Runners Aren't Crazy

Saturday morning, I woke up at 4:45 AM, drove to the local Y and met up with six others to drive almost an hour to a random parking lot that we had frequented a few times before.  Here, we met up with Alyssa (she drove further than we did), who I'd never met in person before.  We all piled into one vehicle to meet up with two other people, another one of whom had never met any of us before.  We all made our way through the woods, mountains and rocks along the Appalachian Trail section of the JFK 50 course.  Amazingly, I had a good memory from last year and knew where to go when we reached the top of the hill.  The rocks also seemed better than last year, I'll still be cursing at them and the climb but it didn't seem as bad as I'd remembered.

We ended up back at the random parking lot.  We were all dripping sweat.  I am usually not a big sweater but my shorts were wringing wet by the end of this run.  Humidity is such a wonderful thing.  I played taxi back to the start line and on the second trip squeezed seven people plus coolers and bags into my CR-V.  Cozy!  Crazy for a Saturday?  Not to me, maybe to others.

This morning, I woke up early again to run and walk my dogs before heading up to the shelter.  Here, I loaded two dogs into the car and took another four in the shelter's van which my husband agreed to drive.  It seems he did not think I'd be a stellar driver of a large cargo van.  Whatever.  We drove over to the rail trail where once again we had more people than dogs (which actually works out well because sometimes extra hands are needed depending on when people leave).  A bunch of people willing to give up their Sunday morning to run with a bunch of hounds and pit bulls.  Crazy for a Sunday morning?  Not to me but maybe to others.  The dogs covered 29 miles collectively.  I'd call it success.

Also, this guy may be my new favorite running buddy.

 

Making Progress

It's exciting when you feel as though you are actually making progress.  Lately, these are the things I've found exciting...don't be jealous of how exciting my life is.

1.  Today, after a few years (yes, years), I finally figured out how to make the wifi work correctly at the house.  I've been  jerry-rigging it for a few years and always had to switch it around between my laptop or desktop because it interfered with a VPN connection.  I never felt like taking the time to figure it out but my new Kindle Fire prompted me to do so and it turns out it was incredibly easy to fix.  

2.  This weekend, I went for a long run and rediscovered my love of longer, morning weekend runs.  My love for truly long runs has been missing since my last big race in June.  OK, so it was only 13 miles but I'd planned on 12 and was enjoying it so much that I added on an extra mile.  There was light rain the entire time which made it quite enjoyable as well.  8.5 miles into the run, I hit that 'I could run forever' feeling.  I ended the week at 46 miles so mileage is creeping back up!

3.  The whole running with dogs program is growing.  Last week, there was an article in the local paper and I ended up with 4 new people this week.  The 4 new were actually lined before the article so hopefully we'll get some more in the future as well.  The tricky part is now handling the fact that I sometimes have more people than available dogs.  Figuring how how to get all the dogs over to where we run can be a challenge as well.  We took a couple wild cards this week for a total of 6 dogs and the wild cards worked out pretty well.  I spent my time just trying to run in between everyone and make sure everyone, humans and dogs, were doing OK.  

4.  An up side to transporting all these shelter dogs is cleaning my car on a more frequent basis.  It gets cleaned each week now.  It may forever smell like a kennel but overall, I'm anticipating it should be cleaner? No?

Making Plans

First, Miles and Mutts is featured today on the MyRaceRagz blog.  I purchased one of their shirts and have been wearing it to promote Miles and Mutts at area races.  I found their products had the best pricing, best selection and easiest use with no order minimum.  They didn't pay me or provide me any products, I paid for them on my own and was very happy with my order.

Second, the best way to start organizing a busy schedule is to make plans, right?  Well, fall schedule is ready, signed up and all paid for and I do not plan on adding any more.

08/11 - Ausherman 5 Mile
08/12 - Half-Wit Half Marathon (Trail)
09/22 - Peace 4 Paws 5K (helping with this one, might run if I can)
10/13 - Freedom's Run Marathon
10/28 - Fire on the Mountain 50K (Trail)
11/17 - JFK 50 Mile

Guess I better get running!

Scatter-Brained

Normally summer months mean slower months for me, but not this year.  My tendency to cram too much into every day started to catch up with me both at work and outside of work.  My desk is a nightmare.  I've been forgetting things at home - like scheduling a few bill payments.  Whoops.  I got all that straightened out and the corresponding late fees reversed and should be back to my normal, organized self in no time.  Although, the house - it definitely could use more than my daily/weekly surface cleaning.  

July was to be my month with no schedules, no plans and the time for relaxation and stop going in fifty directions at once.  I can't say I'm really there but think I'll be a little less scatter-brained soon...except I do need to think about that whole JFK 50 miler thing!

Running has been happening but it's been rather boring, not much to talk about there.  

On Saturday, I went for 10 miles which was the longest continuous run I've done since sometime last month.  I've been running a good number of miles, they've just been a bit scatter-brained as well.  I've worked out a new routine that still allows me to get quite a few during the week, including plenty of dog running.  I'm now taking mine first thing in the morning, before they eat for the day to avoid the heat.  The only issue is they seem to forget by the end of the day that they already had some exercise for the day.  

Running with the shelter dogs has been a little sporadic due to the heat too.  I cancelled during the heat wave because I panicked that it was going to be too hot even for a walk.  We were able to get out this week though.  I didn't take this one far since it was her first time and she's pretty young, but she did really well.  

Firecracker 5K

Yesterday, my husband and I ran a local July 4th 5K.  We ran the same one last year.  It has a pretty good turn-out for this area.  This year there were almost 600 people who participated in the 5K which is larger than a lot of the other local races.  Enough that it makes it fun and exciting but still small enough that it is enjoyable.

I tried pretty much every angle I could think of to try to get out of attempting to run this fast (for me).  I wanted to run it just because I like to go to races but short races are not my thing, I'd much prefer a longer race.

First, I tried the angle of seeing if I could run it with a dog.  I'd e-mailed the race director a few weeks ago to see if I could bring a dog and do some promoting of Miles and Mutts.  There wasn't any mention of pets either way so while I figured it would be a no-go, it was worth asking to see if I could mingle before/after and then run with a dog.  I knew it has a good turn-out and there would be lots of people around.  The race director indicated they did not think it was a good idea to have one on the course but offered me a great alternative to set up at the vendor/craft part as part of the overall community festival/event for the day.  Unfortunately, I couldn't rope enough people into giving up their entire holiday for that and wasn't really prepared to set up in a formal way myself at this point.  But, I'm definitely coming up with ideas for how to make these types of things work in the future.  In the end, I was still able to make a few good contacts with people who asked about it just from the shirt I was wearing.

So, with no dog to run as my excuse to take it easy, my next angle was trying to get my husband on board with me pacing him to a certain time.  I know he wants to run a 5K under 30 minutes and am sure he can. I think if I helped pace him to not go too fast from the start, he could do it.  However, he wasn't quite as excited about the idea of me being pace car and cheerleader for him.  He said I could run with him but didn't need anyone to pace him and I think I can be a little annoying to him in encouraging at these things.  Strike 2 on getting out of attempting to run fast.  Even up to the point where we were standing together at the starting line, I tried one more time with this angle.  I'd 'warmed up' for a mile and felt pretty stiff and slow and didn't think I had much in me since all my miles have been long, slow and lots of them this year.

The race started though and I just took off.  Figured I'd see what I had and then blame my slow time on all the miles I've been running.  This course holds my 5K PR of 24:13 from last year and while I wanted to get under 24, wasn't sure I had that in me.  It's actually a somewhat tough course because there are some decent hills in it...but that also means there are downhills.  I'll take a hilly course over a flat course most days because I like the variety and feel the strongest on these.

The first mile I spent getting around people since I was lined up towards the back.  Towards the end of the first mile and on the first hill, I started picking out my targets to try to pass.  It was going pretty well.  In the second mile, I started to settle into a pace and found myself behind a group of 4 or 5 teenage boys.  It went well for a little while but then I looked at my watch and realized they were starting to slow down and it was the first time I'd seen a pace starting with an '8' when I looked down at my watch.  It was time to get around them and speed up.

Next, it was my goal to get around the guy with the dog.  He was passing a bunch of people in the first mile when I was and I was staying in range of him for quite awhile.  As I mentioned before, I'd e-mailed about bringing a dog.  Therefore, it was most definitely my goal to get around the guy with the dog that I'm sure did not ask about it.  Quite honestly, I was glad I didn't have a dog, it was pretty hot out and the course is through a town so there is no shade so it wouldn't have been the best thing to have one out there.

The courses finishes on a downhill and I found myself by another younger kid and tried to pass him.  He wasn't real keen on that idea so I tried to sprint it out with him to the finish line.  He passed me right at the end but I'm not exactly sure where the finish line truly registered because the results show that I have the same time as a 14 year old (chip-timed but it was based on gun-time).  So, sorry 14-year old for trying to pass you, couldn't help myself.  Somehow I managed to blow my old PR out of the water and finished in 23:34, good enough for 2nd place in my age group.  Guess all those miles are helping...in the good way, not the bad way.  My goal of getting a PR in every distance this year is still holding up!

June Recap

Total Miles Ran:  175
Number of those miles that involved me holding a dog and a leash:  68
Trail Miles:  45
Songs with the most airtime on my mp3 player:  Fun. - Some Nights
Number of P90x or Jillian Michaels Workouts:  7 


June was all about freaking out about Highlands Sky, then running it, then recovering from it, then feeling lost without a plan after it.  That's about it.


On the last day of June, I broke out my bike.  I didn't include that in my workout summary though.  My husband and I rode 8.31 miles in 54 minutes...the slowness was mostly due to me.  This is why you won't see me wanting to train for a triathlon anytime!  My bike is a mountain bike that I got when I was in the 5th grade and only about half of the gears work.  I'm incredibly uncomfortable on a bike and always fear I'm going to wreck which is the result of thoughts from many, many years ago.  I was OK on a main road that had a huge shoulder but all of our hilly backroads that I frequent on foot?  Well, I went about as fast on them as I do on foot for fear of a car either hitting me or me hitting something funny on or off the side of the road and then falling off the bike.


On the first day of July, I was a bit lazy.  I attempted an evening run on Saturday after the morning bike ride but cut it very short at 4 miles. Normally, I don't run on Fridays but had gone to meet with a group Friday evening in some serious heat that involved a cool down in a local creek.  I don't normally run more than 3 days in a row and think my continuous stream of running days was starting to catch up with me...along with the high temperatures.  The plan was to wake up Sunday morning and get in some miles before picking up a shelter dog.  Instead, I slept in and then picked up a shelter dog.  We covered four very slow miles of walking and a little bit of running.  This girl (Jazzy) loves the run walk combo and seems to know how to pace herself with it.  We ran 2 miles out on the trail then turned around and I started walking thinking she probably needed to cool down a bit.  After a couple of minutes of walking, she looked back at me and started jogging again.  After a couple of minutes, she slowed to a walk for a minute or two and picked up the pace again.  It was the funniest thing!

  
I seriously hope my motivation comes back this week because I really stocked up on my sleeping reserve over the weekend and need to get moving again!