Another 5k in the Books

What a hellish week I’ve had! Work has been as busy as ever. Two coworkers in my department were in a car accident on Wednesday (they got t-boned in an intersection by a man running a red light doing about 60mph) — thankfully, they’re both OK, but the Range Rover they were in was totaled.

Then, as if I didn’t have enough stress in my life, the person who sexually abused me for many years of my childhood decided to make an appearance in my life via email in a discussion over politics and religion. Other than seeing him briefly at my grandmother’s funeral several years ago, we’ve had no direct contact for nearly 13 years, so it was very odd to suddenly have communication with him.

I’ve had a mixed bag of emotions ranging from anger to just severe emotional pain/trauma from the flood of memories it brought back, including having nightmares pretty much every night since the initial email. After a few emails back and forth, I’ve thankfully not heard from him again since I told him before he started lecturing me on the state of freedom of religion in our country that perhaps he should take a look at his own faith since he has called me a liar over the things that happened to me as a child.

Anyway, moving on to more pleasant things ….

Praise be to the deity of your choice (see how I linked that back with the whole freedom of religion thing? ), I am DONE with 5k races for the summer. It’s just too hot and painful (for me) to do races in the summertime. My next race probably won’t be until the middle to end of September.

Today’s race was the Cypress 5k/10k put on by the nearby city of Cypress. I did have a good race overall though. I think I may have even set a new personal 5k record. I missed getting my Garmin started at the very beginning of the race and didn’t realize it until a couple of minutes into it. When I passed one of the mile markers, I heard one of the volunteers calling out the race clock time. I remember thinking at the time that my Garmin was approx. 2:15 off the race clock. Like a ninny, I forgot to look at the race clock when I crossed the finish line.

According to my Garmin, I finished in 48:58 which gives me about 3 minutes of “wiggle” room to beat my old PR of 51:47 which I set back in 2006 just before all of my back woes took control of my life. I’m figuring I have 3 minutes of wiggle room since it was probably 15-20 seconds after the gun that Darla and I actually crossed the starting line.

If you are a numbers geek and want to see the data from my Garmin, here’s the link to my race details on their Motion Based site. It’s a bit odd though on some of the data. The display on my watch said I had gone 2.9 miles, but when I uploaded the data to the Motion Based site, it shows 3.04 miles.

Cypress 5k Garmin Data

For a comparison, here is a Google pedometer map I put together of the actual race course. I definitely wasn’t off very far before I got my Garmin started:

Cypress 5k Race Route

From looking at the race website, it looks like the official results aren’t posted there, but are on the Active.com website. I’ve never done a race where the results were solely on Active’s site. Anyone have any idea how long those typically take to get posted?

I do have to say, there were definitely a couple of highlights in today’s race. The first was the family who hooked up a water mister to their garden hose and had it hanging on a street light. As we all passed by their home, we got a quick little mist to cool us off. That was awesome!

The other highlight was that in addition to the typical banana, water, etc., they had Big Stick popsicles for all of us at the finish line. I generally don’t like anything with pineapple, but I have to say that may very well have been the best damned popsicle I’ve ever eaten and was the perfect way to cool down after a hot race! Even better, it was only 90 calories.

Ok, that’s it for now. I hope everyone has a lovely rest of the weekend!

Iron Girl Race Pic/Training Plan

Back to edit: I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I seem to have lost all of my navigation stuff from the left hand side of my blog. I’ll have to try and slowly get it all set back up again.

First of all, let me apologize for being so remiss in posting this week. It seems like it’s been a busy week for some reason, but it’s not really been any busier than normal I don’t think. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but it just seems busier.

Perhaps it’s a psychological thing since I started my training plan this week for my first triathlon coming up in mid-October. There definitely seems to be more “pressure” of sorts from following a defined & detailed training plan vs. just going out and doing some sort of activity several times per week. I’m sure I’ll adjust just fine after a week or so, but it just feels a bit odd right now.

The photos from my race on Sunday were posted yesterday. They only got one pic of me and it was right as I was crossing the finish line. At least they got me during the one part of the race where I was actually running, even though it still looks like I’m walking for some reason!

In other MAJOR news, my toe is feeling much better! So much so, that for the first time in YEARS, I actually jogged just over a half mile (0.54 mile) without any walk breaks last night! I was slow as hell (15:09 pace), but I did it! So, I’m well on my way of meeting my goal of running the entire 2 mile run portion of my tri.

Yesterday’s training plan also called for an 18 minute swim, so I did that prior to the run. I swam laps in the pool at my complex which is 15 yards in length. I did repeats of 60 yards of swimming followed by a 1 minute rest. I managed to get in 360 total yards of swimming in 17:57. All in all, yesterday was a good training day!

Here’s my training plan for the rest of the week:

Today: Bike 25 minutes
Friday: Swim 18 minutes & Run 15 minutes
Saturday: Bike 45 minutes
Sunday: Run 30 minutes

I’m still going strong on my food challenge as well. Today is day 17 for me with no slips and/or cheats on my food plan. It’s really paying off, too! I was down another 1.6 pounds this week at my WW meeting which brings my total loss thus far to 5.8 pounds since I started the challenge. Go me!!

Until next time …

Iron Girl Del Mar 5k

I’m back at the hotel. Let’s just say it was an “interesting” 5k. Nearly a mile of it was done on the dirt horse racing track at Del Mar. I knew in advance that we were starting and finishing at the track, but I didn’t know they meant ON the track. It seemed to slow everyone waaaaay down due to all the ruts and such in the dirt. Apparently this is the first year they’ve done the race at this venue and no seemed to be very happy about it. I’m so covered in dirt that I feel more like I did a trail run than a road race.

By my Garmin, the course was actually a little bit long (3.2 miles) and I finished it in 56:11. Given I’ve been battling the hurting toe all week, had to contend with the dirt track, and it was REALLY HOT out there, I’m generally happy with my performance. Would I have liked to have finished faster? Sure, since my goal is always to finish at least 1 second faster than my previous race, but this one had a lot of variables that just kept that from happening.

In addition to the 3.2 miles I completed during the race, we also had a pretty good walk in from the parking area. After the race was over, I reset my Garmin and measured the distance from the race area back to the parking lot. It was .6 of a mile, so by the time I made the round trip, that’s another 1.2 miles of walking I’ve done today which makes a combined total of about 4.4 miles. I think I’ll take the afternoon off from exercising.

I don’t have another race planned for about a month. That should give me some time for my toe to heal and work a bit more on increasing my running time. Since it takes place on July 26, heat may be an issue at that race as well, but I’ll worry about that closer to race day.

Ok, time for me to go wash the race track off.

Official Results/Next Race

Official results are in for my 5k. I finished in 52:04. So, I only missed setting a new PR by 18 seconds since my previous was 51:47. Here are my stats for the race:

Overall Place: 744/775
Female Place: 361/384
Overall 40-44: 79/81
Female 40-44: 40/41

At least I wasn’t DFL in any category.

I also realized this afternoon that I am a complete ninny. I completely forgot that several months ago I registered from the Iron Girl Del Mar 5k next weekend. Normally I wouldn’t do back-to-back 5k races like this, but it looks like I will be this time. So, I hoped on Priceline and used their Name Your Own Price option. I got a great deal at the Del Mar Doubletree Hotel (regular price is $205 and I’m playing $79! ). So, it looks like I’ll be racing again next weekend. This could be the one exception of my usual goal of always beating my time from my last race whenever I race. Since I’ve never raced on back-to-back weekends like this, I’m not sure what to expect from my body.

Well, I guess that’s it for now. In closing, here are my WW stats for today:

Total Points: 31
Exercise: 5k race - 4 APs
Weekly Points balance: 35
Water: 64 oz
Consecutive Days OP: 5

Almost PR’d

I’m home from my little local 5k here in Anaheim that I did with my friend Darla. Here are my unofficial results taken from my Garmin:

Time: 52:57
Lap 1: 16m 07s, 1.00 miles, 16m 07s /mile
Lap 2: 17m 12s, 1.00 miles, 17m 12s /mile
Lap 3: 17m 59s, 1.00 miles, 17m 59s /mile
Lap 4: 01m 09s, 0.07 miles, 15m 54s /mile

I almost beat my previous personal best which is amazing since I set it a couple of years ago right before I started having my back problems. I was nearly 50 pounds lighter then than I am now as well due to weight gained during my back surgery/recovery. So, I’m feeling pretty good about that!

I think if the conditions had been different, I would have made it today. They didn’t completely close the streets to traffic. They only closed off 1 lane. Since we were on some of the major thoroughfares near Disneyland, there was a lot of traffic whizzing by us on the left, so we were all sucking in exhaust fumes. I’m a borderline asthmatic, so I found myself starting to wheeze several times, so I would back off to let my lungs recover.

Since I only missed my PR by about 40 seconds, I think I would have gotten a new one today if I hadn’t been backing off. On the upside, even with the backing off, I managed to shave ~2 minutes off my time from my last 5k race on April 13. I’ve also shaved over 5 minutes off my time for my first 5k of year back on Feb. 3.

In closing, here are my WW stats for yesterday:

Total Points: 28.5
Exercise: Rest day
Weekly Points balance: 35
Water: 64 oz
Consecutive Days OP: 4

Until next time …

Belated Coaster Run Race Report

Well, despite the crazy heat (for April), Darla and I made our way on Sunday morning over to the Coaster Run 5k benefiting the Speech and Language Development Center in Buena Park. They offer services for children and young adults with language/learning/developmental disorders, so it was a great cause.

I was up at around 5:30am and got ready pretty quickly since I had laid out all of my clothes and gear before I went to bed on Saturday night. I made a bowl of cream of wheat and then putzed around my apartment for a bit until it was time to head over to the event.

After I got parked, I made my way over to the starting line area and began looking around for Darla. I walked around for about 10 minutes, but never managed to find her. It was time for me to start warming up, so I made my way over beyond the starting chute and began to walk/jog about for about 10 minutes or so. In retrospect, I probably should have delayed my warm-up a bit because the elite racers were taking off before us and I actually had a bit more time than I was thinking.

After the elite racers took off, the rest of us in the 5k race started piling into the start chute awaiting our gun time. Since this was a fairly small race, they weren’t using chip timing. As a result, people were definitely trying to crowd as close as possible to the starting line. I opted to hang back a bit and stay out of the way of the faster runner. I figured I could just relay on my watch instead of getting caught up in the fray.

I knew going into this event that it was going to be hot. The forecasted high had been bouncing around all week to be somewhere between 90-95°F. By the time we got started at 7:45am, it was already in the upper 70’s to low 80’s. By the time I finished, it was 85°F with a heat index of nearly 90°F.

The worst part was on the eastbound portion of each lap. Since it was still early in the morning, the sun was still low in the sky, so there wasn’t much relief from my hat. It was pretty much just shining right into my eyes. Thank goodness for Transitions lenses in my glasses!

There was one water station on the westbound portion of the 5k course that was about 2/3rds way around on the lap. So, we were able to get water at about 1.2 miles and again at around 2.7 miles. I did take some water both times I passed the station. I drank all of it the first time, but then felt a bit queasy afterwards. I only took a couple of good sips the 2nd time around and I was fine with that.

I did a wog combo of 4 mins walking followed by 1 min slow jog for the first 1.5 miles. After that I decided to just stick with walking since it was so hot. Even by the 1.5 mile mark, I was already starting to wheeze pretty badly from where I’d been sick recently coupled with breathing in the very dry hot air. I was really hoping to stick with my wog combo for the whole distance, but decided better safe than sorry given the conditions.

I did have one particular nemesis on the course. There was actually a woman out walking the course wearing a pair of totally flat Keds-type sneakers with ZERO support. She was wearing a denim skirt and carrying a big ass purse over her shoulder. Yes, she finished 25 seconds ahead of me. I have to keep reminding myself that I had a lot of extra weight that I was carrying around that she did not have. It’s difficult for me, but I need to stop comparing myself to people who are not my peers on the course. As Terri said to me today, “she finished ONLY 25 seconds ahead of you.” I guess it’s all about perspective.

Overall, I was fairly pleased with how I did. I finished in 54:30 which was 3:15 faster than my last 5k back in February. The only thing I think that would have made a difference is the heat. Since I don’t really have any control over that, I guess I wouldn’t really have done anything differently.

Here are my official results for the race:

Until next time …

WOOOOT!!!!

Congratulations to the Lady Vols on making it to the NCAA Championship coming up on Tuesday night! (Sorry about LSU, Terri)

Alas, there was no racing for me today. Even though my throat was feeling a lot better this morning, I just knew I was too weak still to make the 125 mile round trip drive down regardless of how badly I wanted to be there. Major kudos to Terri for getting out there and finishing the 5k even though she’s been battling PF for a few months now!

My friend Kris was also out racing today. She ran a half marathon in Athens, OH this morning. She was actually only a couple of minutes shy of getting a new PR, so she did GREAT!

In closing, here are my WW stats for Saturday:

Total Points: 32 (used 1 WP)
Exercise:
Weekly Points balance: 34
Water: 64 oz
Days OP: 34

Surf City 5k

I was very torn over whether or not to do the race given my brother-in-law’s death on Thursday. I’ve not been sleeping well and I’ve just really been struggling over the fact that I wasn’t able to make it back to the funeral yesterday. I ended up deciding to go ahead with the 5k hoping it would take my mind off things for a while. Well, it certainly did that!

To say the conditions were less than favorable would be an understatement. It was 47 degrees with 13-15 mph winds and stinging rain falling (sideways at times). I ended up walking virtually all of the course, but I did start and finish running. I finished in 57:45 which was slower than my last 5k, but I was just thrilled to finish in less than an hour given the conditions.

The course was basically an out and back, but the start and finish lines were staggered, so the back part of the course after the turn was longer than the out part. Naturally, it was the back part of the course that had us going headlong into the wind and rain. I was doing pretty good on the first part of the course out and was averaging just over a 17 minute mile pace, but lost all kinds of time after making the turn for the back part.

For about the last mile of the race, all I could think about what getting across that finish line and trying to get warm & dry. Every piece of clothing on my body my soaking wet. My hair was so wet that I had water pretty much constantly dripping from my bangs down into my eyes and face. All in all, it was a pretty miserable way to walk a 5k.

I was walking with my friend Darla. This was her first race ever after having just started walking and exercising recently. I was amazed when she said after crossing the finish line that she couldn’t wait to do another one. If that had been my first race ever, I’m not sure I would’ve been saying the same thing.

Here are my official results for the race:

Here are the nifty finisher’s medals we received, too. Yes, the little surfboards are real wood.

Finally, I just wanted to take a minute to say thanks for the emails and comments that I’ve gotten about the death of my brother-in-law. I spoke with my Mom last night and my sister is doing as well as can be expected given the circumstances. Everyone is trying to keep her stress levels down as much as possible to hopefully prevent any flare-ups with her MS. I’ll be going out to see her in a couple of weeks. (Feb. 15).