An 18 mile run PR

I got up at 6:40am since I knew I needed to eat a lot and drive 45 minutes to Rend Lake. Plus, it was going to get really warm today and the wind was going to pick back up today. It calmed down last night as the sun went down and the temperatures fell. But I saw on weather.com hourly forecast that as the sun came up, the wind picked up as well. I finally got started at 8:25am with 13mph winds and by the time I end, it should be around 16mph. (26mph winds as I type this at 3:30pm).

I stopped off to use the restrooms at McDonald's. Did you know that they have the cleanest bathrooms? Anyway, as I walking to the bathroom, I had to go through a bunch of old guys (they were sitting across the aisle instead of in a bunch of tables on the same side) drinking coffee and talking politics and stuff. When I walked out, they all got real quiet as I walked through them and then I heard them talking about my skirt & what I thought was a whistle. Still not sure about that one but hey, I felt good about it!

First part of this run was on a paved bike path. More of a sidewalk actually. About 6.7 miles, it stops and you have to go on roads and that's when it gets hilly. I was feeling good throughout this run even mile 7. Cause at mile 7, I was actually thinking I could go another 2 miles and get 20 out of this run and then I'll be back on schedule. Silly Lindsay.

I waved at & talked to dog walkers along the way. Rend Lake is going through some construction so I had to run past workers and I waved at them. Then there was a biker coming towards me about mile 11. He was going downhill so was travelling fast and I told him that he should be wearing a helmet for safety. I kept expecting him to come back and yell at me.

I ate PowerBar Gel Blasts on the run. Four at mile 6 and three at mile 12. I was going to have two more at mile 15 but I couldn't muster it up. And I ended up being kinda hungry by the end of the run. I had my four water bottle belt on me. I didn't drink too much heading north. Only one bottle but the other three were used in the second half. I had two bottles left at halfway so I used 1 for each 3 miles. At this point, I was even using them to cool me off. Putting a little bit of them over my head and down my back.

I saw that 3 miles left, I could beat my previous best 18 mile run time of 3:00 even. I couldn't believe it. I had 35 minutes to run 3 miles. Then at 2 miles left, I still have 25 minutes to spare. I figured that even if I ran these last 2 miles at 12:30 minutes per mile, I would still have 3 hours but I knew I wouldn't be doing that. Then again, the last mile is pretty much all uphill.

And so I tried to keep going in the last 2 miles. That's when I really started to hurt. Hurt so much that I think I peed a little. And then also at the end when I finally hit the button and I stopped running, I leaned over, again a little pee came out. Yep, that's how I knew I really gave it my all out there on the stupid run. But I did it. 2:55.58. Still can't believe it. No way do I plan on doing that in a marathon but it's good to know that I did it AND on a hilly course too!!!

My calves were hurting me a little bit at the end. I walked around and stretched. I was not looking forward to the drive back home. I changed my shirt and felt so good to get that sweaty stinky mess off of me. I stopped off at McD's (the same as before) to order a chocolate & strawberry shake. All day I've been feeling OK with my legs, I'm really surprised actually. My knee got a little sore after a while. I iced it for a little while. And then got really tired laying on the couch. I cannot wait until later tonight when I can pass out!

I only paused a few times in my run but that was just to take pictures. No walking for this gal! Pictures are here and my Bones in Motion stats are below.

Snake warming himself on the path. Didn't even move when I ran past.

Guess camping season has already began.

This guy was dead. Not sure how. Didn't see any blood. Probably a heart attack.

I saw 4 deer at a clearing. By the time I got the camera out, they were already scampering away.

Tracks that happened when they poured the concrete. Wonder how long they've been there.

This time deer tracks!

Me in my wonderful running skirt. I was going to wear a gray sleeveless shirt but thought it would be cool this morning. Again, silly Lindsay.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 418 ft Location: Benton, IL Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 04/02/10 Up/Downhill: [+892/-892] Time: 08:24 AM Difficulty: 3.7 / 5.0 Weather: Mostly Cloudy 72 F temp; 49% humidity 72 F heat index; winds S 12 G 24 Performance Distance: 18.01 miles Time: 2:55:58 Speed: 6.1 mph Pace: 9' 46 /mi Calories: 1927 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 20 -0' 26 6.4 +0.3 -23 ft 2 9' 28 -0' 18 6.3 +0.2 -13 ft 3 9' 47 +0' 01 6.1 -0.0 +39 ft 4 9' 27 -0' 19 6.3 +0.2 0 ft 5 9' 57 +0' 11 6.0 -0.1 +13 ft 6 9' 33 -0' 13 6.3 +0.1 +16 ft 7 9' 56 +0' 10 6.0 -0.1 -16 ft 8 9' 51 +0' 05 6.1 -0.1 -3 ft 9 9' 46 +0' 00 6.1 -0.0 -13 ft 10 9' 35 -0' 11 6.3 +0.1 +13 ft 11 9' 47 +0' 01 6.1 -0.0 0 ft 12 10' 07 +0' 21 5.9 -0.2 +23 ft 13 9' 46 +0' 00 6.1 -0.0 -23 ft 14 10' 06 +0' 20 5.9 -0.2 0 ft 15 9' 46 +0' 00 6.1 -0.0 +4 ft 16 9' 44 -0' 02 6.2 +0.0 -42 ft 17 10' 01 +0' 15 6.0 -0.2 +9 ft 18 9' 53 +0' 07 6.1 -0.1 +26 ft end ** ** ** ** ** ft Versus average of 9' 46 min/mile ** Insufficient data to calculate this split

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Categories: 18 miles, Rend Lake

Week 1 of marathon training

My shoes after the run. They don't look too bad but they were!

What a hard run Saturday was. 8 miles was on tap, the first week of my marathon training.

I came down to southern Illinois in hopes of getting away from the cold weather and snow. Alas, it was not meant to happen. Ended up snowing quite a bit on Friday night. Started when I was 6 miles from my brother's house. Overnight it was just a dusting at his place but further south it was 5+ inches. And this is where I planned on taking Luke.

We bundled up and heading south to Rend Lake. Luckily the sun was out but the wind was also up. Come to find out, we were the first people at the majority of the paths. I totally forgot my camera and really didn't want to bring my cell phone with me on the run so I didn't get any pictures. But I took plenty of mental images.

Luke was nice enough to run with me the entire 8 miles. It was so much of a joke of a run for him. Running HALF his speed. He said he didn't get bored cause he has an active imagination. But he barely worked up a sweat I bet. Me, on the other hand. Yea, I wanted to call it quits about mile 6. I was so sick of the snow. Now I know how my friend Joe felt when I was pacing him for the 10k back in October.

The snow was up to our ankles so it took quite a bit of effort to dredge our own path. At some points, I was actually following in Luke's footsteps. On the way back, he was still making his own way down in the snow. I was stepping in my footprints instead.

Luke's sweat pants got all wet but he said he didn't feel it while running

If it wasn't for Luke, I would have walked around mile 6 or so. Mile 7, we hit the pavement with no snow so I was able to pick up pace. It was a nice break and a good pick me up. It was the only time I was able to go the pace that I was hoping to without the snow. The only good news is that according to Runner's World Smart Coach, I am supposed to go 10:43 min/mi. And that's exactly what I did on this run. Only because the snow slowed me down. :-)

Oh and we saw a Bald Eagle while out running. My first time seeing that in southern Illinois. No river, just a man made lake with a dam so it was a surprise to see it. Saw it around mile 4 and then again around the end of the run back near the dam. Not sure if it's the same one or if we saw two but it was quite a sight especially when we just went Eagle watching a few weekends ago!

My hips & thighs hurt after the 45 minute drive back to my brother's house. Ouch! So what did I do on today's "easy" run? I ran at 1.0 incline. Luke suggested it and figured I might as well since it's just a 3 miler.

In other news:

I think I decided not to do the triathlon this year. I decided this a couple weeks ago.

Today I decided that I am going to cancel my YMCA membership. I had thought about joining up with Luke's gym membership but a couples membership is $20 a month more than what I am paying for YMCA. And I would probably go there with Luke just as much as I do the YMCA now. Maybe even more. But now that I have my workout partner in my co-worker, I can just go down to my work gym. The only reason I was keeping the YMCA was because of the pool & classes. I hardly went to any classes and the pool, well, that was if I wanted to do a triathlon. Obviously, I canceled that plan for this year. And if I REALLY wanted to swim, again, I can go to Luke's gym pool and pay the $15 a day fee. We'll see. I have until the 15th of this month to really decide then they take out another $34.

Also, will probably not really plan on doing the 50 states thing. That was such a lofty goal. I should get rid of it from my mind in case I fail. I mean, really, me travelling to random places by myself and run marathons? Yea, I really don't see that happening. I had thought for a fleeting few days of running the Richmond Marathon in November with Runner's World. It would be so much fun! I get a running plan from Bart Yasso, access to VIP areas and a massage after the marathon. Only will take a 14 hour drive down there. So yea, I'm tempted but we'll see. I've got time to decide. Maybe I should go with more local races first; Iowa & Indiana & Kentucky really only ones left.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 404 ft Location: Benton, IL Elev. Gain: -39 ft Date: 01/30/10 Up/Downhill: [+259/-298] Time: 12:31 PM Difficulty: 3.3 / 5.0 Weather: Partly Cloudy 27 F temp; 57% humidity 27 F heat index; winds NW 9 Performance Distance: 8.00 miles Time: 1:26:08 Speed: 5.6 mph Pace: 10' 46 /mi Calories: 859 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 57 -0' 49 6.0 +0.5 -30 ft 2 11' 12 +0' 26 5.3 -0.2 -10 ft 3 10' 39 -0' 07 5.6 +0.1 +39 ft 4 10' 41 -0' 05 5.6 +0.0 0 ft 5 12' 52 +2' 06 4.7 -0.9 0 ft 6 10' 54 +0' 08 5.5 -0.1 -23 ft 7 10' 33 -0' 13 5.7 +0.1 -16 ft end 10' 56 +0' 10 5.5 -0.1 0 ft Versus average of 10' 46 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: 50 States, 8 miles, Luke, Rend Lake, Richmond Marathon, Runner's World Challenge, snow, triathlon

Running around Rend Lake

Well, I figured out my headache from yesterday. It was a caffiene headache. Didn't have anything but water all day Saturday at the Air Show and then woke up Sunday with a headache. After 5 Advil (2 pills, then 3 pills later) wasn't doing anything, had a Mt. Dew on the way to St. Louis and that seemed to do the trick! Was able to attend the Cubs game at Cardinals without a headache! And what a great game it was! Another close scoring game that this one went into extra innings and top of 11th, Cubs managed a 3 run home run which made it 6-3 and we held on to the that and won the game! Good thing I took today off after all!

And so I slept in quite a lot this morning since we got back around 1am. Finally headed out there to Rend Lake around 10am. As you can see below, the difficulty is 4.2 out of 5. And then when I started the humidity was 92% and a temperature of 67 degrees. So the below numbers were after the run ended. But it didn't matter cause 67 degrees and 92% is pretty much the same as 81 degrees and 69% humidity. All I know is that I was soaking wet well before I was done and I didn't even dump any water over my head.

I saw loads of wildlife; 2 fawns that the spots were slowly fading away. 3 groups of turkeys, one was on the pavement path that I was running on. About 10 of them went right and 1 went left, soon they realised that the one went and the others quickly turned around and crossed over the path again to meet up with that one. I thought it was weird, usually majority rules but this one that went left must have been the leader. Lots of spiders on the path, wully bullys, hawks, and even a nice gnat flew into my eye on the first .1 mile. That HURT bad. Took me a minute to get that thing out of my eye.

I did walk a lot towards the end but that was because of the hills and heat. The sun had started coming out and was warming things up quite a bit. I can only hope that Milwaukee doesn't have any humidity for their marathon otherwise I'm toast. My miles weren't that far apart in times so I guess that's good. I did pause for a bathroom break in mile 8 so that's why there's a 2 minute gap.

After the run, I went down towards Rend Lake to get into the lake. But unfortunately, since I wasn't at a beach it was muddy and my shoes were laden with mud pretty quickly. But I got down to the shoreline and dumped water on my arms, shoulders, head and my legs (which also got my shoes & socks wet). Felt soooo good.

Speaking of shoes; I wore my old shoes on this run. No burning feet. So yea, I think I'm going to take my shoes back up to the store that I bought them from and ask them if they are in fact narrow cause I know for a fact I ordered a narrow. I hope they can tell cause the info under the tongue doesn't say anything about it being narrow (like a width size or anything.)

Now my brother and I will be going out on a Harley ride and then hitting up my favourite Mexican restaurant and will be eating my 1300 calories that I burned back!

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 432 ft Location: Valier, IL Elev. Gain: -4 ft Date: 09/21/09 Up/Downhill: [+688/-692] Time: 10:19 AM Difficulty: 4.2 / 5.0 Weather: Partly Cloudy 81 F temp; 69% humidity 85 F heat index; winds S 12 Performance Distance: 12.25 miles Time: 2:01:07 Speed: 6.1 mph Pace: 9' 53 /mi Calories: 1308 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 28 -0' 25 6.3 +0.3 +6 ft 2 9' 24 -0' 29 6.4 +0.3 -13 ft 3 9' 39 -0' 14 6.2 +0.1 +43 ft 4 9' 47 -0' 06 6.1 +0.1 -23 ft 5 9' 26 -0' 27 6.3 +0.3 0 ft 6 9' 37 -0' 16 6.2 +0.2 -13 ft 7 10' 03 +0' 10 6.0 -0.1 +10 ft 8 12' 10 +2' 17 4.9 -1.1 0 ft 9 9' 29 -0' 24 6.3 +0.2 +4 ft 10 10' 05 +0' 12 6.0 -0.1 +10 ft 11 9' 51 -0' 02 6.1 +0.0 -3 ft 12 10' 10 +0' 17 5.9 -0.2 -3 ft end 8' 48 -1' 05 6.8 +0.7 -16 ft Versus average of 9' 53 min/mile

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Categories: 12 miles, Rend Lake, southern illinois

Rejoice; we conquer!

This is what Pheidippides said after he ran from Marathon to Athens to tell his fellow Greeks that they had won the war. He died on the spot. This is also what I said after I got done running or whatever today. Luckily, I didn't die. :-)

Keep in mind that I have only ran twice this month after my marathon. One of 3 miles and the other a few days ago of only 2 miles. So yea, 11 miles is HUGE undertaking for me. But I knew I had to get out there and do it! I just hope I didn't injure myself doing so.

But I think I'll be fine mainly cause the second half of my run, I walked the majority of it. ONLY because I was dealing with winds of 25 mph with gusts up to 37 mph. So bite me! I have never ran in winds like that before. Sure I've done over 15 mph to about 19-20 in about 15 degree weather; but not 25!

Now, I won't be the first to admit that I'm skinny. And very rarely I do. I'm quite lightweight for my height. 5'10" and 130lbs (thanks to marathon training I lost about 2-4lbs.) So after my turn around, I unfortunately started to head back south after a while and that's when things got hairy. After running for 6 miles, I was getting tired and no way could I fight the wind. So unfortunately, every time the wind starting blowing, I couldn't keep running; walking ended up being faster! At times, I was literally head down, hands on knees and leaning into the wind. Of course and every time I hit a hill, the wind picked up. I think my mind quit on me in the second half too. :-)

The best part of the run is that it was 70 degrees when I started running. Well, once I got out there I realised quickly that it was NOT the best part of the run. It got hot! 80% humidity too. My hair was going all wonky on me. I ended up taking off my shirt and just tucking it into my water belt. I really wished that I would have brought water out with me instead of Gatorade cause I would have poured that over my head a few times. It feels really weird to be running in shorts & a tank on Dec 27!! I looked this morning and saw that by 4p the temperature is going to start dropping and by 4am tomorrow, it's gonna be 36. I knew that I had to take advantage of this temperature while I had the chance!

I did notice that on the second half, I was getting goosebumps. I think that means I was getting dehydrated. I also started to stop sweating. I don't think those are good signs.

After I was done, I took a video of the wind blowing in the trees. I tried explaining it but the wind just drowned me out. The video is below.



I'm gonna do a few runs during this week to get my mileage back up to par and then probably another long run of 11 miles on Sunday (I'll be travelling back to northern Illinois on Saturday).

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 432 ft Location: Valier, IL Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 12/27/08 Up/Downhill: [+633/-633] Time: 11:46 AM Difficulty: 3.3 / 5.0 Weather: Overcast and Breezy 72 F temp; 63% humidity 72 F heat index; winds S 21 G 35 Performance Distance: 11.00 miles Time: 1:59:41 Speed: 5.5 mph Pace: 10' 53 /mi Calories: 1153 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 58 -1' 55 6.7 +1.2 +3 ft 2 9' 31 -1' 22 6.3 +0.8 -10 ft 3 10' 18 -0' 35 5.8 +0.3 +46 ft 4 10' 20 -0' 33 5.8 +0.3 -29 ft 5 10' 34 -0' 19 5.7 +0.2 -4 ft 6 10' 28 -0' 25 5.7 +0.2 0 ft 7 11' 52 +0' 59 5.0 -0.5 0 ft 8 11' 52 +0' 59 5.0 -0.5 +23 ft 9 11' 23 +0' 30 5.3 -0.2 -33 ft 10 12' 17 +1' 24 4.9 -0.6 +16 ft 11 11' 33 +0' 40 5.2 -0.3 -13 ft end 11' 40 +0' 47 5.1 -0.4 0 ft Versus average of 10' 53 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: 11 miles, Rend Lake, southern illinois