Week 1 - Roller Coasters, Late Nights, Beer and Bacon

Well, it's was Week 1 of Monumental training and I ended up spending it like a twenty-something, which I'm NOT...

Sunday - 0 miles
Spent the morning buying food for King's Island and then went to work til midnight.

Monday - 0 miles
Took my daughter and 5 of her friends to King's Island for the day for her 16th birthday. All of us rode rides all day long. First thing I did was get on the Racer, the wooden roller coaster that had been a favorite of mine as a child...yah, as a child. I quickly discovered that I no longer have the back and neck of a 12 year old. I thought my teeth were going to get shook out of my head and I had a headache by the time it was over. But, did this stop me? Nooooo. We had Fast Pass bracelets for the day. We were going to ride rides all day. Thankfully, the newer metal roller coasters weren't quite as rattlely. In the afternoon, the girls went to the water park and played in the wave pool while the boys continued to ride rides. I took it upon myself to hurl myself down every waterslide I could find because I'm like that. Waterpark closed at 8 pm and all of us rode more roller coasters until the park closed at 10 pm. The kids all fell asleep before I got out of the parking lot. I had to drive 2 and a half hours home. I could hardly stay awake. Finally got to bed after 1 am.

Tuesday - 5 miles
Ohhh... I was sore from riding roller coasters. Sucks getting old!

Wednesday - 30 minutes of swimming + 5 miles
I hadn't been in the pool for over a week and I'm still thinking about doing a Sprint Tri next month. The swim is 300 meters. I can still only go 50 meters before I have to stop. It took me 15 minutes to complete 300 meters. Ugh. After that I did my run. SO much easier to run!

Thursday - 0 miles
Had to work the morning shift which means getting up at 4:30 am and as you all know by now, I am NOT a morning person! I was too tired after I got off work to do anything.

Friday - 6 miles
Had to work that same morning shift again but decided I would do the Midnight 5K in Seymour that night as my speed work for the week. I was so tired after work that I had to lay down for a couple hours and almost decided not to go since I wasn't even registered for it yet. However, I'm suppose to be marathon training and I'd only run 10 miles total for the week so I felt I had to go get some miles in.

Once I got to the race, it turned into a perfect night to run. Clear and temps in the mid-60's. I did a 2 mile warm up and got done right before the start. My goal was to see if I could run under 25:00. So...

Mile 1 - 7:32
Mile 2 - 8:11
Mile 3 - 8:19
last 0.1 - 0:35.7

Official time - 24:37.7 (7:55 pace)

Mile 3 read long for me so I probably ran 3 faster and the last 0.1 slower. Anyhoos, what's interesting was that I looked up last year's race post tonight and discovered I had run pretty much the exact same time last year at this race and I had had the same goal last year! I ended up finishing second in my age group this year. Did a 1 mile cool down and finally got back to my in-laws house in Columbus at 2 am to pass out.

Saturday - 0 miles
Frankly, I should have run but was too tired to run in the afternoon. That evening, my friend Hope and I went to the Beer and Bacon Classic.

Yup, all the craft beer and bacon related food you can eat between 7 pm and 10 pm.

This was my favorite bacon item - a beer flavored marshmallow that was toasted over an open flame then rolled in bacon, chocolate bits, and cookie crumbs. Pop it in your mouth in one bite. Heaven on a stick! Yes, this is why I'm in the "run to eat club!"

We didn't even make it to 10 pm. We were so full of food and beer (well, me beer; Hope was my designated driver) we had to roll ourselves to the car shortly after 9 pm and I was passed out asleep by 11.

So that's the Week 1 summary. 16 miles total. Lots of playing and not a whole lot of running.