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...

How I thought my week would play out: Spending time with my already-born niece Getting ahead on work and school before my "vacation" Finishing up training with a few short and easy runs Taking extra care of my body with stretching, rolling, and relaxation Mentally preparing with messages of affirmation to myself How my week has played out: Anxiously awaiting the late birth of my niece, fearing she might not arrive before I left for Scranton Trying to be there for my older niece while my sister and brother-in-law prepared for their new baby, which inevitably meant Neglecting work and school and deciding to postpone my grad school application purely out of stress and anxiety Dreading my last few runs, which were a mixed bag of slow, a little less slow, and draining Getting too little sleep because my niece decided to arrive in the wee hours of the morning, mid-week, which meant taking care of the older niece during the labor and delivery (which I absolutely d...

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...

When one of the founders of the nonprofit Women Helping Others Succeed (WHOS) came to the Four Green Fields Running Club a couple of weeks ago to announce their upcoming 5k race, my interest was immediately piqued. Aside from being sponsored by a women's charitable organization, the race proceeds would benefit athletes with certain limitations who needed special equipment to participate in races and the like. I thought it was a fitting event for Veterans Day, which I never really know how to honor, as many of these athletes were no doubt veterans who had lost limbs or mobility as a result of combat. As an added bonus, the race was to be held in Hyde Park Village, just blocks from where I live. I hadn't run a 5k race since May, and at that race I'd finished with a personal record (PR) of 27 minutes. That was quite an exciting accomplishment for me, as shorter races (read: fast races) were not my forte. All of my training since then had been for distance races, so I'd...