Chasing My Joy

My journey to becoming an Ultra Runner and Ironman

22 miles of Mistakes

Yesterday Cory and I decided that for our 22 mile run we wanted to go somewhere new and interesting. Cory suggested that we checkout the Greenland Open Space where the Greenland Trail 50k is run. We found an 11 mile loop that was perfect to run twice with a stop in the middle at our car to refill our packs and grab more nutrition if we needed it. We checked the weather and saw there was a storm coming in late in the afternoon, so we hurried out the door to beat the weather. When we got to the trail we saw some ominous clouds in distance but decided to try to at least get one lap in since I was NOT prepared to run 22 on the treadmill.Here I am power walking to the port-o-potty, check out the gray clouds! After starting out the sun came back out and it was pleasant except for the headwind we were battling. I kept thinking that at least on the way back we would be mostly going down hill with a tail wind.Starting out I honestly didn’t know if I would make it 22 miles, I was tired my legs felt really tired and heavy, it was hard to breath, and I was getting some quad pain, same as I had last week. The thought of not finishing this run was worse than my pain so I huffed, puffed, bitched and whined for about the first five miles. After about five miles it wasn’t easy but I felt like I was at least in a groove. I guess riding 50 miles before running 22 miles for the first time might have made things difficult, brilliant!The loop was described as only having a 500 foot elevation gain, too bad you run up and down that 500 feet 20 times!We ran around Palmer lake and started our way back to the carAs we were running back we decided to take a longer loop , this was a very hilly extension, and as soon as we started climbing we got hit by a very cold head wind. WHAT?!?! We had a headwind running out, how can we have one running back as well? I guess the storm came in early and changed the wind direction, lucky us…..As we got close to the car the rain and snow started hitting us. We had started our run at 62 degrees and it was now 34, we called uncle and decided to finish our run at the gym. This was a good choice give that this was our view a few miles into the drive.
We were so cold that we stopped at Starbucks to get some hot coffee, I probably would have been ok, except I ordered a latte . Huge mistake!!! As soon as I got on the treadmill my stomach started to revolt. The gym was hot and I felt like my stomach was rolling around like a washing machine. I couldn’t stomach anything more than cold water (thanks honey for stopping to buy me cold water, you’re the best!) So the last ten miles were ran with no fuel, just water. Not the best way to finish a 22 mile run but I was happy to be done, and I count it as mental toughness training. The day ended with ice baths and dinner.

It was a difficult day but it was our longest training run before our race and we found a trail we really like. Happy Monday everyone, I am going to enjoy my rest day!

50 miles and REI love

After checking out the forecast this morning we decided to do our bike ride today. We got a bit of a late start so I was worried about the strong winds that were supposed to start after noon but it was a beautiful day (highs in the 80s and sunny) and we wanted to get our ride in. We rode from just north of REI on the Platte River Trail down around the Chatfield Reservoir. I shouldn’t have been too worried about the wind, there were a few times that it was really gusting but it never really bothered me. We rode 50 miles at an average 15 mph, given the wind and busy trail I am happy with our average.

When we were done we refueled with Starbucks frappuccinos, conveniently there was a Starbucks in the parking lot that we started and finished in =) After getting home and cleaning up we headed back to REI with our dividend in hand. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular but I came home with all of this:I got 4 GUs for tomorrows 22 mile run, a new run belt, I have been using my SPI belt and it wasn’t the best, Trail Runner magazine and Brooks Cascadia trail shoes! I am so excited to have actual trail shoes instead of just running in old road shoes. As seen here:Looks like mom needs trail shoes too. It’s my mom’s birthday today (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM), instead of trail shoes though I got her a gift certificate to a spa, hope you like it mom.

After shopping Cory whipped up an awesome carb loading dinner for us, I am so lucky to have a husband that cooks.*This was Cory’s plate, I didn’t have the shrimp.

It was the best way to end a great day, now we are going to relax and and watch a movie. Hope your Saturday was fabulous too.

April Fool

I woke up this morning with my quad pain nearly gone =) I was able to go to spin class and run after with no issues. I did drop my planned four mile run to two miles because I didn’t want to push it too much and I have a big weekend planned. I can’t decide what days to do what. Saturday is supposed to be better weather and weather effects biking more than running (at least for me). But I am not sure it’s a great idea to bike 50 miles the day before a 22 mile run. I can’t believe my marathon is exactly a month away! I am doing everything I can to help my legs recover and get ready for the weekend including icing, wearing recovery socks to work and drinking a protein shake from mix 1, so good! March re-cap March was a pretty good month for me training wise. Both Cory and I had to work a lot this month so we didn’t hit every workout but I am happy with what we did get done. I am happy with the progression of length I just wish I was faster. I keep trying to remind myself that I have been doing triathlon for less than a year and only seriously running a little longer than that, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to do better.

Totals for March were:

Swim: 10,400 meters
Bike: 203 miles
Run: 115.7 miles **on track to get 1,000 miles this year.
Strength/stretch: 240 minutes After the marathon is over then I really need to up the swim and bike!

Goals for April:
Swim: 14,800 meters (will start swimming longer when open swim starts in May)
Bike: 308 miles
Run: 120.5 miles
Strength/stretch: 480 minutes

That’s it kids, what are you doing this weekend?

Injuries, Pugs and Train Gain

For a little over a week now my right quad has been hurting me, nothing terrible but it was a new pain so I have been keeping tabs on it. It only hurt a bit after my race on Sunday so I wasn’t worried at all about it, but last night it started hurting worse and I woke up this morning with it still feeling bad. I decided to push my brick back until tomorrow, and I will only do that if it feels better. I am so worried about being injured, so many people are injured right now, so many bloggers are taking forced time off of running, I really want to be careful and not make things worse. I did go to the gym this morning to try to go for an easy run but my leg was hurting and I was feeling crappy anyway so I only made it about 3 miles before quitting. I went home, iced my leg and wrapped it in an ace bandage for the rest of the day.

I am going to try to do everything I can to help this leg heal quickly. Hopefully Taking a couple days off will do the trick and I can run my planned 22 miles this weekend.

I recently started reading a new blog called Carrots N Cake, I was originally attracted to the blog because she frequently posts about her adorable pug. I am a little obsessed with pugs, Mr. Winston thinks that’s only natural.
But she has some other great posts too, yesterday she wrote about training for a marathon and gaining weight. It was exactly what I needed to read. I haven’t been gaining weight, but I sure as heck haven’t lost any! It’s so easy to think I can eat whatever I want because I am working out so much, people even tell me that I can. But it’s a lot easier to eat 1,000 calories than it is to burn them! On to better things as I keep my feet elevated at work. Do you think that my co workers will think I am rude?

Track Tuesday

Yesterday when I got home there was a package waiting for me, I love getting packages! I ripped it open to find my Cooking Light Vegetarian Cookbook.
I can’t wait to go through it and try some new recipes. Some of you may remember that I set a resolution to learn how to cook healthy meals (instead of relying on my husband to do all the cooking) , I have really enjoyed it so far and have been cooking two to three times a week. I have also recently given up eating meat so I am excited to have a book full of light vegetarian meals to choose from. I will share any that are really good.

After getting my cook book Cory and I headed back out to track practice with the Rocky Mountain Tri Club. I LOVED this workout and I love the club, people are so welcoming and friendly. We ran in pace groups (I was in group 5) and it was really fun to cheer ourselves on and build team spirit. After practice was over our club president gave out team tech shirts, I think it’s really cute.

After a long day Cory made us taco salads before we packed our gym bags and headed to bed. It was a good day =)

The Long Run

After taking Monday as an easy day (just an hour of yoga) and sleeping in my compression pants Sunday night all soreness from my race is gone, YAY! It felt good to spin this morning after just running for over a week, and I am really looking forward to this weekend’s long ride. My workouts for this week look like this:
Monday: 60 min yoga
Tuesday: am 60 minute bike (on trainer) and pm: Track practice with RMTC, we will do between 4 and 6 miles of intervals
Wednesday: am 1900 swim (300 WU, 6×50 drills, 8×100 main set, 6×50 drills, 200 CD), pm yoga
Thursday: 90 min spin class straight to a 4 mile run
Friday: 6 mile tempo run with an easy 1600 m easy swim
Saturday: 22 mile run, longest run before marathon
Sunday: 50 mile bike ride, probably flat after Saturday’s long run

Totals:
Swim= 3500 meters, I need to increase this soon!
Bike= approx. 80 miles
Run= 37 miles
Strength/Stretching= 120 minutes

My goal for this week is to keep to my plan, with a crazy work schedule I almost always end up skipping at least one workout. I also want to work on nutrition this week, after botching my half on Sunday I need to practice before the Colorado Marathon, I have a little over a month to prepare! This week has the longest distance we run before the marathon but I am not that nervous, 18 and 20 went pretty well so hopefully 22 won’t be any different.

Recently I finished reading The Long Run by Matt Long. This isn’t a book about how to run or race triathlon but about how a NYC fire fighter who was severely injured came back to run a marathon then complete an Ironman. If you want inspiration this is it, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is injured, or lacking motivation. What’s the furthest you have ever run? Happy Tuesday!

Boulder Spring Half Marathon Race Report

I had a great race, third half marathon in 2:10:30, over 13 minutes faster than the one I ran last year for a PR. I am surprised that I feel as good as I do because I didn’t execute the race well at all. I will take it as lessons learned and hope to do better at my full marathon in May. As always I laid out my gear the night before, the forecast called for high 3os to low 40s with a chance of rain or snow. I decided to wear my Mizuno tights (LOVE these), REI long sleeved tech shirt, Adidas running jacket and RMTC visor.I packed gloved and a headband but chose not to wear them. I also packed two packets of sharkies and one GU, this was a mistake but more on that later. This morning we woke up at 4:30, I was so tired and didn’t want to get out of bed. The only thing motivating me to move was the promise of lots of hot coffee. I stumbled around, drank two buckets of coffee then Bailey and Winston helped my get ready.I ate a cliff bar and a banana before leaving the house, we got to Boulder Reservoir by 7am for a 8am start time. We took our time visiting the bathrooms, warming up and finally lined up at 7:55 and waited…..20 minutes. This is my only complaint about this race, I have no idea why we started 15 minutes late. This was the best supported race I have ever ran there were aid stations everywhere, on both sides of the street. Each station had water, gatorade, GU gels, bananas and tons of friendly volunteers. There were also lots of volunteers with radios to help any athletes that needed it. Most of the race was on dirt country roads, with a few miles on paved roads. The start was pretty congested and didn’t open up until about three quarters of a mile in. Here are our splits:

Mile 1: 10:07 Caught behind a bunch of people

Mile 2: 9:40 Skipped water station, bad idea…

Mile 3: 10:06

Mile 4: 10:11 started to feel hungry because I didn’t take a gel before starting, what was I thinking? but I decided to wait to take my gel, again, what was I thinking, the aid stations had GUs I could have gotten more.

Mile 5: 10:27 feeling tired, low blood sugar

Mile 6: 10:11

Mile 7: 10:42 finally took my gel and drank more water

Mile 8: 9:25 feeling much better

Mile 9: 9:17

Mile 10: 9:45 starting to feel tired and hungry again, did I take a gel? No…brilliant.

Mile 11: 9:42

Mile 12 and .1: 10:00ish Cory forgot to hit his watch right when we crossed the line Official time 2:09:30 with 9:53 minute miles. I am happy with this overall time but wonder what time I could have ran if I had not lost my mind during the race. I know better than to make all these mistakes. I blame it on getting 2 hours of sleep on Friday night and just being too tired to think straight. I am getting closer to my sub two hour goal, maybe this summer or fall?? =)Happy to be done, we both really like the medals.We hung around for a while after the race and even got massages. Before leaving I made friends with Kona, a really sweet Sheep Dog. Headed home for ice baths, showers, recovery beer and relaxing. It’s been a good day.

Pre Race Rituals – Boulder Half Marathon

I got up 3:30 this morning so that I could catch the first flight out of Portland back to Denver, given that this is actually the same as my normal wake up time (4:30 Mountain time) it shouldn’t have been a big deal. But it was a big deal because for some crazy reason I couldn’t sleep and banked a total of two hours of sleep, I am not going to make that up before race day Sunday.

After dragging myself out of bed and my parents graciously driving me to the airport at that hour I grabbed a quick Starbucks breakfast.skinny caramel macchiato and a fruit and yogurt parfait. Notice the cup says Mary, this is my “real” name but I have always gone by Beth, I have no idea why I told her my name was Mary, maybe because it was on the debit card I was handing her? Normally I forget that my given name is Mary, I guess weird things happen when I try to communicate at 4 am.

My flight was easy and my sweet husband was waiting for me right outside of security, thanks babe!

We decided to go straight to Boulder to pick up our race packets from Fleet Feet Sports. Fleet Feet is a tiny running/triathlon store in Boulder. It seemed like a nice store but it was a little crowded with the packet pickup inside as well. I received my packet without a hitch but I entered Cory’s birth date incorrectly when I signed him up(oops!) so the race officials had to look him up, but they easily got him everything he needed and we were headed home.

Our race packet included some great stuffincluding:

  • tech t-shirt
  • reusable grocery bag
  • pint glass
  • poster
  • a few samples
  • chip timing

There is also a finishers medal, full lunch and a beer garden with complimentary beer =)

After we got home I took a quick nap and cuddled with my dogs and hubby that I have missed so much before starting to get ready for my race tomorrow.Winston riding along in his car seat.

Do you have pre-race rituals that you follow?

I don’t have any particular rituals, I just take it easy a few days before hand, try to gets lots of sleep and drink a lot of fluids. I have failed miserably on all accounts.

Only thing left to do is get my stuff ready for the morning, set my alarm, go to bed early and hope for the best.

Muddy Buddy, Oregon Style

It’s been a busy week getting my parent’s house ready to go on the market, but we took some time off to go for a trail run. My mom had a six mile run on her schedule and since I decided to tag along and she thought we should make it a fun trail run. Love you mom!

We drove down to Sauvies Island in Portland. Sauvies Island is a large agricultural island in the Columbia River. We found a six mile out and back that sounded perfect. As we were driving along the island the parking lot we realized that the trail would be quite muddy, Portland has seen a lot of rain recently.

Trail Head
Mom and I with their golden doodles Zoey and Gus
It started out really nice
Then it got really muddy, I was thankful that the thick mud only lasted about a quarter mile.
We had great views of the river along the way
Our turn around point was a light house on the beach.
Not the prettiest lighthouse ever but still cool. Then we headed back along the same trail.
When we got back we were covered in mud!
It was a great run, really easy (thanks too all that oxygen at almost sea level). I am now doing a mini-taper for my half marathon on Sunday.

What are you doing for spring break?

Happy Spring

I can’t believe it’s already spring! I am excited for warmer weather and the beginning of race season.

I ran 5 miles with my mom this morning, but I stupidly forgot my camera. It was really nice to run on the paths that I ran so many times when I was younger. Then we spent the rest of the day moving the rest of the bark dust and unfortunately we need more =(

In celebration of spring I decided to whip up some scones
This mix was perfect, just add water.
I didn’t take the time to form them into wedges, but they taste great. There were more but we ate them while they were hot and fresh.

Tonight will be spent eating and picking out paint colors.

Happy Spring Sunday everyone!

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