bRUNch + Weekly Training Recap

Catherine and I put a long run + brunch on our calendars a long time ago.  We each had fall marathons and then wanted to plan this to keep us running and for an excuse to go to brunch, because breakfast food is easily the best kind of food.

I decided to call it a bRUNch.  Get it?  I really crack myself up, like a lot.  I hope you find me as funny as I find myself, but if not, that's ok.

The first part of the bRUNch was the RUN.  We started at my apartment and ran to the lakefront trail and then north until we got to Montrose Harbor - to a park where we actually had a cross country meet in high school.  We turned around and headed the same way back, a little faster since we were with the wind now.  Our run ended up at 9.3 miles - not sure what time we were at because I didn't bring a watch.

Catherine and I had a whole list of things to talk about/catch up on during our run, so I'm glad we finally had a chance to do that.  Another thing that was awesome was the weather.  It seemed like it was that awkward in-between temperature when you don't really know if you should wear long sleeves or not or wear shorts or capris.  We each wore long sleeves, but ended up shedding that layer - short sleeves in November!

And the second half of the bRUNch was of course, the brunch.  Our plan was to go to either Toast or Ann Sather's, but we ended up at Nookies due to a long wait at Toast and the fact that Nookies was right down the street.  However, bRUNch will be a once a month occurrence from now on, so all of the best Chicago brunch places will be visited at some point soon I'm sure.

We each ordered the same thing - scrambled eggs with hash browns, bacon, cheese, and peppers.  Catherine's was without bacon though, something I'll never understand.  I can understand if people don't get bacon on something because they are being more health-conscious and bacon is very fatty, but to not like the taste of bacon is just wild to me.

My workouts last week:

Monday -6.65 mile run

Tuesday - 6 mile progression run

Wednesday - weights

Thursday - rest

Friday - weights

Saturday - 9.3 mile run

Sunday -  rest

Total Mileage =22 miles

I did weights twice last week, so that was good.  BUT I need to be running more than 3 days a week.  So my goal for this week is to do weights on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. (I'll be visiting Anne in Denver on Friday/ this weekend!)  And then to hit at least 30 miles for the week, which shouldn't be too difficult, it's just making myself do all my runs!

Do you like bacon?

What was your training like last week?

Race Recap: Chicago Half Marathon

I finished the Chicago Half Marathon yesterday!  I was not particularly pleased with the time, but also not as upset as I have been over bad races in my past.  I finished it without quitting or crying, so that's a success in my book.

First of all, I was supposed to be picked up for the 7am race at 6am.  Mac has a history of oversleeping when we are supposed to run (ok it happened once) and thought it would be hilarious to text me at 5:58am saying he just woke up.  I freaked out for about 2 minutes until he called and said he was outside.  Well played.

After parking, we warmed-up by running about a mile to the start.  We were a bit late because of the parking situation (typical Chicago), so there was no time for the bathroom and we hopped in the corral and started almost immediately.

 

This was my first race in the 25-29 year old age group.  These ladies are much faster.  I've read that women distance runners peak in their late 20s, which seems consistent with the age group results.  I would've been in the top 20 of the 20-24 year old age group.  But none of that really matters, just an observation.

There actually wasn't anything super eventful about the race.  I obviously made a sweet playlist for the occasion - all my recent/usual favorites.  The course was flat, a few tiny "hills" like when we had to run up an exit ramp off Lake Shore Drive and over a bridge.  There weren't spectators throughout the entire course, but there were enough that it didn't seem desolate.  The volunteers at all the water stations were high school students who were very enthusiastic and helpful!

The splits that the tracking device got for me were:

5 miles - 36:18 = 7:16/mile

10 miles - 1:16:31 = 7:39/mile total average and 8:02/mile for miles 5-10

Finish - 1:42:04 = 7:47/mile total average and 8:13/mile for last 5k

I also know after the first 5k I was at 22:08, which I thought was perfect because that is the exact time I was at during the first 5k of the North Shore Half Marathon in June.  My plan was to try to do the same pacing I did there, but then not die as much at the end.  I thought I'd be able to do this because my training has been  better in between that race and this one than it was the few weeks/months before that race.

It was about 5 miles into the race that I really started to feel like I couldn't keep up my pace and became a little mentally overwhelmed.  Mac was with me for about 4 miles and then he got ahead (or I slowed down, or a combo of both) and that didn't really bother me because I knew he would be faster, but I also think I should have tried a little harder to keep up.

Throughout the last half of the race, I walked about 30 seconds each mile when I was going through the water stations.  I did have one walk break that was probably about a minute long, but managed to get going again with the encouragement of some of the other runners on the course.  I really should be able to get through a half marathon without walk breaks and obviously I know I can considering I've done it plenty of times before.  But at least I know that while I was running, my pace was still decent... but a few short breaks will really get ya.

After the race, I had a lot of time to stretch out and relax while we waited for Mac's friend Bryce to finish the race.  Then the 3 of us went to get our free slice of Lou Malnati's pizza which is basically heaven on a plate.  I'm pretty sure the walk back to the car was at least as long as the race was.  But after we got in the car, put Teenage Dream on, and were heading for pancakes, life got a lot better.

And once we got to Elly's, I ran into my friend Nani who ran a PR in the race!  Pancakes are always the answer after a race.

I also used this race to see how my Chicago Marathon outfit would work out.  I have to say that I'm pretty happy with it.  I was unsure of the spandex shorts because I have only ever worn them for short runs before.  I bought the compression socks Saturday afternoon with a Fleet Feet gift card I got for my birthday and now I'm basically obsessed with them.  But I'm even more obsessed with my new blue sparkly headband.  Overall, I think the outfit was successful and comfortable.

My mom thinks I should wear a headband like Rafael Nadal and sent me this picture as an example:

Maybe if you added some glitter to it, I would.  I hope I look that intense in my official race photos.  I would however like to personally hunt down the jerk photographer who took a picture of me during one of my walking breaks.  That was not cool, dude.

Photo credit for the pictures of the race medals goes to my friend Megan.  After the race, I saw she had posted a few photos on Facebook from the finish line and she said she was there as a volunteer!  I wish I would've known ahead of time to keep an eye out.

Cincinnati Cabrewing Weekend

I'm on my way home from Cincinnati right now and thought I'd recap all the adventures of the weekend. Luckily, I was able to get a ride with Belinda and her friend so I didn't have to worry about driving and can write this while I ride! We are listening to Celine Dion, so it's just a good atmosphere all around.

As soon as I got to Cincy Friday evening, Kristin and I went for a run. I was a bit nervous for this because the Ohio valley is mountainous and I had just done a hard workout on Thursday night. Even right when I got in the car with Kristin and started to laugh as we were talking, my core muscles felt extremely sore. But we started out on our route through Oakley and Hyde Park and chatted the whole way. It was a great normal run, but I am definitely not used to the hills! Sometimes I wish I had a little more terrain variety to run on but this felt like going from one extreme to the other. We did a solid 4.25 miles that went by super fast. Besides just the hill factor, it was a lot different that running in Chicago because of the peacefulness of it. We passed a few people and were running on some busier streets, but it is nowhere near the amount of people and stoplights I always have to fight through if I don't run at 5:30am before everyone else wakes up.

After the run we got ready for a night out! We went to Nada, a Mexican restaurant downtown. Everything about it was amazing. We shared chips and queso dip and were practically too full to eat our actual meals.

First round of drinks was a mojito for Kristin and a margarita for me. Second round was sparkling sangria for me and a coffee for her. No sleeping allowed!

We met up with Tim and his group that went to the DMB concert for a night in Mt. Adams. Besides the one time I came to Cincy for a night a few months ago and went to a bar near Tim's apartment for about a whole 10 minutes, this was the first time I had been out in Cincinnati. We did the Hofbrahaus one night in college too but I'm going to consider this the first real weekend I got to experience the city nightlife.

The real adventure of the weekend though was cabrewing on Saturday! After coffee and sandwiches, we met Tim, Dan, Eric, and Erin to drive to the river. We decided to tie our 3 canoes together to float down the river instead of really paddling. When we started, the canoe lady said the trip should take about 1.5 to 3 hours. We were in the river for 4.5 hours. We did make some necessary stops as we floated to (1) use the rope swing off the bank of the river to swing into the water, (2) climb up a tree that had wooden planks nailed to it to use as steps and then jump down into the water, (3) use the bathroom and (4) save a lady whose canoe had flipped at one of the more rapid parts of the lake. Jumping off the tree was definitely my favorite part but it was scary being up that high. The biggest regret of the trip was that none of us brought a phone or camera onto the water because we were scared to tip, but since we anchored all 3 canoes together, tipping wasn't even possible. But we did have the necessities - beer, water, chips, salsa, and Twizzlers.

After the river adventure, it was time for more coffee and getting all fancied up again. We met up with the cabrewing group (organization name: Terry's Fairies) and went to Yardhouse for an awesome dinner and then out to another bar downtown. My pictures from Saturday night are on my real camera, so I can't upload those just yet so here's another from before the canoe adventure.

The weekend was filled with a lot of activity, fun, and good food! Kristin and I even got brunch this morning before I headed out. I'm not sure if I'll be able to work up the energy for a short run when I get home, but maybe I should just to get above 30 miles for this week.

What was the best thing you did this weekend?

What is your favorite thing about running in a new area?

Week 4 Recap and Week 5 Plan

I'm not even going to do a real week 4 recap because (a) I don't have access to my Excel file with my plan (and won't for about 2 weeks - but I'll probably make a new make-shift one for now) and (b) there were extenuating circumstances throughout most of last week that caused me to not run at all Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I had a decent run on Monday which I wrote a bit about right after the run but never got around to posting it.  Maybe I will add to it after tomorrow's normal run and then post about both.  Thursday and Sunday I did races, which went as expected and Saturday I did the 10.5 mile long run.  So all the runs I did were good, but I also took 3 days off which was more than I would've liked and felt very exhausted all week.  I finished the week with 29 miles, so for 4 days I'd say that's decent.  If I would've gotten in the extra 1-2 days of running I definitely would've hit 35-40.  So it really was a true step back week and now I need to step it up.

Here's the plan I came up with for this week.  Once again, I don't even know what my original plan had, but I think it might even be better if I just make my plans week by week anyways.  I do already have my long run mileage figured out for each weekend leading up to the marathon, but the other days maybe I'll just go by how I feel each week as it comes.

If I do all these runs, that would put me at 45-50 miles which would be pretty high for what I have been doing the last couple weeks.  I put the long run on Thursday because as of now I am planning to visit Kristin and Tim in Cincinnati this weekend.  I am sure we would go out on Friday night and not be in long-run condition Saturday morning and I also don't want to do a long run there by myself (on hills) or risk not doing it at all.  I think I can convince Kristin to at least do a normal run with me ;)  So, goal is to do the long run Thursday evening.  I think I'll go to the Elk Grove Forest Preserve where there is an 8.3 mile loop and just go for it twice.  My plan for tomorrow actually is to go there and do 1 loop.  I just hope it isn't TOO hot in the evening.  I do imagine I'll ending making Friday a rest day so I can sleep in before driving to Cincy and being active all weekend, but maybe I'll have more energy this week and really want to get in another run.

Mac was talking about meeting up to do the Yasso 800s on a track this week and I said Tuesday would be the perfect night for me to do them.  Not sure yet if he'll be able to, otherwise I will plan to go and try to do them myself.  I've never done the Yasso 800s before and am a little nervous for them, but especially after today's 5K race I know that some speed training would really help me right now.  In case you were wondering what the Yasso 800s even are, I will post about them after I actually do the workout but in the meantime you can Google if you are super curious.

And now since this has been all boring running talk, I did at least do a few fun things besides run this weekend.  My favorite was after Saturday morning's long run, I met Steph and Catherine for brunch at Honey n' Jam in Lincoln Park.  I hadn't been there before but I would definitely recommend it.  I love all breakfast food though so I'd really recommend going for brunch anywhere, anytime.  Catherine and I had both done long runs that morning so after brunch we decided to go for a little walk to stretch out and talk.  Then I walked home...so much walking...but I stopped and treated myself to ice cream on the way.

So I leave you with a nice picture of my omelet (with bacon, cheese, and onion), potatoes, and toast.  What a great post-long run meal.

Do you like to plan out your days/weeks way ahead of time or just do what you feel?