Showing posts with label buddies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label buddies. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Why it's nice having training buddies even if you never see them

NFN and I had set up a googledoc to track our training for the Run to Remember. It's pretty cool - I outlined the plan and made a column for each of us to track what we'd done for training. I just went to update my progress, and noticed that in my Sunday column, next to "12 miles run", she'd written "Nice job!"
That made me smile.
Thanks for the virtual fist-bump, Nat!

Thursday, February 26, 2009

TiaRT: Burning questions

This week's TiaRT is turning the tables and letting us and ask questions of our fellow running bloggers. Since you guys have unknowingly bestowed upon me such invaluable running wisdom during my almost daily lurks on your blogs, it is kind of appropriate that I want to pose a question about running buddies.

Last night, I met up with New Friend Natalie, who I am running a half-marathon with in May. It will be the second for both of us, though she has also run a marathon. It will be my 12th road race, and the first one I've ever trained for with someone else.
Over dinner, we chatted about speed workouts and long runs and race shwag, and it was all very exciting to think about. However, now I am starting to get a little nervous. My first year of running was entirely solo, save for races and the one time I ran with my brother for about a mile until his IT band acted up.
So many of you talk about your running pals and support groups, and it all sounds so great, but what happens when one pal is significantly faster than the other? Is it a hindrance to the faster pal, or a painful annoyance to the slower?
My question to you, oh wise running bloggers, is how do you make your running relationships work?
Signed,
Commitmentshy

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Dreaming of springtime

Long time, no blog!
Also, kind of long time, no run.
I haven't really managed more than 2 or 3 miles lately. I am hanging my head in shame. I've still been on a pretty decent regular exercise kick, including high-intensity cardio (albeit in short bursts) and lifting/swinging around relatively heavy things.
The other day I switched up my 30 minute kettlebell routine by subbing jumprope for the usual jumping jacks. It way ramped up the intensity, and I much prefer the rope to the jacks, since JJs make my right knee feel funny. I left the gym dripping sweat.
The next day, it wwarmed up over 33 degrees, so I thought a jog around the bay would be a great idea. I started nice and slow, and was clipping along at a good pace, but suddenly around mile 2 my legs just QUIT. Below both knees, my entire shin/calf/ankle/foot area was on fire. The pain seemed to undulate between muscular and skeletal, sometimes numbing random portions of my foot and causing my right leg to literally collapse out from under me. For awhile, I tried to keep running. Stupid, right? I know. Anyway, after I finally came to my senses and stopped running, I limped around the causeway and back home. So much for the six miles I was planning.
I spent the next day and my roomie's New Orleans party limping around the house and drinking medicinal bloody marys. After some thought, I realized it might have been the jumping rope that did me in. That's a lot of pressure to be bouncing off the balls of one's feet for that long.
I did some stretching and backed off on the exercise for a couple days. Today I got back on the treadmill, and felt okay, but the legs still hurt a bit. I'll have to take it one day at a time.
While I know googling ailments is a terrible idea and slippery slope, my symptoms do sound an awful lot like compartment syndrome. I suppose it couldn't hurt to talk to, you know, an actual medical professional (as in no Dr. Internet) about it.

Becaaaaause, I have decided to run another half-marathon in May before running my first marathon in September! That's right, I decided on a marathon.
May - Boston's Run to Remember. I'm going to do this one with my friend Natalie, and am interested to see how training goes with a buddy!
September - The Rochester Marathon! This decision was pretty easy, seeing as right after I was musing on it, two of my old college roomies got in touch with my through the wonder that is Facebook, and one of them lives in Rochester (as does my best friend, our third roomie). The fourth one said that if she can, she'll be there too, and we can all have a reunion on marathon weekend! It would mean so much to me to have them there. So, I'm excited.

Hopefully my legs won't fall off!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Smuttynose Will Run for Beer 5k

Smuttynose "Will Run For Beer" 5k

The best race I've been too, and yet the most unpleasant and my worst 5k time to date. Whatever though, there was free beer and really ugly race tshirts. (Seriously, guys. Comic Sans? Is it discounted or something because it's such a joke? I don't know how this stuff works. Oh well, free is free.)
The four of us (me, Claire, and racing newbies Pat and Jenna) set off for the Land of the Free at around 8:30 after some confusion about our Zipcar (mainly that it wasn't there). We arrived in plenty of time, and went to pick up our numbers (on a super-immature sidenote, Pat was dissapointed that Jenna & I got numbers 67 and 68 and he somehow got 219 even though we'd all registered at the same time. Oh, ha ha).
While the race was chip timed and pretty well organized, it was still very casual. There was a guy with a mic who just said "go!" and it got clogged up for a minute or two at the front.
It was shaping up to be a hot day. Many of the good residents of Newmarket had placed sprinklers on the side of the street and I made it my business to jump through all of them. I seriously think I might be the sweatiest skinny white girl on the planet. When I'm doing a hard run, my face gets so red people stare at me in alarm. Just sayin'.
Pat immediately took the lead of the four of us (of course), and then Claire was behind him and Jenna and I jogged together for a minute or two before I started pulling ahead of her so none of us ran together the whole time. There was a loop-around where other runners would pass us, and Claire passed me at the corner and waved, then when I came to that corner Jenna was running into the loop so I waved at her. She yelled "THIS SUCKS!" at me, apparently making a lot of friends in the back of the pack.
I managed to run mile 1, but was getting really fatigued going into mile 2. I really didn't want to walk, since that's been my main goal in all of this, but my vision started to go a bit blurry so I figured it'd be best to walk a bit so I slowed right before the water stop. I drank one cup and dumped another one on my head. The rest was kind of a blur, running through sprinklers and trying to keep my pace up but I ended up walking for probably 3 or 4 minutes on and off.
The last part was an incredible steep hill, and I charged up that, collapsing on the grass with a lame stupid time of 35:12 (11:22 min/mile). Pat did great with a 28:16, Claire did 31:02 and Jenna came charging up the hill at 35:56.
Surprisingly (or not?) we all really did want a delicious, cold, frosty beer after that. Smutty is one of my faves so I was pretty excited. There was also tons of free pizza, wings, chili, bananas, various sports drinks we lumped together as "Haterade", and of course karaoke to set the mood. We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking Shoals Pale Ale and Smutty IPA and eating pizza and chilling at the Old Stone Church. Really really good times.