Training for 3/30/18

Yesterday evening, Clark and I took out the bikes for the first time this year. By the time we were ready to go, we had just enough time to get in the 18.6-mile loop before sunset.

It was still a warm evening, but breezy. Riding into it wasn’t much fun, but riding with it at our backs was — my Garmin said I was doing 23.5 mph when it was blowing with me, and it felt like I was barely trying.

Of course, the parts riding into it were much slower, and we finished the loop in just over an hour, an average speed of about 18 mph.

I could definitely tell I hadn’t done that in almost five months though. My quads were jelly! I’ve got some work to do before Eagleman. But everything on the bike worked fine, so that was good.

Today, it was supposed to cool down a bit, but it seemed almost as warm as yesterday, though quite a bit windier. I took Pepper with me for a short easy run.

We did the 4.5-mile loop. About two miles in, he found a really long stick he wanted to run with. It was light enough to pick up, but with the wind and everything, I really thought he’d give up trying to run with it.

Nope! He carried the stupid thing all the way home.

He was really pleased with himself too:

This weekend, Clark and I are meeting Kelly and another runner early tomorrow morning to knock out a 10-miler. My first double-digit run since Shamrock! I think almost two weeks of taking it easy has been sufficient. I’ve got several races coming up in the next couple of months. It’s time to get back into more mileage and I should probably throw some speed work in too starting next week.

Sunday is Easter and my 35th birthday. (April 1 was Good Friday the year I was born.) I’ll most likely do another short run in the morning before I make my annual appearance at church, and then we’ll have Easter dinner and birthday cake for my dad (his birthday is today) and me in the evening.

Training for 3/29/18

Today is pretty nice, finally! It’s in the mid 70s and sunny.

I went out for my run in the afternoon. It probably would’ve been a good run, except I ate a couple too many Cadbury Creme Eggs beforehand. And peanut butter M&M eggs. Damn Easter candy haha. The stomach problems didn’t hit until the last couple of miles. Unfortunately, by that point, there was nowhere to go to take care of it until I got home, so I walked a lot of that last stretch. I finished the 6.5-mile loop at a 9:20/mile overall average.

Clark is supposed to come home in time for us to take our bikes out for a short ride before sunset, the first time I’ll have ridden mine since early last November.

Training for 3/28/18

Yesterday, I took Pepper for another run. I can’t remember the last time he ran two days in a row with me, but he was going to have to stay home alone in the evening while I covered a meeting for the paper, and I didn’t want to deal with the guilt of locking him in the utility room twice in the same day, so my choices were not run or take him with me.

It had actually warmed up to kinda normal temperatures. I got to wear shorts and a T-shirt and Pepper didn’t need his dork jacket, a nice improvement over the day before.

We did a leisurely lap around the 4.5-mile loop. It took three miles for him to stop peeing on everything and get a split under 9:00 haha. In the end, we finished the loop at a 9:20/mile average.

He got a bunch of treats, and I only had to deal once with the crippling guilt from his reaction to realizing I was leaving him so, win-win.

Today, it’d been six days since my last rest day, I have yet another meeting to cover tonight for the paper and I didn’t want to make Pepper run three days in a row, so I took a day off running. I’m going to do a little strength training before I have to leave though.

Training for 3/26/18

I’ve done a few more short runs since I last posted.

Saturday, I ran the 4.5-mile loop with Clark and Pepper. Clark was setting the pace and Pepper was dragging me along to keep up — he didn’t stop to pee once, and he didn’t even try to turn around at what would’ve been the halfway mark if we’d been doing a 3-miler. We wound up finishing the loop in 38:09, an 8:28/mile pace.

That afternoon, Clark and I went to Dogfish Head for the Weekend of Compelling Ales and Whatnot. It’s been a few years since I made it to this; last year, I went to a wedding instead, and the year before that, they held it up in Wilmington for some reason.

The last time I went, they had food pairings with a couple of the tastings, but this year, they had food with every tasting but one. And these were pretty good-sized portions too — it was almost like a 14-course tasting menu.

Full-sized cherry turnover served with a dark cherry sour ale.

There were a few I gave to Clark. Basically, anything that tasted like brown liquor — two brown ales, one aged in scotch barrels and one in bourbon barrels, and a mixed drink made with Dogfish Head’s whiskey. Gross.

The rest of it was really good though! I think my favorite was In Your Mace, a stout with chili oils that gave it a little heat.

We even liked Liquor de Malt, a beer they only served from 40-oz. bottles and came with a serving of Frito pie:

After we finished our tastings there, we hit up Big Oyster in Lewes, got a pizza to go from Mr. P’s and went home.

Sunday was pretty lazy overall, though Clark did clean out his closet and dresser drawers for the first time since we moved into this house nearly 10 years ago. He pulled out a ton of old clothes to donate to Goodwill.

I also got the confirmation from my sister and brother that they’re in for the relay at Eagleman again, so I signed up the Swim-Bike-Runny Schmidts for our second crack at 70.3! Same as last year, Kara is swimming, I’m biking and Dave is running.

And I found they FINALLY acknowledged the relay teams and listed the results from last June’s race on the website! We were 13th of 60 teams (only 45 finished, however.)

My bike split was 2:58:05. I think this year, my goal is to take 10 minutes off that.

In the afternoon, I went out and ran another 3-miler by myself. The first mile was head-on into a pretty stiff wind, but the last two, it was either coming from the side or was pushing me. The splits reflected that — 8:56, 8:25 and 8:07, an overall overage of 8:30/mile.

Today, I did another 3-miler. I took Pepper with me. We saw our mail carrier, the one who’d stopped up here almost two months ago to ask why Pepper was so skinny. She was pretty happy to see him out running again, with a stick in his mouth. He had his dork jacket on (because it’s still stupidly cold here) but I told her he’d put a few pounds back on since the last time she saw him.

The rest of the run was uneventful and we finished it at a 9:26/mile average pace (there were copious pee stops during the first half today, without Clark to chase.)

After our run, we drove out to Goodwill to drop off the half-truckload of donations:

This was the first time I’d taken a receipt when they offered it. It was blank; apparently we’re supposed to fill it out with what we donated and what we think it was worth, then turn it in with our taxes (which I haven’t filed yet — gotta get on that.) It seems weird! Couldn’t we just write whatever we wanted on there and claim a bigger deduction?

Anyway, now we’re home again, watching the NASCAR race that was supposed to be run in southern Virginia yesterday, but had to be postponed because of SNOW. Go away, winter!

Training for 3/23/18

I’ve done a couple short, easy runs the last two days.

Yesterday, I took Pepper with me and we did a 3-miler at a 9:07/mile pace. It felt like the last three miles of the marathon Sunday. Well, not so much the stomach cramping, but my legs felt like lead and I was out of breath from the first step. The parts where we had to run head-on into the gusting wind wasn’t helping!

Then today, I left Pepper home and did a lap around the 4.5-mile loop by myself. I felt a little more normal for the first three miles, running around 8:40/mile pace. Then my guts started rumbling. I didn’t feel like stopping in the woods though, so I just walked a bit whenever it got bad. I made it the rest of the way home and finished the loop in 41:11, just about the exact same pace as I did with Pepper yesterday.

This weekend, I’d like to get in a short run each day. Tomorrow, we’ve got tickets for Dogfish Head’s Weekend of Compelling Ales And Whatnot tasting and food pairing event at the brewery in Milton, and then Sunday, there’s a NASCAR race in Martinsville to watch.

I hope the weather gets nicer soon! It’s at least not snowing anymore, but it’s still pretty cold, and this wind is getting on my nerves too.

Training for 3/22/18

Something pretty cool happened last night!

Around 8 p.m., the power went out (that’s not the cool part.) The roads were icy and slushy because of the freaking second-day-of-spring snowstorm and someone ran off the road into a utility pole. The only real bummer was that we were in the middle of making dinner, so no spaghetti for us, just a cold leftover chicken breast.

But we had plenty of candles to light the house, and plenty of beer in the fridge.

About two and a half hours and a few beers into the outage, the L.A. Marathon came up. Clark and I ran it together two years ago, his only marathon. It’s usually the same weekend as Shamrock, but in 2016, it had been a month earlier, so they could hold the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon the day before. Clark has always said he’d like to run L.A. again sometime, but I wasn’t interested, because that would mean missing Shamrock.

Well, I still get emails from the L.A. Marathon, and I’d gotten one yesterday announcing registration was open for 2019, and the date is the week AFTER Shamrock.

Clark and I are both already registered for Shamrock next year (he’s doing the Dolphin Challenge again, and I’m doing the Whale Challenge.) I’d texted him yesterday with the idea of doing L.A. too — the Dolphin Challenge could be his last two training runs for it — and all I got back were the wide-eyed emojis haha.

Turns out he was up for it! We both still had enough battery life in our phones to register.

That’s the cool thing that happened! Clark and I are running the L.A. Marathon together again March 24, 2019!

Hopefully, this time he won’t injure his foot two months before the race, so he can actually train for it. We put down 4:30 for our predicted finish times on the registration, which would be a nearly 90-minute improvement on 2016, but we’re both more interested in running it for fun again to see the sights along the very cool point-to-point course from Dodger Stadium to Santa Monica.

I’ve never done marathons on back-to-back weekends, so this will be something new. It’s still a year away, but I’m already looking forward to it!

Anyway… the snow quit falling sometime overnight and it’s warm enough today what did fall is melting away, though it’s still stupidly cold and windy for spring. I think I’ll go out this afternoon and get back to it with a short easy run.

Training for 3/20/18

Happy first day of spring! Technically, anyway. It’s pouring rain all day today and it’s supposed to snow tomorrow.

Not much to report. I’m still enjoying recovering from Shamrock. So here’s a picture of Pepper, curled up on his favorite blanket, waiting for spring to actually show up.

Speaking of Shamrock, I’m going to sign up for 2019 today, while the prices are at their absolute lowest (they go up at midnight.)

Whale Challenge recap

Well, the Shamrock Marathon did not go as I’d hoped — my finish time of 3:48:54 was several minutes off what I was aiming for after I fell apart in the second half — but I finished the Whale Challenge, Clark pulled off the Dolphin Challenge and we had a pretty good time doing it, so I’m still counting this weekend as a win.

We left home Friday afternoon. First stop was Dogfish Head in Rehoboth. For whatever reason, they gave free green Dogfish Head T-shirts to Mug Club members for St. Patrick’s Day, so we stopped by there to pick up ours. Of course we had to have a beer before we hit the road again.

We got to the convention center in Virginia Beach around 7:30 p.m., picked up our packets and checked in to our hotel, a Sheraton on 35th Street. I had paid for a cheaper room with a city view, but they put us in an oceanfront room, which was great. Overall, I loved the hotel — it was conveniently located between the start lines and near the finish line for both races, we got free breakfast in the on-site restaurant included in our room fee, they put out bananas and granola bars in the lobby for us before both races, parking in a covered garage was free and we got a late checkout so I could shower after the race Sunday. It was also way cheaper than any other hotel in the area when I booked it in December. Highly recommend it!

Anyway, after we got our stuff in our room, we went to Home Republic Brewing for a quick dinner and a couple more beers.

Saturday morning, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise.

It was pretty chilly Saturday morning, in the 30s, but there was hardly even a breeze, so it wasn’t bad at all.

We left the hotel with just enough time to walk the five blocks to the 8K start line. I was really glad my predicted finish time had landed me in the first corral — less time to wait around and get cold. At 7:30, we were off.

The 8K was the same as always — two miles south, get on the boardwalk, run almost two miles back north, run up Atlantic Avenue, get back on the boardwalk and run south to the finish line on 31st Street.

My splits were pretty consistent and I finished 4.97 miles in 38:49, a 7:49/mile average.

Photos were not free this year, unlike the last two years at Shamrock, so all I have from this year’s race are teeny screenshots of proofs.

I think this was in the first mile.

Coming to the finish line.

I picked up my first medal of the weekend, along with the can koozie they always give to 8K finishers, and headed straight back to the hotel. I watched runners streaming by below our balcony on their way to the finish line.

Clark arrived not long after, having finished the race in 44:01.

We got cleaned up, then took advantage of the free breakfast offer in the hotel’s restaurant, from which we could watch more runners finishing the race.

Then we hit the beer tent for our first four Yuenglings of the weekend. The past couple of years, since they upped the free post-8K beers to four, I’ve been pretty responsible and only had one or two, since I still had a marathon to run the next morning. This year however, no beer was left behind.

Honestly, I think this decision — and all the beer and wine I drank the rest of the day after it — was the root of the stomach problems I had all day Sunday, and I’m kicking myself. I should know better by now!

Anyway… that afternoon, we got lunch at this place called Taste Unlimited. I only had water there at least.

Later, we drove down to Green Flash Brewing Co.’s new Virginia Beach brewery and tasting room (it’s primarily located in San Diego.) I had a few there. Then we went to Smartmouth Brewing Co., where I had one more. And finally, we got dinner at Mannino’s, an Italian restaurant, where we split a bottle of wine.

I mean, I was drinking them slowly, and I was drinking water in between, but still. That’s too much booze the day before a freaking goal marathon I’ve been training for all winter. Dumbass.

We were in bed by 10 p.m. A few hours later, I woke up for the first time with an upset stomach. Just about every hour through the rest of the night, I had to run to the bathroom to poop. I was pretty mad at myself. I knew there was no way I was going to get through the marathon without problems, and it was all my fault.

All the poop trouble was making me way more anxious about the race, which was probably only adding to the poop trouble. A vicious cycle!

My alarm went off at 6:15. My stomach still felt gross — I had to go to the bathroom twice more before we left — and I really didn’t want to eat anything, but I forced down a bowl of cereal. I also took two Imodium and put two more in a pocket for halfway through the race.

We left the hotel around 7:15 and joined the stream of runners heading north to the start line on 42nd Street. It had rained overnight and was still overcast and a little breezy, but it was overall another nice day for a run.

The marathon was a lot different this year. In the past, it started 90 minutes after the half, at 8:30, and in a different spot. The half’s start line was the full’s halfway point.

This year, the half and full started together, an hour before the marathon used to start. We ran what used to be the second half first, with the half marathoners, then ran what used to be the first half.

It had its pros and cons. First, I loved starting an hour earlier; 8:30 a.m. always felt so late, especially for a marathon. I also liked getting Fort Story out of the way first, when there were more people around. When it had been miles 20 to 23, it felt endless.

Running past the lighthouse in Fort Story.

There were two big cons though. The whole way back toward the boardwalk, which was mile 10 through 12.7 for the half, the spectators were yelling “You’re almost there! Just a couple more miles to go!” Which was true for the majority of the runners, but not for a lot of us!

Then there was the split at mile 12.7. Oh my god. Pretty much every single runner near me turned left to go to the finish line, while I had to stay right toward the halfway mark. I felt like the last runner in the marathon! It went from throngs of spectators cheering on tons of runners to three spectators quietly clapping for me as I trotted by.

And I had my own troubles on top of that. The first half had gone well — I averaged an 8:18/mile pace and crossed halfway in 1:48:35, on track for a 3:37 finish. But I could feel the wheels already starting to come off as I passed the halfway mark, and I knew it was going to get ugly.

There was a water stop just past halfway. I took a cup of water and slowed to a walk to dig out the other two Imodium from my pocket. That took forever — they’re so tiny! Then I started running again. The course took us out to the boardwalk.

Running down the boardwalk, I felt my guts start rumbling. Just before mile 14, there was a port-o-potty off the boardwalk, down on the beach, probably put there by the city for public use. I ran down and used it. Guess what — no toilet paper! I had to make do with the cardboard roll, which was better than nothing.

I rejoined the race. I did feel a lot better after using the bathroom. Mile 14 was 10:47 with the bathroom break, but mile 15 sped back up to 8:17.

A little past 15, we left the boardwalk and headed toward the bridge over the Rudee Inlet. I saw the marathon leader on his way back around mile 15.5.

After that one last decent mile, I started slowing. I honestly never walked, other than while drinking water from the aid stations, but some of my later mile times look like I might as well have been walking!

First, my feet hurt like hell. I was wearing my 90th pair of Zantes, which I keep buying because my feet have always gotten along with them, but for whatever reason that was not the case in this race. My feet wanted OUT. Sorry, we’ve got 10 more miles to run!

But the main issue was my upper body. I never had to use the bathroom again, but I started getting horrible side stitches and stomach cramps, like I was dehydrated from drinking too much alcohol the day before or something. Go figure!

Miles 16 to 23 were still well under 9:00 each (except 22, when I walked to down my fourth and final GU of the race), but those last three — hoo boy.

Somewhere in the 24th mile, we got back on the boardwalk, rerunning the roughly two-mile stretch we’d run in the 8K (and had run the other direction right after halfway.) The wind had picked up enough to be a pain in the ass, and it was right in my face.

I was “running,” but it was a shuffle against the wind — mile 24 was 9:24 and mile 25 was 9:38! I swear I ran both of those. I was dying!

I took some water and Gatorade from the last aid station before mile 25, then started shuffling forward again toward the finish.

As I made the turn onto the boardwalk for the final stretch, I looked up at the Sheraton and saw Clark on our balcony, waving at me. I waved back and he started making a motion telling me to hurry up for the finish line haha.

I picked it up as best as I could. Mile 26 was 9:25, but that last .2 (which was .36 by my Garmin) was run at an 8:04/mile pace at least.

Running for the finish.

I crossed the line in 3:48:54 — a two-hour second half, 12 minutes slower than the first! Talk about positive splitting.

I’m not going to lie and say I’m not disappointed with my time. But it’s still another marathon finish — No. 18 to be exact — and not one of my worst, despite feeling like absolute shit the entire second half.

I collected my marathon finisher medal, this year’s finisher’s hat and beach towel, some food, water and Gatorade and finally my Whale Challenge medal. Then I booked it for the hotel — we had a noon checkout and it was already 11:24 a.m. since I’d taken my sweet time running the second half.

Clark had done well in the half, finishing in 2:06.

The hot shower felt great, other than the chafing from my sports bra band near the bottom of my sternum. I have no idea why that’s become a problem all of a sudden recently, but I even Body Glided that spot and it STILL chafed.

We were only a few minutes late checking out. We loaded up the car, then went to Pocahontas Pancake House for food. I was kinda hungry but my stomach still felt weird and nothing sounded appealing. I managed to get down about half of one of their absolutely amazing Belgian waffles though.

Then we went to the beer tent for the rest of our free Yuenglings. We each had four beer tickets on our bibs. By the time we got there, people had been leaving behind their unused tickets on tables for whoever wanted them. Then the volunteers stopped even collecting tickets — the more beer that got drank, the less they had to drag back through the sand.

This year’s sand sculpture.

We didn’t stay quite until they started kicking people out, but it was close. I got some iced coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts and we hit the road, driving out of town on the same road that had been miles 1 through about 5.5 of the races that morning.

When we got to Clark’s parents’ house to pick up Pepper, we wound up ordering pizza with them for dinner and staying until almost 11 p.m.

That was our weekend! Today is obviously a rest day. My legs aren’t that sore, but my upper body feels like I did a million crunches yesterday from all the cramping. I have an appointment later today to donate blood for the first time this year.

And now, the swag:

Finisher’s medals and bibs. My marathon and 8K medals each have the “legacy runner” pins they gave for the first time this year to runners who’ve done at least five consecutive years at Shamrock.

Race shirts (Clark’s half marathon shirt is short-sleeved; the marathon shirt is long-sleeved), finisher’s hats and 8K finisher’s koozies.

One of two finisher’s towels we brought home.

Finally, the stats:

Mine:

TowneBank 8K

• 38:49
• 13th/586 F 30-34
• 102nd/4462 female
• 476th/7347 overall

Yuengling Shamrock Marathon

• 3:48:54
• 21st/89 F 30-34
• 105th/592 female
• 403rd/1473 overall

Whale Challenge

• 4:27:43
• 1st/21 F 30-34
• 6th/103 female
• 29th/226 overall

Clark:

TowneBank 8K

• 44:01
• 79th/329 M 35-39
• 773rd/2884 male
• 1117th/7347 overall

Anthem Shamrock Half Marathon

• 2:06:30
• 182nd/295 M 35-39
• 1162nd/2158 male
• 1984th/5156 overall

Dolphin Challenge

• 2:50:31
• 27th/60  M 35-39
• 210th/505  male
• 341st/1302  overall

These were my last two races in the 30-34 age group!

Training for 3/15/18

It’s just about here — Shamrock!

The last of three medals I’ll get this weekend.

As planned, today is a rest day. No running. There is nothing left to do to physically get ready for this weekend.

We got our bib numbers a while ago, but today I finally got an email with my corral assignments. I’m in the first corral in the 8K, and the third in the marathon.

This is the first time the marathon and half marathon are starting together, so there are 11 corrals. I think there were just four when the marathon started by itself. It’s going to be weird to run what used to be the second half of the marathon, when it was usually pretty spread out and quiet, with so many people this time around, but I think it’ll be better to get Fort Story out of the way first.

I’m going to put this out there: I want to PR. My current PR is 3:40:44, set in this race — FIVE years ago! I really didn’t think that would stand for so long, but here we are.

I must have put down 3:30 as my projected finish time, an 8:00/mile pace. In December, I ran the half marathon in Rehoboth in 1:42, a 7:50/mile pace. (Actual running time was more like a 7:45/mile overall pace, but of course, they don’t pause the race clock for bathroom breaks.) Based on that, I think I’ll shoot for something around 3:35, 8:12/mile pace.

However, the 3:35 pacer is in the corral behind mine. The 3:25 pacer is in mine. So do I move back a corral, or start fast and try to hang on, which worked out pretty well in Rehoboth?

I think I’ll stay in the third corral. Because of the start with the much larger half marathon field, it’s going to be crowded. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble starting out easy.

And even if I wind up positive splitting the course, which I’ve always done in a marathon, I’ll have enough of a cushion I should land somewhere near 3:35 and most likely under 3:40 — PR!

What else? Oh yes, the weather. It looks MUCH better than last year! There’s rain in the forecast for Saturday, but not until after the 8K. It should also be cleared out by the time the marathon starts Sunday.

It will still be chilly — high of 45 Sunday — and on the breezy side, but no 20 mph headwinds and no freezing rain pelting me in the face sounds pretty sweet! I don’t expect to be complaining about the weather too much this weekend, for the first time in a few years.

It’s just me and Clark this year (he’s doing the 8K + half marathon challenge.) We’re heading to Virginia Beach tomorrow afternoon, staying at a hotel near the finish and 8K start lines (the half/full start line is seven blocks away) and coming back Sunday evening.

I guess that’s all there is to say at this point! I can’t wait to get this weekend rolling, and I really feel like I’ve got a good shot at my PR on Sunday. I will be back Monday to post all about it!

Training for 3/14/18

Today, I only had a 2-miler on a schedule, the last bit of training before Shamrock.

Pepper had an appointment to get his annual check-up in the afternoon. So I took my Garmin with me, and after his appointment, we walked a couple miles around Easton. He got to sniff and pee on a ton of new things, so it took a while, but it was more fun than a 2-mile out-and-back by myself on the road at home.

And that’s it! Tomorrow and Friday are rest days.