2012 Races and Events

1/22/2012  The One Hour Track Run. Russellville, AR 6.65 miles and 814 feet, 26 laps
2/04/2012  RiverTrail 15k.  Little Rock, AR 1:27:18
2/11/2012  Valentine's Day 5k.  Russellville, AR 25:19
2/11/2012  Shut Up + Run: Virtual Run for Sherry Arnold
2/18/2012  Sylamore 25k
2/19/2012  Run the Line Half Marathon.  Texarkana, TX and Arkansas  2:02:58
3/10/2012  Chase Race 2M.  Conway, AR 15:28
3/17/2012  Big Rock Mystery Run.  Little Rock, AR 2:19
3/24/2012  Spring Fling 5k.  Cabot, AR  24:14
3/31/2012  HighRock Hop 10 Miler.  Batesville, AR  2:37:05
4/07/2012  Capital City Classic 10k.  Little Rock, AR 51:20
5/05/2012  Toad Suck 10k.  Conway, AR 57:34
5/12/2012  Women Run Arkansas 5k.  Conway, AR 23:53
5/13/2012  Jesse is Awesome 1/2 Marathon. Little Rock, AR 2:10:59
5/19/2012  Joplin Memorial Run 1/2 Marathon. Joplin, MO 2:03:39
6/16/2012  Go!Mile.  Little Rock, AR 6:43
9/02/2012  Tupelo 14.2 Miler.  Tupelo, MS
12/8/2012  Frozen Feet 5k.  Conway, AR 21:50

Notable for the year:  I qualified for the Half-Fanatics by running 2 in 2 days with the Sylamore 25k trail race and the Run the Line 1/2 Marathon, ran my fastest mile ever with the 6:43, took 3rd overall in the clinic division at the Women Run Arkansas 5k and set a 5k personal record at 21:50 in December.  Not much racing wise for the 2nd part of the year but had some awesome training with a great workout partner.

Kickball?

Kickball is something I never played in school--yeah, I know, how could that be--and never thought I'd be interested in until I stumbled across an article about the Little Rock Kickball Association. OHMYGOSH I think I had a deprived childhood!  I certainly wish that I had found out about sooner, Poo is my hero! Whoa,  exclamation overload, eh? But seriously watch this documentary and tell me you don't wanna have fun with these people! Gives me warm fuzzies about where I'm from which I only get on rare occasions anymore.

"See Ya Sunday"

Earworm. The way past time post.

Currently on repeat.  

Will be buying this album when it's released: Devour the Day "Good Man"

almost zen

You know those runs where you feel like you can go on forever at the nice easy relaxed pace?  Yeah, that happened this morning..........at least until I reached my turnaround point and realized that I had been on a slight decline and the wind had been at my back.  Ha! That was a kick in the old ego moment but until then it was a gorgeous feeling and dare I say even zen-like.  Just me with the sound of my footfalls and breathing as my music and the countryside all shrouded in a light fog.  Oh, and an occasional beep from my garmin just to keep things real.

To Imodium or not to Imodium

Whew, I am tired, and until 30 minutes ago very stinky.  Today marked the 16th race for my Half-Fanatic status (qualified February 2012 with doing 2 in 2 days), the third for the year and also my first race ever in the UK, the Stafford Half Marathon.  What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment apparently--but not to the extent where I'm going to start running marathons, two of those were quite enough thankyouverymuch!

I am not quite sure where to start since I am so out of practice writing race reports..........lol, I don't think I wrote particularly good ones to begin with but this has been quite a long dry spell.  With that I guess I will start with that I found it quite odd that you could collect your medal BEFORE the race began! Apparently that's fairly common over here.  Next, I am not a fan of late race starts unless it is a night race.  Today's started at 10 am, the Colonial half in Williamsburg, VA last month started at 1:10 pm.  I can never figure out my nutrition with these because I am generally an early morning, before breakfast runner and I invariably end up with tummy issues.  Also today was COOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD--but not cold enough to be comfortable with a long sleeve shirt and tights, at least for me.  It was cold enough though that my feet felt numb for the first 2 miles of running.  At least we didn't get the forecast heavy rains.

Overall impressions of the Stafford Half Marathon, very pretty scenic course that wound you through the town center at the start and finish (not sure I like that, too reminiscent of the Hogeye finish), HUGE amounts of crowd support during the majority of the race, and oh, a hill climb that went on for over a mile!  There was a mix of path and road that was nice except during the last 3 miles when it took us over some slippery grass and muddy areas (my right hamstring is protesting the couple of slides I took).  I am not too sure I like the water bottle method at the water stops--there were a few near misses when people tossed them on the ground.

Another thing I found odd was that hardly anyone thanked the volunteers, police officers, or spectators but that one is most definitely a cultural difference between the Brits and Americans.  I can understand not doing so when you're a front runner but when you're a middle of the packer like me it seems impolite not to do so. It was explained to me afterward that nobody expects it and if you did, you are likely to get "Why are you talking, put some effort into it!".  Lol, just one of those things to adjust to.

I didn't go into this race expecting a personal record because it was such a hilly course and I still have some lingering bits of jet lag but I surprisingly found myself with a great pace that felt easy.  Not fast, mind, but a respectable pace nonetheless.  I even managed to unpin my bib from my long sleeve shirt, take it off to tie around my waist, and re-pin it to my short sleeve shirt while keeping an 8:30 pace.  There were very explicit instructions on where you could pin the bib, couldn't be off to the side or on your leg (I usually wear mine pinned to my shorts or tights).

Sounds like I had a great race, eh?  I did, right up until mile 9, even the 1.3 mile long hill was kept to 8:41........but then my stomach and intestines decided to play a nasty trick on me by deciding they were not gonna play along with this racing business.  I dropped to 8:49, 8:30, 8:37, 9:08, 8:38, and 7:59 for the last .10th of a mile.  Yep, despite the fantastic feeling legs, I had to take a walk break at mile 12 to prevent an "accident", grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  I should have been kicking out 8:10-8:15 minute miles at that point.  UGH, BLECH, and a whole host of expletives that I won't subject y'all to.  Feel free to use your imagination and fill in the blanks though ;-).  It's time to revive the Imodium usage apparently.

Final stats for today:  gun time 1:54:54, chip time 1:52:54 (yes it took me 2 minutes to cross the start line mat!) 1037/2079 Overall (gun time), 171/? Female, 28/107 Age Group.  So if you use my chip time this is my 2nd fastest half marathon ever, narrowly edging out the Williamsburg by 50 seconds--gun time is faster on the latter though because it only took me 15 seconds to cross the start mat.  I am still looking for another sub 1:50 though, guess I need to look for a flat race again!

Fitness is in the Air

I love the idea of fitness parties but my group of friends has been doing something similar for years, we are ahead of the trend curve!

Let them eat cake later: Americans hosting 'fitness parties'

"From spinning birthday celebrations to pole dancing bachelorette bashes, U.S. gyms are offering fitness parties as new ways to mark life's mile stones - with a few friends and good sweat"

While on the subject of fitness head over to the Helmet or Heels blog and give her a thumbs up and an atta-girl for starting the Couch to 5k program.  Way to go!

Where's the love for Android?

So there is a really cool app that I would like to download but apparently it's only for the *I* market.......come on creators, designers, and companies, there is more to the phone market than the iphone, give us android owners some love already.

Oh and the app in question that has sparked this grumbly post? The Stylebook app! Check it out, if they ever get around to making it available for my phone's operating system I am downloading it immediately.  While there sign up on the waiting list so hopefully they will get around to creating one much, much, much sooner. Huge thanks to the always well turned out and immensely talented author Gail Carriger via her Retro Rack blog for creating this want, nay NEED, for something I can't have.

Overdoing it?

I might be overdoing it on the music posts but I'm kind of excited about finding some new to me tunes after being a bit stagnant in that department for a few months.  Hope everyone is enjoying it as much as I am.

Don't these two sound gorgeous together? 

It only hurts for a short time

Wasn't it just a few days ago I was rambling on about PB's vs PR's? Why yes, I think it was ;-).  Anyway this past weekend I decided on the down low to tag along with Speedy Girl to her 5k even though I can't really afford any luxuries right now.........and yes a race is a luxury at the moment after all of Elsie's vet bills this fall, I am still trying to dig myself out of that and she needs to go back for another round of antibiotics and tests. However it was kind of nice treating myself to a race after so long and I was kind of curious about where I am at competition running wise.  

This brings me to the race......it was the first annual Frozen Feet 5k in Conway, AR and while the weather didn't quite cooperate with the race name it was certainly kind of nice to not be freezing while standing around waiting on start time.  It was slightly humid but the sun stayed behind the clouds so that kept the temperature down to a manageable level.  Since it was a spur of the moment kind of decision I hadn't looked up any race info until we were on our way over and it was a bit of sticker shock to find out the registration was $30, fairly steep for a 5k.  We didn't get any shirts that morning but they did say they would send them to us, the junior auxiliary was trying not to have any overages which I can't blame them for and while I'm not necessarily wanting to add to my collection I do want a shirt for that price!  

The course ended up being a familiar one since they used the Women Can Run 5k route! Can't say I blame them since it is already marked and all but darn it those 13 turns are a pain in the arse especially when you are trying to shave off as much time as possible.  As usual there was a jackrabbit start but I just let them go and did my own pace since I was fairly sure the super quick start would catch up to most of them within the first mile.  Just settled in and started reeling people in, listening to their labored breathing as I did so.  It ended up being a smaller race and I was able to keep track of where I was at and where Speedy Girl was at--I know I could never keep up with her but was wanting to know where her position was at because I knew she would be either 1st or 2nd female overall.  

As the first 2 miles clicked by I was feeling strong and while I was working hard I wasn't in the state that most people around me were judging by their breathing.  It was just after mile 2 that I started feeling my right shoe lace starting to loosen up--the shoes I was wearing are bad about coming untied but I had triple-knotted them prior to the race but evidently it wasn't enough, I kept running on but it got loose enough that I had to stop and re-tie it with 4/10 of a mile left to go, and two girls and a guy that I'd passed zoomed by me.  Unfortunately it was the shoe that I'd attached the chip to and I had no choice but to stop, visions of the shoe flying off into someone's yard and having to chase it down was haunting me lol.  

So a very quick stop to lace a shoe and then I was up and after the trio, no way was I gonna let them finish ahead of me!  I do think it surprised them that I caught up and passed so quickly but I was on a mission and I was highly peeved at myself and my shoes........it was at this point that the finish line clock came into sight and I saw the seconds in the 40s clicking down (up?) and heard Speedy Girl yelling at me that I was 3rd female so I managed to find another burst of speed and pushed on as hard as possible because no way did I want that to turn over into the next minute!  Talk about hitting the puke zone, ugh.

My previous 5k pr of 23:20 was set back in 2009 and the Women Can Run race on the same course back in the spring was 23:53 so I was hoping for a sub 23 best case scenario.........my official chip time Saturday was 21:50, a personal record of 1:30!!!!!!!!!!!! I never dreamed I could hit sub 22, it is still mind-boggling that I did it and that's with losing 10-15 seconds because of the damn shoe lace.  My splits for the first 2 miles were fairly even (6:56 and 6:54), mile 3 would have been close to the same--there's a huge spike upward in the graph from my garmin.   And yes, I placed 3rd overall female which was a minute and one second behind S.G. who took 2nd.  I am extremely appreciative of her sharing her training and schedule with me because it kept me pushing hard when I had no reason to do so and certainly toughened me up mentally. 

Earworm!

I think I might have a new earworm obsession in the form of Willy Moon. Warning: there is "adult" language so be careful about clicking play in the presence of kids or those easily offended ;-).

PB vs PR

So I do a little bit of running here and there--you might have noticed from my sidebar that there's not much in the way of racing going on but I still like to get out and do a nice little speed workout occasionally to remind the legs how it feels to go fast (relatively speaking).  My training partner by the way is just a wee bit on the fast side--she was first overall female in a recent half marathon at a pace per mile that is faster than my 5k personal record--so when I do a specialized workout with her my goal is to at least try and keep her within sight (usually doesn't happen, lol).  Today ended up being a 1 mile full out after a warmup, recovery slog, then a half mile full out again............My personal record for the mile distance is 6:43, well today I managed to eke out a 6:35, not a record since it wasn't a race but most definitely a personal best.  Why yes, I was quite stoked to see that time, at least after I got my breathing back under control.  Even better was that I did a 3:10 half mile after the recovery slog (slow jog).  Yes, my friend's time were quite a bit faster but hey, a person has to have a "rabbit" right? Makes me wonder what I could do in a 5k right now.

Movie recommendation

Stumbled across a great indie horror film while browsing through Netflix last night during my bout of insomnia.  Not too heavy on the gore, fantastic acting by the entire cast and WOW, I did not recognize Kelly McGillis until the credits were rolling!!!!!!

"Stake Land"

The Second Hand Pledge

This is such an awesomely cool idea from The Citizen Rosebud.  More and more of my wardrobe is consisting of vintage and second hand items (especially the leather garments) so this definitely fits in with my current lifestyle.  Even a favorite pair of boots was purchased at a vintage shop in the UK last fall.

How about you, will you take the shop second hand first pledge too?

Hi there December

Can you believe it's December already? Where ever has the time gone? After a couple of weeks of late-fall, early winter temps Mother Nature has decided that we needed some spring-like days here in the south.  I'm not going to complain too terribly much because I've been constantly shivering due to keeping the thermostat set at 68F in order to save money.  Yes, I realize that's not cold to some people but I also keep the air conditioning temp set at 75-78F during the summer so this is a bit of a shock to my system.  And how nice was it to be able to run outside in shorts and a jog bra comfortably on the first day of December........yep, not complaining at all, lol.

I had a gorgeous picture to download from a Thanksgiving walk but apparently I've exceeded my 1 gig storage limit so no photos until I get that sorted out.  Oh, and no promises about how often I am going to update the blog because that's certainly worked out so well in the past, HA!

In the meantime, enjoy a song from The Heavy that was featured on last season's "Being Human".  Good stuff, both the song and the show (one of the few I have the patience to watch).

My first "official" loch

At this rate I may actually get all of my 3 days in Scotland trip posts done in October (wouldn't lay any money down on that though, lol).  Loch Lomond was my first official visit to the shores of a Scottish lake, fitting since it is the largest freshwater body of water for surface area in mainland Great Britain.  My guide for the trip suggested we skip the tourist-laden southern areas and we stopped at an access that only had 3 other cars in it just a bit further north.

What impressed me was how tidy most of the areas were/are in the UK

See, not a bit of debris anywhere but then again trash bins were available everywhere

Mist rolling in over the hills on opposite bank

Looking north at the mountains getting progressively taller

So incredibly peaceful, you couldn't hear the highway noise, just the waves rolling in

Love the play of light as the clouds and mist shifted

So clear

Duck swimming through the waves

I don't put much stock into astrology but I do certainly seem to live up to my Pisces nature when it comes to water

Smile :-)

On the road again

Haven't done a song in a while so leaving with a live version of "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" from The Real McKenzies