Busy Week

Despite the lack of blog postings this has been a great week for my training! So I'll give a quick overview of the highlights.

• Last Thursday I ran with one of my friends from bootcamp. Only fellow moms don't think twice about meeting for a run at 5:45 am. We ran 5 miles at a quick pace and it was great to have someone else to run with! Thanks Caren!
  
• Saturday was definitely not a highlight of the week but affected my training schedule so worth mentioning. I had a great workout at bootcamp but around 9:30 am I realized that I was getting a migraine. So I spent all day Saturday sleeping :( A double bummer because I missed a weekend day with my family and running shoe shopping with Crystal. But it was a good reminder that since the sun is a trigger for my migraines I need to wear both a hat and sunglasses on bright mornings.
• Ran 8 miles on Tuesday morning at a pace of 8'40" per mile. Last week's speed work paid off!
• Returned back to RoadRunner sports after work on Tuesday to get my second pair of shoes. A second pair was recommended about a month before my race so I could get them broken in. I intended to get a second pair just like the first ones but Nike is constantly updating their shoes and has a new version of the shoe I bought. It seems that the only difference is the color. I was thrilled to see that the new version is BLUE!
• I also bought a running visor to add to my hat collection. Just another reminder that being a mom makes me more like my own mom. Bonnie, your stylish visors inspired me :)
  
• Elias woke up even earlier than usual on Wednesday so he got to ride along. I ran 4.5 miles but the stroller made it feel like at least 6. I'm hoping that training with the stroller and at altitude will pay off big time during the race.
• Had another great 5 mile run with Caren this morning! Last week she recommended that I get the book Run Like a Mother. So I promptly ordered it from Amazon and can't hardly put it down since it arrived. Never thought I would be so excited about a running book but it has a lot of great advice and is very inspirational. Highly recommend this book to any moms that run or are considering running!
  

Wow!

This week is the half way point of my 13 week training schedule which also means the summer is somehow half over already. This week's runs focus on speed instead of adding distance. So my run for today was 4.5 miles at a fast pace. I've been averaging about 9 minutes per mile so my goal was to do this run with an average pace of 8.5 minutes per mile. I succeed and ran 4.5 miles in 38 minutes (8'26" per mile)! I never thought that I would consider 4.5 miles to be a "short run" and that I would be able to run that far at that pace. Still surprised at how much I am enjoying the running.

Another Milestone

I have reached another milestone towards becoming a real runner. I ventured into the world of protein/energy bars. My runs have been getting longer so I have less time to get ready for work in the morning. As such I've determined that breakfast should be quick, nutritious, portable, and cheaper than stopping at Starbucks. I decided that a protein bar would fit all of these criteria so I picked up a Luna Bar while at Target . It took me a couple of weeks before I would try it but decided yesterday morning after my 7 mile run was as good a time as any.

So on my way to work I enjoyed my breakfast of Chocolate Milk and a Peanut Butter Cookie flavored Luna Bar. Side note, my Runner's World training journal suggested trying Chocolate Milk as a substitute for Gatorade after running so I didn't hesitate to follow up on that tip. While the Luna Bar didn't taste like any peanut butter cookie I've ever had, it wasn't terrible. Seems like a good solution to my breakfast conundrum as it keep me satisfied until lunch. I'm planning to try other flavors and perhaps the Chai Tea flavor will help me kick my morning Starbucks habit all together.

Anaheim

Watching the MLB All-Star game from Anaheim is getting me excited for my run around the city. So I'll take this opportunity to describe the highlights of the race route.

The race starts bright and early (I believe that we are to report around 4:30 or 5 am - luckily this is 5:30 or 6 Denver time) near the Disneyland Hotel. Then we head around the outside of the Disney parks and enter California Adventure around mile 2 where we'll run through the newly renovated Paradise Pier. One of the reasons I may prefer Disneyland to Walt Disney World is that it is very small in comparison so you can walk between parks, hotels, and Downtown Disney. However, this means that only a small fraction of the half marathon occurs on Disney property. So we will be through the castle at Disneyland before mile 3.

The next 5 or so miles take us along numerous streets in Anaheim. The next highlight of the race comes around mile 9 when we get to run past the big A and through Angel Stadium. We even get to run across home plate and I hear they show all of the participants on the jumbo-tron. This is pretty exciting to me since I'm a baseball fan and even better an Angels fan. I believe my Angels loyalty had something to do with Disney owning the team and the movie Angels in the Outfield. I digress.

The final 3 miles are running back from Angel Stadium through the huge parking lot and tunnel under I-5 to the Disneyland Hotel. I'm curious to see which will be faster my run back to Disneyland or the bus ride that we took on OCTA route 50 on our last trip.

Elias' first Angels game (6 months)

Waiting for the bus after the game. I know I'm a dork but proof that you don't need a car for all vacations in L.A.

Other highlights of the route are that they advertise it as being one of the flattest half marathon routes so it will be great for shattering personal records. Pretty sure this doesn't apply when it's your first half marathon but I am happy to hear that there aren't many hills.

I can't decide if I'm more excited to run through the castle or across home plate at Angel Stadium. I'm leaning towards Angel Stadium because that will mean that I've completed 9 miles.

Update

So it turns out that luckily my achilles seems fine and I was able to keep up with my training through the weekend...boot camp Saturday & Monday morning and a 5 mile run with the stroller on Sunday. I think my the root of the achilles pain was wearing heels to work and not even the running so that will teach me to try to be fashionable.

Good News/Bad News

Being an optimist I'll start with the good news....Crystal is recovering quickly and has assured me that I should not count her out and she will be in Anaheim ready to run on September 5!!!! We were even able to go for a short run today. She just said that our pace may be a little slower due to the lost training time. Not a problem as my goal for the Half Marathon is to finish and have fun along the way. I now won't feel so bad when I stop for a photo op with Mickey.

The bad news is that my achilles started hurting today. My other achilles was sore a couple of months ago when we started longer runs but before we started our official training schedule. I had to rest for about two weeks without running before it felt better so I'm crossing my fingers that this one won't set me back.

Kansas City

I had another "Wow, I might really be a real runner" moment while I was packing for our trip to Kansas City for the 4th of July and packed not only the obligatory set of workout clothes that always stay in my suitcase but a second running outfit along with all of my running gear. It occurred to me that I was actually going to run while out of town. I stuck to my plan and ran both mornings that we were in KC.

I really enjoyed my runs and believe that they helped make this one of my favorite trips to KC. The runs allowed me to experience Overland Park in a new way. As a traffic engineer I have always admired how efficient the Kansas City (Kansas) arterial street network is but it wasn't until this trip that I realized that KC generally designed "complete streets" before this became the trendy thing to do. All of the streets that I ran on from major arterials to collectors to neighborhood streets had nice, well maintained sidewalks that were connected to the Overland Park multi-use trail.

So it seems that Overland Park is a great place for running except for one small problem, the extreme humidity (at least to a Denverite). It reminded me of the couple of days that I tried to take up running in Atlanta. Needless to say, that never really caught on. I was curious to see how I would feel running at a lower elevation. Any benefit that I got from the elevation was negated by the humidity! My pace was pretty consistent with what I've been running here but I think I sweat twice as much.

Overall, it was a fun trip and a lot of fun to see Elias spend time with his aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great-grandparents. Only downside was that the fireworks were rained out. All in all it was worth the 10 hours in the car each way. Plus, the long drive to Kansas made me think that if we can spend that long in the car I should be able to run 13 miles.