From NR: Grandma's Race Report

It's really become beyond ridiculous, now! How is it possible that I am unable to write a race report in a timely fashion? And then that pushes off any other blog I would write since I can't write a 'normal' entry if I haven't even talked about Grandma's yet.

So here we go - another year, another Grandma's, another crappy marathon!!

Okay, that's not completely true. Lots of things went right this year and I managed to run my fastest Grandma's so far so clearly things could be a lot worse. I just still haven't figured things out on this course, I guess.

My original plans of staying in Two Harbors were scraped the night before and I ended up staying at home. It was the right move, though because I slept like a rock and didn't wake up tired at all, even though staying in Duluth meant being to the DECC before I have to get up in Two Harbors. I caved to Shane's pressure and took the train to the start and I have to admit - it was quite nice and I definitely recommend it to others. Even though there were lots of people, we had still had room. You could stretch out some, I stood up and used their bathroom right before we got there. And best of all . . . the rain was done by the time we pulled in! So I abandoned my short lived membership in the cult of the garbage bag and left my hat in the starting line bag.

I rode the train with Marcus and we stuck together until it was time to take the warm-ups off. It was probably good we lost track of each other during the bag drop off, though, since running together was probably not a stellar idea - we can't seem to run next to each other on pavement without one-stepping. Luckily, we're fine on trails! So I took off along the outside of the corrals to get up to the right spot and got settled smuck between the 3:30 and 3:40 pace groups.

There were a couple false starting moments as the crowd suddenly surged forward only to not have it be the start of the race . . . strange. But soon enough, off we went!

What a beautiful day for running! Nice temperatures, partly cloudy and just a tad too humid. This is definitely my day! I ran what felt super slow and made sure to keep my pace comfortable and held back and ran some beautiful splits - aiming for 8:12s: 8:21 (okay, a little slow, pick it up a tich), 8:01 (slow it a bit), 8:07 (perfect!), 8:07 (beautiful!), 8:02 (okay, a little excited there), 8:14 (perfect!).

And then I missed mile 7. Actually, the problem was that a lot of balloons were missing. Grandma's has this lovely set up where there's these HUGE yellow balloons floating way up at every mile so you can see them coming and you can see the mile points even when the road chalking is covered. Say by a massive water station. As was the case at mile 7 where there were no balloons and thus no way to know when you passed mile 7. So that mile and the next together were 16:19 which is about right but boy I hated not having accurate splits for two miles!

The next two were 8:18 and 8:11 and then suddenly a 8:25. And it was hard. And it was mile 11. So I knew there that 3:35 was probably not going to happen. Now, I make this sound like a knee jerk reaction to one bad split, but I assure you it wasn't that. I love taking mile splits (I just hit the lap button so that I'm keeping a running time as well) and I'm pretty good at staying positive no matter what I see there. Too fast? That's okay, just slow it down a little and it's perfect. Too slow? No problem, just pick it up a bit and it's perfect. Besides, it's really cool to see things like two splits in a row with exactly the same time :) Anyway, I don't necessarily panic when I don't see the number I expect.

However, somewhere after mile 11, it became clear that 3:35 was not in the books so I decided to just relax and enjoy. I had plenty of time banked so I could definitely still cruise under 3:40 and I had a great few miles. There was a girl who seemed to also be going for 3:35 since we were running the same pace that I was waiting to cruise by me but I never saw her. Did I make the right decision? I think so. I think I could have toughed it up a little more later on but I think it was smart to back off here.

Eventually, though, I realized I had done too many long, slow trail runs and probably not enough dedicated pace runs on roads. My legs pooped out too early and my ITBand starting making noise. It's been irritated for a while and I've been mostly ignoring it trying to be nice to it but it likes to rear its ugly head from time to time, especially on roads. With this not being my goal race, I did not want to injure myself bad so that was part of backing off as well.

So I was plugging along as my friends Tonya and Kelly both passed me looking good. I was glad I wasn't miserable and I was happy to see Kelly looking great but I didn't like not feeling capable of running with them and I didn't like looking okay as they went by. Almost as though if I can't run what I should then I should damn well be feeling absolutely terrible. Which is silly but how I felt at the time.

Nothing went particularly slow this year, though. I was always (except for one mile, apparently) moving forward at an okay pace even when walking was involved so that none of the miles really dragged by. Watching Lemon-drop hill approach, I swore to myself I could walk every step up it if I ran the whole way there (you can see it for over a mile away). I ran the whole way up anyway, though :)

With around three miles left, I looked at my watch and didn't think it'd be feasible to break 4 hours with the pace I was moving. This was frustrating since I'd be close. At two miles left, though, it suddenly looked maybe, possibly doable. Maybe. Depending on how much time that .2 would take. About that time, my friend from earlier suddenly showed up - we had both crashed! So it was time to dig down and keep running no matter what and I rather hoped she'd be able to, too. Even though we didn't speak at all during the race, I felt close to her since we were doing exactly the same pacing good and bad.

I was able to bring it in strong with a 3:57 - 30 minutes slower than what I wanted but my first time under 4 hours at Grandma's and I definitely picked it way up the last few miles. To which I say now - if I was able to do so well and bring it in stronger the last 3 miles, what the heck was going on for the 5 miles previously? I was able to find my 'friend' afterward, too - we were putting our clothes back on in the same spot, even! So I went up and asked how it went for her and sadly, she wasn't able to pick it up enough and came in at 4:something.

So - I'm annoyed that I wasted such a perfect day! When are we going to get such gorgeous weather for Grandma's again? What did I end up learning? Something I should have already known - doing enough specific pace work is necessary for a good marathon for me and perhaps I need to focus ONLY on a road marathon and not split myself too many ways. Of course, I'm also ready to swear off road marathons for a while but we'll see how long that really lasts.

From NR: Grandma's Weather

The weather is looking so promising for Grandma's that I don't even want to talk about it for fear of jinxing things up! After a day or so scare of temperature predictions slowly climbing up and past 70, the predictions have been steadily dropping since then. Right now it's looking to be in the low or high 50's as a high, depending on the site you look at but not much variance in temperature from start to finish. There's a 50-70% chance of rain - one site saying 50% chance of showers and the other 70% for thunderstorms. So there could be some rain. Humidity is higher than I want on one site and fine on another.

But this could all change by Saturday, anyway! I am much, much happier about a chance of rain than gross heat, though. It just makes figuring out what to wear so much more complicated . . . I'm hoping for no rain as we start, anyway, as who wants to stand around in the corrals in the rain with your warm up clothes wet and wadded up in your gear back waiting you at the finish? But again, I would rather that than 90 degrees!

I'm crazy nervous and worried that while I'm in good shape, I don't know that I'm in good road marathon shape. I haven't done nearly enough marathon goal pace specific runs. I would love, as usual, to run somewhere between 3:30-3:40 but what would make me happy is just breaking that silly Grandma's curse of mine. That's something I feel confident can happen on Saturday.

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend! A special good luck goes out to my buddy Mike who is running his first marathon!

From NR: Superior 50K

6 days to Grandma's! Which means the haunting of weather.com has begun! I'm feeling ridiculously ready right now which makes me worry about still having another week to go. I don't think I've been this raring to go for a race in a while, which I'm going to take as a good sign.

But! Another day, another overdue race report. I don't know why I've gotten so bad about posting about a race on time . . .

The Superior 50K (3 weeks ago yesterday) was awesome! I am very delighted to report that I had pretty much no stomach/nausea issues for the whole race. I decided to try S-caps for the race since everyone kept pushing the salt/electrolyte imbalance possibility on me. For some reason, I'd been very resistant. I was so sure that I had my salt intake figured out with my new gel and I didn't want to experiment with this type of a thing for some reason. Go figure. So finally I decided that it was worth a go and Lisa was nice enough to let me try hers before buying a massive bottle of something I might not use. I now have a lovely massive bottle of my own :)

So the race starts up a tar and then dirt road to get to the Superior Hiking Trail. I was taking it nice and slow from the start even as it seemed as though an awful lot of people were blasting up the hill. Once we got into the single track, I continued heeding advice from Lisa to start slower than I thought necessary and hung out with whoever was in front of me without stressing about any sort of pace so early on. I did decide not too much later that I wanted to go a titch faster, though, so I made my way around a handful of people and then stretched out some. It's absolutely beautiful for most of this course. There were so many lovely views that made me just want to stop and take it in and many places that made me vocalize (usually to myself) how pretty it was.

I was passed in here by Maria and who I thought was Mark but now I'm thinking I have his name wrong. He's very nice and we've been talking at a few races and I should really remember his name AND he reads my blog - I'm sorry! So they cruised along in front of me. Heading down the back end of the first climb, I was on my own but could see Mark's yellow shirt from time to time and could hear him and Maria talking and a group of people behind me somewhere talking - sounds were echoing a bit in the valley and when I started to get a little annoyed at the noise injection itself into the lovely surroundings, I just reminded myself how lonely Chippewa was getting just before halfway when I had no-one around me. Things didn't look nearly so beautiful and green on the way back which is strange but I suppose at that point the sky was darkening for rain and I bet the sun angle probably had a ton do with it as well but the valley didn't even seem like the same place when I came back through.

Up the next climb and on to more beautiful vistas! Up here there were tons of downed trees over the trail that had to be climbed over and dodged around and ducked under. A bit of an annoyance since it would be a nice place to get a rhythm going again, but not a big deal - this is a trail race after all! Let me tell you, though, those trees were much more annoying on the way back and I felt like I almost got stuck trying to get over one. Much more annoying.

The first aid station is at 7 miles and I did a quick peruse of the table . . . peanut butter sandwiches, cookies, M&Ms, gummy bears, peanut butter and M&M sandwiches?? Hm. Okay! So I grabbed a square of that (to the delight of the two girls who apparently made them) and headed out. Amazingly tasty, actually! Where I couldn't quit find the interest for PB&J at Chippewa, the PJMM was a great mix. Mmmmmmmm. After the first aid station, it's nice and easy to get into a good rhythm as the big climbs are over with and things are more rolling. I focused on keeping an even effort level - this meant more control with downhills and figuring out what steepness of hill should be walked. I think I did a pretty rocking job with this, if I may say so myself :) I passed a lot of people in here and actually, I think this whole race noone who passed me stayed in front of me which is rather shockingly new for me in a 50K!

I keep forgetting to look at the winning guy's time but he passed me on his way back ridiculously early. In fact, a lot of people did, including Cristy (she's a friend and also the female winner) so that I started thinking I had read the map wrong. Could these people really be so many miles in front of me already? Yes. Yes they could!

The second aid station was pure chaos. Between those of us heading out and those heading back there were people EVERYWHERE. I didn't want to wait in line for the water coolers so I just grabbed a cup of water to add to my handheld, since I'd be back in a couple of miles anyway, and got the heck of out dodge. On my way to the turnaround, I started seeing more and more people I knew. Shane said he wasn't happy but he said it so cheerfully I wasn't sure I believed him. I was getting worried, though, as I was going further and further and hadn't seen Marcus. The way up Carlton peak (though we don't go all the way up) is tough to run simply because of the boulders you're trying to pick your way through. It's even harder to try to run your way down. So then I got to the turnaround and still no sign of Marcus. Hmmmm. Worrisome. I ask Rick and Wayne about him, though, and was told he was running awesome which made me more confused as to how I would have missed him as we passed each other. Turns out he was in the massive chaos that was the second aid station so that explains that.

That aid station was much calmer on the way back, by the way, and I was even able to pet my second puppy of the day there. I continued chugging along, making good time and catching people when all of a sudden there was a familiar form in front of me. Shane! I picked up the pace to see what was going on. A most unhappy and full of swears Shane was gimping his way along the trail. He would join for the next 8 or so miles as he worked through some painful sounding ankle issues. I was amused, though, as he kept apologizing for talking so much - we might have annoyed a couple of people as we passed, I think, but I didn't mind a bit. He might have slowed me down a couple of places but generally, having someone run right on your shoulder, even if they're not trying to push the pace, can help you push a little more. Especially as we slogged it back up Moose Mountain. That's a heck of a steep little climb, there. And then the damn trees. There were definitely more down over the trail then had been there on the way out. Plus, sometimes it's just nice to share the trail for a while with a friend.

Shane scooted around me right after the trees and I was on my own for most of the rest. I felt good but I knew my legs weren't so interested in pushing much faster so I hung out at the pace I was at rather than trying to pick it up and keep with Shane. Which seemed smart since he quickly booked it out of sight range. I couldn't remember at all how far there was to go (and that lovely valley didn't look nearly the same anymore) so I was trying to judge my chances of a PR and of beating the clearly oncoming rain and wondering if we were close enough for Shane to break 6 hours (we did some talking about our chances of doing so). I did get rained on but only for the last few minutes so it actually felt quite good. Until I was done and my dry clothes were at the condo and not right at the finish line. Oops.

A woman passed by me in the last mile. I let her go for a bit as we caught back up to Shane and they both picked it up with the widening of the trail. But as we came out of the hiking trail and on to the road, I saw she wasn't gaining on me anymore and I decided to stretch the legs out and see what happened. I couldn't believe that I felt good enough to kick it down another notch! Not only were my legs able to move faster but it was downhill and my quads weren't in such pain that they couldn't take it. How exciting! As the woman in front of me made the last turn up a tiny little bump, she slowed way down. I wasn't sure if she didn't know where to go or wasn't sure how far was left or just couldn't take this one last uphill bump but I sprinted past her in the last 100 meters or so.

I'm a bit torn about this - it seems a bit cruel to sprint it out for a 50K finish. If I had that in me than maybe I should have just stayed in front of her in the first place. But then again, it IS a race so I probably shouldn't feel bad about racing it in . . . I don't know. All I know is that it felt awesome to bring it in strong, run a PR on a harder course, clearly have more left (even if it is to the point of having too much left) and feeling as though I could have run further.

So a great race on a beautiful course, a PR, a great weekend with friends and another favorite shirt. I even ran the next day and did a good 20 mile the next weekend.

Next up: Grandma's Marathon! I wonder what weather.com says now . . .

From NR: Trails

Sometimes there are specific runs that I can point to and say "this is why I run" - this is why I want to keep my mileage up so I can do these runs, this is what's special about running. From last year, the first one that comes to mind was a long run with friends on the Voyageur course sometime in late June/early July. My friends were doing 26 miles and I jumped in for 16. It was raining for much of it and we had a blast. There were some accidental somersaults down the Powerlines (not me!) and some mud puddle jumping (definitely me!). We got lost a bit and added a mile to the original intentions but it wasn't a big deal. I'm not saying there's only one run a year like this, this is just the first one that came to mind - some runs just stick out and often, they aren't races and they seem to usually involve trails.

One of my first ones (chronologically) I can remember right now is from high school but not until my senior year. It was the Monday after State and none of us were really ready for the season to be done so about half the State team took off down a trail that our coach tried to take us on earlier in the year. That time, we refused to follow since we were already a ways out and no-one knew where it went or how long it was. Smart move on our part - it ended up being a something just over 10 mile loop (long for us!) and we had to cross several creeks (very new for us!) and one of us (not me!) ended up wet up to her neck from slipping in the middle of a creek. By the end of the run, it was snowing and then the trail kicked us out onto highway 2 and we had several miles of headwind on roads to get back to the high school. It was fabulous, though! We ran together the whole way and just had fun with running - something we didn't do very often.

I had another one of these runs a couple Sundays ago. I woke up needing to do 13ish miles after doing 13 on Saturday (the last weekend was a crash and burn for mileage so I was going for the back to backs again). I was tired from the accidental fast pace from the day before (oops . . . but in my defense, lots of it was downhill!) and I just didn't feel like running on roads again. I wanted trail. And I wanted company. So I decided to wait for a friend to get off of work.

It wasn't raining at the start, though it had been on and off all day. We went out to Hartley and the trails weren't quite as bad as I was worried about - the snow was soft but had grip so we weren't slip sliding around too badly. We headed in something like the right direction for the guard rail loop but 20 minutes later, we ended up on a road that neither of us had seen before. Oh, look! There's a trail head map! Unfortunately, there was no 'you are here' sticker. Not helpful, Hartely. So we ran up the road until we found a mailbox with the road name on it, ran back to the sign, figured out where we were and got back to the trails. Only to be sidetracked when we crossed the Superior Hiking Trail and decided to just take that through Hartley, through Bagley and down Chester . . .

By the time we got back, it was dark and it was definitely raining. But it was beautiful out. There's something special about running trails as the light is disappearing. When we got back, I didn't want to go inside. In fact, if I had brought a headlamp with and didn't have a hungry husband waiting at home, I probably would have worked on convincing Marcus that more miles are better.

Runs like that make me very excited for running this year! I'm already registered for two 50ks, a marathon and a 50 mile and that's just the first half of the year! Though, I am definitely not solidly planning on anything after Voyageur, so my body can relax if it needs it. Very little sounds more fun right now then spending all day out on the trails with friends. The race I'm most unsure about? My road marathon! Right now I'm craving all trails but I know if I don't do Grandma's, I'll probably regret it, so I signed on up :) The problem is going to be making sure I do enough long runs on pavement. And last week's long run probably didn't count since even though it was all roads - I spent a large amount of time running on the nice dirt shoulder . . . It's kind of strange to have Grandma's as a secondary race, though. I know I'll want to taper for it but, like Leslie said today, that would be happening during the time I should be getting longer runs in for Voyageur. I'll figure it out, though. I'm only very loosely following any sort of plan which is also strange if I think about it but I think I'm doing smart things.

Next up is the Chippewa Moraine 50K in three weeks. That is another race I was on the fence about (though with Grandma's, I don't know that I was ever seriously considering not doing it for more than a couple hours). I knew I wanted to do another 50K before doing Voyageur but TWO 50ks? And a marathon? In the space of a couple months? Maybe that's just asking to burn out or injure myself. But then I was thinking (and it was pointed out to me) that I'll be doing over 30 mile training runs for Voyageur anyway - I might as well have a couple of those been supported runs where I can practice eating and such. Right? So I'm not planning on any sort of taper for Chippewa (well, I might take it a little easy the week before) in the hopes that it will keep me from trying to run it too hard and I'll be trying to treat it as a training run rather than a race. Though, honestly, it kind of seems as though there wouldn't be much difference between the two paces for me, right now at this distance! I'll be going slowly either way, I think. But I still need to think 'training' and not 'race' in my head. Then I need to figure out my plans for the Superior Spring 50K and Grandma's. Plenty of time for that, though!

From NR: Happy 2011!

Okay. Take three. Two times I've had this post half written and both times, the internet ate it. I've finally learned and am typing it where it won't get lost! Ha!

So, step one is to go over the goals I shared for 2010:
1) Make it strong through the February blahs. - Well, I wasn't actually able to run at that point so that goal is sort of an undetermined result, huh?
2) Consistently log my runs ALL YEAR even if it's just jotting down the mileage and nothing else. - Oh, man. Fail with a capital 'F'! I just don't understand why this is so difficult for me. It doesn't take that long just to jot down mileage. I did make it all the way to July this year, though, which is better than I have done recently.
3) Break 3:30 in a marathon, hopefully Eau Claire. Eau Claire didn't happen because of my knee and the Grandma's curse continued. For Whistlestop, I didn't even try for 3:30 and I didn't make my revised 3:35 goal. In my defense, though, that was due to my knee.
4) Keep my mileage up all year. - I feel as though I succeeded with this. At least, when I was ABLE to run . . . I'm doing long runs on the weekend as opposed to my usual winter routine of not doing much at all.
5) Run my first ultra (probably the Wild Duluth 50K). - Success!!
6) Stay injury free. - Boy, I didn't even last a week on this goal! And then the stupid injury came back in the fall. I've decided that my job was a lot to blame with this, though since I can really notice it when I go back even for my short night shitfts.
7) Keep running fun for myself and those running with me . I definitely succeed on this. At least, for me. I hope I was fun for those around me, too :)

Okay, so overall, not a good percentage looking at that list . . . A 3 in 7 success rate. Well, something to improve upon, right? I still feel as though I had a pretty great running year:
~ Getting injured got me back into lifting regularly. I've fallen out a bit since Wild Duluth and trying to work out my new job schedule but I'm working that back out.
~ It also forced me to learn to swim much better and makes me want to do it more.
~ While the Grandma's curse continued, it got better. So Grandma's 2011 will be even better!
~ I ran my faster times ever on many of the NMTC series races.
~ I ran my first ultra and finished strong and happy.
~ I three-peated at Boulderdash!
~ I still ran 3 marathons and one ultra when the most I've ever done is 2 marathons. And technically, a 'year' is still going so I might have another ultra under my belt before that year comes back around with Grandma's.
~ I've discovered trail running even more, come to love it even more and also ran my first trail marathon.
~ I had lots of fun times out on runs with my friends!
~ I did 11 total races with 4 at marathon distance or longer! Plus the spring and fall NMTC races, so I guess that adds 16 (well, 15 since Rough Rider didn't really count) for a total of 26! I'll add up race mileage soon and let you know.

So! It is now 2011! A whole new year is spread before us, etc, etc . . . I've been thinking a lot about what I want my running year this year to look like and while I don't have a full plan yet, I have a good start on it. First off is the biggie that I seem ready to announce: I'm planning on breaking my tradition of thinking about racing something but then waiting a year before actually doing it - I want to run my first 50 mile! And I think I've decided on Voyageur. The potential for nasty weather is still pretty scary, though. (Hell, the whole idea is pretty scary if I think about it too much.) Nasty weather, as in hot. And humid. And other similar conditions that my body is not a big fan of. But. It's super close, it's trail I know and love, there'll be tons of friends on the course or volunteering and it'll be easier to get someone to crew for me then for the fall 50 Mile. It's the end of July so I'll have time to acclimate to heat/humidity/grossness. And it's the 30th anniversary! So right now, that's my big goal for the year. But! It's something I need to make sure I'm training for from here on out. If my training derails in a major way for any reason, then it's something that I shouldn't be doing. So it's a goal but a "make sure I'm fully prepared first' goal.

This means I really feel as though I should be doing another ultra before I do a 50 mile. Or at least a spring marathon. So I could look into Eau Claire again in early May. Or Green Bay in mid-May. But right now I'm taking a look at the Chippewa Moraine 50K. It's April 23 and only a couple hours away. I really need to get more used to eating and would feel more comfortable doing Voyageur if I did another 50K doing better with the stomach. So - if you've run Chippewa Moraine, tell me about it! What did you like? What did you not like? What kind of trails are they? The other option is the Superior Trail 50K which I think I'd rather do instead of Chippewa simply because I love the SHT and the Spring races have been on my list for a while. The weekend has been moved off of fishing opener which would be fabulous for me any other year but this year, of course, it causes another conflict! This shouldn't surprised me as it's how my life tends to work. I'm heading out to Wyoming to see my cousin graduate high school. However, I'm not sure I'll be able to afford the time off from my job as I'm unsure of what my vacation is going to look like. It's not something I'm okay with skipping unless I absolutely can't get the vacation time but if it comes to that, then I'd like to do the Superior 50K.

And then there's Grandma's . . . I have yet to register and really should. I'd like to do one more go at it and then maybe leave it alone for a little while. It's so hard to not want to do it, though. It's my first one, I still want revenge on it, it's right in town, it's pretty and it's the 35th year. Plus, I feel as though I should do a normal road marathon this year and with Wild Duluth and Whistlestop on the same day, that's not looking promising otherwise. But a friend of mine has scheduled her wedding that day! Again, am I really surprised by a conflict? The problem here is definitely not that I'm racing too much :) Provided it's the right time of day, though, I'm thinking I should be able to make both so I'm making that my plan right now :)

The big thing it looks like I won't be able to do is the Brewhouse Triathlon. I've been the running part of a team the last two years and we all decided to do it on our own for the first time this year. But it's the weekend after Voyageur and this just doesn't strike me as a very good idea. Happily, it turns out that one of the other two has an awesome climbing trip scheduled for then and the other teammie is in grad school so I was thinking she might have to bail anyway. So perhaps another triathlon. But that's not super high on my list right now.

So that's my plan for the year as it stands now. I think I'll write out some specific goals, too, like I did last year, just so I have something to go back over since that's kind of fun. Also - I can't believe I didn't do a single road 5K all year, so I'll have to remedy that this year, too.

May everyone's 2011 be filled with many happy miles and no injuries!

From NR: Finally, my Grandma's Report!

Hmmm. It's been a while again, hasn't it? This was a harder race report to write - I don't think I've been more disappointed immediately after a race. Don't worry, though, I'm not dwelling much, now and I know some good things came out of it this year.

So . . . let's start with the good things:
~ No matter how miserable I was feeling, the individual miles never dragged. I never felt as though I was making no progress.
~ While walking definitely occurred, never for very long and I ran the entire last 3 miles.
~ I have never felt stronger at a Grandma's finish.
~ Despite feeling as though there was NO possible way to take another gel and not throw it right back up, I ate every one on schedule and had no problems at all with them. Which means I've finally found fuel that will work no matter the weather conditions - huzzah!
~ I met an awesome runner around 16 or 17 who chatted with me (well, mostly TO me since I couldn't talk much, but I really appreciated it!) for a few miles. I finally let her go just as we were getting into town so I hope she did what she wanted.
~ I recovered at the finish (and after the race) fairly quickly.

On to race day:

I woke up Saturday morning at the campground and . . . I could see the lake! I did a little dance - seeing the lake means the humidity isn't so ridiculous. Non-ridiculous humidity was something I could handle. Time for food. Now, I don't think I've talked about all my experimenting for race day breakfast this training go-round. The last couple of years, my stomach/nerves seem to have gotten worse and worse - on race day morning, I can barely eat anything be it a marathon or a 5K. Now, it's okay to just get down a piece of toast for a 5K but it's not such a good idea for longer races and I've been trying to figure out what my stomach might tolerate come race morning. I've been doing Malt-O-Meal the last couple of years but, again, come race morning I can only get down about half of what I usually eat. Plus there's the whole - 'oh shit! My hotel room doesn't have a microwave!' problem. I'd read some things about meal replacement beverages being a good thing to try, so I experimented with a couple varieties and found that strawberry flavored Boost works great! Plus - it requires no prep so it's stress free and easily packable. Come race morning, I had no problem drinking it all down - great news!

I had laid out all my race clothes the night before and brought them out for dressing. Hmmmmm. Where are my pace bands? I printed them off, grabbed the tape to laminate them and I'm sure they made it in my bag. Hmmmmm. Can't find them anywhere. Okay. No problem. I know I need to run 8:12s for a 3:35 and even 8s for a 3:30 so I know where abouts I need to be without the band.

I had been thinking about having my parents just drop me off on the side of the highway across from the starting area. I get so annoyed waiting for the buses to slowly drive down to the drop off area. It takes a couple of minutes to get to the starting area from the pickup spot and then it takes 15 minutes to hang out there waiting until they let us off. Really, though, I get on the first bus out of the Super One lot in Two Harbors so there's plenty of time so I decided to follow the rules and take the bus. Good Sam.

Time to jump right into the porta-potty line. Get to the front, take my turn and head right back to the back of the line. I figured I didn't have anything better to do :) Connie joined the line next to me and slightly behind. Showing my usual flair for picking the worst line, Connie got through her line several minutes before me. In fact, when I hard the Star Spangled Banner going on, I decided to ditch the line and head to the start so I wouldn't miss the jet fly-over. Going by the number of people still in line, I'm not sure how they all made it through before the start. Since it was lower humidity and the sun was hiding at the start with some threatening looking clouds, I decided against the small water bottle I brought. I think that was a good decision - I didn't have to carry it around and I never really needed it. It's super comfortable but why carry what you don't need to, right? So all I needed to carry was my homemade gel pouch in my left hand. I shall update with details later!

My "stars align" goal was 3:30 and lining up at the start, I was pretty confident. I felt good, the weather looked great and I might as well just start at that pace and see what happens and how long it felt good. I think it probably would have been smarter to stick to 3:35 pace from the beginning (a difference of about 12 seconds/mile) but who knows what that would have changed. I wanted to hang out just behind the 3:30 pace balloons but could only find the 3:40 pacers in the starting crowd. I found a nice open spot a decent amount in front of them, though, and ran into Connie again. It was nice to be next to a friend at the start.

Off goes the starting horn and away we go!

My first couple miles are a little fast and I realize I'm catching up to the 3:30 balloons faster than I should so I back off a bit. I find my pace and hang out just behind the wall of people that make up the 3:30 group. Things go along pretty smoothly, actually: 7:47, 7:53, 7:56, 8:02, 8:02, 8:08, 8:03, 8:14, 8:18, 8:07. I'm comfortable where I'm at and feel strong. Then, all of a sudden, comes mile 11. Nothing too traumatic, I just suddenly look up and realize the balloons look further ahead of me and my watch is saying 8:31. Strange. The next mile - not any better. Suddenly, my body is acting strange and not responding. I tried not to really panic, since it was early on but I was nauseous and finding it hard to breathe and so it would continue for most of the rest of the race.

It was really, really frustrating. I felt as though my body was acting like it was hot and humid out and here it was, a perfectly lovely day. Okay, it wasn't PERFECT weather, but it was pretty damn nice and loads better than it has been in the past so what was up? I'm not sure at all and I don't like it. This is my first marathon that went wrong where I haven't been to pinpoint exactly WHAT went wrong. I was frustrated with myself and disappointed at my inability to get it back in as I fell further and further back. I've had plenty of training runs where there's some iffy miles that I just have to plow through and then I come out the other end of it just fine. Well, I didn't seem to be able to plow through this very strongly at all and wasn't feeling any better and was reduced to just plugging along. The outsides of both my knees were extremely sore the rest of the day, probably due to the strange shuffle I was doing.

One thing that was nice was making it to Lemon Drop (after being disappointed again by the orange slices right beforehand) only to easily run my way up it thinking how it wasn't much of a hill at all. Then, at about 3 miles left (a bit after Lemon Drop), I was 99% sure that puking was finally going to happen (this is also where I confess to thinking about taking one of those offered beer samples on London Road, just to make myself hurl and get it over with. Happily, I resisted the momentary urge!). I moved to the side and assumed the Stance (you know what I'm talking about!) but it was not to be. Okay, back into I go and then ran every step of the last three miles a million times stronger then I had been.

It's pretty fun to do those last miles while feeling not completely miserable - the crowds are massive, the downhill is so nice and I was passing tons and tons of people. However, I was pissed that I was suddenly able to go and worried that the stronger feeling wouldn't last long but decided that at this point, the plan was to go as strong as possible until I couldn't. As it turned out, I could push it good all the way in. I couldn't believe it when I got a nasty, nasty sideache less than half a mile from the finish, though. But, really, I think the only surprising part now is that I didn't get one before with all the difficulty breathing I was having. Well. Who cares if you can't breathe, there's half a mile left. I had long been promising myself that at the finish I could finally let myself hurl and let myself cry so I might as well add letting myself double over to gasp for breath to that. Happily at the finish, there was no hurling and no doubling over. I did have Tonya to hang on for a minute, though.

So the Grandma's curse stands. I'm not happy with a 4:07 when I wanted a 3:35 but this was my fastest Grandma's so far so maybe I'm chipping away at the curse little by little. Maybe next time around I'll smash through it! Right now, I'm a bit peeved that I have do a fall marathon, now, if I want to do Boston next spring. I was starting to think about Moose Mountain but I think that's a bad idea if I have to do a road marathon, too. My original backup was Fox Cities but . . . it's a lot more expensive then just doing Whistlestop. So, despite it being the weekend before Wild Duluth, I think that's going to be my plan. But we all know how well I make decisions . . .

From NR: Soon!

4 days! Though, it feels as though it MUST be later than Tuesday right now!

You can track me (or anyone else running), should you desire, by email or text message. Head here and enter in my name. It doesn't say how often they send updates and I don't know how many timing mats they have on the course now. I remember one at halfway and one at 20 miles, I think but there's probably more now, if they're doing the tracking thing.

So, weather. Looks great! Of course, you knew I was going to say that already, didn't you? Because no matter what it turns to, it's going to look great. Hehe. Every day the last couple of weeks has been some version of "Okay. If it's like this on race morning, then what am I going to wear?" I know pretty much what I'm going to wear (my Northwoods jersey, green, and my black shorts) but it's the little accessories that depend on weather the most. Arm warmers for rain? Hat for rain or sun? Little water bottle for extra water in heat or humidity? I'll be packing every little thing for camping, I guess - we camp in Two Harbors with my parents before Grandma's. Though, I have had the offer of a friend's house for the night before and the temptation of a bed instead of the ground sounds lovely . . .

Turns out I'll have to pay close attention to putting on my new shoes. The left foot needs to be tied super loose or else it cuts right across a nerve and makes my foot go numb. Lovely. I'll just have to make super sure before I start Saturday that it's tied right. It might be another good day for duct taping the shoelaces, too - no way I'm stopping to tie shoes, though I don't think I'm going to have that problem with these shoes. Something excited about them, though? The tongue stays where it's supposed to! Such a little thing that's so wonderful!

Things to do!
- Make sure all of my running clothes are clean, pack them
- Print out yet another pace band. Should the weather corporate, my goal is a 3:35!
- Finish making my holder for my gels. It's all figured out thanks to my mom (yay, Mom!), now I just have to finish it.
- Buy race day fuel
- Do a little dance!

From NR: Three-peat!

10 days! Which means, starting tomorrow, we can officially start haunting the weather.com website! Here's my thought for this year, though - I'm ready. No matter what I see the weather changing to, I'm going to say "Good! I can handle that!"

My 22 miler went fantastic last week, which leaves me super excited for Grandma's! I purposefully picked a brutal (for roads) course, lengthening a 17 miler that I did a couple years ago. Once again, silly me goes about adding on roads via googlemap without checking out what those roads are like. The result? Even more rolling evil hilliness than I expected. Okay, no problem, the goal was to keep strong, know it was going to be hard and not worry about time

So it all started with running up Highland/Getchell/Stebner. Luckily, it's about 2 miles from my house, so I got some warmup before all the uphill started. Last time I ran up Highland, I needed to walk - not so this time! I just kept plugging my way up the hill. And up and up and up. By the time I hit Morris Thomas, I was trying to remember what it was like to not be running uphill. The weather wasn't too bad for the start but it got pretty hot by the end. I had Kyle meet me just after half way for a water re-fill and luckily, I threw my hat in the bag I had him bring so I nabbed that for the rest of the run and headed up Haines to Morris Thomas and on and on until Lavaque. Lavaque is an evil road! Evil! You just keep going up and up into Proctor. I had misread my elevation map, too, apparently, because I sure remember there NOT being any uphill on the St. Louis River road. Well. So much for that! But I kept plugging away and felt fine. Let me tell you, though, running DOWN Highland at mile 20 is crazy painful. Wow. I went faster once I came off the downhill then I was able to do going down.

The 3rd Boulderdash 5K was this Saturday! The weather was great again and I was hopeful for a three-peat. Maybe the third time would be a charm (I had two other races that I won twice and then had some speedster show up on my third go-around). I talked Lisa into coming with and we showed up nice and early only to find out that they changed the course on me! Sneaky race directors. So I headed out to do the course backwards as a warm-up. I've found that longer warm-ups are good for shorter races and I like to know where 800 from the finish is at. Hmmm, the course is much hillier than it used to be. Of course, it was pretty pancake flat for most of it, so a hill increase wasn't terrible.

I get back from my warm-up and . . . Connie is there! Hmmm, again. Well, she's in the middle of a long run so let's not call the race until we run. And we're off with the quacking of a duck call - one of my favorite race starts. If nothing else, I figured I should be able to run faster than last year, so I tried to take off from the start. Well much longer and up comes Connie, though I didn't recognize her breathing and stride at all until she said something. And away goes Connie. So much for my three-peat. Now wait a minute, I tell myself, just stay in contact and see what happens.
They mark the kilometers on this course and I'm starting to think that I really prefer that. Sure there's more of them, but they go by faster and they really worked well with my thinking this race. I was excited to catch up to Connie towards the end and then the goal was to bring it hard into the finish so it wouldn't end up being a sprint race in.

So - three-peat! Which kind of makes me sound like a high school boy's basketball team, but I'm okay with that :) I even ran a faster time than last year, even with the harder course. My buddy Mike got third in his age group and Lisa got second in hers behind Connie who won her age group and came second for women overall. The race was awesome, as always - one of my favorites of the year. This year's trophies were agates with a wood cut backing - very nice! It's a great event in a gorgeous setting that's definitely worth the drive. The shirts were nice again this year, too. A different gold/brown color with a running shoe made of boulders. I made sure to look at last year's shirt before ordering my size, too, so it fits me well this year.

And now we come to taper time! Time to break out Marathon Woman for another read through.

From NR: Firefighter's 10 Mile plus updates

Wow, guys - it's been a super long time! Sorry for the utter lack of updates. I've been crazy busy, I guess. Lots of racing going on and my computer time has been mostly devoted to other things and I've been doing well with keeping consistent lifting and swimming so that's more time taken up. I keep starting entries and then not finishing them - I've had the NMTC series every Wednesday plus a Sunday, Moose Lake 10K, TC One Mile and the Firefighter's 10 Mile in Thunder Bay. The best news is that running has been going great! My knee feels a-ok and I'm pulling out some speedy times. I've been smashing my times from last year in the NMTC series and my Moose Lake run was the fastest I've done since my PR 3 years ago.

The biggest news, though - I am runner number 9857 for Grandma's! I signed up last week after I nailed my 20 miler. I'm getting excited - 3 weeks left, which is crazy! I feel ready to go, though. This weekend (well, Monday, I guess, since I've been working all weekend but have Monday off) is my 22 and then it's the countdown!

My 20 was on fishing opener so the run was by myself on lovely dirt roads up at my cabin. Since it's rather empty out there, I opted for heading twice around the lake instead of an out and back. This way I'd be able to refill water on my own and Kyle and Dad could fish in the morning without worrying (much) about me being by myself. I kept 5 mile splits and was pleased to review them at the end and see each split get faster. It felt humid at the start and in the beginning my legs felt way too tired for being only 5 miles in, rather worrisome, actually, but I knew I could do 20 miles so I tried not to worry about it and kept plugging along. Along comes the second lap and what I wanted to do was focus on staying strong from about 13-18 since that's where I often have trouble. Turns out not only was I able to keep the pace up, but my last 5 miles had an 8:19 minute mile average which is close to race pace. In humidity! Excellent.

Hmmmm. Let's skip ahead to this Monday and the Firefighter's Ten Mile Road Race. It's up in Thunder Bay so we (I rode up with Leslie and Shelly) took off Sunday afternoon, getting up just in time to get our race packets and enjoy the very last of the spaghetti dinner. Mmmmmmmmmm. The race is on a Monday morning (Victoria Day!) and it was the 100th anniversary of the race this year (but only the 70 something running of it since it was canceled during World War II). It's an out and back course (with a little loop at the end of the out) that's pretty flat - the one hill was an overpass that we run up and down and then came back the other direction on. I like out and backs since it means you can see everyone which was doubly good in this case since it was a pretty boring route. The hill made from the overpass was nice, too, to break up the flatness and not nearly large or steep enough to be any big deal.

10 miles isn't that common of a racing distance, so it was hard to know what kind of time to shoot for. I decided that 7:30s sounded reasonable. The miles were marked but I didn't see a single one until mile 5. Not so helpful. They were all these sandwich board type signs that sat on the ground so I think they were being covered by the spectators. There were tons of people out cheering! I love a course with lots of cheering! But, yeah, no mile markers for me which meant I didn't really know how fast I was going. I knew the water stations were about every 2 miles but beyond that . . . So I decided not to worry about it and just go by feel. I took a look at my watch at 5 miles and saw 36 minutes which means I ran even splits! Funny because the second half felt SO much faster than the first half - I was sure I had gone out much too slow.

Also - apparently the issue with my shoelaces is me and not my shoes. BOTH of my shoes came untied. I don't understand what my problem is! Clearly when I run, my ankles move in such specific circles as to undo double knotting. Bizzare. So my first one comes undone about 2-3 miles in. Hmmmm. 7 or 8 miles is too far to run untied so I keep going until I see a bus bench, run over to that and tie my shoe. Not ten steps later, the other shoe is undone. Nargh. Get caught back up with the group I was with and then stop again to re-tie my other shoe. At least it gave me some motivation to pick my pace up more to catch up and then try and keep that pace going. I'll skip over the middle for you and jump to the last few miles. I passed by a girl and she put up a bit of a fight and then fell back. Well, it was awfully nice to have someone to run with so I gave her a wave and told her to "come on" and up she came. It was super nice to have someone to pace with for a couple miles, she really helped me keep my pace. It's maybe something I need to work on but sometimes I just need to blank out and hang onto someone or at least have someone to share the work with. I have to remember this come the end of Grandma's - if I can just keep on pace through the rough part and not think about having to hold a pace, I can come out the other end okay. So I eventually dropped my help and caught up with the group of 3 women in front of me with a good strong finish (despite the lying handmade 'one mile to go' sign in someone's yard). 1:12:17! So much for 7:30s - apparently I decided to run just faster than my 10K earlier in the year and do 7:13s instead. Very exciting! Also super exciting was Leslie winning the whole thing and the rest of the team having good races, too! It's so much fun when most everyone around you also does well. I came in 4th in my age group (so close to an award!) but 3rd place was a couple minutes in front of me, so I'm a-okay with 4th.

So, here we are. 3 weeks out and 22 miles to run! I decided to go for my 'evil' route - running up Highland and doing mileage around the mall and back - it's surprisingly rolling. I promise to update more often. Hopefully again this week.

From NR: Decision Time!

Decisions to make! I was going to go on to say how I hate decisions but let's stay positive, right?

So, I had a fantastic 12 miler on Saturday! The first half was only so-so and I was getting worried by mile 5 but the second half felt great, even with it being more uphill. In fact, I really wanted to add a mile and make it an "even" 13 but decide to err on the side of caution, which was probably a smart idea. Everything felt smooth and fast on the way back and even with concentrating on going slow and then feeling slow for the first half, I finished in 1:44 for an average of 8:40 pace.

New things on the run - my Camel has mold in the tube so I went with my handheld as 10 miles is about my limit for no food or water. This was the first time I've used the handheld water bottle for any run of length (I've done a couple short runs just to get used to it and hadn't been a big fan) and I actually didn't mind it as much as I thought I would. I think I drink a lot more with a handheld and that is definitely good. It's nice to not have the rubbing on my back from the waist pack, too. However, while I did get mostly used to it it, I'm not a fan of the sloshing noise. Someone needs to invent a handheld with a bottom that moves up as you drink so that the liquid doesn't slosh much.

I also tried gel again, since it's time to switch to something else to make sure I'm taking in enough fuel and gel seems to be the way to go. You might remember that I tried gel once before with results such that I didn't want to try again. This time I tried Shelly's favorite kind - Accel Gel. Orange flavored. It's not SO concentrated that I needed to drink right away, but I did feel as though I needed to drink halfway through which I could see being a juggling problem at water stations but perhaps I'll get used to the consistency. I definitely didn't have the choking that I felt with the other brand. It was easy to open and eat on the run, unlike my first time around. It seemed to be a good size, too - I was able to suck it down quick and while I did spill all over my legs once, I think I'll figure it out and not do it again :) The only problem is that it's not available in Duluth so I'm stuck with ordering online only. I'm not a big fan of this since I like to be able to run to a store in a pinch so I'll have to try some brands of locally available gel brands, too. When I looked around, the Clif Apple looked familiar and I think that's what I tried that first time so I'll probably avoid that!

So the dilemma . . . Saturday was 9 weeks out from Grandma's and I'm just considering myself 'back' from injury in the last couple of weeks here. There's still time to get two 20s (or a 20 and a 22) out my schedule but it only involves one stepback week before the tape. So my long runs would look something like this: 14, 16, 18, 20, 12, 22, 12, 10, race.

I feel as though trying to run Grandma's hard is just not a good idea. I don't want to re-injure myself and I want to be prepared. I think a big problem I had at Whistlestop was that I didn't know my target pace well and I wasn't confident enough in myself to find that pace on my own, so I hung onto a guy who was going faster than I should have been. I need to know my target pace inside and out.

So. Do I forget about Grandma's this year and do the Sour Grapes Half the weekend before instead? I feel as though I have the time to be able to run a good Half. Fox Cities Marathon is September 19 and would be a good race to try for my 3:30 again. It seems like the smartest fallback choice - Whistlestop is only a week before Wild Duluth and there's not much for nearby marathons in the summer. September is a good time, hopefully getting cooler and it's before duck season :)

I could run Fox Cities as my goal race and still run Grandma's but I'm not sure I want to if I'm not ready to give it all and I don't know where I would aim. Do I try and just hit a 3:40 (my age BQ) and see what happens, just to make sure I'm in? Do I try for something bigger? Do I just have fun and not go for time at all (I'm not sure I can do that!)?

Now, the Eau Claire Half is for sure out. If I do Grandma's, I'm thinking about not doing most of the trail series. I need to do some track work and get my pace figured out instead of letting a weekly race count as that.

I don't necessarily need to make a decision now. Grandma's won't be filling for a while so I have some time to see what my knee is continuing to think. But thinking like that means I have to be training as though I were doing it so I guess I really do need to be making that decision soon.

Mostly From NR: Marathon decisions!

The problem with writing entries over time is that so much changes! I've revamped this entry three of four times as I slowly make up my mind!

Many spring marathon prices go up at the start of the new year so my goal is to decide on a race in the next week and a half. Trying to stay in the area, I took a look at all the spring marathons in Minnesota and Wisconsin and I've pretty much narrowed it down to two - the Eau Claire Marathon and the Green Bay Marathon - both in May.

I'm torn between the two of them so I've been making a spreadsheet of all the comparisons, pros/cons and whatnot.

Let's start with Eau Claire since it's the first one. May 2, making an 18 week training plan start December 27. It's a second time marathon but last year got great reviews on marathonguide.
Pros: It's close (3 1/2 hours away), cheap ($55) and has a pretty looking course that's not too hilly. There seem to be plenty of cheap but nice hotels that are close to the start or on the actual course. The half marathon is on the same course for the first 5 miles and I love having them around in a smaller race. I could also place in my age group depending on how it grows the second year.
Cons: It was tiny last year - about 200 marathoners and it would be good to have enough people to have runners going my pace when I'm going for a big goal, it's the same weekend as the Moose Lake 10K (but really, I think the marathon trumps it this year)

Green Bay is May 16 so an 18 week training plan would start on January 10. I ran Green Bay in 2008 and loved it.
Pros: I've been there so knowing the territory and having a positive experience there are big pluses. There's shuttles to the start, plenty of bathrooms and a warm place to hang out in at the start. It's a nice course - pretty spots and not too hilly, a small possibility of placing in my age group. Plus - running around Lambeau!
Cons: it's a bit further away, a little more expensive ($75) and the hotels are more expensive since it starts/finishes at Lambeau Field. It was a bit of a pain figuring out getting back to the car - luckily Kyle walked the 1+ back and met me halfway.

So looking at the rundown there, it sure seems like Eau Claire should beat out Green Bay. However, I don't like the idea of suddenly being in a training plan when I was thinking I had some time to base it up more. Early May means tough times trying to get speed workouts in but really, Green Bay is only 2 weeks later so it's not that big of a difference.

Also . . . I think I'll be doing Grandma's again! I know, I know, this is probably a horrible idea! But! I'm on the Austin-Jarrow Northwoods Minnesota team now and we're actually looking at competing at races together and I know Jarrow is super excited to have a full women's team. With Grandma's being a big scoring event, it's probably pretty important for me to be there. Plus, I'd like my parents (and my sister but I'm pretty sure she'll never come see me race a marathon again) to be able to see me happy and functioning at the end of a marathon. If I made Grandma's my secondary race, then I don't have to stress about nasty weather and I can back off a bit if the hot/humid shit comes upon us again. Really, we're way past due for some normal June Duluth weather. Way past due. I just like the Grandma's course, too - it's beautiful and peaceful for the first 20 miles with enough people to not be on your own and then you come into Duluth and have awesome cheering crowds for the last 6 miles.

So, anyway. Eau Claire gives me 7 weeks between races and Green Bay gives me 5. Probably another positive for Eau Claire. So I'm leaning pretty heavily toward Eau Claire. Anyone who's been there - now's your time to tell me all about what you think!