Thanksgiving 10th Birthday 10K

What a great way to start Thanksgiving! I got up this morning and my sweet 4 year old and I sang "Happy Birthday" to his older brother....my wonderful 10 year old!!! I had decorated the dining room and put out his presents. So in the very early morning hours (before 7AM on a non school day is very early for us) I got to watch that sweet boy open his birthday presents and be so happy with a celebration meant just for him. :) I love birthdays for that reason....a day where the celebration is dedicated to you. After our breakfast....I dropped the boys with their dad and headed out to Ashburn for the 10K race. (As a sidebar...my oldest thought it was great that I was running a 10K on his 10th birthday....I burst that bubble just a little when he got too excited and asked me to place 10th to make it even cooler....I had to explain to him that mama is NOT that fast...LOL).

So....I was already a little annoyed with the organizers of this race because in my preparations for the race I had checked out the water stops along the course and found only ONE! I have run many a race now.....and only one water stop in a 10K is not quite the norm. If you read yesterday you saw my rant about this (if you didn't, check it out here). Now that sets you up to know that I was already irritated. That annoyance grew even more when I arrived more than half an hour before race to find that the lots I was told would be available for parking had no spots! I am not so new to this to think that this wouldn't happen so I had scoped out a few alternatives the night before. I had to fall back on that plan. Admittedly it wasn't a great "Plan B"....the shopping center adjacent to the running course has a grocery store. Why is that bad you ask? Well....it is Thanksgiving day....do you know how many people hit the grocery store that morning for forgotten items?!?!?! I do....just ask me :) But the good news about this same shopping center is that it has a Starbucks! No no no I was not going to stop for a latte before my race. But I was going to....and did....stalk the coffee lovers leaving the shop until I got a parking space! That did take a considerable amount of time. I got out of the car with 7 minutes until race start time and not a good idea of how far I really was from the starting line. So I got out.....grabbed my needed race gear....and warmed up for the race by....well....running to the start line!

Fortunately the disorganized race organizers held true to my existing ideas about them....the start was delayed. While normally I would have been further irritated...this actually worked out for me :) Once the race started...I was happy to be off and running again. My last training run had felt great. I had found myself a good energy gel to consume partway through the race. And after it was over, I got to go home to see my family and stuff my self (guilt free) with Thanksgiving trimmings! The course was actually very nice. Mostly flat with a few small hills and all road with no mixture of road and trails. I used my new running app for the first time in a race situation. It really helped push me at the end when there wasn't much left of the race. Although it did help to further my irritation with the race organizers (poor folks can NOT catch a break with me)

because the course was closer to 6.5 miles than 6.2. Yeah I can handle the extra .3 miles but my time is supposed to be based on 6.2 and I am crazy about getting my time right :) Like several other races I have done, I had come alone and run alone. So I didn't stick around for the post race festivities. I took a quick post-race self portrait and then headed home to get cleaned up for the Thanksgiving/Birthday celebrations.

Happy Thanksgiving All! I am so grateful to be able to stay healthy enough to complete all these races and for all that running has brought into my life. I am also grateful for all the family and friends that support me. If you are reading this, you are among those people. Have a great Thanksgiving.

XOXO - Jenn

Am I allowed to have a race pet peeve?

I decided to map the directions to packet pick up for tomorrow's race while at work today, and thought that I should go ahead and review the instructions as well. I was pleased at the details presented in the packet....its a local race and those don't always yield the best instructions to runners. But this group impressed me with their level of detail. And if you know me...I am a detail girl so its kind of a big deal if your organization impresses me :) The race is a 10K..because a 5K turkey trot wasn't enough of a challenge right? ;) For you non-running, non-metric folks that is a total of 6.2 miles. I have run other 10K races...as well as longer and shorter distances. And I have to say that I am bothered by the lack of course support for this race. I got to the part of the packet where they discuss prohibitions. No strollers. OK. No dogs. OK. No headphones. Ummmm. I usually ignore this when I see it show up in a race packet, because I run with music. I have to. I don't always use the music, but there are times when I need it. And I will not go without. I am usually respectful of this request though and only wear one earbud so that I can still hear the course officials....or remove one when I come upon a course official. Their reasoning, of course, was just that....course officials cannot be heard well with headphones on. Ok. So they intend to have lots of course officials that have important info to tell me. Yeah right. Now on to the pet peeve. The packet goes on to further state that they will have course officials at every mile marker calling out times (that's the folks with stopwatches who let you know how long it is taking you to run the race). Great. But there is only ONE water stop along the whole course.....just before the halfway mark....at mile 3. Seriously?!?!?! You are going to have all these people with stopwatches telling me my time at every mile....but no one to hand me a dixie cup of aqua until mile 3??? Maybe I am spoiled. I am used to courses having water about every 1.5-2 miles. Having no water support until halfway and then not again until the end just seems absurd. I will, of course, now carry my own water. But it seems that if you are going to put that level of detail into your race organization....you could have thought about the runner support component. Okay now that I have ranted....here's my question: I have only been a self declared "real runner" for about a year and a half....do I have a right to be picky? Has my quest for 100 competitive miles this year made me a race snob? And if I am going to be a snob, don't I have the right to know these kinds of details up front BEFORE I give you my hard earned cash to come and run in your race? Thoughts I will likely ponder during the race tomorrow.

Trail Run Preview

After gathering some inspiration from not really running like I should the last few weeks and reading some great blogs online by inspiring runners, I decided that Sunday was the day I was getting my intensity back. So I laced up my running shoes (yeah the ones I use to run outdoors that I have not worn since mid-September) and headed out to Burke Lake Park. This is the same course I will run on Saturday for the "Drumstick Dash 8K" It was an absolutely beautiful day for a run! The leaves are still beautiful shades of orange and red, the trail is gorgeous and the view of the lake just so calming, and the 4 1/4 mile loop around the lake had the perfect amount of people. What does that mean you ask?? Well...perfect to me means that it isn't crowded so I can run at whatever pace I want and not have to try and move around people or have them need to do the same to me. It also means that there were enough people around that I felt accountable to these strangers somehow to keep running and not take too many walk breaks :) So I ran the whole loop.....then added on a bit so that I could complete a full 5 mile run. I tried a few new things during this training run that are worth mentioning.

• My new phone has a running app that uses the GPS to track the distance. SO cool!!! Yeah I am late to that party but I just got the new phone....what can I say. I didn't know that it was talking to me most of the run until part way through when I checked it to see my pace. I wonder how many of those strangers heard it talking :)
• During the Zooma race back in June I had tried a gel that made me sick. I swore off the gels at that point, being too scared to have those lingering effects again. But I know that the energy they give me through a longer run are good....and they are easy to carry. So, the last time I was at the running store, I grabbed a few. It was great! No stomach issues AND it did give me that little extra perk I needed. I used it half way through the run and there were times in the 2nd half when I was running close to a 7 min mile! I didn't think I could actually run that fast for a sustained period!!! That is a repeat for sure. Probably during both of my races this coming long weekend.

I took Monday night off...even though I should have squeezed in another run. My shins are tender....and I am remembering not to push too hard or be too intense. The Ragnar is just more than 6 weeks away. I have got to be healthy for that...especially since many of my partners in crime are not :( More on that in another post.

Always Apologizing :)

I always seem to be apologizing for NOT keeping up with my blog....sigh....the trials of being a single mom....they sure catch up with you and before you know it. Wham! No time to update :( I am currently on a roll with making promises....so here's one more. Tonight/tomorrow I will update my blog for all the races I have done since the "preview" to the half I wrote back in June. Then I am committing to updating WAY more frequently...at LEAST once per week. And I am adding back in my "Log Your Run" widget to run along the bottom and track my training runs for you. My committment to you....will be my committment to preparation for a FANTASTIC Ragnar. And who knows where from there. My friend Aaron keeps telling me a marathon is in my future....hmmmm....maybe let's just get through this year without injury and with success and then I can START thinking marathon type thoughts :) So.....here goes!