I think I know why I've struggled to fully latch on to swimming and cycling. Part of it is just starting out new. But I can't really play the newbie card anymore, particularly with swimming. What I'm missing, I think, is the thrill of competition (except for the occasional instances when, unbeknownst to the swimmer in the lane next to me, I engage in a full-out race with him or her to the wall and back). With running, the sport became more exciting to me when I started entering distance races. I began where most everyone does—with a 5k—but then decided that wasn't enough, so I trained for a 15k and soon thereafter a half marathon, etc. Those events propelled my love for running forward. I was never racing for prestige or placement but rather to challenge myself; to push myself further than I knew I ever would if I—me, myself—had been the only motivating source. I needed the accountability and structure that came with race training. And now, without the race factor, I ...

Iron Girl Recap A few weeks ago, I ran the Iron Girl half marathon in Clearwater. This was the last "big" race I'd planned for the spring, so I wanted to do well, but I also hadn't been training to PR (I guess I never really do). And since my sister had planned to bring her family out to spectate, we decided we'd attempt to have my four-year-old niece, Evie, run across the finish line with me. (We tried this once before , but I was too close to a marathon PR to slow down, so I left her trailing behind me.) Because this was a smaller race and a women's-only race, I wasn't too worried about being a disruption to the race. So my focus during the race was on Evie--and it's a good thing I had a focus other than time, because, as it turned out, my watch wasn't charged, and it wasn't going to last my whole race. But in my experience, this lack of knowing, of constantly monitoring my pace, has served me well during races. (In fact, during last year...

I took a little break from the blog while life things happened after the Marine Corps Marathon , but I'm still hitting the pavement. I ran a Turkey Trot 5k with my brother-in-law on Thanksgiving day, Our first race together! (And I have bed-head.) the Brandon Half Marathon two weeks ago, I cut that one a little too close! the Let It Snow 5k for Girls on the Run last weekend, I hijacked this pic of my friend Karen and her running buddy; I'm toward the back with mine. I finally replaced my overly worn shoes with the newest Brooks Ghost (7), At last, I get a wide shoe with good colors! I went back to my bootcamp class this past week after a seven-month hiatus (ouch), It's easy to smile when all the hard work's over! I made a bike change that I've been wanting to do for a while--I sold both my road bike and my cruiser and bought a hybrid (if you ever want to know where NOT to try to sell, ask me), I'm so excited to ride ag...

Pretty steady race. I can't complain about my performance. This is long enough overdue--I know. Life has been busy, and that's good. But before I wait too long and attempt a lengthy post that covers everything , here are the highlights from my first (and probably last) Marine Corps Marathon: I'm really  glad I did it . I don't want to give the impression that I'm not. However, running in this race has made me want to cling even more to smaller races. I get a bit of social anxiety--or crowd phobia, or whatever you want to call it--when I'm squished among 30,000 other runners. I beat a Goonie . Yes, Sean Astin, the darling asthma kid from the Goonies (yay for asthma representation in the media!) ran this race, and I ran it faster than him. That doesn't mean much, but in a race in which I didn't PR, I have to claim something. His net time was 4:29:11, and his clock time was 4:30:56 (all in all, a great time). But this is significant because it me...

Last weekend I participated in the 9th Annual PNC Bank Miles for Moffitt race, which takes place at the campus I spend so much of my time at, the University of South Florida, Tampa. And even though I've spent roughly 40 hours a week for the past 12 years on campus, racing on campus is still exciting to me. It feels territorial, like it's somehow my race. But the thing about this particular race is that it's very much not my race; this race--or its proceeds, rather--belongs to everyone who can benefit from cancer research, and that pretty much means everyone . The race itself was a good one for me. I haven't had the spring race season I'd hoped for; even though I started off with a great marathon , the ensuing injury and nagging pain from it have kept me in running flux--trying to maintain miles but not really able to push very hard. But this was a shorter race (shorter than the last "trial" race I did), and I felt I was ready to push. Of course, I ha...

Ten weeks after I ran the Clearwater marathon , I returned to the same race site for the Iron Girl Clearwater Half Marathon . Of course, the plan was never to take all of those ten weeks off; in fact, I don't know if I would have even raced this past weekend's half if I hadn't been injured at BDR and gotten suckered into signing up for Iron Girl at the expo. But I did, and I'm glad. I wasn't feeling wonderful in the days leading up to this race, and all along I said I wasn't going to "race" it. I really just wanted to prove to myself that I could push myself through the distance and not get hurt doing it. Also, I was adamant about going by myself; if I fell apart, I didn't want any invited witnesses present. So on race morning, I got myself up, got dressed, headed out the door on time, and after driving away realized I'd forgotten my GPS watch. I panicked for a moment, as I've come to rely so heavily on my watch during both training an...

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...

My friend Beth brought to my attention this Wall Street Journal article  about the decline of competitiveness in younger runners (20s and 30s) these days. In the article, titled "The Slowest Generation" (ouch), author Kevin Helliker touches on the popularity of races such as the Color Run , which embrace the ideologies of running for fun and running to finish, and which therefore do not even time their participants. I can think immediately of several runs that have followed in the footsteps of the Color Run--the Flavor Run , the Glow Run , the Color Vibe 5K , Color Me Rad , and the list goes on. I've never attended these "races," for a number of reasons: I don't like distractions during a race (such as color being thrown at me).  Races are a healthy environment in which to express competitiveness; in fact, that's what they're made for. I already feel a great sense of camaraderie when I run a timed race; while there is competition among runners, ...

Last night, I raced for the first time since July . A month or so ago, Tim said he was signing up for this 10k race put on by local race director Chris Lauber , and asked if I wanted him to sign me up, too. Sure, I said. (Some six-mile race over a month away? No problem.) The race was the HOT Run 5K and 10K , sponsored by the radio station HOT 101.5. It was out at Pass-A-Grille Beach, on a Thursday evening. This made it rather stressful to get to after work, but even in the hours leading up to the race, I was thinking, I'm just going to treat this as a training run. No pressure for time. But that never works. I even left my watch in my car, so I wouldn't be obsessed with looking at my pace--but also because it was raining lightly. The course was a 1.55-mile loop; 5k racers would run it twice, and 10k-racers would run it FOUR times (I love running in circles!). The 5k group had a four minute lead on our group. This further meant that the time clock would display the time based...

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...