What Have I Been Up To?

It's been several months since my last post and so much has happened since then.

MTT  HMTT

The week after the Patrick Henry Half, Lynn and I emailed back and forth several times.  During one of those emails, she suggested that I run with a group of Team Ductape ladies the following weekend who were running 13 training miles on their own, to see how I'd do with the mileage a week later.  I did run with them, but ended up bailing after 7 miles.  One thing that I did learn from these 2 ladies was that doing a 2:1 Galloway interval was much better for me than the 4:1 intervals that I had been doing. 

After that run, Lynn and I emailed a few more times, and came to the conclusion that it would be better for me to drop back to the Half Marathon Training Team (HMTT) for this year, instead of continuing to struggle through MTT.

Switching to HMTT turned out to be the best decision I made.  The team that I was placed with, the Penguins, were the perfect pace for me.  During MTT, I had always been one of the slowest ones on Team Ductape, most of the time doing the group training runs by myself.  However, on Team Penguins, almost everyone was my pace, along with some of the Pandas, so there were always people running just in front of me/with me/just behind me.  This was such a nice change and an esteem booster.  Even though I had struggled with the group training runs during MTT, the group runs during HMTT were easy (even as we got into higher mileage).

Richmond Half Marathon

my HMTT racing singlet that I customized, my race bib, and my fuel for the race

The morning of November 15, 2014 I woke up excited and nervous.  I was up at 4am, got up and ready, then drove down to park my car near the finish line and meet my running family at Starbucks to hang out before the race.  After parking my car behind the Virginia War Memorial, I walked the 10 blocks over to the Starbucks in the James Center.  There were lots of hugs and wishes of "good luck" as everyone arrived and we waited to head up to the HMTT and MTT group pictures and then the starting line.  

pre-race photo of the HMTT on the steps of the Capital building

After the group HMTT photo, I headed over to the starting line with Sandy, Black Amy, Mary Beth, Amy Stacey, Jake, Jenny, Mike Hall, and Marcus, who were also running the Richmond Half.  After they dropped off their race bags, we stood around waiting for our race to start (I had dropped off my race bag with my friend Carrie, who lives just up the hill from the finish line; she would meet me at the finish).  Did I mention that it was FREEZING cold that morning??  It was right around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so we were wearing our throwaway clothes from Goodwill over our race gear to try to stay warm.

trying to keep warm in the freezing pre-race temperatures

We all decided to start in the same wave, though technically some of us were assigned to a later wave according to our predicted finish time.  As we started the race on the right side of the road, the marathon race was starting on the left side of the road.  When I had heard that the half and full marathons would be starting at the same time, I did not like it; but as we ran down the street, I have to admit that it was cool to be running side by side with the marathon runners.

I felt great as I ran, keeping to my 2:1 Galloway intervals, leapfrogging with Mary Beth.  Around mile 7 or 8, I heard cop cars behind me.  A few seconds later, the marathon pace car passed me on the left, with the lead marathon runner behind it.  It was a bit disconcerting to have the lead marathoner pass me, but at the same time, it was very cool to witness that.

Then around mile 9.5 I felt a sharp pain on the inside of my right knee, then a couple of steps later my whole right quad tightened up.  I slowed to a walk, and limped along.  As one of the runners passed me, she saw I was in pain and offered me some Ibuprofen which I thanked her for but refused it.  Around mile 10 I decided to eat my other Cliff Bar Shot Blocks, with the hope that the electrolytes would help with the cramping; it didn't.  Shortly thereafter, I spotted one of the Team Penguins coaches, Mary, along the side cheering us on.  I hobbled over to Mary, told her my leg muscles were cramping, and asked her to walk with me.  As we walked (or rather I hobbled) along, she gave me advice and words of encouragement.  We stopped a few times so I could stretch.  She ended up walking with me for about 1-1.5 miles.  I walked the rest of the way to the finish line.  My total finish time ended up being 3:16:39; while it wasn't the 3 hours that I was hoping for, it was still a good time, considering I walked the last 2.5 miles.  Coolest part of crossing that finish line was hearing the announcer call out my name as I approached the finish!

Carrie met me at the finish line, and after I sobbed on her shoulder for a minute, I calmed myself down and said I needed to get to the medical tent to get my leg/knee checked out, make sure that I hadn't torn anything.  So I walked over to the medical tent, where one of the athletic trainers examined me.  She said that she didn't feel an indentation anywhere so she didn't think that I had torn a muscle.  They gave me a bag of ice, which they Syran wrapped to my knee, and sent me on my way.

I changed out of my sweaty top into my warm clothes and went to go find Sandy, Amy, and Mary Beth, who had finished before me.  We stood at the finish line waiting and watching for our friends who were running the full marathon.  Fun fact: if you have your race bib in your backpack and stand near the timing mechanism at the finish, the announcer will call out your name at least 10 times because it pops up that you're nearing the finish line.

After everyone had finished their race, we headed over to Brown's Island to take a group photo:

Lessons learned from the Richmond Half Marathon:

1. Make sure that your muscles are warmed up before the race.  My muscles cramping at mile 9.5 was due to the extreme cold and not warming up my muscles before I started the race.

2. It's a great feeling to hear your name called out along the route as the spectators read your customized racing singlet.

3. The best feeling in the world during the race is hearing your name called out by the announcer as your cross that finish line.

TLR

After the Richmond Half, my running friends and I wanted to do a fun run, so we had signed up to so the Tacky Light Run.  We had a BLAST!!  We decided to base our costumes around the Christmas tree, so we got creative:

Coach?

For this year's Monument 10K training team, Sportsbackers had decided to add 2 new sites: Bellemeade and Bensley.  Becky Hapeman was asked to be the head coach at Bensley, and she in turn asked several of us Manchester Superheroes to be her assistants, including me.  I was honored and humbled to be asked to be one of the assistant coaches.  Since this was the first year for Bensley, we had a small team, but that helped our member because the member to coach ratio was 2:1 or even 1:1 towards the end of training.  We became the Bensley Sidekicks, a cousin of the Manchester Superheroes.  I think we did a great job motivating and coaching our members, some of whom had never run the 10K before.

2015 Monument 10K

During our final group picture before the race, Coach Becky was asking some of our Bensley members which waves they were in, and suggested that some of them run with me so that I could keep them on pace as I had done during training with the 2:1 Galloway intervals.  They declined my help because they didn't want to hold me back, but when we saw them again near the start, one of the guys asked me to run with them to help them stay consistent.  So I moved back to their wave and we started the race together.  Because of the wave we started in, there were LOTS of walkers, so we had to weave back and forth around them during the first mile or two.  One of the guys must have been on an adrenaline rush because he started running faster (it was his first time running the Monument 10K).  After awhile I couldn't keep up with him, so I told him if he still wanted me to pace him that he'd need to slow down so I could keep up, otherwise he was free to go ahead and run faster without me.  He took out his phone, started his interval timer and took off with one of the other guys.  The third guy stayed with me the whole way, even when I told him around mile 5 to go on ahead of me (I knew he could run faster and that I was holding him back); he told me that he'd stay with me because he knew that it wasn't as fun to run by yourself.  Our finish time was 1:21:22, just 17 seconds slower than my time last year.

Half Marathon #4 [technically #3.5, but who's counting]

Several of my running friends and I that had run the Richmond Half wanted to do a spring half marathon.  We talked about doing the Shamrock in Virginia Beach or the one Wrightsville Beach one, but finally we decided on the inaugural Petersburg Half Marathon, since it was right here near Richmond.

Some of the Sunday morning HMTT team members started running together on Sunday mornings after the new year, and since quite a few of my running buddies were part of this group, I joined them.  We collectively started calling ourselves the Sunday morning Dog Pack, because it was comprised of members from the Wolverines and Greyhounds (and maybe one other dog-family animal name).  Anyway, many of us had signed up to run the Petersburg Half, so our Sunday morning group runs became our weekly long training runs.

Petersburg Half

The morning of the race was very warm, and after training in cold weather over the past several weeks, our bodies were not yet acclimated to running in warm weather.  Miles 3-6 went through the Petersburg battlefield from the Civil War.  Must to my disappointment, there was only 1 reenactment happening in the battlefield as we ran through.

Selfie during a battle reenactment and half marathon?
Sure, why not?

After mile 6 I started struggling.  The sun shining was a blessing (yay, sunshine!) and a curse (it became very humid).  Around mile 7 or 8, coming down Washington Street, I stopped running and just walked.  Around mile 9 or so, I tried running again but my calf muscles started cramping so I just walked the rest of the way to the finish line.  I knew that the last water stop was supposed to be around mile 11, so I was trying to conserve my hydration but because it became so humid I had drank all of the hydration I had brought with me and the water I had refilled by hydration bottles with at the mile 9 water stop.  When I saw Dennis around mile 11.5 [he was coming back to check on us stragglers], he could see I was struggling and told me that the water stop was just around the corner.  I was so glad to see that water stop!  As soon as I crossed the finish line, the first words I said were "That sucked" to which my friends said that many people had the exact same feeling as they crossed the finish line.  My official finish time was 3:18:23.4, only 2 minutes slower than my time for the Richmond Half.

pre-race group photo of #TeamMassey

post-race......exhausted, but happy

Here's a pic of the cool [huge!] finisher's medal everyone got:

Best.Weekend.Ever

This past weekend was the best weekend I've had so far this year, and it was spent with my running family.  

RE Strong

Friday evening, Mary Beth Hall, Sandy and Mike Brown, and I drove up to Urbanna, Virginia to spend the night there.  Saturday morning, Mary Beth, Mike, and I helped out at the RE Strong 5K/10K race, while Sandy and Black Amy ran in the race.  We had a great time.

Carytown 10K

Sunday morning I ran in the annual Carytown 10K race that is organized by the Richmond Road Runners Club.  I had volunteered to be a course marshal, but ended up switching with Mary Beth because her knees were still bothering her from the Petersburg Half the weekend before.  I woke up Sunday morning tired from Friday evening and Saturday at the RE Strong race; and the rain didn't help energize me either.  But as soon as I got down to Carytown and started seeing all of my running friends either getting ready to run or volunteering, I knew I had made the right decision to come run the race instead of skipping it and sleeping in.  I felt great all through the race and even after I finished.  As I made the turn onto Cary St. from Nansemond, I told myself that I would sprint when I got closer to the finish line since I wasn't tired like I normally am when I get to the end of a race.  When I crossed the finish line, my gut told me that I had just PR'd (gotten a personal record).  I had to wait until the official results were posted, but I was right: my official time was 1:19:40 (1 minute, 10 seconds faster than my previous fastest 10K time).

just about to cross the Carytown 10K finish line

Hardywood Twilight 4 Miler

When I heard that several of my running friends had signed up to do the Hardywood Twilight 4 Miler, I contemplated going to it also, but just to hang out with them.  Then on Friday afternoon my co-worker [MaryBeth] Ryan asked me walk this fun run with her; she's also a runner, but is injured and didn't want to miss out another race she had signed up for before getting injured.  

As we were standing around before the run, all of a sudden I see Jeff Wells [the owner of Fleet Feet Richmond and a walking/talking advertisement for the Addaday roller] walking up with a folding chair and his roller.  He promptly places the chair by me and points to in, indicating that I should sit down so he could roll out my calf muscles.  I burst out laughing and sit down, as my friends around me are laughing too.  

[The background of this is that back in the fall I had gone to one of Jeff's monthly Muscle Maintenance classes, where he showed us how to use the Addaday roller, and I ended up buying one.  I have periodically asked him roll out my calves when I'm at the Fleet Feet store for the weekly Tuesday night runs.  Then back in mid-January, Richmond Road Runner's Club did a shake out run with Bart Yasso the Sunday morning after their annual awards banquet.  The run started and ended at the Starbucks at Libbie and Grove.  I turned back earlier than the majority of the runners, so I was one of the first ones to make it back to the Starbucks.  As I walk in, I spot Jeff, who mentions that his roller is in his car outside.  Without me asking him, he jumps up, goes out to his car, and comes back with his Addaday roller, then sits down and rolls out my calves.  Since then, whenever he sees me, he'll get his roller and roll out my calves.]

Ryan and I ended up speed walking the fun run at a 15 minute/mile pace, finishing in just over an hour.  As I crossed the finish line, one of the volunteers handed me a finisher's medal, but I didn't tell her that I had not signed up for the run.  After the run, everyone hung out at Hardywood having a good time listening to the band and chatting.

pre-run group selfie

circle of running friends.....who's who?

Lung Capacity

I need to share some GREAT news that I got this morning:

As most of you know, I have asthma (which I was diagnosed with back in elementary school), but that hasn't stopped me from running. In fact, that is one of the reasons WHY I run. This morning I had my every 3-6 month check up with my allergist (who's also an asthma specialist). At each doctor's visit, they do a spirometry (a lung function test). When I first visited my allergist back in September of 2011, my spirometry results were 68% for the FVC (forced vital capacity), 66% for FEV1 (forced expiratory volume, meaning the amount of force you breath out in the first second), and 64% for FEF25-75% (forced vital capacity in each portion of the lung: 25% is the top portion, 50% is the middle portion, and 75% is the bottom portion). Normal lung capacity is anything above 80%, so as you can see my lungs were working way below normal.

Well, when my allergist checked the results from this morning's spirometry, he was blown away: my FVC was 99%, my FEV1 was 94%, and my FEF25-75% was 81%!! These awesome results are due to 2 things: (1) the daily allergy and asthma medicines that I take which he prescribed for me, and (2) all the RUNNING that I do!!

The idea now is to continue with the medicine (and running) to get those percentages even higher, way above 100%, so that when he eventually weens me off of the meds my percentages won't drop below the 80% that's considered normal (a 20% drop is expected then though).

Needless to say, I will NOT stop the running and exercising, since that is the key to significantly decreasing my asthma and to stop relying on the medicine!!