Random Thoughts on Running and Baking

Some random notes...

I still have some speed but my endurance is zilch. I tried to run intevals yesterday. I was only going to do 3 of them at 4:00 pace. I did a 1 mile wam up. Ran interval #1 in 3:43. Two minute rest. Ran interval #2 in 3:45. Then I just died. My side was hurting so bad by the time I finished #2 that I couldn't even straighten up and doing #3 was out of the question. When I could finally straighten myself out, I jogged a 1 mile warm down. Pretty disgusted I could only do two but a little happy that I could run them that fast. But still, what was I thinking?! I ran them 15-17 seconds under pace! I think what I was thinking was that I was afraid I'd die later in the interval and I was banking time on the front end.

Ran 5 miles this morning. I really wanted to lay around this morning but it was really nice outside when I finally got out at 9 am and I was really glad I did my run. The rest of the day got busy so I probably would not have had time to get a run in had I not done it this morning.

I am not a morning person but lately I've just been waking up at 6:30 am. Not sure what to make of that!

Peaches, apparently, are not in season yet. I made try #2 and #3 of my dessert pizza yesterday and today. I had been getting my peaches from Meijer and they just haven't been very ripe. Today I didn't have time to run to Meijer so I went to Marsh. I made four trips around the produce department and could not find the peaches. I finally asked the produce guy where the peaches were. He looked at me like I had a horn growing out of my head and told me their peaches don't come in until mid-June or July. Hmm... maybe that's why the peaches I've been getting weren't very ripe! I think I'm going to shelve this dessert pizza project for a couple weeks anyway since I've fed it to my family for 3 days, my in-laws yesterday, and my parents today (gotta love holiday weekends for trying out new food). Peaches should be in season when I try again.

I'm working quite a bit this week. I'm going to try intervals again tomorrow before work IF it's not raining. I also realized that I am not going to get home from work until midnight or later the night before all three 5K's that I'm planning on running so far.

How much sleep do you need before you go for a run?

Catching Up

I feel like I've spent the last week trying to catch up on life in general. I hate being sick. All I want to do is sleep. I can finally breathe some but my house is a disaster and I didn't run for 10 days. When I finally did go running, I felt like I was suffocating and I couldn't decide if it was me or the humidity. Anyway, that was Monday and I only made it 3 miles. I tried to do some tempo on Thursday. It was pouring rain so I went to the fitness center. Did a 1 mile warm up then 2 miles on the dreadmill at 8:57 pace. I was going to do 3 miles but bailed at 2. What happened to that effortless feeling of running 8:40 miles in the Mini? This was definately NOT effortless. Anyway, did a 1 mile warm down and I was DONE. Today, I managed 5 miles, then coughed up a lung when I was done.

I'm planning to run a number of 5K's this summer to help me with my speed. Initially, I was going to see if I could run under 25:00 next Saturday but I don't think that's going to happen now since I could barely motivate myself to get out the door this week.

I am enjoying the beginning of my long weekend off today. I slept in. I crocheted. I went running. I did some major fair planning and shopping for supplies with my younger daughter. Now I'm playing around with some original recipes I'm making for the fair. Here was try #1 of my dessert pizza...

It was way too sweet. My kids ate it anyway. I've got dough rising now for try #2. I'll take it to my in-laws for a party tomorrow when it's done.

What are you doing this Memorial Day weekend? I still have to dog-proof my raised garden.

The Countdown Begins

53 more days...

My Fair Books arrived today. These are the Open Class Handbooks for the Johnson County Fair and the Indiana State Fair. They list the rules and all the different categories of stuff you can enter.

I have entered the County Fair almost evey year since 1988. I grew up just behind the Indiana State Fairgrounds. I use to walk to the State Fair with my friends in grade school. Back then, I thought you had to live on a farm to enter the fair. I grew up in an inner city-ish neighborhood. There was no such thing as 4-H at our school. I moved out when I was 18 and lived in my college town of Bloomington, IN year round. It was there that I discovered the County Fair. One of the girls I worked with talked about going back to her hometown in northern Indiana every summer to compete in her County Fair and what a great time it was. When I expressed interest, she told me to just call my local Extension Office and ask about the dates for the fair and pick up a handbook. Extension Office? What's that? I was totally clueless. I was actually shocked to find a phone number next to "County Extension Office" in the phone book. Then, I was shocked to find out that for Open Class exhibitors (that is, anyone who's not in 4-H), you just show up with your entry on the said date. No pre-registration. Not even an entry fee! I entered a couple items that first year and have been hooked since. After that year, whenever I moved to a new area, I would call up the local Extension Office to get fair dates and request a handbook. I've participated in fairs in five different counties in two different states.

The State Fair is a little different in that you have to pre-register and pay an entry fee. For Open Class, you do not have to participate in a County Fair to participate in the State Fair. I didn't get organized enough to enter the State Fair until 2007 but I've entered every year since. Entry fee is $30 and you can enter up to 35 items for that. I'm one of the crazy people that enter 35 items. I usually enter 20-30 items in the County Fair. Most of my entries are in the baking categories and I bake everything fresh (some people who do multiple entries will bake things ahead of time and freeze them) so the 48 hours before the entries are due are pure madness. For anothe $30, you can actually enter 30 more items (for a total of 65) in the State Fair but I am not THAT insane!

The Johnson County Fair is July 14-20. Entries are due in July 12-13th so I will be a crazy woman on July 11th and 12th. There is a separate baking contest on July 16th so I have the 15th and 16th off too. The State Fair runs August 2-18th. Most of my entries will be due in July 26-27th but there are a number of single day contests and some of the cakes and pies aren't due until after the fair starts. I have my July dates off work already but I have to see what August dates I need off and hope our scheduler doesn't hate me.

Off to do some planning tonight!

Looky What I Got!

Remember the Run for the Ivy 5K that I wrote about in my last post? Well, it looks like I didn't get gyped after all. I had e-mailed the timing organization for the race telling them that they had made a mistake on my gender and that I was a woman instead of a man. They corrected the results and notified the race organizer. The race organizer mailed me the age group award! It's a $10 gift card to Blue Mile, my local running store.

In the meanwhile, my training has come to a standstill. I took it easy last week, did 3 easy runs and ate alot of bad food. Then, I got sick over the weekend. I have a really bad chest cold and can't stop coughing so I can barely breathe much less run. My head is a little less stopped up today and I have the day off work tomorrow so I may try to run again tomorrow.

Catching up, here's what else I've been up to...

My friend Isabelle posted a great carrot cake recipe on her blog here. I used it and made cupcakes instead of a whole cake.

My lastest issue of Crochet World magazine (July/August - I think they're really keeping ahead of the times!) arrived and I had to make this cute little kid's beret...

I'm now crocheting the dress that goes along with the hat. I think that's going to be my fair project this year. My brain is starting to move into fair mode. I enter the county fair and state fair every year. I mostly bake but I also do other crafts depending on what I'm into at the time. I had to submit my day off requests for work for the month of July at the end of last month which got me in the mode as our county fair is in July and the first round of State Fair entries are usually due in the last weekend in July.

I went and saw my chiropractor again earlier this week, I almost canceled because was feeling so bad but went anyway. When I showed up, the whole office was busier than usual and behind schedule because their computer system had crashed. The front desk lady (I'm not sure what else to call her) asked if I wanted to lay on the hydro-jet bed until Dr. Scott was ready. I had no idea what a hydro-jet bed was but I figured, sure, why not. OMG! I think I need one of these!

You lay down with the hard part supporting your bottom and legs. The squishy part is like a heated waterbed but there are water jets underneath that pulse and massage your back. I could have laid there all day. My "wait" was not long enough. Certainly made it worth going to the appointment!

How's your week been? Hopefully no one else is sick!

Looking Back and Looking Forward

It's been a little over 11 weeks since I started this blog.

11 weeks to compress an 18 week half-marathon training program and attempt to follow it and make myself more accountable in general. Has it been successful? So far so good!

I wasn't a huge believer in a low mileage training program but I'd have to say that I can't argue with the results. In 11 weeks, I spent one week with zero miles and another week at 5 miles. My highest mileage week was only 24.5 miles. I ended up dropping most of my cross-training halfway through and just running 3 days a week. Even with this bare bones program, I ended up running my second fastest half-marathon time EVER.

When I looked up my official results from the Run for the Ivy 5K that I ran here, first I was concerned, then irritated, then amused, then...hey, I think I just got gyped! See, I thought I ran well and placed in the women's race but I never heard my name called so I left and went to my family reunion. Later, when I tried to find my results online, I started by first looking at the age group results and couldn't find my name but saw that I ran faster than the woman that was listed as first in the F40-44 age group. I went back and looked through the overall results page and found my name. They had me listed as male instead of female... and I had placed second in the M40-44 age group! So, I think I may be getting to be a little faster than the average bear.

Looking forward, I registered for a 5K on June 1st. I want to see how fast I can really run a 5K. My 13 year old daughter is going to run it with me too. She and I are also thinking about running a half-marathon in Columbus, IN on September 28th. I have put my name in the lottery for this year's New York City Marathon. The drawing is on May 29th. If I don't get in, I think I'll do another marathon in either November or December. 

I believe planning some of my races ahead this year may help me stay on task.

Looking past the running, fair season is quickly coming upon us. I have to start doing some major planning for that too.

Anyone else have some short term goals to share?

500 Festival Mini Marathon

Yesterday was a perfect day for a road race. Overcast skies and temps in the high 50's. No excuses for a bad race.

I couldn't sleep AT ALL the night before. Usually, I don't sleep well before a big race but Friday night was ridiculous. I think I woke up every half hour to use the bathroom. Finally, at 4 am, I got up as planned.

I have run this half marathon more times than I can count. The past couple years, I have the same race day ritual - up at 4am, leave the house by 4:45 am, get to the parking garage by 5:15 am. I always park in the parking garage downtown that is directly in front of my race corral. I think it opens at 5 am. I am always there early so that I am POSITIVE I can park in the garage. This all started several years ago after I drove downtown "late" (like I got there at 6:30 am) and almost couldn't find a parking spot for my car. You are suppose to be in your race corral by 7:00 am and the race starts at 7:30 am. I decided I would rather get there early than stress about parking. Plus, the parking garage is ideal. If the weather is bad, you can just hang out in the garage or your car then step out into your corral at race time. It's so close that I just leave all my stuff in my car rather than check a gear bag. All the port-a-potties are lined up on the street next to the parking garage too. Overall, it's a PRIMO spot to park.

I ran out of corral E this year. Corrals D and E and right in front of the garage. The corrals are lettered A-Z down Washington Street downtown. A-C are the seeded corrals. You have to run under 1:50 to get in the C corral. I would love to qualify for the C corral some day...

5:30 am, I eat my banana, peanut butter sandwich, and Powerade. I always eat the same thing on race day 2 hours before the race. I got "bored" one year and ate two bananas instead of one and I will NEVER do that again since I had a GI emergency at about 7 miles and I am convinced it was the extra banana that did me in!

NO joke, I think I visited the port-a-potty like 20 times before the race started. It was pretty windy too and I'm glad I bought a throw-away jacket the day before. I got a very nice zip-up fleece jacket from Goodwill for $2 and it was well worth the comfort. FINALLY, it was race time.

So here was my plan. Nine minute miles for 8 miles, then, if I felt good, I'd drop my pace.

That plan went out the window my first mile.

The only thing I don't like about this race is how crowded it is. The start is just ridiculous. I can't stand that bunched up feeling where you feel like you're not going anywhere and you're running up someone's back. I always end up squirming and darting and running off to the side to try and get clear of some of the people. Then, when I try to settle down into my planned pace, it just feels like the whole world is passing you by.

Mile 1 - 8:37

Way too fast. I feel great and I'm telling myself to settle down.

Mile 2 - 8:43

Better but I still need to slow down.

Mile 3 - 8:47

OK, I give up. I feel like I am expending more energy trying to slow myself down. I feel great. The weather is perfect. I decided I was just going to go with it and run this pace as long as it felt easy but certainly not push it any faster.

Mile 4 - 8:37
Mile 5 - 8:39
Mile 6 - 8:45
Mile 7 - 8:45
Mile 8 - 8:50

In years past, when I got into trouble it was usually between miles 7 and 8. This year I felt like I was slowing down some but I was still under 9 minute pace and I didn't feel bad. Let's see how long this will last...

Mile 9 - 8:48
Mile 10 - 8:45

At this point, I realized, short of me falling on my face, I was going to run under 2 hours. I also realized I might have a chance at 1:55 which had been my goal last year before I had my melt down.

My original plan had been to "drop the hammer" after mile 10 and try to speed it up the last 3 miles. However, when I got to mile 10 I realized I really had nothing more to "drop" and it was going to be a struggle to maintain my current pace. I had been forcing myself to stop for a sip of water and cups of Gatorade at every aid station. I hate to stop because usually I don't feel thirsty, it breaks up my rhythm to stop and drink (I have to walk, I can't drink and run at the same time), and the stations are so congested. I stopped for water at mile 10 and after that, I just felt like I couldn't get my legs going again and I could feel my hamstrings tighten. No more water stops for me!

Mile 11 - 8:46

My legs felt dead and it was getting really hard. Miles 12 and 13, I was just hanging on as hard as I could.

Mile 12 - 8:52
Mile 13 - 8:57

Official finish time - 1:55:45

I couldn't be happier! I ran far faster than I expected and felt that I "left it all out on the course." I had nothing left at the end. With my original plan, I had been a bit worried that I would have too much left at the end and would be left wondering how fast I could have run. No questions now. I ran as fast as I could.

Here are my final stats that I found online:

Time: 1:55:45
Pace: 8:51
Overall Place: 5441 / 30063
Divsion (F40-44) Place: 163 / 2102
Gender Place: 1326 / 16034

I am enjoying a day off today!

In the Doghouse

                                                                           Belle

Apparently, someone got bored last night....

So this is what I woke up to this morning... my raised garden, completely dug up and destroyed. I was NOT happy. I found 16 of the 18 strawberry plants that had been there but my tomatoes are completely gone. I don't know if she ate them or what but I couldn't even find the remains of the tomato plants.

I got the strawberries somewhat put back together so hopefully they will survive. My husband says he'll try to figure something out today while I'm at work to "protect" the garden and get me some more tomato plants.

The rest of the yard is doing OK. Here are my coneflowers...

The ones that I moved to the front of my house are doing well too.

lily of the valley and tiger lillies

blueberry and raspberry plants

I've got sunflower seeds that I'm trying to start in pots. They are on my upstairs porch. I had to move them there so Belle wouldn't get them. She dumped the pots out the day I planted them when I had them right outside my front door. Bad Dog!!

Any ideas on how to keep Belle from digging up my garden?