Half Marathons are now my short runs. Eek!

Playing blog catch-up AGAIN.  Here's a recap from the past week and a half...

 

The October adventure run was Halloween themed... so of COURSE my husband and I had to be zombies.  Fast zombies.  (You know, like World War Z zombies and not Walking Dead Zombies.)  Get all the tickets!!  One guy gave us extra tickets because he said we looked awesome!  Sweet.

Here's a pic of our gang... although my husband and I are the only ones in the Halloween spirit! 

Epic.  Me the freaky zombie with Cheetah and her wife.

My husband decided to run with me for this one so he pushed the stroller with our daughter and our 9 year old son came along too.  I was going along with my headphones in at a 10 mile pace and my husband was ahead of me and I thought my son was right behind me.  I looked back and he was way back there and looking like he was about to cry because he couldn't keep up with me!  Aww.  Poor kiddo.  I thought he was right there.  So I stopped in my tracks and ran backwards to attempt to make him laugh.  Well, my calf cramped up when I did it... like a giant tight charlie horse.  I spent the rest of the run speed-walking. 

 

 

So instead of a 10 mile run that weekend, we went on a 5 mile family hike with my son's boy scout troop.  I know it wasn't the same as running 10 miles but it was relatively hilly and I was carrying a big backpack so it was a decent workout.  I was going to try to get in another 5 mile walk the next day but I came down with a weird flu, or food poisoning or something.  It was weird, and sucky.

 

 

Here's just a couple pics from our hike:

After getting over my flu or whatever it was, I waited until Wednesday to do my next run.  I did 4 miles on the treadmill at the gym with no calf problem.   So Thursday was a 3 mile run.  My husband and I did our run together.  He's been sneaky training to do the Rock n' Roll 1/2M in Vegas with me.  I don't know why it's a secret but the secret is out now if you're one of the people who read my blog.  It was fun running with my husband.  He has crazy long legs and is built for running but he doesn't have the endurance that I do.  So he runs and walks and I chug along at a jog and we kept the same pace.  We ran down to Seahurst Park, and then back up the hill to get some oatmeal and a restaurant near by, and then set out to jog back home.  That last mile or so back home was when my calf started bothering me again.  Ugh.  So I walked back.

My husband and me.  Happy runners.



Still loving my shoes

Check out this tree!  The sun hit it just right so it looked like it was on fire.

Beautiful morning on the water

Then Sunday was the Biggest Loser Half Marathon.  This was the first time I went to a race completely by myself.  My cousin and cheetah had already signed up for another race so it was just me, myself, and I who drove an hour up north to Lake Stevens.  I was supposed to get 15 miles in so there was parking at the high school a little over a mile from the start/finish, with a $10 shuttle that would take you there.  I thought this was perfect!  I'd save myself $10 and get my 15 miles in! 

I got up at 5:30am, stopped at Starbucks, and made it to the high school parking lot at 7am and jogged to the start line.  I paused my garmin, picked up my race packet, gear checked it, and started the pre-race warm up with former Biggest Loser Contestant, Jordan.  Only a mile in and my calf was already aching.  I thought, "Well, at least this is a run/walk and I have 5 whole hours to finish this thing.  If I have to crawl I'll still make it."  After the warm up I went over to a vendor tent and bought this really cool race belt called The Tube Waistband with all these pockets for your phone, etc.  I LOVE IT.  Go get one.  Anyway, I took a quick selfie...

Ha.  This is a bad pic of me.  I was trying to get the Biggest Loser sign in the background
and didn't pay much attention to what my face looked like.

And got into the start corral....

Dan and Jordan, former Biggest Loser contestants

The race started out amazing.  Usually all these crazy fast people keep passing me when I start a race and I feel super slow.  This one was totally different.  Everyone started out at my pace.  I'd pass some people, and some people would pass me.  I thought, "These are my race people!"  I jogged along happily for 3 more miles (So about 4 miles on my watch) with my calf aching but not TOO bad, and then all of a sudden it was like someone hit the back of my calf with a baseball bat and it felt like my muscle snapped like a rubber band.  OWW.  I think I gasped out loud.  So I slowed and walked/limped.  Awesome.  I text my BFF with "Help!  Google chi-running techniques for calf pain!" and she text back, "Googling" right away.  Sweet.  She found that I should shorten my stride and keep my ankles loose.  So I tried that.  Baby jogging steps.  It felt ok when I jogged downhill but uphill was impossible.  It was very small hills but any slight incline hurt.  After another mile or so, it was achy to walk but I didn't limp anymore. I limped when I jogged though.  I just did my best.  Chugged along for miles and miles this way.  I kept a positive attitude the whole way though.  It was a gorgeous day, I was nowhere near finishing in last place, and everyone passing each other high-fived and said encouraging things.

I saw this guy at the first turn-around....

Says, "I lost 50 lbs and put it in this pack.  It reminds me how far I've come. 
Today is your day.  Join me next year with your pack."

Bracelets at the half way point

Pretty day on the lake

Almost to the finish line over there!

When I made it to the finish line, I grabbed my medal, snacks, and water and headed to gear pick up to grab my bag and headed towards the car.  The whole mile back to the high school was at a slight up-hill so I walked the whole way back.  I was wearing a backpack too so that didn't help. 

Phew.  I made it!  15.2 miles.  It took me almost 4 hours to do it though.  I was really hoping this 1/2M would be a PR and I'd feel amazing and the extra 2 miles would be no problem.  The calf said no such luck.  2 weeks ago when I did the Snohomish River Run 1/2M, I felt great after.  Not too sore and went to a party right after.  Today is a different story.  Because I was compensating for the calf, I ran really weird and I'm sore everywhere.... quads, hams, my hips, and of course my calf.  I'm limping around today. 

My husband found me an article on how to heal a torn or pulled calf muscle faster.  There's this weird alternating jog/walk/run strategy... and a lot of ice and massage.  So I'll try that.  I'm supposed to keep off of it as much as possible for a week first.  That'll be hard for me.  I'll do spin classes instead of my training schedule.  I hate to do that though.  It bugs me not being able to check off my runs.

On another injury notw... I finally scheduled my cortisone injection for my low back for Thursday.  EEK!  I really doubt it's going to help much but I really can't keep running with a numb foot.  I guess it's just the steps I need to go through to find a more permanent solution.  Wish me luck... I'm totally freaking out about it.

We go to Dallas this weekend to visit family.  My husband and I will get our miles in there hopefully!  All of my weekend runs are long now.  10 miles, 16 miles, 1/2M in Vegas, 20 miles, 1/2M in Seattle, and then a 6 mile taper, and then 26.2!!!  Down to the wire!

Ways I entertain myself during another half marathon.

Run, work, spend time with my kids and husband, sleep, go to the gym with these girls...  Repeat.  That's my life.

Really love these two ladies.

I finished my 5th Half Marathon of the year on Sunday.  The Snohomish River Run.  Last year it was my first 10K and I watched all the crazy people huffing and puffing doing 13.1 miles as I did my first 6.2 stressing that I'd never make it as far as they are.  Now I've done 5 of them!  This was my first half since June.  I was so worried about all my 1/2 marathons on my schedule that I was looking at the time limits on them online.  This one had a 4 hour limit and I thought since I'm a turtle lately with my foot that I would need all 4 hours.  That wasn't the case at all.  I finished in 3 hours and 2 minutes.  Pretty good since my 1/2M PR is 2:51.  I was excited for my 3 hour finish. 



Start line photo at 0-dark-thirty with my cousin

First off, I want to say that my Altra Torin shoes are awesome and I don't even need to use KT Tape anymore.  I use my compression sleeves and my plantar sleeves only.  Sure saves a lot of time when I'm up at 5am to go run.  I'm glad I have them!  I picked up my cousin at 6am to head up to Snohomish.  We picked up our race packets, warmed up a little and took off on our race.  I decided before I started that it didn't matter if she was faster than me.  I had a new playlist of music and I'd do the whole thing at my pace and finish when I finished.  My cousin took off ahead and then I passed her when she slowed to take off her jacket.  Then a little further down, she passed me and I didn't see her again for miles and miles. 

 

 

I had about 30 new songs in my playlist so that helped a lot but running for miles all by myself, even though I'm out there with hundreds of other runners, gets boring.  I tried to spend time looking around instead of straight in front of me.  I'd spend time people watching and checking out what other people were wearing, and how their body mechanics looked when they ran.  I'd slow down through the water stations and say thank you to all the volunteers.  (Most of them were young girls from Girls on the Run... adorable.) 

 

Around mile 4, my right foot started going numb.  Arg.  This happens a lot when I cycle since I have a bulged disc in my back but it's never happened during a run before.  Great.  (I should probably schedule those cortisone injections I was recommended and have been putting off.)  So, I stopped on the side of the road and looked like a total dork doing a little "cat" and "cow" yoga poses.  Fixed the problem.  I walked a little bit until the pins and needles feeling subsided and started my jog again.

 

Around mile 7, you cut off through a park to turn around and end up back on the same road going back the other way a little less than a mile down.  I figured if I still saw people coming in when I was coming out, that I was doing ok.  And I never saw my cousin so I figured that meant she wasn't that far ahead of me.  I was feeling pretty good! 

 

At mile 10 I looked at my watch and thought, "If I run really strong this last 5K, I could finish with less than a 3 hour finish time."  So I grabbed a clif gel at a water stop and didn't stop running until mile 12 when I caught up to my cousin.  I slowed to walk to say hi and see how her race was going and then I lost all momentum.  That was ok though.  We walked/jogged the last mile and I finished just slightly over 3 hours. 

Finish line photo!!

I'm feeling really good after this half.  I wasn't too sore and I feel like I can definitely do it again... and faster. It gives me a lot of hope for my training schedule and my marathon.  This weekend I have a 10 mile run.  My cousin has a Spartan Race though so I'm going to go on a 6 mile hike on Saturday and a 10K on Sunday with Cheetah.  That should be good enough for a long run.  Then next weekend I have the Biggest Loser Half Marathon but I'm supposed to run 15 miles that day.  My longest run ever.  I'll have to figure out how I'm going to get in an extra 2 miles before or after the race. 

 

Tonight is the Adventure Run.  Last one of the season.  It's Halloween themed.  I'm going to be a very fast zombie.  :)

Long run = Two 5Ks and a hidden trail

This weekend called for 8 miles but since we missed a couple long runs due to sickness, my cousin and I decided we'd do at least 9, maybe 10.  The Brat Trot 5K was Sunday and the route went almost right by my house so I thought since it was all mapped out on the pavement, that it would be fun to try out a good 5K route near me.  I invited my cousin up and our plan was to follow the arrows and do the 5K three times before it officially started in the afternoon.  

We did the first 5K with my dog which was really annoying.  She's great when she runs with just me, but having my cousin there complicated things for her.  If I was ahead of her, she kept slowing and looking back, and if she was in front of me, she'd pull me forward.  Drove me crazy.  So we stopped by my house after the first 3 miles and dropped her off, had half a banana each, peed, and off again.  

After the second loop, we stopped by my house again.  I was having pain in my left hip again so I tried to do a bit of yoga.  We decided that doing the 5K route for the 3rd time was going to be a little boring so we thought we'd do our last 2 miles somewhere different.  I was telling my cousin how I ran down the hill to Seahurst Park and back the other day on a weekday 4 mile run and that it was the biggest hill ever.  (I forgot to blog about that.  I'll post about that at the end of this post!)  We thought we'd try going down Maplewild which is a huge hill that goes down to Three Tree Point.  There's no sidewalk and it's a narrow road that winds around through trees so I never go down that way.  We thought we'd check it out anyway.  A little less than a mile down the road, an older lady out for a walk stopped me to tell me that "this way is better" and pointed to this little trail through a hedge that looks like it lead to someone's yard.  Turned out to be the neatest trail ever, less than a mile from my house.  It's called Indian Trail.  Instead of writing everything out about it, I'm just going to include a link I found when I googled about it later:  http://www.willhiteweb.com/puget_sound_hiking/indian_trail/city_of_burien_166.htm

What an awesome find!  Beautiful!

Very narrow trail in between houses on the hillside

Pulley system for the neighborhood

We found a tiny public beach at the end.

We ended up going almost 9 miles, and called my husband to pick us up at the bottom of the hill.  No shame.  :)

And here's a few pics from the 4 mile run down to Seahurst Park the other day.  Really beautiful places to run right near my house!

My dog, Athena when we made it down to the beach

Doggy selfie

Here's the problem with going all the way down to the beach.  The hill going back up.

It kept going....

And going...

And going....

Almost there!

It was a great run but that 1 mile hill was brutal.  I got down it super fast, but going back up was pretty torturous.  It was worth the beach at the end though.

I have a half marathon to do on Sunday with my cousin.  It's the flattest route possible so it'll be great!  I'll post about it next week!