Marathon Training Weeks 6-8

Other than a 10K on October 19th, I didn't have any exciting races during these past 3 weeks of training, but overall I felt like it was a good few weeks. I think a lot of it has to do with how beautiful it is this time of year. Running on crunchy leaves always makes a run better!

Week 6:

Nothing too exciting happened during week 6. I did a 10K on Saturday, mentioned here. However, my highlight of the week would probably be Wednesday's evening run. I spent a glorious, perfect, run after work at Confluence Park in Delta. My schedule only had 5 miles on it, but I was enjoying myself so much that I added an extra 3/4 of a mile. The weather was just perfect, there were fallen leaves everywhere - it was wonderful:

It was chilly out, but the sun was beating down on me so much, it was the perfect temperature!

This was a "step back" week (every 3 weeks of training, is a "step back" week with lighter, shorter runs), so my "long run" was only 9 miles. Scott and I just ran a loop starting from the house, along the east side of Montrose.

Week 6 Summary:

DATE	PLAN	ACTUAL
Day 36, Monday 10/14	Cross Train	Cross Train - 5.5 Miles on the stationary bike at the gym
Day 37, Tuesday 10/15	3 Miles	3.26 Miles – last “run club” of the season!
Day 38, Wednesday 10/16	5 Miles	5.78 Mile Run at Confluence Park in Delta (it was a gorgeous fall day so I ran a little more than what was required)
Day 39, Thursday 10/17	3 Miles	Nada
Day 40, Friday 10/18	Rest	3.19 Mile Run around my neighborhood to make up for missing Thursday
Day 41, Saturday 10/19	6 Miles	Ridgway Rhythm Run 10K (6.2 Miles)
Day 42, Sunday 10/20	9 Miles	9 Mile Run with Scott
WEEK SUMMARY	26 Miles	27.4 Miles (overall, a really good week!)

Week 7:

Kicked off week 7 by walking up 150 floors! Did the Stairmaster as my "cross training" exercise. That was kind of fun. Other noteworthy moments would be another gorgeous run at Confluence Park on Wednesday (probably my last good evening fall run of the season due to daylight savings), and, on Thursday, rushing home from work to get to the Looney Bean "fun run" - a loop starting at Looney Bean Coffee in Montrose and heading over into Baldridge Park. I wanted to go one more time before it ended for the season.

Is there a better running surface than this? I think not!

At Confluence Park in Delta.

This is from the Looney Bean "fun run", on top of Sunset Mesa looking out towards Montrose as it got dark.

The long run of the week was 14 miles. I was tired of trying to figure out how to get 14 miles in near our house, so I convinced Scott to go do an out-and-back along the Uncompahgre Riverway Trail (which turns into the frontage road heading south towards Ridgway). It was nice, although I'm a little concerned that over half of this route is on dirt roads. I think I need to be getting more road running in, since the marathon will be solely on paved surfaces.

At Cerise Park in Montrose - 14 mile "long run" completed!

Week 7 Summary:

DATE	PLAN	ACTUAL
Day 43, Monday 10/21	Cross Train	Cross Train – 32 minutes on the Stairmaster (walked up 150 floors!)
Day 44, Tuesday 10/22	4 Miles	4.25 mile run on the treadmill
Day 45, Wednesday 10/23	7 Miles	7.09 Miles at Confluence Park again (a beautiful place to run in the fall)
Day 46, Thursday 10/24	4 Miles	Looney Bean Run Club - 4.78 mile run
Day 47, Friday 10/25	Rest	Rest
Day 48, Saturday 10/26	7 Miles	14 Mile “long run” with Scott (Uncompahgre Riverway Trail towards Ridgway)
Day 49, Sunday 10/27	14 Miles	6.38 Mile Run (we traded Saturday and Sunday due to scheduling)
WEEK SUMMARY	36 Miles	36.5 Miles (another awesome week!)

Week 8:

On Monday, I finally got around to trying the Rowing machine at the gym! And had sore arms for the rest of the week because of it! I'd like to make it a regular cross training exercise though because I never do anything to workout my arms...and they need it!

On Wednesday, I went to "speed work" at the track for the first time since early September. But...I didn't actually do any speed work ;)! I honestly felt fairly tired this week (skipped 2 runs!!) and wasn't really up for it, but wanted to go and catch up with people. And I am glad I went. I was able to get a good idea of a route for Sunday's long run (the Black Canyon Triathlon bike route is 15 miles on back roads - that are NOT dirt!) and got invited (or more invited myself) to tag along on a trail run on Saturday.

So, as I just briefly mentioned, on Saturday, I tagged along on an 11 mile trail run on a 4-wheel drive road near Devil's Thumb golf course in Delta. I actually really enjoyed this route, and I think it'll be a good one to do in February and early March as training for my 50K. It gradually climbs up towards the mesa (and gets steeper the closer you get). We got a little over 1000 feet of gain in 5.5 miles before turning around. This run felt GREAT. I was really enjoying myself and felt like I could have kept running forever!

LOVE this picture. So often I think of the non-mountain areas of the western slope as being kind of ugly, but this shows how it can be beautiful too!

Elevation gain - it felt much more gradual than this makes it look!

For Sunday's long run, also as briefly mentioned, Scott and I decided to try out the Black Canyon Triathlon bike route. It's a 15 mile course, and we needed to run 15 miles. Perfect solution. It was on back roads to the northwest part of town, and was all paved (which is good for me to get the practice in of running on such hard surfaces). Not the most exciting route, and was actually a bit hilly, but it was a nice change in scenery and location (plus the hills are good for me, right?). Overall though, this run did NOT feel so great. I don't know if it was because I did such a long run the day before, or because it's the longest run I've done on an all paved surface, but I was ready for this to be done by the time we hit mile 10. It was probably a good thing that we were so far from the car. I pretty much HAD to keep going. It is always weird though how some runs can feel so easy and some can feel so hard. But it's all a good learning experience and I know it's all benefiting me in the long run (no pun intended)!

I feel so bad a$$ when I look at this, and how huge of a distance that is compared to Montrose!

Elevation - it really didn't feel as hilly as this makes it look, except for the hill right around mile 6 - that was ROUGH! And then going down after mile 12 was a steep one too.

Views from our route - lots of farmland.

I realized that between Saturday and Sunday combined, I actually ran, almost exactly, the distance of a marathon! 11 Miles on Saturday + 15.25 Miles on Sunday! How crazy to think that I will be doing all of that at once! It honestly has me a little intimated for the first time, especially since my 15 miler didn't go so great. But I've still got 9 1/2 weeks of training left and many more long runs!

Week 8 Summary:

DATE	PLAN	ACTUAL
Day 50, Monday 10/28	Cross Train	Cross Train – 30 minutes on the bike (5.8 miles), 5 minutes on the rowing machine, and a few weight machines
Day 51, Tuesday 10/29	4 Miles	Nada
Day 52, Wednesday 10/30	7 Miles	7ish miles – went to the track and lost count of my laps, so I just ran for about 70 minutes.
Day 53, Thursday 10/31	4 Miles	Nada again (too much Halloween candy??)
Day 54, Friday 11/1	Rest	Rest
Day 55, Saturday 11/2	7 Miles	11 Mile trail run at Devil’s Thumb in Delta (didn’t mind getting some extra miles in since I slacked on Tuesday and Thursday)
Day 56, Sunday 11/3	15 Miles	15.25 Mile Run with Scott – we ran the Black Canyon Triathlon bike route, out on back roads west of town
WEEK SUMMARY	37 Miles	33.25 Miles (I just felt tired for the first part of this week, so I don’t feel too bad about missing Tuesday and Thursday. Hopefully the extra sleep did me good and I’ll be good to go next week!)

Again, another friendly reminder that I am dedicating my marathon and training to my grandmother, and as part of that, fundraising for the Alzheimer's Association ALZ Stars. You can donate towards my cause on my ALZ stars website: act.alz.org/goto/kateavery. I received quite a few donations since my last post, so THANK YOU for your generosity!

Race Recaps: Broomfield Days 5K / Black Canyon 20K / Ridgway Rhythm 10K

I've been running quite a few small local races over the last month and haven't really had much chance to recap on them, so I'm going to combine them into one post.

Broomfield Days 5K

In September I was feeling a bit homesick, so I made a last minute trip over to Broomfield the weekend of the 20th to the 22nd. It just so happened to also be the weekend of Broomfield Days - a festival type weekend with vendor booths, a parade, Friday night bingo (always a favorite), and a 5K race. Growing up in Broomfield, I've done all of the other typical Broomfield Days things, but I have never done the 5K - so of course, I had to do it. An added bonus was that Amy and her sister Angie would be running it too! My mom decided to do the 1 mile fun run as well. So we had quite a few people, and a good time!

The course hits all of the major Broomfield "sights" (if you can call them sights). It starts at the fire station (right at the heart of Broomfield days), heads east down Midway, veers right behind Nativity, crosses Main Street, goes past the Library to the skate park, loops back around the other side of the Library, and then heads back towards the start.

I tried to stay with Amy, who's always been a faster runner than me, but about half way in, I fell back a bit. She's just too darn fast for me! But I kept my face up fairly well and finished in 25:47 (8:19 average pace).

We waited around for the awards and much to my surprise, Amy got first place in our age category and I got second! It was a bit of a shock to me, especially since Amy had a faster time last year and didn't place. But I guess it's all about who shows up that day!

STATS:
Race: Broomfield Days Mayor's Cup Race
Distance: 5K
Date: 09/21/2013
Time: 25:47
Average Pace: 8:19 minutes/mile
Overall Rank: 39 out of 145
Gender Rank: 12 out of 81
Division Rank (W 20-29): 2 out of 14

PICS:

Me, Amy, and Angie

My mom and I

Amy and I with our awards!

"It's a major award!"

Black Canyon North Rim 20K

The third annual Black Canyon North Rim 20K and 8K was scheduled for October 13th this year. As some of you may remember, I did the 8K last year, so I of course wanted to do the 20K this year. Especially since it's a local race put on by the San Juan Mountain Runners (which I am a member of), and doesn't cost too much (cost is the main decision maker when choosing races - you'd be surprised at how expensive some of these races are!).

Well unfortunately, the government had other plans for us this year. Due to the government shutdown, Black Canyon National Park was closed for race day. Luckily, Jan, the race director did an awesome job finding us an alternate course in the Leroux Creek forest area above Hotchkiss.

I had wanted to run the 20K (12.4 miles) at a sub-9 minute mile average pace, but due to some gruesome (although beautiful) hills in the beginning few miles it didn't quite happen. My first 5 miles were between upper 9's and 10s (plus one 11). After mile 5, the course was all downhill, which was a nice reward for completing the first hilly 5. I ran all of the remaining 7 miles under 9 minutes each, several being around 8:15. Overall I was quite happy with my performance. The downhill section of this gave me an inkling of hope that if I keep running and train hard, I may someday actually be able to qualify for Boston (a bucket list dream ever since I got serious about running)! That's not something I'm planning to try for anytime soon, but it was a nice feeling to be running low 8 minute miles without feeling like I was going to die (to qualify for Boston, I would need to run a marathon in 3:35, or an average pace of 8:12 - but personally I would want to train to run it with an average pace of 8:00).

I ended up coming in first in my age group for the 20K with a time of 1:53:00! But don't go congratulating me just yet as I'm also fairly certain that I was the only person in my age group. But since I felt like I ran really well for me, I'm going to take it as an accomplishment! And whose to say if there had been others that I wouldn't have still won right?!

STATS:
Race: Black Canyon North Rim 20K & 8K
Distance: 20K
Date: 10/13/2013
Time: 1:53:00
Average Pace: 9:09 minutes/mile
Overall Rank: 15 out of 21
Gender Rank: 5 out of 7
Division Rank (W 20-29): 1 out of 1 (first and last place I guess!)
Splits: 11:08, 10:16, 9:54, 10:09, 9:07, 8:55, 8:42, 8:50, 8:15, 8:17, 8:37, 8:13, 7:32 (last .4)
Elevation Gain/Loss: 645 feet / 2,318 feet

PICS:

Where we usually run!

Views from this years alternate course.

Elevation Profile - look at all that loss! It makes the hills at the beginning look tiny, but trust me, they weren't!

We added a little spoof to the shirts: "Government Shutdown: Nobody Wins!"

I think this is the fanciest award I've ever gotten so far! :)

Ridgway Rhythm Run 10K

I signed up for this race kind of last minute. I remember hearing about it a lot at last years Black Canyon North Rim race, so when we got an email reminder about this years, I decided to sign up. I've only done one other "official" 10K race, so I thought it would be a good chance to try and PR.

Well what I did not know (although I probably should've figured with it being in Ridgway), was that the course, while absolutely beautiful, was not a great one to try and set a personal record. It was very HILLY! My current personal record is 56:51, set back at my only other 10K - the Fruita Sweetheart 10K last February. Well I tried to run fast, but it just wasn't going to well. I struggled up the hills and tried to make up for it on the downhills, but it wasn't enough. I finished in 58:46 according to my Garmin (I do not know if they post official results, so I'm not sure what my official "race time" is). It was an average pace of 9:21. Not bad considering the hills, but not my sub-9 minute pace I wanted (I just seem to be having a lot of trouble achieving that lately).

As I mentioned above, the course was beautiful. Although, it wasn't necessarily the "course" that made it beautiful. I think any course in Ridgway would be beautiful. Magnificent views of both the Sneffels Range and Cimmaron Range are just right there! We did run about a mile and a half along the Uncompahgre Riverway Trail which was pretty, although definitely past it's prime fall beauty (I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this - but Montrose has an Uncompahgre Riverway Trail too - I think I read somewhere that the plan is to someday connect them to each other - how neat would that be!).

I was a little surprised that there weren't any of the typical Montrose runners that I usually see at local races. But I still hung around after the race for the awards ceremony and raffle. I don't know any stats other than that I was the 4th place women (because the lady in front of me got a 3rd place award).

STATS:
Race: Ridgway Rhythm Run 5K/10K (Rhythm - because it's a fundraiser for the music department)
Distance: 10K
Date: 10/19/2013
Time: 58:46
Average Pace: 9:21 minutes/mile
Overall Rank: Don't know - probably one of the last - there weren't a whole lot of people doing the 10K
Gender Rank: 4 out of ?? (at least 6 because I saw 2 other women finish after me)
Division Rank (W 20-29): ?? (probably 1 of 1 again, I didn't see many other young people)
Splits: 8:58, 10:03, 9:23, 9:55, 9:08, 9:00, 7:59 (pace for the last .2)
Elevation Gain/Loss: 338 feet / 335 feet

PICS:

Elevation Profile

Overall, I'm glad I did all of these local races. They really showed me that "winning" really is all about who shows up that day. And it's kind of fun to actually win every once in awhile (especially when I'm not expecting it!).

I'd like to do 1 more race before 2013 ends, just because that would put me up to 12 total races in 2013 (or an average of 1 race per month), but I'm not sure of any I would do. I would love to do the Moab Winter Sun 10K in December, but it's fairly far away, so it's still up in the air. Other than that, the amount of races in Colorado are starting to dwindle as winter sets up, so who knows!

Last, one other somewhat exciting announcement: I officially signed up (and by "officially" I paid a non-refundable $85 registration fee) for my first Ultra Marathon!!! The 24 Hours of Moab 50K put on by Gemini Adventures. It's a whole weekend of activities including a 100 mile race, a 24 hour race, a 100K, and a 50K. I'm pretty excited about it. I knew I wanted to do my first Ultra sometime next spring, but I was having trouble deciding on one. But I finally took the plunge! And I can't wait. It will be on March 22nd, 2014!

I can't wait for this former chubby girl to be able to call herself not only a marathoner, but an ULTRA marathoner!!!  (Now lets just pray I don't get any injuries in the next few months to alter that course!)

Marathon Training Weeks 3-5

Wow, where does the time go? I have already completed 5 full weeks of marathon training! It is going to be here before I know it!

These past 3 weeks since my last training post have been spent trying to get back on track. My mileage was just way off for my first two weeks, so I've been focusing on really trying to follow the training plan. And I think I've done a pretty good job overall. Week 3 was slightly off, but weeks 4 and 5 have been consistent. As much as I don't enjoy the cold weather and shorter days, it definitely makes it easier to get my running in since I'm not off trying to fit in hikes or drive over to Denver. Plus, I primarily just road run in the cooler months which is much faster than the trail running I was doing over the summer.

Other than training, there hasn't been a whole lot new going on. At the end of September, I headed to Glenwood Springs, which you can read about here, and the first weekend in October was spent driving around the San Juan Mountains in an attempt to capture some of the beautiful fall scenery (shown in this post as well as this post).

This past Sunday (October 13) I ran another race - what was supposed to be the North Rim 20K at Black Canyon National Park. However, due to the ongoing government shutdown it had to be moved. It still ended up being a great coarse though, and fit in perfectly with marathon training. I was scheduled to do a 12 mile run that day, and 20K is 12.4. I will go into more detail about the race (including a few pictures) in a later post. 

My last three weeks of training:

Week 3

DATE	PLAN	ACTUAL
Day 15, Monday 9/23	Cross Train	7 Mile Run (trying to make up for missing my long run the day before)
Day 16, Tuesday 9/24	3 Miles	3 Mile Run + Body Flow Class
Day 17, Wednesday 9/25	5 Miles	5 Mile Run with Scott
Day 18, Thursday 9/26	3 Miles	Nada
Day 19, Friday 9/27	Rest	Rest
Day 20, Saturday 9/28	5 Miles	4 Mile Run/Hike – hiked 1.5 miles up to Hanging Lake, ran 1.5 miles down + an additional mile
Day 21, Sunday 9/29	6 Miles	6 Mile Run with Scott
WEEK SUMMARY	22 Miles	25 (over because of Monday, but closer!)

Week 4

DATE	PLAN	ACTUAL
Day 22, Monday 9/30	Cross Train	Cross Train - 37 minutes (3.65 miles) on the Elliptical
Day 23, Tuesday 10/1	3 Miles	3.07 mile run at Confluence Park in Delta
Day 24, Wednesday 10/2	6 Miles	6.04 early, DARK morning miles
Day 25, Thursday 10/3	3 Miles	Nada
Day 26, Friday 10/4	Rest	3.09 mile run
Day 27, Saturday 10/5	6 Miles	6.13 mile run
Day 28, Sunday 10/6	11 Miles	11.06 Miles with Scott
WEEK SUMMARY	29 Miles	29.39 (33.04 w/ elliptical miles) FINALLY ON TRACK!

Week 5

DATE	PLAN	ACTUAL
Day 29, Monday 10/7	Cross Train	Cross Train – took Argie for a walk! (nothing too fancy, only about a mile)
Day 30, Tuesday 10/8	3 Miles	3 Mile Treadmill Run + .3 cool-down
Day 31, Wednesday 10/9	6 Miles	6 Mile run with Scott (it was dark by the time we got back – not ready for that!)
Day 32, Thursday 10/10	3 Miles	3 Mile Interval Treadmill Run + .25 mile cool-down
Day 33, Friday 10/11	Rest	Rest
Day 34, Saturday 10/12	6 Miles	6.02 mile run with Scott + Body Flow Class (not with Scott, lol)
Day 35, Sunday 10/13	12 Miles	20K (12.4 miles) Race in Hotchkiss
WEEK SUMMARY	30 Miles	30.42 – still on track for another week!

So there you have it. A few weeks in the life of a wannabe marathoner. Not too exciting yet, but I'll get there. I cannot and (yet at the same time can) wait to start getting into the "longer" runs and into an unknown territory! 

Again. I want to remind any followers that I am dedicating this marathon as well as the journey along the way to my grandmother, who passed away from Alzheimer's in 2011. To honor her memory, I am fundraising for the Alzheimer's Association ALZ stars. To donate towards my cause, follow this link: http://act.alz.org/goto/kateavery (and of course, THANK YOU for any and all support).