Fare thee well!

I'm taking a hiatus from blogging for awhile... I'll wait while you compose yourselves...


I'll be spending a week at my favorite place in the world:



Until next time,

Kim

Wildrose Wildcat 5k Race Report

Yesterday, I ran my first post-injury 5k, and let me tell you, I was NERVOUS!!

I tossed and turned most of the night and was happy when my alarm finally went off at 5:30am.  I popped out of bed and into the shower.  I dressed in my favorite old crappy lucky running gear (who needs tech-tees when you've got three-packs of boys A-line tank tops?)

Had my breakfast of Gatorade and coffee while perusing the blogosphere for a few minutes, and then got my soccer mom mini-van all set for my fellow runners. 

Nikki, Matt, and Alicia pulled up at 6:20, and we headed out on the hour-long trek to Wild Rose. 

I ran this race last year with a painful, too-soon-post-partum 28:xx, and I was definitely hoping to redeem myself.  My plan was to go out fast-ish (under 8 minute miles), and see if I could hold on to that.

When we got there, it was hot and muggy, but thankfully there were patches of clouds that blocked the sun's relentless heat.   We all registered, hit the bathrooms, and warmed up.  In just a few minutes, the anthem was sung, and the announcer yelled "GO!"  (yeah, it's a small race).  :)

I took off down the country roads and felt really good - no pain in my leg, and was happy to glance down at my watch at the one mile marker to see 7:45.

We hit the turnaround point just before 1.5 miles, and I got to see Matt, Alicia, and Nikki as they were headed to the turnaround.  I LOVE being able to cheer for my buddies during a run, and I always give a shout-out to the leaders (especially the lady leader!)  Out-and-backs are my fav.

Surprisingly, there were only three women ahead of me, and no one ahead or behind me for at least a hundred yards.  I put on my tunes and kept a good pace up a long gradual incline (darnit for not noticing the descent on the way out). 

I kept glancing at my watch getting more and more disappointed as the time crawled into the 16s, then 17s.  Where was Mile 2?  Did I really slow down that much?  After a few more minutes, I relaxed and figured I'd missed the marker and went on my merry way.

A few minutes later, I could see the high school where the start/finish was, and I ran down the little path and through the gate onto the track for a 400m sprint to the finish.  I love track workouts, and I loved being able to finish this race on the track.

I finished in 24:16, by far the fastest I've run since I had my kids.  I felt good the whole way, and now I know a PR is within my reach... I'll be signing up for a fall 5k to blow my 23:17 PR out of the water!  :)

And it was good for 2nd in my age group!

Yay, medals!

Stats:

24:16
7:49/mile

4th overall female

2nd in 20-29 AG



Me, Nikki, Alicia, Matt... I don't know why I'm all hunched over....



Best part of the day - this woman came up to me afterwards and slapped me on the arm and said: "I am SO sick of looking at your butt!"  She was about 100 yards behind me the whole time and told me that I inspired her the whole race to keep going.... what an awesome thing to hear!  I always try to tell fellow racers what a great job they did or thank them for pulling me through... and it was great to hear it from someone.

 

Hope your weekends were fantastic!

My Heart is Cooler Than Your Heart and the Experiment!

I have to make a quick addition to our series on Heartrate Training...

Did you miss it?  Read Part I, Part II, and Part III if you want to wow all of your friends with super cool facts on all things heart.

Remember when we talked about Max Heartrate, and all of the different ways to calculate it?  When I put my info into this calculator, it told me my maximum heart rate was 191. 

Imagine my surprise, when I looked down during the Beer Belly Two Mile Race a few weeks ago and saw

202

I almost crapped my pants.  Maybe it was the two dixie cups of beer, maybe it was the heat, or maybe it's because I was kicking some serious ass, but when I saw that number come up, I thought my heart was going to explode.

Lucky for me, it didn't, and it offered me a nice real-life example of why those heart-rate calculators can be totally bogus. 

Oh, and when I said all that stuff about max heart rate being genetic and not and indicator of fitness? Screw that, I'm going to pretend I have some super heart that would kick the asses of all the other hearts around.

Moral of the story - go out and do your own Max Heartrate Test. 



Coming soon...

Heartrate Training Part IV:  The Double Stroller Experiment

Here's the plan.  I'm going to run the same one mile loop on two days with similar conditions: once while pushing my kids in the stroller and once sans babies. 

Here's the catch. 

I am going to try to keep my heartrate in the same zone for both runs, and see what pushing the stroller does to my pace.

This is going to be fun.  Any guesses how much I'll have to slow down to compensate for the extra effort of pushing the stroller? 

Paper Bag Diagnosis Part II

For your reading pleasure, the first part of my saga diagnosing my shin pain.

Yesterday I left you with this picture and  a question:

Which is my injured leg?

If you guessed my right leg, you are CORRECT!

Notice how much higher the arch is on my right foot? 

 I never would have thought that I had differences in my arches, and didn't know if this was a cause/symptom of my problem, or merely another of my many anatomical quirks.  (Go ahead, ask me to bend my thumb behind my hand.  It's disturbing.)

Anyway, thinking I needed to think about arch support, I hopped into my car, and drove to Walmart.  My ankle/shin hurt so badly on the way in I was limping noticeably (and audibly, apparently flip-flops make a limp hilariously apparent)

flip-FLOP, flip-FLOP, flip-FLOP

Scanned the plethora of insoles for about 12 seconds, and pretty randomly chose these:

I put them on when I got back in my car (with my flip-flops, which is a SEXY look you should definitely try)

Walked into TJ Maxx, and was stunned to hear

flip-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop

Uhh, what?  Weeks of PT, hundreds of dollars out of pocket, and a three dollar pair of insoles is going to cure me?

Seriously, no pain.  I couldn't freaking believe it.

I wore those insoles the whole day, and iced, foam rolled, and crossed my fingers. 

Went for a run the next day - a glorious 6 mile run in the heat and humidity...

NO PAIN!!!!

Yeah, I read Born to Run, and I was kind of insole-wary like I know a lot of you are, but it's working for me, and I'm loving it. 

In fact, I'm in such a great mood because of my great tempo run Tuesday, my decent recovery run yesterday, and my planned half marathon pace run today, that I don't even have anything for Things I Hate Thursdays!

All this running could be bad for my angry blogger career.  :)

Hope you have a super day!



Paper Bag Diagnosis Part I

If you've been reading my blog, you probably know I've got some lower leg issues.  I tend to b*tch about it in nearly every post, which I'm sure is super fun to read about....

Here's a quick recap of the injury:  It started in December 2010 when I began running regularly after coming out of the "twin haze" after my monsters were born.  I thought it was shin splints, and they continued to get progressively worse until the Oshkosh Half Marathon on April 16th.   I took four weeks off (with no decrease in pain), scrapped my planned half and first full marathon, and went to Physical Therapy.

PT diagnosed me with Posterior Tibial Tendinitis.  Blah blah blabbity blah... I went through 4 weeks of therapy, and eventually could run pain free.

Two weeks after my last PT appointment, the pain started coming back, and within a week, it was as bad as the day I walked into PT. 

WHAT THE $#%&?

Then I happened upon an article Help.. I Have Shin Splints!

In the article, the author says that the #1 cause of shin pain is lack of arch support, and then gives a whole lotta good information why.  Seriously, go read the article if you're having shin pain.

Oh man, this post is getting long and I'm not even to the cool stuff yet.  I'll try to wrap it up... (ha, has anyone seen that Chappelle Show skit with the "Wrap it Up Box"?  Funny.

OK, great article, but I don't have arch issues.  PT looked at them, said they were normal, shoes have never been an issue for me, and I don't have arch pain.

So.  Here's what I did.

I took a paper bag, wet my feet, and stepped on the bag.

I think feet are pretty gross, so sorry for this.

 OK, can you guess which leg my pain is in?

 

Part II tomorrow... you probably need a nap after reading this. 



P.S.  Tempo run yesterday?  Four miles total - busted out 2.5 miles at an 8:12 pace..  Ahh it felt good.  :)

Portion Size Hilarity

Morning morning happy blogger friends!


We've all had a portion-size surprise (what's up, sweet rhyming!).. but this one takes the cake.  Or the bread.

Check this out. 

Eat me, I'm tasty carb-filled goodness..

It's a French Bread Soup Bowl.  I know this thing is going to be more than one serving (although I'll eat that whole bad boy right up with some minestrone... mmmm)

How many?  Two, three?  I thought.... four.  Four servings is a safe bet. 

Well, no.  Not even close.  But hey, at least if they can mislead you on the portion sizes, they can do it with stellar math, right?

Ha!  This made me laugh out loud. 

Just so you guys know for future reference.... 1/12 = 1/24. 

I'm embarrassed for them... in fact, I'm so embarrassed for them I'd like to call up Breadsmith and verbally assault them for their stupidity and lack of  PROOFREADING!

Well, I guess sometimes I confuse the word "embarrassed" with "under the influence of hormonal rage due to violent PMS". 

Either way.



So, on the agenda today is a 2.5 mile tempo run at an 8:15 pace.  I'm terrified.  I'll let you know how it goes.

No Running = No Fun

Isn't it funny how much impact the quality of your runs has on your whole weekend? 

I was so psyched up for some sweet long run action - this was to be my first run over 10k since my injury. 

So Saturday morning, I got all of my stuff together, Garmin all charged up, my favorite running clothes and a stocked MP3 player, and drove to my momma's house that connects with one of my favorite trails. 

I started running and immediately knew that I wasn't in top form.  My muscles were on fire from the very first step, and my legs felt like lead.  Usually, when I have a rough start, I tell myself not to look at my watch until at least 5 minutes has passed - that's how long it takes for my muscles to warm up on a bad day. 

Five minutes in, I was lightheaded and breathing hard... at my 10+ minute/mile pace.  What the heck.

Five minutes later, I came to a stop, and squatted down on the trail with my head between my knees trying to not pass out.  I slowly walked the mile back to my mom's, drove home wondering what was wrong with my body, and spent the rest of the day in bed with a fever.

Turns out I picked up some little bug that gave me the muscle aches, fever, the whole she-bang.  BOOOO!!!!

Doesn't my body know it has a half marathon that I am woefully unprepared for in FIVE WEEKS??? 

AHHHHHH!!!!!

How do you handle the anxiety that comes with continuous running setbacks?  I'm DYING here!!

Sugar Beast

Apparently, underneath my easy-going exterior resides an angry beast that needs sugar to survive. 

She doesn't come out too often, but when she does, things get pretty ugly. 

Excerpt from actual conversation between Sugar Beast (SB) and my Husband

Husband:  Good morning, sweetheart!  I poured you a cup of coffee!

SB:  WHERE ARE THE GIRL SCOUT COOKIES.

Husband:  The shortbreads?   Uhh, I think I ate the last one yesterday.

SB:  WHAT?!?

Husband:  Sweets, I'm sorry... there weren't that many left... and-

SB:  YOU EAT EVERRYYTHIINNGG!!!!!!  (runs away before bursting into tears)

OK, there might be some correlation between the emergence of Sugar Beast and my period. 

This morning, I stumbled out of bed, and to fuel for my four miler at half marathon pace, lunged for this:

Breakfast of Champions

Hopped on the treadmill, suffered through two brutal, sugar-bellied, dehydrated miles, and quit.

I don't quit on runs.  Sugar Beast made me do it.

It's time for Sugar Beast to go back into her cave until next month so I return to the land of the healthy living.

Hope your runs go better than mine today!

Kim vs. Virus and HAPPY DAY!!!!

Happy 5th of July everyone!  Hope no one lost any fingers to firecrackers and that everyone had a great long weekend!

I have not posted since THURSDAY because my twin destructos destroyed my laptop power cord.  No power = no laptop.  No laptop = no blogging...

Or so I thought!

Get this, I am on this ancient desktop that we haven't turned on in years... Basically we got this massive virus that caused the screen to go black, and we confirmed with several of our nerdier friends that the computer was toast.  Well, we shut that bad boy down and let it sit for two or three years... and VOILA!  It works!!!  WE OUTLIVED THE VIRUS!!! haha.  I should go into computer repair...

"Here's what you're gonna need to do.  Just shut 'er down for like... I don't know, two or three years, and that should take care of the problem.  That'll be fifty bucks."  This sounds like an excellent business model.

Anyway, the thing is slow as can be so my posts are going to be spotty until I can guilt my brother into hooking me up with a new power cord, but I have SO MUCH TO TELL YOU!

I'll post more ASAP, but let me give you clues...

1)  I am a self-diagnosing genius.. I think I fixed my ankle/shin problem... with a paper bag. 
2)  I almost pooped myself with excitement reading #1.
3)  I may or may not have made a big purchase.   I'm not going to tell you what it is, but don't you FRET about it!  tee hee.
4)  Heart Rate Training Part IV - The Experiment!!! 
5)  I have the sweetest little boys in the world and PROFESSIONAL pictures to share with you!  And I need help choosing which ones to blow up to house-size so I can just use them as siding because they're the first thing I want to see when I pull into my driveway!
6)  GREAT long run to tell you about!!!
7)  SUPER AWESOME track practice tonight to write all about!!!!

AHHH happy happy day guys. 

Which post should I start with??