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By kilax, May 19, 2012 7:21 am

This week’s challenge: Your worst race. Not necessarily your worst race photo, but a photo or representation of your worst race to date. It can be a photo of you before, during or after the race, or if you don’t have one, something that represents the race (maybe your bib, shirt, medal). And an explanation of why it was your worst race. 

I definitely have a worst race, with two runner-ups. 

GOLD MEDAL: Wisconsin Half Marathon 2011

Somehow, in the winter of 2011, I convinced Erin that we needed to run the Illinois Half Marathon and the Wisconsin Half Marathon on back-to-back weekends. The problem (besides this being a stupid idea) is that my IT Band was bothering me for first half marathon, so by the time we got to the second one, I was in a lot of pain. At mile 3, I thought “I really should not be running this race.” But I wanted my medal. So I stuck it out. It sucked that I could not keep up with Erin because my leg was bothering me. And I was depressed for most of May* and June. Yeah. Races from those months were not stellar. 

So now you know why I was so happy the race went so well this year! And this race also holds my favorite race picture (2009) from last week’s question. Ha ha. 

Lesson learned: None. I would still have run this race to get my cheese medal. 

SILVER MEDAL: Red Ribbon Race 5K 2008

Lesson learned: don’t take vitamins on an empty stomach before a fast race. Wow. I had stomach pain like no other for this race. Not the “I am about to throw up because I am running so fast!” pain, but the “something is trying to kill me from inside my body” pain. Since this race, I have never taken vitamins in the morning before a run. I don’t want to risk it. It was that painful. 

BRONZE MEDAL: Rally for Autism 5K 2009

My first race with Erin! At 9:00 am! In August! In the high 80s! In a park with no shade! You can tell where this is going… it was hot and we were miserable. 

Lesson learned: don’t try to race in the summer. 

Also, this is when I was first having shin problems. I should not have been running at all. 

Lesson learned #2: Respect your body. Unless you are going for a Cheese Medal. 

*What is my problem with May?! This happens to me every year!!!

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By kilax, May 18, 2012 5:52 pm

Are you guys reading The Road to London (with Kara Goucher)? It’s the cutest thing ever – updates on Kara’s London Olympics 2012 training written from the perspective of her son, Colt (really written by her husband, Adam). I love getting that inside perspective on an elite runner and especially seeing all the photos. 

I was catching up this week and I saw that for April 21st, Colt (Adam) wrote:

Saturday Kara embarked on the longest run of her entire life; 3 hours!

It did not say how far she ran in those three hours*, but damn. I have “run” for well over 5 hours (Chicago Marathon 2010) at probably 2.5 times the pace Kara runs. It is really interesting to think that her longest run (in time) in something I have run past a few times… but only because I am so damn slow. Interesting perspective. It’s amazing how fast these women are!

What is your longest timed (not distance) run?

I love the pictures of her and Shalane. They’re both so freaking cute. I am really excited to see how they do in the Olympics this summer!

Source. Check out Shalane’s abs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*and to note the log says she has run 3 hours since then, just thought this “first time” note was interesting

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By kilax, May 17, 2012 3:18 pm

(Or paths, or whatever you want to call them.)

If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time you may notice I talk a lot about the trails in the county I live in. Particularly the trail closest to my home – the Millennium Trail. I did not realize how much I talked about the 2.5 mile portion of this trail near my home until I decided to do a bit of research on my blog and found a ton of posts mentioning it –

6/27/10 – When I found out they were building the trail
9/14/10 – Still waiting for construction to start
10/21/10 – Construction has started and I declare any new home for us must be near a trail
11/3/10 – I get anxious and say the trail looks ready to run on to me
1/9/11 – Oh wait, that bridge is not finished
1/23/11 – I decide the bridge is ready enough for me to use
8/3/11 – There is signage on the trail
8/5/11 – I use the trail to commute to the train
10/16/11 – Rainbow on the trail
10/30/11 – Vandalism on the trail

Those were the ones I found before I got tired of looking! Yikes. Excited, much?

Part of the the portion of the trail near our home was never finished (a 600′ section in the middle and the 1300′ start of it) because of easement debates. I read in the local paper* in the beginning of April that they finally came to an agreement on this and were going to finish the trail! EXCITING! I cut out the article and put it on our kitchen door so I could see it every day. <– dorky

Eventually, this trail so close to my home will connect to 20 miles of completed trail. And eventually it will be a 35 mile trail! All the need to do is build a few tunnels and get some more parts of the trail going…

Anyway. This post is starting to not have a point. Oops. Back on track…

Whenever we would ride on trails that went near people’s homes in the past , I would always say “It would be SO COOL to have a trail in your backyard! You could jump right on the trail to run/walk/bike or you could people watch from your home!”

Would you want a trail that close to your home?

And now we will have that. I can see the extension to the trail from my office and bedroom windows! Since Steven works from home every day, and I work from home quite a bit, we have been able to see some of the construction. Steven said he felt the house shaking yesterday – it’s that close!**

They had to redo the sidewalk to make room for the trail. And they had to kill some trees. <– sad

The trail wraps around the “marsh” (we call it the swamp, or if you say marsh, you have to say it with a Boston accent) in our backyard.

View of our home.

She had dumps like a truck truck truck…

Would you want to watch the construction of a trail being built or do you think that is boring?

*Why did I have to read this in the paper? Why was it not on the forest preserve website? What if we did not get the paper?
**Should I be worried our house was shaking?

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By kilax, May 16, 2012 6:58 am

Blueberry bagels are tricky. They’re all “I’m not moldy, that’s just a little fleck of blueberry!”

I am on to you, you little bluberry terd. Kim does not eat mold. In to the trash you go. Besides, I walk by a bagel place on my way to the office.

Eww. This bagel was gross. Maybe blueberry bagels are just a bad idea?

When I told Steven the blueberry bagel tried to trick me this morning, he asked why I didn’t just cut the mold off. Uhh… because the thought of eating something that had mold in it makes me want to vomit.* Would you cut the mold off and eat it?!

Yes, I just wrote a post about blueberry bagels. If a moldy bagel is my only “problem” today I will be really happy!

A photo of Data from this morning just because:

*Similar to how banana peels touch anything other than a napkin make me want to vomit. Steven discovered this fear of mine yesterday and thinks I am bizarre.

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By kilax, May 15, 2012 7:00 pm

At the end of the work day today I thought I needed one of two things – a glass of wine or a relaxing/distracting run. I spent the entire workday checking AutoCAD drawings, and staring at the black screen was starting to make me a bit batty. 

The decision was easy – I am not a drinker and don’t have wine in my house (maybe Erin can help me with this problem?), so a run it was. 

The run started out a bit ho hum. It was in the mid 80s and really sunny. But right after the second mile, when I was about to cross a street, Steven drove by on his way to the post office! What a funny coincidence! That made me smile. 

Then in my seventh mile, when I was running along one of the major roads, an SUV honked at me from behind, then when they drove by a woman was hanging out the passenger window waving at me. It was one of my running club peeps cheering me on! That really made my day and that mile ended up being my fastest. 

I wasn’t going to write about this run, but it was really exciting for me to see people I knew on the road. It gave me a boost and lifted my spirits. 

Then I made it home right before a short downpour. Talk about good luck (running in the rain would have felt nice though, I am sure). 

Because every post needs a picture, here’s one of the trail by my house from today

Lately I don’t have much to talk about except running. It’s kind of the steadiest, surest thing in my life right now (of my interests I mean, not relationships). I don’t think of this as a running blog. I think of it as more of a life blog. But maybe May will be the month of running talk. It’s either that, or me bitching about a lot of stupid insignificant crap. Take your pick! 

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By kilax, May 14, 2012 9:12 am

A coworker just told me that I should probably brush my hair before my meeting, as the back of it “looks all crazy like I just got out of bed.”

Ugh.

Why do I even try?*

Monday: 1, Kim: 0

*The sad thing is, I DID try to make my hair look nice this morning. Usually I don’t even brush it before I go to work. I need serious hair help! Let’s look on the bright side… only one more day IN the office this week. The rest are work from home.

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By kilax, May 13, 2012 7:05 pm

Highlight of the Week: A variety of runs with a variety of people (and one run by myself). Changing things up keeps it fresh for me!

Monday | May 7, 2012: 9 m run (4 + 5 with Bobbi, and GRCers Stephanie and Stacey)
Loc: Grant Woods FP, Temp: 63°/62°, Time: 36:31, 49:32, Pace: 9:07, 9:54 avg, Difficulty: medium (hills + humidity)
Tuesday | May 8, 2012: 6 m run (with Amy and GRCer Carrie)
Loc: North Branch Trail, Temp: 69°/68°, Time: 1:01:20, Pace: 10:13 avg, Difficulty: medium
Wednesday | May 9, 2012: strength class
Strength: dumbbell circuit, Difficulty: medium
Thursday | May 10, 2012: rest
Friday | May 11, 2012: strength + 4 m run (with GRCer Yvonne)
Strength: all sorts of torture, Difficulty: medium/hard
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 75°/76°, Time: 34:13, Pace: 8:33, Difficulty: medium
Saturday | May 12, 2012: 23 m run
Loc: Around town, Temp: 62°/57°, Time: 4:14:01, Pace: 11:03 avg, Difficulty: easy
Sunday | May 13, 2012: 5 m run (with Erin)
Loc: Forest Park/Oak Park, Temp: 57°, Time: 49:34, Pace: 9:54 avg, Difficulty: easy

Lessons learned:

• A 8:30mm pace is not feasible (for me) for a June 9 half if the temp is >65°.
• No Lo mein before a fast run. No blueberry bagels before a long slow run. 
• Vegan fig newtons work really well for long run fuel. 

Reminders for next week:

• Working from home all day does not mean I should be gone all evening running. Maybe I will write more on that later!

Links:

• I lovd J’s post about balancing running and being a newlywed. 

Comments (27)

By kilax, May 12, 2012 10:27 pm

I’ve been doing some longer runs lately. I don’t need to do them. Well, need to in the sense that I am training for a race and have to get miles in. I am doing them because I love to run. And the longer the run, the more I love it (usually, not always). 

I run slow for my long runs. Pace is not important to me right now. I was thinking the other day about how I have a tendency to pack my schedule so full that I am constantly racing the clock to get from one thing to the next (a bad habit I am trying to stop). I don’t want all of my runs to be a race against the clock too! The only time I want to be concerned about is having a good time. Okay, and making it home when I tell Steven I will so he is not worried about me. 

I am more excited by the fact that my body will let me run so far and so long, and feel so good, than about pace. And it also feels really freeing not to have a goal race on the calendar. I can run a stupid amount of miles one week, and not worry about how it will tire me. I can also run a really low amount of miles and not worry about sticking to my schedule. Maybe the less I am obliged to run, the more I do? Ha ha. Doubtful. I love a good training schedule too. But there is something nice about running until I feel like stopping (I wanted to keep going today!). 

This isn’t coming out right (typical) but I am just trying to say that I am in a really good place with running right now. I’ve been running a lot of different places, with different people, and getting me away from the monotony of my neighborhood has been good for me. And today I got to do one of my favorite things on my long run – explore!

I love running in Gutternberg, IA, because you can run from my parent’s cabin to the downtown area, all around the city, and back, and it’s not a very long run. It’s really fun to see the city that way. 

I always wanted to explore the city I live in that way, but thought I couldn’t, because there are more cars on the road, and I didn’t think it was safe. But today I was able to do that, with careful planning on when to run on trails, and when to run on low-speed limit streets. By the end, I had run on two trails, through two forest preserves, on many streets and through at least two towns! I really enjoyed the long slow run, and just wanted to share it.

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By kilax, May 11, 2012 9:37 am

What are your favorite apps? Which do you use the most and which do you use the least?

I am new to having a smart phone and haven’t downloaded a ton of apps, but there are some I use more than others – Camera, iTunes (for downloading podcasts straight to my phone), Facebook (even though it’s so buggy), TWC, Amazon, Starbucks, and Shazam. 

I also have specific Photography and Running folders with some apps that I use a lot. For Photography, I mostly use Camera+ for its timer and some filters. I use Sketches 2 to draw on photos. In the Running Folder, I use Pace Calc to calculate pace (ha ha), Glympse to let Steven track me while I run, and LCFPD (Lake County Forest Preserves) to get info on all the trails I run. 

I use my Reference folder a lot too – mostly Wikipedia and imdb.

There are some apps on the iPhone that I never use, but cannot delete, so I put them in a folder called “Crap I Don’t Use.”

Well, most boring blog post ever. But maybe you will tell me about some interesting apps that you like. Since I clearly need more ways to waste time!

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By kilax, May 10, 2012 6:53 am

Well, I now know not to leave my diamond stud earrings in when I sleep – there is a potential they could get eaten.

By the Earring Monster (aka Data, Sir Poops a Lot, Dates, Poopy Pants McGee).

This morning I was trying to sleep in (until 6:30) and Data decided I needed to get up at 6:00. I tried to ignore him. My alarm went off at 6:30. I hit snooze. Then Data put his mouth around my diamond stud earring and pulled it out of my ear.

I woke up saying “No! No! Noooo!!!” Steven woke up wondering what the heck was going on. I was too shocked to say anything. All I could think about was the fact that I had already lost and found one of my diamond stud earrings once, and that I did not want to go through Data’s poop to find it (although I would).

I turned the light on and frantically looked around the bed for my tiny earring. Luckily, I found it. No poop digging for me. Phew.

But now I know not to sleep with earrings in anymore. Sigh.

What creative tactics have your pets used to get you out of bed?