It's all in the planning

Once a month might be my new schedule for blog posting.  Time will tell.

Life is pretty boring from a running blog standpoint at the moment.  I try to run, my calves tighten up, I speed up, slow down or stop, depending on the day.  I have good weeks of running with about 21 miles in a week, and bad weeks of running with much less.

This was a good week.  Finish Line of the Field of Heroes 5K.
First end of race with both kiddos?

For the first time in a long time, I have no races scheduled or paid for.  No definitive training plan to follow.  I'm running what I can, when I can, and trying to be satisfied with that. Instead, I'm dreaming about running marathons through malls.  Some of these dream marathons require answering trivia questions before you can cross the finish line.  Ha.  What can I say?

Did any involve stamps and hershey kisses at the finish line?  I'd run for that!

So?  How do I deal with this whole no training plan thing?  First, I print out a Calendar that starts in December 2014 and goes through November 2016. Then, I start sketching out a "Baby-to-50 miler" training plan.  Totally normal, right?  I've had a 50 mile race on my short bucket list for some time now, but always knew a pregnancy was hoped for, so I put it off.  For those of you who have run 50 mile races, I'm open to suggestions for races and/or training plans.  At the moment, I'm eyeballing the Chicago Lakefront 50/50 that is scheduled for November 1st this year.  End-of-October, beginning of November time frame seems ideal for my current plan, gives me approximately two years to both rebuild my pre-baby mileage base and then to build to a 50 miler.

Other races I'm eyeballing for post baby?  The Xenia Half Marathon next April followed by the Columbus Marathon in October.   I also hope to pace Cap City again in May, and plan to run Boulder Half in October with my deferred-due-to-floods free entry.

As long as I can fly the plane, race wherever you want Mommy!

While I'm in the dream race-planning mode - what was your favorite race and why?  Any races that I should consider during my 2 year plan?  I could need a few September/early October marathons to run as training runs while building for the 50 miler.

Hopefully, I'll still like running next year.  :)

Cha-Cha-Changes

Hello.  I am not dead.  Rather, I'm simply a very bad blogger.  I have always hated it when a blogger I have followed disappears with no explanation.  Irony.  I could offer all kinds of apologies, but that would probably just be annoying rather than making anyone happy.  I will say that I never intended to take an 8 month hiatus from blogging.  It happens as these things do often do.  I went into a bit of a funk post-Rainier and something had to give.  That something was the blog.  I'd meant to take a week or two off.  A week or two became a month, etc.  I also "missed" the cut-off for renewing my web domain address.

Really Mommy?  You expect them to take all that?

I am not going to promise weekly posts or anything crazy like that.  Mostly because my life is just not that interesting these days, but I will make an effort not to disappear for quite so long without an explanation beforehand.

So where have I been?  What has been going on?

Detroit Marathon - I finished in 4:22:27.  I made the rookie mistake of staying with the pacer even though they were going too fast for me to maintain throughout the marathon distance.  I wound up taking 2 potty breaks and walking periodically from mile 16 on in an effort to preserve my legs for a better effort at Philly.

Yes, I made them pose with me like this.

Philly Marathon - I finished in 2:11:17.   I turned at the half.  After an hour in the port-a-potties line, I missed my starting corral and started late.   I quickly caught the corral in front of me and the sudden change of pace along with the rutted Philly streets caused a day that didn't feel good at the start to become even worse.  I was exhausted at mile 9 when I saw the first sign for the half marathoners to turn.  After calculating when I would finish the marathon and whether or not I would have time to shower before I had to check out of my hotel, and whether my hip soreness was something to be concerned about...I made the smart decision and turned with the half marathoners.  Lesson learned?  4 weeks is two short between marathons for me.  I need to stay an extra day for out-of-state races so that hotel check-out does not influence decisions to finish the race.

I told her we had to do pouty faces because we both turned for the half.

Santa Hustle Half Marathon - 2:11:46.  Conditions were crazy and blizzard-like.  After running in inches of snow, I decided to run for fun and not for time.  Definitely the right call.  I did spend the drive back to Columbus trying to convince Lynne that we could run the Antarctica marathon.

Gotta love Northern Ohio in December! 

All of these races were partially impacted by a major medication change that I undertook about a month prior to the Detroit race.  (Hindsight: never change medications so close to a race).  The same medication changes caused me to gain about 5 lbs a month for 4 months.  Nonetheless,iIn December I signed up for the Xenia Marathon that was schedule for the first weekend in April.  Why?  I loved the half when I ran it the year before, and when I went to sign up - it was the same price for the marathon as for the half marathon: $25.

After my 2nd 20 mile training run for Xenia, my legs took almost 2 weeks to recover.  After a few more attempts, I made the right call and emailed the race officials to switch to the half marathon distance.  I ran the race in 2:34:45.  I ran it for fun with a friend and had a blast laughing and chatting the entire race.

Me and the best running wife a gal could ask for post race.

What is the biggest change since my last post???  I'll let Avery tell you.

I am due Nov. 8th, and we couldn't be happier.  Although, I ran that 2nd 20 mile training run shortly after becoming pregnant, the difficulty I had in recovery and in subsequent runs convinced me that a pregnant marathon was a bad idea.  Pregnant half marathons on the other hand...

Luckily, the pace team I run with was able to accommodate my slower pace these days, and I was still able to pace the Cap City Half Marathon at the beginning of May.  I paced the 2:50 finish time, finishing at 2:49:38.  I had an absolute blast. I talked and sang myself hoarse.  I'm sure there were many people who would have gladly taken my pace sign and beaten me with it.  Especially when I was belting out Build Me Up Buttercup somewhere around mile 12.

Who wouldn't want to run with that kind of obnoxiousness?

Where is my running now that I am 16 weeks pregnant tomorrow?  I'm still running about 15-20 miles a week, but I'm running about 2 minute per mile slower than my pre-pregnancy LSD pace.  I'm keeping all my runs to an LSD effort because that's what I'm comfortable with while pregnant.  I'm still strength training 2x a week with my trainer, but I'm resting much more often between sets.  It is what it is.

I think that's enough of 8 months worth of catching up.  I probably should have led with the pregnancy bit instead of making y'all read everything else first.  HA!  For the record, I have been reading the blogs I followed before my disappearance, despite my lack of comments, and will endeavor to actually type comments instead of thinking them from now on!  ;)

How has everyone else been?