Today's weather update

They keep lowering the temps for Sunday. Consensus now is upper 60s for a high and mid to upper 40s for the low. Also, channel 5 now has a 30% chance of rain like the Weather Channel app. No screenshots today. iPhoto didn't want to download them from my iPod and I didn't feel like fighting with it.

Temps sound pretty good, but I really hope it doesn't rain.

I didn't post last week but I went on my longest run (all by myself) on Wednesday. I thought I would go for running for 2 hours figuring that would be a relatively good indicator of how I would feel during the race. We have mentioned, to get mileage in here one has to travel across most of the town so I started from our house and went up and down some roads towards the actual town. I had a point that I originally thought that I would turn and head towards home but when I got there I thought, "I am not too far from the high school. I could just finish there and ride home with the kids". So I barreled on, feeling okay other than way too many "nature" needs.

I got to the high school at about 1:15, a bit shorter than 2 hours. I didn't see the kids around the track and was debating what I should do. Then I saw Mason running with his group and asked when he was going to get done. His coach said ~45 minutes. Well, there was my 2 hours. I took off again but decided I would just go about 30 more minutes. Oh my gosh, the first 15 were okay but my calves were absolutely killing me the last 15. I was to the point of just pushing my feet forward. Funny though, I got back to the high school and I wasn't quite to 1:45 so I circled around the parking lot until my watch hit that. Then I was happy to stop. End result? 10.84 miles!!! Yay, that made me happy.

Then yesterday, Curtis and I went out for a mid to maybe a bit long run again. This time I was aiming for 1:30 and made it to 1:24. We were pooped but got just over 9 miles. So, I am trained as I am going to get. Hopefully good enough :)

The weather forecast is making me happy. Curtis is very excited to pack shorts!! See you all in a couple of days!

~Sherry

ps: Syd ran a 6:17 mile at her meet on Saturday!! Mason ran his 2 mile in 11:07. Not his best but pretty good if you ask me.

Forecast update

Definitely some discrepancy between forecasts here.

Weather app forecast.

Weather Channel app forecast.

Neither one is bad...other than the rain chances in the Weather Channel app's forecast. Channel 5's forecast this morning was pretty much the same as the Weather app's forecast.

Weather forecast

Thought I'd post some daily forecasts for the upcoming weekend. We did finally get some way overdue rain here in central Oklahoma over the weekend. Had a nice steady drizzle all day yesterday. For the non-Oklahoma residents, we're in the throws of what is being termed an extreme drought, and have had almost no rain this year, so anything at this point is good for us.

Here's the pertinent portion of the Weather Channel app's 10-day forecast from this morning:

Early forecast

Of course they're all kind of rough this far out. Channel 5's forecast this morning said 72/45 for Sunday's highs and lows...a bit cooler than this forecast. Either way would be pretty good though, since it would most likely still be in the 60s by the time we all finished running.

Last "long" long run in the books

Ross and I met at Lake Hefner Saturday morning bright and early to do a last long run a couple of weeks before the marathon. We had a pretty cool morning temp, down near 40 and while it was nowhere near as windy as Friday, there was still a stiff wind blowing off the lake. We had hoped Sue would be able to run with us, but she had to work late Friday night and we met at the lake at 7 AM so she took a pass on it.

This was the first time I've run at Hefner. Ross had run there one time previously.  We both thought it was 11 miles around the lake which we thought would be a good long run for the 13 miles of the half, but it ended up being just under nine and a half miles according to my GPS watch. Ross and I ended up never putting our headphones on and just talked for the entire run. Besides some good company, this probably kept our pace a bit slower than it would have been if we'd been listening to music instead of talking. Not a bad thing in my mind since I always read you should keep the pace on your long runs slower than your normal pace, and I usually have a difficult time doing that.

We ran all the way to the golf course which was about half way around from where we started. We stopped at the golf course for about 5 minutes for a drink and a nature break, then continued on our way for the second half, at a bit quicker pace than we had run the first half. Finished the whole thing in a bit under an hour and a half then sat on the curb by our cars and shared an orange while recovering for a few minutes before heading home.

I'll be cutting back a bit for the next couple of weeks to let my body rest up. Probably do a couple of 4 milers during the week this week and maybe do a little 6 mile long run next weekend.

It's almost here! I'm excited to see everyone and to run the race too!

We Are Family!!

Yay for Sue! In fact yay for everyone. I did ~7.4 the other day by myself. The distance wasn't that remarkable, the "by myself" is. It is easy for me to talk myself into quitting when I am by myself especially if the weather isn't my idea of ideal. But, alas, I complain too much about weather.

Curtis & I were talking that we are a bit concerned about how we will do. He probably moreso than me. I am thinking that I will focus on the family event since I don't think that I am particularly "trained". Hopefully we can try a long run this week though so I can at least have done one. Curt has done a couple. Oh, by the way, he is doing the 1/2 with the rest of us.

I am excited to see everyone and am really hoping that it is sunny and warm while we are there :D

~Sherry

My Long Run

I decided to try a longer run today. Jay and Ross were supposed to meet at Lake Hefner at 7:00 am and run around it but I had to work last night until 11:00 pm and didn't think I would make it there by 7:00. So I went to Hafer Park in Edmond which is a different park than I usually go to. I haven't run around Hafer yet because the trail is only 1 1/4 miles long but I went today because I felt like I needed a change of scenery. My goal was to try to do at least 8 miles. I ended up losing track of how many times I ran around the trail but I know I ran either 8 3/4 miles or 10. I think I probably only did the 8 3/4. Once I started running I wanted to try 10 miles but I am pretty stoked about at least 8 3/4.

Last year in SLC I had diarrhea during the race so I have been worried about that again this year. I am hoping that being at home will help. After my run today I had a few episodes of diarrhea (I know TMI). I don't know if it was the run or something I ate but if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

I can't wait to see all my family.

A slight diversion...the Redbud Classic

This past Thanksgiving during dinner at Dad's, someone told Johnny and Sarah they ought to start running and do the Memorial half marathon with us. Johnny actually used to run regularly sometime before he met Sarah, so the idea didn't necessarily sound crazy to him. Sure enough, he and Sarah started running shortly after that. Unfortunately, Sarah hasn't stuck with it although she holds out the possibility that she'll start again. Johnny has stayed with it but he had to have gall bladder surgery back in late January which caused him to have to take about a month off from running.

He started back up as soon as he felt like he could and has lately been wondering about his progress and how he stacks up with other runners. He had talked to me about wanting to find a 5k to enter and see how he would do. I had been wanting to run a 5 or 10k this past winter but for various reasons never entered one. Lately I've been feeling better and better maintaining a fairly quick (for me) pace for longer periods and have been wondering if I could beat my 5k PR, and by how much.

The Redbud Classic has been held in OKC for almost 30 years now and is one of the larger ones around here so I told Johnny we ought to enter it. He was all for it so I signed us up last week and we headed down there yesterday afternoon with Peggy, Sarah and K.Lee.

They were predicting serious winds for Sunday, 25 to 35 with gusts to 50 mph! The wind was pretty serious all last week and it really did pick up Saturday evening, so I thought my chances at a PR were probably not real great. However the wind died down as the day went on and it actually wasn't blowing too hard by Sunday afternoon. It did get pretty warm..sunny and a temp in the mid 80s, but we've had a lot of that over the past month, so that wasn't really too much of a concern.

We parked about a mile from the Waterford where the race was to begin, and joined a huge crowd hiking along 63rd. After a pitstop at the first port-a-johns we saw Johnny and I went ahead and worked our way down to the starting area.

Johnny and me, looking cool before the race.

We settled in between the 8 and 9 minute pace markers and baked in the sun for 25 minutes or so waiting for the race to start. Finally, they had us move a bit closer to the starting line then the gun went off. I planned to run the first mile around an 8:30 pace, then pick it up to an 8:00ish pace for mile 2 and perhaps a bit quicker on the last mile if I had anything left. Johnny hoped to run it around 28 minutes and intended to follow me for at least the 1st mile then decided how he was doing from there.

We had to work our way thru the crowd early on in order to hit the 8:30 pace and I worried my PR was slipping away during the first two or three minutes of the event as we were closer to a 9 minute pace at that point. We finally found some room though and picked it up to a bit under 8:30. Between the half and three-quarter mile point (roughly) there was a fairly long and steep downhill stretch on 63rd. I figured this was a good opportunity to make up for any time lost at the start and let gravity pull me down the hill, hitting a 7 minute pace for much of it.

As I reached the bottom of the hill I realized I hadn't started my Garmin GPS watch at the beginning, so I wasn't going to know our distance except for any signs they had posted along the course. Turned out, the only sign I saw was at the 3k mark, so I was mostly running blind as to the distance covered and left in the race.

The course turned from 63rd onto Grand and did a loop on Grand thru a Nichols Hills neighborhood. I sped it up at this point (and I think around here is where I lost Johnny) and kept my pace around 8:00 mile for the remainder of the race. I was feeling good and not having much difficulty maintaining the pace. With probably a mile or so left I found myself behind a woman who was keeping a nice, steady pace so I settled in 15 or 20 feet behind her and just glanced at my Garmin periodically to make sure we weren't slowing down.

As we neared 63rd again, the course suddenly took a road off to the left and headed up a hill. I couldn't see a finish line, but felt we were on the last stretch. Normally, I'd probably ease up on the speed a bit going uphill to conserve energy, but since I felt we were nearing the finish, I maintained my speed, and passed the woman I had been following as she slowed down a bit. As we neared the top of the hill, the finish line came into view and I kicked it for all I was worth. I had a surprisingly strong kick left in me and broke into virtually a full sprint over the last 100 yards or so.

I crossed the finish and slowed to a walk and headed thru the finishing chute looking for the water tables. Found a cold bottle of water then worked my way back toward the finish line to watch for Johnny. About the time I started to wonder if I'd missed him I saw him come across the finish. I worked back thru the crowd and found him with Sarah, K. Lee and Peggy. We hung around the finish area for 20 minutes or so, trying to find out where the results would be posted. We finally gave up and decided we'd just have to wait until they posted them online and headed for the car.

The Redbud Classic is definitely a well run event with a lot of participation. Had a nice goody bag and the finishing area had lots of food and a live band playing. They even have finisher's medals...a bit unusual for a 5k. We all definitely enjoyed it. Johnny really liked the experience and is ready to run another one. When we got home he asked me when the next one was and I told him you can find one somewhere in the metro area almost every weekend. I said I wouldn't be running anymore until after the Memorial marathon, but then remembered they have a 5k too. So Johnny thinks he wants to run the 5k at the Memorial marathon.

The results were posted online around 5 pm yesterday and I was very happy to see I had beat my old PR of 25:54 fairly significantly with a time of 25:30! I placed 141st overall (out of over 800) and 7th in the 50-54 age group (out of 51). Johnny ended up with a time of 29:17, so he was close to hitting the time he thought he'd make and he said he was holding back some during the race since he wasn't sure of the distance left (like me) and didn't want to use everything up too soon. He feels he could definitely have shaved at least another 30 seconds or so off of his time.

Reflecting a bit, with the really strong kick I had left at the end, and as good as I felt when I finished (not nearly as gassed as at my first two 5ks) I probably could have ran a faster pace than I did. I'll have to start thinking about breaking 25 minutes for a 5k!

It took away my long run for the weekend since I didn't want to do one Saturday before trying to run a 5k the next day, but I'll get back on schedule this week. Actually this coming weekend will be my last long run before the Memorial since it's only a couple of weeks after that. I'm getting excited!

T minus 20ish

Things are counting down which means that I am starting to feel some pressure. I have been consistently doing runs that are 7 and just over 7 miles at least once a week sometimes twice. But really, I need to get some more distance especially since the last 10 minutes of those 7 miles is still pretty hard. So that is my goal, hopefully for this week. My fair weather running has been hampered by the lack of fair weather. I really need to just get over that, huh :)

I talked with Ross for a bit and he is still training. He is pretty much in my situation, needs to get over that 7-8 mile hump and add on. I expect he will succeed. Luke is sort of training. I am sure what he is going to run, but I told him he has to make the decision pretty soon. Curt is still undecided on the half or full. I think it will boil down to training and will likely be a half but . . .

Are Lindsay and Sarah running? I'm excited to see everyone. Luke told his employer that he is going to a family reunion. When asked if we were doing anything special, he said "running".

Neither hail, nor sleet, nor snow

It didn't hail yesterday, but the other two I had covered. I walked Phoebe prior to running and the weather was dry. By the time I had changed for running and was outside there were flakes falling from the sky. I persisted none-the-less and ran just short of two hours. The last half hour of running the snow got pretty serious. My hands got really cold so I decided to head to the barn, rather than finishing the run as planned. I was pretty wet, head to toe. I managed to step in a puddle towards the finish of the running. I ran twice around Sugarhouse Park. There were some people running and walking to end polio. I was running the opposite direction that they were going. We were all getting wet together. The first time around the park, some people shouted at me. I didn't recognize them but sort of waved. The next time around I was on the same side of the road as everyone else and recognized two of the runners. We said hi and continued on our way! Mason told me that if I was training for a half-marathon I should be running five days a week, maybe six. I didn't make it five days, but four. It is a new week for running. We'll see what I can do. May first is looming large on the horizon.

March Mileage Madness

I finished the month of March with a 6 mile run yesterday evening and had my highest mileage month ever! My previous high mileage month was October of last year as I was gearing up for the Route 66 half marathon in November. I ran 68.5 miles that month. After yesterday's run my March total was 75.6 miles. I know many really serious runners will do that much (or even more) in a week, but it was pretty significant for me.

I don't generally run more than 5 miles on my weekday runs, but I hadn't run at all this week since my long run Sunday, so I really wanted to get 5 or 6 miles in. I was feeling good so I went ahead and ran 6. Worked on speed some too and ran miles 2 and 3 in 8:16 and 7:56. Of course I had to stop after that and catch my breath for two or three minutes before continuing at a somewhat slower pace between 8:30 and 9:00 for the last three miles.

I should get April off to a good start too as I'm planning on a short, easy run this evening and doing my weekend long run tomorrow. I don't figure I'll end up with a 70 mile month though as I'll cut back the mileage significantly the two weeks leading up to the OKC Memorial.

One month from today everyone!