October 05, 2013

A 16-mile half-marathon

Today I had another six-mile run at easy pace. When I woke up, it was thunderstorming, and the rain was a downpour. I briefly thought about waiting it out, but it was supposed to rain on and off all day, so I just decided to run on the treadmill.

A few days ago, Jerry signed up for a free trial of Hulu Plus. We're thinking of canceling cable and just using the streaming from Hulu and Netflix, which would save about $100 per month! Since I was going to be running on the treadmill, I checked out Hulu for a show to watch--and I was ecstatic to find all of the seasons of The Shield. That show was one of my all-time favorites, and since it's been so long since I watched it, I don't remember much; so it will be perfect for treadmill running for at least a few months.

I wanted to try out (once again) exactly what I planned to wear for the marathon, including carrying my Gu and Shot Bloks, and even my phone. I wore the Under Armour capris I bought yesterday, and a pink tank. I put two Gu packets in the pocket of the capris, and I put another Gu and three Shot Bloks in the mesh pockets of the belt, and in the center zippered pocket, I put my phone (which was in a Ziploc baggie, so it wouldn't get ruined from sweat). Everything felt very comfortable! I hoped it would work out while I was running.

My easy run pace is 10:00-10:40, so I set the treadmill at 6.0 mph (10:00/mi) and just left it there the entire time. I was tempted to bump up the speed, just to get the run done sooner, but I really want to try to take it easy while tapering, so I'm going to try and stick to the recommended pace. Even though I didn't touch the speed the entire time, my Garmin showed negative splits... not sure how that happened!


The belt didn't bounce, ride up, or move at all the entire run. I honestly forgot I was wearing it! So I'll wear it during the race. I know I don't need my phone with me, but I'll feel better having it.

My sister, Jeanie, had a rainy day for her run, too. She ran her second half-marathon today. After her last one, which she finished in 2:28, I wrote up a training plan for her new goal time of 2:15. She's been doing really well with it, so I hoped she'd have a good race and hit her goal today.

When she signed up for the race, she didn't realize it was mostly a trail race, going through the woods (and there were some monster hills that she wasn't expecting). The course wasn't well marked at all. Shawn (her husband) was in third place overall when he got lost in the woods... along with the first and second place runners! The group of them eventually found their way back to the course but they'd added nearly three miles to the course, so they ran almost 16 miles total.

Shawn didn't quit (I probably would have been pissed, and quit on the spot!) and when he found the race course again, he happened to see Jeanie. So, he ran with her for the rest of the race, and the two of them were able to finish together. The good news is that Jeanie hit her goal time!! She finished in 2:14-something, just under her goal of 2:15. With the difficulty of the course she did today, I wouldn't be surprised to see her run 2:10 at her next road race.


Speaking of my Jeanie, I leave on Thursday to go to her house. I'm so excited! I'm driving out there with the kids on Thursday; then Andrea's plane gets into Chicago early Friday, and she's going to go to Jeanie's house from there. We'll spend the night at Jeanie's on Friday, and then Saturday, Andrea and I will head into Chicago, while my kids stay with Jeanie and Shawn. Andrea and I will go to the expo and have dinner Saturday, and the marathon is Sunday morning (a week from tomorrow--eek!). There will be lots of celebratory drinks on Sunday after the race. Then Andrea is leaving Monday morning, and I'll go back to Jeanie's, then head home on Tuesday with the kids. My kids always love hanging out with Aunt Jeanie, so they are super excited, too. It's hard to believe the marathon is a week from tomorrow!

6 comments:

  1. Do you think your sister would do a guest post? I'd love to hear her talk about her running journey-how you've helped her, and how she seemed to just improve so quickly.

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    Replies
    1. I'll mention it to her and see what she thinks :)

      Delete
  2. Glad to hear your dress rehearsal went well!

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  3. Wow, to hit your goal road pace on a trail marathon is crazy. Congrats to Jeanie!

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  4. I'm thinking of getting rid of Sky TV and just streaming Netflix too. I checked out Hulu but it's only available in the US :( however a handy little firefox add on means I can now access all the US content too :)
    Good luck next Sunday, hope all the weather conditions are favourable for you :)

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  5. Oh man I'd be mad if I got lost too! When we did that last big bike ride there was a lot of confusion on what way we were supposed to go since there were 3 different length rides all stopped at one point. We actually had to pull up the map on my phone to figure it out.

    WTG to your sister!!

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