April totals

Running = 105.40

Lifting= 1.5 hours

I was so excited to see the 100 mark for April. That is mind boggling for me. I just barely hit it but it still counts. The 3oo mile mark is also looming close by. My mom got me a subscription to runners world for Easter so I received my free gift in the mail yesterday, which was a runners log. I have been keeping track of my runs on the computer with a fancy x-cel sheet but this log lets me put more comments on what kind of run I did and add more writing to it. As I was getting this new log up to date I was looking back on how I began.

I am about 1/2 way now and my January was so sporadic and as I continued along I got more consistent with my runs and really have added miles according to plan. I was surviving a 3 mile run in the beginning and now 5 miles is not that bad and really somewhat easy. I have also decreased my mile/minute mark. I started out with about a 11 min. mile and now I am running in the 9 min./mile range for a consistent pace.

As for April I had such a busy month that I am proud to say with some re-arranging I got them all in. With more running outside I have found it difficult to get some lifts in which I use to get in regularly. This week was the only week I altered number of miles because of the circumstances.

I have the Capcity 1/2 tomorrow and this will be somewhat of a dry run for the marathon. I will be running early in the morning (which I haven't done yet and not so excited about) going to run with my running belt, and hoping to finish about 2 hrs. 10 min. The forecast has some rain in the area and I hate the rain. Cross your fingers that it will hold off until I get done racing.

Another busy weekend

The whole weekend has been somewhat rainy. I should consider myself lucky considering we are closing out April and there hasn't been a weekend that I couldn't run... because of the weather. This weekend was as full as the last one. It was a blast but it was full and busy.

I got to go up to Cleveland area to visit one of the girls from the program. There are four of us that were really close in our masters program. We haven't gotten to see each other all together in a couple of months. I left town on Friday early afternoon and we went out to the Great Lakes Brewery and had dinner and drinks. We had a great time and then got to hang out all day on Saturday. Thus, this means I didn't get to run when I was suppose to.

I had planned on running today only there were thunderstorms all day long so I was forced in side. I split up the running 1/2 on one treadmill and then 1/2 on another treadmill. I hated the thought of this. I am not the type of person who likes to run in the rain, but running 14 miles on a treadmill is not ideal either. In my head I completed 2/3 of the race. With running at the gym I got a short break which I was relating to walking for water, which I plan on doing, and I felt as if I could have done one more 7 mile run. Then there is just the last couple miles to run.

I have the cap city half is this weekend and I am looking forward to the race and seeing how my time ends up for a 1/2 when I am pushing it a little bit. I would like to be right around 2 hours to finish. Hopefully there just won't be any rain.

10 miler and a lot todo

This weekend was crazy. We had a friend come in town, I had a shower and bachelorette party as well as trying to fit in my long run. This week was a recovery week so I had an easy week. I only had to run 10 miles.

With Saturday being so busy I actually switched the long run to Friday. Here in Columbus it was rainy and stormy. I dodged the raindrops and was able to fit in the long run but it was so windy. I felt a little like Piglet from Whinnie the Pooh blowing away in the wind. I did end up finishing in a pretty good time, but I am worried because it seems as if all my weekends coming up are like this weekend where I have too much to fit in and not enough time.

I am worried when I start vamping up my mileage again how I can fit it all in. I like the running and training for the marathon but fitting it all in is 1. time consuming and 2. hard to make it all work and fit in to my day. I haven't yet reached the top mileage so my long runs are only going to get longer. So I will have to cut out something or re-arrange my schedule more.

How do you juggle the things you have to do/want to do with the time you have?

1/2 Marathon

This past Saturday I had 13 miles I had to do. I started running the north trail at Antrim. I haven't been on this trail for a while. In fact since the last time I had run this part they added more trail to it. It was so beautiful and very scenic. It was the bottom part that I was looking onto at Highbanks park which meandered with the river. With all the trees starting to bloom and the flowering trees already in bloom it was very picturesque.

I thought the north trail would have mile markers on it. Which it did not so I ran 30 min and then turned around and headed back to the start. Then I did 3 miles on the south route. In between the two north and south is about a mile. By the time I ended my run I know I ran more than 13 miles. In fact I'm pretty sure I ran closer to 14 miles rather than 13.

I have signed up for the Capital City Half Marathon which is May first. So I have officially ran the mileage for that race, now to keep building for Lake placid. I finished the mileage and thought to myself "Yeah I did 1/2 of my race, then I thought I have only done half of my race and I would have to do another one of those. Uggh"

A daunting thought, but I do feel more prepared than the last couple of training runs. I need to come to the conclusion that the marathon will be overwhelming and I'm sure I will think that I can't keep going but I just have to put one foot in front of the other. Before the run was over I ran out of songs on my Ipod. I am going to need some more songs to run to seeing how I only did half of my race.

What are your favorite songs to work out to or run to? Anyone have some good songs I can use?

Highbanks Take 2

Last week on April fools day I went to Highbanks metro park in Columbus to do a hill workout. I have heard that this park had rolling hills and was challenging. I went there after school on Thursday with the sun shining and it finally starting to feel like spring. I had looked online at the different trails to try and determine the best route.

I had never been there before so without knowing really where I was or what trail I was on I set off. In reading the map they didn't mark the trails with the different symbols that they used on the actual trail they marked it with colors. Only I didn't realize that the symbols were marked in the appropriate colors. So last Thursday I set off down one path thinking I knew where I was going (I consider myself to be pretty good at reading maps) and half way through the run I was getting the feeling that I was not on the path that I thought I was on. I was correct that I had gone completely gone down a different path than I wanted to originally go down. Stupid map.

I needed more time and mileage so I went down another trial that had a flyer of a big giant bird on it and said "Observation deck one mile."

It was the perfect mileage so I set off. I found out once reaching the observation deck that the park had discovered a nest of a bald eagle. They had signs pointing where the eagle was suppose to be so I looked, but I didn't see a bird or nest. So turning around I felt slightly defeated. Not knowing where I was going, no bird sighting, and struggling a little bit with the hills. Although these hills were not as difficult as the other park I went to run hills at, Chestnut Ridge.

Today I went back to Highbanks to tackle the hills again and do better than I did that last time. This time I knew where I was going and about how long I wanted to run. I went the same route as I had taken the previous time. I had it in my head that I would do the same loop with a slightly longer version to reach my time and mileage. I ran again to the observation deck again, now knowing that the eagles nest is on the other side of the river not on the side closest to the deck (the newspaper had quite a lot about this particular park and the eagles nest itself which all would have been helpful to read the first time I guess). This time there was a park guide there with binoculars to look and find the bird. I was able not only to find the nest but I got to see the eagle was stirring. I still couldn't see much but I can now say I have seen a bald eagle.

I finished the loop which I did much quicker this time, partially because I was running better but also because I knew where I was going. This having run the course once before really seems to help me a lot. I still needed about 1o more minutes and so I decided mid run to switch the mileage from 5 miles to 6 miles and turn this run into my longer mid week run. I finished in great time. Overall the second time around was a much better experience. I even felt pretty good through the sun and the warmer weather. Better than my long run on Saturday of 11 miles. Not fun being thrown into hot weather on the longest run of the week.