Training, Racing, Thank you! (TTT)

TRAINING- I am tired of being stagnant, so I decided I want to actually put forth some effort to get faster in the half distance. I made sure to leave Ohio on Monday morning with enough time to make it back to Nashville for my Monday night Fleet feet group. I wanted to test out my virattas on the road for the first time, as well as go past the 4 mile distance to see how my legs felt. I never pushed myself as I just wanted to see what 'came natural' and I'm super pleased with the results- mile 1 was slowish as its uphill, 2 and 3 were crazy fast without realizing it because I was running with fast individuals (one of the girls ran a 18:23 5k over weekend, geez), and rest of run was my 'normal pace'. I had no idea my last .63 was 6:59 pace... not sure where that came from!

I will say that my calves were FEELING it the next day. Luckily it was workout wednesday at work so I rocked compression socks all day long... didn't want to take them off at gym, so I got a lot of weird stares by my outfit of choice...

At the gym I decided to finally do some speedwork I keep talking about ;)   It was cold last night so I opted for treadmill. According to my VO2 max I should be doing mile repeats at 7:28 pace... a bit fast if i were running on road, but when you're tall, its easier to go faster on a treadmill by adjusting your stride to hit the belt comfortably.
 1 mile warm up at 8:49
2 min rest
1 mile at 7:30
2 min rest
1 mile at 7:19
2 min rest
1 mile at 7:08
cool down.

Surprisingly I like doing repeats on a treadmill because it breaks up the monotony. If I do mile repeats on TM next week, I think I'll still just do 3, but I'll have to start out at faster pace because 7:30 and 7:19 although got me sweating, they were not as challenging as repeats are supposed to be....  now attempting them on the road, COMPLETELY different story.

RACING-Tomorrow I leave for Maine / NH double header with B. I was worried it might be freezing in that part of the country this time of year, but ME will be 40s and NH will be 55- BEAUTIFUL. B and I don't have a lot of the same exact skirts to be matchy matchy, so instead we'll be patterned matchy matchy.
 Saturday's race we'll be rocking different versions of plaid (both with black tops)

Lisa Purple, B Red

And since Sunday will be SUNNY and warm, we wanted to be a little more BRIGHT and rock some 'preppy plaid'

Lisa Pink, Becca Blue (i had her choose b/n pixels or argyle) 

In the spirit of doubles, a big THANK YOU to Christine at Dream BIG Runner -  Last Friday I mentioned that my Virginia plans fell through and I couldn't find a decent race to fill in the gap so I opted for St. Michael's Running Festival in MD instead. She pointed out there is the Historic Half (which is part of the whole Marine Corp Marathon enterprise) the day after MD and It's about 1 hr and 45 from Baltimore airport. I got approval from P since he's coming along for the trip and now I'll be doing BOTH --- HELLLLLLOOOOOOOO savings. So excited to meet you Christine :) 

THANK YOU- A big thanks to everyone who sent me messages about my dad as well as failing my test. Dad is great and will have surgery this summer and he knows how to manage his discs until then. I have a friend who's dad had the same back surgery and everything went off without a hitch, so we're thinking the same will happen for mine.

For my certification test, I did find out from my company that they will cover up to 2 retakes for my CEBS examination, so I have until June 30 to study my butt off and do better... music to my ears. 

Lastly, Congrats to Rachel at Run 50 States for winning Foam Fest 5k giveaway! 

Email me at Lisarun2@gmail.com and I will give you the details! 

Jelly Bean Virtual 5K

If you haven't heard of Run with Jess' 3rd Annual Jelly Bean Run... I'm pretty sure you've been living under a rock

There are 3 distances you can choose from to participate in  March 20-March 31:

Run 5k

Run 10k

Run Half-Marathon

Bike 21k

The special part about this virtual race is once the race window closes, random participants who submitted their results for the distances they completed will be selected for prizes, sign me up!

Yesterday was the opening day and since I still haven't broken in my new Saucony Virattas, I thought testing them out with a 5k on the treadmill (easier to control my stride on the 'mill) would be a good way to kickoff the event. 

Ready to go

Close up of my bib and new shoes :)

As stated many times before, I really want to fall in love with my shoes. For 2 years I was in Saucony Guides and then I was told I don't overpronate so I could be in a neutral shoe. I was placed in the Brooks Glycerine and although I loved them in the store, I actually think they are too bulky, and ironically are MORE heavy that the guides. I've been noticing I love running in my Newtons and Assics which both have minimal cushioning, so I thought it might finally be time to see if I can truly run in a zero drop shoe- thus my obsession began with Virattas. 

I'm super awful at warming up on treadmill, so I figured I'd start my 5k at 8 min /mile pace and then every .5 I would increase speed 2 levels to see how 'going fast' felt in the shoes. By mile 2 my feet were feeling fine, but my lungs were having difficulty keeping up, so I increased the speed more and upped the ramp so it would force me to lengthen my stride which translates into fewer steps and not bouncing around as much

Note to self: taking a photo while running = blurry photo (and next time turn off the flash... also all the cool kids go matchy matchy to the gym--- unplanned) 

The last .5 mile of the run I forced myself to do 6:20 pace... can I run that in real life toward the end of a 5k.... absolutely NOT, but on a treadmill its all about the stride and the faster I go, the heavier my stride becomes which would naturally make me land on my heel more and I wanted to see how it would feel if I ended up heel striking in a zero drop shoe. DIDN'T EVEN FEEL IT---amazing!

Finished the 5k with a new adult PR- 23:01. Had I done the math beforehand, I would have adjusted the pace so I could have made up a measely 2 seconds, but I guess thats a different goal for a different day.  

Happy with the run one I did in these, now a day later and my calves really aren't that sore, so I will be testing them out for a 4 or 5 miler to see how they go. In the past 6 miles has been my determining factor.... I can run in almost anything for 6 miles, but after that is when different pains set in. 

First Jelly Bean virtual race a success-- next up, 10k! 

Five For Friday

Bootcamp - Mon - Thurs at work we have bootcamp offered for free from 4-5pm. I generally try to make it once a week for cross training and have been decent about holding up to that for awhile now. Back in July / August work started an incentive program for different levels of shirts based on how many bootcamp classes you attend:

  Blue   shirt = 25  bootcamps

  Green shirt = 50  bootcamps

Yellow Shirt = 100 bootcamps

Adam was the first (and only thus far) to earn his yellow shirt, thus sparked a group photo of all boot campers who've earned their shirts- check out my "guns" haha.  There are a LOT more folks that come to bootcamp, these are just some of the ones that have earned shirts to date.

Falling in love- It's been a long time since I've been in a committed relationship with my running shoes... highschool to be exact, good old Nike Prestos. Since I got back into 'serious' running 3 years ago, I've been on a quest to find something that make my feet happy. Thanks to the surplus of fit fluential posts on the Saucony Virattas, I started to look toward them. As luck would have it, Bryan purchased some for himself, ran in them and PRed the crap out of his half thus further convincing me that this might be the shoe for me. I realize its zero drop and will take some getting used to, but I'm so ready for the challenge. They came in the mail today and I am even more in love with the colors in person (charcoal gray base, lime green, and hot pink...

You really can bend them in half with just your fingers

Currently my training runs are rotating between my Aasics gel noosas, Newtons, and Brooks Adrenaline--- unfortunately I run my halfs in the brooks adrenaline and they just feel clunky and blah now and I'm ready to say goodbye. The plan is next week I'll do a few short runs (3 maybe 4 miles) in the Virattas and see how they feel. If it appears they might have potential, I will go ahead and purchase the Saucony Cortanas as they have a 4 mm drop, were voted as one of Runner's World best shoes, and all the reviews I've read from folks who run in them raved about the easy transition---- fingers crossed!! 

Twins this morning :) 

St. Patty's Celebration- I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the culture of our company, but even more so my department. We randomly decided to hold another wine at five, St. Patty's theme, for today--- someone mistakingly forwarded the party invite to another department, so now we have over 50 people who are coming. Green wine + Green beer + Irish music + a few of us doing dancing + costumes = Amazing time. I hosted the last wine at 5, but I caved and said I'd bring mint chocolate covered cookie dough balls. 

Originally I purchased white chocolate and dyed it green, however it overheated and became the consistency of mashed potatoes... white chocolate is so finicky- i'd love to know any secrets you may have to melt it just right?? (I did one batch dutch oven style last night, and one batch microwave... major fail on both)


St. Patty's Race/ Bloggy gal weekend: Today I'm headed to HOTlanta after above mentioned celebration to meet up at Elizabeth's until Kim flies in at the awesome hour of 12:45 am and then we'll have all saturday to hang out before Jess comes in from her AL race (double header weekend) so we can run the Georgia Publix 1/2 on Sunday. Unfortunately Elizabeth is going to be cheerleading vs. running due to hip injury, but running or cheerleading, I'm just glad to finally meet her after all this time!

Alaska!- Last week my mom surprised me by letting me know she wanted to join me for my Alaska race. (State #42 I believe)  I chose July to venture to the far north as its a sucky month to race with the heat, it fit well into my schedule, and prices for air fare isn't bad. Douglas Island 1/2 Marathon  is the lucky winner, but unfortunately it doesn't look all too exciting... actually are any races in Alaska exciting?? We decided we will stay for about a week- arrive Wed, leave Tues, so definitely looking for fun stuff to do while in Juneau! (obviously take awesome photos of nature is a must)

How do you properly melt white chocolate?

I've been to add crisco, butter, wax, vegetable shortening to make it easier... not sure about the wax part. Did try both butter and vegetable shortening last night, major fail. 

Anything exciting that is a must see in Alaska in July?

I'd like to see a bear, a totem pole, and maybe go canoeing, but after that I'm clueless.