Go Girl Recap

What a fun and quick weekend!!!! I left for Portland after my 7:30 am spin class on Saturday and got into town a little after 4:30. I looked up a running specialty store called Foot Traffic and then met up with Cassie. We got some delish Thai food for dinner and then stayed up until midnight chit chatting and wedding planning. I was exhausted! Got up a little after 7 on Sunday to get ready for Go Girl. I was excited to get Go Girl done so we could get breakfast at Biscuits afterwards (I need to stop thinking about Biscuits right now because it is that good).

Go Girl was a lot of fun, but reiterated that I don't like trail running. I would prefer to run on even surfaces where I don't have to constantly be looking down and rolling my ankle. Trail running can be dangerous! The course was fun and challenging. There were so many hills that my quads and hamstrings were burning before I had even hit the halfway mark. The downhills were nice, but I felt that because the terrain was so uneven it was hard to get good speed and utilize them. I ended up placing 4th overall and got 3rd in my age group. I was pleased that I finished and held a fairly consistent pace over the hills. The 3 women in front of me didn't have a huge lead, but after rolling my ankle multiple times I figured that catching them wasn't worth the potential injury. Now that Go Girl is in the books, I am looking forward to my first 25K this coming Sunday. :-)

My new Brooks singlet

Run world, run :-)

Lucky #205

Run Oregon & Run Washington

I think I am ready.....

Waiting to start

Wave 1

The start of Wave 1

Cass & I in are super cute Go Girl finisher's shirts

The sweet shirts I bought us at Foot Traffic

4th place overall, 3rd in my age group

--Tasha

Go Girl 10K

It has been 1 month since I ran the Helvetia 1/2 marathon. Tomorrow morning I leave for Portland to run an all women's 10K in Portland with Cassie. I have never ran an all women's race before so it should be fun. It has been at least 3 years since I have a raced a 10K so I hope that I am ready for it. 10Ks hurt! You have to be quick from the start to the finish. Not quite as bad as 5K, but I don't necessarily think that 10Ks are my forte. I am mostly looking forward to getting out of town for the night and celebrating Cassie's recent engagement. :-)

This week was a little rough for me. It has been over a month since I bruised my knee and I still feel like I am not completely over it. Wednesday was the first day since June 9th that it didn't hurt when I was running. I am hoping (knock on wood) that the bruising is finally subsiding. On Wednesday I had to do my hill workout when it was 90 degrees outside (I know, not smart on my part) and it was not a comfortable feeling. I barely made it through the workout, but I was determined to get in a good warm up/cool down and at least 8 hill repeats. I felt exhausted and gross at the end of my warm up so that is never a great sign, but it felt awesome to finish. After that I was completely worthless and passed out.

I am hoping that Go Girl will lift my spirits and that next week will be better. On July 17th I signed up for my first 25K. I realize that it is only a week after my 10K, but I plan on using it for a long training run. I heard that the course is beautiful so it should be fun. I am really looking forward to the breakfast that follows the race, nom nom.....

--Tasha

Helvetia 1/2 Marathon: Recap

The 2011 Helvetia 1/2 Marathon is officically in the record books and I am very pleased with how well I raced.

I paid attention to my pace more than I ever have before and it paid off. I knew that if I was patient I would run well and get a PR, I just didn't realize my PR would be 5 minutes!

I was pretty tired when we got into PDX Friday night. No matter how comfortable your car is, it never feels great to have to sit in one place for 5 hours. I drove most of the way and stopped in The Dalles so we could grab some dinner and get gas. I wasn't sure what I should eat since the restaurant didn't have any pasta, BUT they did serve breakfast all day. I decided on the pancakes with marionberries because I knew I would be getting in my pre- race carbs and I was actually craving pancakes. They pancakes were awesome so I think I made a good choice.

Once we got into town we stayed up and chit chatted with Cass & Scott and I got my race bag ready. I don't like to feel rushed the morning of a race so I try to make sure that everything is packed and/or layed out the night before.

Saturday morning I got up at 6 am to start getting ready. I had my pre-race oatmeal and made sure that I wasn't forgetting anything important. I decided to bring my IPOD just incase I wanted to use it at the last minute. Normally I feel really jittery the morning of a race, but I felt particularly calm. It was a good feeling. After stepping outside to survey the weather I decided that it was colder than I was anticipating. Luckily I had packed my arm sleeves so I decided that I would wear them to warm up in and then decide if I wanted to wear them for the race.

After a brief warm up and stretch I took some sports beans and was ready to go. At this point it was still chilly so I decided to wear my arm sleeves for the race. We took some group photos and made sure that we were sporting our Portland Running Co. tattoos so that we could be entered into a drawing for a free pair of running shoes (unfortunatley, we didn't win-boo).

Cam walked me over to the start line and I did some quick strides and was feeling ready to rock and roll. Once the race started I zoned in on my pace and tried to keep it as close to the 7:45 range as possible. I knew that if I kept it in that area that I would have plenty of gas in the tank to knock out some faster miles towards the end.

A lot, I mean a lot of people were passing me in the first 3-5 miles. I hate it when somebody passes me!!!! I kept my cool and just stuck to the plan knowing that I would more than likely be passing them later in the race. When I came to the first hill (which I had forgot from last year) I thought "oh crap, this is a big one"! At that point I was starting to pass people for a nice little confidence booster. I even had a conversation from a really nice gentleman for about 1/2 a mile who finally told me that he couldn't keep up with me anymore and that he was going to be the first person for me to pick off. I slowly started to pass larger packs of runners staying at my 7:45 pace going into mile 6. Mile 6-7 is an out and back with a large hill. I passed a lot of runners on the uphill portion into mile 7.5. After that is where I really started to push the pace. I could see the 7:30 pace balloon about 1/4 a mile ahead of me. I knew if I passed him I was doing good. I eventually passed him around mile 9 with a little smile on my face. At that point I felt really good I knew that as long as I held it together I would have a PR. I passed 2 more girls in the last 5K and a bunch of men, at least 10, maybe even more. I was hauling at that point. When I would come up on someone they would try and speed up, but they didn't stay with me for very long before they backed off. I heard a few curse words from men in the last mile that I passed. Haha.

When I crossed the finish line I was beyond excited- I had just ran the fastest 1/2 marathon in my life and had a 5 minute PR. The best part was that I felt great and I have the confidence to know that next time I can run just as good, if not better. This was definitely the confidence booster that I have needed since Boston.

Cam met me at the finish line and then I felt really sick to my tummy and made a beeline for the bathoom. After hanging out over the garbage can for a couple of minutes I felt better. Cam was hungry (its hard work sitting around waiting for me to run 13.1 miles) so we went up to get our Helvetia hamburgers. I hadn't had a hamburger since December and it was ah-mazing! I enhaled it, haha. After that we walked over to the beer garden so we could sit in the grandstands and watch for Cass & her friend Jen to finish.

A couple months ago, Cass had sent out an email with our times from last year- my time was quite embarrassing at 1:59:25, my slowest 1/2 marathon time. She asked what our goals should be for this year. I told her that both her and Jen should shoot for running at least 10 minutes faster than last year and that I would like to run at least 15 minutes faster than my previous time. They both ended up running Helvetia 15 minutes faster than last year and had a 4 minute 1/2 marathon PR. I am so proud of both of them- they have come along ways since they first started running together. I shattered my goal and ran 23:34 seconds than last year. Finally having that break through and getting my 5 min 1/2 PR was the greatest feeling. I am back to running and I am feeling healthier and stronger than ever.

My next race is a 10K in Portland on July 10th. I am also running this Cass and I am looking forward to having another fun weekend and perhaps even a 10K PR.....

--Tasha

Training for Helvetia

After work tomorrow I leave for Portland to run the Helvetia 1/2 marathon Saturday morning. Where have the past several weeks gone!? I signed up for Helvetia back in February and June 11th seemed so far away then.....time flys when you are having fun!

This will be my second year running Helvetia with Cassie, and I hope not the last. I already have a feeling that it will be a great weekend! I am really looking forward to my Helvetia burger after the race too...I can't remember the last time I had a hamburger-December??? January?????

Helvetia is a pretty challenging course- there are a lot of rolling hills! They seem never ending, but I have been running hills like crazy on all of my runs to try and be prepared. Luckily, it shouldn't be as hot as it was last year so I am hoping that I don't die on the course like I felt like I was going to last year. I have been tracking weather.com all week and it looks like Saturday will be a high somewhere between 65-70 degrees and partly cloudy. Perfect morning running weather.

After much thought over the last week I have decided against wearing my IPOD. I am hoping that this decision doesn't come back and bite me in the butt. I figure I need to really keep my pace in check and my music/IPOD might be distracting. I am also always in my "zone" and don't ever really pay that much attention to my music during a race like I would on a training run anyways. At Windermere I was so yucky and sweaty that the last couple of miles my ear buds wouldn't stay in place and it was annoying having to mess with them.

It has been almost 4 weeks since Windermere I am feeling fantastic. I have gotten in several solid runs and mixed up my cross training with class, spin, and TRX. I am pretty stubborn (SHOCKER!!!), but I am finding that by listening to Amy, I am actually making some great strides in my running. On my 10 mile run, I took 3 minutes off of my overall time and on a 5 mile tempo run I averaged a 7:04 pace (these runs were in the same week!!!). I don't think that I have ever ran a 5 mile tempo run that fast before. I was shocked, but mostly shocked that it felt awesome. Woo! Hoo! I am mildly obsessed with spin- it is incredibly addicting. I like to "compete" against myself to see how many miles I can get in. It is also some of the best cross training I have ever done.

I will admit that I have struggled a bit this last week. I only had 2 runs which felt weird- I have always struggled with tapering. On Monday I went to spin at 6 am and then I had a 5 mile tempo run after work. I was tired/crabby and it was cold outside, but I pushed through the run. I couldn't get my pace right so I was getting frustrated- first I was going too fast so I would slow and then I was going to slow. UGH! I finally got into a rhythm about mile 3 and pushed through with an average pace of 7:03. It was faster than the week before, but it didn't feel good because I was exhausted from running so late in the day and from spin class. If it hadn't started to rain on me I probably wouldn't have picked up the pace that last mile.

The last couple of weeks I have also been really focusing on what I eat. I was watching my food intake before, but now I am focused on eating a little more everyday 1300 calories or so and watching my % of fat, protein, and carbs more closely. I also have one day a week where I eat about 1500-1800 calories- that is usually on Saturday so that Cam and I can eat out. Currently I am trying to maintain my daily carb intake to 45%, protein to 30%, and fat to 25%. It took a couple of days to get into the swing of watching my %, but I think that I have gotten it down. I am finding that it helps to plan out my food the day before so that I can make sure that I am eating the correct amounts. I would usually plan out my lunch and snacks, but now I plan everything that I will eat the day before. I am telling you, this being healthy is time consuming- but so worth it.

After Helvetia I am just going to spend the summer focusing on getting stronger, faster and having solid runs to take me into CIM in December. I know that CIM is still months away, but I want to be as prepared as possible. I plan on running a couple more 1/2 marathons and some 10Ks prior to CIM. December will be here before I blink!

So much to be looking forward too in the coming months! :-)

--Tasha

Windermere!

The last couple of weeks have flown by! I had every intention of updating Healthy Diva, but I had way too much going on to even think about updating. It all started with selling my Jeep which escalated into this huge 2 week ordeal where that could have possibly gone wrong did (most of you have already heard the story). In the end I go the car I wanted and everyone, including the husband, is happy. On top of the car, I was busy at work etc. Bad excuse I know. Lets get to the fun stuff!

My last couple weeks of training went good and I felt great overall. I was pretty nervous for Windermere, but excited to be racing again. It has been how long????? The week seemed like it took twice as long as it should have to be over. I hate that!

The weather in Spokane has been crap lately so I was really starting to get concerned about the rain/wind that was being forecasted. Luckily, it wasn't so bad. Little chilly/windy at the start, but it wasn't what I had imagined. Out on the course it got pretty warm and there was quite a wind in spots. Wish it would have been more of a tailwind, but I will take that over rain any day. I felt great running wise until about mile 5 when my feet really started to hurt. I made the mistake of wearing my Nike Frees (which I had been training in) which probably weren't the best option for running a 1/2. Once my feet started hurting then my legs started cramping. It was a good lesson learned and I went home and ordered a new pair of Brooks (I know those work great!!!)

Overall, I finished and was happy that I was even in shape enough to run a 1/2. Of course I wasn't thrilled I didn't get my PR, but then again I haven't raced in how long????? I was more happy that I was able to get an automatic qualifying time for the Houston 1/2 in January.

Saturday also marked the last day of my most recent session with Amy. Now that I have been training with her for 18 weeks I am starting to see some muscle definition. Who would have thought?! I still have pea shooters, but they have a touch more definition. :)

Our next official session doesn't start until June, but in the meantime we still get to workout on Tues & Thurs mornings. No more Saturday class for the summer....what am I going to do???? Angie came up with the brilliant idea to start a class running group for Mon & Wed mornings. Should be fun!

I can't say enough just how amazing Amy Black is. She has done so much for me physically & mentally- I can't even begin to describe how much I have transformed since January. I am only a couple of pounds away from where I need to maintain my weight. If you would have asked me in January if I thought I would weigh 125 lbs in May I would have laughed at you and said "NO WAY". My skinny clothes that I wore the summer Cam & I got married are falling off of me. If my wedding dress wasn't boxed up I would put it on- I bet it would be too big.  I am telling you, Amy Black is WONDER WOMAN!!!!!1

Next up on my schedule is the Helvetia 1/2 on June 11th. Last year I "wogged" it in 1hr 58min. This year it would be nice to run it at least 10 minutes faster, even though I would prefer 15 minutes faster. :) I will be wearing better shoes for it!

The rest of the summer I just plan on training for my 1/2 in October and start my marathon training for December. I am doing a 10K in July and will also be doing the Warrior Dash in September (yes I am stoked to get a viking helmet). Warrior Dash is a 5K, but like Cassie said, there probably isn't much running involved. I might have to sign up for the Pints to Pasta 10K for the next morning......

--Tasha