Post by secretlyevil on Oct 1, 2014 8:52:53 GMT -5
I guess I should do a full race report. Well a third of the race anyway.
I had a few things I was worried about, the timing of my start pretty much was the cause of all of it. I have never done a half that late in the day, I was worried about fuel, hydration and heat. Weather cooperated, it was still hot but it could have been oh so much worse. Fuel, in my nervousness, I ate too much and felt nauseous my whole race. Around mile 10 I really thought I was going to puke. Fortunately/unfortunately I didn't. I forgot to take my pre-race Aleeve so things were way too achy.
For all the things that "went wrong," I enjoyed the race. The course support was phenomenal, there were a ton of spectators. The course itself was flat, a bit uneven in spots but really flat. I really liked spectating the first two thirds of the race, just seeing all the participants was really cool. Overall the participants were really supportive of each other too which made being in the middle of it lots of fun. I would do the relay again.
The one thing I thought was interesting, I expected more security and there really wasn't any.
I WON MY WORKOUT BET FOR SEPTEMBER! Free pedicure for me!!
I won by exactly 5 minutes with 18 hours, 19 minutes and 5 seconds of logged workout time. And because I'm wrong in the head, I actually feel kinda bad about it. My opponent is leaving today for a business trip, her daughter's birthday party is the day she gets back, and she was helping her nieces with homecoming stuff so she's been slammed. I promised myself that I would just workout for as long as I would normally and not see how much I needed to win and then either I win or I lose and that's that. Aaaaand I won.
Running has been so-so the past week, but I've been at least getting out there every day I'm supposed to. I think I'm doing a 7k in my neighborhood on Sunday AM. Marathon relay (6-7 miles depending on my leg) is in 2.5 weeks.
I still weigh exactly the same as I did 6 months ago. As usual. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?? I was talking to MH about the fact that I didn't change my eating at all really (it's not terrible to start. A little carb heavy, but lots of veggies too) but have more than doubled the amount of exercise I'm getting - so based on my understanding of the physical laws of the universe (conservation of energy??) would say that I should be losing weight. I mean...where are these calories that I'm burning coming from?? I was maintaining this weight for several months before, so it's not like I had a huge calorie excess to start. His theory is that my body is doing some absurd female metabolism plateau thing and if I keep this up it'll just suddenly start dropping at some point. I am not hopeful.
But mostly I just try not to care because this is probably the best cardiovascular shape I've been in since I was 14 and that's pretty damn cool.
I guess I should do a full race report. Well a third of the race anyway.
I had a few things I was worried about, the timing of my start pretty much was the cause of all of it. I have never done a half that late in the day, I was worried about fuel, hydration and heat. Weather cooperated, it was still hot but it could have been oh so much worse. Fuel, in my nervousness, I ate too much and felt nauseous my whole race. Around mile 10 I really thought I was going to puke. Fortunately/unfortunately I didn't. I forgot to take my pre-race Aleeve so things were way too achy.
For all the things that "went wrong," I enjoyed the race. The course support was phenomenal, there were a ton of spectators. The course itself was flat, a bit uneven in spots but really flat. I really liked spectating the first two thirds of the race, just seeing all the participants was really cool. Overall the participants were really supportive of each other too which made being in the middle of it lots of fun. I would do the relay again.
The one thing I thought was interesting, I expected more security and there really wasn't any.
boo for pukey feelings. I'm glad you enjoyed the race though! I want to know more about how the transitions worked with the relay. Like, did you have to wait in a certain area, did mr. emilyj have to be off his bike and park it and then go slap your hand or hand you the timing chip or something? the transition times were longer than I was expecting since it's a relay and in theory the next person would be all ready go to?
Running has been so-so the past week, but I've been at least getting out there every day I'm supposed to. I think I'm doing a 7k in my neighborhood on Sunday AM. Marathon relay (6-7 miles depending on my leg) is in 2.5 weeks.
Let me know what leg you end up running. I may be able to cheer you on and/or give you beer or water! We'll be in one of 3 places that day, all of which are on the main route.
Post by secretlyevil on Oct 1, 2014 9:06:51 GMT -5
The transition timing is uber misleading. The timing stopped and started at a point and then people had to keep going a long way IMO to the actual transition area. We were all in a relay corral and were waiting, all we had to do was switch the timing strap. The actual hand off was all of 30 seconds. Emilyj will be able to tell you better but I felt like she had to run just shy of a quarter mile or so from where she got out of the water to Mr. Emilyj. That counted as transition time I believe.
Running has been so-so the past week, but I've been at least getting out there every day I'm supposed to. I think I'm doing a 7k in my neighborhood on Sunday AM. Marathon relay (6-7 miles depending on my leg) is in 2.5 weeks.
Let me know what leg you end up running. I may be able to cheer you on and/or give you beer or water! We'll be in one of 3 places that day, all of which are on the main route.
The transition timing is uber misleading. The timing stopped and started at a point and then people had to keep going a long way IMO to the actual transition area. We were all in a relay corral and were waiting, all we had to do was switch the timing strap. The actual hand off was all of 30 seconds. Emilyj will be able to tell you better but I felt like she had to run just shy of a quarter mile or so from where she got out of the water to Mr. Emilyj. That counted as transition time I believe.
ahh, that makes sense. I was trying to figure out how it could take that long to hand off a chip and figured there must have been some sort of artificial barrier to a quick switch over. Like....they made you sit there with your shoes off or something ridiculous - rather than the end of leg to transition corral just being a long distance.
Hey, random question that just occurred to me...this marathon relay is held concurrently with a real marathon. I've never done more than a 5k. Is there anything in terms of race etiquette that I need to know so as not to be an asshole while running with real runners?
Besides the obvious stuff of don't run down the middle of the course with headphones oblivious to everything and then come to a dead stop with no warning.
My arms/chestal region hurt like fire today. I lifted to the point of failure yesterday (on purpose) and it felt damn good. I had trouble eating my sandwich after working out yesterday, my arms weren't cooperating. I've missed doing straight lift.
I'm switching up my schedule to 2 days cross train, 2 days lift, (hopefully) 2 days run with today being my off day.
Hey, random question that just occurred to me...this marathon relay is held concurrently with a real marathon. I've never done more than a 5k. Is there anything in terms of race etiquette that I need to know so as not to be an asshole while running with real runners?
Hey, random question that just occurred to me...this marathon relay is held concurrently with a real marathon. I've never done more than a 5k. Is there anything in terms of race etiquette that I need to know so as not to be an asshole while running with real runners?
Besides the obvious stuff of don't run down the middle of the course with headphones oblivious to everything and then come to a dead stop with no warning.
Pay attention to the race volunteers. They will direct you to where you need to go. Good luck and have fun!
Post by secretlyevil on Oct 1, 2014 9:31:29 GMT -5
Stay to the right, pass on the left, check over your shoulders before passing or slowing down. The passing on the left thing will probably go out the door.
Hey, random question that just occurred to me...this marathon relay is held concurrently with a real marathon. I've never done more than a 5k. Is there anything in terms of race etiquette that I need to know so as not to be an asshole while running with real runners?
::smacks wawa:: You're a real runner!
Fine! Running with real MARATHON runners.
I am going to feel like kind of a fraud doing a relay concurrent with the marathon though - I mean, running next to somebody that I know is like 14 miles in when I'm on mile 2 is going to feel weird. This is the another reason why I don't want to do the final leg...
Post by aurademystere on Oct 1, 2014 9:36:12 GMT -5
Since my vacation in July, I have completely gone off the rails with my running and eating. I ran a half marathon in May, but my 3-miler this morning was awful.
I am going to feel like kind of a fraud doing a relay concurrent with the marathon though - I mean, running next to somebody that I know is like 14 miles in when I'm on mile 2 is going to feel weird. This is the another reason why I don't want to do the final leg...
that's how I felt with the HIM relay but really it's all in your head. Just focus on your race. I heard a few snarky comments about relayers on the course but that's on them not on me as the rest of my team wisely pointed out later.
I'm going to complain today because I need to. Ballet has transitioned from a beginner adult to an intermediate adult class. That means we do each combination twice through on each side (4x total vs 2x total), and each combination has at a minimum three challenging elements put together and my uncoordinated self is really struggling with them all. Our teacher is way more strict now that we are at a more advanced level and it is so, so hard to go for 3 hours with thousands of critiques and corrections and maybe one 'beautiful'.
Add in the toughest part of preparing for the December recital - learning choreography for three different dances where we aren't dancing yet, don't know the steps, don't know the music and it just makes me feel really awful. I'm not flexible enough, or strong enough, or coordinated enough, or balanced enough to do everything. Don't get me started on standing around in a leotard and tights while looking at myself in a mirror and critiquing everything for 3 hours. I almost cried several times in class last night and wanted to just leave so many times. I stayed and finished class but I am so fucking frustrated right now.
On other updates - the scale had been floating around 182 for the longest time and is back down to 177. I am still baffled by that scale number so I don't know why I even bother weighing myself.
I swam last week for the first time since high school. It felt amazing. I use so many of the same muscles from ballet, just in slightly different ways. I like that I get my heart rate up but I'm not dealing with the impact on my ankles/knees/hips and tight IT band I get from running. I only swam 600 yards and it was too easy! Weight lifting and ballet have made huge improvements in my endurance in the pool. I'm looking forward to swimming again tonight.
I didn't lift last week and I had to miss pilates because of the kids' soccer games. I am still adjusting to this new change up in my workout routine, but I like the variety.
So race season is officially over for me, and I'm really sad. I don't know what to do with myself right now.
The race on Sunday was pretty awesome. Because Augusta is the largest 70.3 in the world, they break the swim up in to waves, which as a swimmer is nice because you aren't starting with 3000 people, but overall sucks because even though the race officially started at 7:30, my wave didn't go off until 9:20. So I got to the start...and stood there for over 2 hours. That kind of blew. Once I (FINALLY) got in the water, I took off faster than I wanted to because I ended up at the front of the group, and I was afraid of getting swum over. I ended up struggling for the first 300m or so, and finally stopped twice to undo my wetsuit, because I felt like I couldn't breathe. Once I got that open, I was able to settle in to a rhythm, ignore the incredible burning in my arms that lasted until about 700m or so (swimming on Saturday was a bad idea), and just crank out the swim. Official time was 28:20.
wawa, the timing mat was right when I came out of the water, so transition for me was to run up a hill (I almost died), and then around the entire bike corral. It was about .25 of a mile. I was also barefoot. So that's why it was so long. When I finally got to my H, all I was thinking was "How am I going to bend down and get this stupid chip off my ankle and not pass out?" Thankfully, he grabbed it from me and went. Transition time didn't end until he ran his bike out of the bike corral and crossed the timing mat. Same thing coming back in - he had to walk his bike all the way back through, and get to Jenni to hand off the chip.
And then we all got bling.
I'm not discussing my eating, because I'm frustrated as hell and don't even know what to do anymore. But I have bling!
emilyj - have you been tracking inches? Because you look damn good.
I took measurements, and I'm coming up on a month at the end of this week, so I need to take them again. I try to space them out every month.
Thanks, I appreciate that. I can't even express how utterly frustrated I am. I do need to lose pounds, and I am at a complete loss as to why they will. not. come. off. no matter what I seem to do. I thought dropping my training and switching my macros/calories all around would jump start something...nada.
My eating is terrible. My exercise is mediocre. I have lost a few more pounds. However, this isn't what I want right now. I need my eating to get much better and my exercise to increase a bit. I would be happy if my weight maintained at the moment just because I need some muscle. My plan is to at least eat better lunches, starting today.
I lost two pounds and I am so happy. I was not able to workout last week, due to volunteer obligations and I was a little nervous to get on the scale today. That is all I have to report.