Recap of Evergreen Pumpkin 5k

I had so much fun with this race!  I got one of my friends at work to do it with me that I haven't run with before and it turned into a great time.  We carpooled downtown to the cemetery and it was a little spooky first thing in the morning!  But there were lots of costumed people and they lined the streets with pumpkins so it was really cute.  Thanks to my friend, we dressed up as bank robbers and the outfits turned out so well.

The temperature was pretty perfect at the start but it did warm up very quickly, especially when you're wearing long sleeves, a beanie, and gloves.... haha!

 We did a walk run 45 sec running, 30 sec walking and we both agreed our pace was perfect.  I felt a little sluggish since I had just run a 5k on Saturday, also.  I usually take a day off in between running so my body was aching a little!

**NOTE: I did NOT wear the mask and gloves the whole time (so annoying) but when we saw cameras up ahead I put my gear on

Total time was 37:33 -- only 1 minute off of a PR time.  We have already planned our next race - a 5k in December :)  

Happy Halloween 

I Swear I'm Alive!

I've been so out of the loop lately with lots of changes going on!  Work has been kicking my butt and it's really all I can do to find the energy to go for a run.  On top of that, I'm moving next month so most of my free time is spent planning and packing.  But I need to get back into the groove and I'm slowly catching up on reading my Bloglovin feed so I figured I need to write a post myself.

I had been waiting for an email about pictures for the Jax Marine Corps Half but never got one so I did some digging last night and found a few!  I'm too cheap to buy the pictures, haha, so I just have messy screen shots to show:

The first two pictures are definitely towards the beginning/middle when I was feeling pretty darn good.  I thought this was going to be one of my best races ever.  Sadly, it went downhill at the end. 

The picture below is right at the end when it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other.  I wanted to give up and you can feel the defeat on my face.  

And finally at the finish line.  I was so disappointed and so relieved for it to be done and over with.  This was followed by the extremely slow crawl to my car while whining to my dad on the phone, haha! 

I'm not sure there was anything specific I could have done better to prevent the leg/hip cramps.  I want to research more into electrolytes and salt usage while running to see if that could potentially help.  In addition, I'm trying to stretch my hips as frequently as possible.  

Next half marathon = Thanksgiving Day Subaru Classic! 

Jax Marine Corps Half Marathon Recap

A few days later I finally have a moment to recap my most recent 13.1 mile trek.  I was completely mentally not prepared for this race at all.  My confidence was lacking since I had just gotten back from NW Pacific and hadn't run at all the week following my return.  I began hoping for rain or some other reason that the race couldn't go on so that I wouldn't have to feel like a failure for not going.  But I finally decided to go all in and change my mentality and prepare for this thing.

So I stocked up on music.  Made a kick ass playlist.  Got all my gear out including my Garmin, HR monitor, Gymboss, waistband, frozen water bottle (which I ended up forgetting), body glide and baseball cap.  The weather here in Jacksonville has been a little iffy lately.  One day it's chilly enough for a sweatshirt and then days like today I'm sweating walking to my car after work.  I had prepared shorts and a tank top the night before:

When I woke up I looked at the weather and saw that it was in the 60's and cloudy.  Thinking of the weather and the fact that I didn't love the way I looked in the chosen outfit I went for capris instead.  And it was a great decision - no chafing :) 

I'll save the boring details but will say I was able to meet up with my Galloway training group to run with them and it was AWESOME.  I LOVE my girls and we had fun running together.  

I felt GREAT (like amazing) when we started.  I thought I was going to have the best race of my life - my breathing was perfect, mentally I was feeling strong and confident, and my body felt good. Then we got to mile 7/8 and we were on the road and it was a pretty steep slant up to the middle of the road and it started a cramp in my right hip.  It got to the point where I seriously thought I needed to take it easy because this is it - the thing that will hold me back from being amazing today.  Just when I thought it was the end of my perfect race it kind of went away...  But then it came back around mile 10 in both hips.  Mentally and cardiovascularly I thought I could run a full; but my body was screaming for me to slow down.  I pulled my weight with the group all the way up to the last mile.  And they slowly started to creep ahead of me.  By the last 0.1 miles I had to walk and it felt like FOREVER.  I was pumping my arms so fast and I was moving so slowly.  I was in so much pain I wanted to cry and give up.  But I was doing so well I had to finish strong.  And I was able to run hobble my way through the finish line at 2:48.  

I'm actually pretty happy with my time.  When I completely hit a wall at the virtual half marathon a few weeks ago I had to walk quite a bit and finished in 3:02.  So I'm VERY happy with the outcome.  I'm even happier that I finished right behind the group.  

I took a few days off because I was so incredibly sore.  Tonight I got out and ran a 5k and hit a recent PR!  My ultimate PR was about 2 minutes faster during my college days so I'm excited that I'm getting closer and closer to that time!  36:34 is the new time to beat. 

Happy Hump Day!

Jax Marine Corps Playlist

One of the best parts about preparing for a half marathon is creating the playlist.  Last night I took about an hour to get all the motivating songs I could find and I think I created a masterpiece!  I'll warn you, some of them can be very inappropriate but they all have a good beat and great motivation.

Of course, once I realized I had 51 songs I had to delete one to make it even, haha.  Everything went great this morning except a couple minor issues including I didn't realize my iPod was playing the whole way leading up to the race so the battery was only at 50% when we started.  Right when I needed it the most at mile 11 the battery died.  HORRIBLE feeling.  I'll never make that mistake again!  Full race recap to come soon!

Help Wanted: Serious Motivation

I'm a pretty serious creature of habit.  I enjoy routine but also randomly get urges to make a big change.  Overall, I have a daily routine I like to stay on track with and when I get too far off... sometimes I have a hard time coming back...

I got two runs in and quote a lot of walks on my vacation last week but I have been utterly immobile this week other than working.  That's right, ZERO workouts, ZERO runs, ZERO walks.  I've been getting into bed around 800pm and sleeping later than normal.  HELP.  

What worries me most is I'm supposed to run my fifth half marathon this Saturday and I really don't know how I'm going to do.  What I'm hoping is that my body needs recovery and relaxation after the time changes and traveling it experienced last week.  Maybe if I continue laying low I will fully recover my body just in time to do amazingly well in the race... :)  Or, worst comes to worst, I can walk it to finish.  

Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday because this work week has kicked my ass.