A Thankfulgiving Day

Today is a day to be grateful and count those small incurious details that our lives have been blessed with. Okay so it should technically be everyday but I think it serves as a reminder or reflection time since sometimes in our busy lives we forget. So to everyone and everything out there...Thank You...because you can never say it enough times.

That's my little turn inside thought for the day, which in turn was quite blessed and I am quite thankful for. It all started with a tradition that I started 4 years ago, a turkey trot in Andover called the Feaster Five. I don't know what exactly spurred this "tradition", it was before Greater Boston so I wasn't super serious about my racing again, but still continue on. I still recall that first race. I geared up, planted myself in the middle of the 7000+ trotters, and did not finish well in any sense. And here I stand 4 races later and you'd never know it was me running that first race. Each consecutive year after that disastrous race I have improved by leaps, all time wise. This year was no exception. I shaved approximately 50 sec off of my time from last year, almost breaking my 5K PR. Though that was not the best improvement or proudest that I made in this race. It was my mile splits. I have never in any of my years racing ever ran an even split race, ever, especially not a 5K. This would be my first. Funny thing is I didn't realize it until hours later when I went to recall my mile times. I clocked my first mile in 6:26, the second was 6:27, my third 1.1miles was 7:12 (which with the math boils down to a 6:30ish 3rd mile). I definitely have to add that to one of the best/proudest racing moments of my career. It's such a great feeling when your training finally shines, if even for the smallest moment, through.

After that early morning jolt instead of heading up to NH to my parents house like I normally do, I went back home. Here was another shining moment of the day-I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner for my family at my house in Boston. Might I add it turned out wonderfully too. A fabulous day spent with my mom, dad and sisters...and the oven.

Selective Memory?

I ponder a simple question that came to me yesterday as I lugged up Summit Hill for a continuous hill workout. I know before I'm going to start this workout that it's going to hurt. It hurt the last time I did it. Yet somehow in the 1.43 mile warmup to the hill I forget that there's going to be any pain involved and trot up the massive hill. That is of course until I reach just past where we stop for sprint hills and the intense burning from lactic acid starts to creep in. Then all of the sudden that memory comes back to the previous times of doing this workout. It's quite painful! How do you forget something so vivid so quickly?

Late can sometimes be Great

As most people know I'm notoriously late for most things. The whole time management concept, not one of my strongest suits. It's me, I try and that's all I can offer. Today however I honed in on my tardiness. I managed to make it to the race today relatively on time, which meant that I had time to warm-up and stretch and whatnot before the race started. I will state that there's no reason for me to be at a cross country race any more than 45 min prior to the start so I consider getting there 40 min before, on time. Well we all start lining up at the start line, I do a couple of striders, the official states the race will go off in 5 min, I start to get super cotton mouth. So I thought that I'd have time to quickly sprint to my stuff not too far from the line and grab a quick sip of water. As I'm heading back to the start to my surprise the gun went off before I made it back. Not expecting that, what a way to get into the race! Of course through the madness of processing everything I was trying to search for my teammates so I could pace with someone. Not an easy task with a mass of runners. I just gave up and ran, figuring that one way or another either I would find them or they'd find me, which did happen eventually. From start to finish it was an interesting race. I was late to the start. I played cat and mouse a couple of times with a few runners in the middle. The most energy efficient tactic it is not but it worked for me. Then I ran down quite a few runners in last 100 meters. Oh how I love when my track speed conveys out on the finishes! Such a great feeling! Best part of it all I shaved 1:10 off of my time from 2 weeks ago giving me an all time personal best for a 5K cross country course and an inside peak to what is to come I hope!
Here's a link to a pretty cool pic that was snapped of me at this race http://eliterunning.com/photos/index.php?g2_itemId=160771

Will do a half-marathon for...

The sheer joy and pleasure-ummm no that's definitely not it. Yep I'll break down and admit it I'll only do it for the swag. Last year I accidentally entered myself in the Nike Women's Half Marathon out in San Francisco. When I say accidentally, I mean that I entered myself purposely but it was a random drawing and didn't think that I'd be picked. Joke was on me I was picked, so I set out last October to do this thing. What enticed me into even thinking about entering was that every finisher received a custom designed Tiffany's necklace. I was sold, what girl doesn't like the sight of that little blue box even if she's not a huge fan of the designer. Though it started off only doing it for the glitz, the end result was for a very worthy cause that meant something to me- The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. After I was through with that I swore that I would never run another 1/2 again for a very long time. Oops so I was swayed by swag again this year, though this time around I wasn't going out to Cali to run this one and it was a key chain (still designed by Tiffany's) instead of a necklace but the proceeds went to the same charity. It was the same Nike Women's Half Marathon except it was virtual through the Nike + system (a glorified high tech pedometer) letting you run wherever you happen to be and enabling you to not have to run it in one fail swoop. As long as I clocked in 13.1 miles in the day I was set as a "finisher". Which is exactly what I did 5.1 miles in the morning and a blistering cold long 8 miles at night. Pretty cool but pretty crazy. I did it though and now that's it's all over I promise myself that I will try not to be swayed by glittery objects to do obscene amounts of unnecessary mileage next year. Key word here is try.

Along for the hills

Can I offer you a hill, more hills, or how about a large hill with many more hills. Ah yes that would be this past week in a nutshell. It started with Tuesday when Jess and I decided to do continuous Summit Hills since our annual meeting was later on that night and there wasn't going to be practice. Well little did we know that continuous hills are excruciating and that we'd be doing a hill workout on Thursday. I got through both workouts without too much of a hitch. Amongst my many plans on ramping up the training is adding a third day to the mix. It just so happened that there was a cross country race going on for today so I figured that since my team needed a couple of girls to score for the grand prix that it would be a perfect training run for me. I also haven't raced this pre-season except for the mistake 5 miler earlier in Sept. Why not, a little through the woods action, change up the terrain, 3.1 miles, fairly easy. That's right I forgot to mention the HILLS! Not just 1, many, I stopped counting after 2. I wasn't expecting to throw a 3rd day of running up inclines into the mix, but like the other days I got through it and didn't finish with too shabby of a time (It was a cross country PR with GBTC). Now that that's all over with I think that I will stay as far away for hills for at least a week, hopefully longer.

Back to the Basics

I finally started up my training again, it has only been 6 weeks but it feels like it's been 6 years or my body felt like that. It's amazing how much running economy you lose in such a short period of time, though I guess I could have thwarted that by cross training. Oops too late to think about that now. I did enjoy the time off after a few weeks of moping about not running, and my body certainly thanks me and will be thanking me later on.

I opened this lovely pre-season with a 5 miler that I've been racing for the past 5 years. Probably not the best of choices considering I had just laced up the sneaks literally a week prior and never topped 3 miles in all of the 5 runs. I think in future years as much as I want to feel obligated to run this race, I may have to rethink the idea since it's not at the most opportune time for me-always right as my break ends and it's just long. In the end through the uber humidity, and all too many miles I finished and with a minute faster than last year. It's not a PR for that race but I'm just happy that I was able to finish.

Photo by Ted Tyler from Coolrunning.com

Now the fun begins-Base training. Hill repeats, stadium stairs, jump runs, and active recovery runs. Going to have to make sure the ice maker's cranking out ice because I see a lot of ice bathes in my future:).

Making the most of it

As my season came to an end on July 19th, I've been trying to make the best out of the downtime I'll have until September when I start base training. It's been quite a task to not go run. It's amusing to me that a majority of people have a difficult time going out for a run and here I am having difficulty not running. I have so much free time (okay not that much) that I don't know what to do with myself, lucky for me the Olympics are on so they have helped me pass a bit of the time away. The rest has been divvied up between sleeping, eating, working and actually having a social life. I've watched Shakespeare in the Commons, auctioned myself off to raise money, danced the night away, lunches, dinners, BBQs, celebrated my birthday, watched amazing athletes become the best in the world, this weekend I have a wedding and the next I fly down to VA for another wedding. It's been a great summer but I really can't wait to start running again. It's one of those itches that you can't stop scratching.

One of the best bday bashes in some years

400IH USATF Club Nationals

Kansas recap

Okay so this is a late posting, but here's recap on my trip to Kansas.


Thursday:

I arrive in Kansas City, MO around 10:30a after leaving on a crazy early flight from Boston (5:30a), gather the gals that were assigned to my car, pickup the rental, and drive to Olathe, KS. Not too much excitement in this day. It goes like this in a brief synopsis-Meet whoever else is in KS. Lunch. Target. Home Depot. Hotel attempt for pool. No pool. Check in to room. Hang out. Target again. Find and jog to track. Track closed. Debate crawling under gate to get to track. Decide not. Jog back to hotel. Grocery store to stock up food. Get lost finding grocery store. Finally find. Shop. Grill chicken make pasta salad upon return. Share with friends. Shower. Sleep. Or something to that effect.

Friday:

Today is the first day of competition. It starts off at the University of Kansas for the Hammer Throw. A small group of us decided to drive up the 30min to the campus to cheer on the one teammate who's throwing. Watched some hammer, took some pics, then when she was done headed back to home quarters to do a shake out run and continue the rest of the competition. Since my event wasn't until Sat I was able to float around to take pictures and cheer on my teammates. Lots of great performances all around. Nice and easy day. I will add that it was a great experience to be able to cheer the field events since they typically are in effect during running events so it's hard to give support to fellow jumpers and throwers (which they expressed they appreciated).

Saturday:

Today is the 2nd and last day of competitions which includes a handful of field events, open events and the everyone's favorite relays. Started the day off lending a cheer squad for men Javelin, then I was off for a trial pre-race ritual. Since my nerves have started to get the best of me lately, especially with the hurdles, I decided to try and listen to music beforehand to take my mind away from the whole performance anxiety. It was also an experiment because I'm debating getting an IPod, as one of the last people in the world not to own one I'm unsure if I want to jump on the bandwagon, but I figure if it can distract me it might be worth it. The music did help dispel some nervous energy. I didn't PR, I finished 8th total but I did score 1 point for the team which was good. It was only race #4 so next season I will be able to build from that. I was just happy that I was able to join the team in KS and find an event that I could potentially be pretty decent at with time and practice.

That wasn't then end of my day, I still had a leg in the 4x800. We came in 2nd, were under the cut off time and scored some more points for the team. YAY!
At the end of it all the ladies came in 4th place, the men in 5th place and combined overall we came in 4th. Not too shabby with a team of 14 women and 14 men Go GBTC!
We celebrated the end of our season with some midwest BBQ--YUM and mini party in the hotel not without a shortage of belly laughs.

Sunday:

Check out at the hotel was noon but most everyone's flights didn't leave until later in the afternoon, so we decided to drive to Kansas City to check out some sights and kill time. After time elapsed we head to the airport with intentions of heading back home. Oh how disillusioned, how convenient our flight was delayed so they said we wouldn't make our connecting flight and they had no other flights to Boston until Monday morning. Okay so we're stuck here until the morning, fine. Not so fine the airline wasn't going to pay for our hotel room. They said they could offer a distressed rate at certain hotels which wasn't distressed at $70/night for a crap shoot hotel. Note to self is never fly Delta again and they will be getting a nasty letter from me. What's even more ridiculous is I paid extra to fly out on a Sun flight. Also that other teammates got stuck in their layover for 2 days and yet their airline (United, which is usually who I fly) paid for their hotel and gave them food vouchers. NOT right. I know that there's an economic setback right now in the airline industry (as well as every other industry) but that doesn't make it okay not to take care of paying customers. That is how you lose business and put yourself more in a crunch. Sorry I just had to rant about that because it angers me.

More of my photos at http://runphotos.shutterfly.com/

Meet Photographers link of 400IH and the rest of the meet http://www.backprint.com/view_event_photos.asp?PID=bp%18yG&EVENTID=39109&ID=53454794&FROM=browser&CAT=180836&SUB=0

Hello Kansas

I have made it safely to Kansas and didn't even drop a house on anyone.....yet! More to come as events progress.

Living on Words

It's been a while since I've blogged on a quote, mainly just due to not coming across any that really move me, but today warrants a posting. As I was perusing the web on this lovely Sunday afternoon, (because hey I have nothing better to do) I came across an interview on Lolo Jones http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/lolo-jones-interview . Lolo is a 60m and 100m hurdler, and she is going to the Olympics to represent the U.S. in the 100mH. She is amazing to watch, I actually got to watch her up close win the 60m Hurdles at the Indoor National Meet this year--awesome. Anyways to the point, in this interview she sites the quote by Frederick Douglass, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." I love that just a few simple words can provoke so much emotion and power. This one may be one of the few that can hold a candle to my absolute live-by Jack London quote.

Food+Friends=Fabulous

What makes a great day even better...Great friends!! HAPPY 4th of July Weekend!

Congratulations GBTC

2008 Women's Regional Champions

2008 Men's Runners-up

Congrats to both teams for their impressive performances all over the board. Wow can't believe Nationals are coming up fast! Now if only my form over the hurdles would come just as fast.

Things we do to hurdle

This is dedicated to my fellow IH buddy Jess. On the way to New Englands, as I proceed to get lost in the burbs, we started blurting out the things that we do just to hurdle. Oh the madness and I know that there are many more we haven't come across yet!

1. Take an hour to drive to a meet that's only 20min away
2. Drive for 2.5hrs one way then a couple hours later drive back 2.5 hrs
3. Do a half bitten power 15min warmup before a race
4. Endure absurd temperatures
5. Wait inbetween monsoons to go for a run
6. Run in those monsoons when they just won't break
7. Take the entire side of a knee off
8. Lie and say that you're still in college and maintaining yourself while "on break" all the while practicing on a track your not supposed to be on
9. Dip into the cash reserve to buy plane tickets
10. Wake up early on a morning you could be sleeping in
11. Find obscure objects like barricades and hurdle them (even moving ones)
12. Watch the sky get really dark and light up then continue to do the workout
13. Get excited when you find out that jumping in the air if lighting's about to stike you could save your life
14. Bruise toes, feet, legs to no end
15. Miss out on parties during holidays
16. Get lost in the wrong part of town (aka the ghetto)

To be continued....

There's no place like...

KANSAS!! Dorothy has clicked her spikes 3 times and is on her way to Club Nationals! I got my break in the 400 hurdles today, I hit the qualifying standard with a few seconds to spare. Though I won't pretend that it was a pretty sight, I still need some work with my form, but for what it's worth it was my debut race and I haven't had as much time working with the hurdles as I should have under my belt, I'll take it. I have 4 weeks to pelter out form and rack up some speed. In the line up for the meet today I also threw in the 800 for good measure. It wasn't disasterous, obviously needs work (as much of my racing does), but my time is going in the right direction...down, I'll take that one too. Then I topped off the absurd double with a leg in the 4x4. Hey we can't win then all, but not totally a bust.

The highlight of my day besides my hurdle time was my family came down to watch and cheer me on, even though today was Father's Day and they could have been doing other things with my Dad. It's a blessing to me that they finally are much more supportive with my running than in the past and take the effort to come to meets when possible. Might have to be with the baby sis who's following in her big sister's footsteps or that they realize that it's my passion and want to support it. Whatever the cicumstance may be, I'll take it.

What a fabulous day. Got to believe that anything's possible if you set your mind to it!

My lil 100m hurdler

Another Simple Thanks

"A father gives a child his DNA but a Dad gives a child his heart."

A special thank you to my Dad, grandfather, and all the other dads out there. What's a girl to do with out the guidance and unconditional love of her dad (and Pepere). Oh and who would be there to fix her car when the thing goes awry, or to disapprove of all the guys she dates. Thanks for being the men in my life that I know I can always count on!

HAPPY DAD'S DAY!

Dedication or Just Plain Craziness

Today's one of those days when I wonder what's really going on in my head. Am I a sheer mental case or truly dedicated? Maybe a bit of both? You won't find many people out doing a grueling workout in the 90 degree heat and blazing sun at noon. There certainly wasn't anyone out on the track joining in my madness. I guess my passion and drive exceeds the pain? Which coincidentally yesterday a regular at my restaurant and I had somehow gotten on the topic of running (not a hard thing to do), he then said to me at the end of our conversation that he's never seen someone talk about something and light up the way I did when I talked about running. What a way to put it in to perspective. Thank you dear patron for making me not doubt or confuse my devotion to the sport.

Following the 'Red Rubberized Road'

The munchkins told me that if I follow the 'Red Rubberized/Synthetic Road' that it would lead me to Emerald City then I'd be on my way to Kansas. Well I've been following this road for a very long time and I can see the Emerald City across the field through all the jumpers and throwers but I'm not there yet. It's all that witches fault making it so difficult to get there. And now she's put a sleeping spell on me. I will fight my way through this little detour though, smack right into Emerald City-it won't know what hit it- then jet set my way to Kansas.
Haha I couldn't resist using that analogy, first because "The Wizard of Oz" is one of my all time favorite movies and because the club National meet just happens to be in Kansas. I seriously feel like Dorothy trying to find her way to the EC running into setbacks and overcoming them to finally get home. Though I was hoping for my breakthrough at the HiPi meet yesterday it didn't happen. I'm not devastated, bummed a bit yes, but I will give myself on leap forward since I did run the most even split 800 that I've run in a long time. Now the task at hand is getting good leg turn over, which with speedy workouts I shouldn't have too much of an issue. The next task is figuring out what exactly I want to try to qualify for.There's 3 races that I could potentially hit the mark, but timing is everything. I think that I'm going to have to let the next couple of practices dictate that. To hurdle or not to hurdle that is the biggest question. Hmmmmm...can you smell the smoke. --Hey watch it now, it's not what you're thinking-it's the witch melting away.

A break from the mundane

This weekend turned out to be a little unexpected break from my whirlwind days that have been procuring lately. On Saturday night after work I headed over to Hennesey's to meet up with some teammates to watch the best 80's cover band 'Fast Times". This was completely a last minute decision, didn't know that anyone was going out until a fluke phone call on the way to work, and actually made up my mind to go while walking out of work at 11p. As I was waiting in line (an uncharacteristic move seeing as I've worked in the business for entirely too long and know the people to "know" to prevent that) one of the bouncer's standing at the exit door randomly says to me 'you work at Gold's Gym'. Um yeah. 'Trying to go in here?' Um yeah. 'Go in this way' Um sweet! Okay so I thought it to be a bit odd that he knew I worked at the gym seeing as I work in the daycare and unless you're bringing a kid in while you workout, you probably don't know I work there. And I'm 100% positive that he has not brought a child in. Hmmm. Oh well I got in and didn't have to wait so what do I care, still a bit strange. Had a great time blasting lyrics word for word, fist pumping, and dancing mad to music that I did not grow up on despite growing up in the 80's--funny how music works that way. Fun times had by all.

Today was super special. The family that I used to nanny/sit for and that I rent my condo from were in town. They now live in Minnesota, I haven't seen then since they left last June. Boy have the girls grown. We started off the day going to brunch at My Diner. Then since it was a beautiful day I decided that I should get some flowers to finally plant in the front window boxes (which I've procrastinated doing). I thought it would be nice to take Syd (the oldest of the girls) with me to pick out the flowers and help plant. We also decided to bake some mini cupcakes to bring to a BBQ we were going to later on. It was such a sweet afternoon. Syd was well behaved as always and talked my ear off, filling me in on everything's that been going on in her life. This little girl is one of the most intelligent 4 year olds that I've ever met and I can completely say that it had/has been always a delight to watch her. Later at the BBQ I spent some time with the youngest Tess, who doesn't remember me, but that's to be expected since she was only 1 when they left. She's such a little brute and firecracker but it's so adorable. Her favorite thing was to knock me down then sit on my stomach and bounce--Enchanting! A simply superb time , I even missed my run for the day, and it was well worth it.

Keep the faith alive

Mini Meet #1 =mission completed. Or something to that effect. I wasn't really sure what I was getting into tonight, all I knew was that I asked for the night off so I could "race" and that was that. I still at 3pm this afternoon didn't know what event I wanted to do. I thought that I had settled on doing the mile and the 200m while circling for 20 min around the parking lot waiting to pounce on a spot. When I paid my fee and signed up that was my intention. I hurried along to a half-bitten warmup (since as usual I was running late). At 6:30ish we lined up for the start of the mile, originally they were going to run guys and gals together but they deemed last min to run us separately. A little bummed for that because I was planning on pulling off some of the guys for pace, since I didn't know any of the girls who were running and was unsure of their paces. I of course pulled out front, settled back into a comfortable rhythm (a little too comfortable in the end) and ran. I stayed front leader for the entirety of the race pulled out my last lap per usual 10 seconds faster than the previous lap, hence the too comfy of a pace. My other indication that I was settled a bit too much was I recovered entirely too fast. My time was the same as I ran back in February which is neither good nor bad but my recovery tells me that I can pull a lot more out of myself. So in that end I resolved to make the meet a workout instead. At the very last minute I added the 400 into my mix of races. And when I say last min I mean, approximately 15 min (or less) after I finished the mile and 2 min before the 400 was going to start, last minute. Again ran ok, sadly I could have finished faster than I did had I opened my stride going down the back stretch--definite mental block on that one, I can pinpoint myself telling myself that I wasn't going to finish in a great time so pretty much I just strided out the last 100m. I really got to work my mental game. As I finished up the 4 I jogged down to the opposite corner for the start of the 200. Physically my body was tight at this point but I proceeded to run anyways, it's only a 1/2 a lap. Another ok time.
I was not disheartened by any of my performances. For one I had very little recovery time in between each event, two, my knee still doesn't have full range of motion without pain, and three, we just haven't gotten to the super speed workouts yet in practice. And hey I did plan on it being a practice day. In the end I'm keeping the belief of working on my head thinking way too much, more speed, and whatever else can be improved, to take my races in the next couple of weeks to the next level.