Now that we're well into spring, I may as well post about winter. That is, Florida winter. So here's a three-in-one. I missed the Gasparilla half marathon--the local race I look forward to all year. And it was for a silly reason. I had trained well and felt good the week prior to the race, but at a bootcamp class the Wednesday before the race, I did an exercise the totally killed my hamstrings, only I didn't know it until the next day. And they weren't just sore; I could hardly straighten my legs to walk, let alone use my hamstrings to propel me on a run. But feeling this kind of extreme soreness is not unusual for me after this particular bootcamp class; it's certainly happened before. So I thought by the time Sunday rolled around, I'd be fine. But then as Friday passed, and soon Saturday, I was far less confident that I'd be healed in time to race Sunday. I did everything I could think of to expedite healing: massages, smelly muscle rubs, foam roller, st...

This past Sunday, I completed my third marathon at the Clearwater Running & Fitness Festival . Not only that, but it was my second one in just over four months. And even though I knew I had prepared and was capable of running another sub-4, I wasn't sure I'd have it in me to push through all 26.2 miles by myself. I had nobody to pace me, like I did at  Steamtown . But in the end, I was able to pull off a PR by 1 minute, 49 seconds (and FYI, I had to use a time calculator to figure that out). Here are my stats: Race:  Clearwater Marathon (Clearwater, FL) Date : January 19, 2014 Gun Time :  3:53:54 Chip   Time : 3:53:34 Average Pace : 8:56 Overall Place : 79/472 Age Group Place : 6/32 My biggest conundrum prior to this race was how to dress for it. I knew it would start out in the upper 40s but would end up, for me, possibly in the low 60s with full-on sun. That's a significant difference for racing-wear...

Race: Steamtown Marathon (Scranton, PA) Date : October 13, 2013 Clock Time : 3:57:21 Chip   Time : 3:55:23 Average Pace : 8:59 Overall Place : 871 Age Group Place : 47 It's taken me some time to sort out all of my emotions from the  Steamtown Marathon , now over a week ago. All of the feelings I've had (except the physical ones) have been purely positive. I was trying to avoid the long blog entry that'd been brewing in my head for over a week by offering you a sort of time-elapsed recap of my experience--but I realized that just because I made a numbered list didn't mean I wouldn't ramble. My apologies anyway. A last-minute decision . My initial goal was to finish under 4 hours and 30 minutes. Then, when I posted my last blog entry before the race , I made a daring decision to change my goal time to 4:15. And then, while at dinner in Scranton the night before the race, I overhead a friend say that Chuck, a longtime (and fa...

Time has really gotten away from me, as I write this post more than a month after my last one. Fortunately little of note has occurred in the interim, but I have accomplished two significant things in my running life recently: I began training for the Steamtown Marathon, and  I ran another PR 5k race and won my age group!  I'll get to the training in a later post, but first things first. Lutz Independence Day 5k Since the earliest conversations I had with my boyfriend, Tim, a native of Lutz, he has talked about this 5k race. This is understandable, as it was the first 5k race he ran, which launched a significant lifestyle change for him; it was in his hometown; and it was the first race he ran with his dad, a longtime runner. He would tell me in the earlier stages of our relationship that if we were still together by July 4, I should run the race with him, his dad, and his cousin. I generally stop racing in May--maybe June, but even that's pushing it in the Florida h...

So, after the Nike Women's Half Marathon I ran in DC, I told myself I'd take a rest afterward. But then someone kept tempting me to sign up for races. And because I was on a PR roll, I thought, hey, why not--let's end the spring race season with a bang. So I ran three races on the three weekends following Nike: the Police Appreciation 10K, Miles for Moffitt 5-Mile, and the Secret Service 5K. I PR'd two out of three, and finally got my 5K (official) PR I'd been hoping for. Interestingly, I placed eighth in my age group for all three races. Police Appreciation 10K - 5/5/13 Official Time: 0:49:46 Official Avg Pace: 8:00 mins/mile Age Group Place: 8/45 The unseasonably cool and breezy weather that morning made for a great race through scenic downtown St. Pete. Even though we learned later that we were led backward through the course as it was designed, which explains why we only saw the back sides of mile markers, we still ran the correct distance.  ...

I signed up for this race months ago with my friend Kristin and her family and friends from PA/DE. The Nike Women's Marathon series (which they seem to have renamed Run Nike Women Series) recently added a couple of half marathons to the series, and this was the inaugural half marathon in Washington, DC. Registration was only open to those who were chosen from a drawing for eligibility. We entered as a group, and as luck would have it, our group got in! It was an exciting moment to receive the email notification--but a less exciting moment when I realized that my credit card would then be charged the exorbitant $160+ registration fee, but this was largely because of the  Tiffany & Co.  necklace awarded to finishers in place of a typical race medal. But it still meant a trip to DC, and because I didn't get to run the Marine Corps Marathon in DC last fall, I was looking forward to the redemption race. I have mixed feelings about the overall event. The race itself was wonde...

Almost two weeks ago now on a Friday evening, like late in the evening when I'm usually winding down for bed, I ran the Oldsmar Taphouse 5k . This year, local race director Fred Rzymek changed up this run (in its fifth year) by moving the date up and the time back--to 10pm--and adding a pajama party theme. Apparently this combo, plus the chilly temps, was a good recipe for a PR (25:16)! Perhaps wearing PJs in the cold is its own impetus for running faster, as my friend Nicole and I both finished together and ran our best 5K times! Thanks, Gap Body, for the two PJ rompers.  Nicole was getting fresh with me! This almost never happens (I didn't have to scroll down or go to the next page of results!). Here are our numbers. If we hadn't run over, we'd have probably come in under 25. But I can't do all that math. The necessary group photo (I guess some people go to bed in bow ties). We all earned beer boots! And yet Nicole and I bought wine :/ ...