No Sleep 'til Brooklyn

My half marathon rest period is officially finished. I did a decent 11 miles yesterday and I only logged about 18-19 during the week. I'll glad to finally get back in the routine this coming week. I told myself that I was going to cut down on the mileage a bit during the week after the Lewis and Clark race, so I could increase the strength training....but, I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do yet. I'll probably still try to increase the strength training, but keep logging about the same amount of mileage. I have a couple of 5ks coming up (one this weekend in Bloomington and one the following weekend in Mackinaw) so I might try to do some speed work. I definitely need to hit the gym hard this week because I've been eating like crazy during the past two weeks....the resting period really interrupts my routine. I love the races, but the week prior and the weeks after really take a hit on me.

On another note....I'm really considering running a full marathon next year. My goal for 2009 was to run a half. I ran my first half in April and then did my second a few weeks ago. I always said that I would never do more than a half....but lately I've really been giving it some thought. I don't want always wonder if I could have done a full....soooo, I'm considering making it a 2010 goal. Possibly Chicago in the fall? We'll see. Hopefully my feet and knees will hold up!!

Lewis & Clark Half Marathon - 1:51:31

Pre-Race pic of me and my bro-in-law!

I survived the Lewis & Clark!!! It was a beautiful day...perfect weather for a half marathon. Not too cold in the morning and it didn't really get too hot during the race. There were some serious port-a-potty issues (lots of port-a-pottie, but very few were actually operational) at the start line and at the end, but, over all it was a pretty good race.

I knew that I started off much faster than I had planned, but I was feeling pretty good so I just kept it up. Unfortunately, I felt a pit stop coming on at about mile 4. At mile 6, I sprinted to a port-a-potty station, but they were all occupied. Sooo....I made about a 10 second stop at mile 10. I had an orange cliff bar gummy at mile six and then half of a margarita gummy at mile 11. I also had a sip of water at 3 water stations.

Miles 10-11 were definitely the toughest. Mile 10 was more of a mental challenge because it was the most back-country stretch of the race....it was just us runners and some cornfields. I really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. I really started to drag at mile 11, but luckly by mile 12 we were back in the city and the crowds picked up my motivation.

10 minutes after my finish I started to feel extremely sick. Not sure if I was just severly dehydrated or what...but it was bad....REAL bad. I was sick all the way home from St. Louis...it wasn't fun. But, everytime I looked down at my stopwatch time I was able to smile just a bit.

Lots of hard work went into training for this one. My first half marathon was in April and I came in at around 2 hours. I'm pretty pleased with the improvement!

If it ain't rainin, we ain't trainin

I had a decent 12.5 mile run on Sunday...thanks to mother nature I'm still trying to dry out my shoes. As soon as I hit the road it started to sprinkle a bit, but I was going to drive on. At miles 5 and 8 the rain was coming down pretty good and I was soaked. But, I finished my last long run before the Lewis & Clark Half Marathon this coming weekend.

I did 6.23 in 50 min yesterday, I'll do a 30 min tempo run today, and then an easy jog around the pond tomorrow. Looking forward to the weekend!