Comments (72)

By kilax, May 7, 2013 6:04 am

Fifth year in a row running the Wisconsin Half Marathon!

And five very different races. In 2009…

Ha ha ha. Just kidding. I won’t talk about the 2009-2012 races. That would be a snoozefest. We’ll get right to the point.

You all knew that I came really close to a PR at the SLC half marathon, and decided I would go for a PR at Wisconsin. I prepared by asking my friend Ed to be my pacer… then spending the two weeks in between races eating all the foods and barely running.

Surprisingly, after that awesome two-week prep, and eating oreos, pancakes and a dinner of burger and fries the day before, the race was not as easy as I hoped. WHAT?! Ha ha ha.

Ed is an awesome pacer. We were on pace for maybe the first 7-8 miles? Then I started to slow down. He really pushed and encouraged me, and tried to keep the pace up, but… I was not going as fast as I felt like I was. It’s kind of funny. I knew I wasn’t on pace for the last two miles but I thought I was going a bit faster than I was. I was surprised when I saw how much I slowed down on my watch! Ha!

But! That is the nice part about having a pacer – I don’t have to look at my watch. Ever (except over and over in the end when you just want the damn race to end).

So, how did I do? 1:51:15 – a two minute 51 second PR. Decent! I know I wouldn’t have run that pace without Ed, so I am very thankful he paced me!

But damn. I do not prefer running for pace in races, unless the pace is super easy because I am not overweight and have actually trained for it properly. Which would have been me if I ran this race two months ago. Moving on…

HOLY CRAP a lot of people I know ran this race. My brother-in-law came from Kansas City to run it. Originally, we were going to run together, as we did in 2012. But after I was so close to a PR at SLC I told him he was running on his own. Ha ha ha. Guys. I am not that mean. We had talked about it a lot. He didn’t feel like he training was up to par and he ended up being sick for the race! But he still did it and kicked butt!

Who else was there?

My bestie, Erin, who was a two-day race volunteer, and came to see me at the finish!

Chicagoland bloggers – Bobbi, Erin, Lauren, Kayla (and not pictured: Emily):

I was so busy that I missed the meetup with the Chicagoland bloggers that I set up for that morning. Nice. I also missed seeing a few Chicagoland bloggers (not listed above).

A crap ton of people from my multisport club

and running club, but yeah… not in that picture. Although! I did see my girl, Emily finish a really tough marathon!

(picture not from the marathon, but I like this picture of us)

Rachel was there!!! And may or may have not kicked some serious arse…

And….

and…

the Kims!!!

Kim and Kimberly! They roadtripped it out to Wisconsin and stayed at Bobbi’s Friday and Saturday night. I was bummed I couldn’t stay there too (guess that would have been kind of rude with my in-laws visiting?). But we did all hang out after the race to see our marathoning friends finish, then we hit up Red Robin (two days in a row for me) and hung out at Bobbi’s for a bit! It was so nice just to be hanging out with friends after the race, not worrying about posting my finishing time on Facebook (or congratulating everyone on theirs) immediately… just being in the moment.  That is mostly what inspired yesterday’s post.

Anyways. Another Wisconsin Half Marathon in the books. Despite the “hills” getting larger on the years I am trying to run fast, I will be back next year! I really love this half marathon!

Other random thoughts:

• I was dissapointed in the lack of Star Wars signs/costumes. I saw two Boba Fett signs. TWO!
• I thought about pinning by bib to my shorts and wish I would have. I was too hot at mile 1 and wanted to run shirtless. Also, I should have worn a visor – the top of my head was too hot with a hat on.
• I was disappointed it was not overcast and raining (as it had been forecasted). Sunny and low 50s is too hot for me.  
• Ed wanted to start in the cheese corral (the very front of the race), where you wear something “cheesy” to get in, so I wore a cheesestick around my neck. I took it off when we started and carried it for 11 miles. It was a nice distraction. I should have held on to it until the end!
• Speaking of starting up front, it was actually nice to be getting passed and not passing people. We were able to stay to the side and run the tangents. I think the cheese corral is not that great of an idea for such a small race, but it really helped me save energy not to weave so much in the beginning. 
• There are so many funny things Ed said to me that I won’t type out here… but I will be laughing about them in my head for a long time. He really is a great pacer!
• I love seeing people in the out and backs at this race. It was such a good distraction to scan for familiar faces, even if I couldn’t remember their names until after they passed (due to running brain).
• I usually try to smile during races but I was running so hard (for me) at this one that I didn’t much. I am curious to see what the official pics look like!
• A huge thanks to Steven for spectating and taking such great photos!

You can tell how much fun Steven and his dad had by the looks on their faces.

Comments (41)

By kilax, May 6, 2013 6:19 am

I’ve had such busy weekends lately* that I have been purposefully avoiding spending a ton of time online** (Facebook, email, blog reading).

It’s been so refreshing.

But I feel sorta guilty. Just sorta.

Sorta guilty that I am not keeping up with people*** as well as I should.

Sorta guilty that I am shutting down and keeping to myself.

But it’s so nice to just enjoy my time and not constantly check in to social media platforms. And it’s so nice to not feel like I always**** have to rush to share something I just did, or am doing. Honestly, it all gets so overwhelming for me! I feel like I can’t keep up and that turns something that is supposed to be fun in to something stressful.

A ton of people I know ran a half marathon on Saturday and I didn’t look at Facebook until after midnight… so really, the next day. It took me about 30 minutes to scroll through all the posts about the race – there were just so many. I really enjoyed looking at it all, and did feel somewhat bad that I was commenting and “liking” so late, but honestly, I know it’s better for me if I just log in and look at everything once, than try to constantly check in on social media stuff on my phone.

And that is a huge part of the stress. I feel like I am always connected, through my phone, and like I should be checking in on things all the time. Nope. Don’t need to!

Anyways. I am not complaining. I think social media is a lot of fun. I am just recognizing  that I do need to disconnect from time to time. And that I probably don’t need to feel guilty about it.

Has anyone else felt guilty (or sorta guilty) for not being online much?

And since no post is complete with out a picture, please tell me you “get” my shirt for the MAY FOURTH race I did?!

*There is also a lot of this going on.
**On the weekends.
***I actually correspond a lot with my close friends throughout the week. So this is more about keeping up with the people that I don’t email back and forth with, text with daily, etc.
****Not never, because I am still sharing things.

Comments (32)

By kilax, May 2, 2013 6:20 am

• It’s getting hot out! That means running mileage is going to go down… and biking mileage is going to go up! And! Steven got me schweet new wheels for my bike. And the blue tires are finally on. Hells yeah.

• Speaking of biking, I retracted from being a Venus de Miles ambassador. My schedule is nutso crazy with no unplanned weekends in sight. I tried to combat the spring blues with a full calendar and it just made me crazy… and left me not wanting to take care of myself. So. Time to free up the calendar (especially if I want to take on more work with my other job). I still think Venus de Miles is a great event and if I decide (closer to the event date) I do want to participate I will pay the entry fee and do the fundraising.
• And speaking of my other job (and really, the Multisport club), we got some schweet cycling jerseys!!!

• Someone I know just got braces! Exciting!!!

• When Erin told me that classy cat shirts do exist, do you think she meant this one too?

• So, we are watching Les Misérables. I like the story and all, but I think I am more of a fan of musicals with singing acts, rather than singing dialogue… if that makes sense. I would rather they talk in between singing. No sing talking. Ha ha ha. I have to have the closed captioning on so I can understand what the heck they are saying, too.

Other Random Thoughts Thursday Posts: 38, XXXVII, XXXVI, XXXV, XXXIV, XXXIII, XXXII, XXXI, XXX, XXIX, XVIII, XXVII, XXVI, XXV, XXIV, XXIII, XXII, XXI, XX, XIX, XVIII, XVII, XVI, XV, XIV, XIII, XII, XI, X, IX, VIII, VII, VI, V, IV, III, II, I.

Comments (34)

By kilax, May 1, 2013 6:23 am

What is your oldest online relationship?

That sounds kind of creepy, doesn’t it?!

This weekend, I finally got to meet Courtney. The triad is now officially complete! Hee hee hee.

Gina, Courtney and I have been communicating with each other since winter of 2006! I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but here we go again. I started my blog just before then to keep in touch with people when I lived in Rome. One of my classmates in Rome had an msn blog, found Gina, and recommended her blog to me because it was about her cat. And derp. I like cats. So I started talking to Gina, and Courtney had an msn blog too (and also had cats), and boom, there you go. United! By cats!

And was so nice to finally meet Courtney! I mean, we have done google hangouts before, but that is not quite the same. Courtney has such a sarcastic sense of humor but lays it out so sneaky and sweet. Muah ha ha ha. I loves* it. I mean, she is sweet too, but I can appreciate some sarcasm.

Back to my original question. I was thinking that might be my longest online relationship, but I wonder if I have been talking to kapgar since fall of 2005. My old hand-coded blog lost all of it comments when the comment app I was using discontinued, so we will have to rely on memory.

And as I mentioned before, I also got to meet a long-time blogging friend when I was in Salt Lake City (SLC) – Marty! Again, not sure on the exact length of our online relationship, but I found him through bloggers I found right away when I started blogging in summer of 2005, so it must be another long one.

Marty’s so easy to talk to! I really enjoyed all of the times I got to see him in SLC – for a run that Thursday, vegan cafe for lunch on Friday, at the race and brunch on Saturday. We had some really good conversations, and I hope I see him again so we get to continue them. He is teasing me about training for the SLC Half Marathon in 2014. I would totally do that race again! I loved running it solo and imagine and would be even more fun with a friend!

And I just have to mention this because it is so bizarro. My mom’s flight to SLC was über delayed. Like, so much that she got there a day late (Thursday instead of Wednesday , and a few minutes after me. And that was after connecting through a completely different airport (due to a snowstorm in the one she was originally supposed to connect in). Blah! Too many details!

Anyways… my mom’s connecting flight ended up being in Dallas. I was connecting in Dallas. Gina was in the Dallas airport with her family for a flight to NYC. My mom’s flight continued to be delayed, so! She finally got to meet Gina and Steve and Luca!!! That is a fun way to spend time in the airport!

My mom is so cute. I talk so much about Gina and her family that my mom thought they had already met before. Muah ha ha. Nope.

So I was thinking of titling this post “Not everyone online is a creep!” but thought that might get me some strange search results. But isn’t it funny how you can make such close relationships with people just through online communication? Even before Skype was popular? Just relying on the written word? That’s pretty neat!

Pssst, I am so slammed right now that you might not see me much online for awhile… but I am trying and will catch up! That’ll be me, commenting on posts that are over a week old…

*Purposeful typo.