Gasparilla 15K Race Report

I've done the 5K many times, but this was my first year for the Gasparilla 15K distance.  I ran a half last year, so I figured, what's 9.3 miles?  Also, the 5K has more and more entrants every year, and I wanted something with a little smaller crowd.  This will probably be my "big" race for 2011.

I was up super-early yesterday and had my breakfast of champions:  whole wheat toast with peanut butter and ground flaxseeds, and a big glass of half OJ/half grapefruit juice.  I was dressed and ready to go, so we woke the girls, dressed them quickly, and loaded everyone into the van for the drive downtown.  I wanted to be downtown by 6:30am at the latest.  We got there at 6:05 and were able to find a great parking spot next to the downtown Y.  Colin fired up the DVD player, I got breakfast out of the cooler for the girls, then I gave them all a hug and took off! 

I walked to the Y first to use the restroom and stretch/loosen a bit.  Then I was back outside to walk the several blocks to the starting line on Bayshore Blvd.  Once I was at the start area, I used the port-a-potties and had my strawberry Clif Shot before actually lining up.

The elite wheelchair start was first, followed by the runners 5 minutes later.  We were off!  Just over 70 degrees at that hour, humid as heck, and no breeze.  I wasn't sure how I would fare with that.

Mile 1:  We headed south on Bayshore.  It is 4 lanes each direction at this point, and it was so packed that runners were taking up all 4 southbound lanes, as well as 1.5 northbound lanes.  We passed a few DJs, and a Catholic church that had out a big banner, cheering on one of their priests.  That made me wonder, what does a priest wear to run?  Split:  8:56

Mile 2:  After seeing my 8:56, I determined I was going way too fast and attempted to slow myself.  I had too much adrenaline, though!  At about 1.5 miles, police funneled us all back into the 4 southbound lanes, which then narrowed to 3.  It felt a little crowded, but not too bad.  Kept on trucking.  Split:  9:33

Mile 3:  The boulevard narrows down further to 2 lanes each direction.  I was getting hot.  Like hot, hot.  Kept on drinking my water and chugging along.  They had the first aid station at about 2.5, and then water every mile thereafter.  Split:  9:41

Mile 4:  I passed through the 10 min./mile pace group.  I must've started farther back than I thought!!!  He was reminding everyone to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!  We were about to get to the turnaround, and it was then 1 lane each direction, which made me feel terribly claustrophobic to have so many people packed in there!  Split:  9:35 

Mile 5:  Shortly after hitting 4, we made a loop around the neighborhood residential streets, which then put us back on Bayshore going north near the Ballast Point Fishing Pier.  Downtown looked sooooo far away!  I'd been drinking from my own hydration pack and bypassing the aid stations, but at the 5-mile aid station, I walked through to refill one of my water bottles.  They also had a big water mister set up just after the aid station.  Sweet relief!  Split:  9:36

Mile 6:  I walked through this aid station as well to refill my other water bottle, and had my other strawberry Clif Shot right after.  I was feeling kind of hot and yucky, but my legs showed no sign of slowing down.  Split:  9:46

Mile 7:  This was the interesting mile...  I ran past a couple of guys setting up to do a marriage proposal when the sweetheart came by!  I wonder how that went?  There was also a lady handing out half Krispy Kremes, saying that they were better than an energy gel.  Ugh.  Who could eat a donut while running!?!  They had Gatorade at the 7-mile aid station, so I took a chug, then decided it was a mistake.  Spit it out, rinsed and spit with some water, then drank some water as well.  There was another water mister, here, too!  Yay!  Split:  9:39

Mile 8:  Home stretch!  I'd gotten used to running this part over my lunch breaks the past couple months!  Kept running, kept drinking, kept enjoying the scenery.  We had our last water mister, which felt lovely.  Split:  9:32

Mile 9.3:  I nearly had a fall at the beginning of the last mile when I fumbled my water bottle, trying to put it back in my belt, then nearly lost my footing while grabbing at my bottle.  Thank goodness I stayed upright!  I did not come that far to wipe out!  The crazy "Bayshore DJ" was out with her pom poms, blasting Love Shack.  One of my favorites!!!  This woman comes out and cheers people at all events they have on Bayshore.  She's awesome!  I love seeing her get so excited to support everyone!  I started getting really excited to finish and picked it up a bit.  I saw my family about 20 yards from the finish line and blasted as fast as I could to the end.  Split:  11:54 (for 1.3 miles)

I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!  TOTAL TIME:  1:28:16!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got my finisher's medal and worked my way over to my family, accidentally getting myself in the 5K starting line at one point.  Oops!  Not ready to go back out again!  Colin, Katie, and Natalie were so excited to see me.  I made sure we got a picture before heading back to the van.

See my Bondi band?  It says, "Put on your big girl panties and RUN!"

I was hot, hot, hot and soaked clear through.  It can be so windy on Bayshore, but it sure wasn't yesterday!  I think my Iowa roots were showing when I was complaining about 70 being too hot!  :)  It had gotten warmer by the time I finished, so I sure was glad I'd been drinking water the whole way.  I picked up 2 more bottles of water for the ride home and just relaxed as Colin brought us back to the house.

Overall, I liked it.  Liked the 15K distance, the early morning, the smaller crowds.  I'd definitely do this one again!

Toenail?  Still black, but didn't get any worse.

Chafing?  I had some thigh chafing last year after the half.  Did not happen this time thanks to my Lanacane anti-chafe gel!  But you know where I did chafe that I didn't think to grease up?  The back waistband of my shorts, where apparently my hydration belt was pressing into my waist too much and gave me an ouchie right in the middle of my back.  Yuk.

Muscles?  Sore!  I'm having trouble going up/down the stairs today, but I'll make it.  Nowhere near as bad as the half last year where I ended up with a stress fracture.

Thanks for bearing with me through this lengthy review.  Hopefully you had a great weekend as well!!!

15K - Almost Ready!

Tomorrow morning is my 15K race!  I've never run this distance before, so I'm pretty excited and a bit nervous as well.  I know I shouldn't be nervous...  whatever time I finish in will be a PR at this distance for me!

Patty and I walked over to the race expo during lunch to pick up my packet, check out the freebies, and shop a little.  We both got some Chobani Greek Yogurt cups, Cascadian Farm granola samples, and Larabar minis.  Yum!!!  I didn't buy anything, but Patty got this shirt from One More Mile:

Ha ha!  After my toenail issue, Patty thought I needed this one, also from One More Mile, but I passed:

Anyway, the expo was pretty good.  Seemed like there weren't as many freebies this year, but there were a lot of vendors, so we really enjoyed looking around.

I'll be ready bright and early tomorrow!  As usual, I am hesitant to post a goal time.  For 9.3 miles, I think I can do it between 1:30 and 1:33.  I told my co-worker Tony that I am aiming for 1:32:59!  The weather forecast is looking good for the morning.  Wish me luck!!!

Black Toenail

It's official.

After my 4 miles at lunch today, my 4th toe on my right foot seriously has a black toenail.  I noticed it on Sunday, and Colin thought I was seeing things, but it is definitely turning colors now.

I got new running shoes in January...  Are they the culprit?  I hope not, because I seriously love them, but I'm sure they are at least partially to blame.  I suspect the other portion of the blame lies squarely on the shoes I wear to work every day, slip-on loafer style with a wedge heel.  I think the heel is pushing my toes into the front of my shoe when I walk a lot in them, causing the irritation.  The running miles have just put it over the edge.  That's gotta be it.

And here I thought others got the black toenail on race day, pushing themselves above and beyond to reach a new personal best.  I don't even have race day until this weekend, and my toenail's already black!  Hopefully I can manage things and not make it too much worse.

Any tips for dealing with the black toenail???

Katie's Birthday Party

We hosted Katie's 6th birthday party over the weekend, and again, she chose a gymnastics/bounce house party at our local YMCA.  (We should start getting some sort of frequent-partier discount there!)  We had 15 kids there, and we had a blast!

Natalie and Katie

Natalie masters the balance beam

Lined up for the rings, the main attraction

Zachary and Remington in the foam pit

Running down the trampoline

Group shot (most of them) before pizza time!

Birthday Girl!

Enjoying our pizza

I got to use my cupcake tower!!!

Make a wish!

Katie models her new hat

Katie had a fabulous time playing with her friends, enjoying pizza and cupcakes, and generally being the center of attention for the afternoon.  She got a lot of great gifts, and we are just so happy that she had such a wonderful day.  As always, the staff was helpful and so, so fun.  They really make throwing a party seem like a breeze.

Hooray, Katie!  You're SIX!!!

Six

Katie, my dear sweet girl, you are six today!  Daddy, Natalie, and I are so blessed to have you in our lives.  You're so smart, helpful, funny, creative, and so much more!  I hope you had a wonderful day today, and I look forward to your party with all your friends.  :)

Trip to the Fair

Time for the Florida State Fair!!!

I'm sure those of you in northern states are thinking, "What?  State Fair in February?"  Trust me, it's the only month of the year here where it's tolerable to be outside to enjoy it!  I had never been, and neither have the girls, so we decided this was the year we would go.  So we went last weekend...  And we had a blast!!!

Our ever-present popcorn

Seriously?  Deep Fried Butter?

Natalie loves feeding little goats

The Carousel

My lunch - the Chicken Eggo

You can't beat the fair for interesting food choices, that's for sure!  I had the Chicken Eggo, a fried chicken breast sandwich between 2 waffles that have been coated in batter, rolled in sugar, and fried on the griddle.  This is from the same truck that was selling Krispy Kreme Burgers.  Seriously.  Everyone else in my family had "regular" foods -- chicken strips, corn dogs, etc.  And with all the ice cream, we didn't leave any room for deep fried desserts.  It's probably for the best, but I was really curious about the deep fried Reese's PB cups!

Other than eat, we did a lot of fun things, too!  We visited the living history farm, rode on a couple rides, saw livestock and poultry exhibits, visited the petting zoo, saw artwork, jewelry, and photography exhibits, and listenend to local middle school jazz bands.  The weather was a little cool, so I'm glad we were able to go inside and outside as needed.  We definitely had a lot of fun.  I can't wait to go back next year!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hopefully you had a fabulous Valentine's Day!!!


Ours was pretty low-key.  We opened some cards, small gifts, and candy in the morning.  The girls went off to school and their parties, and Colin and I went off to work.  In the evening, we had lasagna for dinner and enjoyed some of the candy we'd received.  Not a bad day at all!


Sunday we actually had a pre-Valentine's Day dinner.  I had more time then than I do on weeknights, so I made up a nice chicken dinner and got a pie from Perkins (thank you for the gift card, Mom!) for our dessert.  We were able to relax and enjoy our dinner, maybe a little TOO much...  By the time we were done eating, the girls and I really had to hustle to get all the cards ready for the class parties before it was bathtime!

I certainly enjoyed spending relaxing times at home with my valentines...  hope you did, too!  :)

Valentine Dinner

Friday night, Colin and I went to our church's 3rd annual Valentine Dinner and Newly-Oldie Wed Game.

 

Actually, I had to go.  For orchestra, we were playing Big Band music and providing the dinner entertainment.  And we sounded FANTASTIC!  I was so nervous to do the solo on Moonlight Serenade, but it isn't that hard, so I just took a deep breath and went for it.  Everything turned out so, so well.  I hope everyone enjoyed listening and dancing as much as we enjoyed playing!

 

While I was playing with my peeps, Colin got to eat a lovely meal with some of our friends.  After playing for about an hour, I got to sit down and finally enjoy my food as well.  Maybe it was bad that I was eating during the Newly-Oldie Wed Game, because I nearly choked a couple of times from all the hilarity!

 

They had four pre-selected couples, two that were newlyweds (2-3 years of marriage), and two that were oldieweds (30+ years of marriage).  Jeff, our music director at church, was the host, and he asked questions directly from the old Newlywed Game TV show.  They had to choose questions that were church-PC, of course!  Some of my favorite moments:

• The husbands were all asked, "If your wife could throw out one thing of yours, what would it be?"  They all hemmed and hawed and ended up writing down some variation of "junk from the garage".  When the wives were asked the same question, they immediately had an answer, not related to the garage, and also looked like they could easily come up with 10 more things to throw out.  The husbands seemed shocked by this.  :)
• The wives were all asked, "If your husband could marry a movie star, which one would it be?"  The wives all managed to come up with a gorgeous actress that their husband may like to marry.  However, one of the oldiewed husbands misunderstood the question when he was back on stage and answered "Robert Redford...  he's handsome, right???"  Everyone was cracking up since he was supposed to pick an actress for himself!  He soon realized his error, but still had trouble coming up with an appropriate answer.  :)

It was just soooo funny overall, but boy, I was glad that I wasn't up there on stage with Colin!!!

We had a great evening out.  Good food, good music, and lots of fun with some people that we see often but don't always get a chance to talk to. 

Happy Valentine's Day (early) to all my friends!!!

Run Bayshore

If you live around here, it seems like anyone who's *anyone* walks/runs/bikes Bayshore Blvd.  That's also where they hold most of our big races in town due to the beautiful homes, views of the water, and the historic, iconic seawall.  I haven't gotten into it much, mainly because it's not really convenient from our house.  But with the running plan for the 15K and doing some of my runs over lunch, well, Bayshore is a good option when I'm at work. 


On a suggestion from one of my friends, I took the camera with me during a recent lunchtime jog on Bayshore.  Here's what I see as I'm going along:

Fancy House

View over the water heading south

View heading back north

Another Fancy House



Derek Jeter's house



Your fabulous photographer

My reflection back at the Y, post-run

I don't normally take walking breaks, but I had to do a few to be able to snap those pics!  So I hustled on my last mile back to the Y and clocked an 8:59 for that mile.  Unheard of for me!  It was 4.5 miles total, sunny skies, cool temperatures, and a fabulous day for a run. 

Now that I'm into it, running on Bayshore is a great way to break up my day.  Too bad I have to go back to work when I'm done.  :)

Sweetheart Dance

Colin and Katie went to the PTA-sponsored Sweetheart Dance on Friday.  They had a BLAST!!!  Dancing, crafts, snacks, Wii games, and lots of Katie's friends...  It was a great night out for the two of them.  I'm so glad they were able to spend that time together.

Natalie and I spent our evening shopping for Katie's birthday, wrapping gifts, and eating cookies.  Natalie loves to wrap, and we both love cookies, so it was a perfect way for us to spend time together when she started off so sad that she couldn't go to the dance, too.  One day she'll be big enough to go with them!

Oh, Pantry!

Our pantry has long been sort of a sore spot for me.  Not right away when we moved into the house, but gradually, over time, as we've had kids and piled more and more STUFF in there.  I think it's too small.  I disliked the wire-rack shelving we had. 

Last weekend, Colin decided to do something about it.  Immediately.  I don't know what brought that on, but he was determined to start and finish it in one day.  He bought white laminate shelving that came at the width he wanted in pre-cut lengths.  He brought those shelf lengths back to the garage and cut them down to the proper size for our pantry.  While he was working on that, I cleaned out all the food, threw away a bunch of stuff I didn't know I had hiding in there (eek! is all I can say about some of those things), and took out the old shelving and hardware.  And realized that the walls looked terrible and needed a new coat of paint.  That's why there's no "Before" pictures to share with you.  I don't want you to think poorly of me based on the condition of my pantry's back wall!

We hadn't considered the fact that we might need to paint, but Colin found some white in the garage that we were able to use.  Once that dried, he put up all the hardware to mount the new shelves.  Two key differences between the old and new pantry:

1. The old pantry shelves were only 12" deep, which left a lot of unused space at the front.  Colin decided to make the lower shelves 16" deep and the upper ones 12" deep, so that we were able to use more of the space available to us.  I can't believe what a difference that makes!
2. We previously only had 5 shelves in the pantry.  We played with the spacing and now have 6, so we are also taking advantage of the unused space we had at the top of the pantry.

Ready for some pictures???

Lovely!  Before putting all our food back in...

Fully loaded -- you can't see the top shelf, but that's OK...  it's where we keep some wedding gifts we've rarely used (you know you have them, too!)

And there you have it.  It took a little longer than we thought, but it was SO worth it!!!

Wednesday Speed Work

Preparing for the 15K, something new I have added is speed work on Wednesdays.  I am not fast.  I dislike forcing myself outside of my comfort zone like that.  But if I want to race faster, I have to train faster, and this was the best way I could think of to increase my pace per mile.


So every Wednesday after work, I do a half mile jog to warm up, then I do 400m repeats with a small rest break in between each one, then a half mile jog to cool down.  I've found a nice, long, flat piece of sidewalk in which to do this where I don't have any cross streets to worry about.  I leave my car at the park and run back and forth, back and forth.  I dread it until I get one under my belt, then I feel great, then I'm exhausted by the time I jog back to the park and my car. 

I think it's working, though!  I'm feeling so much more strong and capable than I did at this point in my half marathon training last year.  True, my overall distance is not as long, but this will still be a big race for me, and I want to give it all I can!