50K Training

      So I made out my schedule for my two 50K's I am doing in 2013 and then I stopped after I printed them out and said WHY? am I doing two 50K's in one year? I haven't even finished two marathons in one year and I am already doing ultra training? I am sure hoping that this is not a very big mistake. But at least I am doing this with some other friends so it is not just me out there all by myself. That would be even more overwhelming.
     

So I start to think this is not that bad. I have run one 26.2 trail race and a couple of 13.1 trail races so I can do 31 miles right? right? Then I see quotes like this and go Oh My God.

"It hurts up to a point and then..it doesn't get any worse." Doesn't get any worse? That mean that it also doesn't get any better. That's the logic to THAT. But also I have learned something since I started distance running and that is that you do it for the challenge. Whether that challenge is physical, mental, emotional....that is what makes it special. Because when you are able to meet and pass the challenge then you can hold your head up a little higher and can feel like you can meet more challenges and go from there.








So according to this training schedule I have made out I have two months off in the next year where I am NOT training...January and June. So one month in the winter I have no training schedule to follow and one month in the summer I have no training schedule to follow. I think I feel more secure when I have some kind of a schedule. It feels like if I follow this I can do it. Otherwise I am not as sure. But this is a new frontier for me and I have other people to take the trip with me so I am not alone. Never truly alone.

So here is the profile of elevation for the Flatrock race. It proves without a doubt that not ALL of Kansas is flat. There are hills and rocks and stuff and it is probably going to be the hardest thing I have ever done but also the most rewarding thing I have ever done.

Paynetown in November

 I went for a terrific run this morning out at Paynetown along Pate Hollow trail. There were all my wonderful friends there too having a "trailgate" party with pancakes, hash browns, eggs, ham, sweets and more! Evan and Claire Mickey even brought out a griddle to make fresh food. Melanie brought on honest-to-god HAM even! I brought strawberries and cinnamon swirl bread. There were bananas too and hot coffee from SOMA. I could go on and on. See what I was thinking about while I ran?? food food food food food. So...to distract myself from food i decided to take a few pictures.

 Above is Lake Monroe as seen from the trail. The water looks so lovely. I'll bet it's cold! I was pretty sore at this time as well. I had been running a lot this week including a 15K trail race yesterday with a tough course. So this first lap I walked some, jogged some, stopped to take pictures. In general just tried to chill while I warmed up  my muscles and got that synovial fluid flowing. To the right is some interesting moss i found that was shaped like stars. Thought it was neat.

 I love capturing the sun in the trees. It was such a pretty day today out there. Perfect temperature, sunshine....just lovely. Here is unfortunately when I started to get lost however. I turned left when I should have gone right and followed a road a little further than I should have and ended up at some little power station with a dumpy old shed overlooking the highway. So I turned around and found the trail again. It added on about a mile to my length.

Some more sun in trees picture

 The lake was so pretty!

Here is where I started to occupy my mind with stand up comedy routines, specifically Louis C.K. who I think is HILARIOUS! He is one of the stand up comics I use on my runs when I am flagging. It gets me to laughing and distracts me from draggy legs.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village though
He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there's been some mistake
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake

The woods are lovely dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep.

Louis C.K. - Being Broke

http://youtu.be/J0rSXjVuJVg

Last DINO of the season

Chris and Winski the wonder dog at the finish line

  Today was our last DINO 15K of the series. We ran at McCormick's Creek State Park which is one of our "local" parks so it was nice for once not to have to truck up to Indy or farther. It was an amazing day weather-wise. You could not ASK for better weather to run through the woods.
   There were a pretty good amount of people in attendance. I had at least 3 women come up to me saying "Weren't you at Knobstone?" I said yes. One of the said "man you just flew by us at the race and we never saw you again."  Another woman had seen me at many DINO events. It is so great to get to know more and more runners/racers around the state. It's a neat feeling when you are recognized by someone who lives in Carmel or Fishers or Fort Wayne. Because we all leave our towns to be in the woods!

 The woods were beautiful. Here is obviously an earlier picture of the McCormick's Creek woods but accept for the loss of green leaves it about sums it up. Lots of good trail, some good rocky parts.

Oh and these stairs........have I mentioned the stairs?? Well these are the 150 approx. count staircases which we had to go up not once but twice. AND also go down not once but twice. OY that last time up those stairs was like a death march. But at the top of the first time we went up were Erin Hazler and Chris Banul cheering and urging us on. YAY!!!   

                
       Here is our post-race food at the Qdoba DINO races! Oh man how great it is when you finish a race through the woods and get back to rice, beans, meat and chips. And cheese! MMMMMMMMM.  It's so far hands down the best race food...unless you count the PA Potatoes from Planet Adventure races then those are mighty awesome too.

The trail was nice, the weather was great, the food was fantastic, the cheering section was amazing and all the runners I met during the race and afterwards were in great moods and happy to take part. I had three friends take awards today:  Miranda Addonizio took 3rd in her age group, Alicia Rich took 3rd female overall and Christy Victor got the overall age group win and got a plaque.                                                                                         

Here are the happy campers with our medals being cute. Christy Victor is a great photographer she can even make me look good!!

So here are Christy and me with our cool plaques..hers for age group winner and me for 3rd place overall female. I also got a cool singlet that says 2012 Champion. I will try not to let it go to my head. Ha!


The Mercury guy I mentioned in an earlier blog post was there again and we found out his name is Lucas. He always wears the same yellow singlet. Must be  his lucky shirt or something. I am beginning to see a lot of people I know as I run/race more. It is kind of like a big extended family. All in all a fantastic end to a fantastic series!!
      The only bittersweet thing is that our dear friend Rebecca Petrush was not able to share the experience with us but I sure had her in mind when I was cruising the trails and remembering October 6th when Rebecca came out with 5 of us to McCreek at the last minute because the DINO at Avon was cancelled and we forded the streams up to our knees, laughed and had a great time. You are with us definitely in spirit Rebecca!! You and trail running just go together like peanut butter and jelly. Hope we get a chance to run with you again sometime. :-)

Also here are the Hazlers and their absolutely-not-spoiled puppies Winski and Buddy. AWWW!!! It was so awesome of them to come out just to be with us and cheer us on and take photos of us and generally enjoy the day....like singing Macho Man with me at the finish line like a halftime show.

DINO at Mounds State Park

Christy Victor and I at the Mounds State Park DINO race. The race Run the Mounds had added a 5K and 15K just for DINO to make up for Avon's complete lack of understanding and having to cancel at the last minute.

 This was just a little picture of the grassy part leading up the starting line. A lot of the course was wide, straight paths that were very well groomed. It felt kind of like the Rail Trail here in Bloomington.

 Here is the starting line for itty bitty DINO race. It was not well attended I think because so many runners attended the Monumental Marathon the day before and were smarter than us and decided to give themselves a day off! The guy in the yellow I have seen many times before. He is VERY fast and I noticed today he had wings tattooed up his calves from his feet...maybe like a mercury symbol..not the substance but the roman deity.Oh and on the path?? I saw a completely BLACK SQUIRREL! Never have seen a black squirrel before.

My friend Mory shot this picture at the finish line. I felt great during this run which was cool because the day before I had run the Monumental Half Marathon up in Indy.

My friend Christy took this picture at the starting line. I really liked the shirts for this race. Really cool looking!

I don't have much else to say about this race.
It was a fun way to spend the day with my friend.
We took first and second place in our age group. I believe our age group was small as the group was small but still it's a nice thing to get a medal.

All in all a successful little race. We had fun, got medals and felt proud of doing a "two-fer" of Monumental then DINO the next day. We felt definitely hard core!!

Monumental Half Marathon

     Yesterday I ran the Monumental Half Marathon. It was fun! There were so many people that at first at the starting gate we had to walk/shuffle until we could find some space to start running. I was so keyed up at the starting line it was like I had had tons of caffeine but I had only allowed myself half a cup because I didn't want to spend half the race in the porta potty. I felt really good during this race. I felt I had really no trouble keeping up a good pace. I put my GPS on when I started and the pace was almost always between mid-8s to low 9s. The best part was I really picked up speed on the last two miles. It was like I suddenly had wings on my feet! My last two miles: mile 12 was 7:45 pace, mile 13 to the finish line was at 7:44 pace. It is amazing how much progress you can make when you listen to your running elders and train properly.
    There were tons of friends there as well. I felt part of a group even when I was running alone I knew they were out there sharing the experience. My friend Evan was on his bike, riding along cheering people on. Chris Basham was dressed in his Chuck Norris outfit and I got to give him a high five around mile 10. I saw some people I knew out on the course...people from BARA and ran into my boss who was running the half. That was cool too! And there were SO MANY people. I met one lady in her 60's who had run 329 marathons in her lifetime. WHOA!!!  She just casually said "Oh i run about 20 a year" .  I saw a guy who was running his first marathon and I saw him later on in the course and said "Good Job!!"
   After I finished I had made a big mistake though and left all my warm clothes in Miranda's car. So Erin took pity on me and gave me an extra shirt to wear but BRRRR I was cold! Next time I will remember gear check. YEP. It was great to catch some people crossing the finish line though: Emily, Christy, Miranda, Melanie, Mariluz, Cliff. I was SO proud of the BARA group. We  all had good showings.

So here are the final stats on the Monumental race. As you know I am a stickler for figures when it comes to my racing. It says my pace was average 8:58. I finished in 1:51:42. I was 1138 out of 4985. I was 38th place out of the 40-44 group, was 321 out of overall women to cross the finish line.

So great! I am so glad I took up distance running. It has completely changed my life!!

     
  

Knobstone Mini

 So the Knobstone Mini was today at Morgan Monroe Forest out by Martinsville. It started out VERY cold! But there was a fire to stand by and I brought my big comfy sweatshirt to wear until it was time to run. Here are my friends Craig, Miranda and Chris being extra shivery cold pre-race. Miranda eventually came over to the fire which I really didn't like to leave for very long! Ahhh fire......so nice when you are so cold.

 Here is a bit of a blurry picture of the crew again. Everyone was really happy to be there even though it was cold. And the Hoosier Hikers Council sure puts on a great race!

Here is the absolutely Deelicious fire they had going and wow did it smell good! It made me long for a tent and a guitar. I pretty much stood by it as long as I could until the race was just about to start. I got to talk to some people about the Eagle Creek Half Marathon in January that I did because they saw my shirt I wore from it. I saw another person with the same shirt. It started quite a few conversations among the other runners! I am going to do it again this year I think. If it is not sold out by December. 

The Thoughtful Craig Kinney

 Here is Chris who just started really trail running not too long ago but is getting good at it fast. He has been running the McCreek (McCormick's Creek Trail) with the aforementioned Craig Kinney and has been doing multiple loops at Paynetown (pain--town) that has some mega hills and switchbacks in it and it is no easy task to run more than one loop. He has run 3 loops at a time! Erin, his wife, trained with me and ran the Eagle Creek Marathon in August with me and Christy Victor. She is a great trail runner too! She was out running Paynetown this morning but hubby ran the Knobstone race. I got to give her a big hug after I crossed the finish line.

 This is Alicia and Adam Stout. They were nice enough to give me a ride out to the race. Alicia is an anthropologist and has been to Africa. She and Adam just got married not too long ago. They make a cute couple and are great at trail running and racing.

All of us pre-race! Ready to get running already and warm up!

I saw many friends there. Mory who works with Planet Adventure and has been a big cheerleader of mine...she is trying to get me in on an Ultra with her!....Allison who runs Urban Cycle, the local Spinning gym. I saw Cheryl who is training for Tecumseh. She was rocking it out on the trail and as always looked so bright and sunny!
  The woods were themselves amazing! The path was mostly covered by fallen leaves which made for a few slippery spots but also made the path nice and soft. I believe it was easier on the feet. There were some decent hills....big long ones and a few switchbacks.....but there were also lots of nice flat places where you could really put on some speed and pass some slower folks. Always with a friendly "good job!" and a thank you. People are generally so nice on these trail races. They always let you pass if you want and are so sweet about it. I got to talk to a few people..some of whom had done the Eagle Creek marathon, some had done the January half marathon there as well.
   I didn't have too much trouble running it at all. I think it was because I had carb loaded appropriately and had made myself rest for at least a day before it and on the Thursday group run had only done a few easy B-line miles. At one point I almost wiped out getting tangled in a limb on the path but did some fancy footwork and managed to stay upright and blaze on.
    I finished in about 2:20...some seconds...so that was good time. And at the finish line I got to see my friends Emily and Andrew and they served us hot soup, coffee, hot cider, cookies and donuts. MMMMMMMM! Yum!

I have to thank the folks at Hoosier Hikers Council. They worked very hard to make sure the course was well flagged, the roads were monitored for crossing and then aid stations were first rate. Everyone was friendly and positive. Great Race overall!