Lora's First-Timers Women's Group - CLOSED (Page 29)

Hi Everyone!!

I met my goal this week for Team Abusement park.  2 runs, 1 bike. 

Janet - sorry to hear about the injuries.  Are you feeling any better yet?

Christine - I'm impressed you kept up with your training and lost a pound on vacation!  That's awesome.  I have vacation coming up in 2 weeks, hope I can do that well.  We'll be in Napa and Sonoma so that should be a beautiful place to run/bike.  As for your other post about how fast to run.  I agree, depends on your goal.  As Lora said, I'm working on distance before pace as you can tell from my 13min/mile pace from my 4 mile run today!!  Man I think I could literally walk faster than I jog...how sad.  Owell, I'm still faster than I am sitting on my couch!

Kami - Great job on your 5k!  Sounds like a fun route with lots of cool scenery.

Janet - sounds like you picked a good goal for the challenge.  Hopefully the 18.5 hours of biking you have coming will help you feel more confident about your upcoming race.  I just got out on my bike for the first time on the roads today.  I've only ever biked on the rail trail before today.  It's scary sharing the road with traffic!

lck - great job on the 5k.  I need to find some more to do.  They are fun!

I didn't post much this week, so I have a lot to say

We put our deposit in on our ceremony and reception site - official date 6/18/10 - woohoo!  www.stonemillinn.com in case you're interested! 

My fiance is thinking about doing a half marathon next weekend and his furthest run is just over 6 miles.  I keep telling him not to do it.  He's  on BT.com too and he started a thread about it and first everyone was telling him not to do it, but now I think they've mostly started telling him to do it!  We went for a run this morning and he was ahead of me and I saw him stop and walk quite a bit his first mile and a half.  He has horrible plantar faciatis (sp?).  He said after his feet stretched out he felt better.  I think he is crazy and should not run this race, but I guess he's going to try to do a run/walk or something.  He thinks he should be able to do it if the Biggest Losers did it!  We'll see if he goes through with it.  I hope not!

I ran 4 miles today.  Slower than ever, but I did it.  I enjoyed it too.  I could have probably gone further, but I had a weight watcher meeting that I had to get to.  Speaking of which - I was went on a 6 week hiatis from WW and went back last weekend and only gained 0.2!  I weighed in today and lost 2.  Starting back in the right direction.  I certainly have some motivation now!

My heart rate monitor and Ipod quit working on my run today!  Ipod is charging now.  I have a Polar f4 HRM.  I guess you have to buy a new chest strap for the HRM when the battery dies.  There is no where to get a battery in or out of it.  I looked online and it looks like you're supposed to sent your chest strap to them to have the battery replaced.  What a PITA!  I think I'm going to take this opportunity to purchase a Garmin.  I was just reading about the Garmin Forerunners.  Any one have any opinions?  I found a Garmin Forerunner 305 for $150 at costo.  I think I'm going to get it.  I loved loved loved working out with my regular old Polar HRM.  The garmin will be awesome.  Especially for when I'm traveling and can't map out a route ahead of time.

Well I think that's it for now.  Happy training everyone!

Lora,

I did 2.02 miles on the bike.  I need to rethink how I'm going to track the bike goal since I just had a total.  I'll give it some thought this week.

Sue

Morning ladies.  It's raining - again!  And supposed to rain for the next couple of days.  I can't remember when we've had this much rain in June.  It may be a blessing in disguise for me though.  It will keep me on the TM for my runs (which I will take slowly this week) and probably cancel the speedwork session at the track tomorrow night, which I really shouldn't go to anyway!  My leg is feeling better - still a little soreness in my calf especially going up and down stairs, but overall it's doing OK. 

Lisa - congrats on your race!  That's a great time for a first 5k!  I volunteered at a local triathlon before I did my first one.  It was one of the reasons that I decided to try one myself - so many "normal-looking" people doing it. 

Maggie - Congrats on setting the date!  Regarding your fiance and the half marathon - I think it depends a lot on his goal for the race.  If he's just looking to finish, then he'll probably be OK.  That doesn't necessarily mean I think it's a good idea, but a lot of people have finished a half marathon being unprepared - including me.  However, I did not enjoy the experience and looking back, I wish I wouldn't have even attempted it.  And if he's having a problem with PF, that's another good reason to put it off - he could aggravate the condition and then not be able to run at all for a while.  Just my $.02.

As for the Garmin - I have the Forerunner 305 and I love it!  I haven't tried out the HRM yet, but I love the other features.  The best part, of course, is not having to remember where I ran or always running the same route so that I'll know the distance - the Garmin does it all for me!  I also like that I can set intervals.  I still do run/walk on some of my longer runs so I can set it to tell me when to run and when I can take a walk break.  Having the walk breaks timed keeps them from getting too long.  The pace alert is nice too - keeps you from going out too fast, especially in a race situation.  I would definitely recommend one. 

Christine - I have to agree with the others.  Distance before speed, unless you never plan to run anything more than a 5k or other short distance.  I've never done any kind of speedwork (at least not until 2 weeks ago), but my 5k times have decreased quite a bit over the last 6 months.  I think it comes from a combination of running longer distances and the cross-training I get from training for tri's. 

Kami - congrats on your race (I know I'm a little late, but wanted to get that in there)!  The Race for the Cure was held here in St. Louis this past weekend and they had over 66,000 people down there.  That's the main reason I don't usually do this race - it's just too crowded for me.  I'll usually do a more local race that also benefits breast cancer research - that way I still contribute to the cause, but in a more comfortable atmosphere for me. 

OK, better get some work done.  I've got 4-1/2 days this week and then vacation time.  We're not going anywhere this year, but I am still looking forward to some time away from the office!  Hopefully next week won't be filled with rain and I can get some decent training in.
Have a great day!
Janet

I did another 4 mile run yesterday.  I'm short on last week's goal, but between rain and a sick kid I had to miss my short run.  I'm tapering for my race now, but I'm going to add that run to this week to get the miles.  It's only 23 minutes, so it shouldn't upset the taper plan too much. 

I do NOT like tapering!  I woke up yesterday morning at 3:45 am, with my body buzzing with energy.  This is after being up until after 11:00 pm for the past three nights, something I never do.  I tried to go back to sleep, since I really didn't need to be up until 7:00, but only managed to doze a couple of times.  I finally went out for my run at 6:30.  I had a beer yesterday evening and that helped me get a decent night's sleep last night. 

Morning!  So I tried an easy run on the TM last night - well, run/walk actually.  I did 2 min running/2 min walking for 20 min plus a short warmup and cooldown.  I had a little soreness in my calf during the run segments but it wasn't too bad.  I didn't want to push my luck though, so stopped after a total of 30 min.  I did a lot of stretching and massaging of the leg afterwards and then wore my compression sleeve on it overnight - it's supposed to be good for recovery so I thought I'd give it a try.  My leg feels surprisingly good this morning.  There's a little stiffness (probably from the vigorous massaging last night) but the soreness is minimal, even going up and down stairs.  I'm taking this as a good sign, but I will skip the speedwork session at the track tonight (you have my permission to yell at me if I'm dumb enough to go).  I'll probably hit the gym instead since it's supposed to rain all day anyway and get in a bike workout and maybe some upper body strength training. 

Hope everyone has a good day!
Janet

It seems like many people have stuff go wrong the week before the race, and everyone tells them not to worry about the training, because they are ready and the rest usually helps.  I guess the message is - don't panic!

Christine - Sorry about the headache.  Migraines are killer.  Take care of yourself.  And remember that you have lots of support from this group.  We all want you to succeed.

BTW, I really enjoyed reading about your vacation on your blog.

Kami,

No Zicam.  I would be surprised if it's still on store shelves.   It turns out it can cause people to lose their sense of smell and the FDA just halted sales. 

Sue

Hi all!

Chris, it is good to hear that you are turning around. as I noted to you I am also smarting from losing my father just over a year ago (this will be my second without him) and it is difficult, he was my friend. Ah, well.

I didn't make my swim goal last week - I only made it into the pool once.

I had a nice ride with some other BT folks over the weekend, and I took my bike to the sameplace yesterday and did a brick - 10 mile ride, 2 mile run. I literally could not feel my legs so cannot comment on pace or anything. This am I went to the track to do a run as I overslept and woudl not have had time to go to where I usually do my 5 mile run. I could barely make 2.5 miles! what IS that?

I am very disappointed by todays session!

I think fatigue is catching up with me, the past week I have been waking up 'late" (6am) and I am a little lethargic in the am...to make my swims I am usually up at 4 am. I am not going to bed early enough, I know. Hard to do with 4 kids a dog a job etc etc....PLUS it has been raining here for the last couple of weeks, and is much cooler than usual. While it is GREAT exercise weather, it makes it hard for me to get up in the am...(sigh)