Probably Not Proper Fueling

Mark loves steak.  I cannot put into words how much Mark loves steak.  I have witnessed him eat steak with a side of steak. Hand to God.  We lucked up and scored some tickets from his employer to the Fairhope Rotary Steak Cookoff a couple of weeks ago.  All you can eat steak, beer and wine, and the Molly Ringwalds - the world's greatest '80's cover band- all for free?  Why sure, I'll change out of my snugly jammies for THAT!

Of course, the event fell on the night before my big RETURN TO RACING (yes, that deserves to be in all caps), and I'm not sure unlimited red meat and red wine is the *best* way to fuel for a race, but heck, it was just a 5K, and it's not like I was really gunning for a PR (or at least shouldn't have been!).

The rain barely put a damper on all the good food (and beer).  Yes, we paid for it the next day, but it was tons of fun.

I Am a Runner

Two years ago I took a dive into Couch to 5K for the first time.  I had never, ever run a step in my life.  Since then, I've run several races, finished a half-marathon, and run hundreds of miles. But finally, last Thursday, for the first time, I felt like a real runner.

Did I go fast?  No, in fact, the heat and humidity is starting to slow me down.

Did I finish without stopping?  No, I still had to stop once to catch my breath and recoup.

Was it suddenly easy?  No, it was still hard to finish those last few minutes.

So what changed?  I'm not exactly sure, but I think it was that, for the first time, I didn't question whether or not I would be able to go the distance, to finish the run.  I didn't have to bargain with myself as to how many times I would stop, and I didn't worry about being too slow or running too fast.  I barely glanced at my Garmin, except to not go out too fast and to time Mark through his intervals.  I just went out and ran, and at the end, I felt LIKE A RUNNER!

Return to Racing: Southern Napa Beer Run 5K

I made my triumphant return to racing this past Saturday!  It was my first race back since the Wine & Dine half last fall, and the first race that I haven't started with the intention of using run/walk intervals*.  So yay for me, and for you, because that means no more 8 month old race reports to read!  But since it's my first one back, it's gonna be really long, so hang in there!

 The Southern Napa Beer Run 5K wasn't a true beer run, just a 5K preceding the Southern Napa 99 Bottles of Beer on the Lawn festival, and yes, I realize that both my last 2 races have alcohol in the title, and no, I don't always run races with an alcohol theme, but yes, that does help.

Technically, I won't finish Couch to 5k until Friday, and I know there's no way I'm running 10 minute miles even if I was done with the program, but I decided that I'd run at least my scheduled 28 minutes and push as much as I could past that.  I mean, it's not like I'd break my foot or something.  Probably.

And really, I shouldn't have gone into this race gunning down a PR.  Coming back from an injury is goal enough.  But I've got this damn competitive streak, so I wasn't gonna be happy unless I got not just a PR, but like, a 5 minute PR.  I should be committed.

The run started at noon, so my body was already not liking that, and it was hard to fuel the morning of without making myself sick.  And for you it might just now be spring, with bunnies and flowers and 60 degree highs, but here in the Deep South it is nearly full on summer. It rained all Friday night and Saturday morning, but lucky for us the sun came out just in time for the race.  Full sun + wet asphalt = full on sauna.  It was 80+ degrees with 80%+ humidity.

It was a very small local race, just Mark, me, and 73 of our closest friends.  Very fast friends, by the way.

 I've run this area of town before, and I knew there would be hills, but I forgot just how big those hills were.  The route was a net uphill.  It might not seem like a lot to you, but I'm from Flatlandia, people!  These are mountains!
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I planned to walk the hills, since my legs haven't seen a hill since October.  That didn't stop me from getting a calf cramp in the second mile.  I'm glad I wore my ProCompression sleeves, or else I might not have made it the rest of the route. I walked more than I wanted to, and really just wanted to go home and take a nap around mile 1.3.  Every time I'd get into a decent running rhythm, I'd have to stop and walk another hill.  But I put out my very best effort.  Mark did great too, coming back from his ITBS issues.  He beat me, again.

It is just mean to make you finish a race up hill.

Splits:

Mile 1 was mostly downhill.  Very much uphill over the next 2 miles.  And yes, the course was short.  I am irrationally angry about this, since I was well on  my way to at least a 2 minute PR.  At least Athlinks will forever think it was a PR that I will take years to beat.

I mentioned the field was a lot faster than me.

68/75
12/12 Female age group 36-45
36/41 female

Official time: 39:46

And then it was time for recovery.

*I'm not giving up on run/walk intervals.  They are still part of my long run plan.  But I want to be able to run a 5K without walk breaks and to run longer intervals for longer distances.

Logging the Miles - Literally

In my world, a run doesn't count unless those miles get recorded.  And I love to sit and pour over my run data and my weekly and monthly mileage.  More date (and pretty graphics) is always better, and that's why I'm currently letting my Garmin sync with 3 different websites.

Garmin Connect

Garmin's native website.  It captures all the basic data and mapping that my 220 captures.

It's also where I can build workouts to send to my watch.  Awful handy when I have, say, Couch to 5K run/walk intervals.  My 220 beeps and vibrates, so I don't have to watch the clock (and don't have a built-in reason to see how.much.longer I have to run).

There's a calendar that schedules the workouts and tracks my runs, but only my runs without entering other workouts manually.

I never loved the Garmin Connect dashboard interface, and now they have updated it to be more modern and flashy, and I REALLY hate it! At least the old one had information right on the dashboard, now I have to hunt it down.

Running Ahead

This is my main tracking log.  It's simple and its free.  The dashboard has pertinent information like weekly and monthly totals, types of runs, pace over time, and countdown clocks for races.

Logging workouts of any type easily, even though anything but running you have to do manually.  Runs sync from my Garmin.

There's a place to keep up with shoe mileage too, so I don't have to keep a separate spreadsheet. My favorite feature is the ability to make and schedule training plans, including target paces and cross training.  Running Ahead will even email you that day's scheduled workout.  I spend way to much time putting together training plans here!

Strava

Basically I have a Strava account because I like the graphic way it presents my runs.  The data it keeps is pretty duplicative to Running Ahead and Garmin Connect, but prettier.

My 220 syncs with the site, and I could add other activities manually, but I don't want to.  It also tracks my shoe mileage and weekly and monthly totals.

The topo mapping looks super nice, and one neat thing is that it syncs with Instagram, so it picks up when I load an IG picture from my run (although, to be honest, this has only worked for me about 50% of the time.  I'm sure its user error).

I really like the idea of the social aspect of this website.  You can link with your friends, and give each other kudos.  Anybody else on Strava that wants to be my friend?

I do have a Training Peaks account but I've never put data there.  For one, I don't want to lose my entire history of running, not do I want to have to manually enter 2 years worth of runs.  Andplusalso, I find the interface to be very confusing.  Sure, I could watch the tutorials and figure it out, but do I want to?  I just don't think there's anything it does that my plethora of other websites don't.  Convince me I'm wrong??