Still Recovering

Ran 3 miles this morning.  I'm super excited that my legs did not protest much.  No left knee IT band pain and only slight soreness from my right hamstring. Yay!  

I was pretty upset after my long run on Saturday when I was unable to finish the 4 miles.  My knee was very sore the rest of the day and even Sunday.  

Today I kept my pace very slow.  Maybe if I keep my distance short and pace slow I can inch my way out of these painful marathon leftovers.  

Also, I'm starting to think I miss Winter running.  I was drenched with sweat after my quick run and continued sweating for some time after that!

Hello Summer!

Flag Day!

Check out my new shorts!  I got them for a Star Spangled Banner Trail Marathon (I'm hoping to run the half) coming up on July 7th.  Then I realized I should wear them for my run yesterday! 

Unfortunately my 6 mile run was cut down to only 4 miles do to horrible pain from my IT band on the outside of my left knee (I felt pretty OK after the Summer Sunset 5K on Tues.).  I'm really hoping this is not going to completely screw up my running plans for the months ahead...  Maybe a Fall marathon would have been a better idea than a Spring one that screwed up my Summer of running... Ah well.  Lots of miles to come I'm sure regardless of the pain.  I don't know if I'll even make it to 40 miles this month if I can't go much over 3 miles at a time and running more than twice a week does not seem to make my knee very happy.  We'll see!

Happy Father's Day! Thank you for reading!

Summer Sunset 5K

I started a race series last night in Canton, NY -the Summer Sunset 5K series.  There are three races, once a month, in June, July, and August.  Jacki and I headed over to find the location early and arrived at almost the same time.  At first we didn't know where to go, incorrectly assuming the large crowd of people milling about was for some other event.  After having run the Frozen Foote series this winter I just hadn't expected there to be so many runners!  But of course it's much more pleasant to convene for a 7:30 PM race in the slowly cooling air of a nice warm Spring day, so the turn out was much bigger!  Maybe 150 people?  Maybe less.  I'm not very good at estimating crowd size.

As we chatted in the starting area we were suddenly brought to attention by the starting gun!  Off we went.  I'm really glad I did not push the subject of Tom accompanying me with the kids in the jog stroller because it was mostly a cross country run through some of St. Lawrence University and across the St. Lawrence University golf course.  I don't think he or the kids would have had a very good time.  The golf course was quite rutted in spots.  This was my first cross country race and I liked it although I was a little concerned about rolling an ankle -which I saw one woman do... ouch.

I got quite turned around in my mind as to which direction we were running while we were dodging trees and zig zagging across lawns.  I kept hoping and hoping that the next turn would bring us back to a view of the finish line.

I pushed and pushed and I had a really good race!  My hamstring only bothered me slightly and my IT band not at all.  I'm a bit sore this morning, mostly the hamstring, but hopefully that will go away with some nice stretching and rolling on a tennis ball.

I finished in 29:54, but the race was actually 3.22 miles, so a bit over a 5K distance of 3.1.  Based on my pace it was my fastest 5K with a 9:16 minutes/mile pace.  This is JUST faster than my Free The Girls 5K that was 9:17 (and that was before I was injured and recovering from a marathon).

One of the best parts about these race series is that they are VERY inexpensive.  $2 if you just want to run 1 race and $5 for the three race series.  When I complete the third race I get a shirt!

That's about it for now.  Have a great week, and Thank You for Reading!

RoadID, I never (color) run without it!

I've been trying to recover my right hamstring strain while keeping up with some running and other activity -mostly Zumba.  I haven't run very much and it's pretty painful when I do run.  Hopefully by not running much it will heal.  It's starting to feel better.  I only notice it when I run now.

This past Saturday morning there was a color run 5K in the city that I live in.  Most of my Zumba buddies were signing up and it was also located within walking distance of my house at the Bridge and Port recreation trails that I run often.  I woke up later than I meant to and had to hop into my clothes and head over not long after I got out of bed.  Thankfully the sunshine and gentle breeze off the St. Lawrence river blew the sleep out of my brain and I quickly perked up.  Like the Color Me Rad run in Syracuse last month my Zumba instructor did a pre-race warm up for the crowd.

I decided to jog the run and set out stiffly and slowly.  My heart wasn't really into it and the path wasn't very wide and dodging the walkers was a bit tedious because I had to keep running off the path into the grass at the sides.  People looked to be having a good time and near the end Tom and the boys strolled up to watch the proceedings and met me at the finish line.  We hung out for a little bit letting the kids run around and then headed home.  I took a much needed shower and a great day of outdoor activity (the weather was amazing) continued.

I was pretty covered in green to be sure.  I had to wash  my face off right away because the powder they used burned my eyes.

My toes got a bit blue! 

Soap box time!

If you are a runner/biker/walker you should really think about getting yourself (and all the people you love) a RoadID.  They are inexpensive and easy to wear.  I wear mine all of the time.  When I'm out with my boys I feel safer knowing if something happened to me someone would call Tom -quickly.  I have Tom as my ICE contact in my phone, but I also have it password protected... FAIL.  Also, it is likely that my phone would get smashed or thrown if I was in some sort of pedestrian/vehicle accident.  I have the slim and it has my full name and birth year at the top.  The next three lines are the phone numbers for my husband, parents, and my running buddy Jacki.  Below that you can put a mantra or allergies.  Mine is reserved for allergies.  Check it out!  There are lots of options.  I do suggest the ID bracelet because EMTs are trained to look for medical bracelets and sometimes shoes come off in accidents (there is a shoe charm tag).  

Oh wow. Ouch.

Oh man.  When will my legs not feel like a world of pain when I run?  First post-marathon long run of 6 miles was killer... After 2 miles my legs were very painful complete with nerve pain, toenail pain and of course stiff, painful muscles. Eh.

The May Recap (short and sweet)

Wow, another month done!  I'm going to keep this short because I spent quite a bit of time describing this month in my prior posts.

My goals are: 

1) Run a race per month

2) Run at least 40 miles per month

Goal 1: check!

I participated in three races this month!  The Color Me Rad run in Syracuse, NY (a 5K) on the 4th, The Free the Girls Bra Run (a 5K) on the 17th, and of course the Buffalo Marathon on the 25th.  Phew.  They were each very different and fun races.  I'm very glad that I participated in each of them.  I had a 5K personal best at the Free The Girls race.  That's a great month for me!  Best yet!

Goal 2: check!

I ran 89.7 miles this month!  Yippee!  I decreased some of my taper runs because I performed my 20 mile training run late, but I still covered quite a distance this month!  

There you have it.  I'm looking forward to more great things in June.