Friday, October 18, 2013

I registered for a half-marathon

I bit the bullet and committed.


March 15th. Washington, D.C. Princess Knee and I will be there.

Technically, this will be my second half-marathon but I hope this will be the first during which I can run the whole thing.

22 weeks and counting... Anyone else running it? Who's in?

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

From Seattle: Firsts and my new toy!

Today was a day of firsts.

1. I ran in the (early morning) dark. Even when I ran before, I was never one of those people you saw during your early morning commute running along the boulevard. Nope. Well, today I was.

But, before I pat myself on the back too much... I must 'fess up that I'm technically functioning on East Coast time on the West Coast, meaning, it was really 9am when I woke up to get my (predawn) run in. :-)

2. I ran outside. This is my first run off-treadmill on the Princess Knee since our come back. Luckily, my hotel is a few minutes away from the waterfront, so I ran through the early morning fog until the sun finally came up. I was a bit leery of the asphalt, but we did it.




3. I made it farther than a mile without pain for the first time in 3 years. I didn't just make it past a mile, I made it three and a half miles to be more precise.

4. I played with my new toy. Those who know me know I have wanted a Garmin GPS watch for years. I even got that (inaccurate) Nike+ sneaker in an attempt to forget about my Garmin desires. Well, when I couldn't check into my hotel room and I found myself in a running store, a Garmin Forerunner 10 found its way into my shopping cart.


Reasons why I love my new Garmin watch so far:

1. It tells me to slow down. I'm terrible at pacing myself off-treadmill. I felt disappointed when I first started running and was struggling to catch my breath. But, Garmin told me I was running at a 9-minute/mile pace. Aha! I slowed my tush down immediately to a 12-minute pace, which is where Princess and I are training this week.

2. Freedom. I can go wherever and know exactly how far and how long it took me to get there. I'm not confined to routes I've driven just to know the distance. In addition to poor pacing, I also have a terrible sense of distance which both helps and hurts my running. So I got to just run along the Seattle waterfront today -- freely.

Today's run:
3.56 miles in 47:01
13:12 min/mile average pace
Plan: Ran 3 minutes, walked 90 seconds, ran 5 minutes, walked 90 seconds until done.
the Princess Knee: ZERO PAIN!

Monday, October 14, 2013

First week recap: 10/4-10/12


I did it!

What did I do exactly? I made it through an entire week of running/walking without knee pain (all treadmill runs). In fact, I ran/walked 1.91 miles on Saturday -- the longest without pain in years.

I followed the first week of Couch 2 5K to the "T," with the goal of going slower in order to build up the knee before pushing myself too much.


Well, by week 2 of the plan (which still technically fell within a week of my start date), it felt a little and a lot like remedial math and I was starting to get a little bored and a little antsy ("Put me in the game, coach!"). So, Princess Knee and I decided to go off-C25K just a bit.

The first day, I had to shave down the 5-minute warmup and 5-minute cooldown in order to make it to work on time.

The second, I did the required 90-minute run then walk, 3-minute run then walk, but the walking breaks were too long and I wasn't getting in enough mileage, so I shortened it to 3-minute run/1-minute walk until the time was up.

The third, I just went straight for 3-minute run/1-minute walk... why waste time, right? I also increased my speed on this run to a 12-minute mile on the treadmill. This, after Mr. Bootcamp Guy destroyed my confidence with his ridiculously tough conditioning class.

Totals for this week:
8.38 miles of run-walk drills over 2 hours 38 minutes
4 hours of barbell class and strength conditioning


Wednesday, October 9, 2013

(late) 2012 Disney Princess Half Marathon report


I never got a chance to post this last year. But, the weekend was great. I got to wear my colorful tutu and run with tens of thousands of princesses (and a few princes). Seeing all of those athletic women descend upon Disney was amazing. I would definitely do this again.

I made it to the halfway mark, then I felt the familiar excruciating knee pain. So I walked and ran the second half, finishing at 03:07. Aside from the pain, I was so upset about not meeting my sub-3 goal.


Unfortunately, 2014's race is already sold out. Guess I dusted off my running shoes too late...

She's baaaaa-aaaaack.... with new goals

I've dusted off this blog (and myself) and I'm ready to start putting miles in again. A knee injury kept me out of commission for a while, then my crazy schedule took over. I haven't run since the 2012 Disney Princess Half that I ran/walked without training and barely finished due to the knee pain that kept me from training in the first place.

I never ran the Stratton Half that I blogged about in my last post.

Now, an unexpected course of events has led me back to running with new insoles and a new training plan.

I've made some new goals (see on the right), most notably, another half-marathon, a duathlon and ultimately, a triathlon before my 35th in 2015.

Here's my tentative race schedule:
11/30 - Burn the Bird 5K, Bedmister, NJ
12/8 - Run for the Red 5K Race/Walk, Millburn, NJ
12/15 - Annual Christmas 10K, Newport, RI
3/15 - Rock N Roll Half Marathon, Washington, DC
4/27 - NJ (Half) Marathon at the Shore, Long Branch, NJ
5/17 - JerseyMan Duathlon, Clinton, NJ

But first, mile 1...