20 mile run

To be completely honest I was a bit nervous about this long run all week. I was not really sure where to run and how it would go since it was so long after a full week with lots of running already. Last night I prepped and planned. Kyle had offered to ride support for me but he had to work ski bonkers around 10 am and to be honest I wanted to sleep in so I decide I would do 2 loops of a 10 mile route. I needed/wanted hills so I figured out how to make my 7 mile hill loop into 10 miles and then I would be able to refill my hand bottle and grab more Gu.

Elevation of the full 20 mile route


Now compare to the Nike Marathon Elevation (see why I wanted to make sure I ran some hills)



In the morning I kind of stalled even more, took my time getting everything ready and waited for my breakfast to digest a bit. Really I was just nervous and unsure if I could really run as fast as I wanted to.

First I had to put enough music on my iPod Shuffle to get me through the run. I wore my favorite Sugoi tri shorts (shorty short 4") that I have worn so much they so broken in/comfortable but still stay in place and a Sugoi fizz tank. I also decide to run no socks because the last time I wore socks I got more blisters than when I went without (I know seems weird to me to). I made sure to use TONS of bodyGlide on my feet and where the Fizz tank always seems to chaff under the arm (sorry but stupid place for a seem). I thought it was cold so I grabbed arm warmers but with in a mile I was burning up and they went in the pocket. I even remembered to weigh myself - 133lbs pre run. As far as nutrition went for the first loop I had a plain Gu at mile 2, 5, 7, 10. I would have liked to have gatorade but my hand bottle does not seem to seal anymore and it makes my hand sticky so I went with plain water. I also took 3 sportlegs and 1 salt cap.

Finally around noon I got my butt out the door and started running.

The first couple of miles I realized it was not that cold and it actually was warm and rather muggy. My legs felt pretty good but i had a hard time finding the right rhythm. To be honest my head was not in the best place today. I had a very hard time trusting myself and just running. I kept over thinking everything and almost running scared that I would not run fast enough. So the entire run I was fighting myself and my legs. I knew I wanted to run the 10 mile loop in about 1:25ish. As always I went out very strong running sub 8 min mile pace and slowed to about 8:30 pace on the hills. I was very happy when I finished 10 miles at 1:22:11 ahead of my goal time :)

My personal aid station.


I emptied my pocket of wrappers and grabbed the rest of the Gu's I needed for miles 12, 15, 17. Drank some Gatorade Endurance, refilled my hand bottle with water. Took 2 salts because I was sweating so much - I felt like I had gone for a swim I was so sweaty. I also decided to put on a very thin pair of socks because a spot on my left heal felt like it might have been forming a blister.. Of course I also had to txt Kyle and let him know I was half way and post it on twitter/Facebook (yes I am a super dork). I joked with Kyle if it was ok if I could take a nap before doing the 2nd loop... It really was very tempting.

Once I was refilled I was back running in a couple minutes (yes I stopped the watch/garmin since it is just a training run). The first couple of miles my legs did not want to run as fast as before but at least they stayed under my goal pace. As expected the 2nd loop was harder. I started to feel more tired though my legs actually still felt pretty good and continued to the rest of the run which was wonderful. At this point my entire take was sweated through and I'm sure all the people staring at me were wondering how I could sweat so much when it was not that hot.
Since my legs actually felt pretty good I managed to keep pace with the first loop and actually ran the hills a couple of seconds faster. Though I to do that I had to yell at myself a bit more. I was glad I wore a bracelet from the IMC crew that said "Toughen the Fuck up" and I repeated that to myself a lot, that and "pick up your feet", and generally tried to think of what Kyle would tell me if he was there. I would have also expected my heart rate to go up because I felt like I was having to work harder but actually it stated about the same..

The last mile is flat and I pushed myself to make sure I made my goal time. Now saying that I am horrible at math so I finished the 20 miles at 02:44:07 (4 whole minutes ahead of my goal time). The last mile I ran in 7:41 lol. No surprise as soon as I got to my drive way I just laid down and stayed there for about 10 minutes (or so it felt). I only got up because Toko (my cat) was meowing so much from the window. So i moved inside to the living room floor, laid down a towel and proceeded to fall asleep for an hour or so. I blame Toko because he curled up next to me and just purred.

Eventually i woke and txt Kyle - he had already txted me asking if I was done yet. oops Eventually I got up and weighed myself - 131 lbs post run (lost only 2 lbs). Then I had my favorite recovery drink of strawberry Recoverite and chocolate milk and Kyle brought home 2 bags of ice for me to take an ice bath :)

So some overall lessons.. Trust my legs and relax about times/pace I can do it - no need to run scared. It is not arm warmer time yet. BodyGlide is a good thing because I got no chaffing or blisters :) My nutrition went really well plain Gu and 1 Roctain Gu half way for some extra caffeine. I need to continue to work on my pacing I seem to go out pretty harder then I need to. It is defiantly time to wash my Newton shoes they smell HORRIBLE and even made the socks I put on dirty. At this point I need to just keep after it - I am getting stronger and within my goal pace for the race in October.
Finally my reward a yummy Trophy cupcake called snowball (Toko thought he should get some to).

running running running

It really started a couple weeks ago. As all my training partners/friends started tapering for Ironman Canada I started ramping up up my running. I no longer had excuse to go for 100 mile rides and started running 35 miles a week...
Every week my long runs have increased by 2 miles - 14 miles, 16, miles, 18 miles and this week I have 20 (ouch).
The 16 miler actually went REALLY well. I ran on Friday night so I could ride a little bit on the weekend since I kind of miss my bike. Anyway I ran an 8 mile route with lots of hills twice with the goal of running the second loop at the same time as the first.
Check out those hills lol
The only thing was that my legs felt so good that I went out a bit faster than I had expected so the second loop I had to did pretty deep but I love that i was able to run 16 miles in 02:10:12 which is a shocking Avg Pace of :08:08 min/mi. I had just hoped for a 8:30 pace.


For my 18 mile run we were in Penticton for Kyle to do Ironman Canada so on Saturday morning I got up before sunrise and ran from Skaha lake to te turn around in Okangan Falls. I was lucky because Kyle's Dad (Tom) offered to ride support for me so I only carried a small hand bottle to keep my mouth wet or eventually pour on my head.
It is not the easiest run but I have become a fan of hills ;) I remember it being a pretty course. My legs felt a bit stiff/heavy after the long drive, my run earlier in the week and just being on my feet a lot so I decided I would just run my zones 3A-3B heart rate and see what happened.
As I expected I was not as peppy and averaged 08:58 min/m pace but I felt good and I was able to bring my speed up the last mile or so even though my right hamstring started to clench up a bit. I have found that when it hurts I actually can dig pretty deep and actually run faster. I guess I'm just more motivated to be done sooner.
The official turn around :)
I also added a little bit extra milage because I NEEDED a restroom at the turn around and the one's in the park were still closed. Some nice guys let me use the one in their office.
It was also funny we did not see anyone out until I was a couple miles on the way back into Penticton. Then it was tons of athletes riding the run course in the aero helmets and few other crazy people running.
Once Kyle woke up he rode out with some more cold water and gatorade which was so wonderful since some cloud cover was holding in the heat from teh day before and I was getting toasty and low on fluids. So he also helped keep me going strong the last couple miles. Also took a couple pics the last mile :)
In all I kept my average heart rate around 170 bpm (zone 3a) and ran 18 miles in 02:41:25 (I did shuffle another half mile or so but turned off my garmin).


So that has been the long runs but this week Kainoa added in a tempo run of 6 miles at 7:30-7:35 min/mile plus a warm up and warm down.. My legs hurt after driving for 2 days so I took a long nap, got a massage and made the call (with permission of course) to postponed it till today. So I started with a fairly flat 2 mile warm up at an 8 mile pace then headed onto my favorite hilly 6 mile loop. yeah i know I could have chosen an easier rout but i keep telling myself I like hills. I worried all day that I would not be able to run the goal pace but low and behold I kept after it and hit the 6 mile mark at 43:58.. woo hoo that is 7:20 pace!!! for 6 miles. So much for 7:30 pace ;)
Of course a couple minutes into my warm down my garmin died (I forgot to charge it) but I just rand the same 2 miles I did to warm up and maintained a 8:00 pace :)


And with that my legs get tomorrow to rest up for guess what another run on Friday and Saturday lol. Bring it on I'm loving it - esp the hills ;)

loving the long stuff

Last week it was very obvious that I have started training for a marathon. I ran 35 miles from Thursday to Thursday (rest days). The best part is that I felt pretty good. On my midweek tempo run I found my inspiration and even though my legs were tired I made each and every mile count. I figure if I'm going to be sore and run I might as well make it worth while. So I ran my tempo run as with full focus and it was great.
Ok so the running is not a huge surprise since I do have a marathon in October.. But last week I agreed to ride on Saturday with Laurie and couple of other teammates who are doing IMC. Now I agreed before actually knowing how long the ride would be... When I asked Kainoa if it was ok that I move my long run to Friday so I could ride on Saturday she asked if I was riding Laurie's entire 116 mi ride.. I figured why not esp if I got my long run done on Friday since it is more of the priority.

Friday I headed out of work early so I could run a bit earlier.. Well that was the plan until my cat Toko talked me into a nap. I woke up at 5pm and headed out on my favorite 7 mi loop. My plan was to run it twice, lap 1 take it easy and and find a good rhythm and try and maintain the same pace for lap 2 on tired legs.
Lap 1 went by pretty quickly. I had the amphipod 12 oz hand bottle and drank all teh gatorade, I took a gu rocktane at around 3 mi and 6 mi so that i would have plenty of fuel for lap 2.
I finished lap 1 and refilled my bottle, grabbed another 2 gu's and headed back out. The first mile is pretty flat , then a mile downhill which of course felt great. Then I started on the hilly part of the loop. I ate a gu before the first uphill as would be expected my legs felt heavy but i stayed focused and kept my pace up. Even on the downhills my legs started to hurt a little bit. I dug a little bit and managed to finish the 2nd lap 1 min faster than the 1st :) For a total of 14 hilly miles in 2:00 flat. I figure since I choose a hilly marathon I should train hills.. I am so happy with how strong I felt and I was hold on for th second lap even though my legs were still tired from the week of running.

Saturday morning I met Laurie, Jodie, and Greg at 7am to get started on the 116 mile ride to Arlington. I had my bike fully loaded. 7 plain Gu's, 3 bottle of Gatorade endurance, salt sticks with both salt and sport legs, garmin... I was ready as I could be. Especially since I had my jersey pockets filled with 3 mini cliff bars, 3 more bottle worth of gatorade power, some cash, ID, and iPhone (like I go anywhere with out it). The weird thing was we all had our arm warmers on and I actually had socks on which I have not worn either for almost 2 months. Laurie (master route planner) had maps and que sheets just in case we wanted them.
We were on the road at about 7:15a heading north. It is great riding with this group because we are all pretty close to the same pace and well they are all training for IMC and thus they all want some time pulling so I got to just draft along behind them. My goal was to just hang on the entire ride. We picked up Bruce, a friend of Laurie's along East Snoqualmie Valley (17 miles in) which was great because he knew the area we were going and he was was a strong cyclist as well.

We stopped at a park in Monroe around mile 25 to grab some water and potty break the were back at it pretty quickly. We kept heading north towards the Lake Stevens course (I think). To be completely honest I had no clue where exactly we were most of the ride which was added motivation to stay on their wheels.
In Granit Falls we stopped and grabbed some more water. Well I grabbed a Starbucks Double Shot and a gatorade.
Then it was back on the road heading further out to the middle of nowhere..

I focused on keeping up on my nutrition which since it was not very warm was kind of hard. Just did not think about drinking as much.. I did eat a Gu an hour and a mini cliff bar every 2 hours. But I was behind on the gatorade big time - I usually drink a bottle an hour and was averaging a bottle every 2. I had a bad headache that would not go away and the toe on my right foot that had been stung hurt pretty bad being crammed in the bike shoe.
At some point in the middle of nowhere we came across a mile or two of fresh gravel roud :/ Which completly sucked. We were SO LUCKY no flats, no slips, nothing. Just a bit slower.
We made it back to Granite Falls again and I got another Starbucks Doubleshot to help me along. Of course the gas station store lady remembered us and thought we were crazy.
I was starting to hit the wall so the sugar was good but only lasted so long. I tried to eat more but it was just not helping as much. The last 30 miles or so I had to dig pretty deep just to stay on their wheels. It did not help that there was a head wind so if I fell off the back there was no way i was getting back on. Everyone was nice enough to not completely kill me and Kept an eye out for me. Bruce stopped at his drive way where we had met him on the way out.
I managed to stay with them most of the way back until the last long climb back over Novelty Hill in Redmond took me way over the edge. I fell back probably only a minute but it hurt to stay that close just so I could see if and where they turned.
Once we were about 5 miles from being back at the start and I knew exactly where I was I let go and slowed down. It was hard enough just to keep pedaling.
I got back and they were all getting ready to head out on their hour runs. I called it quits and was done. I figured the 3+ extra hours on the bike kind of equalized the :30 min run I was supposed to do.
I'm glad there are no pictures because I must have looked pretty bad. I certainly felt bad. I immediately took off my bike shoes and grabbed a chocolate milk and added it to the recoverite I had brought with me. Then rinsed off and waited for them to get back from their runs.
I have to say I was a bit bummed I was not able to finish the ride strong but then a friend Cathleen reminded me I was ridding with 3 athletes that have been training hard to be able to do an ironman canada so with that realisation I was just happy I survived the ride at all.

Later Laurie sent us the ride profile.. No wonder it was so hard.. Just a few hills.

And because I ran on Friday I got Sunday off completely. I had a big breakfast, took a 3 hour nap in the middle of the day, only woke up because I was hungry for lunch and went to bed early :) It was a hard couple of days but I have to say even though it hurt I LOVED every minute of it and kind of wish I could do it again this coming weekend.. Oh well I will enjoy a recovery week and on Saturday I will do the exact opposite and race a local sprint triathlon..