My little boy is three

I know it's been a long time since I wrote a post. I've been busy. I have found that the chaos that comes with working full time, training for a triathlon and raising a toddler results in me having little time to write about it.

Today my little boy turns three. A year ago, he was barely talking. Now we have regular chats about his cars. He knows all his colors and tells me which car is what color, he can also count them and often plays while reciting his ABCs including "now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me". Of course it doesn't sound that clear from him, but you know what he is saying.

This weekend he will be getting his toddler bed and I'm sure next week will be a week of walking him back to his bed in the middle of the night, but that's the fun of a three year old.

We finally bought him a playset for outside. It has swings, a slide, and a rope ladder. He loves it, if it was up to him he'd be outside playing on it all the time.

I don't know what the next few months will bring, but I'll try to check in and post a little.

Race Plan for 2012

Since I need to have a little accountability to my race schedule or I may not do what I say I want to do. I'm going to post my plan for 2012 here.

Jan 29 Tinkerbell Half Marathon
Feb 11 Campbell Valentine Fun Run 10K
April 1 Lavaman Triathlon
May 6 Wildflower Oly Triathlon
July 28 Barb's Race (70.3)
Sept 9 Big Kahuna (70.3)
Oct 7 San Jose Rock & Roll Half Marathon
Jan 13, 2013 Phoenix Rock & Roll Marathon

I'm hoping by publicizing my plan it will help keep me to it.

My Hiatus

I guess when I took a hiatus from working out, I took one from blogging as well. I've been enjoying the last two months preparing for the holidays and enjoying time with my family. I love the me time I get when training, but I have also enjoyed the family time recently. My little boy is growing up. I can't even call him a baby anymore, he's just getting so big and talking so much.

Alex has a new friend named Pippa, he is an Elf on Shelf. Right now, Alex doesn't get the concept of Pippa watching over him and why he is there, but he is enjoying the morning routine of looking for Pippa.

This weekend I ran 3.1 miles in the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving and I rode my brand new bike on a nice 12 mile bike ride. I have signed up to do the Lavaman Triathlon in April again so I guess it is time to return to working out. Especially since after Thanksgiving turkey, my midsection has swelled a bit.

So now that I've returned to training, I'll be back to blogging.

San Jose Rock and Roll Half Marathon

Since I missed posting last week, I have two posts today...

On October 2, I ran the San Jose Rock and Roll Half Marathon. It was a cloudy and cool morning, perfect weather for running. With around 10,000 racers, we were divided into 16 corrals based on our estimated finish time. Since my estimate was 2:45, I was is in corral 12. I was there about 30 minutes before the start of the race so I found some friends from Team in Training to chat with before heading to my corral. About 10 minutes before the race started, I made my way to corral 12. There were probably about 500 people squished into a 20ft by 20ft square.

The problem with being towards the back of 10,000 runners is that when the gun went off, we didn’t even move. By the time the people in front of us started moving, we could still only walk a little until we got about 60 feet from the actual start line. Thank goodness our race time didn’t start until our tag on our shoe crossed the start line.

For the first mile, I was able to hold about an 11:30 min/mile pace which was just a little faster than my estimated pace at about 12:35. During the second mile, I settled into a 12:20 min/mile pace. We started passing the bands during the second mile and then roughly every mile after that. With songs like We Will Rock You, Dirty Deeds, and Welcome to the Jungle, it helped me keep up the pace. I held about a 12:30 min/mile pace until around 8 miles. Then I started to feel myself slipping. Although the music kept coming, I had trouble pushing. Then at around 11 miles the hip pain from the previous weekend kicked in with a vengeance. It took every bit of will power to just keep running. Once I rounded the last corner though, I forgot about the crazy pain. I could run through anything for the last 1000 feet. That is exactly what I did, I sprinted to the end faster than at any other point during the race. Thank goodness I did, because although I didn’t make a new personal record, I tied my last one and added another finisher medal to my collection.

A very long 18.5 miles

On September 25, I attempted my longest run to date in preparation for running a marathon on October 23. I was supposed to run 20 miles on the actual marathon course. I’ve been preparing to run the marathon since July and running consistently since May. I felt like I should be ready.

I parked my car at the start line and started my run along the course. The first few miles were nice easy rolling hills. The hills would have been great on a bike, but they weren’t too bad running either. Around 7 miles, I happened upon a porta-potty I decided to take advantage of. I took off my head phones, and by the time I put them back on after using the restroom, my music was off and my phone had died. Not very good luck for a long run in the middle of nowhere alone, but at this point it was almost as far back to the car the way I came as it was to just finish my run. So I continued along the course.

The hills started getting steeper, and it wasn’t the up hill that hurt as much as the down hill on my hips and knees. At around 14 miles, my hip was aching to the point of almost intolerance. At 15 miles, I gave up running. I borrowed a phone from a cyclist and attempted to call my husband. He did not answer, so I left a message, and I rested for about 30 minutes. I figured I couldn’t stay where I was since I was alone at the reservoir park. At this point, I continued along the course. This involved more rolling hills, and one last large hill. I walked another 3.5 miles back into town. By the time I made it into town, my hips and knees were throbbing. I made another call to my husband, who finally returned my call and came to get me. The lessons I learned on that day are way more important than the fact that I will not be running the marathon in 4 weeks.

Lessons Learned

1. Always check your cell phone before leaving on a long run
2. Don’t run an unknown course, at least drive it first
3. Tell someone exactly your course and when you should be home
4. Make sure your husband keeps his phone on him at all times during your run
5. Pick a flat easy course for your first marathon

Just a 10K

It's funny, 10 years ago, if you'd said that running 6.2 miles was a long distance, I would have agreed whole heartedly. Today, however, as I prepare for my first marathon in a month, it's just a 10K.

It was actually a great 10K. I ran the entire distance except for water breaks, because if I run and drink, I don't actually get the liquid in my mouth, more like all over my face. Many people would find a 10K in 1:17:02 to be a bad time, but for me, someone who could barely run a solid 3 miles just a year ago, that's a great time.

Some how in one year, I've learned to really love running. Now, if only I'd learn to really love my bike then I'd have a true love for triathlon.

Self Doubt

My marathon is in six weeks, which means I have four weeks of training left. I have run 16 miles to date. Which is fantastic. It's further than I've ever run before. But is it enough? I ran it in less than 4 hours which was approximately 14:45 min/mile. That's really good for me, but to finish the race in the required 6.5 hours I need to run the entire 26.2 miles with an average of 14:53. That's scary for me. I mean that means I have about 8 seconds per mile to give up.

I know I'm a financial analyst and I'm just analyzing the numbers WAY too much, but I'm scared that I won't finish. I've told so many people that I'm doing this race. I already didn't finish my first triathlon when I did it, and granted I've now finished 4 triathlons. I just hate to fail again. To this day, I'm bound and determined to go prove to myself I can finish that triathlon. I don't want to have another thing that I have to prove I can finish.

It's like this little tiny seed of self doubt that I had just a couple of weeks ago has totally invaded my brain. It makes me want to just go out an run the total 26.2 miles just to prove to myself I can complete the distance, but I know that will just mess with my training. There is a reason I am working from a training schedule. I just feel like I should be running more or doing something different. I don't know how to get back the confidence that I had when I started this crazy quest to finish a marathon. I originally gave myself plenty of time and worked from a plan which took me from 6 miles to 26.2 miles. But my legs just gave out last week, I couldn't complete the 16 miles on my plan so then it was last weekend for 16 miles which means I'm a bit behind in my plan.

I have tons of self doubt, doubt about whether I can even run 26.2 miles. Especially if I have troubles with 16 miles. I know I'm in the minority that I've even run 16 miles at one time. But I have bigger dreams than the majority. I have to finish the 26.2 miles and I want the medal so I have to do it in 6.5 hours, but right now that is really scary.