A Half to Remember

I froze my butt off today.  This was by far the most miserable race I've done in terms of weather.  The morning started out beautifully.  It was cloudy but not too cold.  I planned to wear tights and a long-sleeve tech shirt.  No hat, no gloves, no jacket.  My choice of clothing proved to be a bad one when just after the gun went off, the rain started falling.  I think there were about 10 minutes where it wasn't precipitating. 

I felt great through about mile 9.  My splits for miles 1 and 2 were 8:22, mile 3 was 7:45, miles 4-6 were 8:18, mile 7 was 8:06, miles 8-10 were much slower (where I started to freeze to the bone) at about 9:30, mile 11was 9:09, mile 12 was about 8:30, mile 13 was 8:20.

I ended up with a 1:51--7 minutes faster than last year but still 6 minutes slower than my overall half marathon PR.

I'm happy with my performance and even happier that I didn't lose any limbs or have to be hospitalized for hypothermia. ;)

Jon tried to be at the finish line but the weather was so crappy that he decided to wait in the car and cheer me on at mile 13.  Meanwhile, the car battery died, which meant I was left to walk back to where he was parked.  I was so numb and cold at this point that Jon had to help me get my wet shirt off because my hand wouldn't function and my arms were frozen stiff. 

Let's just say that my warm bath was the most welcome bath I've ever had!

When we got home, Jon checked the status of the online registration for the Hobble Creek and saw that it had already filled up (in 2 hours) and the only way to register was to go stand in line at the Runner's Corner before noon (it was 11:30 when we found this out).  We rushed over and I signed up!  I'm excited for that race.  I've heard its a fun, fast course and I've never done it before.

I'm also waiting on the status of our St. George lottery.  We're supposed to hear next Friday.  Crossing my fingers.

Snowy Trail

Last week, my friend and I decided to run a downhill, half-marathon route to mix things up a bit.  The first 4 miles were beautiful and fast.  Once we hopped onto the river trail portion of our run, we found ourselves running through 2 or 3 feet of frozen, uneven snow.  We weren't the first to run through it--apparent by the other foot/bike prints.  Luckily it was frozen, otherwise our run would have been ruined.

So it was slow-going.  We ended up having to slow to an 11 minute mile pace just to make sure we didn't twist knees and ankles.  The last thing I wanted was an injury in the middle of training. 

2.5 miles later, we hit a frontage road and it felt amazing to be running our normal--even faster--pace.  We had a good fast run and ended up averaging about 8:30 miles including those 11 minute mile early on.

I never post pictures but here are a couple of pictures I took with my phone.

Test: Failed

I went for a long run today to close out my first week of training for the half marathon.  I met my friend who is training for the Ogden Marathon.  She was due to run 15-18 miles today and I only needed to run 13 so we started together and she went on at the end to finish her run.  I decided to try out a new program I installed on my phone.  It's called Endomondo and it is designed to use the GPS system in my phone to track my run, time it, and post it online.  I pressed Start and didn't look at my phone until the end of the run.  (Running with my phone was a pain--all the jostling and bouncing.)

The run started out fine but I felt tired and unmotivated--this combined with a horribly, bitter-cold headwind made it difficult to keep up spirits.  The return run was easier with the wind at our backs and running down the long incline we'd just run up.

I finished the run feeling achy and tired.  I guess that means I worked hard enough.  I took a look at the finished map created by my phone's GPS and looked at the distance run--1670 miles?  I don't think so.  I guess I'll be testing other GPS programs for running in the future.  Ideally I'd like to get a Garmin but that requires money! 

I think a good stretch session is in order tonight.

Something worth training for

My running is going well and I enjoy working toward this goal of 1000 miles.  This doesn't mean, however, that I'm content not training for any races.  So yesterday, in a food-induced search for something to further motivate good eating and exercise habits, I signed up for the Provo Half Marathon.  I'm really excited to start training for this race and to start including speed work and tempo runs into my workouts.  I'm also recommitting to my WW plan and now have my dear husband on board with me which will help tremendously. 

Let the fun begin!!  My race is May 1st.  I may be signing up for some other races soon but I'm still researching options.  Perhaps a triathlon?