It’s the New Year and I had a race on January 1st, so it looks that I have three jobs to do in today’s post: assess last year, set goals for this year, and recap the race. I thought blogs were supposed to be fun and that sounds like a lot of work. Let me see if I can get through the boring stuff and so I can talk about the race, which of course is the fun stuff.

Here are the girls showing off the very nifty medals. These medals are super cool and were worth braving the cold.

Both Mike and Josh PR’ed and I was very happy with my run, so it was a great day. The most important thing: my clothing choice was impeccable! I wasn’t cold at the start and I was comfortable for the entire race. Of course, I noted what I was wearing and the conditions so that I can use this information for future clothing decisions.

The Polar Dash is part of a 4 race series that I am doing this year. I hope that this race is a good indicator of what is to come because it was a lot of fun and was well coordinated. Having friends to run with is hard to beat, too. I didn’t get to see Julie or Amy out there. The sun was really bright and it was hard to spot the 5K’ers when they passed us on their way back. Hope to see both of them at a future race!

Welcome, 2010! So far it’s off to a good start.

The Las Vegas Marathon and Half Marathon are this weekend and I’m getting pretty excited. Mike will be running the full and I’ll be doing the half. I’ve been checking the weather forecast each day and this is what it says right now: low of 38 degrees, high of 59 degrees, and 4mph winds. Perfect! The race starts at 6:15 a.m., so it should be in the 40’s for my whole race. I love it!

Seeing that the race is only 5 days away, I guess I should do a little planning. The most important thing first: what am I going to wear? I bought a new pair of running shorts for the occasion. After running the last month in tights, it will be great to be in shorts again. As for the shirt, our Thanksgiving Day run nicely provided an ugly, gold, long sleeve cotton shirt that will serve as the perfect throw away shirt for the start. I can always count on that race to provide a hideous shirt that I am happy to chuck to the side of the road. Some poor homeless person will probably end up wearing it, bragging to all of his friends that he ran a 5K in Indiana. I’ll wear my tried and true tank underneath and hopefully will be comfortable within the first mile or two.

To bring a camera or not to bring a camera? The few times I have run with a camera, I have never stopped to take pictures. I’ll be running by myself as everyone else that I know is either running the full or is a lot faster than I am, so I won’t have anyone else to take pictures of. On the other hand, I’ve never run a race in Vegas before and I’m guessing there will be some picture worthy events and people along the way. Has anyone run Vegas before? Did you wish you had a camera? I would have to wear my race belt with a pouch to accommodate it, and I just don’t know if it’s worth the extra weight and jiggling. What to do?!

Since it is a race, figuring out what pace to run might be a good idea. I started thinking about my schedule for next year. In January, I already have two races penciled in. I’m hoping to do a 10K on January 1st and The Securian Frozen Half Marathon on January 23rd. I’ve decided to concentrate on the January 23rd race and train pretty hard for that. Since it’s only 7 weeks after Vegas, I’ve decided to not push too hard for this race. I have some chronic hamstring soreness, so if I go all out in this race I may not be able to train as hard as I would like right afterwards.

Ultimately, I have to think about the two half marathons together. Vegas will be flat and ideal temperatures; The Frozen Half will be hilly and horrid conditions. Vegas will be fun and full of smiles; The Frozen Half will be miserable no matter what pace I run. My goal for Vegas is to finish in 2:15 and hopefully come out of it in reasonable condition. My goal for The Frozen half will be to beat my Vegas time by 5 minutes. Secondary goal for Vegas: to beat an Elvis or two. Secondary goal for The Frozen Half: to not freeze to death.

Before I head to Las Vegas for the half marathon, I have one other little race to take care of. When we used to live close to family, I would cook Thanksgiving dinner on occasion. Although I am not much of a cook, I can actually put together a nice holiday meal by relying on favorite recipes. Now that we are always traveling for Thanksgiving, we are the lucky guests at another’s table. Since I don’t have the pressure of getting the turkey in the oven, a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving is a must.

I was just on Athlinks.com checking out my previous Turkey Trot 5K times. Have you been over to Athlinks? I love it because it keeps track of all of your races, times and paces. You can look up other runners, too, but of course I would never do that because we should all just be worried about ourselves and who cares about what anyone else is doing. Ya, right. Anyway, I was noticing that my PR pace for a 5K is 8:08 per mile from back in 2007. Last Thanksgiving my pace was 8:10, but when I ran a 5K this spring my pace was 9:16. It appears that I have slowed considerably.

While its too late to set a goal for the 5K that I could actually do any training towards, I think I will set a goal just for motivational purposes. More accurately, it would be a guess as to what my time is going to be. I’ve been feeling slow lately, so it’s hard for me to guess how fast I could actually go if I were willing to suffer for a whole 3.1 miles. Do I want to suffer? The half marathon is the next week, so maybe I shouldn’t suffer too much.

I don’t know what time to pick. Does anyone want to help? Maybe you should give me my goal pace for the 5K? Here are the facts: my pace at my last 5K in the spring was 9:16. I also ran an 8K in the spring and my pace was 8:52. The Thanksgiving race this year is held on a reasonably flat course. This is a charity race, so it’s questionable if the course will really be 3.1 miles. I’m going to go by the time and distance as recorded by my Garmin. Leave me a comment with your predicted pace. I wish I could give the winner a prize, but seeing as you all don’t live next door, if you are the closest I will link to your profile/blog in my next post and hail your prediction skills. I promise to run my fastest!

Isn’t goal setting is supposed to motivate you to reach your goals? Usually right after setting goals, people try really hard and have some success at first. It’s only after some time has passed that they get lazy and fall off the wagon. Well, I had one day on the wagon and then I was pushed off. I couldn’t help it. It’s all Ironman’s fault.

My 8 week countdown until the end of the year started last Thursday. That day I got in 7 miles, so Day 1 was a success. The next day, the kids and I boarded a plane to Panama City, Florida to watch my husband, Mike, compete in his first Ironman. After several hours of sitting, changing planes, and carrying way too much luggage, we arrived in sunny Florida. Mike picked us up and we went to the Ironman Expo to people watch and do some shopping for him. That left just enough time for an early dinner and then it was off to bed at 8:00 so that he could get a good night of rest. Day 2: Fail. No exercise and lots of eating.

Saturday was Ironman Day. I’ve asked Mike to do a guest blog about his Ironman race, so I don’t want to give too much away. Since I know the suspense is probably killing you, I’ll tell you that he had a great race and not only finished, but had a good finishing time. I’ll let him tell you all about it from his perspective.

For the kids, myself, and his parents that came to spectate, it was an exciting and exhausting day. I was up at 4 a.m. to go with him to the start. I’m so used to being the person that is nervously waiting to line up, it was fun to be the support crew. On the one hand, I wanted to assure him that he was well trained and that he was going to have a great day. On the other hand, it is an Ironman race and anything can happen. Just because someone has a bad day doesn’t mean that they didn’t train well or that they aren’t a great athlete. Sometimes it’s just not your day or something fluky happens. I wanted him to know that he could be proud of what he accomplished getting to the start line. He wasn’t as keen on this line of thinking. He had trained to have a good day and that is what he wanted to focus on. Apparently not every one finds comfort in my strategy of setting the bar low. So, after a few “you will do great” pats on the back, he was off.

We headed down to the beach for the mass start. The pros started first and about 2,500 age groupers started at the sound of the cannon ten minutes later. This was quite a sight to behold. For me, this was the best part of the race to watch. The sight of all of those arms churning in the water was like no other race I had seen before. The race was two loops, so we got to see the athletes get out, cross the timing mat and take another 1.2 mile lap in the ocean. As the professionals exited the water, they calmly walked across the mat, waded back in and started swimming again. As the first of the age groupers exited, they ran across the mat and rushed back into the water, spending a lot of energy running through the water until they could start swimming. Mental note to self: take a tip from the pros and don’t spend a lot of energy at the beginning of the race just to save a few seconds.

How is it that when you are watching a race, you are screaming your participant’s name at the top of your lungs and they are 3 feet in front of you but they somehow don’t hear you? I guess swimming 2.4 miles in the ocean might have something to do with it. Even though he didn’t see us, we were able to see Mike get out of the water and head for the transition. We saw him leave on his bike and he looked great.

Although we didn’t get to see him on the bike, we did see lots of the other participants. My main impression was that bike shops around the country must be making a lot of money. I don’t recall seeing a single road bike. Granted, we were watching the athletes who were in the front half of the bike leg, but the number of high end bikes equipped with expensive racing wheels was mind blowing. As each one passed, I just kept thinking, “There goes $5,000, there goes $5,000…”

We had brought some folding chairs so we settled in to watch the run. During this part of the race, what I kept thinking was, “That person has zero percent body fat, that person has zero percent body fat…” The physiques on these athletes was quite impressive. Again, we were watching people that would later finish under 13 hours, but I kept waiting for somebody show me a little bulge or something! The runners didn’t have as much energy as you normally see at the beginning of a marathon, but at the first mile when we saw them the first time, all but a very few of them were running at a decent clip.

We got to see Mike quite a bit on the run, so that was great. I knew once he made it past the halfway point in good time that he would make it to the finish. We headed to the finish area where the announcer was greeting every finisher by name and saying, “You are an Ironman!” It was awesome. About 30 yards from the finish, directly across from us, we saw a man get down on one knee, pull out a ring and propose to a woman. She started crying and I was thinking she had better hurry up and give her answer because, you know, this is a race and the clock is ticking! She said yes and miraculously, after 140.6 miles, he popped back up and ran across the finish line.

I was so happy for Mike when I saw him enter the final stretch. He looked so happy and he was announced as an Ironman. We rushed out of the viewing area and waited for him to come through the finish area. He had on his medal and, although he looked tired, he was upright and talking so I was happy. Now, back to me, me, me! What did I do after I helped gather his stuff? I went to KFC for the first time in a decade and got fried chicken. I was starving and I couldn’t help it. I ate my chicken and all of the chicken that the kids couldn’t stuff down. Day three of my 8 week challenge: no exercise and bad eating. Fail, but not really fail since I got to be there for Mike’s big day.

Here is my final take away from the race: At a marathon, you see all shapes, sizes and ages. At an Ironman, it is a uniformly fit group. Since Mike was understandably tired and we left right after he finished, I didn’t get to see the athletes that finished in the final 4 hours of the race. Maybe there was a wider variety of physiques among the later finishers. Of course, those athletes had to sustain their level of effort for even longer, so I would think they would require even more endurance and more hours of training. When I saw Mike run his first marathon, I saw other people that looked like me and I thought that the marathon was something that, if I trained really hard, I could do. I’m not there yet with the Ironman.

The next morning we were able to sleep in a little and headed home. A mechanical problem with our flight led to a missed connection, so it was 13 hours later before we finally made it home. Day 4: No exercise and lots of airport junk food. Fail.

When Monday came I woke up and put myself back on the wagon. Sure, I’m not as lean or as strong as those Ironpeople, but I can do my best and try to meet my goals. I made it outside for a run on Monday and Tuesday and it was back to the gym today. This morning I registered for the Las Vegas Half Marathon taking place on December 6th. It will be my first Rock ‘n Roll event and I’m pretty excited about it. Oh, my Ironman husband? He signed up for the full marathon. Geez!

A few weeks ago I wrote about some off season goals that I had for myself. They were: strength training, flexibility and nutrition. There are 8 weeks left in 2009. It’s time to put some numbers and details to my goals and see what I can get accomplished before December 31st.

Strength Training
I’m already lifting 2 days a week and have been incorporating more leg exercises. The goal is to continue to hit the gym twice a week and to get the legs nice and strong. I won’t bore you with what weights I’m lifting now and how much more I want to lift. Since push ups seem to be a good benchmark for fitness, I will say that my goal is to be able to do three sets of 15 push ups. Right now I can do 12 for the first set, 8 the second and 5 the third. Obviously I have some work to do.

Flexibility
I’ve been faithfully stretching, but I missed yoga last week and am going to miss it again this week. I need to come up with an alternative for when I can’t get to the gym at class time. Maybe a yoga DVD for home? In the meantime, I am committing myself to getting to yoga 6 out of the next 8 weeks. I’m going to learn to use the yoga blocks since I’m having trouble with some of the poses. I will borrow a yoga DVD from the library and see if that is a viable alternative. I wish I could set a goal like touching my toes, but that isn’t going to happen in 8 weeks. Attendance will have to count as my whole grade for now. Maybe in 8 weeks I will have improved enough to have an actual performance goal.

Nutrition
I’ve done nothing in this area except eat Halloween candy. Is that good? Oh, I checked out a book about nutrition for endurance athletes. I haven’t read it and it’s two weeks overdue. Not good. My goal for this area is to lose 5 pounds. I’m 5 pounds heavier than I was this time last year and trying to lose a few pounds will force me to work on nutrition. No, the 5 pounds I gained is not muscle. It’s nice of you to say that, but trust me, it’s not. Eating healthier will help me look, feel and hopefully run better. Besides, those triathlon clothes are not forgiving!

Running
When I talked about goals a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I wanted to keep running, swimming, biking, roller skiing, etc., but that I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit it all in. Well, no surprise, I can’t. I’ve decided to concentrate on running for the next 8 weeks. I’m going to run 4 days a week for a total of at least 20 miles a week. I’ll still try to get on the roller skis for 20 minutes here and there to get ready for the snow, but I’m just not good enough at it for it to be a big part of my exercise plan. So, the goal is 160 miles between now and December 31.

That’s it! Eight weeks to get some things done. I’ll have a challenge right from the start since we are traveling to watch my husband participate in his first Ironman race this weekend. The whole family is excited to cheer for him. I can’t wait to be inspired by all of the athletes and I couldn’t be more proud of my athlete who has trained so hard for many months. How was he able to have a full time job that includes a lot of travel and be a great husband and father and train for Ironman? Well, first of all, he has a great wife… ha, ha, ha. Honestly, from my point of view, it looked like pure hard work and determination. I’m sure I’ll see more of that this weekend!

Today is my favorite day in the whole marathon training cycle. With all of the training done and it being too early to start packing the suitcase, it’s a great time to take a breather and appreciate all that has happened prior to the race. Once the race happens, it colors my thinking about the training that went into it. If the race is fantastic, then I feel great about my training. If the race doesn’t go according to plan, then the training was terrible. In an effort to avoid that, I’ve been thinking a lot today about the training itself and the value of it.

Because of the training:

• I addressed my IT Band and lower back issues and have been able to keep them both under control with lots of stretching.
• I worked through a recurrence of Plantar Fasciitis and my foot feels great now.
• I enjoyed training with others, working to get over my insecurities about being too slow and holding others back.
• I got out of my comfort zone and trained in all kinds of weather. I used the treadmill and the indoor track when needed.
• I learned how rewarding it is to read other’s blogs, reading their stories and celebrating their successes as well as empathizing with their obstacles.

Thanks to everyone who has visited here, whether silently lurking or sharing your thoughts. I want you to know that it is very much appreciated. I’ve learned a lot as well as had many laughs and smiles because of you. Thank you!

Tomorrow I’ll be packing up and driving to Fargo with Mike and the kids. I am optimistic that I’ll have some fun on Saturday. The kids are well and Mike is a lot better with just the remnants of a cold remaining. I’m feeling pretty well! I’ve been queasy for the last couple of days, but it’s been getting better instead of worse, so hopefully by Saturday I will be 100%. Best of all, the weather forecast is not for hot weather. It looks like it’s going to be cold, a little windy with a slight chance of precipitation. I’ll take it!

I’ll try to post something on Saturday and let you know how it went. I’m adding a couple of last minute goals to my list. I stole these directly from Steve. He is an inspiration and is hilarious. When I read these, I thought, now here is a man with a lot of experience that knows what he is talking about:

• Keep from shartting myself.
• Not cross the finish line hitting my watch. I want to come across that line with a smile!!

Good luck to everyone else at Fargo and other races this weekend, including cyclists!

The Fargo Marathon is quickly approaching. It seems like it’s been months away forever, and now it’s surprising close. It’s kind of freaking me out! Since we have to travel and do the hotel thing, there are all those extra logistics. All of these little planning details are making the marathon more and more real.

You would think that since I ran the same race last year that I would have a certain comfort level. I do in some respects. I know where we’ll park, how great the spectators are, and what to expect at the finish in the Fargo Dome. That’s all good stuff.

There’s also some things I know that maybe aren’t so good. I know how hard a marathon can be. I know how heartbreaking it can be to watch the time click by and your dreams about your finish time slip away. Fargo was not a good race for me. It was hot and windy. My heart rate sky rocketed over 170 before mile 4. I was walking on and off before I hit the half-way point. My 4:58 finish was a good 30 minutes slower than I had hoped.

The worst thing was that the whole race was very difficult for me. If I had run a good 20 miles and then had to walk the rest, I could have accepted that. If I had run the whole way slowly and still came in at 4:58, I could have accepted that. But I had trained harder than my race indicated and I knew it from the very first moments of the race. It sucked.

After Fargo, I regrouped and changed my training plan for Twin Cities. I ran much better and felt like I fulfilled my marathon dreams. I was really proud of my training and my race. I’m now trying to tap into that confidence and forget that Fargo just happened to be the place where I had a bad race. A year has passed and I have a lot more experience and miles under my belt.

Today I was really thinking about what solid steps I could take to make this race a good one. This is what I came up with:

• Remind myself daily that getting to the starting line injury free was my number one goal.
• Good nutrition leading up to the race.
• Hydrate well in the days before the race.
• Stay away from caffeine.
• Stretching well each day and before the race.

I also made a big decision about the race itself. I decided that I’m going to run with the 4:30 pace group. I’ve never run with a pace group before. Anyone ever tried it? At Twin Cities, I started out way too fast and really suffered at the end. I finished in 4:27, but the last 6 miles were really painful. I’m hoping that, even though I may finish with a slower time, that the pace group will help me run more consistently and that I’ll feel better. I’m also hoping that the camaraderie and company of the pace group will help me achieve my number two race goal, which is to have some fun!

So that is my game plan as of now. The only other thing on my list is CONSTANT HAND WASHING. Everyone in my family is sick with a cold except me. Right now, my son is sitting next to me coughing and blowing his nose. My kids were home from school today because they cancelled school do to a probable H1N1 infection on their campus. My husband worked from home today because he feels so sick. While he’s not busy at the computer infecting my keyboard, he’s lying in bed feeling miserable.

Hopefully everyone will be back at school and work tomorrow and get their germs away from me! I hope that all of you who have races coming up this weekend stay healthy, too!

It’s a little over 9 weeks until the Fargo Marathon. The long runs are starting to get truly long and we’ve made hotel reservations. The excitement of signing up for the race has passed and the time has come to start thinking about a goal for this race.

I’m already regretting that I said that I was going to take on Jennifer Lopez’s triathlon time. Note to self: check a person’s finishing time before mouthing off a challenge. I’ve never done a triathlon, so maybe I’m wrong, but unfortunately for me her time doesn’t look too bad. Here is the breakdown:

In November of 2007, I was in New York City to watch my husband, Mike, run the NYC Marathon. The day before the race, we walked to Central Park to watch the Men’s Olympic Trails and were stunned at the speed and athleticism of the racers. We didn’t hear about the tragedy until later that day, so we left the park in awe of the athletes and inspired by the pursuit of their dream to go to the Olympics. The next day, I cheered Mike on as he reached his goal of breaking the 4 hour mark. He did this only four weeks after running the Twin Cities Marathon in record heat. At mile 10 of the race, Lance Armstrong, an inspiration to millions of cancer survivors, ran right in front of me. I saw Paula Radcliffe, who had a baby the previous year, lead the pack of elite women. Not far behind them was my son’s Cross Country coach, a local woman about my age and running just minutes behind the world record holder. That day, I saw countless people of all shapes, sizes and abilities run past me and achieve their goal. It was enough to bring me close to tears.

So, given that entire weekend of being witness to a thousand dreams, what did I take away as my primary motivation for my first marathon? Katie Holmes. Katie Holmes gave birth in April 2006 and completed the marathon just 18 months later in NYC. Of all the things I saw that day, for some reason I became obsessed with her time of 5:29:58. All through my training for the Fargo Marathon, people would ask me what was my goal and I would always answer the same, “To beat Katie Holmes.” Why? Her real-person time of 5:29 was inspiring mostly because it was so average. This wasn’t like Lance Armstrong finishing under 3 hours, or even Oprah running a respectable 4:29. Katie’s time was that of a real person… a real mom of a toddler with a real life and a real body with real limits. In fact, having never run a marathon myself, I thought it was on the slow side. Yes, I was quite sure I could crush it. For goodness sakes, even if I had to walk, at least I could beat Katie Holmes.

So what happened? Well, I did finish over 30 minutes faster than her, but unlike her, I was not able to appear in high heels at my husband’s movie premier later that evening. No, I laid in bed for several hours, limped to Applebee’s for dinner, then limped back to bed. No high heels for this girl. So, while technically I beat her, I think it would be fair to say it was pretty darn close.

This past fall, I was minding my own business and training for another race. Wouldn’t you know that another celebrity had to go out, mere months after delivering twins no less, and complete a triathlon. Curse you, Jennifer Lopez! Get ready celebrities, I’m bringing on Round Two. Rochester Triathlon- you are on my schedule and I plan to crush JLo and her luscious booty! (Men, get your mind out of the gutter.)