#ShamrockOn bird invasion

Last weekend was big. BIG. It was a crazy whirlwind of everything Oiselle and everything running. My favorites!

Friday: Awesome road trip with my NC running besties Allie, Ellen, and Carolyn! Seriously, these ladies are hilarious and fabulous! We hit up the expo and met up with Nicole, who was brave enough to participate in our photo shenanigans (see Ellen's pic stitch here). Later we ate a delicious meal at Baladi--some of the best vegetarian food I've had in a long time!

Saturday: As most running vacations, our alarms went off real early.  Time to catch a beautiful sunrise and cheer on all the 8k racers! The women's 8k field was super deep, and a bunch of Oiselle fasties kicked butt! The rest of us dashed around the course as much as possible to cheer and snap photos with our fab team manager, Kristin.

Our group dinner that night was SUPER fun (Thank you Mollie for organizing!)! I tried to soak up pro tips from Heidi, Aubrey, and Kelsey, who are all crazy fast and inspiring. It was also great to see one of my original running buddies, Phyllis! Post-dinner gelato with Danielle, Amelia, my NC crew, and KMet was the perfect way to end the day.

8k cheering squad! Thank you Ashley for the awesome photo!

The whole crew! Photo credit: someone at dinner...

 Sunday: RACE DAY! Ellen and I *barely* made it to the start in time...meaning we both peed behind bushes during the national anthem after a frantic bag-drop. Hellooooo pre-race panic! But we made it to the start in time to find Lisa, Stephanie and Hollie, phew! I was SO thankful to have Lisa out there to run with for the first 5 miles--seriously a huge help! The course was quite lovely, and I tried to enjoy the forested area as we cruised along.

Splits 1-5:
6:45
6:42
6:33
6:39
6:35

After 5 miles, she pulled ahead and I ran solo for the rest of the race. At mile 5.5, the unpleasant reality of headwind re-entered the picture, and also when we ran through the military base. The various bugle calls broadcast over the load speaker, like this one and this one, definitely helped keep my mind off the fact that the wind was pretty strong. I took my Vanilla Gu and started to feel more perky despite the headwind.

Splits 6-10:
6:46
6:40
6:54 (distracted by a water stop, missed the actual split)
6:26
6:20

By mile 10, I knew it was time to get uncomfortable and drop some serious negative splits because....well because that's always my race strategy. Luckily there were a decent number of people around me and ahead of me to 'roadkill', which made it easier to maintain a faster pace. AND, there was a big ole' Oiselle cheering squad with a half mile to go that pushed me through to the end despite some wheezy/moaning sounds I was beginning to make!

Splits 11-13:
6:11
6:34
6:11

Overall time: 1:26:00--PR!

If you read my last post, then you know this was a big surprise. But I HARD rested the week leading up to the race in an effort to revive my legs. Ice bath, massage, very little running, a ton of foam rolling/stick torture, and some good old fashioned race visualization/planning. That plus a hearty dose of adrenaline got me through race day feeling good! Success!

Mile 12.5 ish Photo credit: Andrew

Mile 13...my form. Somone help me. photo credit: Drew

Post race with Hollie and Lisa

 

 

 

 

Smiles all around from these NC gals! Photo credit: KMet

What a great weekend!

Overall I would highly recommend this race--it was well organized, pancake flat, great post-race entertainment/food/drinks, and even some good swag including a beach towel!

Since I'm on the brink of breaking 1:26...I'm already plotting a fall half marathon. Any fast, flat suggestions?!

Over-trained

I had some lofty (yet attainable, I thought) goals for the Anthem Half Marathon next weekend. Despite some crazy-ass weather during January/February (including but not limited to: freezing rain, multiple snow days, single digit temperatures, rainy + windy days, and 3 track workouts in a row where it was snowing and insanely windy down the home stretch) my training was going well, although the mother nature was certainly testing my motivation/determination.

Photo credit: @ritbeard

I was managing to rock tempo runs and long runs (thank you running buddies for helping me!). I even had a couple stellar track workouts. I was feeling confident that I was progressing towards a nice, big half marathon PR. 

*Cue crash-and-burn sound effects*

Then, fecal matter hit the proverbial fan.  My legs started feeling as though they weren’t recovering, my motivation slowly but surely dwindled (and I'm sure whining commensurately increased), the majority of my runs began feeling like death marches, and holding my normal paces, let alone a tempo pace, triggered a lactic acid deluge. I’m sure the stress in my personal life was not helping.

Struggle. Fest.

Quotes from my BIA training journal over the last couple weeks:

“Legs felt terrible/dead”

“...felt really tough”

“Legs couldn’t ‘get-up-and-go’”

So, I backed off my miles, honored my rest days, and tried to have faith that my body would bounce back and start feeling springy again.  I used an 8k race on March 1^st as an opportunity to investigate whether any energy had returned to my lactic acid-ridden legs. 

The result: ehhh. 

The pace felt hard immediately, while I can usually glide through a couple miles with the help of adrenaline. It didn’t help that the course was HILLY. I felt pretty discouraged, but shouldn’t have. My time tied my 8k PR, it was a solid race, but the effort (both physically and mentally) felt HUGE. 

photo credit: Tir na Nog

What does this all mean? It means I’m re-evaluating my race goals for the half marathon. My body is telling me it’s struggling, so it doesn’t seem wise to press on and try to run my goal time. Instead, this seems like a good opportunity to focus on having a blast with a big group of Oiselle girls, and potentially ditching races plans altogether to just run for fun.

How have you bounced back from over-training? I could use some tips!!