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.