Run the Rock Race Report

Last Saturday I ran the Run the Rock 50k in Smith Rock State Park, just outside Bend, Oregon. My hubby and I arrived in Bend on Thursday. We went to check into our VRBO, and realized quickly that I’d messed up the dates on my reservation, we were supposed to be checking in on Friday! Whoops. It turned out to not be a big deal. I quickly booked a hotel room online, and we got checked into our hotel. We had a fantastic dinner out, and a pretty relaxing evening.

Boston Marathon Week Part 1

I’ve been back for a week, and still have not written my recap… life has been crazy busy, but I need to get this done before my memory fades!  Luckily I took about 1,000,537 photos, so that should help.  I’m planning to break this into two posts, one as a summary/recap of all the not-the-marathon stuff that we did, and a marathon recap.  First up, the not-the-marathon!

Calgary Marathon Training

I get lots of questions about my training, so I thought I’d summarize my training over the last few months, and reflect back on what I did, why, and what I might do differently.  I feel like it would be a good exercise in growth for me too, so here goes.

Surfers Point Marathon; the marathon I didn’t train for.

I ran a marathon this past weekend that I didn’t train for.  Ok, YES, I know, I’ve been running  a crap-ton all summer.  So you’re probably wondering, how could this be defined as NOT training.  Yes, I’ve been training, I trained all summer for the Grizzly 50k, but I did not train for this marathon.  Same thing/close enough/ etc?  Right?  Perhaps, and I wondered going in if the two might be close enough.  After all, I’ve been working my tail off to get in pretty good shape this summer, and I think I AM in pretty good shape, in many ways, the best shape of my life.  So I thought an experiment was in order, I ran my PB (Personal-Best) marathon last fall, after training really hard for that marathon, and doing all the typical runs and volume building that a typical marathon training plan has in it.  I ended up having the flu on race day, I woke up with a fever, popped some drugs and ran the race anyway.  I felt pretty horrible during the race, but I survived, and ended with a pretty damn good time, one that I would have been happy with on a healthy day.  So this fall after the Grizzly 50k, I wondered to myself, could I run a marathon as fast, could I run faster?  I feel stronger, I know I’m stronger, but how will that translate in a race?  So what better to do than to put myself to the test, right? Right… (Note: it was a very painful test, next time I’m finding someone else to actually RUN the test 😉 )

Elephant Mountain Race Report (and Phoenix Vacay)

This one is a long time in coming, I’ve been a total slacker blogger lately, and as usual, my “excuse” is running, and family, so no apologies here!  Our family vacation in February was a trip to Phoenix for 10 days.  To say that I was excited to have a week and a half of warm desert running and family time is a bit of an understatement!

Stubborness is my Superpower (my Okanagan Marathon Race Report)

We all have some sort of superpower don’t we?  Something that we are really good at.  My daughter Maiya has an amazing imagination, not just a typical 4 year old imagination, but a super fantastic, amazing imagination.  One of my friend’s sons’ superpower is empathy, he feels really deeply for others.  Well mine is stubbornness.  Is this a good quality?  Well, it worked out in my favor this past weekend…

Marathon Training Update!

Two days in a row, I must be on some sort of a blogging roll!! 🙂 Well, I figured it had practically been forever since I had last updated you on my marathon training progress… so here goes!  The last time I posted an update on my training I was just finishing week 4.  I’m now finished week 7 of the Pfitz 12-55 schedule, and feel like I’ve hit the home stretch!

Strength Training on vacation

I had the morning to myself with the girls while my parents went golfing. Maiya wanted to watch something on TV and Olivia was napping when I decided I should take advantage of the few moments when no one needed me. I obviously couldn’t run as I don’t have a treadmill and can’t leave the house. I haven’t been to the gym since before I left Calgary and don’t have any weights here. (I’m on vacation visiting my parents in Florida with my girls). I decided to do a quick google search to find a bodyweight routine that I could do. This is the one I picked to do.

It was a great routine to get my heart going and targeted my glutes, calves, and abs, all areas that I like to focus on to keep injuries at bay!

We are headed back to the beach and marina this afternoon :). I’m looking forward to spending a few hours in the sun!

Long running on vacation …..

The schedule that I’m loosely following (Train like a Mother’s HM Own It) had me running a 11 mile long run this weekend. I’m not rigidly following the plan, especially for these two weeks that I’m on vacation but I do think that there it is important to do a few key workouts and skip lesser ones. Long runs are obviously key as they get your legs used to running longer distances. So as much as I would have rather gone to the beach with my daughter this morning, I had my parents drop me off at a park to do my long run.

We had been to the park earlier in the week so that Maiya could play at the awesome playground. I had noticed a paved bike trail and thought that it might work to run on. I hadn’t looked very closely at how long it was or where it went but thought I’d figure it out as I went along.

When I arrived at the park this morning and looked at the path again, I quickly realized that it was only about 200m long and would not work as a running route. Luckily this park was in a nice neighborhood and there was a bike lane along the road. I hid an extra water bottle in the park and set off. The first few km’s were along a road that went towards the Westin hotel. I veered into a neighborhood and ran until I got to 5 km’s. I wanted to run back to my starting point to refresh my water and have a pit stop. I was maintaining a really good pace and was feeling pretty good. I got back to the washrooms and my water at 10k and felt super hot. I rinsed my face off in the bathroom and filled my water bottles. I also ate the honey stinger waffle that I had brought for fuel. I don’t usually take in fuel during HM training runs but thought with the heat I needed all the advantages I could get. I really dislike gels and most other forms of fuel, but the honey stinger was awesome!! It tasted like a cross between a cracker and waffle/pancake with syrup or honey on it.

Apparently Lance Armstrong is was a sponsor of honey stinger 🙂

When I started out I felt quite perky again. This time I ran out to the Westin and entered the grounds. I managed to find about 3.5 km’s of distance in their grounds and then left and headed back to the park. At 15k I noticed that my average pace was below 6:00/km. it was then my goal to keep it there. I finished the run in 1:44 and had a total distance of 17.5 km’s for a pace of 5:57! Here is the link to my dailymile entry. All in all I’m thrilled with the run.

While I was running my parents took Maiya and Olivia to the beach. Maiya had a blast making sand castles. Olivia wasn’t as happy. I am suspecting that she’s going through the 6 mos growth spurt as she’s been ravenous lately. She is also struggling to nap well with all the activities that we are dragging her along on.

She was a happy camper once she got home and got to eat!

Vacation!

My girls and I flew to Florida on Wednesday morning. We are visiting my parents, who are down here. The original plan was for me to fly down by myself (eeeeeek!), luckily Anne (my MIL) was going down to NH where my SIL and family live, so she managed to book her trip with the same first flight as us to Chicago. It was great having someone to help with all our luggage through customs and security, and then to help entertain and cuddle the girls during the flight 🙂

From Chicago she went on to Boston, and the girls and I to Fort Myers.

I didn’t run on Wednesday (we were up and the crack of dawn – actually way before the crack of dawn) or on Thursday (I was exhausted and we were just busy doing vacationy type things). Today (Friday) I got my first vacation run in. Yay!! It was a great run. I don’t know the are we are staying in very well yet and didn’t want to drive anywhere. I measured out the block around the house and it was about 2.5 km’s on google. Perfect – that’s a decent length, so I thought I could do 2-3 laps and get a good distance in before I went crazy going in circles, and there would be little risk of getting lost. I ended up running it 3x’s for 8km’s. there has been a bit of a cool spell lately so the temp this morning was just 8C (46 F) when I started. Great weather for a run! Here is a link to my run.

I’m planning on running my long run on Sunday on a bike path we were at yesterday. I’m scheduled for 18 ish km’s. That will just make 3 runs this week compare to the 6 I’ve typically been running each week. I’m ok with that. It’s vacation and I’m also taking it easy and spending time with family. What about you, how much do you run on vacation? Do you skip schedules runs?