Done!

First, I want everyone to know that I drafted a post on Friday and had absolutely no time to edit it and post it (I had to work through lunch) that contained the above graphic. I absolutely couldn't let it go to waste, so there you go.

Well! Saturday morning came and went in a blaze (and I do mean a gigantic, hot, fiery sun-ball blaze) and I lived to tell about it...barely.

First things first, I did not meet my 2:20 goal. There. I knew I wasn't going to at the 5K mark. Why? Not because I wasn't prepared or didn't train enough or didn't fuel enough or didn't get enough rest. If I hadn't done any of those things, I might be disappointed. No friends, it is because the Y Race was multiple gigantic uphill loops in the side of a mountain that took off at 7:00 a.m. when it had already reached 70 degrees with zero wind. So, I guess you could say I was disappointed for a little while. But when I factored in the things that were simply out of my control...I guess I'm pretty proud to have finished that beast.

Friday night we continued the carb-load (PESTO PENNE BAKED IN A BREAD BOWL!) and went to sleep early. I woke up feeling pretty dang good. I dropped a Nuun in a water bottle and drank it throughout getting ready and eating breakfast. We got to South Mountain (emphasis on MOUNTAIN) Park in enough time to go to the bathroom and stretch before the 7:00 gun.

I have to say, the first half of the race felt pretty good. I had enough gas in the tank to take on the hills and the temperature hadn't started to factor in yet. I took water at every stop to conserve my hand-held reserves--although I realized I had forgotten to drop a Nuun in it. Rookie mistake. Remember how I said I think 10K's are my new official running time? Well I felt awesome until the turnaround halfway through!

Then. THEN. I stared back up the hill I had just happily descended and knew it was going to be a long ride on the struggle-bus to finish. I took my first walking break at mile 7 and knew I was done for. It got hot. The hills seemed steeper and longer. I trained exclusively on the Scottsdale Greenbelt and running down Shea and in neighborhoods around there. There are "hills" along those routes, but nothing like these monstrosities. 

The sun started to factor in and I started pouring water on myself. I stopped to walk through water stations and had them refill my bottle as well. I knew 2:20 was out the window and beating my previous time of 2:28 was gone too. I just had. to. finish. it.

It sucked. I was dripping from a combination of water and sweat (have you ever blinded yourself by sweating into both your eyeballs? It's amazing.) and wanted to die. I wanted to take my phone out and send AV a crying text about not making it. But I didn't. I finally, FINALLY crossed the finished line at 13.15 miles in 2:34:27. And I was just happy to have survived that sucker.

I immediately chugged 3 cold water bottles and ate half a banana, part of a blueberry oat bar and part of an apple. We came home and AV made gourmet breakfast burritos while I showered before passing out for a few hours. I woke up and felt like a new person. And then I completely annihilated the eggplant parm at Il Capo.

Sunday night I started to feel a little defeated/upset about how everything shook out this weekend. The early mornings of running before the sun came up, pushing myself to more diligently follow my training plan than last year, money spent on new shoes, etc. all seemed "for nothing." But I talked it out with AV and if I HADN'T done those things, then maybe I could be upset. But I really did do everything I could and as someone who doesn't run very naturally, who picked easily one of the hardest races in the area to tackle, I'm OK with it. I'm actually pretty proud of it.

Sunday afternoon I forced myself to the 2:45 afternoon "power" class and it was painful/necessary/amazing. I had Monday off for comp time from working the weekend before and took a 75 minute flow class at the Gainey location that also helped stretch me out. I also rewarded myself by finally drinking the kool-aid yesterday and am really excited to continue my practice more in-depth for a while. But I don't hate the idea of running and I know I will always have that to fall back on as a workout. So I can officially say I'm OK with not hitting 2:20, because I gained more out of it than a finishing time.

...As an aside, AV ran the 5K in 28 minutes. WHAT!

Nunnya biznass

After I quit wallowing in my self pity on Monday, I actually had a pretty good week of workouts.

Monday afternoon AV ended up getting tickets to the Cardinal's game from a "secret source." Seeing as it was the first game of the season and a Monday Night Football game, parking at the stadium was a goat-rodeo nightmare. 

The game was fun and Arizona eked out a last-minute win so at least we had that to comfort us while waiting an HOUR to get out of the parking lot. Woof!

Because of AZ's massive storm dump this week, there was no way I could run my scheduled 5 miles outside in Tuesday morning's swamp-like conditions. I busted out 5 treadmill miles in 50:30 (10:06/mi pace) and was bored outta my gourd, but at least I felt pretty good.

Wednesday's treadmill 5K came in at 31:20 (another 10:06/mi pace...would be nice if that could ever translate into real life. It shall not.) and I followed it with upper body weights. 

Yesterday's yoga was amazing, per usual. We did a lot of twisting and opening around the spine. We also set my quads on fire while holding Chair for approximately 53 hours while hooking our elbows to each side. 

This morning I tried some Tri-Berry Nuun in my water bottle for my first-of-the-week outside run. I wanted to try these out to see if the electrolytes have any effect on me. I'm going to use it in my water for tomorrow's 9 miles (gulp), but thought I'd test drive them today. Not sure if it was placebo effect or if these babies really work (I'm leaning towards the latter, since I've read a lot about them), but I felt great on this run. 3.22 with splits of 10:41, 10:04 and 9:44 for 3.22 in 32:16 (10:01/mi). It felt great! I'm looking forward to see how they effect me tomorrow. I finished up with a 10 minute ab video from Blogilates. It was one of her older clips, so she wasn't as "peppy" (read: annoying).

I tried to capture my before/after shots to sufficiently show a typical sweat-drench.

(Didn't mean to have the flash in that first pic. Nice faces, dork.)

Tomorrow's forecast has a 63% humidity rate at 5:00 a.m., only getting worse from there. I'm just going to force myself to be positive and do my best. And that's what matters.

Discouragement/Encouragement

I'll just say this right now: the 8 miles I ran on Saturday morning were not the best. I think one of the worst feelings ever is getting up early (alarm went off at 4:55 a.m.), eating breakfast, foam rolling (AV showed me some awesome moves that really loosened up my legs), getting completely set up and pumped to go run and then stepping outside into heat and humidity. Half a mile in I had to give into the sinking feeling that the run was not going to be speedy. I had to be OK with that, because I really didn't have any other choice. Not sure what my splits were, although I know my fastest mile was somewhere around 10:37. 8.03 at 1:27:44 for a 10:56/mi pace. Bleh. Blah. Puke.

I'm trying not to get into the "I hate running" mode that I got sucked into last year. Last week I actually considered rejoining my barre studio (even though my free gym offers barre classes), so I know I'm right on the edge of getting bored with it. Yoga helps. Yesterday's afternoon class was HARD. Yogitoes mat? DRENCHED. It was awesome. What discouragement I felt Saturday ended up floating away at the end of the sweaty hour.

I have 6 weeks until the half, and some days I'm pretty positive I'm not going to hit this 2:20 goal. Other days I feel like the fastest woman alive. (Probably delusional exhaustion talking) I am clearly not a natural runner and sometimes that makes me ask myself why the heck I signed up for this thing in the first place. But the feeling I get after a long run--even a crappy slow one like Saturday--almost always makes me forget the negative. 

If anything, I'm praying this morning's rain dump took care of some of the humidity. Please, baby Jesus!

The heat is...on.

This morning started out a little nightmarish.

My alarm went off at 5:15 a.m. and I noticed it was pretty dark out. Hooray, the clouds from last night's lightning-fest (but no rain, UGH) were making way for a cloudy and cool run!

Went outside. Noted the heat. Started to sweat. Weather app said 90°. Woof.

I sucked it up and hopped off to my scheduled 4-miler. The first mile was terribad and ended up coming in at 11:11, even with me doing a few "sprints" to try to salvage what I knew was a sluggish start. Although I've started this training in summer in Arizona, the mornings have generally been fine. They're not cool in any sense of the word, but I guess I never realized the difference between 84° and 90°. You know, until today. 

I finally found my legs and ticked off the remaining miles at 10:30, 10:37 and 10:11, for a 10:37/mi pace. Rather than positive mantras and envisioning success and greatness, I basically mentally berated myself for being such a baby! There are worse things in life than running in hot weather. The pace was quicker than what I'll need to do for a 2:20 (barely), so it was a win! Lay off.

(Can't say the phrase "lay off" without picturing this. These fries are good!!!!)

Last night we headed out to the Hills for dinner at Grambo's, since Auntie Boobooski and Brady are in town. (I just wanted to write that sentence to thoroughly confuse anyone reading this who doesn't know my family.) We had tasty roast pork (well, I'm told it was tasty), delish roasted veggies with feta, salad and some cheesy fiesta au gratin potatoes. And obviously, homemade angel food cake topped with blueberries, strawberries and peaches for dessert. What was that thing I said about a diet?