FMM: A Little About Me

My weekend was good.  The highlight was probably a 5k race on Saturday morning.  I did a short review of it here.  Short version is that I did not PR, and I only ran about 3 seconds faster than last weekend's 5k (so I'm still about 30 seconds off where I should be).  But this race, my pacing was different.  I held a PR pace for 2 miles, which was 1 flat mile, and then 1 hilly mile.  But then I slowed a lot (about 30 seconds) for the 3rd mile, and was back to PR pace for the last .1.  I possibly did well enough for an AG award, but we don't know that quite yet (results screwed up)!  Either way, I was happy enough.  At least matching last weekend's time means that's a solid indication of where I am right now. 

The rest of the weekend consisted of stuff that needed to be done.  Writing some long overdue thank you notes, doing some dinner party planning for this month (possibly a party for everyone going to Germany with us for the marathon, and possibly that would be the same weekend as I host book club), balancing my checkbook, sending some lengthy emails, working on homeowner's association stuff, cleaning up email accounts, generally getting organized.  All good. 

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

A Little About Me

 

1. Have you ever experienced love at first sight?  No, I don't think I believe in love at first sight.  Lust or attraction, yes, and lust or attraction that can develop into love, yes, but not actual love at first sight.  When I first saw my husband, we were in a class together.  I thought he was cute, and I realized right away that he spoke Italian well and was funny and seemed very friendly and outgoing and talkative, all things I'd come to love, but at first, he was just a hottie...

2. What channel is your TV on most? Hmm, if I'm watching, probably Lifetime or USA (only if there's a Law & Order marathon).  If my husband is watching, CNN or RAI (Italian news) or EuroNews.  But mostly we just watch stuff from the DVR. 

3. Share one quality that you’re proud to have. I’m proud to be reliable.  If I commit to doing something with someone, I won't flake out unless I'm on my death bed. 

4. Describe your idea of a great evening.  Having friends over to our house for dinner -- the dream is that they show up and we're sitting on the couch drinking wine and listening to music, appetizers are all set out and ready, dinner is in the oven, dessert is done, dishwasher is empty, kitchen is clean, table is beautifully set, house is clean -- it never seems to work out that way, but having friends in our home for a meal is a great night to me. 

5. If your friends were asked to describe you in three words, which words would they choose?  Funny, moving/going/busy, reliable. 

6. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas!  Followed by Mardi Gras, the Fourth, and Thanksgiving. 

7. If you could change one thing that would make your life easier instantly, what would it be? I would have a live-in housekeeper -- who also cooks and undertakes organizational projects and does things like sell stuff we don't need on ebay. 

8. What is one healthy food that you crave?  Grapes, I eat them almost daily almost all year, sometimes an expensive habit. 

9. Do you wear socks when you sleep? No.

10. Share at least three things for which you are thankful.  (1) My family (husband, brothers, parents, sisters-in-law) and I (even my grandpa who is still in a rehab hospital after his stroke) are healthy and all are happy -- all happily married first go around, no sicknesses or diseases, all working out a lot (sometimes together), all financially sound, all happy in general I think.  (2) My husband and I have jobs we love that provide the standard of living (and travel!) that we love.  (3) My friends, near and far, are dear to me; they keep me accountable, they listen to me, they make me laugh, and they seem to love me almost as much as I love them. 

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions! Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments. Happy Monday!

Another 5k race mess

Dallas is a great place to live as a runner as there are tons of different race series and training programs to choose from.  Most weekends there are at least half a dozen area 5ks to choose from.  Sometimes you choose well, sometimes not. 

I've said it before, I'm not sure why I do any races in the Mellew series any more. 

The last one in that series I did was a donut themed run earlier this year that delayed the start by more than 20 minutes just because they wanted to maximize their profits.  It was very frustrating.  I wasn't going for a PR, since I wasn't in shape for it, I was running with a friend, and I was stopping at all 5 donut stations on the course.  But still, you plan what and when you eat, when you pee, when you warm-up, everything, based on an on-time start.  When they screw with that, nothing good comes of it. 

And you can read about what happened a couple weeks ago at the series' full and half marathon this year here according to Kim -- the lead car took an early wrong turn, adding about a mile to both the half and full courses.  I had a friend who was pacing the 3:45 group and he ended up with 27.36 miles in 3:48.  He threw in a few miles around a 7:55-8:00 pace to attempt to make up for the extra distance, but it wasn't enough.  So frustrating. 

And those are just from two of their three local races so far this year.  I've done their races other years and experienced other past disasters -- last minute course changes, starts delayed more than an hour, 50% unstaffed water stops in a full marathon because most volunteers didn't show (that was maybe 2008?), and just a general lack of organization.  But sometimes I go back to these races -- either they have good calendar spots when I need a race, or a friend really wants to do it, or something sounds like a fun theme.  But there is nearly always some issue with the race that makes me regret it. 

Given that history, I had low expectations for the series' 5k vineyard run that was set for this weekend. 

But personally, I had relatively high expectations.  Last weekend's 5k was 30 seconds off a PR and it was in the mid- to upper-60s and humid, and the course was pretty hilly.  And this week, I had a personal record on my commute to work, but aside from that, I took it easy on my legs and slept in a couple days.  And most of all, there is a freak cold front in town.  Yesterday was into the 40s, and the race start was going to be in the 40s (or so I thought, it was actually 54, but still 10 degrees better than last weekend). 

I got there early and got my packet, met some friends, and warmed up.  For my warmup, I like to run the last mile or so of the race so I know what to expect. 

This course is best summarized in two words:  u-turns and hills.  Neither of those are good words to be associated with a 5k. 

In attempting to run the last mile, because of the course design, I also ran about the first half of the second mile (there was a lot of overlap).  So at least I knew what to expect:

An incline of about 55 feet in less than a quarter mile right at the start of mile 2.  And then another 65 feet in a less than a quarter mile mid-way through mile 3. 

I didn't know what the rest of the course held, but those two things made me fairly certain I couldn't expect much from my performance.  I am very strong on downhills and very weak on uphills.  Most runners are average on both, or at least average on downhills.  But I think I am exceedingly strong and weak at hills. 

After my warm-up, I realized it was substantially warmer than I expected. 

I'd decided to wear my running skirt (only second time since I got it for Christmas, and I still feel totally ridiculous when I wear it), and my sleeveless team running shirt, along with arm-warmers and gloves.  I had an earband in the car, but I figured that wouldn't be necessary.

After the warm-up, I ditched the arm sleeves.  And then in line to start, I realized we still had a few minutes (assuming an on-time start, which I was reluctant to do), I decided I didn't need the gloves.  One great thing about the race was that I'd gotten there early to get my packet (the packet pick-up options were only on Friday and horribly inconvenient), so I'd gotten great parking.  I decided to dart over to my car and ditch my gloves.  Very smart! 

I lined up fairly near the front and to my surprise, we started right on time! 

 

If that picture works, we started at the green dot, turned west, u-turned, ran southeast, u-turned, then made a turn back onto the street where we'd started.  We ran past the starting line on the other side of the street, then we made a right turn. 

 

That was the first big hill.  Up until that point, the course had been amazingly flat -- but with two u-turns, still not exactly fast. 

 

We made the right turn onto Hughes Rd, ran up and down the hill, then we made a right to run south again.  Pretty flat but we were running toward another u-turn.  Enough already! 

 

We turned around and ran north, passing mile marker 2 and then hitting a couple smaller hills.  At the very top of the map, we made a left turn to go south again.  We were running in a neighborhood and we hit the most bizarre part of the course -- we essentially ran on a sidewalk between two houses and into a parking lot that was basically in their backyard.  It was so strange!  A bit more of a hill, then a right turn back onto Hughes Rd -- which meant up the big hill again.  Then it was all downhill to the finish line. 

 

My first flat mile was 4 seconds ahead of PR pace.  My second mile with the first steep hill (about 55 feet in a quarter mile) was 4 seconds slower than PR pace.  So at that point, I was right on track. 

 

But I didn't have enough left in the tank.  Mile 3 had a couple hills, including the steep hill again (65 feet in a quarter mile going up the back of it and a bit in the neighborhood), so I was about 25 seconds slower than PR pace.  Even with an awesome downhill last half mile, I couldn't pull it together.

 

This is what my pace data looked like (higher is faster, lower is slower):

 

 

You can see that the pace takes a sharp dip pretty early, at a u-turn, and then there's another V at the second u-turn.  Then it gradually goes slower and slower approaching the first third or so climbing the hill, but then I pick it up and stay steady.  There's a sharp drop toward the middle for the last u-turn, and again, it stays relatively steady until I hit the cliff right around 3/4 of the way done -- that was that final 65 foot climb and the pace was sad, sad, sad...

 

I think I ended up finishing about 3 seconds faster than last weekend, but that's still nearly 30 seconds off my 5k PR, which is now getting very old! 

 

But hmm, there's something weird about that last sentence, particularly given that the race was this morning and it's now after 2:00.  Why on earth would I say I "think" I ended up about 3 seconds faster?

 

Why? 

 

Why?

 

Oh yeah, because it's a Mellew race.  Turns out that all those u-turns weren't a good idea not just because they slow you down so much.  The course design meant we ran back past the starting line about .8 miles after we'd started.  Well, the timing device somehow picked us up again at that point.

 

Nice! 

 

So I hung out with friends after the race.  They had a really fun jazz band playing and there were 4 different kinds of wine to taste.  We were taking pictures and just enjoying ourselves.  I was a little puzzled they hadn't posted results yet, but I wasn't worried.  

 

But I definitely wanted to stay -- the AG awards were wine glasses, and I thought that was kind of unique and fun.  And I thought I had a decent chance of placing in my age group.  Finally about 2 hours after the race had started, they made the annoucement about the timing system malfunction.  So apparently, they're going to sort it out, will post the results when they can, and will mail the AG awards. 

 

Again, why would I have expected anything else with one of these races?  If the race logistics are okay through the race, of course there would be a problem after the race.  And I definitely didn't love the hills, but it's not really fair to complain about that just because I'm a sucky hill runner. 

 

But this time, I really swear off these races!   



A PR finally! Well, emphasis on the P

It doesn't technically count as a PR, since I wasn't running a race (and I don't think you can count something you run on your own as a PR), but yesterday was a personal commuting PR.

Since my route to and from work is always the same, it seems legit to keep track of my personal record times.  I wouldn't put them on my racing spreadsheet, but it's still nice to know what my best time is.

And that way if I'm ever in a real hurry to get to work, I can do a good guess at how fast I could manage it. 

Anyway, yesterday's commute to work was my fastest yet by more than a minute.

I had a solid week leading up to it: 

Saturday (last week) was a 5k race.  30 seconds off my PR, and good enough for 2d in my Age Group.  I was quite content since a.) my PR is 2.5 years old and is a very challenging time (for me; cake walk for others of course); b.) the course Saturday was hilly (my Garmin data showed a total gain of 130 feet) (and a loss of 135 feet, since it finished a bit downhill from the start, but who likes to think about elevation loss, 130 feet is a lot of climbing for a Dallas 5k); c.) the weather Saturday was warm (my Garmin data now shows weather, and it was 64 degrees, w/ 77% humidity (my 5k PR was also from a warm day, but we'll ignore that...). 

Sunday was 10 miles with friends.  I was thinking it would be a VERY easy run.  And I wasn't even sure we'd go all 10 miles, ending up with maybe 8 instead.  But one particular guy showed up and really had his heart set on his first 10 mile shake-out run since Boston, so the distance was indeed 10 and the pace was faster than I expected.  I held my own, but my average was only about 30 seconds slower per mile than my goal marathon pace for Berlin this fall. 

Monday was just boot camp with a new-to-me instructor.  The workout was good, fairly unremarkable.  We did dips, which isn't a frequent exercise for me and always leaves me sore.  The instructor wrapped up early and then did 5 minutes of stretching, so I felt cheated in my workout.  But it was good.

Tuesday was a morning of sleeping in.  Since my speed work with my coach ended on Saturday, the goal is to relax a bit and maintain until I start Berlin marathon training on May 19.  So instead of hearing the alarm at my usual Tuesday 4:45, I slept until 6:45.  Lovely! 

Tuesday's morning commute to work was unusual because I ran with two separate friends.  First, a friend met me right by my house, and we did the first 1.3 miles together.  It was wonderful, but over far too soon, but she's building her mileage slowly, so she had to u-turn.  Then I ran solo for maybe a mile.  Then I had another friend who was coming to meet me, running from her house toward me, u-turning when we met up, and then she ran me all the way to my office, then she u-turned and ran home solo.  I ran their paces and we were running very easy, so it didn't feel strenuous.

Tuesday's evening commute home from work was with my accounting buddy.  She'd had some shin pain, and I'd been traveling for work, so it had been a couple weeks since we'd walked/run together.  We did more running than usual since we'd worked later than planned and she u-turns to come back to her car at work after about 1.6 miles, and I didn't want her in the dark solo more than was necessary.  I was very impressed with the running pace she held, and we mixed in lots of walk intervals.  The first mile together was her fastest mile ever.  After we parted ways, I picked up the pace and clocked a couple of my fastest commuting miles to date.  Felt good!  It's a downhill trek home, and I got lucky with the traffic lights. 

So that brings me to yesterday.

I got up and went to boot camp.  One of my favorite instructors, fairly challenging workout.  I found myself quitting multiple times on some of the ab work, and I always see that as a good sign.  There was some running, but not much; a few intervals of about 60 seconds each. 

After camp, came home for breakfast, straightened up the house a little (houseguest arrived yesterday for two weeks approx!).  Then set out for my commute.  Little did I know it would be a record-breaker.

I ran about 30 seconds from the house to a rental car agency.  I had to drop off the keys for hubby's rental car and have it checked out.  I stopped my watch for that, and it took about 3 minutes.  So there is an asterisk by this PR.

Then I set out solo for work.  There were people doing landscaping along the running trail, and they all appear to have been instructed in safety protocols to turn off all lawnmowers, trimmers, etc. when anyone is running nearby.  Since they're ON a running trail, it's probably hard to get much work done that way!  But it's very considerate, so I tried to run very quickly whenever I was near anyone who was waiting for me to pass before resuming work. 

I saw my first mile time, and it was about 45 seconds faster than usual.  Not super fast for me, but decent.  Well, somehow I started doing math in my head and I forgot what my first mile split was -- instead I was thinking it was about 30 seconds faster than it was. 

I had to run hard for the first half of mile 2 because it is leading up to a busy intersection and I know the light well.  Based on where the cycle is when I first get a glimpse of it, I can figure out how to pace so that I rarely have to wait at the intersection.  I much prefer to slow to an easy jog for a third of a mile or so, and then cross without stopping, rather than run at my normal pace and then stand around at the light.  There's lots of traffic and I'd never even hope someone would yield to let me go. 

Unfortunately yesterday, when I saw the light, it was in the toughest position -- it meant either run very hard and I'd catch it, or run very, very slowly and I'd catch it.  I elected the former, and I took off.  I timed it just right and crossed after it had been green for several seconds, but before it turned. 

Then I was just on a roll.  I figured I'd see what I could do for mile 2, then I'd slow down. 

Mile 2 was about 90 seconds faster than usual.  So given that I'd mentally rounded mile 1 down by an additional 30 seconds by mistake, I was thinking I was really ahead of the clock.  In reality, I think I was about 2:15 faster than usual, but I was thinking it was nearly 3 minutes. 

I felt good, so I kept going for mile 3.  Unfortunately, the light in mile 3 is long.  Even when it turns green, it's only green for about 5 seconds, so I pretty much have to be right on top of the intersection when it turns in order to catch it.  I came to a dead stop to wait.  But then it looked like there would be a break in traffic, so I went in front of a car waiting to turn (possibly irritating him, but I don't think he would have attempted the turn, given the oncoming car), put my hand up and darted ahead of a car headed toward me.  I don't think the car had to slow down at all, so it all worked out very well.  I'd only been stopped at the intersection about 10 seconds, but I rounded it to 30 in my mind and told myself to run hard to make up for the 30 second stop.

Mile 3 was my fastest yet!  And from there, it's just the balance -- uphill, downhill, across a street with traffic and no light, and then through a parking lot. 

I saw I'd maintained a decent pace up the hill, so I decided to push downhill.  I held my 5k downhill pace from the weekend and managed to catch the street crossing just right -- not a car in sight.

My prior AM commute PR was just over 31 minutes (AM commute is uphill, the PM commute is downhill and is always significantly faster, even when I run easy).

Yesterday's AM commute:  29:58!  Boo-yah!  Speed work finally paying off it appears!  It was also the first time I'd "let" myself run the AM commute hard.  For the last 3 months every Tues and Thurs morning commute was within about 90 minutes of finishing a hard group run.  And every Wed morning commute was dialed back effort to save my legs for Thursday. 

The personal PR was thrilling and put me in a great mood at work all day. 

This morning I'm planning a much more relaxed commute in about 20 minutes...  Anyway, this post is exactly why I blog.  Way too much detail I felt like I needed to share, and it's hard to dump all that on a friend or spouse.  Hubby congratulated me on the PR, but somehow, I don't think he'd be interested in hearing about the long traffic light and how I thought the extra 10 seconds might impact my overall time...

Running in Philly

I spent a few days in Philly for work over the last couple weeks.   While the results were great on the work front (one defense verdict, one settlement achieved on what we considered to be good terms), the fitness results weren't as great. 

I'm very good about getting my workouts in when I'm traveling.  Unlike some fitness activities like biking, swimming, weights or Zumba, running is pretty easy to do anywhere.  I usually pick a hotel with a gym just in case the weather is bad or the area seems too dicey, but usually I hit the streets wherever I am.  Even if it means running in some random suburbs, which I've done before.  And even if it means running hungover and full from too-rich restaurant food the night before, which I seem to do almost every time. 

Unfortunately, on my trips in the last few weeks, I did some dreadmill running. One of the runs on the schedule was a two mile warmup, one mile at 10k pace, one mile at 5k pace, and one mile as fast as possible, followed by a one mile cooldown. The thought of holding "as fast as you can" pace for a mile on city streets with traffic and unfamiliar territory did not sound appealing.  At least on days where I had to hit the 'mill, I made a point of going outside to run my cooldown, which was better than nothing. 

But at one point, I decided to blow off the run on my schedule and instead run 6 easy miles outside.   Well, it was supposed to be 6, but I found some amazing paths along the river behind the Art Museum (and the Rocky steps) and had a great run that extended miles longer than it should have (let's just say I scarfed down breakfast while hurriedly drying my hair in the hotel because I was gone way too long).

A few photos from my running in Philly in April. 

Ben Franklin:

A lighthouse-looking building along the river:

A view of Center City from the top of the Art Museum steps: 

Boats at one of the historic boathouses along the river:

Small park along the river: 

Statue before the steps to the Art Museum:

One of the beautiful running paths along the river; just past that bridge, the path divided into soft surface and paved surface: 

Another statue: 

Another statue: 

Looking at City Hall up the street from my hotel: 

The Rocky statue outside the Art Museum: 

A fountain in Logan Circle: 

Boats rowing on the river: 

City Hall (and the building that looks like the Pantheon in Rome and houses an awesome restaurant in the Ritz): 

A blurry shot of the Art Museum as I ran toward it: 

Historic boat houses along the river, each owned by a different university and many built in the mid- to late-1800s (and the running path): 

A view of boats on the river: 

The LOVE statue: 

More boat houses (and a woman who was running my direction and kept passing me when I stopped for photos, I considered seeing if she wanted to run together and chat, but I was stopping too frequently for pics): 

The Rodin Museum: 

The Art Museum: 

More boats on the river: 

Looking up at City Hall's courtyard: 

A Shakespeare statue: 

The Art Museum up close: 

A pretty church: 

Not a pic from the run, but one from mediation, looking out at Logan Circle and off toward the Art Museum: 

 

 

A few things to share.

 

First, I challenge any attorney to write a post like this using the word "statue" multiple times and to not have to retype it every single time because you typed "statute" instead.

 

Second, there are all kinds of national flags lining the road from approximately the "Love" statue until the Art Museum.  They are in alphabetical order but I was baffled.  The last flag was Wales, and then it went to Israel, and then it ended.  No Yemen, no Zambia, no Zimbabwe.  And why Wales?  If someone could explain the rhyme or reason, I'd appreciate it. 

 

Last, all the pics were on my iphone, so not high quality.  Sorry!