Friday Fun

Friday is here and I am looking forward to the weekend as usual! As of now, it should be pretty low key and I am looking forward to taking care of some things at home like Christmas decorating and finally getting my motorcyle cleaned up and ready for winter! Saturday I will be racing my last race for 2007!

For now I will leave ya with some fun Friday pics!


Halloween pic of hubby and I as Drew Carey and Mimi!


Sis, hubby and my lil ladies at Halloween!!


Cousin Michelle and Terry




Alyysa and Erin with troll hair!!!


Thanksgiving Pic with all my crazy cousins!!!


Chicks Rule!!

Slacking

So it appears I am realy slacking on my posts lately!

Last Saturday 12/17 I ran the Pigskin Classic 5K. It was my second slowest 5K of the year. Thankfully the fun factor of this race more than made up for my time!!

First off, there were lots of friends all out there running this race. The good guys were wearing red of course!!! I headed out behind JP, who always beats me. I hung with her for a mile before the inevitable slowdown started.

Mile 1 6:12

My super light weight Nike shoes were bothering me as I had my chip bouncing around and I kept looking down for fear that it would fall off. Funny, that my warm up did not show this but I suppose the speed was quite different.

Mile 2 6:54
Mile 3 7:15 I had made the mistake of opting for my headphones which quit working at the start of mile 3. :-( Then I had to head up a hill which I run regularily which seemed so much steeper and longer than usual at this point in the race!

Finish Time 21:11 (6:52 pace). Time for beer now! After the race watched everyone else come in and grabbed a beer. The best part was that they gave away these really cool Bud Light Cooler bags with built in speakers that you can plug your ipod into to the top 5 men and top 5 female. Luckily I was able to snag one of those at the award ceremony during the tailgate party!!! Sweet! And to top it all off, the good guys won! Go Buckeyes!!

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Sunday I woke up sore from the 5K and had a rather pathetic "long run" day. I had intended to hit a swim clinic Sunday but I just felt crappy and decided to keep my suffering to the morning and skip the afternoon swim clinic.

Monday and Tuesday, I enjoyed some easy 5-6 mile runs with Salty. Every run is better with company and I was thankful to have some to get my butt outside in these cooler weather temps.

Wednesday took it easy with a very social swim with ESpeed. There was much more talking than swimming!

Thursday I ran the 5 mile turkey trot in downtown Cleveland. I lost my splits but ended with a time of 34:56 for a 6:59 pace. Again I wore stupid headphones that quit mid-race! Frustrating! Some races I opt for the music, some I don't. I just hate when I plan to have music and then my dumb ipod acts up (which has been happening frequently lately!!!). I felt better for the turkey trot than I had for the Pigskin. It was a little longer and my pace just felt more even, even up the same hill from the prior weekend! About 75 yards from the end a lady tried to pass me and I was not going to have it. We started sprinting and I gave it all I could to maintain the lead. I guess I should have applied that extra a little more evenly the last mile as I came across the line gasping for air! In the end, that lady must have started behind me with her chip time as she finised 2 seconds ahead of me in my age group so I took second place.

It was the highest I have ever placed in the big race and it will be good enough to get some free Malley's chocolate! On a side note it was a windy sleet/rainy/snowy day and I was chilled to the bone. Some days it is just an accomplishment to get out and run in those icky conditions!

Friday, my training consisted of power shopping. I left the house by 4:15 AM with sis and arrived home at 3:30 PM. Despite crowds, we got lots of deals, people seemed friendly and we enjoyed good girl time! That night I hit my mom's side of the family Thanksgiving and Chicago marathon cousin, Ar and I "A Team" cleaned up on the pool table. It was one fun evening with the family!

Saturday morning I dragged my tired butt out of bed for a long run with A & T. I was dragging...! We set out for our 14 mile run on the Buckeye Trail. I decided I could go that long without water. As we headed up and down the trail, again my clumsy butt caught a rock under some leaves and managed to take a tumble. My tuck and roll was less painful than my fall the prior time that knocked the wind right out of me.

We ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere at one point and realized we were off course. We hit this road and tried to figure out which way to run and ended up heading the wrong direction we would later find out. I was so thirsty at this point. I had too many beers the prior night and the two small sips of water I stole from T was not nearly adequate. The snow was looking tasty! As we hit Brecksville Rd at least we knew we were finally heading in the right direction. YEAH! Then we found Snowville and had some nice downhill. As we finally hit Riverview we had two miles to go and I opted for the road as I figured it would be faster and I was ready to be done and get something to drink! We arrived back to our cars 2 hours and 58 minutes later. I figure we ended up with around 17 miles on the day. Water never tasted so good!!!

Borrowed time-Autumn Leaves Report

So I just can't seem to find time to blog lately. I often will steal a couple minutes to quickly read my blogger peeps latest, but have rarely found time to comment!

Even now, I really am quite buried with work but will try to make this fast. So time for some updates.

-Had a kick-arse time at our annual Halloween party. I need to get some pictures up but I looked less than cute as my hubby and I dressed up as Drew Carey and Mimi, and yes I was Mimi. It is hard to play ping pong well if you are big I think!

-The Battle of Ohio Duathlon Series. Well finally they announced the results and to be honest there was not a ton of participants to put it mildly, but I ended up winning Overall Female in the Olympic Duathlon Series. Yeah, that means I get some money which will probably go towards a New Vision Cycling package and some new shoes.

-I ran the autumn leaves race on Sunday. I was a bit tired from the runnning I had been putting in over the prior days, but my friend Bob had conned me into coming out to this race. What a tough, yet very different race. It was all ran on this farm out in Kirtland through a couple barns, a ton of hilly cow pasture and different roads and trails. It was unbelievably difficult to get into a rhythm in the grassy, uneven pasture and the hills kept coming.

Mile 1 6:58
Mile 2 7:30--cow pasture slowing things down
Mile 3 8:23--why does this entire mile seem up hill in crappy footing?
Mile 4 8:06
Mile 5 7:14

Total time 38:11 It was not the fastest 5 miler, but it was fun! I took 4th overall female and 1st in my age group. I knew going in I did not have a shot at top 3 as Salty and two other Team GR chicks were out there, who are just plain faster than me. It was great to see so many friends out there cheering and running. It was a tough course, but definitely unique and a nice one to wind down the year!

I am trying to log more miles and still trying to do some different things to avoid boredom. I am starting to ramp up for hopes of my first 50K in January.

I want to try to track workouts better than I have been.

Monday 10/29 --6 mile bicycle ride with hubby ---His first road bike ride ever. I think his seat area is not looking forward to attempting a second. :-(
Tuesday 10/30 - 6 miles ran, 30 min trainer ride
Wednesday 10/31 - 7 miles ran (hilly and windy!)
Thursday 11/1 - 10 miles ran, 1 hour hard bodies class
Friday 11/2 - 5 miles ran (one minute ascending intervals), yoga class (1st ever, jury still out on what I think, but my poor piliformis could use anything helpful)
Saturday 11/3 - 15 miles on Buckeye Trail (ate serious dirt as I tripped over a root, just a bruised knee. My first fall on the trail, guess I am in the club now!)
Sunday 11/4 - 6 miles ran (1 mile w/u, 5 mile autumn leaves race), 1.5 hour spinerval trainer ride with JT

Weekly Mileage (10/29-11/4) --49 miles

Monday 11/5 - 2.5 miles ran, 30 min stationary bike, kick boxing class (1st time--thumbs up in my book!)