Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Post-race recovery

I had originally planned on taking an entire week off from working out after my half in order to give my hamstring a break. I mentioned this plan to a coworker who also runs, and he acted like that was too much time off. So I decided that 2 days off was sufficient, and ran on the Wednesday after the half. My shins were so ridiculously tight, but I kept on running. Then I ran on Thursday, and it was so painful that I could barely finish. I was hobbling for days. I ended up skipping my "long" run last Saturday. I'm going to try running with Liz today out at her cow pasture, and I hope things are better. Right now my left hip is so tight that I can't crouch down and then get back up easily. My hips have always popped out easily, and now I can't make it pop. I'm sure the 2 are related somehow.

I guess I didn't learn as much about listening to my body as I thought I did. I'm a bit worried about stress fractures or something, but I hope my legs are just sore from the combination of weather changes and the fact that I ran a half. If this is how long it takes me to recover from a half, I'm going to end up bed-ridden after the marathon lol.

My birthday was last Sunday, and my husband got me a pair of those yurbuds headphones. I really wanted a blue pair, but the volume button control thing isn't available in the blue ones, so I got the red pair. I can always buy a blue set of the ear covers when I eventually have to replace them. I haven't run with the headphones in yet to see how well they stay, but they withstood my bouncing up and down test. Mom is sending me $100 towards new running shoes for my birthday, and Liz and I are going to hit up the Red Coyote running store after our 5K on Nov 3.

I've been trying to figure out if I should get a gps watch. I really like the Garmin Forerunner 10, but I'm concerned about the battery life (rumored to be only 6hrs-not sure of what my marathon time will be yet) and lack of foot pod compatibility. The dcrainmaker reviews a lot of the GPS watches, and he's very thorough. His wife is very petite like I am, and she liked the forerunner 10, but prefers the FR310XT. But then she's a triathlete, and I'm not (but want to be someday). I've been looking at the Nike+ GPS watch too, but it seemed very loose on dcrainmaker's wife's wrist. I really like the Motorola MOTOACTV because it can clip on your waistband, but the battery life sucks. I just can't decide what I need, or if I even need a gps watch at all. Right now I use my mapmyrun app on my phone, and listen to audiobooks at the same time. I really like how the app yells at me every mile to tell me what my pace/distance/speed is, and a watch wouldn't necessarily yell at me (although I could just look down lol). I'd have to get an ipod shuffle or something to put the audiobooks on if I leave my phone in the car too. I'm worried about my phone getting damaged from the sweat in my spibelt. I can't decide if I really need a watch or if I'm just lusting after new toys. I'd lose the ability to text people during runs/races if I left my phone in the car. It sounds like I really don't NEED one per se, but that I just want a new toy. I can't decide.


Run Summary:

10/10/12: (Wednesday)
Stats: 3 miles in 37:11. Shins very tight.

10/11/12: (Thursday)
Stats: 3 miles in 37:51. Shins very very achey.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Spirit of Survival Half Marathon Race Recap

I did it! I finished my first half marathon! My time was 2:36:45, which blew out both my official goal of <3:15 and my secret probably-not-attainable goal of 2:45. I'm fairly sore today, but I'll be ok.

Earlier last week, the weather reports all said that the temp when the race started would be around 45F, which I could probably handle since you're supposed to dress like it's 20 degrees warmer. However, as we got further into the week, it became clear that the temp was more likely to be in the upper 30s (correct-it was 38F at the start). I wasn't really worried about running 13.1 miles, but my nervousness manifested in a freakout about my clothes. I had my clothes planned out for the past 2 months, and I've done all of my long runs in them. I wanted to wear an underarmour tank and compression shorts. That won't work for 38F, so I wore some compression capris, my underarmour tank, and my running jacket. I added some cute gloves and an ear warmer and I survived.



Here are the tech shirt and my bib number. I find it very ironic that my number for this race was 17, and my number for my first race (the redbud classic) was 717.



We were freezing to death before the race. I'm pretty sure I was about 10x colder than Gnome was.


The race itself was fairly smooth. Either my mymyrun's GPS was off, or the mile markers were off. My app would yell at me about .1 miles or so before I passed each mile marker. I took my water bottle with me so I could use the pouch to hold extra sport beans (cherry and grape). I drank water until about 4 miles or so, and then I started drinking gatorade at every other water stop. I refilled my water bottle at the other stops. I went through 2.5 of the 4 sport bean pouches I brought with me (both cherries and 1/2 of a grape). I managed to not stop for the portapotties, although I don't think I'll be able to avoid it when I run a marathon. I was not able to run the entire race, but I didn't walk as much as I thought I would need to either. The turnaround point is at the top of a hill, and it was a bit rough getting up there. The rest of the course had gradual hills, and part of it was flat (mostly the part on the city streets). There was a tiny hill at the end of the race, which I thought was a bit cruel, but I ran it anyway.

Here I am, about 50 feet from the finish line:


And now I'm finishing:


My app says that I actually ran 13.59 miles, although I did forget to turn it off for a few mins in the confusion after I finished. It was like my brain completely shut off in the excitement of finishing. Also, my legs decided that they were going to cramp up if I stopped moving, so I had to keep walking. At one point I was walking circles around Liz and Katie because I just couldn't stand still.

We took our obligatory photo with our medals and went back to the hotel. Liz refused to get in a pic with us, unfortunately.


Stats:
13.1 miles
2:36:45
12:01 pace
165/233 females
24/33 in 25-29 females

Other stats:
Mapmyrun says I ran 13.59, with an 11:37 pace. I'll go with the official stats for this, but I like the MMR stats better :)

Training for this race was sort of difficult, since I initially pulled my hamstring on the Tuesday before training started, and then re-injured it in week 8. I ran about half of the mileage that I should have (108.74 of the 177.4-204.4 scheduled). I only ran the mileage that I was supposed to for 4 of the 12 weeks. But I'm proud of my effort, and I've learned some things about injury management, listening to my body, and differentiating between regular pain and injury pain.

I have finished this:


Now I'm starting this:


139 days until the Cowtown Marathon in Ft. Worth, TX, on Feb 24. It'll be the first marathon for both Liz and me. She started training 10 weeks ago, and I am jumping in at week 11.

**Note: the end of the half marks 252.77 miles on my shoes.**