Running to stay sane

I warmed up 3 miles and then did a 3 mile tempo at 10-20 seconds faster than MP. It felt hard and I don't think I was getting enough air because I have a little chest congestion. But it felt good to move my legs a little quicker. Splits on the temp-6:30, 6:17, 6:20.

Tomorrow I'll do an easy 4, off Thursday, 2 on Friday. WAHOO!!!!

4 easy miles at Wheeler Farm. A duck almost flew into my head...wouldn't that be the saddest story if it would have hit me and I couldn't run this weekend? Ha!
 

Rest day today. It felt weird NOT running...ha! Today I'll get everything packed and ready to go. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning. Good luck to everyone running this weekend! Bring your gloves, it's gonna be cold at the start! Brrrrr!

2.5 easy miles with 4 strides at the end. Legs feel fresh and good for tomorrow! Good luck everyone running SGM! See you at the starting line!

Wow! I'm so pumped! 15 minute PR! I'll post my report later :)

*REPORT TIME!*

We got to St. George around 2:00 pm on Friday and went straight to the Expo. I dropped off my elite bottles (I felt so cool! I've never been an elite before!). I ran into my good friend Seth Wold and he gave me some good advice: "Go out fairly conservate and then kill it the second half. You can run a 5 minute negative split easy!". I thought that sounded like a pretty good plan and decided to add it to my list of goals which were:

• Sub 3 hour
• Top 15 women
• Never give up
• Negative split
• Race the last 6 miles

I woke up Saturday morning feeling "unusally" calm and hardly nervous at all. It was weird! I slept really good all week and I was feeling very ready to run a good race. Bryant and I picked up Emily at 4:45 am and we headed to the buses. I am so glad that I was able to ride to starting line with Em! She's such a good friend! At the starting line, it was COLD! I think it was about 34-35 degrees. We huddled by the garbage can bonfires and sang along to Katy Perry's "Roar". Emily and I are cool like that!! Then, before I knew it, it was time to start.

Miles 1-6: Right away a group of girls formed around me with the goal of running a 2:55. I thought, "Sweet! I'll hang with them". These girls were awesome and we talked about our families, training, etc. It really made the time go by a lot faster. I printed off a 2:55 pace chart and was wearing it on my wrist so I would check each mile split and tell them how we were doing. (6:46, 6:49, 6:31, 6:22, 6:31, 6:23)

Miles 7-13: A few girls dropped off the pace so it was just me, Merrilee Blackham, Jasmine Sessions, Missy Allred. Veyo felt like it was nothing! I'm really proud of how good of a hill runner I've become. Miles 10-12 are my least favorite miles of this marathon. They are slightly uphill and seem to go on FOREVER! Ugh. But once again, it was nice to have the girls to talk to and to pass the time with. We went through 13.1 at 1:28. I was feeling pretty good. (6:24, 7:17, 7:00, 6:51, 7:09, 6:48, 6:30)

Miles 14-20: At this point Merrilee and Jasmine picked up the pace and pulled ahead. I stayed with Missy because I felt that we were right on that 2:55 pace and it was feeling good. Not too hard and not too easy. I love these miles at SG! The canyon is beautiful and it's downhill. At mile 18, Missy said a prayer outloud thanking God that I was running with her! It was really cute. The hill at mile 19 felt really good but I could tell that Missy was starting to fall behind. She told me to go ahead so I did. (6:32, 6:17, 6:16, 6:24, 6:24, 6:52, 6:36).

Miles 21-26.2: Wow, I was feeling great. I didn't hit "the wall"...I didn't feel like I was going to die. This was a new feeling for me because I've crashed at every marathon around mile 20. I can thank my increase of mileage during my training! I decided it was go time and I thought, "Hell, I'm going to run under 2:55!" I grabbed my last bottle of Cytomax and took off. I passed 15 men and only 1 passed me (mile 24). I had no idea what overall woman I was but I didn't care because this race was about time. When I turned that last corner and saw the finishing stretch, I looked up at the clock and saw 2:51...holy crap! I was going to run a 2:52! I was so excited! I crossed the finish line with a big smile on my face and pointed up at the clock. The girl who finished infront of me said, "Good job. I was 10th...you were 11th. Better luck next year". OUCH...that hurt. First of all, what a rude thing to say right?! Second, I missed being in the top 10 by about 45 seconds. But I didn't let that ruin my moment. I just ran a marathon in 2:52:47!!!! I was so happy! Emily was waiting for me by the medals and was so proud of me! She told me she took 3rd and I was so happy for her! She ran a 2:40...amazing! (6:11, 6:39, 6:22, 6:21, 6:30, 6:30, (.2 at 6:18 pace))

The awards ceremony was a little bitter sweet. I wasn't on the top 10 podium...I didn't recieve a gift bag or cash. I took 3rd in my age division and got a nice plaque. But I can't think about that. I am so happy about my time. I am so happy that I accomplished all my goals! I ran a 4 minute negative split! I didn't give up and I raced the last 6 miles. This was the best race I've ever had. I'm so happy with everything! My training was awesome and my race was awesome. Couldn't ask for anything better! :)

Spin bike for 60 minutes followed with some good stretching and foam rolling. Felt SO good! My legs are pretty sore but they feel better this year than they did last year.

3.2 easy SLOW miles. My legs feel pretty good but my hammy and quad are still needing some TLC. 8:34 AP.

4.6 miles at my beloved Wheeler Farm. My hamstring was screaming at me by the end. I'm going to take tomorrow off or spin.

Day off. I got a massage this morning and it felt awesome!

45 minutes on the spin bike. Still just recovering and taking my sweet time...

On a side note, my appetite is going crazy! I ate 4 pieces of pizza last night and 5 bread sticks for dinner. Apparently my body still thinks I need to carbo load! Ha! Num...num...num...

7 miles through Holladay. I like to look at all the expensive homes and pretend they are mine. I felt pretty good today but still not 100%. Still planning on taking it easy next week. 7 miles at 7:44 pace.

6.2 miles through Murray in the dark morning. 7:38 AP.

Cold this morning! Brrr! I miss summer already! But on the bright side, I felt almost normal today! Yahoo! 6.1 miles at 7:28 AP.

6 miles on the parkway with Emily. It was SUPER dark...no moon...no street lights. I brought a headlight but it hardly did anything to help us see! I hate this time of year when it's so dark in the mornings. I'm glad we didn't trip (which Emily does in normal daylight ALL the time! Good job Em!). Some jerk had his dog off leash and it ran at us 3 different times. I yelled at him! I told him I had mace and I was going to mace his dog in the face! Ok, I'd never really do that since this dog was a nice golden retreiver, but it was really annoying and dangerous because we could have tripped over him! Come on people...be responsible with your pet. 6 miles at 7:30ish pace.

We are going camping this weekend so I wanted to do a long(er) run this morning. 10 miles through Holladay. I miss running long distances. I think I was built for longer stuff. 10 miles at 7:14 AP.

Has anyone run the Thankful Half on Thanksgiving morning? It starts at Thanksgiving Point and goes into Lehi. I'm thinking about running it?

We went camping this weekend at Zion's and it was so much fun! It was a lot of work with three small kiddos, but fun. We ended our camping trip with an overnight stay at St. George. I was going to run with Amber Green and some other girls this morning but I was so tired that I slept in and ran around 8:00 by myself. I love running in St. George. I ran up a crazy hill at miles 2 and 6 that was 9% grade and 1/2 a mile long. My hamstring did NOT like it! It hurt pretty bad by the end of my run. You'd think that three days COMPLETELY off would help heal it but I guess it's still going to give me grief. Stupid hamstring...

8 miles at 7:30 pace.

Ran 4 miles through my neighborhood and then did the spin bilke for 30 minutes. I wanted to get an hour of cardio in but I didn't want to run 8 miles again today. I'm getting lazy.

I had one of those monrings where I felt like I just didn't have enough time! It all started last night when we carved pumpkins and watched scary movies until 1:00 am. Of course that meant I was too tired to wake up early to run so I had to squeeze in a short 5 miler between taking Kaden to school and Lily to preschool. Then I had to rush home for Weston's speech therapy appointment and then I had to go to the store, pick up Lily and stop by my parents.

Long story short...5 miles on a crazy morning. 7:13 AP. Hamstring felt better but hurt later in the day. I went and saw Dr. Fletcher yesterday and he did ART on my butt, hips, hammy and calf.

Planned on running 6-7 miles this morning but after about 1 mile my right knee hurt SO bad that I could barely "hobble" through 2 more. The pain was toward the outside bottom part of the knee which makes me think it's IT Band. Crap...

Stretched really good and foam rolled when I got home.

Did a fun spin workout on my bike this morning while watching Grey's Anatomy. It wasn't half bad. I'm going to take it super easy while I get this knee thing figured out.

I took the weekend off in hopes that my knee would heal. I ran an easy 6 miles at Wheeler Farm and my knee did "ok". Towards the end it started to hurt pretty good. I think I'll definitely take this week easy again. Run one day and cross train the next.

While I was at Wheeler Farm I think I saw the ghost of Allie of "weekend past".

Super easy 3 miles

Spinning...spinning...spinning...and I ain't going no where. 75 minutes. I watched "The Voice". Man, I wish I could sing!

It must be Halloween because I was freaked out the entire run this morning! It was so dark and spooky...shadows, monsters, goblins...I saw it all! BOO! 6 easy miles through Holladay. 7:40 AP. My knee felt a little better.