Training getting Intense

NiCole here!  Hope everyone is doing great!

Last weekend I ran the farthest I have ever run before during one of my training runs.  I was 14 miles and before this run I had only ever ran as far as a half-marathon.  I realized as I was running that I will be hitting a lot of these runs where it will have been the farthest I have ever run during this training process.  It makes me appreciate the training even more than the upcoming race.  All of this training has made a difference in my running because I am not as sore as I would be and I actually enjoy most of my runs so far.  

I remember when I would be upset if I had to get up early to run on the weekends.  Now I get up at 5am no questions asked on Saturday so I can meet my group to run at 6am.  I am okay with the fact that I only get one day to sleep in a little and that I am usually ready to go to bed by 9pm most nights. I have always been a night owl and now I can barely keep my eyes open after eating dinner or getting home from teaching.  It probably doesn't help that most nights during the week I do not get home from either running or teaching until 8 or 9pm at night.  The only thing I have to work on yet is my eating habits and that is a work in progress.

The 14 mile run last week was tough.  The end way by no means pretty and I was ready to be finished when we stopped at the car to get some water before heading out for the last 3 miles. It was hot and traffic had picked up for the cars and the road bikes that were out. I have decided while water breaks are awesome and necessary it would is hard to have that water break be at the car.  It is like a psychological torture in a way because you really want to be finished but you know you have to run a few more miles until you can take off your running shoes and let your feet breathe.  Also I am usually thinking about what I am going to eat for breakfast because I am usually hungry by the time we are done running.

While last week was hard on the long run.  This week it was a lot better.  One of my runs during the week I was feeling great so picked up the pace and had a nice tempo run.  I personally think it was the Spark I drank earlier in the day and the PB&J sandwich I had 40 minutes before running.  The long run this week was 15 miles and I didn't want to just pack it in at mile 10 or anything.  It helped that it was cooler out this weekend.  I even ended up running half way up a bridge because my running buddy and I just wanted to finish so we were trying to take on all the mileage we could on our last outing for the 15 mile run.  Next weekend is going to be easy compared to the last two weekends.  I am only doing a half-marathon with Nic in Gainesville!  Of course to most people only a half-marathon is still a lot and it is but I am not dreading it as much as I would of in the past.

Committing to the marathon training has helped make me more accountable for my training and also makes me more aware of what my body needs to continue to handle this training schedule.

Shopping, beer, and running!

NiCole here!  I thought I would get a start on the joint blog post.  It seems that whenever Nic is town we either go shopping for running things (as any good runner would do when their buddy is in town) or go to a few craft breweries.  We also are usually competing in some race that we have both signed up for so there is some running involved as well.  The last two races that we have done together have both been in Jax.  So I had a house guest for a few weekends!

The first run we did was the Tour de Pain.  This race required us to run three races in 24 hours.  The first was a 4 mile run on the beach.  Most people like running on the beach but I am not a big fan of it.  Some of the reasons for my dislike include sand getting in my shoes, dodging the little kids that are on the beach playing or the holes they have dug at some point during the day, and the fact that it seems to go on forever when you are doing an out and back course.  We did intervals for this race since that has been how we have been training for the marathon.  We didn't do too bad.  After that we went to see a preseason football game for the Jaguars which left a lot to be desired but that shall not be discussed in the blog since it makes me sad.  

 This is Nic! I don't like running on the beach either, so this was my least favorite of the 3 races. I'm not a fan when beach conditions are perfect, but the 4 miler was especially bad as the sand was all churned up in parts, families were still hanging out with the kids darting in between runners and we had to run at a slant for a while to let the faster runners through, who were making their way back. We were also in a rush, since I had just driven in from Gainesville and didn't quite make it before the gun went off. Things could have gone better but we got there, we completed the race and got some of my favorite race photos of us taken. Since we were already kind of tired, and the Jags weren't playing their best, we cut out early from the game and headed back to NiCole's for dinner and an early-ish night.

The next morning we had to get up and run a 5K.

The course for the 5K was pretty nice, most of it in a neighborhood, but it was really humid. We started out by running continuously and had a pretty good pace for the first mile but once we reached the first water station we realized that we needed to do intervals if we wanted to save some energy for the third race. So NiCole set her watch for 4:1s and we did okay. Certainly not our fastest, but our goal was to just finish all three races. No PRs necessary! 

 Afterwards we bought some stuff at one of the local running stores since the race started at the store.  We also went out to breakfast with my running buddies since they were running that morning while we did the race.  Breakfast was good as usual.  Afterwards, we went back to my house to rest up for our one mile sizzler.  For some reason this race seemed to be the scariest one of them all.  I have never timed myself while running a mile so I was scared I was going to be really slow.  Instead I surprised myself and ran it pretty fast.  I will say running 3 races in 24 hours wore me out and made my hips hurt on my next training run because I think I over did it when I ran those 3 races. 
 

This is us during the one mile sizzler run!

 Whilst we were downtown, we decided to go and visit our favorite craft brewery for a beer and to fill our growlers, since we don't get to go there very often.

Pretty cool medal and a well deserved beer!

After that we went to Brewer's Pizza for some tasty craft beers and food.  The beer as always was very tasty after all the hard work we did during the race series.  The food was amazing!

If you ever go there, try their calzones :)

The next race we ran was a 3.5 mile run on Labor Day to celebrate 1st places sports 35th anniversary here in Jacksonville.  This was a course we had already run since it is used for some of the local 5K races so we weren't surprised by the course and had a good run.  It was a little warm but it has been that way all summer so no big surprise there.  

The worst part was the first mile and a half running directly into the sun (and I had decided that I didn't need sunglasses/visor), but I made it without tripping over! This course was pretty much the same as the 5K from the Tour de Pain just extended a little to add the extra mileage. Since it was a special occasion, with the anniversary, we got medals! Yay!

We chose yellow as our color to wear!

We went shopping at 1st place sports since, by participating in the run, you were eligible for 35% discount on all merchandise except electronics.  So we both got some new running shoes since we have been doing a lot of running lately and it was a good deal.  Not to mention some visors and amazing running socks.  Plus we ended up buying visors for a bunch of our running buddies because we had the discount and they needed new visors to wear!

The running socks we got are called Feetures and I had been eyeing them up on Amazon for a while. The 35% discount sealed the deal, so we each bought a pair when we went to pickup our race packets. We wore them for the race and they were so good that we both bought another 2 pairs whilst we had the discount. They are super comfortable, come a little higher up than some of the other socks that I've tried and my feet didn't get really hot!

After the race, we went and grabbed breakfast then headed back to NiCole's to shower. Then I had to head home to Gainesville. On the way I stopped at Home Depot to get supplies as we had decided to make our own medal racks! I guess I'll save that story for my next post though.

Bye for now! 

An Unexpected Race...

Hello! It's Nic :)

Since my last post I have done one race, other than the ones we both ran. The funny thing is, I wasn't meant to run that race, the 5K Stadium challenge at Everbank Field in Jacksonville. I was planning on going with with my Gainesville running buddies to cheer them on, and for Mexican afterwards, but their friend who had registered was unable to run, as she has plantar fasciitis, so I ran in her place! Needless to say I wasn't really trained for that type of run, but I managed :)

The run started outside the stadium, ran through the practice fields (that counts as cross country right?!?), then into the stadium where we ran up the ramps (I think there were 8) and down them twice, then finished with a lap around the field. Because I hadn't done ramps in my training, I decided to walk most of the up ramps, but I ran the rest and I was pleased with my time. We got medals too :)

 

Training has started to get serious now! Our mileage is starting to build up, and in 2 weeks the long run will be the farthest that I've ever run! 14 miles! While we are still doing 4:1 run:walk intervals for our long runs, since that is our marathon strategy, I decided to work my way up to running continuously again during my midweek runs. With the heat and humidity, doing the shorter intervals definitely helped, but now the weather is getting cooler I need to start working on my times for shorter distances! Last week I did 5:1s; they seemed kind of hard and I found myself looking at my watch, wondering when the beep was going to come. This week I set my watch to 6:1s and somehow this seemed easier. I decided to try and avoid looking at my watch, since seeing 4 minutes to go is a little disheartening! My pace was slower than my fastest 5:1 run last week, but as soon as I am back to running continuously again, I can work on time.

I decided that I needed somewhere to hang my medals as I'm starting to gather quite a collection, so I looked online. There are some expensive ones out there!! I saw some I like but I really didn't want to pay what they were asking, so I decided to make one myself! I bought myself some wood, spray paint, metallic paint sharpies, hooks and a picture hanging kit and got to work. And this is what I came up with:

This one is full already, so I need to get working on another one!

Until next time...

Nic x

  

Races and training

Hey!  This is NiCole.  While I wasn't taking any classes this summer I was teaching a Microbiology class.  It was a pretty intense summer semester because it was so short and the amount of information that I had to go through.  Now I am currently on a small break before I start teaching in the fall.  

Since the last time I wrote I have run two races on my own here in Jacksonville.  While Nic ran the Melon run on the fourth of the July I ran the Celebration 5K run on that day.  In fact this was my fastest 5K so far.  I only need to shave off a couple more minutes and then I will finally get under 30 minutes.  While not very fast to everyone but it is fast to me and a definite improvement over my other races over the years.  Here is a pic of me at the finish.  Even though Nic wasn't there to run with me one of my Running Buddies ran the race with her brother so we all started together.  Then hung out for a little bit afterwards.

The next race that I decided to do was the Vestcor Bridges 5K.  I thought I could use a little bridge running in my life.  Which was hard considering that most of the time I run on flat, fast roads.  This run was later at night on a Saturday so I still did a long run that morning but only 6 miles because total I needed to run 9 miles.  Considering that I ran earlier that morning I was pretty proud of finishing just a minute slower than my fastest 5K time.  

It seems that all this running is paying off.  While I may not be super fast to other people to me I have definitely gotten stronger and faster.  I never thought I would get up at 5am so I could go meet my running buddies at 6am.  I now get up earlier to go running then I do to go to work.  I guess that totally makes me a runner.  

I am trying to do better on this whole blog thing but sometimes it is a struggle to find time between running, teaching at night and working a normal full time job during the day.  I can say that just by keeping up a consistent running program I have more energy because of it.

Until the next blog post which will probably be a combined blog!