Rodes 10k and PJ 10-miler

The last two legs of the triple crown race were awesome. First, the Rodes 10k:

I met up with Ericka, Karen, Bill, Lisa, Erin and Justin at the start of the race. Gotta give props to Bill who let us park in his garage and hang out inside the office which is right at the start of the race. It was a little chilly that morning for just standing around, but since the weather was slightly overcast with a 50-55 degree temp it called for little more than shorts and a t-shirt which was the perfect pick for that day.

I had no specific time goals going into this race, as it's been for the past six months or so worth of races, but knew that I'd be doing the standard 4:1 intervals. I felt great going out, and took it slow and steady up that first hill at the end of Broadway. Rounding the corner onto Grinstead I had a downhill which was welcoming, as well as an upcoming, gradual climb - which should've been a walk break for me, but since it's hard to get that momentum back once I've started walking I opted to run up it instead. In all, I believe I ran the entire 3rd mile, which my Garmin clearly shows (9:24 pace).

Heading back up Lexington was fine, but I started to feel it a little around the 4-mile mark. I was still taking no more than my normal interval breaks, and with acquaintances along the course to keep me going, I puttered along and was happy to take that last right hand turn onto Broadway for the home stretch. It's amazing how long and drawn out that last mile or so can feel when you're headed straight to the finish with no other turns in sight. I could've walked some that last mile, as I was certainly tired enough and was fairly close to last year's PR, but I just slowed it down a bit and did what I could across the finish. Justin's poster board declaring, "Connie Haxby You Have Won a Lap Dance," certainly helped me cross over the last .1 mile and I had a good chuckle. Finishing time was 1:03:? - about 2-3 minutes slower than last year's time, but I will definitely take it.

The PJ 10-miler was a bit of a different story - at least at the beginning. It's amazing how I can wake up NOT feeling well about a race and have the run of my life and, alternately, wake up feeling great and then bonking soon in. I was afraid that today was going to be the latter as up until 3 miles into the race I just wasn't feeling it at all. Again, no goals other than to finish under 2 hours with the 4:1 intervals. My legs felt heavy, my shins were bugging me a bit, and I honestly thought I would be walking through the park and maybe even the subsequent 4 miles that came after. Luckily, I caught some kind of wind after we entered the park and I was able to maintain the intervals as well as I could. I say that because, once again, I wanted to take advantage of the downhills and continue a slow and steady pace up the hills. My fastest mile was 7, which is right out of the park, at around a 9:34 pace. For the remaining 3 miles I focused on those walk breaks every 4 minutes as I started to feel some small blisters creeping up. But feeling good about where I was and how I was feeling overall, I knew I could come close to last year's PR.

Rounding that last corner I had another poster from Justin: "Connie Haxby Magnificent Man Candy Awaits You." Again, a great chuckle and a nice way to get me through that past .2 to .3 miles to the finish. I came in about 5 minutes under the PR at 1:46:42. Well under the 2 hour goal - so I'll take it.

Next up, Run the Bluegrass half marathon in just 4 days. I did this one about 4-5 years ago before they changed the course. It is now hella-hilly from what I hear (someone counted 34 hills once) so I'm not exactly looking forward to the race, but I AM looking forward to that stellar medal!

Anthem 5k

Race season officially began this morning with the Anthem 5k. Well...technically I guess race season never really ended since I did complete the three races of the Polar Bear Grand Prix in Dec/Jan/Feb, but now is when the SERIOUS racing begins. I guess however serious you can be when your race pace average is about a 10:30 pace but...whatever. I'm pretty proud of my second-best finishing time today. It was a great, sunny yet cold day to get out with 6k of my closest friends for the 3.1 miles this morning. I had no expectations going in, and even remember thinking on the course, "they can't all be PR's," and I'm okay with that. I did what has become known as my standard 4:1 intervals, and felt great throughout. Apparently I was hauling butt at one point during the last mile as I looked down to see a 8:10 pace. Whoa! I never run that fast. But... each consecutive mile did end up being faster than the last so there's that. Something about these last few years has me seeing a lot of negative splits - and that's a good thing. Of course, I'm still keeping up with the OTF workouts and started back to Yoga yesterday. I really have a love/hate relationship with yoga. I hate it while I'm doing it (I find it kind of boring, mundane, and with it being hot yoga, I feel sick and/or faint at times), but I love the way I feel afterwards. Since I've felt my body getting more and more tight, I felt the yoga was necessary as I really need a good stretching of this poor old bod from the last decade of giving it a beating.

My training for the Half Ironman races I have coming up will begin soon. I was going to originally do a 20 week training program, but seeing as I have one more whole month of unlimited sessions at OTF, and the weather isn't going to start getting consistently warm until April, I decided on a 12 week plan instead. Besides, I now know what to expect, and feel that a 12 week training for a half IM is doable considering I was training for the full during this time last year - the Muncie half being just a "bonus," along the way. Plus...I've been super stressed out about this whole home buying/selling business and it has me feeling really displaced. Not only because the majority of my stuff has been boxed up for the last 2 months, but also because I don't feel I can properly plan for anything until I know where I'm going to be settling - and maybe even settled altogether. At this point, my buyer has a few more things to submit to get the final loan approval (after already submitting paperwork after paperwork - I found out this morning that she originally wasn't going to agree to continue the process due to frustration, which I totally get, but after mulling it over it looks like she's going to get some additional things together on Monday to submit. Hopefully that's it and we'll be hearing some good news). I'm trying not to stress about it - doing a lot of meditation and telling myself, "there's no need to get all stressed out, there's nothing you can do about it." It helps some, but not enough always. So... in the meantime I'm going to channel my own frustration and anxiety into running, training, etc. I have a 7 mile training run with Karen and Ericka tomorrow in preparation for the Run the Bluegrass and KDF Mini coming up. So at least if (worse case scenario) something DOES fall through with the house, I'll be in excellent shape. Looking for that bright side. :)

Shin Splits? Seriously?!

So somehow, despite having ran a 10k earlier this month and a half marathon a week ago without any problems whatsoever, I've ended up with shin splits. The only thing I can figure is the epic workouts at OTF this past week (during what was called "Hell Week") did me in. This has been a problem for me before during OTF workouts, and I've narrowed it down to the pounding I put myself through during the "Push Pace" and "All Out" efforts. Normally, no matter what type of running I do, whether it be a training run or race itself, I go at a pretty steady and (what some could consider) slow pace. When I amp it up for these bursts of high intensity however, I think my body isn't used to it, which is putting too much strain on certain areas. Regardless, I met up with some Landshark's this morning to do a run, but by 1.5 miles into the planned 4-miler, the bottom half of my legs were toast. My shins were hurting, my calves were tight, and I could muster little more than a shuffle on the way out, while walking most of the way back in. Fortunately, the two gals I was "running," with (Jen and Jenn, oddly enough) were okay with the slower pace and frequent walk breaks so that somehow made it better.

I'm trying not to be too concerned about this, but whenever I've felt this discomfort before after OTF I've switched it up to the bike to keep from feeling that impact. However, the bike is what I did during yesterday's session and I STILL managed this outcome. At this point I'm just hoping that it doesn't hamper anything going forward, and with a planned rest day tomorrow I'll at least get a little bit of a break before hitting it again Monday. My biggest worry is that I will have to either cut back on the amount or effort I put into my OTF workouts, which I really don't want to do at all since I have really come to love my sessions. I feel like it's such a great workout and calorie burn that to not give it the full effort would be cheating myself out of the potential workout.

You'd think after 10 years of running I would have had this all figured out by now and that my body would have been used to what I've put it through. Unfortunately, I guess today's run just goes to show you can never be too prepared and that anything can happen despite your fitness level.

Final stats: 4.08 brutal miles in 55:48, a 13:42 pace :(

Urban Bourbon Half Marathon

Went out with decent hopes today of getting a PR on this course. Didn’t have a great finishing time two years ago, had a decent finish last year, and considering all of my PR’s in 2014 I felt good about completing today’s 13.1, my 28th Half-Marathon in 10 years.

The weather was great at the start – 64 degrees and overcast with a small chance of rain. Unfortunately, I didn’t account for the humidity and instead of a tank top chose a t-shirt which made the race fairly warm just a few miles in. Luckily, it wasn’t long before a small sprinkle came along and cooled me off, so all was well on the course.

I started off with a 6:1 interval – something I haven’t done in a long time, and moved it down to a 4:1 just two miles in. The additional 2 minutes of running were a little much for me and the 4:1 was much more manageable. I felt great throughout most of the race, and was surprised to find myself running up the hills in the park rather than taking the walk breaks I had allowed for. Walking just takes that much longer, and as long as I kept at a slow and steady shuffle, I didn’t wear myself out much more than I would had I walked it.

Nine miles in I began to get more and more tired. This seems to be around the mile marker that I hit my wall in this distance race, but knowing that I’ve completed it so many times before, I trudged along and kept a slower, but still steady, pace. That is until about 10.5 miles in when I began to feel some tummy rumbles coming on. I seriously considered walking the last few miles, feeling that if I did much more than that I would be in some major GI trouble. I decided to do a new interval of running two blocks, walking one, which I kept up until mile 12. Considering the “finishing with a walk,” option came into my mind again, but left once more when I took that final turn back down Main Street with only 8 more blocks to go. At this point I was running just one block rather than two, anticipating the finish line just ahead.

As I crossed the line I heard the announcer call my name and felt so good to finally be done with this race. My official finishing time was 2:31:31 and, initially, I was kind of bummed about this time. However, after going over the finishing times of my prior half-marathon’s I’ve found that this is actually faster than my average of the past 10 years – good news. I guess I had been doing so well these past few years that I just anticipated that this would be at least a sub 2:25 race for me. But… I guess you can’t ALWAYS have a great race and I’m certainly not upset that I got out and completed more than what the majority of the City of Louisville did this morning.

Next order of business: Look into training plans for next year’s KDF mini as well as the Half Ironman races.

Looking Ahead

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted anything – mostly due to being super busy at work, taking a week’s long vacation (much needed) to Destin with the family, and honestly just not having much to report. I volunteered for Ironman Louisville when it went off on October 11th, and initially was concerned that this would cause some sad and guilty feelings for me, but for the most part it was a positive and fun time. In fact, it wasn’t until Jen and I got to the finish line to cheer people in and hearing the words “You Are An Ironman,” time and time again that it kind of sank in that this could’ve been me. Still, my decision to pull out two months before the race was a good one, and I am looking forward to some other upcoming races.

My 28th half marathon takes off tomorrow morning with the Urban Bourbon 13.1 miler. Although I haven’t done much long distance running since I stopped training for IMLOU, I have kept up my Orange Theory workouts 5-6 days per week, and did complete a 10k without any problems just a few weeks ago, so there is no concern there. I also signed up for the Polar Bear Grand Prix again this year to keep me motivated throughout the winter, and am planning to complete the Shelbyville Tri Series again – something I haven’t done in years. The Triple Crown is also paid and accounted for, as well as the Derby Half Marathon. And….. I went ahead and pulled the trigger on my second and third half Ironman races – Muncie and Ohio.

I feel like I have some unfinished business in Muncie for a few reasons. One being that my head was in such a stressed out place at the time, consumed with thoughts of IMLOU and my lack of confidence in completing the event. I felt this mind-f*ck seriously hampered part of my race and I want to see what I can do when I don’t have an enormous amount of stress hanging over me. Two, because I hurt my knee 6 miles into the run, I want to be able to redeem that leg of the race on faster, stronger, and more prepared stems this year. The race in Ohio is just a bit of a bonus since it was advertised as having a flat bike course and rolling hills run. This I can do, and being that it’s just 6 weeks past Muncie I’ll already be trained so I thought, “why not.”

I’m not yet sure what other fun races I will add to the calendar for next year. I definitely want to get in another couple of half marathon’s, and am hoping to find a decent team for the Bourbon Chase – I really missed doing it this year, and since I was in Destin it wasn’t even an option.

The depression I struggled with during my IMLOU training has all but subsided and I’m now thinking that it was mostly brought on by me psyching myself out about the race. I was always so down and negative on myself about my abilities, dreading training rides, and comparing myself to others that it started messing with my mind a whole lot more than I should have allowed it. That’s not to say there wasn’t some internal chemical stuff going on with my brain that also contributed, but I definitely see how my thinking didn’t help the situation much.

I still have people asking me if I’ll do an Ironman and I really don’t know. If I do, I’ve already decided it won’t be before 2017 and, even then, only if I’m a lot more physically and mentally prepared going into it. Either way, I do plan on enjoying the half Ironman races I have planned as well as my old reliable half-marathons that I LOVE!

Bike to Beat Cancer

For the most part I have continued to feel better mentally and emotionally since pulling out of IMLOU, however, last weekend my depression came back for a few days and it was pretty tough to find the motivation to do much of anything. I missed yet another race, the OKHT bike ride for which I had planned to complete the 50-mile route. I had good intentions as I loaded up the bike the night before, laid out all my clothing, and went to bed at a decent hour in preparation. Unfortunately, morning came and I couldn’t muster up the emotional strength to get myself out of bed. The fact that it was seriously chilly out as well (50-something degrees) didn’t make it any more appealing. Of course, as usual, I felt uber-guilty for having missed it and seeing everyone’s pictures on FB only fed into these feelings.

BUT…..

Over the past week I seem to have redeemed myself a bit and am feeling better than I have in a long time. I managed a 15-mile bike ride AFTER my 60 minute OTF session on Monday, followed by another OTF workout on Tuesday. The 5-mile run I did on Wednesday was the best I’d had in a while, which was followed up by yet another OTF session on Thursday. Friday was supposed to be more of the same, but since I had to pick up my packet for the Bike to Beat Cancer dead smack in the middle of rush-hour, I opted to save my time and energy for today’s bike ride instead.

It was perfect weather for the bike, which was a great surprise since they had been calling for a 30% chance of rain all week. We took off about 8:15 a.m. and I had truly planned on this being a nice, leisurely little pedal throughout the city – not only because I didn’t mind taking it easy, but because the start of the ride was pretty congested and I ended up finishing that first 5 miles in about 23 minutes. Once it broke up however, my mind and body had a different plan and I started to push my pace a little bit.

It was a fairly scenic ride for the most part, with a few rolling hills during the first half of the course that called for some quad engagement. Once we got into The Parklands I was surprised to see that I had finished that first 15 miles in under an hour – I must’ve been hauling butt for the previous 10 miles! Unfortunately, in order to leave the park we had to go up one monster of a hill, and I wondered if I would have to get off and walk the bike up (fortunately, I did not).

Not far ahead I came upon a woman who had JUST went down on some gravel. Me and some other cyclists stopped to help her out, and it appeared that she had knocked the breath out of herself as she complained about not being able to breath. Fortunately, her husband wasn’t far behind and he was able to take over and comfort her as they waited for professional help to arrive. Luckily she didn’t look to be too bad off, but it still reminded me to take it easy and watch myself on some of the more treacherous parts of the course. Away I went once again, and a few more rolling hills lead me to the third SAG stop where the 65 and 100 mile folks split off.

Up until the first 20 miles or so I had considered doing the 65-miler instead of the 35. I told myself leading up to the ride that I would wait to see how I felt half-way in to make a decision. Since my legs were already starting to feel it, and it looked like some clouds were rolling in, I decided on the 35 mile-only route and headed off with a small group of guys for the last 10 miles.

We stuck together for a bit until one guy had to stop to fix his chain. Not wanting to be “beat,” by these men during the last portion of the ride, I left them behind and kept a pretty decent pace for the remaining 8 miles or so - ending up with a 15.6 mph moving average – my fastest pace ever besides Muncie in July. I must say, I was super surprised by this considering Monday's ride was a mere 14.2 mph. But, I guess the adrenaline as well as the competition (at least, in my mind) gave me enough “umph” to get it done as quickly as I did.

I would definitely suggest this race to others. It was very well organized, the feeling in the air was extremely positive and supportive, and the SAG stops were wonderful. The pretty scenery was a definite plus, and the course itself was just challenging enough that you felt like you were accomplishing something, but not unbearable enough that you're hating life. I've already signed up for next year when, hopefully, I can step it up to at least that 65-mile route. Next up - Harvest Homecoming 25-mile ride next weekend.

Life Without Ironman

It’s been three weeks since I decided to pull out of Ironman and, I must admit, I neither miss the training nor do I regret making the decision to skip the race. The last 21 days have actually been the most relaxed and happiest I’ve felt in months – this is very telling about just how miserable I was during my training process.

I was initially concerned that I wouldn’t be able to go on Facebook and risk seeing everyone talk about their training, uploading workouts, post things about how they’re feeling, what their nutrition struggles are, and the like; worrying that I would get down and regretful about my decision. But after a few days I found that I was actually relieved that it wasn’t ME out there doing a 7 hour bike or getting up at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday to run 18 miles. I’m still not quite sure what it was/is about the training or the race in general that was just too much for me this year. Maybe it’s not anything about either of those things in particular, but more so that my heart just wasn’t in it for whatever reason, and that’s okay too.

But…. enough about that. As I said in my previous post regarding pulling out of the race, I definitely want to keep up with the running/swimming/biking in order not to lose what I’ve gained. So far I’ve been able to do this pretty consistently. I’ve been trying to get out for a few rides a week, making sure that they’re at least 20+ miles or so as not to slack on my endurance. I still plan on doing the OKHT and Bike to Beat Cancer coming up the next two weekends, but instead of doing the full century rides as I had previous planned, I’m completing the 50-milers – enough to make me feel like I’m doing something, but not enough that I’m hating life.

The swimming has been harder to keep up just because it’s so tedious and boring. I find it REALLY difficult to get out of bed during the week to go for a swim before work – it’s not my favorite leg of the triathlon. However, since I’m not overly concerned with improving my swim or getting significantly faster, I figure I can pick this back up when I’m training for an actual tri next year.

The running has re-established itself as the sport I spend most of my time on, for two reasons. One is that I started back with Orange Theory Fitness, which is probably my most favorite workout regime of all time. I had to stop my membership in April when Ironman training intensified since I wouldn’t have time to do the OTF workouts PLUS my tri training. Second, my oldest niece has decided to try her hand (or feet and legs) at running and is training for her first race, the Great Pumpkin 10k in October. I’m so proud of her and since I love running I volunteered to help her train for the event. We’re trying to get together 2-3 times a week to do our runs together, which gives me more miles than I would get doing OTF alone. It’s a win-win.

One thing that I did have to change when I quit training was stuffing my face as much! It’s easy to eat a lot of food when you’re burning so many calories, but I noticed during my first week without all the tri training that I was still eating as if I just completed a 60 mile bike ride – not good. So, I’ve had to start watching my calorie consumption - taking into consideration that an hour of OTF still burns less calories (about 550) than a 90 minute bike ride (about 800). One thing that I was not expecting, however, was a change in my bathroom habits….

DISCLOSURE: THIS NEXT SECTION IS ABOUT POOPING.

So yeah, obviously the more you workout the more your body is going to “move things along,” hence you’re going to poop more often and more regularly. Sometimes up to three times a day in my case. This was an awesome side effect of my tri training as I love a good poop, not gonna lie or even try to sugar coat it. But…now that I’m not working out AS intensively, the bowel train seems to take its own sweet time pulling out of the station. No longer am I a “go every morning,” girl, but more of a “go whenever the mood strikes,” woman. Not a fan of this change, I must say. 

Regardless of this lack-of-poo fiasco however, I feel great – both mentally and physically. I feel like I’m at a really good place in my life right now as my practice is going extremely well, I’m looking forward to a vacation with my family in a month, and I’m branching out socially to make sure I get a good balance. I’ve decided to put dating on the back burner for the foreseeable future, which is the first time in a LONG TIME that I’ve actually been okay with not looking for a mate and just enjoying my singlehood. As they say, “I just wanna do me for a while.”

As for my triathlon future, I definitely still want to compete and am interested in returning to Muncie next year to see what I can really do when I don’t have the weight of a full Ironman resting on my shoulders. Until then, it’ll be more running, biking, OTF, spending time with my friends and family, cuddling with the pup, and enjoying some reading and Netflix as we make our way into Fall.