Justin's last 20 mile run before NYC!

It was summer time in DC this past weekend (and this entire week, too)! With temps in the mid to upper 70's, we took full advantage of what could be one of our last warm weekends and spent a a lot of time outside. Saturday, Jus and I headed out to the Shenandoah Valley - I wanted to see fall foliage. We drove the Skyline Drive from the most north entrance and completed about 35 miles where we ducked out and drove through farm towns back to DC and did a last minute wine tasting (our first wine tasting ever!). It was a lot of fun! We got a bottle of red wine that will be at it's peak in 2018! That will be stored away until Justin's 36th birthday!!! HA - kinda scary to think about!

The Shenandoah Valley was not as colorful as I thought it would be but the weather man did say that the colors are very muted this year. It was still very pretty though. We stopped at scenic views and did about a two hour hike. Picture is from a stop we made along the drive. It was very quiet and creepy at times at how secluded the trails were. I was freaking out the entire time again about bears because the guide said are in hibernation BUT will come back out on mild days to do some last minute eating. At 73 degrees, I'd say that's a mild day. So of course, I was on edge the entire hike. Fun times!!

Sunday morning was the Army 10 miler (pic above). Lucky for us, the course went right by the street we live on at mile three. We rolled out of bed at 7:40 and made ourselves cozy on the middle medium by 8 to hear the first wave gun go off. 8 minutes later, the first runner came by - that's 4 min/mile pace!!!! 30,000 people run this race which is A LOT but I found it to be pretty cool. We stayed out from the very first to the very last person. The runners were SUPER friendly and were screaming their thanks to us for being out there and cheering them on. It was a fun way to start our Sunday.

After that, Justin did his FINAL 20 mile run - WOOHOO!!! He told me he would write a blog post about it, but look how successfully he was at doing that! I'm telling ya, I'm going to change the name of this blog soon to cut his name out of it! :) Feeling motivated, I decided to try to run 13 miles (or 2 hours, whichever one came first). I've let myself get way too lazy and thought this would be a nice way to shock my body ;) I trailed behind Justin for the first few miles up and through Rockcreek Park and then started slowing my pace down. I don't need to hurt myself. Rockcreek Park is a REALLY nice run. There is a sidewalk throughout the entire park AND one of the roads is closed off completely on weekends to cars so lots of people head out to bike, roller blade, walk, run or just sit by the river and relax. I took some pics, as usual... here they are...

Step AWAY from the Snickers!

Well, it's been just about two weeks since I ran my marathon and I've gotten a total of two workouts in since! I'm on a roll... I was so excited to be in my off-season and I think I took it to the extreme. I'm not thinking twice about it though, as my body needs to enjoy the sugars, fats and utter laziness that it so rarely gets to enjoy. Luckily, Justin has the NYC marathon in a few weeks so he's still sticking to a strict diet, despite my wanting bad foods. So, at least dinners have been healthy. My snacks, however, not so much. Reese's peanut butter cups and snickers! CVS had them on sale -$3 for two bags - who can resist that deal!! Not me. So these bad boys sit in the freezer just waiting to get eaten, which will be soon :)

Today I went for a nice, leisurely run. Nearly 70 degrees with sunshine, it was the perfect day to be outside. I switched between running and walking for about an hour and half - love the workouts where I don't need to pay attention to my watch. Part of my run today was an exploration through Roosevelt Island. This loop was pretty cool as you're on trails the whole time and away from traffic. It's escaping to the "woods" in the middle of a city. Here are some pics I took along the way...

And, just so everyone knows, I successfully registered for the Boston Marathon 2011! Registration opened at 9am on 10/18 and I was on the site ready to sign up right when it opened. I started to panic because the registration page kept refreshing to a empty form whenever I clicked the submit button. Freaking out that I was doing something wrong and wouldn't get in (Justin told me earlier that week that it was expected to fill fast), I headed to Twitter and searched for #BostonMarathon to see what the deal was and if everyone else was having the same issues I was. Turns out, they were. An hour later someone sent out a working link to registration (BAA had a broken redirect due to heavy traffic, apparently) and I got in first try - phew! Just 7 hours later, the marathon filled and registration closed - a record breaking time (last year it took 2 months). It's not a huge surprise, based on the stats showing the rapid growth of marathon runners over the years, but still, no one was truly expecting a one day sell out. As you can imagine, with the major fall marathons having not even happened yet (Marines, NYC, Philly), there are a lot of angry peeps out there that have been training their butts off to get into Boston and now can't. Given the massive backlash BAA has received, I'm pretty sure there will be major changes next year - adjustment of qualifying times, getting rid of some of the charity slots (5,000 slots are held for charity runners), increasing the race size, introducing a lottery system???? All are options (some good, some very bad), I'm interested to see what they decide to do to fix the issue. But, for now, I am thrilled to be registered - this has been a goal of mine since I started running marathons and I can't wait for April 18th!!

Mohawk Hudson River Marathon 2010 Race Report

This past weekend was the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon. We headed out Friday night and stopped by Joey's for the night in Jersey. We spent Saturday morning there and left around noon to finish the trip up to Albany. We went straight to check-in, which was quick and painless, then took a detour as an excuse to see the area out to an apple orchard and got hot apple cider and apple cider donuts - both of which were fantastic. We made it to the hotel early, ordered take out from Olive Garden, set-up shop in front of the TV and laptop and watched Florida State football and Kona World Championships for the rest of the night. Jenny and Roger got to the hotel around 9:30 and we stayed up chatting until about 11:30.

Race morning we woke up at 7 - Jus was awesome and had gone out and gotten coffee before we even woke up. We headed out around 7:40 and made it to the race start at 8 which gave us a half hour to use the restroom and relax. This marathon is a point to point course that starts in Schenetady and ends in Albany. The course was beautiful as it runs along the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers the entire time. Majority of the course was on a bike path so you were off roads and surrounded by trees that are bright orange and red this time of year, so it made it a very pleasant scene. Really nice course.

I was nervous before the race because the day before and the morning of, I felt like I was suffering from a heart attack. My chest hurt and I was getting crazy pains and pinches. Jenny and Roger assured me it wasn't a heart attack and offered some alternative causes for the pain :) That helped calm my worries (but I'm still going to make an appointment with the doc to get it checked out).

Jenny and I lined up behind the start and soon enough the horn went off. This race is known to be flat and fast with several nice downhills where you can pick your pace up a good bit. It was cool at the start - in the 50s but within the first mile, I was taking my long sleeve shirt off. In the process I managed to break my water bottle top but saved it enough for it to carry me through till I got my replacement from Justin at mile 14. I went out way too hard but in a way, it was hard not to. The first half of the marathon was FAST. When I crossed the 13.1 mile marker and saw the clock at 1:43 I thought "YIKES! I gotta slow down or I'm going to crash" That is the fastest half I've ever run (by 3 minutes)! I had a lot of conversations in my head from that point on. "Slow down, but not too much" "Well, go fast when it's a slight downhill but take the flats easy" "I want to stop" "My legs HURT" "Why do I do this?!" "If I had music, this would be a lot easier" "So many people are passing me now, I'm slowing down too much" "Where is a port-o-potty?!" "If I keep this pace, I'll have 12 minutes to run my last mile" "I hate racing" "Gosh, I wish I had music"

I got to see Justin and Roger at several points along the course which was awesome. At mile 14 I stopped to use a port-o-potty but totally rushed the pit stop so that I didn't lose too much time. At mile 17.5 there are train tracks and in the runners guide they said if you get stopped at the train, they'll adjust your time, but there were no mats so I'm not sure how they handle that but all I was thinking after I hit mile 17 was that I didn't get stopped by a train! I listened carefully and ran faster than I should have for that half mile till I passed the tracks. Phew - made it!

Most of the course was quiet. There were spots where there were good sized crowds but for the majority of the race, it was just the runners. When I hit mile 24, I had something like 23 minutes to finish the race - this is when I knew I was guaranteed a Boston qualifying time (even though I ran the second half of the marathon 10 minutes longer than the first half). I got really happy and just kept telling myself to get through these last 2 miles. At this point, runners had spread out. Mile 26 was the L-O-N-G-E-S-T mile EVER!!! I thought I was going to lose my BQ time on this mile because the end felt like it was never coming. However, it did... finally, the crowds appeared, people screaming "JUST AROUND THE TURN AND YOU'RE DONE!" I got a crazy cramp in my side in the last .2 miles and had to walk a minute and stretch it out but I ran the rest of the finish and read the clock at 3:36! WooHoo! I'm going to Boston!

After the finish I immediately took off my sneakers to reveal a huge blister that had formed around the top of one of my toe. I could not put any pressure on it - it felt as though I broke it. I was in pain. It's looking better now that it's been a few days but still hurts. I also got to make friends with an adorable 4 month old puppy at the finish - so cute!

                                           

Soon after, Jenny came running through the finish and looked amazingly happy to have completed the marathon (without training!) ;) Congrats to Jenny - I am very happy she decided to do the marathon!!!
                                    

And so, it's time to let my legs relax. I get to sit back and watch Justin train for the NYC Marathon and not feel the slightest bit guilty for not working out as hard as he is :) It's going to be a great feeling.