A Runner’s Balancing Act

What a nice night. As I sit here and type I can hear a steady rain outside. Its calm in my house for once. Things are done and I can finally relax without feeling guilty. My husband is out doing some last minute Christmas shopping and I did my run this morning, so I am here all by myself and for once the house is actually clean. Its so nice!

I have been feeling much more positive over the last few days. I was in a serious funk last week, and I’m glad that it’s over. I think it was partially hormones. I was tired, but a different kind of tired than I get from running. It’s the kind of tired that makes you fantasize about your pillow all day long and go to bed at 8pm. It’s really frustrating when there is lots that needs to be done and not much energy to do it.

But yay, its over and its almost Christmas!

Last week M and I had a really interesting run in the rain Wednesday morning. We meet at 5:45 am and the official sunrise is around 7:30. So it’s pretty dark the entire time we run now. Wednesday it was really dark because a storm had moved in overnight. We knew we had a chance of rain and agreed the night before we’d call it off in the morning if the rain was anything more than a light drizzle.

Wednesday morning when I woke up it was dry outside. Perfect. When I headed out with the headlamp, I realized the light seemed dimmer than normal. It was working perfectly, but it was very dark out and a little bit foggy. Some scary guy walking in the dark way up ahead of me shouted at me from across the quiet street asking me where a certain street was. I pointed him to where he wanted to go, but after that I was pretty shaken up. I clutched my mace with my finger on the trigger as we passed on opposite sides of the street. That got my heart racing. According to the Garmin the first mile average pace was around 8 min mile! I was running scared!

After my fast mile warm up, I met M at the designated stop light and we took off on our usual 6 mile route. After about 15 minutes it started to lightly mist. And then it got heavier. A car would drive by and we’d nearly be blinded by the mist catching the headlights. The tiny droplets of water floated on the air almost like snow. Luckily, it was about 50 degrees out, so the cold was not bad. I was wearing shorts and a long sleeve shirt.

After another 15 minutes or so of heavy mist, the clouds broke open and the rain came down hard. We were about as far away from our homes as we could possibly be on this route. It was a little scary. I live in a small town and we run through the neighborhoods, so there are no streetlights and only the occasional car headlights. The raindrops in the air would catch the light of my head lamp making it hard to see much of anything else. It felt very very dark. We joked that we weren’t going to forget this run! It actually wasn’t too bad, we were drenched, but personally I was not cold.

So tonight it is raining again. I’m glad M and I got in a run this morning. Tomorrow morning I’m hoping to do some speed work on the treadmill. Then Wednesday, M and I might meet again for a Christmas eve morning run. I have to work Christmas eve and then church and family in the evening. I’m planning on taking Christmas off from running. In year’s past I have gone for a run on Christmas day, but now I feel like the family time is just too valuable. It only comes once a year. I can run any other day. Saturday M and I are doing a 22 miler. Can’t wait to get that over with and start the taper!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone. Hope you are all keeping warm, especially those of you in colder climates! Enjoy your time with family and friends this week.

and Happy Running!

Happy Holidays from Alissa and Joe

What a weekend! A lot has been accomplished over the last four days. A new 5k PR; a killer 18 mile training run; and oh yeah, A NEW HOME FOR BALANCING ACT!!!!

It was time for the blog to get a new look and a new home. Some of the websites designed by my colleagues at work include WordPress blogs, and now that we’ve lost a few of those designers, it’s become my job to maintain those sites. I figured I might as well make the switch with my personal blog so that the skills I learn will actually help me at work. What you see here has taken me nearly the entire weekend to figure out. It’s still a work in progress. I’m not entirely happy with the look as it’s a little bland for my taste. Over the next few weeks hopefully I will have some ideas to spice it up a bit.

Besides working on this blog, I was also able to get in a few good runs this weekend. The weekend started out with the annual Founatin Hills Turkey Trot.  A friend of mine came into town the night before the race and stayed with us so that she’d be able to do the Trot with us in the morning. It was raining all night before the race and we woke up to a good down pour right before we left the house.  I figured I’d be running in a trash bag to start.

My friend Sherry and I before venturing out of the house in the rain to run the Turkey Trot

We were really lucky. The rain cleared up right before we left the house and the sun actually peaked through the clouds. I was surprised when we got to the start line, there were tons of people! I thought the crowd would be smaller considering the rain overnight.

The race went pretty well for me. Despite the fact that my breakfast had not settled well, I managed to find about a 7:40-8:00 pace and hang on to it thoughout the run. I knew a lot of people who were running this race since it’s in my hometown. There were several spots where the course doubled back on itself so it was really fun to see everyone at different points on the course.

The last mile I caught up to a guy from my old Team in Training team from last year and we ran the rest of the way together. I was starting to hurt by that time so it was nice to chit chat a bit and try not to focus on how much farther I had to go.

I came in at 24:05 according to my stopwatch and 24:15 gun time.  It would have been nice to see a 23:xx time but I was happy regardless. Considering my stomach felt kind of queasy the entire race and I had to leap over quite a few large puddles, I’m guessing I have that 23:xx time in me.

My friends and I waited for awhile for the awards ceremony but it took them forever to post times. We left after that since my friends needed to get home. About 15 minutes after we got home I got a call from my good friend Ariana. She took first overall for women finishing in just over 20 minutes! She has really improved her time since last year. Ariana had stayed for the awards ceremony and she said I had gotten 3rd in my age group! I was floored! I hopped in the car and went back to the community center since it’s less than a mile from my house. They were still there cleaning up and I was able to pick up my 3rd place medal!!! I have lots of medals, but this it the first one that’s not just a finishers medal.

My first award!

I took Friday off from running and on Saturday my running buddy, M and I hit the canal in Gilbert/Chandler to do our 18 miler. It was a tough one. Again my stomach was acting a bit off and I didn’t feel as strong as I normally do. It was a weird morning.  A chilly 47 degrees but humid since all the rain from the day before had left everything damp and dewy. There was fog rising out of the grass in the parks and off the water in the canal. Not a common sight here in Phoenix.

The fog rising out of the park where we run early Saturday morning.

I was cold for the first few miles and I didn’t drink much for the first hour. After about an hour, I reached up to my visor and realized it was soaked. Then I noticed my clothes were soaked too. I don’t usually sweat like that in the cold. Must have been the moisture in the air. Then I started forcing myself to drink more. M really wanted to maintain about a 9 min/mi pace since that’s what we would need to do for a 4 hour marathon.  For the most part, we were able to do it, but it was not easy. The last few miles were a real push and when we finished we both wanted to collapse on the ground. Definitely couldn’t have done 26 at that pace.

We stopped twice to eat our gels and once to refill our water bottles at a park. I have my garmin set to auto pause when we stop running so the average pace does not include those stops. Our average pace was 9:05 (9:09 is exactly the pace of a 4 hour marathon). It was tough. I sure hope the rest of our training makes holding that pace easier come race day.

So that was my weekend. I finished with a total of 39 miles this week. Here’s the breakdown:

Sunday: 4 mile, 10 min/mi
Monday: 7 miles, 9:20 min/mi
Tuesday: 6 miles, 9:30 min/mi
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 4 miles, 3 at 7:47 pace, 1 cool down mile (Turkey Trot)
Friday: rest
Saturday: 18 miles, average 9:05 pace

Total: 39

I think I’m resting tomorrow. My quads are still sore from 18 yesterday. Have a good week everyone!

Here I sit at my computer trying to ready myself for this morning’s run. I am NOT excited about it. In fact, I even debated texting my running buddy to tell her I wasn’t going to make it. Thing is, my running buddy isn’t much of a text-er and so I would really need to call her. Since I’m too embarrassed to call, I will just have to suck it up and go. I really should go anyways – its just, I didn’t get to sleep until midnight last night. And my legs are sore, really sore.

We did 12 miles out at South Mountain Park on Saturday morning at a really good pace. Our average was 9:05 on a hilly course. The hills really beat up my quads. Sunday I  had planned a “recovery run” of 7 miles. I don’t usually plan runs for Sunday, but since this upcoming week will be a little crazy with Thanksgiving and a 5k Turkey Trot on Thursday (which I plan to race for a pr),  I really needed to get in some miles early on in the week if I was going to make my goal of 40+ for the week.

When the alarm clock went off Sunday morning I just knew there was no way. I could feel my achy quads just laying in bed. I ended up heading out at around 4 pm that afternoon. Believe it or not, it was actually a little warm, around 82 degrees. This is the time of year that I absolutely love living in the desert.

Well I didn’t make 7 yesterday, there was just no way. I did 4 and they were tough. My quads were really tired and I could feel them with every step. My average pace for that run was 9:40. There were times I looked down at the Garmin and I saw a pace over 11:00. Yes that is really slow for me, but it was all I could do. When I got home I decided an ice bath was in order. Except I had no ice so it was a cold water bath. I hope it still worked.

Now I sit here, about 12 hours later, about to embark on another longer faster run, in the dark, with a head lamp I think is getting ready to give out (I forgot to get batteries for it yesterday). I hope my quads recovered. I just popped an advil, hopefully that will numb them up a little.

Here is the rundown on last weeks training:
Sunday: Rest
Monday: 7 miles with running buddy in the am, average pace 9:26
Tuesday: 6 miles: 1 mile warm up, 3 mile intervals at 7:30 – 7:50 pace, 2 miles cool down
Wednesday: 3 miles, average pace 9:11
Thursday: 6 mile tempo run, average pace 8:25
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 12 mile hilly run, average pace 9:05

Total: 34

I’m off for my 7 miler! Yay its only a 3 day work week! Whohoo!