30th Birthday 10k

I  turned 30 this past Saturday, and what better way to celebrate than a run.  I was originally planning to do a local 10k race in Buffalo, but I decided that I would rather sleep in on my birthday so I set out to run 10k by myself while the girls were napping after lunch.  This was my longest run since my injury, and it felt pretty great!  It helped that the weather was beautiful!

Testing out my new bluetooth headphones that I got for my birthday from Joe and the girls!

After my run, my husband surprised me with a birthday party with my close friends and family!  Well, he was able to keep it a surprise until Friday night anyway.  He ordered Salt Lick BBQ all the way from Texas.  It was so yummy!

I spent the rest of the weekend with the ones who make my heart happy :)  It was a wonderful birthday.

Up next...I am running the Minneapolis Half on June 1.  I'm hoping to get an 8-miler and a 10-miler in the next two weekends to see how my knee does with longer runs.  If everything goes well, I will start my marathon training after the half!  With my recent injury, I am leaning towards using a Jeff Galloway training program for the full marathon.  I originally had a time goal of under 5 hours, but now my only goal is to make it through the training and the race without re-injuring myself, so I'm going to take it easy!  I will be just as proud if it takes me over 5 hours.  I also have been adding weight training and biking into the mix and I am really enjoying the variety and cross training so far.

Lone Star 5k Race Recap

Howdy, I am back from my trip to Texas and my first Texas race!  And my first race since being injured!  The Lone Star Half Marathon & 5k was so much fun.  I was registered for the half, but after being out with a knee injury for the past five weeks, I was ordered by the doctor to take it easy.  This was only my third run since my injury, and my knee felt pretty good!

My mom decided to do the 5k with me too, since she was feeling out of shape.  My aunt Sue was running her first half marathon, at 61 years young!  She was amazing, and it was fun to be able to cheer for her at the finish line.  I don't think I would have been able to keep up with her even if I wasn't injured, as she finished in just over 2:18.

Anyway, the 5k was a quick out-and back, and there were a few hills out there in hill country, imagine that.  It went by so fast!  I just remember feeling great but at the same time glad I did not have to run the half marathon!  The weather was nice, right around 60 degrees.  I just ran at a comfortable easy pace and enjoyed my race.  My official time was 32:40, good for 8/25 in my age group (sadly, my last race in the under 30 age group).  Gotta love those small races!  My mom won 2/15 in her age group with a nice time of 29:05, and my aunt won 3/11 in her age group for the half marathon!

Fun to have Robbyn Dodd at the race for some great photos!

After the race, we hung around for a long time eating and drinking Lone Star beer and also some yummy wine.  They had some nice live music and a festive atmosphere.  We could have stayed there all day, but we had a very busy concert schedule for the rest of the day!

This was a fun race and I would love to do it again, maybe the half next year.  We also talked about doing a spring race in Santa Cruz next year, there are a few half marathons that would be pretty awesome to try.  Decisions, decisions :)

The injured reckless runner

I casually mentioned at the end of my last post that my knees were sore...well that pain turned out to be a lot more serious than I thought. Here I am, 17 days after the Get Lucky race, and still unable to run due to severe pain in my right knee. Just walking, driving, and sitting at my desk at work are almost more than my knee can handle right now. I have been reduced to wearing my running shoes all day at work and taking the elevator rather than walking down one flight of stairs (going upstairs is bearable, downstairs not so much). 

I did visit the orthopedic doctor after about a week of pain that was not improving. He diagnosed me with "runner's knee" or patellofemoral pain syndrome. His recommendations of rest, ice and ibuprofen were less than helpful. After moping around for another week, I decided to try some alternative methods for getting back on my feet. I have three appointments with an ART chiropractor this week, as well as a body works massage at the gym and a visit with my trainer. So far I have not experienced any improvement but I am trying to stay hopeful that I will be able to run again soon! I don't know at this point if I will be able to run the Lone Star half in 18 days.  I was planning on running a local 10k race to celebrate my 30th birthday on May 3, and now I am doubting that I will even be able to do that. It is really hard to keep a positive attitude at the moment, but I came upon this old post from Lauren Fleshman that somehow made me feel a little better:

http://asklaurenfleshman.com/2011/01/fighting-injury-with-gratitude/

At least I still get to see REK when I am down in Texas (who happens to be suffering from a broken foot), so there's that.  And I need to get me one of these shirts. Even if I can't run the race, I will make the best out of the situation by cheering on my mom & my aunt Sue who will be running her first half!

Get Lucky Half Marathon Race Recap

Another chilly race is in the books! On Saturday I completed half marathon number four. Spoiler alert: I missed a PR by 36 seconds with my finish time of 2:30:02. Despite the cold and windy conditions and missing my PR, it was still a fun race!

On Friday night we continued our pre-race ritual of dinner at Pazzaluna in St. Paul. I had the chicken piccata with risotto, and it was so delicious.

My mom was in town for a visit, and we both got our hair done on Friday :) We stayed at the Doubletree the night before the race with Tasha and Anna; we appreciated the free warm cookies on demand!

Saturday morning we were up at 7 to get ready! Tasha made our awesome tutus for the race. 

My first time dressing up for a race, it was fun except our tutus kept getting stuck to each other!

We were glad to walk from our hotel to the start line a few blocks away just minutes before the 8:30 start. It was around 18 degrees when we started out, and windy! The wind was actually at our backs until the turnaround at mile 7, after that it was a brutally cold headwind the whole way! I was proud of myself for running the whole way, other than slowing briefly for water/powerade 3 times. I didn't even have to walk up the big hill at mile

10 (where I had to walk during both Women Rock and Monster Dash).

Our finish (Tasha finished about 10-11 minutes before us).

Two cold races so far this year! I stole this cute picture from Anna's Facebook :)

Two days later, my right knee is still hurting. I hope I recover quickly so I can jump into training for my next race, the Lonestar Half Marathon in Luckenbach, TX! At least I can count on that one to be warm!

Update: here are the splits from my Garmin, just for fun and because I finally uploaded my activities to Garmin Connect:

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	2:30:05.5	13.60	11:02
1	10:55.8	1.00	10:56
2	10:46.5	1.00	10:47
3	10:53.2	1.00	10:53
4	10:53.4	1.00	10:53
5	10:50.3	1.00	10:50
6	11:01.9	1.00	11:02
7	10:54.1	1.00	10:54
8	11:03.5	1.00	11:04
9	11:05.6	1.00	11:06
10	11:02.0	1.00	11:02
11	11:21.4	1.00	11:21
12	11:43.0	1.00	11:43
13	11:16.6	1.00	11:17
14	6:18.2	0.60	10:29

Indoor Tri!

Yesterday I completed a race that I never thought I would do: a triathlon! Over the past two years I have discovered my love for running, but I have never really done a

whole lot of biking or swimming. However, I am always up for a challenge! My coworker Carl (who recently had two hip replacements!) challenged me to sign up for the tri with him, so how could I say no? My very spontaneous friend Rachel also joined in the fun; she was a swimmer in high school so I knew she would be up for it.

The indoor tri consisted of a 10 minute swim, 30 minute bike, and 20 minute run.    It was fun to do this race with my friends, without having to maintain the same pace throughout. Rachel was the fastest swimmer, Carl kicked our butts on the bike ride, and my best part was obviously the 20 minute run.  It was a fun experience and a good Sunday workout!

That's me swimming!

After our swim :)

My first time on a spin bike. My butt was not a fan of this type of workout. I spent 30 minutes wishing I had some padded bike shorts. Somehow I didn't get any pictures from the treadmill. My "scores" were: 18 lengths in the pool, 6.5 miles on the bike, and 2.1 miles on the 'mill. Although I hated the spin bike, I really enjoyed the swimming. Maybe I will have to put my new goggles and swim cap to good use and hit up the pool once in a while this summer. 

Dome Running

When you are living in the midst of a polar vortex, sometimes you have to get creative...today I ran 10 miles inside the Maple Grove Sports Dome! It was 20 degrees below zero outside, but a perfect 55 degrees inside the dome:

There were a handful of runners there this morning, and some soccer games going on, which kept me distracted enough for 48 laps. My pace was decent for a long run; maybe all my speed work on the treadmill has been paying off? This was also the first time using my Garmin foot pod so it hasn't been calibrated. However, it matched up pretty close with my Nike plus app so I think the 10:41 pace is fairly accurate!

The running surface was a soft grassy turf that was awesome to run on. It was a welcome change from the treadmill at least!  My next half marathon is in two weeks, I'm hoping for both good weather and a PR!

I just registered for my first marathon!!!