Watch Out, This One's Long

On Tuesday I had to do a longer run inside again due to our not-so-great-for-marathon-training cold snap that saddled the denver area with negative temps... The last time I tried that it actually went really well! But this time, not so much. I did the first 7 of my 13 miles well enough, though I noticed I was little more tired right off the bat. I planned on picking up the pace to about 6:30 for the last 6 but felt like I was pushing so much harder than that. My frustration with how extremely hard it felt was only worsened when I found I was actually at a 6:35 pace. As in, pushing harder but going slower. If I hadn't been paying close attention to my pace, I would've considered that a pretty good workout, but those numbers got inside my head and under my skin and I had a hard time dealing with the fact that I couldn't physically do what I thought I was supposed to. And, actually, I thought I needed to be doing the second half around 6:20 so... just add insult to injury!

I was trying to figure out what could've made this past Tuesday's run so much harder than the one the week before (12 miles with the last 6 at 6:30 and it felt pretty easy). Was it because I had run a race on Sunday? But that was just a 5k... Maybe I did too many recovery miles on monday? Maybe I did them too fast? Did I not eat enough? Did I not get enough sleep? Was it because I've never really done runs like that (i.e. trained properly - I really have no idea how I've completed previous marathons...) and I just wasn't used to it?

While I am still frustrated, I was completely relieved to hear "you have to adjust for altitutde". Yes! I love altitude! It seems like that means I can do my "marathon pace" runs a bit slower than my goal pace so I should be okay with a 6:35-6:40. Should being the operative word. It does worry me a bit, but whatever I'm doing now can only be significantly better than the way I was training before!

This morning I headed out to Runner's Roost Aurora for a very warm Sunday morning run. What a turn out! It was awesome to see around 40 people out on such a perfect morning. I got in a pretty solid 12 miles at about a 7:00 in Cherry Creek State Park despite some mean little hills in the last few miles. I know it's February and it's supposed to be cold and snowy blah blah blah... but I hate the cold! Luckily it looks like this warmth will be hanging around for a few days.

While we were finishing up our run, a few teammates were racing the Valentine's Day 5k at Washington Park. Kim Dobson won the women's race, Stella Heffron was third, and Lonnie cruz was second in the men's race. AWESOME JOB RUNNER'S ROOST! Another teammate and fellow bake-a-holic, Sara Whatmore, just started a blog http://gorunsome.blogspot.com/ that's looking pretty rad so far... It got me thinking about a mantra. I usually just keep saying "you're okay, it's okay, you're okay" to convince myself that I probably won't die during a race but maybe I should come up with something a little more positive! One more bit of team news, we had our first meeting for teh*** year on Thursday where all NINETY members representing all 3 levels gathered for beer, wine, pizza, swedish fish, and info about the team and social media (note the capitalization!)... here's almost all 90 of us squished into a picture:

Everyone was incredibly nice and I am beyond excited to see what this year will bring! It's early in the year, nobody's really in shape, and we've already had some awesome performances so let's keep it up! Runner's Roost now has a blog as well that'll have lots of good information coming out with stories from our team and info from our pro buddy Pat Rizzo: http://blog.runnersroost.com/blog/.

*** I have been mistyping simple words ALL DAY. I've writted "the" incorrectly about 20 times just in this post, and I won't even tell you what I accidentally texted to Jen a little earlier. What on earth is going on today?

Moving on! I had cake for breakfast this morning. Again. I used to be such a crazy health nut and now I'm eating cake for breakfast (it was really delicous though). I've tried about a million times to get back on track but it's been really hard lately. What the heck? I would assume it probaly doesn't help that I bake cakes like twice a week. I wonder if I eat so poorly now because my body's just used to it, or if it's because my body needs simple carbs to get into my system more quickly?? Part of me thinks that as you work out harder and longer, yes, you do need simple sugars to replace what you've lost and I do feel that everything in moderation is totally fine. However, I also think that if you're asking that much of your body everyday you should be feeding it the best possible things. And the best possible things does not, very sadly, mean cake. Or gummy candy. Or caramel corn. I'll have to look into this a little more...

Just one more thing.  Music. I never run with music. That's for several reasons but mostly because the few times I've tried I had a hard time focusing on my run and instead was pacing myself to the music and just ran about feeling all sorts of uncoordinated. But on Saturdays when I hit up the eliptical, I am jamming. I love Pandora Radio! And good tunes make so much of a difference. With a mediocre mix, I can get through 50 minutes easily with no second thought. But every once in a while the mix that plays is fantastic and leads me to completely abuse the time limit on the eliptical (80 minutes yesterday - sorry!). I know I've mentioned Lupe Fiasco several times already, but I've also been loving some Drake, Rick Ross, Twista (yes! old school right??), Kid Cudi, The Dream, and that new 50 Cent and Jeremih song. I love all music (that's a lie... MOST music) but rap has been where it's at for me lately :)

Oh. No. One more. I used the foam roller for the first time in about a year and I thought I was going to go blind from pain. That will be all.