Half marathon - check!

Susan and I completed the Kirkland Mother's Day half marathon, and all went better than expected!  I had heard the hills on this half were killer, so I was expecting to be really hurting.  I did do a fair amount of hill training and for the most part I didn't mind them too much.  I walked the really steep ones, and the rest were a nice rolling up and down.

I had planned to come in around 3 hours, and beat that at 2:48.  I think that's not half bad for my first half!  I could have pushed harder, but I didn't want to risk injury or even just hobbling around sore for days.  As it was, I felt pretty wiped the rest of the day, and somewhat sore the day after.

Some notable things:

•  I was very nauseous for the rest of the day.  This has never happened to me after a run before.  Maybe it was dehydration?  I drank a cup at every water stop, maybe I need to carry some too.  Will definitely research this more if I ever sign up for another half.
• Towards the end I decided to try the Gu gel shot.  It was disgusting and a sticky mess, blech!!!  Why did I do that for the first time on a race?!  From now on I'm definitely sticking with the blocks.  They are actually pretty tasty.  Maybe the gel had something to do with the nausea.
• Running sometimes takes me to a weird emotional place.  I kept thinking about a friend from my days at UW.  She died a few years back, complications from anorexia I believe.  We lost touch long before that, and I regret not keeping in contact with her.  I choked up a bit thinking about how I missed her.
• I made a pit stop at mile 10 and my energy dropped off a cliff after that.  I knew I could finish the next 3 miles but it became much more of a slog after that point.
• The last mile or so it hurt just as much to walk as it did to run, so that gave me a little motivation to rock it out till the end.
• It was pretty quiet at the finish line.  I kept imagining all the cheering and celebration that would be going on.  I was somewhere in the last 1/6th of runners, so I guess they'd all packed up and left by then.
• Training is over, yay!!! At times training was really cool and it was gratifying to be able to go on longer runs and feel great, and other times it felt like a huge burden.
• Now that I have run the longest distance I ever care to, I want to spend some time focusing on speed.  For most of my runs I just take a leisurely pace and enjoy it.  I think it would do me some good to try track workouts or intervals and see what I can accomplish.

This mother is ready to run

The day I've been training so hard for is almost here!  By this time tomorrow it will be all over, and I'll be whining about how sore I am.  It's been hard to find time to get in training runs the past couple of weeks, with work to sell my old house and lots to do at work, something had to give.  I'm not too concerned though, I just want to finish. If that means walking a lot, so be it!  Of course, I hope we can run a good portion of it, but I'm sure the hills are going to hurt.  If the 6 mile uphill run for Mt. Si Relay a couple weeks back is any indicator, I can hack it, even if it is a lot slower pace than I'd like.

I've got all my gear stacked up and ready to go, created a playlist on my phone, and the weather forecast looks about perfect to boot!  It's supposed to be 50 and sunny as we start running (which reminds me, sunglasses and sunscreen so my weak ass pale skin doesn't fry!).  After the downpour for Mt Si, some sun will be such a relief.

I hope the mimosas at the finish line are good!!

7 miles!

Yesterday I headed out for my long run, 7 miles.  The longest distance I have ever run actually.  I was pretty nervous as the weather was not great, and I have a pretty sizable blister (which I got from wearing new, cheap shoes on my last long run, stupid stupid stupid argh!).  It ended up so much better than I had imagined though.  The rain was nice and light until the end, more of a refreshing drizzle really.  And there's so much wildlife on the Samammish river trail, it's very inspiring.  I saw two horses, a bald eagle, huge flocks of geese overhead in their vee formation, and more ducks and pretty birds than I could count.  

There also must have been an event on the trail recently, there were all sorts of inspring messages chalked on the pavement like this one:

This run I also tried Gu gels for the first time, and wow, they really make a difference!  I ate the first one at 3.5 miles, half way through, and then one every 15 minutes or so after that.  I ended up running almost the entire 7 miles!!  It was a slow pace of course, but I am totally fine with that.  If I feel that great on race day I will be overjoyed!

Spring fairy house

Projects like this make me want to relearn how to crochet!  Someone in craft group made this and I just can't get over how cute it is.  For now though, I am plenty busy with knitting!

Here's the project on Michael's: Spring fairy house

New Patterns Published!

The patterns for the Baby Bundler and Gauzy Baby Pants are finally published!  I am really happy with how they came out, and the pictures are just gorgeous.

Ravelry link: Baby Bundler

Ravelry link: Gauzy Baby Pants

Running tunes

I've been thinking a lot about a running playlist.  For most of my runs I just start up Pandora, but this is hit or miss.  Sometimes the choices are great and very inspiring, and other times sad songs come on and it's a total buzzkill.  For the Mother's Day half marathon I need something more reliable.  I have a few go to songs, but that's not going to last me 3+ hours.

Here's what I've got so far:

• Simple Minds - Alive and Kicking
• Pearl Jam - Alive
• Katy Perry - Roar, Firework
• Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over
• Black Eyed Peas 
• Techno/EDM - ATB, Tiesto
• Swedish House Mafia - Save the world, Don't you Worry Child
• One Republic - Good Life 
• Beastie Boys - Hey ladies
• Pitbull - Shake Senora (ugh, I hate Pitbull but this song is catchy)
• Miley - Wrecking ball (I know, I can't believe I like this song, pathetic!) 
• DaRude -Sandstorm (oldie but goodie)
• Zendaya - Replay
• Imagine Dragons - Radioactive
• Lady Gaga - Just Dance
• Flux Pavilion - I Can't Stop
• Awolnation - Sail
• 3-11 Porter - Surround Me With Your Love (Mental Overdrive Remix)
• Armin Van Buuren - In and Out of Love
• Tiesto - Hide and Seek
• Stars - Sleep Tonight
• Natasha Bedingfield - Strip me
• Atb- Gentle Melody
• Deadmaus - Moar Ghosts 
• Pantera - Walk, This Love
• OneRepublic - All The Right Moves
• FloRida - Wild Ones, I Cry
• Rage against the machine - Killing In the Name Of
• Icona pop - I love it

I've tried running podcasts as well, but nothing so far has worked well.  I might re-explore that option.  I also plan to have things like audiobooks and Radiolab, but I don't see using that much unless I decide to walk a bunch.  For running mojo I need tunes!

If you have any song suggestions, I'd love to hear it!

Game over!

My first round of Game On ended this last Monday.  Our team didn't win, so I'm out $100.  I'm ok with that though, I lost 5 pounds and have finally gotten back on the calorie counting bandwagon, which I know works well for me to lose weight.  That's more than enough to count it as a win in my book!  I also found a few recipes for making healthy food ahead of time.  Why have I not done this before?!  Having a bunch of cooked chicken breasts and sweet potatoes doesn't really take that much prep time, but it's very versatile for cooking a quick weeknight dinner, or throwing together a work lunch.  In general, I'm fine eating the same thing over and over.  As long as I'm not hungry, it's all good!

A new round is starting next Monday, and this time there's a lot more people from work playing, so it would definitely make things more interesting.  I want to join, but need to think about a fitness challenge.  Each week you get a 20% bonus for losing 1% of your body weight, which for me is very challenging.  However, if you are close to goal weight you can opt to do a fitness challenge instead.  Since I'm signed up for doing the Mother's Day half marathon and I should be on week 2 of my training plan, but have not really been following it, maybe my challenge should be to do all the training runs.  I am only hesitant though because I don't want to set myself up for injury by over training.  I have struggled with plantar faciitis years aga, and tendonitis in my hips when I tried to start back up after Tilda was born, and it sucks!!!