Vacation Woes and Pro

Woe #1 - Friday we got an email from Travelocity saying that our flight in January had been changed! When I first looked at the changes I noticed that it was a HUGE change! They had canceled our flight from Chicago back to KY! Um hello! sort of need to get back to work for that night!  I called and talked to someone who said that flying in that afternoon was the best they could do! Then, my sister in law calls and asks if i had noticed the problem going OUT of KY?? no...... they had again changed our flight out of KY from am to pm.  which would have been ok except our flight out of Houston, that they did NOT change, left at 9am that same day.  How is that supposed to work?  when Anna called and talked to them the woman told her to wait til 2 weeks before our trip to work it out. No thanks! we are not waiting that close to time to get this worked out.  If it changes again we will worry about it then, but we are not going to wait til 2 weeks prior and have something even more major happen!   We did find that we could fly into and out of another city in Ky and it should all work out. We have not called them back to change our flights. We want to be together when we call so we can just hand the phone over between one another and have them fix us all at the same time. I have 4 reservations under my name and she has 3 under hers.  What a mess!!!

Woe #2 - My husband and I had it all planned out that we would do the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon and Half Marathon next May. A great friend had recently moved back to there and we were going to visit and run in the marathon.  Also, the fact that my husband is a HUGE Packers fan back from the Brett Favre Days was another reason.  Earlier last week we found out that the race in 2012 will NOT run through the Packers stadium due to construction issues. :(

Pro #1 - Thus, I started looking for plan B.  While I was looking for another marathon to do I came across Rock n Roll Seattle which is in June of 2012.  My hubby and I, as well as my parents and aunt and uncle, have been talking about going on an Alaskan cruise.  How awesome would it be if there was  cruise leaving out of Seattle that night or the next day???  Low and behold there is one!!  Actually there are two, one that leaves out that Saturday night (after the race) and one that leaves on Sunday, the day after!  Jeremy and I are seriously considering this race and vacation.  We would love it if my parents and aunt and uncle could come too!

Halloween Hobble 5K

Saturdays race wast first 5k since august. Shockingly enough all week I wasn't nervous before it! I knew I had gotten faster in the past two months and felt confident of a PR.

Jeremy got off work early Friday night and actually wanted to go to a restaurant that he has been boycotting all summer. I couldn't pass this up, even though I knew it wouldn't be good for my stomach to eat so late and to eat Chinese. But I went anyway. I didnt overeat and the food was good. I had missed it a lot since his boycott!

The morning of the race however I still had the Chinese with me. :(. I know how my stomach does and started fearing the worst about the run.

The start was up hill, then it flattened out and had some rolling hills along the course. First mile was a little slower than I would have liked but considering the uphill start it was ok. Then right after I got past 1.2 my stomach started churning!! I had to stop and walk for a minute, trying to get it to settle down. I started to run again but found my belly wasn't ready for that yet. Most of the next three tenths were spent walking :(. I knew my PR was going down the drain!!

About mile 1.5 though it finally calmed down and I started feeling better. I had 15-16 minutes to get in with a PR. I knew it would be hard but I was still going to try and not give up!

At mile 2 I had 10-11 minutes to get in. I thought I might be able to, I still had a chance.

Jeremy came back to run me in for the last couple tenths. He had pr'd by 24 seconds and gone under 23 for the first time! I was so proud of him and that pushed me more. Bc we started uphill, that meant the finish was downhill. I gave it all I had, but missed my PR by 18 seconds. :(.

My mile splits were:
11:33
12:53
11:02

Even though I was mad with mile two I was very proud of mile three!! There are some thanksgiving races coming up and I will get a PR then!! No late eating or Chinese for me!

The shirts were cute and jeremy's trophy for second in his age group was neat and different. A local high school baseball team was putting the race on as a fundraiser.








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weigh in wednesday

Yesterday was the first time I had gone to a weigh in since my big loss 3 weeks ago.  I have been up, by 4-5 pounds at times, since that week.  I was down to a new low a couple times during those three weeks but then between the Bourbon Chase and my Birthday weekend would go right back up.

I knew I was going to be close to what I was three weeks ago so I decided to go on and go anyway.  Turns out I was up .8....  I was happy though because it's much better than 4-5 pounds. 

I have been fighting a cold all week.  Turns out running Saturday probably wasn't my smartest idea.  Although I felt fine then, I have been super congested with a head cold all week. 

i had planned on running a Halloween Hobble 5K on Saturday but wasn't going to be able to if I had swim practice.  I found out today we don't have practice so it's going to work out! :) Jeremy needs to get in a short long run (13 miles) on Saturday but also wants to see me finish.  So he and Twila are going to start where they usually do and run to the next town over (where the race is being held) so they can see me finish. :)   The mileage works out perfectly and it'll be a different venue for them to run! Yay!!!

Cold shmold

I did run this morning. I took some cold meds last night before bed and woke up this morning feeling surprisingly good.

What was supposed to be 12 miles at 6am @ 13:33 pace turned into 8.25 miles at 6:30am @ 12:53 pace. I am happy with that and am ok with cutting the milage down.

About a mile and a half in we had to change our route bc of a must needed bathroom stop on my part. :(. Thankfully a coffeehouse opened within 5 minutes of us getting there.

We ran down by the college campus where they are having homecoming this weekend. A famous glass blower that teaches at the college had made glass balls to put in a fountain. They were really pretty and sounded like a wind chime hitting against each other.














When I got home i fixed myself a couple scrambled eggs and got a hot bath.

I wonder when u are already freezing cold would taking an ice bath help you at all? Is taking a hot bath bad for you after running? It makes me feel a lot better after running in the cold but I dont know the science behind whether it is helpful or hurtful.

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to run or not.....

Tomorrow is my supposed to be my last long run (12 miles) before my second half marathon that is in two weeks.  It's supposed to be very cold (in the 30's) at 6am. However, I started having a sort throat last night and it is continuing on today, along with some congestion. Now the question is should i run tomorrow or not??  I can run do a long run one day early in the week if i miss tomorrow. I feel like i need to run but breathing through my nose is a challenge right now and when i do my throat burns.

jeremy has had cold/sinus/sore throat stuff since tuesday. he's supposed to do 22 miles tomorrow.  he went to the chiro today who said not to run bc it could turn into pneumonia. :(  he is getting over his but mine is just starting. 

i guess unless i start feeling better it looks like i'm a no go for tomorrow :(

back on the t'mill

I woke up this morning and knew I needed to run, but I still didnt "feel" like it.  I put it off for a couple hours while i uploaded pics to fb, ate lunch, watched tv, pretty much anything else I could think of. 

I finally decided that i just had to do it anyway. I could run slow if i wanted or needed to. my legs felt good though and i turned the speed up pretty high.  I looked at my watch and it said 9:45 pace!  What?!?!?!?!  I thought to myself I'm going to try to keep this up. My legs are definitely rested, this is the day that I break 10:00!! 

I finished the first mile in 9:54!!  woo hoo!!  i hopped off, shared my news with jeremy and then debated about doing another mile. he said i should and to just go slower.  so i got back on and ran another mile in 10: 45, for a new PR 2 mile time on the treadmill!! yay! 

i'm so glad i got back on and did it.  now i know i can run again!

Birthday Week/Weekend

Since Bourbon Chase I have done NOTHING in terms of running.  It took a couple days to recover from the soreness and lack of sleep.  I had intentions of running Wednesday, but it didnt happen. Same with Thursday and Friday and today.  I WILL run tomorrow though.  My half is three weeks from today and I have to run.  My plan is to do one more 12 mile run next weekend and then have a taper weekend.

Here's a recap of the past few days - busy busy!
Thursday - I got the pleasure of taking my 3 year old niece to see the Lion King 3D.  She wore the glasses for about 5 minutes and that was that.  After the movie she wanted to play air hockey at the theatre. She was so cute running back and forth chasing the puck.  Of course after about 4 minutes she had lost interest.  Not very fun when you can't really hit it across the table I guess. :) Then I took her to Menchie's, a frozen yogurt place, which has become a habit when she goes to the movies with her parents.  We had a great time and I really enjoyed spending time one on one with her.

her first air hockey experience

enjoying her Menchie's ritual

 Friday - I don't think i have mentioned in on here, but I have come out of retirement and have accepted the assistant coach position to the high school swim team that I coached last year. This definitely wasn't planned and I was very surprised to be asked, but I am glad that I was asked and will still be able to help with the team and get paid for it! :)
I have discovered Muddy Buddy Chex Mix!  If you like puppy chow at Christmas time then this is for you!!!  It tastes just like the homemade kind!!  It's hard to stop once you start!

yum yum!!

 Saturday - The Fox and Hound race that my brother in law puts on was Saturday morning.  He had a great turn out - 78 runners - 20 more than last year!!  It really has become a family race where we all either help put it on or run/walk in it.  My niece did the race with one of her grandpa's.  Unfortunately he had to carry her up the knobs and throughout the whole race!  Extra activity points for him!  My sister in law walked with my 5 month old nephew, who slept the whole time!

Jordan giving directions pre-race

Jeremy trying to stay warm before the start

the race crowd

at the start line

running the last 50 feet to the finish

just woke up from his walk in the woods

We walked around and enjoyed the festival for a couple hours.

my pumpkin head!

this was titled "Rolling down the Fork"  too cute! the town where the festival takes place is Forkland

Saturday night Jeremy took me to the Melting Pot for my birthday!! my brother and sister in law and a few of our friends came too!  It was a great time! This is one of my favorite places to go, even though it's a little on the expensive side!

I LOVE compression!!

The past couple months i have been toying with getting some compression shorts or a skirt that has compression shorts built in.  i have never used compression before and was worried i wouldn't like it.

however, i found a super cute skirt on www.relaxreflect.com's website that had compression underneath and would help me be visible on my night run so i decided to bite the bullet and try it!

i LOVED this skirt!  not only was it cute but the compression was awesome!! being a bigger runner i always have to use bodyglide before even a short run so i dont chafe. even then on long runs it would rub off and the last few miles would be brutal. but with compression shorts - no more chafing! no more bodyglide! 

i will definitely be buying compression shorts/skirts from now on!

Bourbon Chase BABY!!!

This race has been months in the planning - reserving vans, ordering shirts, finding team members, etc. And now it's over....

The race was a lot of fun!  There were definitely ups and downs to it.  It was awesome to see so many runners in the state of KY. 260 teams of 12 runners each = over 3,000 runners!! each runner runs 3 legs with about 11 hours in between each one, driving from exchange point to exchange point, waiting on one runner to finish so the next one can take off.  it's pretty exciting.

we had 2 vans, with 6 people each plus 1 driver for each van that wasn't running.  one van was "active" while the other was "inactive".

van 1

van 2

we were lucky that when we (van 1) were inactive we were actually close to our hometown.  one of the guy's parents lived a couple miles from where we ended our first active part and about a block from where we finished our second active part, so we were able to go to his parents house both times in between and use a REAL bathroom (NOT a porta potty)!  They also fed us each time and we got to lay down in a bed for a couple hours.  After we finished our third active leg we drove back to our hometown and all went to our houses to shower and clean up so we could meet our team at the finish line in downtown Lexington.

LEG 1:
Last week the temperature was cold, in the 30's for lows, 50-60's for highs.  Not this week though. low's in the 50's, highs in the mid 80's.  when you start running at 1pm it makes for a very hot run.  I had one of the easiest legs of the whole team but there was an atrocious hill right at the end.  :(

no one was running up this thing! :( i was ahead of the pace i was supposed to maintain until that stinking hill!  that put my about 2 minutes slower than i was projected to go.  my parents had driven to watch and were parked at the end of the course. as i ran by asked how i was.... my response was "did you see that hill???"  i was so happy to see the van and the rest of my team at the end.  orange gatorade has never tasted so good!!

finishing my first leg

ready to be done!

my team waiting for me at the end of my leg at one of the distilleries

Leg 2:
After eating and laying down for a bit, we were all ready for our second leg.  this one was by far everyone's favorite.  it was at night and the weather was COOL!!  we were in our hometown and i started on main street in danville.  my mom had volunteered to work and was at the transition point where i took off from.  she was so worried about me running in the dark, she was about in tears.  we had to wear a head lamp, vest and a taillight on the night legs.  i also wore some knuckle lights.  if you run in the dark, i highly recommend these things!!! the head lamp helped me see my garmin in the dark but that was about it.  i ran about 2 miles out of town and there were no street lamps at all.  it was pitch black.  the only thing that helped me see was the knuckle lights.  the best part about this leg was the street that i ran on was the street where i drove for the first time, it is the road that goes towards my parents house.  very sentimental to me when running it.
On this run i was on fire.  i ran 6 minutes faster than i was projected to finish!! 

getting the baton aka slap bracelet from lesley and heading off

LEG 3:
after going back to our home away from home, eating and sleeping for 2 hours, our van was not very awake, excited, etc. we were all pretty cranky and were ready to be done.  my third leg was going to be another hard one.  it wasn't going to be as hot as the first one but it was still going to be warm.  i had another horrible hill on this one, not as bad as the first one but this one was at the beginning.  i knew i wasn't going to be able to do well on this run and just tried to walk uphill and run downhill and the straightaways as much as possible.  i did stop and take some pictures during this leg because it was a beautiful road.  i ran over a bridge that was next to High Bridge which was once the highest railroad bridge in the U.S.  

the part on the right is the bridge i ran on

High Bridge - once the highest railroad bridge in the u.s.

turning on a little country road

I unfortunately was about 4 minutes slow on this leg.  so my average was right on what it was supposed to be since i lost 6 minutes and gained 6 minutes.

Some runners/vans had problems on the course.  One of our runners had developed a blister after his first run, and after his second run had a blister plus one side of his foot was in pain.  on his third and final leg he was hurting pretty bad.  he had a 6 mile run and after 2 miles during which he had stopped to take his shoe on and off, retie it, etc, he finally took his shoes off and started running in carrying them.  another team's van stopped to see if he needed help. he said to take his shoes and he would run on in.  the van found our team and dropped off his shoes. we were all worried about him and sent out two of our runners to help him run in.  they found him and said he was running but just not at the pace he was anticipated to run at. we were glad though bc we were afraid he was on the side of the road somewhere. but this set us back about 30 minutes :(  there was a cut off that everyone had to finish by 9pm.  we knew we would be under that so we weren't too worried about being a little late. after he finished all he wanted was some bourbon!!  so went to the gift shop where they were giving out free shots/glasses!

horse made out of bourbon barrels

after van 1 had finished running - happy to be done

Finish Line:

After having gone home, showered, and taken a super quick nap we headed to Lexington for the Finish Line Celebration.  We ran in with our team across the finish line, got our medals, and got a group picture taken!  They had music and food set up and bourbon tasting.  By that point though we were so tired we just wanted to get our medals, eat, and go home.  :)  We got home at 9:30pm, were in bed by 10pm and slept for 11 1/2 hours!  I am a little sore today. my quads are hurting me. which is better than jeremy who says everything below his waist hurts.  :(

Other Bourbon Chase Stuff:

Other vans/teams had much more serious problems: one guy was bit by a dog, a van had a flat tire, a van's battery died, someone had a seizure in a porta potty,several vans got lost so that when their runner finished, the next runner wasn't there to take off.

we ran by 6 different bourbon distilleries.  each one was open so you could go and tour while you were waiting on your runners.

before the race started our youngest two had a sip to start off the race

live bluegrass music at the starting line

at maker's mark distillery

All in all it was a great race. I'm not sure if i want to do it again though.  out of my team of 12 though i'm in the minority for being not sure or knowing they wont do it again.  at least 9-10 of the others are sure they want to do it again next year!  as for me..... i'll have to wait a few weeks or months before i decide to do it again.  if i do, i will definitely run hills to train for it.  although i much prefer to stay flat!

Stiff Sunday

Yesterday Lesley and I ran 12 miles.  It was a good run.  It was faster than what the training plan called for but slower than we had gone for our 10 mile run.  However, the last 2 miles of this run didn't feel like death either like the 8 and 10 milers had. 

We went home, rested, and got cleaned up.  Then Jeremy and I picked up Lesley and drove the first and third legs that we will be running for the Bourbon Chase next week.  (Our second legs are luckily in our hometown so we were already familiar with them.)  Unfortunately that meant we sat in the car for 5 hours driving from place to place.  It was good though, i'm glad to have seen beforehand what kind of hills i'll have to run, but my legs and back are stiff today from sitting so much in the car yesterday.

Today Jeremy and I worked on race trophies for a local race that his brother organizes and puts on.  The race is called the Fox and Hound 4k.

sanded down, before engraving

after the words have been written

engraving

after engraving, before being stained

The race is a cross country trail run that goes up and down knobs in a tiny little community in our county.  What is neat is that part of the race runs through the land that Jeremy's dad still owns and runs right by the house where Jeremy and his brothers grew up (his parents don't live there now).  It is a great little run and the scenery is beautiful this time of year with the leaves changing colors. 

The race was started many years ago and during the early 2000's no one stepped up to organize it for a few years.  Jordan, jeremy's brother, decided he would start it back up a few years ago.  The trophies are hand made by Jordan, Jeremy and I.  The race includes a tshirt and pancake breakfast!  You can't beat it!! 

The race is called fox and hound bc many years ago, there was a school in this community and at recess they boys (hounds) would chase the girls (foxes).  So instead of male and female being written on the trophies, it is hound for the males and fox for the females. 

Factual Friday

Fact: Wednesday's 2 mile run was my fastest pace yet by 10 seconds per mile on the treadmill

Fact: Favorite quote from Biggest Loser this week "It hurts to look this good. I'm in pain every day!" - Dolvett

Fact: I have only run once this week in order to have my legs fresh for tomorrow's 12 miles

Fact: One week from today I will be competing in the Bourbon Chase. 200 teams of 12 people running 200 miles across KY!

Fact: We had t-shirts and tech shirts made for our Bourbon Chase team. One of our sponsors paid the bill for the entire team!!

Fact: we also had two sponsors that paid for half of the cost of our two rental vans!

Fact: Since we will be running one of our legs at night I bought this reflective skirt to run in from http://www.relaxreflect.com/

Fact: I have been planning and researching upcoming marathons that Jeremy and I can do over the next two years. Yes, two years.... Jeremy thought it was a bit too much in advance. But I just love thinking about the places we will go!

Fact: Deuce has only gotten on the new couch once. :) Instead of having free reign of the down stairs, he now just has reign over our bedroom and bathroom. The one time we got on the couch was shortly after we bought it and when he woke up in the am we forgot to shut the door to the bedroom.