Birkie Trail and Trek - Half Marathon

(OK well Blogger is making me upset by not allowing me to put text along sides of pictures so I've officially wasted enough time and have given up so it looks like all will be centered in my world tonight!)

It was an early rise to drive up to Cable, WI for the American Birkebeiner Trail Marathon and Half Marathon.  Luckily we didn't need to be parked and through pick-up until 9:45am but it was still a 4:30am wake up call and 5:45 out the door.  We picked up Mark's buddy Steve as well.  He came up to run the half.  His first ever half marathon race AND his first race as a Master (just turned 40 last week).

The drive up was relatively uneventful and actually went pretty fast.   Lots of color in the sunrise.  Sailors take warning!!

 

Our starting spot was actually the half of the full marathon so we got to see a few people run through.  As you can see the weather was beautiful!  We were realy happy and excited to start.

\

Steve wasn't quite as impressed to take a startline photo ;)

 

The trail was all on a wide, grass-covered path through the woods.  It's a large, well-known ski trail in the winter.  The first half was filled with difficult climbs.   I tried to continue to power up them as much as I could as long as my body would let me recover before the next one.  It felt great to pass people going up hills :)

I knew there was a "high point" coming somewhere in the middle.   It was climb after climb until the sky opened up and we reached the top of the tree line.  With the colors in full bloom, it was gorgeous!!  (got me the great new header picture for my blog)  Mark got a great shot of me going up one of the final hills towards the top.

Of course there was a "highest point" sign on the course and another runner lady was nice enough to stop and help us take a picture.  Deja vu to my highest point picture at Great River Ragnar Relay

From that point on the crowd really thinned out and we had a lot of the trail to ourselves.  It was FANTABULOUS!  Exactly what I want when I run on the trails.  I want just me (or us in this case), no crazy crowd and the crunching leaves under my feet.  Here's a great pic of Mark flying up a hill.

Trail running is a lot tougher than road running but the benefits in the beauty of the course are worth the extra effort.   I guess this would be another PR since it's a first.  

Trail Half Marathon PR - 2:03:28

I would come back and run this race again in a heartbeat.  Only change is that we would like to stick around for another day or two to explore, geocaching and check out the mountain biking trails!

Oh.....and this is my official goodbye....to my blue Asics.  I decided that this would be their last race before they retire.  I have trail shoes but they aren't great for distance races so, knowing the trails would be a little wet and mucky, I wore my Asics as their final race run.

BEFORE THE RACE

AFTER THE RACE.  DIRTY, WET AND DONE!

To my Gel-Kayanos....it's been fun, you've served me well this year in training and racing.  Not one bad incident with shin splints.   Thank you for all the miles, it's now time for you to retire to become my comfort shoes :)

Mileage is getting high for our LV Marathon training.  This weekend will be our first run past the half marathon distance.  Last weekend was supposed to be 14 but we decided a trail run 13 was close enough.   This coming weekend will be 16 so now is when things start to get fun.  

So far all is going well and our running bodies are holding up well.   We are going to get our new training shoes tomorrow night that will carry us through the marathon.  Unfortunately we've both been battling head colds the past couple days so that's held our training runs up a bit.

I'm still doing my best to stick to my diet plan and while I've had some major slips days, all in all I've lost another 3 pounds since I've started back on another 3 month plan to get me to the wedding.  Since our first weight loss plan back at the beginning of the year, I'm down a total of 11.5 pounds and I'm feeling so much better because of it!

Next race: Monster Dash Half Marathon

I think I'm ready....

Ok so first things first, I assure you my brain is still 100% focused on our upcoming marathon wedding :D :D :D  but the tides are turning in my head.

I think I'm ready...

To put a 70.3 on the schedule again next year.  

This past year I feel was smashed, beaten and spit out after Ironman.  I think I had such issues during training and during the race that I just wanted to be far, far away from focusing on triathlon.   It seems like it became all that I was.  I was nothing but someone in training for Ironman.  I am so much more, I enjoy so much more, I needed time physically, mentally and emotionally away from the whole thing.

But there has been so much buzz about Ironman amongst my friends since many of them did IMoo last weekend that I'm getting anxious to have another big triathlon goal on my schedule.   Don't get me wrong, I think pigs will fly before I set foot on the IMoo course again but I'm sure in a couple years we'll investigate doing another full somewhere else. 

Proposed Target: The inaugural Ironman Muncie - July 9th, 2011

Marathon Training has been going pretty well.  Last week was our first easy week.  Every four weeks we have a low mileage week with a lot of EZ in it.  

My EZ pace is supposed to be 9:46/mi and Tempo is supposed to be 8:15/mi

With the weather getting much cooler (most days are in the 50-60s F) I can definitely feel the difference in my training.    Oddly enough my heart rate has been much lower during long runs and my pace has been a bit faster (yay hoo!)  Tonight we had a 6 miler with the middle 3 miles being tempo.  The first mile hurt!  I was really hoping it was too fast and sure enough, it was about 7:40.  We eased up a tiny bit but my heart rate was pegged in the low 180s.  Second mile 8:06.  Final mile 8:04(ish).   The average came up to be 7:57.  Sa-weet!  Sub 8 :)

I still wish we would get ourselves into the gym more often to strength train.  I know how important it can be but just haven't quite had the motivation to drag ourselves there more than about once a week.

Wedding update: Mark's wedding marathon shoes are waiting for us to pick them up down in Lakeville and we are working with a small company to get our visors embroidered. Then I need to get the veil done :) I'm excited my best friends Jess and Beck wanted to have a bachelorette party for me. We are having dinner and going to Shout House. Nothing crazy, just food and fun with hanging out with the girls. And kind of unfortunately it's the night before we have now all but signed up to run the Monster Half Marathon the next morning :-P



Weight loss has been going well.  I've been using the Livestrong.com Daily Plate again to track my calories since Sept 5th.   The plan is to intake 1200 calories + any calories burned in exercise.  I have gone over in calories a couple days but most days I do really well.   Mostly my sodium and sugars.  Protein too but I don't take that as a bad thing.  I think I'm down about two pounds but haven't done an official weigh in yet to compare.  Stay tuned.....

This weekend we have a big all-weekend Geocaching event (GeoCoin Fest) so we'll cover that on our other blog.  We will need to squeak in a 12-miler at some point too.  Next weekend we are signed up to drive over to Cable, WI for the Birkie Trail Half Marathon.  They have awesome medals you can see on the website.  I'm super excited to do another trail event.  Although I'll be doing it in my old road shoes.  Can't afford new trail shoes right now but I'm watchin' deals on Sierra Trading Post :)  Mark's buddy Steve is coming to run as well so it should be a fun road trip.  Hey Steve.....I call shotgun!!! ;)

Anyone else going to be at Birkie??

Minneapolis Duathlon

This past Sunday was the Mpls Duathlon and while we have not spent much time on our bikes lately, I think it went fairly well.   It was not an "A" race for me by any means, more just doing it for fun and for the bling, but I think in the end my results came out ok.

I was surprised how many friends were racing too that I haven't seen in awhile so it was great running into familiar faces before, during and after the race!

My first run went ok.  I was trying to keep a decent pace without going all out.  The sun was up so not much heat on this one and the course was pretty much flat.   We got to run across the Stone Arch Bridge which I always enjoy :) Then there was an out and back section that felt like it took forever to reach the turn-around for.  I caught up to Mark's brother Michael too at the water stop.   He has been battling a crappy injury but I give him serious credit for still getting out there and completing the course.  I did get a quick wave in to our friend Steve near transition and he got a picture. 

I look happy to be done with this run :)

The bike was...well how has biking been for me lately (ca-rrapy!)  Although I think most of my problems during this race were about the course.  I pretty much vowed never to do this race again until they either changed the route or fixed the river road.  It was nothing but potholes and bumps for over half the course.  I could rarely feel safe down in aero position and all the rattling was making my arms, back and butt hurt.  I pretty much gave up any type of hard push for an average pace and just wanted to survive the race without breaking myself, my bike or getting a flat.  I was entertained though as Michael caught back up to me and we leap frogged a few times during the second half of the leg.

Steve did get another good picture of me on the bike.  Minus my snarling face :-P

I was very happy to be off on my feet although it was no impressive pace.  Plus it was getting really hot!  Same exact course as the first 5k.  After about the first mile I told myself "ok you are doing this for fun but you are hurting at this pace....why don't you just enjoy this a bit more and slow the F- down?!?"  So I did pull up a bit in my pace for about a mile or so.  When I was within the last mile I did crank it up a touch again and ended with what I'll call an ok min/mile.

My friend Jon got this one of me maybe a mile-ish from the finish line

All in all, a fun race and the free champagne and cake at Vincent's was a big plus!

So that concluded our multi-sport season for 2010 and now it's all about being on our feet.  3 months until the wedding marathon!   Birkie half and Monster Half are looking to get on to our schedules for sure plus we would like to do either the Twin Cities 5k or 10k just to work towards saying we've done all of the distances in this event.  We've both done the full and the 10 mile.   Lack of money for race fees will likely keep us from many more actual races between now and then.

The exact 3 month mark is Sept 5th (4 days from now) and we both have been feeling flabby and fat again so we are creating another 3 month diet fix plan to get us back on track and deduct a few pounds.   Initially a daily allowance of 1200 calories + calories spent in exercise.  With the marathon training we would be killing ourselves and likely deficient in calories for they day if we didn't allow ourselves to eat what we expended.  I would also like to try to reduce the amount of carbs we intake but that might be tough.  Seriously...I'm Italian, I live for bread and pasta!

Wish me luck :)

Anyone else running any fun races in the Midwest between now and December?