Monster Dash Half Marathon

No PR for me today, but that's alright. It probably would be better if I hadn't had a party last night and hadn't then stayed up until 11:30! I suppose this is a minimalist footwear (in a caveman costume) PR, though. This is the longest I've run in the VFFs (plus I parked kind of far away, so I ran to the start. And I was running late!). I didn't wear the dread wig (that was for last night at the partay), but the leopard outfit seemed to be a hit. Lots of people, lots of running.

I started off with the 8:30 pace group (1:51 for a half marathon, my PR is 1:50:04) and stayed with them for 6 miles. I have never run with a pace group before. I found the pacer irritating, though, because his pace wasn't very even (I get that starting off when it's crowded makes your first mile a bit slower, but don't run a 9 minute mile and then try to make up time by running two consecutive 8's, ok? Just sayin). I was getting weird semi-cramps in my shoulders and my right hip felt a little wonky. The hip thing worried me because I haven't had any joint issues at all since starting with the VFFs. I decided to slow down and take in the leaves and the costumes. Not all the leaves have fallen yet (the yellow ones are spectacular this weekend) and this was a costume run (more so for the 5k than the half, but there were lots of costumes to see). I stupidly had some evil blue powerade about mile 8 and then had a mile and a half of stomach cramps. Yuck. That stuff is of the devil.

TODL was waiting for me at mile 9 with her dog (who was wearing cat ears!). She said I didn't look very happy (blue powerade), but I was happy to see her and the dog was happy to see me. Off again...it was cold and blustery (36ish and the wind off the lakes was a bit nasty) and I wanted to be done. I had some kick left and passed about eight people running the last 0.1 mile to the finish line.

1:59:58, just squeaked in under the wire.

As soon as I was done and wandered the mile back to my car and got some socks and regular shoes on and my toes thawed a bit, I realized that I'd had a good time and everything was right with the world.

I got to have coffee with the Catholic-school-girl-garbed M and TODL. All in all a good day. Plus, we get an hour extra sleep tonight. Bonus!

Going to STATE!

SECTION 4AA, at Goodrich Golf Course (5K)

Stillwater (Brian Brochman 16:28.9, Ryan Nichols 16:44.0, Tom Linner 16:47.3, Wade Hall 17:09.8, Joey Doyscher 17:35.9, Gabe Hanson 17:50.7, Nate Hanson 17:53.9) 55, White Bear Lake (Matt Meuwissen 16:44.7, Joel Reichow 16:50.2, Trevor Bartz 16:50.3, Andrew Sanville 17:18.4, Grady Bell 17:27.1, Chad Gjerde 17:39.9, Sean Scott 17:42.6) 63, Roseville 91, Central 114, Woodbury 137, Hill-Murray 153, Mahtomedi 182, Cretin-Derham Hall 201, North St. Paul 241, Highland Park 278, Tartan 332, East Ridge 344, Como Park 358, Johnson 424, Harding 473. State qualifiers: Marty Joyce, Woodbury, 16:23.0; Kemal J, Central, 16:32.1; Michael V, Central, 16:45.4; Ryan Ness, Woodbury, 16:45.9

Birthday treats!

K made some awesome looking cupcakes and pineapple (specifically requested by difficult me). I successfully made g-free vegan pumpkin bread. Work is much better with treats.
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Why blog?

Someone asked this question a couple weeks ago. I'm not looking to build traffic, this certainly isn't a journal because I'm not airing my dirty laundry for all the innerwebs to see, only my friends and my kids and my mother bother to read the darn thing and you can't even find it unless you know it's there (i.e. not searchable)... so why? Humans (even introverted ones) generally feel compelled to communicate (or is that pontificate?). I'm going to chalk it up to that for today.

I took Friday off because little boy had a bunch of stuff to do that required parental transportation. Plus, I wanted to get in my long run before the weekend festivities began. Great day for a run: 36F and rain-snow (snow-rain?). Not such a good combo for the VFFs. I ran 5 out in the mess, realized my toes were completely numb, picked up the boy and headed for the treadmill. I finished up watching Footloose and then started in on Set it Off. Nothing like 80s dance music followed by gunfire to get you to forget that you're just a hamster on a wheel. Total of 12 miles at who knows what pace. Little or no after effects from what was my longest run in a year.

I think I have enough decorations and food for the party on Friday. I'm still working out the drink options, but I've already got wine, beer, juice and hibiscus tea. There may be a ginger/lime/vodka something that has yet to take shape as a recipe in my head. K is bringing a cauldron and dry ice. Coworker B is bringing g-free chocolate cookies. TODL is making something yummy with pesto. Cupcakes and decorating are scheduled for Thursday after work. Oh yeah, and I turn 42 on Wednesday. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Home again times two

I've been missing Big Boy since he's been out in Washington state working his firefighter gig. Nothing I can do about it, really, as he is 20 years old and theoretically an adult who should be out on his own living his own life and all that. He left in May and I've noticed a slight, chronic unease in the air (ok, it's only my air, I'm sure everyone else was fine with it) since he's been gone. I picked him up from the train station on Wednesday. With both boys in the house, the pieces all fit and that chronic unease went away. I get to make random comments to him in Russian and he doesn't roll his eyes at me (like his little brother does), he just answers or makes appropriately random comments in return. I'm sure it will be no time until I am complaining about him, as we are very much alike in the ways that tend to irritate each other.

And it's not like little boy and I didn't have our thing figured out. We're both introverts and like our quiet and our routines (don't get me started on our astrological charts). We manage each other's moods quite well. We frequently make each other laugh until we are crying with our dorky goofball inside jokes.

Yeah, both my kids are great and I'm crazy about them. Nothing you don't already know if you have even a passing familiarity with this blog. I am very glad to have them both together in my house.

I have also been acutely restless (sub in whatever adjective you like here, it will likely fit) for the past week because TODL has been traveling in Cali. All the mocking I received as a result of my moping, whining and complaining was well deserved. She got back home last night.

Equilibrium restored.

Tonks the kitteh

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Huh?

I ran a little too much this weekend. Perhaps not volume-wise (3 on Friday, 10 on Saturday, 3 on Sunday), but three consecutive days still feels hard. I took this morning off, even though I was awake at the appointed hour. That turned out to be a good thing, given today's weather (yeah, that's it in the pic there). It was still snowing when I fled the building at 1:15. Weird. It really is not supposed to snow before my birthday.

There is a lot going on this week. little boy has two races and a short week. Big Boy got on the train in Seattle this afternoon and will be home Wednesday morning. I'm supposed to babysit for the blond cherubs Wed evening. TheOtherDamnLawyer (TODL), who has already been gone far too long, is coming back on Thursday. There's a work happy hour on Thursday (which I won't hesitate to skip if TODL gets home early). We are hosting the cross country team pre-conference pasta dinner on Sunday. Finally, K, her hubby C, TODL and I are headed to a concert Sunday night.

167.4 miles to go

Until I hit 5000 lifetime running miles. Huh. Given that I ran 90 miles last month and still have two and a half months left in the year, it seems like I should be able to hit that (oh, and I just added up what I have on the schedule to get ready for the half at the end of the month and it's 110 miles).

It's been less than five years since I started running. I wonder how long it will take me to get to 10,000 miles?

Deliriously tired

I have a touch of something, NOT the virus formerly known as that barnyard animal flu (currently a hexadecimal flu, I think), but something. It's been dragging on since last Monday. Sadly, work and life have intruded enough so that I just couldn't take a week off and stay in bed (I did take off a day and a half last week, though).

I bailed on my two scheduled weekend runs, but I did bike over to the other Twin City to watch the marathon with my buddy M. Nine miles of biking as opposed to 9 miles of running: not the same. Given that my running for the past year has been nothing if not sporadic, this normally wouldn't be worrisome. However, I caved in to peer pressure and registered for a half marathon for the end of the month. I can hear myself saying, "Anyone can run a half marathon!" Let's hope I don't live to regret all those utterances. It will be my longest run hippie-style, but I should have time to work up to a 12 mile long run in the few weeks before.

Because I've been otherwise occupied for a lot of time lately, I seem to have embarked upon an exploration of the boundaries of how tired I can be and still function. The human body is an amazing machine, people. I think things would implode if I were marathon training and admittedly, I did manage to give myself a cold, but all in all I'm still performing the essential functions without accommodation. I just wish I could figure out how to fit more hours into the day.