Ready or Not…

In my weekly roundup of last week, I mentioned that I wasn’t completely ready OR excited for the Cap City Half that I’m running tomorrow…

My excuses:

1.  School/homework/activities required to go to for school are taking up SO much of my time

2. I’m working as many days a week as possible and job hunting because substitute teachers don’t have jobs in the summer.

3. My knee pain:

It’s been happening for about a month and a half now and it’s really annoying me!  I’ve cut back on my running and added a little biking for cardio, but it’s been hard because I’ve been trying to train for a half marathon which is running, so running is how you get faster! ugh!  Anyways… even though I’ve cut back on my mileage, my knee still hurts.  It hurts behind and to the inner side of my knee… not really below like “runner’s knee” pain would be and ITband problems hurt to the outside of the knee (or so I’ve been told) so I really don’t know what’s causing my pain.  I’ve been stretching and foam rolling in case it had something to do with tight muscles, but it doesn’t seem to be helping… IN FACT, I feel the pain the most when I stretch my hamstrings doing these hamstring stretches:

               Source Here                                          Source Here

So yeah… I’m probably going to take some time off from running completely after this half marathon… but that’s why I feel like know that I’m not ready for tomorrow.  In fact, I am anticipating a PW and it kinda makes me feel like a loser going into a race unprepared…  I want to feel excited to run because I haven’t run a race since my full marathon in October, but I feel a little disappointed in myself and my knee and I just wish the pain would go away… and that my friends, is why I haven’t been talking a whole lot about this race…

That being said… I’m still racing tomorrow… I’ll just treat it like a long run in the first half and then pick it up if I have anything left and my knee feels ok in the second half… we’ll see… I went to the expo yesterday after school and picked up my packet.

Here’s the elevation for the race:

 

So… good luck to all of you racing tomorrow!!! AND… if you have any idea what could be causing my knee pain PLEASE feel free to let me know how to fix it!!  It would be greatly appreciated!!  Okie doke… I’m off to bed for an early wakeup tomorrow! :)

I’M BAAAAAAACKKKK!!!!!

Did you miss me?! ;)

No more 16 hour long days at school!! Winter quarter is behind me!!  I’m so excited!  That was the toughest quarter I’ve ever had to endure… and that includes my undergrad degree!  In 5 classes, I pulled out all A’s and 1 B… a little sad about the B because that means I no longer have a 4.0, but the quarter is a success in my book! :)

I didn’t get to run a whole lot during the winter quarter, so I’ve been taking advantage of this beautiful 70 and 80 degree weather on my spring break!! :)  Last weekend, my hubby surprised me by buying me a pair of these beauties:

 

That’s right… the PureCadence shoes that I have been longing after!!  These puppies are awesome!  I LOVE them!!  I think this strictly Nike Runner has been converted to Brooks shoes for life!! lol

Here’s a rundown of my workouts since last we spoke:

Total Miles in February = 16.02

3/2 – 2.5 miles in 23:56
3/3 – 5.03 miles @ 10:18/mile (51:49)
3/14 – 3.53 miles @ 11:41/mile (41:14)
3/17 – 6.01 miles @ 10:43/mile (1:04:26)
3/19 – 3.5 miles in 33:52; P90X Shoulders & Arms (1 hr); P90X Ab Ripper (15 min)

in = treadmill run   @ = outside run

I’m running the Capital City Half Marathon on May 5th, and have kind of given up all hopes of PRing and am just trying to get in half marathon shape so I can enjoy the race again because last year it was my most favorite race!! :)

I’m going to try for 7 miles this Saturday and see how well it goes… school starts back up Monday, and I’m hoping to have a little more time this quarter to workout than last because I’ll only have 8 hour days instead of 16 lol… so we’ll see how it goes!  I want to try to start P90X back up as well and get fit again… I can tell I am not in great shape… but priorities right now are school, work, and a little bit of sleep… working out is a privilege at this point!! :)

Congrats to Hungry Runner Girl and Billy… they have a little one on the way!! :) So happy for the two of you! :) I hope everyone has been doing well!!  I’m looking forward to trying to catch up in blogosphere :)  What has everyone been up to?  I can’t promise I’ll be posting a whole lot, but it won’t be a whole month without blogging again, I promise you that! :)

Thursday Thoughts – I’m running a marathon next month?!

1.  Now that it’s September I can say “I’m running a marathon next month!”  Wowsa!  I’m freaking out a tad here but one thing I learned from The Cap City Half I ran in May was that not all races have to have time goals… If you run just for fun, you end up having a good time and sometimes, doing better than you thought you would… so I’m running my first FULL marathon for fun and my only goal is to finish those 26.2 miles! :)

2.  Don’t forget to ENTER my giveaway if you want to have the chance to win a signed copy of Mark Remy’s second book called “The Runner’s Field Manual: A Tactical (and Practical) Survival Guide”

3.  If you miss out on a run is it ok to do 2 runs the next day? (as long as they are lower in mileage?) What are your opinions? Have you ever done this?  Like one in the morning and one at night?

4. I’m thinking about buying some nuun but I want to try it before I buy it… Have you guys tried it before? What did you think?

5.  I found this cute little kitten under my deck last week and he was rather scared… I named him Baxter, but since hubster and I are living with my parents I couldn’t keep him and called a few shelters including the humane society… I was kind of mad when the guy on the other end of the line told me they aren’t taking cats right now and that I’d be better off putting him back where I found him.  I told him I didn’t want him under our deck and he said to throw him in the woods or something… seriously?!

6.  Tressa over at Training with a Track Coach & His Adorable Wife, commented on one of my blog posts that now that I don’t have a job, I’m not a bum, I’m just a Domestic Running Diva lol… I like that and I’m sticking with it!! :) Thanks Tressa!

7.  It looks like I’ll be running on the treadmill today… it’s storming outside and I don’t feel like getting struck by lightening…

8. I found out that if I use Mozilla Firefox to read blogs, blogger doesn’t mess up as much and I can actually comment on blogs… who knew?  Try it out if you’re having problems with blogger!!

9.  Last but not least, I have my last 2 finals tonight and then I’m free for 2 weeks before I start fall quarter! lol… needless to say, I didn’t really get a summer vacation… guess I better go study…

The Capital City Half Marathon Race Recap

The Capital City Half Marathon
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Start Time: 8:00am

Warning:  This post is LONG

Ok, I won’t bore you with talking about the expo… I’ll just say, I did end up going by myself which is fine because I got in and out without any problems… and J ended up calling me as I was leaving to see if I wanted to meet up in the morning… AND… before the expo I ate this awesome cookie which was sure to make me fast the next morning! ;)  (yes, it says “Fast Eddie”)

RACE MORNING, I had set my alarm to go off at 5:30am, but ended up waking up around 4:45am to the power being out! I was seriously a little skeptical on how I was going to get ready for my race in complete darkness… but it came back on around 5am so all was well!!  I ate a piece of peanut butter toast and water for breakfast and hopped in the shower to warm up a little because it was cold!!

Getting Ready 

Sidenote:  Yes, I, Zaneta (AKA: the not so girly girl) bought a running skirt!! surprise!!
Another surprise… I LOVE IT!!  Now I understand everyone’s need to buy a
different running skirt for each race ;)

I drove the 1 hour trek to Columbus and was immediately SO glad I had prepaid to park at a specific location!!  Seriously… if you have the option to prepay for parking for a race… DO IT!!!Streets were closed everywhere and traffic was backed up majorly!  While I was at a stand still I was texting back and forth with my fiancé before he had to go to work.  So by the time I parked and walked to the starting location I had about 15 minutes before go time!! lol… nothing like cutting it short! ;)  BTW, I had to pee so bad!! lol…

Well I stopped at the first port-a-pot because I thought that if I just got in a line quickly, it would be my best bet… well after waiting for about 6 minutes I decided enough was enough and started walking towards my corral… funny thing… the lines for the port-a-pots by Corral C were empty! haha… lesson learned! ;) 

I got to my corral and actually found J and her boyfriend which was surprising due to the amount of people that were there!  This was the biggest race I’ve EVER been to!  It was quite exciting!  I squeezed in beside them just in time for the national anthem and then they started each corral 30 seconds apart… 3-2-1… GO!!

We started out and it was pretty crowded still even though we had a tapered start.  It did end up spacing out quite a bit after mile 4 or so… I don’t really remember anything specific for each mile or anything like that so I’ll just post some things in general…

I ran with J and her boyfriend for about the first 5 miles BUT we started out faster than I wanted to go… I didn’t want to die before mile 6 and I wanted to have fun during this race…I ran my first half marathon last September with an average pace of 10:10 and this race so far, we had been running 8 something miles lol… um… all I kept thinking was “my 5k splits are 8 something miles!! haha… SLOOOOOOWWWW DOWWWNNNNNNN!!!”  Remember how I told you all, that due to my lack of training because of my crazy busy life right now I was forgoing my goal of a sub 2 hour half marathon?  yes… it’s sad, but I was happy with myself that I realized this and knew not to push too hard and end up hurting myself.  I told J to go on ahead because I was pulling up a little… I wanted to just run for fun and I couldn’t do that if I was constantly worrying about burning out or hurting myself.

I don’t remember exactly when I took my GUs but I remember that I took 3 of them along the course of the race and I grabbed water at EVERY water station and whatever endurance drink they had at about 3 stations… it had warmed up quite a bit and the rain was holding off. 

I had brought my IPod along but never ended up turning it on… there were so many bands and DJs and spectators along the course that I was having a blast without it and I didn’t realize it til about 1 mile left to go because it was cutting the circulation off in my arm so I took it off and held it the last mile. I loved giving all the little kids high fives because they thought this was the most exciting thing ever to watch and cheer for!

… I saw a banana with a “Don’t Poop…. out” sign lol…(the pic is taken from the capcityhalf fb page) and I saw a charlie sheen poster that said “everyone’s a winner!”  (or something like that) and also one of my faves  “humpty dumpty had wall issues too” lol

 

I don’t ever remember having any negative thoughts during this race at all… I remember thinking that I felt really good for the lack of training I’d had and thinking to myself that I would definitely PR this race… and then as I got closer to the finish line I realized that I was going to be really close to my goal time without really trying for it! lol… I was very surprised at myself… there were a few miles that I felt like slowing down but I took inventory on how everything was feeling… how my chest/heart were feeling because I didn’t want to have a repeat of last September, and everything felt good, so I made myself keep a somewhat steady pace those last 3 miles… although they were slower than the previous miles…

Right before the finish line was a hill… but after the hill it was all down hill to the finish!  I LOVED that!!  I had such a fun time… and I ran most of it by myself… no family there to cheer me on… and that was perfectly ok!  I never ended up meeting back up with J… I ended up being able to see them ahead of me for most of the race… til about 3 miles left… anyways… I sprinted down that incline to the finish because I was so proud of myself and my time!!  I was so close to my goal… but it didn’t bother me like I thought it would… I HAD A BLAST!!!

Official Time:  2:03:57
Average Pace:  9:28
Overall Place:  2453/6005
Gender Place:  1010/3502
AG (20-24) Place:  168/462

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After crossing the finish line and receiving my most favoritest medal EVER… I grabbed a bagel, water, muscle milk (i had never tried it before and it was better than i had thought it would be) and then after I cooled down a little bit, I grabbed some donatos pizza and headed over to the Brooks Cavalcade of Curiosities to get my gait analyzed… I guess I’m a moderate pronator and have a med-high arch… anyone want to kind of explain what this means and how to fix it? lol…  I guess I’ll have to do my research…

After all that fun stuff I went back up to the top of the hill before the downhill finish to cheer people on and that was so much fun… just the look on people’s faces when I cheered for them by name and told them they could do it, finish strong, it’s really all downhill from here… it was awesome!  After I cheered for a good 20 minutes, I walked back to my car and found that I hadn’t been alone at all… My fiancé and family were all cheering for me by text messages during my race!!  I have awesome support and I’m so blessed… The text from my fiancé made me tear up…

He basically just told me to keep going strong, that I was almost finished, and that he loved me… so simple, but meant the world to me!

I loved every single moment of this race!!  It was rather emotional for me too… I don’t really understand why… watching all the people after me finish… how emotional they were… I DID PR by 10 minutes, so that was awesome… and being by myself kinda did get to me a little bit, I’m not gonna lie… so I guess that all wraps up into one emotional race… Registration for the Capital City Half Marathon opens June 1st… and you better believe I will be registering for this race again!

A Promise I WILL Keep

Hey everyone!!  Long time no see!

I just wanted to let you all know that I had a BLAST
last weekend running the Capital City Half Marathon!!

Here’s the PROMISE:

I PROMISE to do a recap this coming Monday!!
MONDAY people!! lol… I have been so busy this week
it’s crazy!! Extra hours at work (A LOT of them lol, taking care
of wedding stuff, and not to mention that I have to do about 150 pages
of workbook stuff for school due Monday lol… that’s what I’ll be doing now
that I don't have to work anymore this week! (fun weekend I know)

Here’s a preview of what’s to come, I hope you all have a
great weekend and GOOD LUCK to those of you who are racing!! 
I’ll be thinking of you!

Weekly Roundup: April 18 - 24

 

Monday:  Rest
Tuesday:  3.07 miles in 27:58
Wednesday:  5.06 miles in 52:01
Thursday:  Rest
Friday:  Rest
Saturday:  Rest
Sunday:  Pushups/Crunches [15/75]

Total for Week = 8.13 miles; Pushups/Crunches [15/75]
Total for Month = 29.34 miles; Pushups/Crunches [15/75]
Total for Year =  60.36 miles**; Pushups/Crunches [78/475]

**Starting in March since I forgot to keep track, but I didn’t run much in Jan and Feb
*** @=outside run  in=treadmill run

March 31.02 miles

Cap City Half Marathon – May 7th

 
 
Yeah… I’m so not ready… I have tons of excuses… but in the end it’s all my fault because I just didn’t make the time to commit to training properly for this…  When I registered in November I had a goal in my head to run a sub 2 hour half marathon… My last long run was about 3 weeks or so ago… 8 miles… since then, my longest has been 5 miles… I’m in trouble…

Let’s begin with the excuses:

~It’s cold
~I hate running in winter
~I got engaged
~We set a date… what? 6 months to plan a wedding?!
~School
~Work
~Being sick (more than I like to admit)
~Wedding stuff
~Put on wrong medication and made me feel like sleeping 24/7 (Finally got on the 
  right meds last week…

Yeah… all of them are excuses… and I’m taking blame… I’m still going to run it, but it’s going to be more of a “push your way thru, try to finish with a smile” kind of race… I’m not very happy with myself…

Blog Posts From The Week

Wednesday 5 Mile Thoughts
Throwback Thursday:  This One's For Q
Happy Easter!

Registered Races

4/30/11 – Strides for Mental Health 5k
5/1/11 – “I can’t afford the actual race” Virtual Marathon
               (4/17 – 5/1) [8.13 miles done/18.07 miles left]
5/7/11 – Capital City Half Marathon
10/16/11 – Columbus Marathon

Days Left Until I Marry My Best Friend:  62

Postponement on my Training

Well… back in November I registered for the Capital City Half Marathon and I have kept pushing off training for some reason… maybe because it’s been cold, I’ve been planning a wedding, or I just am plain lazy… who knows! 

But, I was seriously going to start out training today with a 4 mile tempo run but that isn’t going to happen because I’m sick … It feels much like strep throat which would make sense because the young people I work with come to work and inform me that they have strep throat but not to worry because they aren’t contagious anymore but then cough in my face… I’m hoping to feel better so I can start training tomorrow… it’s supposed to be nearly 60 degrees!! YAY!!  Just a week ago the high was 7 lol…silly Ohio weather!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night was mine and Josh’s Valentine’s Day since we didn’t get to see each other on Monday.  He came over and brought me beautiful pink roses, reeses cups, and a card.  I gave him a card and a project of mine in pieces lol… I didn’t get to finish it since I was also sick yesterday and slept most of the day. (more on the project later) Then we made dinner together of sausage and cheese bagels and scrambled eggs… yummy!  We finished out our date with watching one of my favorite shows, NCIS, and then he had to go home early because he had an important test this morning!  It was a wonderful date!  I love him so much and cannot wait to marry him! :) 

 My beautiful flowers

 His unfinished project that I promised would be finished by the weekend lol

Now I’m going to take a nap even though it’s only 11:45 AM lol hopefully I can
kick this before I have to go to work tonight!  I hope everyone has a great day
today!!  You’re week is half way done!! :)

129 Days Left!

Partayyyy!!

Well, I was getting ready to write a blog post when our electric went out. It’s cold, rainy, and so very windy with gusts up to 50 mph here in Ohio.  Then I remembered that I could write up an entry on Windows Live Writer and then post it when the electric comes back on… as long as my laptop battery lasts long enough!

Right now, my whole family (minus my youngest sister who is away at college) is sitting around in the living room with candles lit and we’re enjoying talking, eating ice cream, and spending time together even though its midnight!  It’s a lot of fun!  Brings back some memories :)

It seems like everyone around here is registering for 2011 races…  Guess I’m in the “in” crowd…  Lookie what I did Friday night!!

I’m so excited!!  Half Marathon #2 is now paid for and on my calendar!!  Anyone else running The Capital City Half Marathon?!

Also, I will post my race recap from this past weekend hopefully tomorrow or Thursday… I was hoping that the organizers would post some pictures but I’m not sure if they will or not and I wasn’t sure my parents were coming so they didn’t have my camera.

Last, but not least, I am hosting the 2010 Christmas Card Swap!! :D  If you haven’t already joined in on the party, head on over and sign up!!  It’s going to be loads of fun and I’m positive you don’t want to miss out!! ;)  You can click on the picture and it will take you to the official page!

Ok, well… I’m getting tired and I don’t think the electric is coming back on anytime soon, so I’ll have to post this in the morning!  Goodnight all!

**The power is now back on… It was out for about 1 1/2 hours