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

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: 12 miles, Rend Lake, southern illinois

6 hilly miles in southern Illinois

I forgot how hilly southern Illinois can be. I did 6 miles this morning at 8a from Dix, IL. The north/south roads had the hills. Tall steep ones. The main east/west road had a couple long gradual hills. I'm not sure which ones I despise more. I also encounted my first dogs running with me but luckily, they were nice and just ran next to me; no barking, no biting.

Do you have a preference for hills on roads?

I don't have my laptop, so I can't upload Phil's stats. will post the Bones in Motion data later.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 545 ft Location: Dix, IL Elev. Gain: -3 ft Date: 02/17/09 Up/Downhill: [+288/-291] Time: 08:09 AM Difficulty: 3.2 / 5.0 Weather: Overcast 36 F temp; 58% humidity 36 F heat index; winds S 13 G 17 Performance Distance: 6.00 miles Time: 0:57:35 Speed: 6.2 mph Pace: 9' 36 /mi Heart Rate: 174 bpm (Avg) Calories: 639 183 bpm (Peak) Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Heart Rate (bpm) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Heart Rate Elev Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 03 -0' 33 6.6 +0.4 165 -33 ft 2 9' 49 +0' 13 6.1 -0.1 175 +23 ft 3 9' 36 +0' 00 6.2 -0.0 174 -23 ft 4 9' 54 +0' 18 6.1 -0.2 175 +10 ft 5 9' 47 +0' 11 6.1 -0.1 174 -7 ft end 9' 25 -0' 11 6.4 +0.1 180 +26 ft Versus average of 9' 36 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: 6 miles, Dix, southern illinois

Fall marathons

I have lots of options for a fall marathon it seems. That is only if my April marathon, the Go! St. Louis Marathon, goes well.

In September, there's the Quad Cities Marathon. It actually takes place in Illinois, so it will count as an Illinois marathon. But the cool thing is that it runs through all 4 cities; Moline, Bettendorf, Davenport, Rock Island and back to Moline. There's an island on the Mississippi and the runner's run on it for 6 miles. If I am to run this marathon, I would need to start training in June.

In October, there's the Milwaukee Marathon. It's run along the lakefront and it's a point to point race, which I've never done before. The runner's park at the finish and are bussed to the start and race on down. I would start training for this in July and sign up before June.

In December, there's the Honolulu Marathon. I would really like to do this race but I'm not sure if I'm brave enough to go alone. I only go with one particular person. I've been reading on marathonguide.com and the finish never sounds good. It only has apples & cookies I've read. And apples I'm allergic to. The heat is still outstanding even though the race begins at 5am. I would start training in August, just like my other marathon.

I just need to get through this training and somehow soon get up to double digits. Race is only 62 days to go! Rest of February, all of March and 2 weeks in April (which is technically all of tapering).

This week however, will be a difficult one to run. I'm driving down on Monday night to southern Illinois and then be there until Wednesday. I might be able to get a run in on Tuesday morning or I could also run on Monday at my work on the treadmill. Wednesday, I'll leave for northern Illinois at night so I could get another run in on Wednesday, if my emotions will permit me. Then on Saturday I should be able to make it, again, permitting on what happens in southern Illinois.

Categories: marathon, races, 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

Christmas Eve run

I got to my brother David's house in Dix, IL this afternoon. Brought stuff into the house and decided to finally open up my new edition of Runner's World. I started reading it and while the sun was shining on me, I suddenly felt very motivated to run. I don't think I've ever felt motivated to run after reading before. This did it though.

I went into the guest bedroom, changed into my outdoor running weather & threw on my new St. Jude Marathon shirt, gloves & a fleece hat. I hoped this was enough. I went outside and it was windy. Eh, I concluded, I'll get warmer and won't need my jacket after all.

My Garmin was all set to go. I just headed off. What I like about having a Garmin this time is that I don't need to go to mapmyrun.com or Gmaps Pedometer whenever I'm in a new town. I've ran in Dix before but it was very hard to find 5 miles in this little bitty town. I also knew that I didn't want to run very far but just enough to get a little exercise in.

I started off very fast. Like my shadow was in front of me and I swear I looked like an elite! I knew that I was just getting the energy out of me. Sure enough, I started to slow down but it was still enjoyable.

I went to the park, where I can finally accurately measure the distance of the concrete path that goes around it. .15 or .16. Whoa, watch out! I'll need to go over 6 times around to get 1 measly mile out of it. FUN.

Anyway, it's an awkward path because going east is downhill and going west is uphill. Where was the wind coming from? West. So not only was I going uphill but I was also going into the wind. And unfortunately my tech tee from St. Jude Marathon is not quite wind resistant.

The first mile was 8:36. Wow, I guess this will be more like a tempo workout then. After a few laps around, I started to get chilly so I left the park and headed back home. I didn't even bother looking at the 2 mile mark when my Garmin went beep. I knew it was slowing down but that's OK. I got a cat call near the end of the run. "Hey you skinny girl!" was the call when they passed me in their jeep with their window rolled down. I barely ran over 2 miles and it was tough but I did it fast! So that's good. Some time over the next 11 days I'll hopefully do a long run.

The best part of the whole run? When I came out of the bedroom, Devon, my 4 year old nephew, said "Run, Nee-nee, Run!" and then he wanted to join me as well. He started to get his shoes on but his mother said, "Just wait Devon. You can run with her afterwards." So I went out for my run, when I came back, I went to the door and called Devon's name. He came running out, put on his shoes and started to head out the door. I yelled at him to get on his coat. Luckily, his parents live at the end of a cul de sac and the only ones so we did a few laps around the outside of the circle.




I think I might have a runner on my hands!! :-) I told him in 10 years, he & I can run a 5k together. And in 20 years, we should run a marathon together! He nodded his head yes and then we did a high five on it so it's done.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 574 ft Location: Dix, IL Elev. Gain: -3 ft Date: 12/24/08 Up/Downhill: [+164/-167] Time: 03:22 PM Difficulty: 1.9 / 5.0 Weather: Fair 37 F temp; 69% humidity 37 F heat index; winds W 7 Performance Distance: 2.18 miles Time: 0:18:49 Speed: 6.9 mph Pace: 8' 38 /mi Calories: 230 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 32 -0' 06 7.0 +0.1 +16 ft 2 8' 53 +0' 15 6.8 -0.2 -10 ft end 7' 19 -1' 19 8.2 +1.3 -9 ft Versus average of 8' 38 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: Dix, southern illinois

Tis the Season

The past 2 weeks have been insane with the weather in northern Illinois. Either windy & cold (like double digits below zero wind chill!) or snowing like there's no tomorrow. So I haven't been running as much as I should. Even though I have a YMCA membership and it's a 5 minute walk from my place. To come home, change in my cold apartment and then back out in the cold to drive (yes when it's below 32, I will drive across the street) to the Y, run and then get all hot & sweaty only to come back out in the cold and to my cold car to drive back home doesn't sound like a fun time to me. So I haven't been running.

BUUUUT!!! I did bring down my running stuff this week. I'll be in St. Louis tonight & tomorrow, southern Illinois tomorrow to Sunday night and then St. Louis from Monday to Saturday. I hope to run a few times in those days. YMCA is available here in St. Louis. There's a treadmill available at both of my brother's and of course there's outside. The weather should be more tolerable in southern Illinois than in northern Illinois. I brought all my outdoor running clothes so I'm actually looking forward to it!

I even got a new water bottle holder back pack from St. Jude Heroes that I'm DYING to try out! Which is only good for me on a long long run so a long run I will do! YAY!!

Categories: cold weather, southern illinois

Shhh, I'm hunting runners!!

This weekend is shotgun hunting season in Southern Illinois. This I did not know. Let me begin my story of my first taper run...

I headed to Benton, IL to Wal-Mart and grabbed a large Gatorade and a couple PowerBar Harvest Grain bars to tide me over for breakfast. I saw a young boy about 14 in hunting gear. I smiled and said to myself, this is why I don't live in Southern Illinois. But it didn't ring any bells in my head. I've been too far removed from it I suppose.

Then I headed on over to Rend Lake. On the way I spotted many trucks pulled over to the side of the road next to woods. Still no trigger until I saw my fourth truck. Then I started thinking... "Um, Rock Cut State Park was closed last weekend due to hunting, maybe southern Illinois hunting's season this weekend?" After another couple of trucks & seeing guys dressed in all orange, I started laughing and yelled at myself for not thinking this all the way through.

So I get to the parking lot across from the visitors centre and I start to get prepared for the run. There was a lot of trucks in the parking lot but they were closer to the centre while I was near the trail head with one truck beside me. I looked in there, sure enough, dressed in camouflage with his buddy in a hunter's orange hat.

As I walk up to the trailhead, I set my Garmin. And I start my run. Boy was it cold. I checked the weather that morning and the forecast changed significantly from Friday's forecast. It was supposed to be a high of 46 on Saturday in Southern Illinois. Now only 40. Worst part was the 9a forecast of 30* with a wind chill of 21. But it still beats Northern Illinois of 24* a wind chill of 15. OUCH.



After mile 1, I ran across a hunter, dressed in orange and a gun strapped to his back. I was afraid he was gonna say something to me but he didn't and I just kept on going.

Boy, I can tell I am losing my fitness though. It hurt to run just 3 miles and I stopped at the 3 mile mark. I guess it's back to midweek running for me and only hope that it doesn't bother my foot anymore. After a minute or two of resting I plodded ahead. I ran past the dam and then I saw the sign.



Um, today's the 22nd. I'm running during hunting season. SHIT! Am I gonna get killed by a stray bullet? Probably not I realised because I am on the trail. However, the trail does go through some dense woods. Well, let's just keep going and see what happens.

I make it to the marina and see another sign and notice that it's getting to the wooded area. I lean against the Stop sign and decide what to do. I decide that if I turn around now (3.7) I'll get almost 7.5 miles in and that's good enough. I was having some foot problems again.



Everything heading back is fine. With 3 miles left to go, I had to start walking. But I also found this thing (picture left). Is it a bullet or what? So in the podcast I was listening to talked about the Galloway method which was running & walking. So I did 4 minutes of running and one minute of walking. It was hard to even do that.


The scary part came with only a mile left to go. A doe ran across the path in front of me from left to right. Oh shit. If she's running, she's running from something. So I was hoping that no hunters (or worse a bullet) were coming through at that time.

Man, I forgot how completely different southern Illinois is compared to northern Illinois! Here is the sign that I completely missed at the trailhead. I was messing with my Garmin as I walked through the barriers. Maybe it should have a chain across it to garner more attention.


But this week I will get back on the horse and start running again, at the Y, on the treadmill. To top it off with a Thanksgiving morning run! Then 8 miles on that Saturday. Sad part about today is that I was actually looking forward to running my 12 miles today because it was only 2 hours of running!!

I also got a strange rash on my neck. I don't know if it was from my neck gaiter and my iPod headphone cord mashing with each other but I didn't have it last week so something was different this week but it bothered me while running. It actually hurt! Speaking of headphones, my ear buds just won't stay in my ears! I had to keep messing with them which didn't help my run.


Oh and I don't get my orthotics until Wednesday. So I will only have a week or so to break them in and get my feet used to them. I hope that it'll work out!

Once again the BiM Active site has gotten at least one mile wrong compared to Garmin. My mile 4 Garmin has at 10:44 while BiM said 14:57. Oh well.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 397 ft Location: Benton, IL Elev. Gain: -3 ft Date: 11/22/08 Up/Downhill: [+285/-288] Time: 09:48 AM Difficulty: 3.2 / 5.0 Weather: Mostly Cloudy 34 F temp; 47% humidity 34 F heat index; winds S 14 Performance Distance: 7.37 miles Time: 1:16:54 Speed: 5.8 mph Pace: 10' 26 /mi Calories: 753 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 50 -1' 36 6.8 +1.0 -23 ft 2 9' 37 -0' 49 6.2 +0.5 -13 ft 3 10' 25 -0' 01 5.8 +0.0 +39 ft 4 14' 57 +4' 31 4.0 -1.7 +20 ft 5 10' 48 +0' 22 5.5 -0.2 -52 ft 6 10' 54 +0' 28 5.5 -0.3 -6 ft 7 11' 07 +0' 41 5.4 -0.4 +7 ft end 11' 07 +0' 41 5.4 -0.4 +27 ft Versus average of 10' 26 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: hunting, pictures, Rend Lake, southern illinois, taper