smile on his face. Another gal came into the station talking like she wanted to drop. She looked great and we were able to talk her out of it and she also finished under 10 hours.

I got to see some familiar faces, DavidRay, Susan, and Rob, and also got to meet some new people. This race looked like so much fun, I may have to run it next year. That is getting to be a problem, so many fun races, so little time, a wonderful problem to have.