Showing posts with label dailymile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dailymile. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Run for Cash 5k RR

This weekend was the 7th annual Captain Christopher Cash Memorial 5k race.

If you have been reading my blog since the beginning, you know that this race is close to my heart.

Last year I got to know Capt. Cash's mother, Nancy after running this race; then I did The Run for the Fallen in Capt. Cash's honor.


This was such a fun race last year! It was Lola's first race, I snagged a 3rd place AG finish and had an amazing day all around. The Run for Cash 5k is one race I will each and every year until I cannot run anymore.

This year clouds and rain did not damper the spirits of the race or it's participants. I was happy to see such a big turnout despite roar of thunder and lots of rain.

Lola participated in the Kid's Fun Run. Last year it was a 50 yard dash for the kids. This year?? It was an entire lap around the track--A quarter mile!! And Lola did it with a smile in the pouring rain.

Ready to run! (the tee was too big for Lola!!)

She's ready to SPRINT!

Yeah-she totally chicked those boys by A LOT!!
I ran with her and as she started to slow down towards the finish, I pointed out the finish line and reminded her that she would get her medal once she finished.
That was all my little girl needed to hear MEDAL
She SPRINTED the rest of the way and was SO PROUD of her medal!!

Gotta show off the bling to Marc!


Showing Jim her medal

Soaked and cold but she has her medal!
Lola was soaked to the bone and freezing cold so Lola and her Daddy packed things up, headed home to warmth and dry clothes. Luckily, I had several friends there with me and could catch a ride home later if need be...or I could just run home.

It was time for me to warm up and get ready to run. I had some reasonable time expectations for myself on this race-modest expectations since I have not really done much speed work since a majority of my training has been volume focused around the Timberman 70.3!

I met up with my Dailymile friends, triathlon friends and ran around the venue a bit to warm up then it was show time!

BANG! and they are off!


The Leaders heading up the first climb of the course

The first mile of this race is a slight downhill to the ocean and then a sharp left. Felt great
Mile One split: 6:36

Then the course takes another sharp left and up you go through the main strip, a gradual climb. Things level out for a bit and then you hit the turn-around. This is when you start seeing the leaders heading back to the finish line! I love that!! Still feeling strong!
Mile Two Split: 7:37

After the turn you take a different way back though town, essentially all up hill climbs. Short climbs but continual. Hill, level out for a bit. Another hill, level, another hill. Then it is one final climb and take a right onto the finish. Felt good on all the climbs and glad to see my pace held.
Mile Three Split: 7:37 (hmmm-consistence!)

and then the final 1/10th split: 0:51 for a 6:41 pace

Post race with Jim

Happy Jen after snagging 2nd in AG

Official Race Time: 22:42
2nd place in Age Group
15th Overall Female
60th Overall


This is a new 5k PR for me and I beat my expected race finish time by over a minute!! So I am very pleased with how well this race went and I am hoping to bust this PR at next months Ocean Park 5k which is flat and fast!! I do have a specific number in mind but keeping that to myself for now!

Funny story-there is a local elite runner, Christine Snow-Reaser, who seems to be my good luck charm. Last year at the Kennebunk Beach 5k I attempted to keep pace with her the first mile in the pouring rain. This year, I was with her for a bit again in the pouring rain.
Each time I run with her in the rain, I set a new PR.
Of course, I had to tell her this after the race!!

Christine Snow-Reaser and me

I also want to congratulate my friends Marc, Jen R. and Kate who all set new 5k PR's themselves on that day!!
Jen R is all smiles! She later ran the Warrior Dash-so badass!!
Marc's PR Finish! I even got his official race time on "film"! wooohooo

Kate's AWESOME FINISH!!


The Dailymile Crew! Me, Kate and Jim
Now for all the guesses as to my final time!

The winner? Karien with a guess of 22:40-You were only 2 seconds off! Great guess!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Fight for your right to TRAIN

Last night the darling Hubby and I ended up having a heated discussion. What started out as a simple statement/question turned into something much bigger.

As most of you know by now, I am a stay at home Mommy and I work a couple nights a week at the YMCA. I usually wake up early, early (3-4 am) to fit in workouts, I go to the Y in the mornings while the kids club is open so Lola can play while I workout. I workout later in the day when hubby or my parents and/or in-laws can help out with Lola. I schedule my long workouts on the weekends so she can be with hubby.

Monday things did not workout for me to train and I get was disappointed that I did not get to fit in my trainer ride or swim. Yesterday appeared to be another day that my training plans would fall through but alas, it worked out for me to workout!

Hubby made a comment about me being in a better mood than I was the previous day and then said "you must have been able to workout this morning". True, I did. And true again, I can get grumpy if I don't get my workouts in. Then he dropped THIS little bomb on me:

"What are you gonna do when you HAVE to go back to work full time and you can't workout ALL DAY LONG".

Whoa. What? What the frankincense does THAT mean??

Workout ALL>Day>LONG??

Do you have any inkling as to what I really do all day? You think I am on some sort of self-centered vacation here? I wish I could train all day long but alas, I do not.


At first, I just kind of laughed it off and said that I know plenty of ladies who juggle full time jobs, family, and training without issue. Some are even training for marathons, Ultra's and Ironman distance events.
 
Then he says:
"So...when do YOU think you are going to be able to workout when your working?" (sarcastically!!)

I attempted to maintain my composure.
I will workout in the mornings, like I do now. I will workout at night, after work. I will fit it in on my lunch breaks. I have weekends. It will happen--because I want it to.

We went back and forth a bit about this and that, then it started to turn ugly and I will spare you the details. The conversation ended up being "put on hold" for the time being because we were getting a little too passionate about our version of how events would unfold.


Yes, we were arguing about events that will take place 2-3 years down the road when Lola goes to school.
Yes, we were debating how much "personal" time each of us was entitled to while raising a family and working full time.
Yes, we both had valid points.
No, he did not seem to think I could do it.

But you know what. I believe that if you want something bad enough, you make it happen. I have zero doubt that I will find time to train for ANY EVENT I want to complete--even working full time.
And speaking of working full time, who ever said I would return to working in medicine? I could very well be on my way to completing my PT Certification and eyeballing other training certifications down the road. SO maybe my FULL TIME JOB will be training and workout. Ha! Take that!!

I know many of you work, take care of your family and still find time to train. I would love to hear from you. Please share with me how you fit it all in!!

Team_vote_2011On another note, the voting is up on Dailymile for the 2011 Team. I even saw one of my bloggy friends there (Hello Barb!! You got one of my votes!)

I would really, really love to be a part of this and if you could please take a moment of your time to cast your vote for me :)


If you are not a Dailymile member, you would have to sign up to vote. If you are not using Dailymile now, I highly recommend it. It is user friendly, you can meet all kinds of athletes from all over the world. I love the daily dose of inspiration and motivation!!



My video is the one with the name Jen S. under it and it is a picture of me with 3 friends the beach showing off our triathlon body markings on our arms.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Five for Friday!

Hello from Snowville Maine! I hope you are having a great week. Here is what is on my mind today.

ONE
We are BURIED in snow with more on the way this weekend.
Wednesday's storm dumped quite a bit on us but not the 20-24" we were expecting. The hubby was home for the day so we had a fun family day playing in the snow. Well, Lola and I played mostly while hubby cleaned out our house and his parents place (they live up the street!) as well as roof raking.

Lola all bundled up and ready to go out!

Lola with her "shovel" while we cleaned out wave one of snow

The view from the SLEDCAM on our way to the in-laws
TWO
I had my second PT session with Jared today and we are making great progress already. The patella tendons are already starting to loosen up and my quads are enjoying the stretching and rolling. He gave me some new exercises and some of these work on core and balance which I loved! Challenging stuff but I love a challenge. We also did more running and the changes we made with my form are making a huge difference. In one short week of running drills, he was pleased to say that I was running correctly and looking good!

THREE
While we are talking about running...I have been told to switch out shoes. The Kayano's are too heavy and I do not need motion control. Jared has suggested a lightweight performance stability shoe like the Saucaony Fastwitch and and New Balance 905. If you run in this kind of shoe, I would love to hear from you!
The bad news is-I just won a pair of Brooks Trance 10's from Leah at Chasing Atlanta this fall and they came last week. Jared looked at them today and said "no". Wrong shoe for my foot.
The K-Swiss shoes I won from Dailymile.com are also wrong for running but I will use these for weight training and cross training days.

FOUR
Speaking of Dailymile.com, I was selected to apply to be on the Dailymile team! They select 300 people on the site and then you apply to get one of 30 positions. To apply you need to put together a video why you would be a great addition to the team. I have until Monday at midnight to submit my application.
Not that I want to sway any votes away from me but check out Mike's video submission--hilarious!!
Click HERE
I will certainly be posting when the voting is up-your support would be appreciated :)


FIVE
I hope you have been paying attention lately. I am doing an exciting giveaway this weekend!! Make sure you check in for your chance to get in on some cool stuff.
Also, there is another really cool giveaway at 26.2 is My Cooldown . He is doing a Tanita BC-1000 scale giveaway. I thought this was supercool considering I am on a quest to lower my body fat %!! I just had to share this with you!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Ding Dong! Special Delivery~

 

My front door has been a flurry of activity the last two days.
The postman.
The UPS man.
The FedEx woman.


It's Christmas in January!!

I got this lovely little package of running love from The Blue Eyed Runner



I got these from Jess at Blonde Ponytail and MissZippy1
They are going up on my gym WALL OF MOTIVATION


I got this package from K-Swiss from a Dailymile.com challenge


I got this package from Leah at Chasing Atlanta and the fabulous Brooks giveaway she did this fall (it only took so long because the super-awesome Glenn at Brooks wanted to hook me up with THE newest version of Trance 10's! I am hoping it was well worth the wait)


I am really, really hoping that the postman will SOON be delivering this: The Hot & Hunky Endurance Athlete Calendar featuring such hotties like Chris Lieto, Craig Alexander, Mark Foster and Kovas!!


Permission was NOT obtained for use of this image.


And I gotta say, the MOST EXCITING package came all the way from California!!


Hmmmm-I wonder what could be in that BIG BOX??
Do you care to take a guess??


I will say the box does have a little something to do with an upcoming giveaway!!

If you were one of the peeps who answered my TOUGH CHIKs call on Tuesday, you earned yourself an extra entry to the TWO upcoming giveaways!!
Stay tuned...

Monday, July 26, 2010

The Early Bird Gets the...POSTER!

My running is finally paying off big! cha-ching!

Last week I took part in a fun challenge on dailymile.com coordinated by Greg S. (brilliant blogger and positive voice on DM) The Predawn Runner Challenge. The challenge? Be the the first to finish 5 miles after 3am "wherein the goal is to demonstrate your commitment to getting out the door early by being the first one to complete your run for the day".
I love to get up and out early and could not wait for this challenge~I was hoping and praying that Lola would stay sleeping so I could run. I woke up at about 2:40 am and after downing a cup of coffee and a glass of water, I got ready to run. Since I interpreted the rules as "starting" at 3am, I was going to be ready to go!! The night before I was planning on running OUTSIDE but I did not really think about how dark and scary it really is at 3am. I was quite sure that there were lots of bogeymen out there ready to scoop me up and eat me. I considered just running around my 1/2 mile block 10 times but I think there are werewolves that live at the end of the street so that was out!
I decided to tough out the five miles on the treadmill instead. In my well lit, bogeyman and werewolf free home gym!

The first two miles were slow and I was still kind of shaking out the cobwebs from the old cranium but I found my groove and finished at 3:43:29, quite proud of myself for getting in a 5-er before 4:oo am!

I guess if I had read the rules a little closer (this line "The run must finish after 3:00 AM, and be submitted as your local time) I could have beat the running shorts off of Flyin' Brian from Chicago, but Brian won this challenge and beat me by two minutes. Brain snuck up on me because I was really expecting Brendan (a fellow Maine runnah) to be my biggest competition. However, I guess if I am going to lose to anyone, losing to Brian is cool with me. Brian is another awesome DM friend (who just PR'd at SanFran Marathon!! WOOO HOOOO!). But more on Flying Brian in a minute.
I didn't win this challenge, I was second to finish and second place is FIRST TO LOSE but guess what. Greg was so cool about it that he decided that I could win some cool Predawn Runner stuff too!


I won this very cool THE RUNNING MANIFESTO poster!


Proudly displayed in my home gym next to my treadmill with other motivational items and some of my favorite race bibs. I really love this poster and it's many positive running messages.















A big thank you to Greg S. for including second place :)


Now remember I mentioned earlier that we would get back to Brian in a minute? Well, back in May Brian coordinated another cool Dailymile challenge, The Jet Challenge where everyone ran 3.1 miles in honor of Jet and his amazing accomplishment of running 31 miles! Lucky me!! Brian got to pick 3 DM'ers to win a DM sticker and lo and behold! I had been selected to get one of the coveted DM stickers I had been drooling over for a couple weeks ~Another score!



Just the other day I found a dollar on the ground while running! $$$


And I know if I start bringing a giant trash bag with me on long runs I can easily make $1.oo or so picking up empties on the side of the road (if I am willing to let these stops interfere with my pacing! LOL).


While I will never win any races or get any cash prizes for my running, it has made me rich in many ways!
I have met some amazing people, I placed 3rd in my age division recently (and that medal is like GOLD to me!!) and I feel great when I run! THAT is what makes me so happy.

And yes, winning a poster and a sticker is pretty dang cool too!