Catching Up

A lot has been going on. Unfortunately last weekend our home computer got a virus and it wiped out our hard drive :( My brother is going to take a look at it and see if he can recover anything. But for now I have limited computer access. I can read blogs on my phone, but I can’t post. So I have to write a giant post now to make up for it!

Several bloggers have written posts this week about how sometimes life gets in the way and you just need a break, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up over missing a workout or eating something you shouldn’t. Boy does that apply to my life right now! By the middle of my third week of training, I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. I was starting to dread my workouts, each one less enjoyable than the last. Then I got an email that the sprint tri I am signed up for on June 26th is cancelled. I was really upset, I have been training for 2 months and I had just paid for my wetsuit rental! But then I thought maybe it is a blessing in disguise. Training was starting to take over my life, and now I can put the breaks on for awhile. Actually spend time with my husband when he gets back from his deployment (2 more days!).

I had hoped that if I got through my 3 week training “boot camp,” I would be able to stick with it for 13 more weeks and do a 70.3 distance in September. (I have high ambitions!) I think physically I am capable of doing it. I have run 4 half-marathons, and right now I can swim a mile and bike 25-30 miles. But I don’t want to spend my entire summer training and having no life. My husband was training for a 70.3 in August, but he may be deploying again around that time so he had to withdraw. Part of the fun of training is doing it together, so losing that aspect would make it even less enjoyable.

I think I will still do a tri in September, but an Olympic distance. I can swim, bike, and run all of the distances individually so I just have to work on putting them together. It will give me a goal to work toward, but I will still get to have a life and enjoy summer. It doesn’t last long in Oregon! And I will only need to train 4-8 hours a week instead of 8-15. This is much more manageable, I am used to training 4-5 hours a week for half-marathons.

In other, more exciting news…I ran a 5k today and got 3rd place in my age group, 20-29! My last 5k was over a year ago when I had just started running, so I knew I could get a good PR. Since then I have cut 13 minutes off my 10k time and 30 minutes off my half-marathon time. My “pie in the sky” goal was a sub-30. It was supposed to be around 60* at the start (high of 84* today, very warm for here this time of year), so I wore a white tank top and black skirt. The race didn’t start until 8:30, and it was already very sunny and warm by then. I was surprised how warm. We had timing chips so I wasn’t worried that I was about 100 people back from the start. Then when we actually started, I saw there weren’t any timing mats at the start, only at the finish. So our times were still gun times. Oh well.

I got stuck behind a few people but was able to weave around and find a good pace. I knew I would need around a 9:40 pace, but I just tried to find a hard-comfortable speed. For some reason the sun always makes me feel nauseas when running, this started about half-way through. The course was described as “mostly flat.” Yeah right! I lost count of the uphills shortly after the 1-mile marker.

Either the course was mis-marked, or my Garmin was off. Either way, I thought I had blown a sub-30 so when I started to feel really sick during the last mile I stopped to walk for a few seconds. Twice. Then all of a sudden we were making the last turn and running into the stadium (it was held at a high school football field). As I entered the finishing shoot these two women were walking side by side and wouldn’t move to let me pass! I had to say “excuse me” a couple times before they let me through. Grr!

Anyway the clock was still at 59 minutes and some seconds when I went over the timing pads (we started 30 minutes after the half-marathon) and I could not believe it. I am suspicious about the course. I may have started my Garmin a little bit after the start line (there was no clear start line), but it only measured 2.97 at the end, 29:22. My official time was 29:30. I figure, even if the course was a little short, I still would have gotten a time in the 30-minute range, which would be a 3+ minute PR. And we all ran the same course, so I was still the 3rd fastest woman age 20-29! The two women in front of me came in around 28:30. My goal for next year, first in age group! It is a small race, so it may be possible. There is also a 10k and half, so a lot of the faster runners do those instead, leaving the 5k to us slower runners :)

Man this is a long post! It was a bad week to not have a computer, with so much to write about. I guess I will wrap it up. Hope everyone has a great weekend!