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Hustlin’ Hustlin’!!

In my quest to catch up on race recaps — I bring you the Santa Hustle – New England version!

One thing I’ve discovered in this #Dopey15 training cycle is that I need extra motivation to get the long runs in. So I registered for this half marathon to help cover part of my mileage for the weekend.

Initially I was going to drive up to Maine on Saturday and stay over but with not having a job I didn’t want to spend the extra money so I woke up super early one Sunday morning to drive to Maine! I arrived at the starting line with plenty of time to spare! Which was lucky since I needed to pick up my race packet – which included a Santa hat and beard along with the dri-fit sweatshirt.

There was a small problem with the shirts though 😦 Due to sizing issues, all of the larger sizes were gone. So, the race directors would be mailing them out shortly after the race. We were given green elf t-shirts instead (which I loved!) I had been planning to wear my sweatshirt for the wintery race in Maine.

Turns out I lucked out not getting one since it turned out to be pretty a pretty toasty day – not at all wintery!

There were actual reindeer at the start for petting purposes. And picture purposes.

Time for breakfast!!

We ended up waiting a bit for the race to start, they wanted to get us “LIVE” on the morning news!

Lots of red at this one!!!

Once we took off I decided to keep to my intervals as best as I could. But as you know, I tend to walk up hills…and this was a pretty hilly course! There were a lot of out and back sections – some really pretty areas and some not so great ones.

Along the course there were candy stations and cookie stations! Mini-M&M’s and chocolate chip cookies! The cookies were very helpful the last few miles for me!! And I managed to chop a minute or so off of my time which is always awesome!

And, a medal is nice too!

I got one of these!!

There was an after party mentioned both on the website and at the event itself, but when I went over there didn’t seem to be any “perks” for the runners. So I headed back south and stopped for a burger on my way home (free Birthday burger from Red Robin!!

I would definitely consider doing this one again — cause I love anything Santa related!! I’ll just have to see where my year takes me in 2015

Tags: #Dopey15, Christmas, Santa

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Categories Christmas, Race Recap, Running, Santa Hustle

Sunday Means Weekly Wrap Up!!

2 Nov

And, yeah, I’ve missed a few of these!! Let’s just call this the October wrap-up.

And I can get it covered pretty quick — October would be more appropriately named Slacktober…

Pretty much how I spent October…

I mean, sure, there were a couple of half marathons and the fantastically awesome Marine Corps Marathon but…all that in between, training stuff that is so important…a lot of that didn’t get done.

A LOT.

New leaf being turned over this week.

But in the interest of full disclosure – I did a 4 miler (which was on the plan) and a 7.5 miler.

Yeah.

That 7.5’er was supposed to be a 10. But. I had to pee. REALLY. REALLY bad. Starting at about mile 4. So I immediately started figuring out where to cut my route to get home faster…

So, with runDisney Wine and Dine on the horizon there’s a busy week ahead. And let’s get back to that accountability thing I love so much.

Hal Higdon’s Plan for the week is:
Tuesday: 4 Miles
Wednesday: 7 Miles
Thursday: Rest (What??!! Rest?!)
Friday: 2 Miles (which I will try to fit in before I head to the airport or before I head to the parks once I get there!)
Saturday: 7 Miles
Sunday: 17 Miles
Now, figuring out the mileage for the weekend on top of the Wine and Dine Half Marathon shouldn’t be so hard…but I bet I make it really difficult!! 😉

I hope that everyone had a great race weekend – especially those who did the New York City Marathon! And if you didn’t race, I hope you had a great weekend doing whatever you did!

And, remember, next week starts tomorrow!!

Tags: #Dopey15, Training, wrap up

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Categories Hal Higdon, Running, Training, Wine and Dine Half Marathon

Race Recap – NU Hartford Half Marathon

14 Oct

Ten years ago I moved to the East Coast. And about Nine years ago I ran the Hartford Half Marathon for the first time. It was (and is!) a great event, best known for the flat, fast course and the post-race Apple Crisp!

The first time I ran this, it was pouring rain at the start, but eventually that slowed to a drizzle and then by afternoon the sun managed to peek out sporadically.

So, since I’m in the middle of my training for #Dopey15, and seriously lacking in personal motivation, I decided at the almost last minute to sign up for the half marathon that took place last Saturday. I headed to the expo Friday after work – got stuck in traffic and missed the One Miler which made me feel:

Headed directly to the expo then and after picking up my bib was greeted by the Skechers booth!! Now, I’m not sure I’ve adequately expressed my love for my Skecher performance shoes I got at the Houston Marathon expo last January — they’re light, they’re comfy and…they Glow. In The. DARK!

I’ve been wanting to get a new pair and when I saw they would have a booth at this expo I was excited! I checked in the the folks in the booth and saw that they had the new, upgraded model available. And, yeah, these will glow too!! (They also come with an extra insert if you need the extra cushion!)

On my way to grab my shirt I stopped by a couple of other booths — OohRah Hydration: Hydration products that support our armed forces and disaster relief efforts. The flavors and colors of the bottles reflect the branch of service being honored – so pretty cool! And the flavors I tried were nice (Chargin’ Blue -grape, and Fightin’ Green -lemonlime) and Generation UCAN: a great source of energy with a SuperStarch source of carbs which gives energy while helping stabilize blood sugars!

The Shirt. My only issue is that the Half marathoners have to “share” a shirt with the 5K and the Relay people…:(

After picking up my shirt, and grabbing a new pair of Skechers, I got back in the car and headed home to rest up.

As expected, when I woke up Saturday morning, it was….well, drizzly…and a little chilly. You know the weather, the kind that makes you want to just stay in bed. But too many people knew I was planning on running this so…up and at ’em!!! When I went to bed I told myself “Don’t forget to wear your DryMax socks on account of the rain”…then I woke up and threw on my ProCompression socks. That are not my DryMax socks…and by then it was too late! 🙂 But I love my Compression socks for long runs so I was hoping to not run through any puddles …hahahaha

By the time I got to Downtown Hartford, it was actually raining, not just drizzling. And it was still kind of chilly. I had on a plastic rain poncho that I figured I would throw away when the rain stopped and the sun came out (spoiler — I wore it the whole time!). I dropped off my bag with a dry sweatshirt and some flipflops and tried to find a potty before the start. Success.

There wasn’t a long wait before the horn blew and we were off! Now, the last time I ran this, it was a completely different course. Not a bad course necessarily, but, there were some sketchy sections. This new course is fantastic!!! I love it!! Sure, there were hills…there will always be hills. But they weren’t unbearable! I was cruising to a return to my olden day times until mile 10. I saw a sign and had a delayed reaction and turned to go back and take a picture (which I ended up not doing after all!) and strained my calf a bit. So the last three were slower than I’d been going but I was still definitely going to beat my time from 2 weeks before!

The finish line snuck up on me!! I really was expecting to have to go around a block once we got back into downtown but nope! Turned a corner and we were there! With great support from the volunteers — including a mylar blanket and a new water bottle!!

A water fountain nearly a block long!!!

Pre-filled for us even!

And the bling!!

I knocked 20 minutes off of my time from 2 weeks ago too — which was a bonus!!

Up next — Hershey Half Marathon! And the rest of my training week of course!

**My absolute favorite part of Saturday’s run was when we were passing one of the three fire stations on the route. From a couple of blocks back, I saw runners -almost every one of them! – turning up into the station driveway where there were 8-10 firefighters high-fiving every single runner! Amazing!!

Tags: #Dopey15, Half marathon, Training

Comments 4 Comments
Categories Hartford Marathon Foundation, NU Hartford Marathon and Half Marathon, Running, Training

Wrapping up 14 —

7 Oct

This one is short and to the point:

I bailed on 2 of my runs this week – and of course it was the 2 longest….

The Higdon plan was:
Tuesday – 3 miles
Wednesday – 6 miles (oh no! we’re stepping things up!!)
Thursday – 3 miles
Saturday – 8 miles

What actually happened was:
Tuesday – 3 miles. Slowish. But got them done
Wednesday – Now, I do love “weather” but it was chilly and rainy and I wasn’t prepared so “I’ll do this one tomorrow when I get to Florida then do tomorrow’s on Friday”
Thursday – Um. Yeah. Got to Florida where it was hot and sticky and I’d been trapped in a middle seat for 5 hours.
Friday – Guilt kicked in so I got up and did my 3. It was quite nice to run on the flat streets of Celebration Florida. And there were views like this unexpectedly around a corner or two!

Saturday – no miles, but a bit of walking. And standing. Volunteered at the runDisney Tower of Terror 10-miler and was on my feet for many many hours…which means
Sunday – After being out/up til 4 no one woke up until it was already pretty warm out. Or, at least it was very sunny, which was going to lead to very warm…

So, this was possibly my worst training week in this round. That’s why there’s a new one coming up!

But I need to not beat myself up about it and move on to….

The Higdon plan for the week is:
Tuesday – 3 miles
Wednesday – 6 miles
Thursday – 3 miles
Saturday – 5 miles
Sunday – 15 miles

A really full one. An important one. So I should probably get out there and get it done!!

Tags: #Dopey15, Higdon, no excuses, Training

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Categories Goals, Hal Higdon, Running, Training

Wrappin’ Up 11!

14 Sep

Or, is it 1?!?!

Started a new plan this week – so week 11 of #Dopey15 training and week 1 of Higdon training

This week’s Higdon plan was:

Tuesday – 3 mile run
Wednesday – 5.5 mile run
Thursday – 3 mile run
Saturday – 3 mile run
Sunday – 13 mile run

And. I kind of rocked it!! Here’s what happened —

Tuesday – 3.02 baby!!
Wednesday – I don’t know why I thought it was 5.5…it was 5. But who did 5.5 — yeah..This Girl!
Thursday – 3 Miles! (yeah…3 in a row!! probably a record of some kind for me!!)
Saturday – Woke up feeling kind of punky with a little digestive distress and by the time I was feeling better it was raining. So did not get this 3 in…Maybe I’ll feel some motivation tomorrow and throw it in there!
Sunday – 13.29. And, made pretty decent time even though there were a couple miles that I walked completely – since they were ALL. UP. HILL. And, I had mapmyrun create the route this weekend but I got lost at one point…BUT, it is an absolutely gorgeous day here in New England today so it wasn’t bad at all!!

I feel pretty good about my week, even with missing yesterday’s 3 miles. I’m thinking that it was easier for me to do the 3 in a row, than taking that all important rest day on Friday…but the rest days are key too, right?!

Coming up this week, I have a 1 run weekend – with the second day set aside for Cross-Training. This is where I sometimes run into problems 🙂 This is also where I plan to go back to Bikram – it’s strength, stretching and a bit of cardio all in one!

I hope everyone is ready for another great week…the last week of summer!