Since it’s been a MONTH since I ran the half marathon I’d been training for since February, I thought I should probably post the results.
First off — I need to re-calibrate Nike+ SUPER hardcore bad. It was almost a mile off when I finished (so I run faster than the device tells me that I run).
Here’s my results via nike+
and here are my official results
I finished 23rd in my age group, 73rd in my gender and 321st overall. There were 353 women and 863 participants overall. I’m not sure how many people were in my age division, but if I would have hit 1:45 (the time I was shooting for) I would have been in the top 10.
To compare, here are my results from 2 years ago, the first time I ran the race.
I finished 208th in my gender and 32nd in my age group.
However, if you notice, I SHAVED 20 MINUTES OFF MY TIME. So really, that’s the big news. I kicked ass.
I can’t believe I’m already into week 3 of my half marathon training. So far, so good. I haven’t missed a run yet and I’ve been keeping up with my cross training on my off days (except last Saturday — but I danced my ass off at prom).
Today’s a cross-training day, so I’m going to hook up with my favorite trainer, Jillian Michaels, for some hard core cardio in my living room.
Anyway, my runs have been pretty decently paced so far. I ran outside for my first 6-mile run (in the snow) for week one and managed to keep it at 8’25ish per mile. Last week’s 7 mi run was on a treadmill and averaged 8’17/mi. So pretty decent. If I can keep my pace no more than 8’30/mi on longer runs, I think I’ll have a pretty decent time for the race considering I’ll likely step it up a notch.
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about running, which is kind of weird because I’d been making pretty decent progress in the last week or so.
Basically, I’ve been on an “add .5 mi to what you ran last week” program for about a month — so I should be on 2.5 miles this week. However, I was going on “add 5 minutes to what you ran last week” instead since I assumed I’d be going at a 10-minute/mi pace — SO not the case.
And, since I’m a total math genius, I decided that last week’s +5 minutes = 30 minutes because obviously 20+5=30. Right?
So I think Thursday I ran 30 minutes which totaled about 3 miles. I thought, well, my leg’s cool, so I guess I’ll go with 30 this week (even though I realized my error by this point).
Sunday I chilled out all day until the rain was eminent. I HAVE to wait until the last possible minute — it’s my forté. So it looks as if the sky is going to dump a week’s worth of vengeance on Des Moines around 6 or so, which is when I decided to lace up and head out.
It was a great run. Great temperature…great mood… lots of people out…and of course: good tunes. I’ve been digging “Are You Dead Yet?” by Children of Bodom lately since workouts are harder now that I’m not in marathon-running shape. It’s a good mantra for me I guess.
I managed to make it most of the way through the 30 minutes and at the end I almost hit a 7-minute mile pace for a while, but I called it quits a bit early and was .02 mi short of a 5K.
Almost a 5K? Now that’s a respectable distance. I feel like I’m back in the game…well, almost. 5K doesn’t cut it for me. In my old world, anything under a 10K didn’t count as running to me. Ahhh…. crazy.
I remembered why I started this blog — RUNNING. This blog was to keep track of my runs to help me hold myself accountable for marathon training. Here I am…without having blogged about running for a while. It’s weird. Back in March when I had to quit, it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but now, I’m somewhat indifferent, and it’s sad. It’s sad that something that I was so passionate about can just fizzle up and go away like that.
It’s getting late and I really need to get to bed (I feel like Doogie Houser, MD for whatever reason tonight… ah, NPH).
Here’s Sunday’s run in all it’s all-over-the-board-pace glory.
And just because I am currently listening/watching this and since NPH is my hero..
I spent the whole weekend in Ames since it was graduation weekend and the BF FINALLY graduated. We went out Friday AND Saturday. I managed to squeeze in an hour-long run/walk yesterday while he was doing the big graduation ceremony (I didn’t go since I couldn’t sit for that long)…and we went to Applebee’s with his family for supper (mmmmmm huge ass apple walnut salad!)…and then we watched StepBrothers until super late last night. I got up early today but wasn’t very productive at all (it’s after 7 PM!!).
First, I spent most of my morning putting together a 5K training plan for one of my BFFs, Adria. I convinced her to run a 5K with me in September or October and she’s up for it. Updates on that will follow. I’m finishing up the program and will be hopefully sending it to her tonight so she can start on it.
Secondly — the obvious — I spent most of my afternoon moving my blog (formerly runningchimes.wordpress.com) here and doing a quickie design that will suffice for now until I get time to do a real design and redo my portfolio. I’ve been paying $10 a month for this domain, I might as well get SOME use out of it!
Finally, I spent a lot of the evening listing some things on my etsy store, re-figuring some prices and retagging some items. I’ve got quite a bit of design up. My store got some traffic the other day when I posted that black prom dress that I’ve decided I’ll never be able to squeeze into.
Unrelated: I had decided not to work out today, but then re-decided that I should. AND if I do, I get to eat the ice cream that I have in the freezer. Don’t worry — it’s just a single serving. I plan to do a half hour of biking since I haven’t biked for a while and then some strength training and stretches. Maybe 45 minutes of biking. We’ll see. I plan to go at 8 PM. That’s later than usual, but I’ve got a new rule: something is better than nothing! I have a hard time working out late, but I figure biking easy for 30 minutes is better than sitting on my ass for 30 more minutes.
Anyway, that is all. I shall be posting more crafty stuff hopefully and more running stuff. I need to take some photos of my crafts and post them here, facebook and on etsy. Also, I’m going to probably start using the nike+ again this week since I can run 1 mile consecutively. I’d like to know what my pace is…just for s&g’s.
Finally: Shout out to PerpetualSpiral (whose real name I don’t know…which I feel bad b/c she’s pretty awesome) — fellow craftster and twitterer. She’s always got some kind words and praise for me! Yay for tweeps that I’ve never met in real life.
