May 8, 2008 - 5K for Work Charity

I know, I know, I haven't been so good keeping up my running blog. I had several races last month that I didn't write about. The most notable was a week and a half ago, I completed the Cherry Creek Sneak with my running buddy, Stef. We did the 5-miler, and somehow I hurt my left Achilles tendon. I really didn't want to stop running to let it heal, but my body knew better. About that time, I also came down with a bad sore throat and couldn't work out. I swam (badly) a couple times this week, but today was my first run since the Cherry Creek Sneak.

Since it was my first run in a while, I wasn't expecting much - just hopefully under 30 minutes (BTW - my personal record for a 5K is 28:42, set at the Boulder Earth Day 5K). I chatted with my friend Mike, who was hoping for 25 minutes, only since he hadn't run in a year. WTF??? I don't run for 2 weeks and just hope for 30, how can guys just run fast without any training? :-P

Anyway....we get to the starting line about 10 minutes early. There is probably only half of the people there as last year (my team was the biggest team AGAIN this year!) and dark storm clouds were creeping over the foothills. I'm wearing a tank top and running skort, along with electronics strapped to all over my body - heart rate monitor, Garmin, iPod.... They start a long list of announcements while everyone is getting antsy to start and hopefully beat the storm. Finally we start - and go immediately down a steep hill. It's short, though, and the first 1.5 miles is mostly uphill, although gradually. I race along at my normal pace, trying to keep it under 9:30 min/mile. I ended up walking at the top of the last hill, after my heart rate monitor started complaining that my heart was going to explode.

About half way through, it started thundering. A mile later, I started seeing lightning strikes ahead of me. Obviously I wasn't the fastest person in the race, but there were still plenty of people behind me, and I was beginning to wonder about the conductivity of those poor people and their wet clothes. Yes, by this time it was sprinkling, and it was cold! I made it to the finish line in 28:44, two seconds slower than my PR! At first I was a little bummed about that, but remember - I haven't been running in almost two weeks! Plus, this was a much hillier course than I've ever run.

At the finish line, it was raining pretty good, so I ran back up to the starting line and shelter. I stood in the doorway of our workout facility for about 10 minutes, talking to some other members of my team, when a few of the slower people walked in - Stef included. She was bragging about her time - 38 minutes (her previous 5K PR was 45 minutes, so that was a pretty good improvement). I found out about a half hour later that it was because the last 7 or so people were forced to stop and take buses back to the starting line to prevent any lightning-related deaths.

We walked back to our building in the cold rain, changed, and finally had lunch. Although last year's race was much better (freebie-wise and weather-wise) I still enjoyed this race. It's nice to know I can go so long without running and still be decent at it. I also received a healthy dose of happy hormones, which is making me want to run again! This Saturday is a 10K in Highlands Ranch, which I now think I'll do. Why not? Even if I end up walking part of it, at least I'm getting a workout!

April 12th - Highlands Ranch Run Series #2

Today Stef and I ran in the HRRS Heritage/Adventure 5K & 10K. I signed up for the 10K - my first. A couple weeks ago, I ran 6.2 miles on the treadmill, and my legs were killing me for days! Then, this past Monday, just when I was feeling well enough to start running again, I flew out to the east coast for work. My coworkers and I walked around the Mall area for about 2 hours one night, and the next I took advantage of the Marriott's awesome gym and ran about 3 miles on the treadmill. But since the trip was on my company's dime, I also took advantage of the per diem and ate big desserts and unhealthy meals (fish and chips - yummy!). I flew back late Thursday night, slept 4 hours, went to work on Friday, and felt fat and sluggish. So my goal for this race was to survive and hopefully beat an hour and 15 minutes.

Stef and I arrived at the location 45 minutes before race time. We joined the long line standing in the cold wind to get our bibs and goody bags. The Joint Juice truck was there again handing out free bottles and $1.00 off coupons. We grabbed several of each - they are good, and only 10 calories! Then we sat in our car for about 20 minutes to warm up. About 5 minutes before the 10K start time, I got in line. Then they delayed the start for 10 minutes, enough time to get cold again. I did get to talk to a lady next to me about her Garmin. I've been wanting a Garmin Forerunner 350, which tracks your speed, altitude, course, and has a heartrate monitor. She had a 250 and was telling me how great they are. Now I know what I'm getting with my stimulus refund! :)

Finally it started.... The first couple of miles were only a little hilly through neighborhoods and bike paths, and I didn't push it too hard, so it took me about 18:40 to finish the first two. The third mile was the worst. It was almost entirely uphill. I had to take a couple walk breaks, but I had already planned to so it didn't upset me. At the top of the hill, instead of handing out water, they had orange Gatorade. It really hit the spot! I met Stef at about mile 3.5, or about mile 1.5 for the 5Kers. The trail was fairly level for a while and along a dirt trail. It had snowed yesterday and the day before, so we were hitting patches of ice and snow, but the worst was the muddy dirt trail. It would stick to my shoes and make my feet really heavy. My ankles were also starting to hurt (yes, I desperately need new running shoes!). But then, soon after the mile 4 marker, I came around a bend and saw a long downhill section! I flew down it, pushing myself as much as I could while still catching my breath from the previous mile's hill. I finished the fifth mile in less than 8 minutes! It leveled off at mile marker 5, but I felt so awesome that I kept a fairly decent pace for the next mile, even up some small hills.

My worst section of any race is that last little bit - the last 0.1 miles of a 5K (3.1 miles) or the last 0.2 miles of a 10K (6.2 miles). For that last 0.2 miles, they rerouted us through the parking lot then across the snow-covered grass, up a hill, then along the sidewalk to the finish. I was struggling, trying to make that final push but also trying not to slip in the wet, icy grass. But I did it! They ripped the tag off my bib and cut my timing chip off, and I walked off with Stef, only then remembering to stop my stopwatch. It was at about 58:30 - meaning I finished in less than an hour! The race results haven't been posted yet, so I don't know for sure. We knew we weren't going to get any prizes (hey, you gotta be honest with yourself, lol) so we grabbed a couple more Joint Juices, a couple bottles of tea, and took off.

I accidentally signed up for another 10K tomorrow in Boulder. I'm feeling pretty good right now (about 4 hours removed from today's 10K) so we'll see tomorrow morning if I want to switch to the 5K or try the 10K again. As of now, I'm leaning towards the 10K. Next weekend we have two 5K's. I haven't set a goal yet, but maybe it'll be for less than 28:30....

First, a little history

Before I start posting race reports, many of you (since I'm sure there are "many" of you out there reading this) may wonder why I started running. So I'll start in the beginning....

My memories of running in my younger years were not fond ones. My nickname in kindergarten was "Putt-putt" because I was so slow. I dreaded the mile runs for the presidential fitness test. The only one I remember was during my one year in high school, I completed the mile in a lazy 14:08. A friend of mine, Amy, competed in cross country in high school, which completely baffled me. Who would run for fun, for sport? I would be the one eating crappy food for lunch because it made me happy, while she ate fairly healthy (for a high schooler) because she said she didn't want to go through life fat.

My own desire not to go through life fat hit about 4 years ago, and I have since lost 50 pounds. But I didn't really start running until around 3 years ago. My friend Kelly and I used to be so excited about running 4 minutes straight, then 6, then - a whole mile! I started running outside, both on my own and with a coworker who braved snakes with me on trails near the South Platte river once a week. The farthest we ever went was about 5 miles at a leisurely pace.

Even though I started to enjoy running, I still didn't stick with it very well. I'd go to the gym every day for two weeks, then not go for a month. It's hard to stay in good running condition like that! Then I injured my ankle in flag football last fall and didn't run again for almost 4 months. Surprisingly, I picked it up again pretty easily.

Around that time, my friend Stef decided she wanted to run the 30th Bolder Boulder for her 30th birthday. She's walked in it almost every year since the beginning but finally wanted to run it all. I had a lot of stress in my life when she told me that, and since running has always been a fairly good stress reliever for me, I agreed to do it with her and even try to do a half-marathon later in the year. So as part of our training, we are running races every weekend, sometimes twice a weekend. I had only run two 5K's before, both last summer, and both in more than 30 minutes.

Our first 5K of the year was the Highlands Ranch St. Paddy's Day 5K. My goal was less than 30 minutes - and I did it, completing in 29:36! We got an awesome long sleeved shirt that day that I've worn in every race since. Our next race was really more of a baseline training run in Boulder, a 4-miler where they also take your mile splits. Since I had been on vacation and hadn't run since the previous week's 5K, my goal was less than 45 minutes. I surprised myself, completing in 37:50! My fastest mile was the first one at 9:13, and my slowest was the third mile at 9:53. I blame that on stopping at a water station.

Last weekend we signed up for a 5K in downtown Denver, which afterwards made us realize we should think about which races we are signing up for instead of just doing it to run. This one, which I suppose is a good cause but not one I'm really passionate about, was called the Human Rights Torch Relay. Sure, I'm all for human rights. But this was really protesting the Olympics in China. According to Paige, who we ended up run/walking with, this race was rather large in other cities, but in Denver only about 30 people showed up. Stef, Paige, and I stayed together and we finished in about 46 minutes. Stef and I were going to do a 4-mile race hosted by the Rocky Mountain Road Runners the next day in the same location, but she came down with a cold and stomach ache, so we rested.

So there is my history as of yesterday with running. I will post today's race report in a new post....

I'm back!

After almost a 2-year hiatus, I'm returning to blogging. Why? Because everyone else is! :)

Ok, not really. One of my favorite blogs is one about a girl who lost half her body weight and posts mostly about weight loss and all things related. Right now she is training for a half marathon, which consumes most of her posts. So I thought, I've taken up running as my new hobby and would like to run a half, maybe I should start blogging again, too! I'm hoping maybe it'll give me the motivation I need to continue running, and it's also a good way to keep track of my workouts and how much I'm running. The latter reason is the main reason I'm doing this. It'll be like my running diary. With a few colorful posts intermixed, occasionally.

This is it...

After being online for a couple years (or however long it's been), I decided to remove my blog from the internet. I don't really have a reason other than I can never really think of anything interesting to say, and the point of my blog wasn't supposed to just be "what I did on my boring Sunday afternoon." I just wanted to let any readers I may have out there know before I suddenly removed it. To any readers I have, thanks for reading and posting comments. You're the reason I stayed posting this long! So long!

Someday I'll appreciate it...

But right now it's a bit irritating...and I guess funny at the same time. The other day I was buying my ski pass when the lady asked if I wanted the teen or adult pass. The stinginess in me wanted to say the teen (it was a hundred bucks less!) but I was honest. She thought I was no older than 18! Then last night at a dive bar, a guy who had been talking to me for like an hour finally asked how old I was. When I asked how old he thought I was, at first he just kept saying, "Young...really young..." then finally said "19 or 20." Um...I guess the fact we had to show ID to get into the bar didn't cross his mind.

The Dilemma...

...apply for a job on a different program that may lead to my dream job but will probably require really long hours for a while with me not knowing at all what I'm doing, or stay at my current job which is now super busy but I know what I'm doing and am finally feeling like I'm contributing and am happier than I've ever been on this program??? If I apply for and get this new job, I will be leaving my current group short staffed and with very little knowledge on what I've been working on lately (I think the new lead would have a short learning curve, but he would have to do all the work himself). OR...I could wait a year, see my current project through, and hope that the other program will still be hiring and have things better defined. I'm so not good at making decisions...

Cross one off the list...

A few weeks ago I hit my quarter-life crisis. So what did I do?? I went skydiving!!! Yes, me, who is afraid to take any risks at all purposely jumped out of a perfectly good airplane with a guy strapped to my back. It was so awesome! I really want to do it again, this time knowing that it's ok not to be able to breathe during freefall. That was the scariest part for me, I amazingly never even thought about the parachute not opening. Now, so that there's proof, let me see if I can insert a picture... Woohoo!!! :-) Maybe I'll take my little sister skydiving for her high school graduation next spring...you know, instead of buying her needed stuff for college.

Speaking of my little sister, her and my folks just left after spending a week out here with Stacy and I. We spent a few days in Yellowstone and the Grand Teton area then did a little driving tour of the Oregon Trail on the way back to Denver. And I'm also proud to report that my sister Bonnie is, as of today, 13 weeks 6 days pregnant! :-)

Hmmpfttt

Yeah, that about describes my day. It was one of those days where I just can't stand the people I'm working with and can't wait to leave for the day. Luckily it is a Thursday before an off-Friday. Hopefully by Monday I'll feel better and be ready to go back to work. At least something happened tonight that made me feel better. And then tomorrow - Water World!

Remember Ken Jennings, the guy who won all that money on Jeopardy? I found a link to his blog, and it's hilarious. His geniusness and dry humor totally remind me of my friend Carl (speaking of, if you're reading this, Carl, update your blog!). A few weeks ago he posted a satirical letter to Jeopardy, part of which talked about how Alex Trebek is really a robot and how they need to change the colors and theme of the game. Apparently that made some people upset enough to get CNN on the case. They wrote an article about it, and later that day his blog and message boards were shut down due to excessive bandwidth. I still haven't checked out the message boards, but I'm sure they're pretty funny as well.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I'm turning 25 this week. In the past, I've always hated when people complain about their birthdays and how old they are and how everything is going downhill, etc, etc, etc. I absolutely never thought I'd be one of them. But as this birthday comes closer, I'm realizing that I'm getting older and how so not ready I am for it. I keep thinking about all the things I thought I'd have accomplished by now. And although it's only 25, I'm no longer in my early 20's, I'm in my mid-to-late 20s, where people expect you to finally grow up, settle down, and be an adult. It's a little scary. Even though a lot of my friends are older and still have as much fun as I do or more, I feel like this is it, this is what the rest of my life is going to be - get up early, go to the same job every day, come home and do housework, watch TV, sleep, and repeat. Ugh...I promise, I'll be back to normal in about a week, it's just hitting me right now. At least I'm throwing myself one heck of a party to celebrate! ;)

Ok, so I know we need rain...but this weekend I was going to get in so much bike riding, and every time I get ready to go it starts to rain again! GRRRR!!!!!! Great...so while I was typing that, I noticed the wrinkles on my hands. I'm so old!!!! LOL Ok, that's enough. I'll go upstairs and ride my exercise bike and pretend I'm outside...

My Bike and Me

I did it, I finally bought a new mountain bike. For the first few days, I rode it every day and couldn't get enough. Then a week after I bought it, I took it out on the hottest day of the year (it was 102) in a headwind. It was only 12 miles, but my legs were totally fried after that. After a couple days off, I tortured them again by going on an eight mile hike. After getting my bike, I dropped about 5 pounds right away since all I'd do after work was bike then go to bed. But since my torturous ride and hike, I've been telling myself it's ok to eat more since I'm working out more. Add a BBQ and a night on the town on top of that, and viola, welcome back 5 Pounds. Now that I've satisfied my socializing obligations for the next year, I think I can get back on track and lose those pesky 10 pounds. Oh, how I love my new bike! :-)

I guess I should also give an update on my kitty. After a grim diagnosis from the vet and $150 later, the very next day Athena started improving and now is her normal old self. I have no idea what was wrong with her. The vet did prescribe antibiotics with the hope it would work (after I refused to spend the money to get an ultrasound and x-rays) so maybe that helped. I was totally ready to just put her to sleep, as sick as she looked. It's a good thing I didn't!