Seattle 1/2 Marathon 2010

this week has been interesting. to start off, the "big" snow storm on sunday and monday caused the short work week to be more disruptive than normal. it was fine, i got a lot of work done, but now, with work looming again on the horizon, i wish i would have gotten more done.
wednesday night we headed to yakima to spend with the in laws. the drive was fine although dark and a little scary because of the snow, and it took a really really long time. once there we discovered that it was very very cold in yakima.
when i finally crawled into bed i realized i forgot my romance killer, damnit. i know all you ladies wish you had one, and ugh, i forgot mine. really, the romance killer is just a mouth guard to help with my jaw clenching i do at night time, but eric named it that because he knows that once it goes in at night, he doesn't have a chance in the world.
luckily i was able to fall asleep without it but slept terrible and wow, i really do clench my jaw when i sleep because when i woke up, my face hurt, and my neck and shoulders were killing me. ugh. the last time i did the seattle 1/2 I had just been diagnosed with too much romance and was prescribed the romance killer and was taking muscle relaxers because i was in so much pain!
on thanksgiving day we went for what was supposed to be a 30 minute tempo run. we headed out on a loop that turned out to be a 40 minute tempo run + 15 minute walk in the snow and freaking 14 degrees. burr. i had on some fancy hincapie gear that kept me toasty warm which was pleasant but running all geared up and in the snow is hard to do. it made me worry a bit for the race, although the website assured me that the weather would be nice.
after the run we went sledding some with the kids, ate way too much turkey and pie and then chilled out.
another night with no romance killer and in the morning we headed back home.
the passes were scary but clear, ok, not clear but the roads weren't bad. ok, they were bad but not un-driveable. it was crazy to see all the semi trucks on the side of the road putting in their chains. we managed without them but i was happy to be on the west side where the roads were just wet, not covered in snow.
we drove directly downtown to pick up my race packet and then headed home.
i don't know how eric does it but as i sat on my ass, he went right to work finishing painting sirus's room and installing the remaining trim work on the windows. have i mentioned lately how awesome the windows look? seamus's very pink room is very cute! and sirus's very blue rooms look great! no one is totally moved in yet, i think sirus is in for one more night sleeping in seamus's room. he keeps complaining that she keeps crawling in his bed with him but then last night when i went to check on them, he was in her bed all snuggled up next to her in her bed. silly.
when the alarm went off at 5, i was thinking hmm, it wouldn't be too bad to just bail on this race, right? maybe i'll just go pick up melinda, drop her off at the start and then pick her up after, letting eric and the kids sleep in and allowing myself to not run. i had prepped for this race a little differently in that i wanted to start out hydrated. i think i have been very dehydrated lately so i made sure to get lots of water the day before. i wound up pretty darn bloated in the morning, but maybe that is what hydrated feels like? ugh.
there was almost zero traffic and we got a parking space like a block away. then we sat there. eric and seamus walked over to the start, then eric and sirus took a trip to the potty. i decided to switch from long sleeve running shirt and light weight cycling jacket to short sleeve shirt, arm warmers and vest. knickers were the way to go and i tossed on a trash bag for good luck.
we headed to the start, stood in the very long and strange potty line. luckily i made my visit really count because by the time we were out it was like 5 minutes to start and there was no time for a 2nd visit.
i tried something else new which was that i took a clif shot right then and then jumped over the fence and looked around for the pacers. i saw the sign for 1:45 and was pleasantly surprised that my friend stephanie was the pacer! we hugged and chatted a little and then we were off! i had already taken off my trash bag and tucked it into my vest pocket but managed to toss it in a trash can somewhere in mile 2 i think. weaving in and out for those first two miles was tough, but stephanie did a great job getting the group up to pace. i held on until we started up on to i-90, and then watched the gap open until i totally fell off by the time we were in the tunnel. i was sorta bummed but man, according to my garmin, that 2nd mile was at a 6:56 pace and yeah it might have been a little too much for me heading into that I-90 hill.
but then i was also bummed because i was all excited that i set my garmin to show average pace, but then didn't unset it for auto pause!! so when i went into the tunnel it totally shut off!! so when i came out of the tunnel my average pace was 6:44 or something which i knew was not even close to what was going on. so i was sort of on my own then. i tried to keep track of each mile, and keeping splits and it seemed like it was all going to work out but still it was a bit of a crap shoot since really I had no idea and ya'lls know i can't do math when i run.
all along the lake was fine although i don't remember too much. there was a hill i remember riding on my bike but not running before and at one of the parks there were a bunch of people with big american flags which was kind of neat.
finally we got to galer and OMG i walked. ugh. just for a bit, because it flattened out then i had to walk a little more when it got steep again. ugh. i thought i had run it in the past, but just at that moment i totally thought, wow, the treadmill sure doesn't have many hills - need to run more hills!
madison was fine but i think i slowed it down quite a bit, but then down the arboretum. last time i was hurting pretty bad at this point but i was ok here. i really didn't start feeling good at this race until mile 5 or 6 or later, but by the time i was at mile 8 and 9, i was like, hey - almost done!
interlaken went well, it wasn't nearly as bad as in the past - seemed flatter and less as though it was going on and on which was a pleasant surprise.
i hit mile 10 and was surprised i felt as good as i did. every other time i walked, and pretty much gave up, not being able to do math and just almost throwing in the towel, but i was almost done, so other than a quick stop at the water station to wash down the 2nd clif shot, i kept on running.
again, i didn't remember that there was an uphill on lakeview but seeing the kids made mile 11 better than ever and off i went down, down to the finish. i even managed to run that horrible hill on mercer or whatever that is.
i was able to pick up the pace to the finish, although i almost had to stop to tell the girl in the bright, shiny gold ugg like boots that they were pretty bad ass but instead i kept on going.
they had soldiers in their army gear giving out medals which i thought was pretty cool, and then i met up with stephanie to chit chat about the run. she wound up finishing about 4 minutes ahead and had a good race as a pacer. she said i was totally under since she said it took 2 minutes to get to the starting line. still i wouldn't believe it until i saw it.
the kids and eric were awesome spectators, showing up at uwajimia, although I didn't see them there, but they were also down by leshi, up on interlaken AND at mile 11. i told eric that someday maybe the kids will run the race and i can be a spectator and see how he manages to be in so many places!
when i crossed the line the clock said 1:50:55. i was pretty happy but wasn't sure if that really meant i was under 1:50 or not. on the drive home i was able to look up the time and my chip time came in at 1:49:20. yahoo! i am pretty darn happy about that. i think some of it is sheer luck especially since i lost track of all my timing stuff, but still pretty good. i ran a pretty even race, 55:18 and 55:50 which i thought was pretty good since the 2nd half is so hilly. i think the first half was hampered by that first mile which was the 2nd slowest behind the galer and madison hill mile. but actually, those splits are based off of the *official time, not chip time, so it wasn't quite as even as i thought. hmph.
after the race, melinda and i chatted and walked together to the car. she had an awesome race beating her 2hr goal! its been a fun couple of months training together!
once home, i put on the compression socks, cleaned the house and then fell asleep!
other news, remember way back in february, around the same time that pawpi's face started falling apart? right about then i hurt my wrist. doing push ups.
so i stopped doing push ups. but then maybe i fell on it, or maybe i would push on the kids' car seats to get them in the car straight, or maybe i would push my bag into the locker at the gym, whatever it was, it continued to hurt like a mofo.
i went to the dr and she said to wear a brace for two weeks. i did, but it still hurt. i wore a brace every time i went mtn biking at every race. it still hurt.
i finally went to PT. i've got 50% of the mobility in it compared to my left wrist and my bones are stuck. so i've gone 4 times and the mobility is better but on tuesday night i was making pie and gosh darn it, pressing the dough down to get ready to roll it with the rolling pin totally hurt. so the PT suggested i go in for an xray. so next week i will go. hoping to get that taken care of!

H.R.RuninStuff

sitting here on a lovely saturday afternoon. went for a fun 10mile run with the crew in the morning. it started chilly chilly!! but it warmed up quite nicely and was SUNNY. oh it was lovely!! the run itself was fun, i have no idea where we went but it was nice to be with friends and to be out running. i did manage to take a layer off but i am still at a loss as to what i'll actually wear on race day. will have to wait a little bit to see what the weather will actually be that day, they keep threatening us with snow. not cool man, not cool! so the potential for miserable race day conditions is totally there.
i haven't been doing a very good job sticking to my plan, i only got one weekday run in this past week, never mind it was on the treadmill and my iphone earbugs were sending electrical shocks into my left ear and my neck.. at least i think it was a quality run and i should be well rested, right.
yesterday we took the kids to sirus's school for kids night out. we dropped them off for 4hrs and out we went. i tried to look slightly more stylish than normal in my 12+year old betsy johnson velvety pants that sorta don't fit very well, but still they are pretty cool and i even got a compliment on them! we had a good dinner and i had a fabulous vodka martini with blue cheese stuffed olives that i was still feeling this morning at the start of the run.
now i've got on my awesome hincapie compression socks, seamus is in her sleeping beauty princess dress and eric is working on the widnows. they look awesome. he has done a great job, i even got a little misty eyed looking at the one room. we are painting some of the rooms too and i am totally not good with colors. ugh. sirus was red walls with yellow flames, seamus was teal. so none of that is happening for sure.
last week of the swim clinic is tomorrow. hmm, not sure how this thing is going. maybe if i swam more often it would go better.

stuck

way back in february, around the same time when pawpi's face was first getting infected, i was on a mission to participate in the navy seal challenge. back then i thought the pull ups were going to be the problem... turns out it was the pushups that proved to be the blocker.
i cut out the pushups because my wrist just couldn't take it. ugh, and i like push ups! i went all summer wearing a wrist brace every time i went mtn biking. i wasted precious seconds in t1 of every race putting that thing on.
finally, now in the off season, i am getting it taken care of. turns out my wrist bones are stuck. there may have been trauma at some point, push ups maybe?
then soft tissue (eeewwww) damage and then all my babying of it cause the bones to get all stuck, and i've got 1/2 the mobility in it compared to the other one. sweet. so now the PT is going to get those bones unstuck and make it not hurt anymore, ya know. and stuff.

sometimes i throw my hands up in the air

yesterday was a terrible day. that is with a t and two r's even.
it started out not so bad, prolly got the only real swimming compliment ever. dude, swimming in the morning was so hard. we were doing breathing stuff, gittin all hypoxic and stuff, is that how its spelled, 100s breathing every 3rd stroke, every 5th and every 7th. then a few 25s with no breathing, the some attempts at 50s breathing once on the way down, twice on the way back. good lawd they were hard and i was only ok with them. i do know my stroke count for 50s is down by about 10 since the clinic last week. amazing what a few laps in the pool will do for you. at the end we practiced flip turns. i never ever do flip turns. ever. there was a week or so early last year i think where i tried to do them somewhat regularly, getting them in about 1/3 of the time. but then i stopped. i said sure, i'll try one, after which the swim coach asked why i don't do them all the time when apparently i do them so well? yeah, so that turned out to be the highlight of my day.
i won't even go into the rest of the day, remember the t and the two r's?
but later, eric and the kids picked me up, we went to the cactus down in madison park, i chugged a couple margaritas. i was bummed my chile relleno wasn't quite as great as the last time we went, but it was still good. better though was that the margaritas were damn good.
after we headed over to the UW. all the years we lived in seattle and even right by the UW we never went. but seamus came home from school last week so excited that her PE teacher had given her tickets to go see women's volleyball at UW. i don't like to play volleyball at all. never liked it. it hurt my wrists and we all know i have gimpy wrists. plus the pressure of having the ball coming at you and having to react quickly, yeah, it really wasn't for me at all. but i want to make sure seamus is exposed to women's sports other than swim/bike/run so we decided to go. it turned out to be really fun! i was surprised the crowd was a big as it was (the photo below was from the warm up and even more people came!), the band was great, the announcers, the score board, and, gasp!!! the cheerleaders!!! there were cheerleaders!! even guy cheerleaders!!!

"Point Huskies!" was sirus's favorite part, always cheering along with the crowd then a point was announced. i appreciated the quiet, barely audible "Point Bears :( " the announcer would make when the other team scored. seamus asked when we'd get to cheer for the bears.
i was surprised at how tall the girls were! they looked regular height but when the introduced the first team's starting line up, and the first girl was 5'11" and shorted than the rest of them I was like whoa. i had no idea volleyball players were so awesome!!! the tallest girl out there was 6'5". yeah! I love it!!
today melinda and i headed out for a super casual 1/2 marathon race out of bothell along the sammamish river trail. i think its odd to do a 1/2 marathon race as a training run for a 1/2 marathon race. but it was fun. we went at a mellow pace, just chillin, happy the weather was cooperative, although chillyish, it was not raining, hooray! i was happy with how we did, but wonder how difficult it will be to shave 15 minutes off of that on race day, especially since today was super flat and race day will be hilly. should be interesting! one more long run to go next weekend, and a handfull of hr longs along the way. yikes!

the horse

i'm gettin back on it. after nationals i was tired. i took a week off from everything except chowing down. then i started running. the running was going well! i told my self i'd get in the pool a few times but that no need to touch the bike. yeah, well, i didn't get into the pool, so i said, ok, once november hits, i'll start going. yeah, so a week of november has passed. i started to get anxious and worried about what allie had told me last year - not swimming is adictive, so be careful! so i signed up for a 3 week swim clinic. today was the first day it and it kicked my ass.
the guy running it said not to worry, i could totally do my long run in the morning and be fine for the clinic. i even had the bonus of the extra hr of sleep, which turned out to be a wash since i was getting up at 6 anyway, but i did a 10 miler, came home and napped! pawpi has recently discovered multi level living! she hasn't ever been up on the bed, she just can't jump that high. but the other weekend, the kids and i picked up a new cat tree to put in the bedroom and now she gets on the cat tree, walks across the night stand onto the bed. now ALL 3 CATS and suck the life out of me while i sleep. i was pooped. wondering how this whole 13.1er will go when a 10er at an easy pace totally wore me out. whatever. i woke up from the nap and needed a tall, xtra hot, non fat with whip salted caramel hot chocolate from starbucks that very instant. so i got in the car and got one. i saw eric and the kids walking along while i was speeding off to satisfy my craving.
the clinic was good, the water was warm, the sun was shining, it was great conditions for the first swim back. but it tired me out, and my calves and feet were cramping like mo-fo's. but i got it done. two more installments of the clinic to go, the big question is will i get into the pool between them.
AND i went for a mtn bike ride yesterday! it was pouring down rain, but xtie wanted to test out a bike she was lookin to buy, so we were for a nice, wet ride. it was waaay fun and a great first ride back on the bike.
we are getting new windows!! earlier in the summer we looked into getting the windows. i wanted a crew to come in and get them done quickly. turns out that costs millions of dollars, so a few weeks ago i said, screw it, lets get the windows. and eric is putting them in. he did a great job on the ones at the old house and he is doing a great job on these ones! plus i think her looks darn cute when he wears baseball hats, and he only wears them when he is doing construction like work. i can already tell a difference that they are keeping the house warmer. but its getting me anxious about the other things we want to do at the house. we are going to paint everything, but the horror of it all. turns out A LOT of the house used to have wall paper, and actually still does and they just painted over it. what a mess. but we (by we i mean eric) is going to start with the play room and the kids rooms. gracious, the colors they are picking out, oh no! the living room and dining room are already totally ghetto with the partial carpet and plywood flooring, so that room might just have to wait for new paint for some unknown period of time.
halloween happened the other week. work was allowing for dress up on friday. i started out as zombie, but wasn't gray enough, so turned vampire, but seemed too bruised so was worried i was looking like i had gotten beaten up but settled on Ugly Pretty, as in Tyra Banks, America's Next Top Model - can't you see how I smeyes? Yes, I had a little self photo shoot in my office. i couldn't help it, i was looking damn ugly pretty.
This one xtie said I looked like a broken doll. hmm, broken, yes.

this one looks like i am totally strung out on meth or something. maybe it has something to do with the starbucks cup right next to me.

this one is called "eat a sandwich already, damnit!"

and this is the original Ugly Pretty. i really like how all the purple brings out the green in my eyes.


I found this when looking through Seamus's school work. Its her plans for the other weekend!
i love looking through her school work and trying to understand how her brain works. i am pretty sure she just knows everything already.