Some days, your training just rocks — you’re hitting your mileage goals, your nutrition is on point, you even get in a little cross-training. 🙂 You feel great!
And then some days, you just suck.
Week 2 of training was the former. Week 3 of training was the latter.
Oh well. What can you do…
You win some, you lose some.
I’m heading for the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia this June for the Hatfield-McCoy Double Half Marathon. The races take runners through the historic sites following the Hatfield-McCoy feud in Goody, Kentucky and Matewan, West Virginia.
Because the halves are back-to-back, I’ve decided to do a full marathon training program. It’s an 18-week program, which means week 1 started last week. It totally snuck up on me. Wintry weather here in the DC area + car issues made it difficult to get most of my runs in this week.
So yeah. Basically, I am off to a great start so far…
An old high school friend called me the other day to invite me to her wedding. The festivities will be in Phoenix, where she and her fiancé live.
I’m excited! It’s been years since we’ve seen each other, and I’m looking forward to catching up with her and a few other old high school friends that don’t live in the DC area anymore. It’ll also be my first time in Phoenix!
And since I haven’t done a race in Arizona yet, I figured maybe I’ll run if there are any races taking place in the area that weekend. Well, turns out there is one — the Phoenix Pride Run Half Marathon. It’s at 6:30 a.m. on the day of the wedding (April 2).
At the end of Decemeber, Jen’s pal, Emily, sent us an email asking if we wanted to participate in “Run the Year 2016,” where you run 2,016 miles in the year. Sounded like a cool concept, and great motivation to get out for a run when you’re not training for a race.
But then I was thinking… 2,016 miles? That’s a lot. That means I would have to average almost 40 miles a week. For the entire year.
Um. No thanks.
I was a little confused though. Emily wanted to know if we wanted to be a team of three, and therefore we’d complete the 2,016 miles together (i.e., our combined mileage would be 2,016).
Ah, that sounds much more manageable! I’m in!
It is day 2 of this epic blizzard of 2016 (aka Storm Jonas). The snow started coming down in the DC-area yesterday around 1 p.m. It’s been about 24 hours now, and it’s still going strong. I think we may have another 12 hours or so to go.
I went out for a walk this morning, when it was easing up a bit. The sidewalks and trail I normally run on were difficult to get through, but the streets were looking pretty good. Big thanks to all those working hard through this storm, salting and continuously plowing the roads.
Here it is. My 2016 race schedule. Well, tentative race schedule.
I think if you’re trying to run in all 50 states, or is someone that just enjoys participating in races, you’re constantly thinking about which race/where to go/what to run next. I’ve been thinking about my 2016 race schedule since January 2015 (and I already have 2017 and 2018 in the works). I’m a planner. I also love to travel, and in order to make that work with my limited vacation time, I have to plan in advance.
My parents are going to Cambodia in November, and I’m hoping to join them for a week. Afterward, I’ll probably split and head solo to Thailand for a bit. This trip will eat up at least a couple of weeks, and so I won’t have as much free time for domestic travel this year, which means I won’t be able to cross off as many states as I did in 2015. No worries though, I’ll just make it up in 2017. 😉
Happy New Year, guys! I just got back from my first run of the year — a short 3-miler on the treadmill.
Today’s run was the first in a while. I spent most of December giving my knees a rest (trying to heal the right knee). I think the break worked (along with a lot of foam rolling) — the knee isn’t as sore anymore. Hopefully it stays that way. The injury made me reflect on what I did wrong and things I’ve learned over the year.
I put in a lot of mileage in 2015 — I started keeping track, but got lazy around October and stopped. So I don’t know exactly how many miles I ran. What I do know: I ran eight half marathons and one full marathon, plus four months of marathon training with 30-40 weekly-mile averages. There are things I definitely could have done better to make the races go smoother and to avoid the minor injuries I experienced. So, following are some lessons learned from the year.
Happy holidays, y’all!
Wow, can you believe it’s the end of December? This year has flown by.
I ran my last half of 2015 earlier this month — the Rehoboth Beach Seashore Half Marathon in Delaware.
Despite the name, there were actually no seashore views during the run, which was a bummer because I’m a beach girl and was totally looking forward to a little ocean gazing.
The weather was perfect though, and the course was pretty flat, so I can’t complain too much. Also, I ended up getting another PR — I beat my time in Vegas by one minute! Excited about that. But it came at the expense of my knee. Not so excited about that.
It’s been many many years since I’ve been to Las Vegas. The last time I was there, I was 25 — prime partying age. But unfortunately, I just could not hang. I was visiting a couple of friends. It was August — so hot. The desert heat and time difference made it difficult to keep up with my buddies. I even fell asleep in a strip club. Seriously. When I woke up, I was alone on the couch, while my friends were all taking shots at the bar.
I’ll be heading back to Sin City this weekend. Maybe I’ll try to redeem myself while I’m there. But what I’m really hoping to do is PR at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon (aka Strip at Night).
Little sister and I ran the Across the Bay 10k today. I’m so proud of her — it was her first 10k!
It’s a fun, super popular race. Last year was the inaugural year. I think the announcer said there were something like 25,000 participants this year. That’s a lot of people for a 10k. It’s easy to see why it’s popular though. The views were beautiful, and running over the bridge made the miles fly by.
It’s one of the only 6.2-milers that I know of where participants get medals. And what’s cool about the medal is that it’s a puzzle piece that connects to last year’s medal — six years of medals will connect the bridge that’s etched on them. Pretty neat, and great marketing strategy to get people to sign up again. If you didn’t run last year though, I’m not sure how you can you get the first puzzle piece… maybe it starts from the beginning after the sixth year…?
Below are some photos from the expo and race.
Running the States 