October Rewind

October I'd like to think is where I started to find my groove again. Not only was I slowly adding more miles back in, but my knee pain started to be just a slight pang and more manageable to deal with. My paces are coming back every so often, however I'm still having runs that are completely "off" and seem harder than they should. Time and consistency should help to alleviate those.

Total Mileage:  78! Daily Mile tells me that this is the highest mileage month in over a year. A year people!!! Should I be excited I'm getting back into the swing of things, or ashamed at the last 12 months??

Highest Mileage week: 22- I attribute that to Bourbon Chase

Races Planned / Completed: 2/2

Bourbon Chase the 2nd time around- Recap

Team "Ball so hard we ran our HasselHoff"

Ragnar Relay TN 4th time going strong-- recap to come, but spoiler alert- we took 1st in our division

Team "Comin' in Hot!"

New to Me: (Because you should always be trying something new) 

October wrapped up my #30dayofnew challenge, so once that was complete, I was MORE than happy to just lay low and be a hermit for a bit. I think 4 weeks of something new deserves a break  

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Other fun ventures in October:

• Pumpkin Patch Season!!! Until I have kids, there is nothing wrong like acting like a kid :) 

• After continually attending the cornhole tournament at fat bottom and never winning a single game (embarrassing), we finally managed to squeak out a win. I'll be practicing for when this starts up again in the spring.

• Learning to spend some quality time with my hot glue gun to finalize my Halloween costume. 

• And although no photos, I did a LOT of organizing, purging, and switching out the summer wardrobe for fall / winter--- call me crazy but thats still exciting to me!!! 

Current Excitements/ Obsessions:

• Leaving today to St. Louis to meet up with 2 of my high school buddies (one of which I haven't seen in 10 years) to catch up and even do a Cupcake 5k. I signed up as an "eater". Apparently I can choose to have a small cupcake where I'm given a 2 min deduction from my time or a large cupcake where I'll be given a 5 min deduction from my time. Go big or go home--- with all these deductions this should be my fastest 5k EVER! 

• Excited to go home for Thanksgiving. Although I've been home more this year than I have in the last 5, its still nice to go back every so often. I'm glad to continue the tradition with my brother in doing our Turkey Trot 5 mile race together. 

So far every year I've gotten faster, initially I thought I couldn't do repeat this trend, however looking at my recap of last year I see I ran a 7:25 pace. My 4.2 mile run last weekend in Ragnar was exactly that, so maybe there is still a chance?

Current Songs: 

Have you seen the new Chanel No.5 commercial with Giselle? They use a remake version of Grease's "You're the Want" that I adore. Give me a guy with brown hair, blue eyes, and facial hair and I will melt...

Current Treat

There is something about cold weather that makes baked goods more appealing. I made 2 delicious treats I loved so much, they were repeated and then brought into the office for all to enjoy

• Pumpkin Muffins made with Schlafly Pumpkin Ale 

I had a lot of people ask for this recipe--- honestly I just took a box mix and replaced the water portion with beer (and added a little more for good measure) and instead of egg I replaced with 2 tablespoons of pumpkin puree and a little bit of applesauce. 

• Lavendar Sugar cookies

Back in May I purchased this delectable lavendar vanilla sugar from a spice shop here in Franklin. I loved it so much that when my parents came to visit in August I took them to said shop again and stumbled across edible lavendar. I tried to make them in pancakes however I used too much which caused terrible indigestion and 'heart burn' for me. Weird right? Aside from that, pancakes just weren't the right vehicle as they were too heavy. It dawned on me later that sugar cookies might be worth a try and OH MY GOODNESS - YESSSSS!!!! Again I just took a sugar cookie recipe and then did about 1 tablespoon of lavendar and rubbed in my palm before mixing into the batter. Once I put on cookie sheet I then sprinkled with my lavendar vanilla sugar and put in oven. They are so unique and delicious. Everyone in my area now thinks I'm this advanced baker, jokes on them. 

Current Goal (s):  

I think the fact that I'm even ready to start making goals is a huge step in the right direction. For now I'm going to keep them simple:

• Find / Organize a team for Ragnar Trail ATL
• Scope out and decide when I want to tackle the half marathon distance again
• Run consistently 3x week
• See more of those 7s on my watch

October Takeaway

I can say first hand that there is nothing more frustrating (to me) when it comes to running to know what you're capable of and being so far from hitting it. This has been my story since about February. Rather than do anything about it, I just accepted I needed some time off and until I make running a priority I shouldn't expect anything grand. Something changed in my mindset in September, I'm thinking it was the fact that I had 2 relays to run, but I started to care again. I have to say it feels good and bad all at the same time. Good that I WANT to run and have actually made an effort to rearrange items to make that happen vs. only doing it when its convenient. Bad in the sense that I am competitively natured and I want to push myself to get to where I once was but the practical side in me says "too much too soon = further injury". 

While I try to find my balance and place again in the running world, I'm just happy its starting to click!

Three Things Thursday- back to the track

One:

Kim is HERE! We spent a solid 2 years(?) racing and seeing one another almost every month, that its been weird to have gone cold turkey since November - Oklahoma Route 66 1/2. The past several years her daughter has a bball tourney literally right down the road from my house, so I was beyond excited to play hostess and show her around.

The adorable sign she got me while out and about yesterday in Nashville :) 

 As luck would have it, the tourney fell on the one week where our entire market is in town and we are in meetings all day and events at night. In order to spend more time with her, I agreed to head to the track with her Wednesday morning and join in on her track workout--- 400 meter repeats.

Two

Truth be told she ran 7 400 repeats. I ran 5 because I had to rest up. One of my co-workers and I were talking smack all week to one another and we randomly  decided to "face off" on the track and do a 100m race-- I know, I know resting for only 100m, but hey, I needed to go all out and we had already ran a mile to the track. Some of my other co-workers came by to watch "THE RACE" as well. Original plan was we had to shotgun a beer to add some intrigue to the 7:00am show down, but Dan drank them both the night before so it didn't happen...

Per top photo, I did win and he hung his head in shame. He did let off the gas at the last minute so I definitely think he had more in the tank. Next year when everyone is back in town more people are going to race and we're upping the ante to 400m... sometimes a little friendly smack talk and competition is fun and remind you of the 'glory days'!

Three
Bourbon Chase potentially gets a re-do. 
This past fall I ran the Bourbon Chase last minute and it ended up being one of the worst relay experiences of my life due to a bad assignment time from race director and being behind pretty much the entire race. Since the course was GORGEOUS, I told myself I'd like to do it again if the opportunity presented itself (it sells out every year within a day or so of registration) so I wouldn't have a negative view of the race. Randomly today I get a facebook message from a mutual friend Brittany asking if I wanted to join her team of all Nashvillian runners that I haven't yet met. Seriously within 23 minutes of receiving this message, Elizabeth texted me stating her gf was looking for a spot to fill on their team and was wondering if I was interested. What are the odds?

I tell Brittany I'm in if I can be in van 1 (was in van 2 last year), and I'm sitting here talking to Kim while typing this and telling her all about Bourbon Chase last year and then I realize that I actually have a half marathon I signed up for on the same exact day. Crap!

I haven't blogged about this, but about 1 month ago I was able to register for a local 1/2 that, just like Bourbon Chase, also sells out within the first day due to it being the only one in the area that is flat. Since this will be my first half 'back', my plan was to go balls to the wall and just see what I could do and then go from there in regards to breaking 1:40. Initially my goal was to just try to break it on the first try, but my mileage is just not there right now so I don't think its possible.

I'm caught on what I should do: Forgo the half and give Bourbon Chase the redemption I've been waiting for, OR stick with original plan and focus on the half marathon?

What would YOU do? 

Bourbon Chase Relay- perspective from a team in last place

  The Bourbon Chase  is s a relay I've wanted to run for awhile now because fun fact, years ago our CEO and several colleagues ran it, had so much fun that they decided to bring a relay to Nashville- we partnered with Ragnar and Ragnar TN was born. Lots of the people in my department were part of that original team, so I've always heard great stories and seen the most picturesque photos.

Last year I captained a team to run BC, KY and the Jellies,  however due to some unfortunate circumstances, we had to pull out the day before the race. This year, my co-worker, Kelly, asked me on a whim 1 week before BC if I would be interested in taking the place of an injured runner, naturally I  happily  obliged at the opportunity to FINALLY get this race under my belt and tagged along for the ride.

I've waited awhile to write this recap, not because I'm lazy or busy, although both are contributors, but more so because unlike Sarah Oual's recap, I did not have that #epicrelay experience. BC dropped the ball HARD when it came to time assignments, thus we spent a large % of our time battling back and forth for the last runner position through the exchange- many times coming through after all the festivities had ended....

To be fair, there was some great organization / concepts that BC got right, so in the most objective / try not bitch my pants off fashion, here are the goods and bads from team "Bulleit Train"

Good

• Every year they have a theme, this year was some type of hippe theme- It was tied in with the awesome bib, long sleeve shirt, and medal--- HUGE wins in my book 

Long sleeve Brooks tech tee, tie dye peace medal 

• Date of BC changes every year- reason for this is it has to be held during a full moon. Lots of the roads are off the beaten path with no lights, so the full moon helps light up the sky. In both of my night runs I felt that I didn't need my head lamp because I could see clearly- unfortunately, this collage is the only photo I have to show the night sky- this is at 10pm - ish?

• Bourbon! I personally don't like bourbon, but it was neat to see the distilleries. Van 2 stopped at Maker's Mark, Four Roses, and Woodford Reserve (there might have been another distillery van 2 was supposed to stop at, however we were running an extra leg in our van so not all of our exchanges with the van were at the major points) 

Getting to sample 120 proof Maker's straight from the barrels- I almost gagged. 

There was free shots at Woodford, however, I had to pass them up as I might have gagged. 

• Finish line had a bourbon tent where you were given a wrist band with 4 tear offs- from there you could have a shot of 4 different bourbons from the choices they had. I was runner 12, so the idea of drinking bourbon immediately after running was unappealing, I gave my tickets away. **If anyone knows of a beer chase relay, count me in**
• Aside from the crummy weather (cold and raining on saturday) we ran through some gorgeous towns, fields, nature- everything. The only photo I managed to take was on our way to Maker's for our first leg

• I was able to see Elizabeth in her first #runnercomeback at Maker's. She was in Van 1 of the Nuun team and since this was the first major exchange,  she was waiting to pass off to van 2. Loved hearing about how her first leg went and am so excited for her to re-enter the world of running now that she's healed! 

The Bad

• Regardless of which relay you do, they all ask the same thing- what is your 10k pace? Based on your team average, they then assign you a start time. When Kelly originally asked me to join her team I said I couldn't because I had my go to market workshop till 1pm that Friday- day the race started. Her response was it wouldn't be a problem because our start time was 4pm and since we were in van 2 we were going to leave Nashville at 4. First thought, naturally, is that I joined a FREAKIN FAST team- she seemed confused and assured me they were just average pace---- umm we might have a problem?
• Get the email from team captain on all the pace times- 11 people total, 2 had paces of 9:30s, 1 a pace well over 10. The rest were 8s and 7s, not bad, BUT NOT fast enough to signify starting at 4. For those that haven't had your relay cherry popped yet (what are you waiting for), your team pace signifies what time of day you'll start. If it will take you a longer time to cover the distance you start early (their earliest start time was 8am), if you'll finish quicker, you get a later start time (latest start was 7pm). 
• Our 2nd runner in our van (leg 8) was the slowest on our team- no biggie we knew to wait longer. Her run was 4 miles and at 54 minutes with her no crossing through we start to get nervous. We chit chat with one of the teams at the exchanges, they started at 5:30 and had already caught up to us- gah! Worry starts to set in that we are going to get passed by everyone. Finally we get a call from our runner who got lost as one of the signs was removed from course. She ran an extra 2 miles and a van picked her up. One of the vanmates told her she ran last year and got lost on that very same leg. This happened again on runner 6's 2nd leg- got lost and ran an extra 1.5 miles.
• I'm runner 12- awesome. I get to run my FIRST leg at 1am... yup, 1am. I don't mind running at night, but this is ridiculously late to only have 1 leg down. I manage to pull off 5.1 miles in 7:30 pace. Both myself and Kelly had 8:30 paces projected, but we were trying to make up time and both managed to run 7:30s or faster to make up for legs that took longer than anticipated. During my run, I managed to  get HAWKED by not 1, but 2 people... this was in my first mile where I was a little ambitious and my pace was 7:02... needless to say, the faster teams were all pretty much caught up to us at his point. To make matters worse, my  team wasn't expecting me to be that fast so when I got to the exchange I had to wait over 3 min for them to get there- how annoying. 

The Ugly

• When we arrive at the next major exchange to sleep then gear up for our 2nd legs, the town was packed! Turns out they had two different exchanges around Centre campus (one between van 1 and the other was exchange 19 where we switched vans). After our failed attempt to sleep we emerge a few hours later to get the baton and it is a GHOST town. There are no teams around, just the volunteers. This is when our runner 6 got lost and ran an extra 1.5 miles on top of his existing miles. He handed off in 2nd to last place. We stuck around for the last place team who was only 1 or 2 min behind us and cheered for them... IMMEDIATELY they shut down the exchange once he went through. 
• Our runner (#7) got injured during his 6 miles and slowed down massively- we got passed by last place and were now the under dogs- womp womp. I offered to take his place and his finish his leg, but being proud he wanted to push through. We managed to get further behind and then the sweeper vehicle started following us. What is annoying about all of this, is we weren't running slow. We were on pace for 27 - 28 hour finish which although won't win awards, is less than a 9 min avg. 
• Lots of back and forths leading up to me, but on my 2nd run we were now 5th to last- woo! For my shortest run I planned on going all out to make up some time. 1 mile in I got chased by two rottweilers that caught up to me and starting nipping at my legs- just like in the movies, this Alaskan Huskie came out of nowhere and saved me, warding off the dogs. Traumatized, came to a fork in the road, no signs so I just kept left and hoped for the best. Shortly after I called my van to get clarification on directions- when they called me they said I took a wrong turn immediately after exchange (and how did no one notice and waited till I ran 2 miles to tell me???) I get deflated and say I'll run toward them but they need to pick me up and drop me off because its f**ing ridiculous that I'm the 3rd to get lost and we haven't been busting our butt to fall behind again. Run a total of 3 miles before my van gets there and another movie moment- dogs start chasing me again and I hop in the van just in time... not sure where the huskie was in that one. Basically the team agreed that since I already ran 3 miles that they would go 3 miles from the exchange and drop me off since we're not winning any awards here. Got dropped off right before the 1 mile to go sign (my leg was 4.3 miles) and then hauled ass- 2nd time in a row I get there and my team is no where to be found??
• This is probably the most ridiculous of them all: In our last round, runner 7 didn't know if he could run again (this would have been his 4th run bc he was making up for a missing runner) Since I'm 12, I volunteer to run the first part of his leg, get picked up, and he could finish it- again, not going for any awards. I walk to the exchange at Woodford Reserve waiting for van 1 runner and after a few minutes they start tearing down the exchange!!! I'm so annoyed at this point from the constant battle of not being last that I immediately go in to bitch mode asking why they are tearing it down as my runner has not come through yet. Turns out the way BC was doing it is they are just writing down teams as they come through instead of having a list and crossing them off. They ask my #, radio the previous exchange, then confirm that we are in last place. I tell them that is impossible because there is a team that we managed to get over 45 min ahead of and unless they cheated there is no way we fell behind.  They tell me that they started pulling teams and having them skip exchanges to 'catch up' and that our team should have been pulled an hour ago- instead they instructed me to just go ahead and start and to let my van communicate to the other van I left- they gave me an extra bracelet (baton) so I could use it at next exchange. 
• I leave (7 min before my runner arrives), tell my van what happened, then head off in hopes of maybe catching one runner--- seriously this isnt fun to constantly be 'behind' and made to feel slow, when reality is, BC just started us too late. I get maybe 3 min into my run and I'm just about to leave Woodford's campus when I get pulled over by a golf cart- they told me we were "so far behind" to just go ahead and skip this exchange altogether so we can catch up. WTF?!?! I wait till I get a full mile under my belt and call my van to tell them the ridiculous news. When they pick me up they inform me that although our runner 6 left the previous exchange in last, he caught 4 runners along the way, so those poor 4 runners were behind us and would have arrived at woodford to an exchange that didn't exist anymore. In the heat of our angst, we told one of the vans we had been back an forth with "i've got worms", what happened and they should just pull their runner and skip ahead too. (they got screwed and had a 3:30 start time)- They ended up following our lead as well. 
• Get to the next exchange, explain to the volunteers what happened and that were are just starting here- instead of him looking confused he just replied "oh ya, they've been doing that all afternoon!!"  RIDICULOUS. At the next exchange we caught up to a fellow Nashville team of familiar runners and they shared that teams have been told to leap frog all day (aka start running before your runner comes through) That was the last straw, we finally didn't care anymore and had discussed skipping some runs just so we could get to the finish line faster- we didn't but it was heavily talked about. 
• My last leg was 6.2 miles- uneventful, passed about 10 people (the only run I passed people on by the way) and we crossed the finish line at 7:27pm, pitch dark. The finish line festivities end at 8:30 pm (or at least that is when the bourbon tent closes), and there were still TONS of people behind us who we passed both in running and when we got to skip the exchange. I felt bad for those runners as I'm sure the after activities were shut down. 

I never thought I'd see what its like to be 'behind' in a relay, but it was terrible. I wouldn't mind if we were last because we were slow, but in the end we finished:

27 hrs 27 min and 2 sec. 
62 / 315 teams
28/190 in our division

I realize we got to skip a run, but it was only 5 miles- I ran 1 mile of it, plus we had 3.5 extra miles ran earlier in the relay, so in the end, we only really skipped out on .5 mile- thus I'm keeping our time. It should be noted that Elizabeth and Sarah's team Nuun team that started 30 min after us also finished 3 hours ahead of us... that is an example of appropriately assigning times. One of my best buds finished in 28 hours, his start time was 11:00 am.

Overall I do think Bourbon Chase puts on a great event, however something as small as the wrong start time can really impact the entire experience. The entire relay was a constant stress fest of hitting times, how can we make up times, worrying if we're in last etc, that it wasn't as fun as it should have been. In the end I would like to do this relay once more to get the negative taste out of my mouth, but please don't let my experience deter you from signing up!

Weekly Recap

I thought when I was done with my 5 weeks in a row of racing that life would calm down- still just as busy. Due to my sporadic blogging, a few people asked what in the world I'm up to that prevents me from being able to blog regularly. You asked, I delivered...

Highlights from the past week
Monday
5.5 miles after work to get in non traditional 'speed work' aka just run fast the whole time; 7:24 pace.
Kettle bell class after run
Last minute Lumineers show thanks to B at the famous Ryman (original Opryland venue)

Unless you are on the lower level and get stuck behind a pole, there really isn't a bad seat in the house. Its a smaller venue so it always sells out. Lumineers played 3 nights in a row of sold out shows. None of these photos were zoomed :) 

Tuesday

Work half day then  met up with the rest of my team since we were all in town for a workshop the rest of the week. Our 'team outting' was a Nashville Segway tour- yes please

This was all our first times on a segway, I had no idea its all based on your own body weight- lean forward go faster, lean back slow down. I gained a little too much momentum going down a hill and ran into one of teammates and fell off my segway... no big deal. I think the most embarrassing part for me was when I was doing circles and I got a foot cramp and had to hop off immediately and massage my foot. I got made fun of since I'm the runner in the group and my foot 'couldn't handle' standing on a segway... pretty sure I won't live that one down for awhile. 

Got home at 9pm, answered work emails / research till 11pm. 

Wednesday

Beginning of our  2.5 day "Go To Market" for all sales, account managers, and product teams to get together and collaborate  for the next year and learn all the new processes and such- exciting stuff, but exhausting.  Only workout for the day was wearing heels for 15 hours. 

After we were done around 7, met up with a friend for dinner and then crashed downtown. Today marked the first day I had coffee in 3 weeks and unfortunately it meant that I didn't fall asleep till 3am-- hating life. 

Thursday

All day Go to Market followed by our awards dinner and banquet. 

They decided to give away a $60,000 BMW at the awards dinner- anyone that got an award + the people they wanted to recognize each received a ticket- from there 5 tickets were chosen and those individuals each got a set of keys. One by one they got to go in the car and see if their keys started the engine. 

Jeff from our health plan market was the lucky winner- it was pretty exciting even for us non winners. 

Left my place at 630 am, got home at 10pm, answered work emails till 11pm then crashed hard. 

Friday

Finish go to market and say goodbyes at 1pm, race home to pack for Bourbon Chase Relay- yup been so busy didn't even post about how I joined a team last minute. Then raced back downtown to meet up with my van by 3pm 

Van 2 of "Bulleit Train"

Coming into the relay, I only knew Kelly who is in blue shirt and black pants. We had a great, but VERY frustrating time. I'll do a full recap later this week, but lets just say that due to being assigned a later start time than what our pace reflected, we were constantly going back and forth with being the last place team on the course (time was good, just the last through the exchanges) It was definitely a major fail on the Bourbon Chase organizers as we were not the only team to experience this. 

Saturday

ALL DAY Bourbon Chase... running with some bourbon mixed in.

 I was runner 12 and I crossed the finish line at 7:30pm... 7:27pm to be exact. We went and got our free bourbon, ate dinner, and left Lexington around 10:30 pm to head back to Nashville. I got to my place at 1:30am and CRASHED HARD since I didn't get a wink of sleep since Thursday night. 

Sunday

Slept in. Was supposed go to another concert and dinner with a friend but I was sore and my stomach was completely off leaving me feeling less than stellar. I cancelled all my plans and just lounged around all day. I managed to eat 1 bowl of oatmeal with fruit and a chocolate meal replacement shake all day and I wasn't the least bit hungry. 

Last week was go, go go and thankfully we normally do workshops once a year otherwise I'd go insane from being so busy. 

Have you ever ridden a segway? Easy, hard?

Ever been so pumped up for a race only to be let down?