Monday, October 28, 2013

Rock N Roll St. Louis Half Marathon

I went into my last half marathon with very little training but at least with knowing that I was running a half marathon. I had completely forgotten that I had even signed up for this particular race. I just haven't been running and training like I should be. So overall this was a horribly slow race that I felt pretty darn miserable for most of the run.

I started the race by meet several of my coworkers at work and then we rode the metro link from downtown to the race start. My friends Rebecca and Tracy were doing the full and several of the doctors and nurses I work with were doing the half. I hung out with Rebecca and Tracy while we waited for the race to start.
We took selfies while we waited to start.
After the start, Tracy and Rebecca quickly left me in their well trained dust. I held a decent run/walk interval for a while before getting passed up my Dr. Mark, whom of course I had to grope, it just wouldn't be right if I didn't smack him on the butt, right? So anyway after I was mildly inappropriate with one of my physicians, I kept chugging along but I started to notice some pain in my right ankle. My 5K time was 43:23.


A very crappy picture of me somewhere around mile 6 when I smelled sausages. I tend to be my most social when I'm running so I of course I had to say something. So of course they gave me a PBR, cause why not? I was still maintaining a decent pace for my lack of training and my 10K time ended up being 1:29:12.

My ankle started to really bother me in mile 7 but I kept going knowing that I had a couple of coworkers waiting to cheer me on at the 8 mile marker. By mile 9 though I gave in and had the medical tent wrap up my ankle. After that I couldn't run any more but I was bound and determined to cross the finish line. I had had a couple of DNS but I have never had a DNF and I didn't want this to be my first.


My 10 mile time was 2:34:29 and the next three miles were even worse. I struggled to finish the race and even sat down a couple of times along the race to rest my ankle. I was limping pretty bad and the pain was making me miserable. That last 3.1 miles took me nearly an hour and I ended up finishing in 3:37:59.

PFTW 10/28 - 11/3

Monday
Rest and Recovery day

Tuesday
Rest and Recovery day

Wednesday
Personal Training

Thursday
1 hour on a walk 4 run 1 interval

Friday
Personal Training

Saturday
Run 3 miles on a walk 4 run 1 interval

Sunday
Run 1 hour on a walk 4 run 1 interval

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Training Recap

Monday
3 miler at the park across the street from work. I did the 4 minutes walk and 1 minute of run and I felt fine. Ended up finishing my 3 miles in 42:41.

Tuesday
Ran for 1 hour with the 4:1 intervals in the park across the street from work again. I completed 4.14 miles.

Wednesday
Personal Training appointment, mostly chest and back.

Thursday
Rest day

Friday
Rest day

Saturday
Rest day. Spent a little bit of time at the race expo. Picked up a stick to roll out my calves in addition to my foam roller. Got some cute gray and pink 5 inch inseam running shorts, a few GUs and a cute fleece hat to wear during runs so my head doesn't get cold. I couldn't spend much time at the expo since I barely made it to the event before it closed but overall it seemed like your standard rock n roll expo. There was a big brooks shoe that you could ride ala ride the bull but alas I did no try it out.

Sunday
S. Louis Rock N Roll Half Marathon completed in 3:38:02. I had a lot of problems with my right ankle and ended up having to stop at a medical tent to get it wrapped but I did finish and I will have a race recap up soon. I never did the walk to run ratio, I just did whatever felt ok.

Monday, October 21, 2013

PFTW 10/21 - 10/27

I'm once again starting over since I never keep going. I'm trying a very basic walk/run ratio, currently walk 4 minutes/run 1 minute. I'm going to do this for a little while until I feel like I've started to improve then I'll move to a 3:2 and so and on and so forth. For now I'm just focusing on rotating 3 mile and 1 hour runs until I start a marathon training program in December. That's right I'm going to take another stab at the Go! St. Louis Marathon. Last year I was a DNS for this race which was kind of sad for me actually since I have run and completed a race in this series every year since I first started this craziness in 2010. Anyway enough of my rambling, here is my plan for the week...


  • Monday
    • Run 3 miles
  • Tuesday
    • Run 1 hour
  • Wednesday
    • Personal Training
  • Thursday
    • Run 1 hour
  • Friday
    • Personal Training
  • Saturday
    • Run 3 miles
  • Sunday
    • St. Louis Rock N Roll Half Marathon
      • Goal A 2:53 - New Half Marathon PR
      • Goal B 2:55 - New Course PR
      • Goal C 3:20 - Not my worst half ever... :)

I'm aware that I have scheduled no rest days in there but I'm fully willing to ditch that Saturday run if I feel like my legs are too tired. Add on to all of that lots and lots of foam rolling and hopefully Sunday won't kill me.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Weekly Recap

Overall this week was pretty much a bust exercise wise. I did my 2 personal training appointments and no other cardio this week. I honestly can't justify it besides just feeling tired and working a ton. I wasn't injured or sick. If I plan to run a marathon in April I need to really get serious with training and soon. December 1 will be were I need to start the marathon training.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Weigh in Thursday

Well due to working Tuesday night and never really going to sleep until late Wednesday, I bring you weigh in Thursday. 



This week was fairly good. There were some definite areas for improvement for for food and exercise but I hit my goal. I know not that hard since I weighed in at 203.2 last week but at least I'm working with a downward trend. I am hoping for a 1 pound weight loss for this week bringing me to 202 by Wednesday. I'm going to try a little harder to watch the calorie intake on my food and I'm going to aim to complete my 2 personal training sessions and 3-4 3 mile runs this week which will be helpful. 

If I can just maintain an average of 1 pound a week then I will reach my goal of 135 pounds in 68 weeks. 

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Go! St. Louis Halloween 5K Race Recap

Go! St. Louis is one of my favorite local race organizations. They put on more and more races every year and now I can say I've run one of each of their 3 races. Last year I volunteered for this race when it was only the 5K and 10K routes. This year they added a half marathon and had the 5K start at a different time. There was one water stop and sadly no port-a-potties, which turned out to be a downfall for me.

Overall, it wasn't the best race for me or fiance. His ankle was bothering him and I haven't been training, well, at all. My overall finish time for the 5K was 46:22 and his was 46:23. I won! Haha

The 5K started before the 10K and the half marathon so there weren't a ton of spectators on the course but the volunteers were nice, the weather was perfect and the course wasn't to hilly. The medal was kinda crappy compared to some of the other medals this organization has had in the past so that was my major source of disappointment in the race.

Only a few more days until my surprise half marathon...

Monday, October 14, 2013

PFTW 10/14-10/20

Monday
  • Rest
Tuesday
  • Personal Training
Wednesday
  • Run 3 miles
  • Bike 30 minutes
Thursday

  • Bike 30 minutes

Friday

  • Personal Training

Saturday

  • Run 3 miles

Sunday

  • Run 3 miles

Sunday, October 13, 2013

This Weeks Recap

Monday
  • Ran 3.3 miles in 51:44 in the park across from my work. Ran the same route as the very first 5K I ever ran.
Tuesday
  • Rest day
Wednesday
  • Personal Training Appointment
Thursday
  • Ran 3 miles in 45:54 right after work in the park across from work. It was absolutely beautiful running at dawn, the weather was perfect and the run was wonderful.
Friday
  • Rest day  -  I was supposed to have a personal training session but I was so exhausted that I ended up spending the day sleeping.
Saturday
  • Rest day
Sunday
  • Ran the Go! St. Louis Halloween 5K with my fiancĂ©. My GPS showed a total of 3.38 miles in 47:02. Official time was 46:22 for me and 46:23 for fiancĂ©. 
  • Spent some time on the bicycles with bonus kid and my 9 year old cousin. Bonus kid is finally getting the hang of riding without the training wheels and soon I should have an extra buddy for my bike rides.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

LIfe as an Absent Minded Runner


Well I had hemmed and hawed and thought about running the Rock N Roll Half Marathon. I've run the STL RnR every year since it came to town but I really haven't been in the best of shape and haven't been keeping up with my training. By the time I started putting a lot of thought into it, the price was 110 bucks for registration and I just couldn't bring myself to spend the cash on a half marathon that I wasn't trained for.

Fast forward to yesterday, I'm doing my daily computer routine, which starts with checking my emails. Inside my personal email is an email for my race confirmation. I was a little confused but apparently at some point I registered for the half marathon and now I'm running it in just a couple weeks.

So in case you were wondering I have 1 half marathon and 3 5Ks left before the end of the year, more if one of my coworkers talks me into a running series that runs from mid December thru to February with every other week having a increasingly long run.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Weigh in Wednesday


My goal was to get down to 204 so mission accomplished and then some. I'm really happy about hitting my goal and hoping to hit next weeks goal which is 203. Which is hopefully very very attainable!

Friday, October 4, 2013

Fun Foto Friday


That's the truth around here... Race # 20 in the books and 21 & 22 scheduled this month!

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Weigh In Wednesday


Well it's a fresh start. I managed to stay under my 1700 calories yesterday an packed my lunch for work yesterday and today. 

My goal for next week is to be at 204 pounds so just 0.8 to lose for the week. 

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

October Goals


Miles to run : 39

Miles to bike : 40

Races to run : 1

Personal Training : 8

Goals: 
  • Be able to run 1 mile without stopping.
  • Lose 4 pounds
  • Eat a completely healthy diet for 1 month. No fast food, no fried food, and less than 1600 calories per day.