Alternate title: a bittersweet PR …

I’ve been running the VA Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon every year since 2005. It’s become a Labor Day tradition — my husband and I take a couple extra days off work and have one last beach vacation before summer ends.

Hurricane Earl threatened to ruin our plans, but fortunately moved through before we even arrived on Friday afternoon. And Saturday was a perfect day! After a big breakfast we headed to the race expo and proceed to pick up lots of snack samples!

We also did a little shopping … and of course I picked up my bib and shirt.

When I registered for this race (a year in advance), I put down a goal time of 2:10. This placed me in corral 13. I wanted to move up a bit, since I had run a 2:02:55 back in May.

I had a secret goal for this race. I wanted to beat two hours.

I didn’t have to move too far to seed myself properly. They had 2:00 runners in corrals eight through 10 or 11. I went to the corral-change volunteers and signed myself up for corral nine.

I ran this race on my own since my friends were running slower, but we still went over to the race together on Sunday morning. We met bright and early to catch the shuttle to the start line at 5am. It was actually a little chilly! It wasn’t  quite 65 degrees, so I grabbed a sweatshirt at the last minute. I hate being cold!

The nice thing about getting to the start line early is no wait for the port-o-pots. We took care of business and ate a breakfast of bagels and peanut butter. But of course a little while later, we all needed to go again.  I gear-checked my sweatshirt and got in a line.

It was about 30 minutes to race time. And it was a very long line.

We were still waiting when they sang the national anthem.  And when the elite and wheelchair waves started. And when they started calling off corrals. Uh oh.

My friends in corral 24 weren’t concerned. And really, it’s a chip race so it doesn’t really matter. Right?

Right. Because corral 9 was lining up just as I got to the front of the line. There was no way I was going to hold it in for 13.1 miles!

So I finished and ran over to the start line, and squeezed my way into the back of corral 10. Close enough!

Not the best way to start your race, but it didn’t bother me to much. I was ready for it!

I may have been watching the pace on my watch a bit more closely than I usually do …

1. 9:13
2. 9:14
3. 9:08
4. 9:13
5. 9:11
6. 9:15
7. 9:12
8. 9:14
9. 9:13
10. 9:16
    Not bad … and in fact, quite a bit faster than my 9:23/average PR half marathon. And my 10-mile split (1:32:50) beats my 10-mile PR! But I wasn’t running fast enough to beat two hours. A 9:09 average will get you a 1:59:59 half marathon. I knew I had been a bit too slow for my goal the whole race, and gave it all I had left!
11. 9:01
12. 8:55
13. 8:33

And the final .21 (Garmin) had me running at a 7:40 pace!

But no, not this time …

Actually chip time was a few seconds faster, but not enough. 2:00:16

I’m still super excited about another big PR, and I’m happy with how consistently I ran until the big push at the end … but I’d almost rather have missed it by a lot more.

Oh well, some day I will do it!

Overall: 3756 out of 14767 · Division: 198 out of 1337 · Gender: 1226 out of 8380

So way back in August, I spent a week at the beach. We always stay on Hatteras Island, part of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

We usually try to stay in the town of Avon, since it is the largest town and has plenty of restaurants, but we like the Buxton/Frisco area, too. If I ever wait too long to rent a house, sometimes there are better choices if we’re willing to leave Avon, and that’s what happened this year.

We stayed at a great house in Frisco on the Pamlico Sound.

Ahhh… I love those water views.

Anyway, even though I was on vacation, I still had a marathon to train for! (And at that point, a triathlon, too!)

Our rental was from August 7-14 — meaning we were driving on Saturdays. My usual long-run days.

No worries!  I just shifted the first run to Sunday!

Only it was our first day of vacation, and I didn’t feel like setting an alarm. My training group had run 16 miles the day before, but I didn’t think I had that in me. I wanted to get at least 10.

I plotted a few route choices as I ate breakfast, and eventually hit the road. It was after 9:30 when I started, and it got hot fast!

I ran a few out-and-back streets and found a nice mile-long neighborhood loop that was partly shaded, but I was running out of water so I headed back to the house. Only six miles, so I refilled and went back out.

I headed the other way, looping through a series of cul-de-sacs in our neighborhood and back. It was hot, but I kept shuffling along. I called it quits just over 11 miles. I was OK with that!

I took a break on Monday, and ran 6.25 on Tuesday. On Wednesday it seemed like a good day to ride! Since it’s sandy, I brought my old hybrid bike instead of my road bike, and it was a good choice. There was also a lot of gravel and rocks on the road. I felt safer on wider tires!

My husband had already been out riding and warned me that it was windy. I decided to ride into the wind, so the way back would be easier. I rode out of our little neighborhood and headed towards Hatteras. I wasn’t sure how far I’d go — it did get tough as I got out of Frisco, but I kept pushing through. It was flat, so I wanted some distance.

I turned around after eight miles — 16 was far enough! Once home, I hopped off my bike and went for a 3.25-mile run. It felt good getting in a brick workout!

Thursday I took the same bike route again, only I didn’t think I’d go as far. Since Saturday was another travel day, I wanted to do another long run on Friday and I didn’t want to work my legs too hard.  I figured I’d do 10-12 miles … and when it started drizzling on me around mile five, I made the choice to turn around. It never really rained, but I didn’t mind the easier workout!

Friday, the last full day of vacation, is the only day I set an alarm. I needed to get out early!

I had a choice to make. I could do what I did on Sunday and do several loops through different streets … or I could do an out-and-back. I knew I’d need more water … but I lost a lot of momentum when stopping home and heading out again. And this time I wanted to run at least 16 miles. My training group would be running 18 the following day, which I wasn’t quite up to.

I really wanted to run to Avon.  It was probably going to be a  little too far, but I decided to go for it!

I wore my CamelBak since it holds a lot more than my handheld bottle, and I brought money to buy more if I needed it.

According to the McMillan Running Calculator, I should be between 10:24-11:24 for my long runs. I had been running on the faster end of the scale for my previous runs, but had also been having some hip tightness/soreness.  This time, I wanted to keep it slow.

My first mile was my slowest at 11:25, but then I settled into the 10:50-11:15 range. Through Frisco and Buxton, then hitting a long stretch of road where there’s nothing but the sound on one side and the ocean on the other.  I could see Avon in the distance. I knew it was going to be more than 16 miles round trip, but when I hit the eight mile mark, I was so close. I had to keep going!

Shortly after I turned around I took advantage of a beach parking area that had a bathroom, and then headed on my way. It doesn’t really matter what the distance is, I always feel good to be past the halfway point!

Unfortunately around mile 12, my iPod died. I didn’t realize the battery was so low until I headed out that morning and was surprised it made it that far. Oh well!

About four miles from home, I knew my CamelBak was running low. I grabbed a Gatorade at a convenience store — it was nice to be in the air conditioning for a minute! I was pretty drenched with sweat at this point and tried to get out quickly. I wonder what people were thinking!

Back on the road. Four more miles …

I had to stop a few times to fix my shoe as my foot was bothering me a bit. These two long runs at the beach were the longest in my Newtons, and I’m hoping the foot issue was just due to too-tight laces! I’m not sure I’ve been able to fully adjust to midfoot strike like I should be, but I do really like how these shoes feel!

Once I hit 16 miles, I knew I could stop and walk it in, but I just wanted to finish so I kept chugging along. And finally, I was done. 17.5 miles. I averaged 11:06 (pausing at the bathroom and supermarket), 3:14:13.

After that I soaked in a cold tub for a bit, showered, ate, and hit the beach!

I asked a lot of my feet and legs this weekend and they didn’t let me down!

I started the weekend with a 10-mile run on Saturday morning. Since I’m marathon training with a running club, and our club’s big 10-mile race was the next day, they scheduled a cutback week for people that were racing.

Well technically, I wasn’t racing. But I still ran the course!

Back to that in a minute … Saturday was a great day. Sunny and pretty comfortable for late August! Due to vacation and Iron Girl, I hadn’t run with the group in a while and it was nice to have company on my long run. I was able to find a few women running my pace and we stuck together for the first five miles out. We split up after that — those not racing the next day kept going for a longer run, but two of us turned back. We both seemed pretty comfortable with the pace and ended up averaging 10:26 for 10.4 miles.

After a post-run breakfast and a few errands, I had a couple hours of downtime at home. But I still had a lot more time on my feet that day! I was a volunteer at a music festival that pretty much ran all day. I took two four-hour shifts to help out my friends — one was in charge of the event and another was coordinating volunteers. I worked in a beer tent for a while, sold band merchandise, took tickets, manned the VIP tent and did some clean-up at the end of the night. I was beat!

I was in bed soon after I got home — I had another early morning wake-up scheduled!

The Annapolis 10 Mile Run is a very popular race held annually the last Sunday of August. I’ve only ever raced it once — I usually have scheduling issues. Sometimes it is the same day as Iron Girl (it likely will be again next year since there will be only four weeks in August), but when it’s not it falls between Iron Girl and the Virginia Beach Half Marathon (another  favorite race).

I don’t want to risk injury by racing three events in a row, but I still like to be a part of this race! Last year I joined a group of people on bike as we followed the last runners. The race directors request all runners to be able to maintain a 12-minute pace so the can re-open the roads. We are pretty lenient enforcing this, though, and will let people stay on the course as long as they move to the sidewalks later in the morning.

The last two runners last year averaged over 15-minute miles. That was tough on bike! I was happy to be on foot this year, it’s a lot easier to slow down!

We were doing run/walk intervals to keep our pace down. We started off running 12-minute miles and started passing people early on, and eventually slowed it down a little more, averaging just under 13:30 for 10 miles.  There were a few costume changes, too —  our group leader wore several hats, and I ended up with one too at the end.

We ended up passing quite a few people. One girl was scared and thought she had to stay ahead of us. No, even though we were course sweepers (they made  ‘Grim Sweeper’ signs), we weren’t kicking anybody off!

It was quite enjoyable taking my time on this course. It’s hilly, and August temperatures usually make it brutal. We were lucky for a nice day. The sun was warm, but there was a lot of shade on the course. And in one section of the course, the neighbors always put out sprinklers to run through. Refreshing!

The hills didn’t even seem too hard at our pace. Or maybe I was just distracted chatting with my sweeper crew.

It wasn’t until after mile eight that I started to feel all my mileage (and time on my feet!) from the previous day. I also added a little mileage that morning by running to the start line — only 1.8 miles from home. My legs weren’t  too bad, but my feet were getting sore!

Post race I still had to run that 1.8 miles back home, but I took a little break. I got some food, chatted with friends and enjoyed a beer (10am doesn’t feel too early for a drink when you get up at 5:30!). The run home surprisingly wasn’t  bad, but after all those slow miles I wasn’t moving much faster!

I was lucky to find Jess in the crowd — not once, but twice. She was pretty easy to spot with her gorilla feet! I’m glad I found her again post-race because I didn’t have time to chat pre-race as runners were lining up. Great to meet her — she seemed to have a good race!

Between Saturday and Sunday, I ended up running 24 miles. I was glad to have the double long runs! Next weekend I’ll be running the Virginia Beach Half Marathon while the rest of my training group is running their first 20-miler. If the weather cooperates, I’m going to try to run it fast. I doubt I’ll feel like going for seven more miles after I cross the finish line!

After this weekend, I feel a little better if I miss that run. I’m pretty sure my body can handle it!

My long run on Saturday was 14 miles. Last week’s long run was the same distance along the same route. It just felt a lot harder the second time!

It wasn’t the weather. It was a perfect day on my second 14-miler — sunny, not too hot, not too humid. Last week was much warmer and should have been miserable, but it actually didn’t feel too bad once we got going.

I’m blaming the tough run this weekend on a lack of sleep. I was out a bit too late the night before, and didn’t get to bed until 12:30 a.m. My group meets at 6:30 a.m. Oops!

For my first 14-miler, I probably started out a bit too quick for a long run. I couldn’t keep up the pace! I was also having some trouble. My hip flexors, particularly the left, started bothering me. I’d stop and stretch at each water stop and tried to keep moving, but ultimately slowed down a lot. I also had some numbness in my left foot — I loosened my laces around mile 11 and it got better, but perhaps the Brooks Ravenna weren’t as good a fit as I thought. This was the longest I’d taken them, and it wasn’t as hot during my other long runs in them.

For my second 14-miler, I started out slower. I’m sure my lack of sleep had something to do with it, but actually it’s probably a better training pace for me.  I went back to the Nikes for this run and didn’t have any foot trouble, but the left hip was acting up again. I made it through, but it felt like I was dragging.

But actually, both runs were pretty similar at the end:

It’s interesting to compare splits. I seem to really like mile six. During the faster mile eight on the second run, I was chatting with some girls from our group. It helps to be distracted! We weren’t all maintaining the same pace, though, so I was often alone on the trail.

In the 14th mile, there’s a crosswalk across a busy road, so that explains the slow-down both times!

Overall, not bad. I’m happy with the paces, and I’d be thrilled to do either during the marathon. I just wish I wasn’t finishing in pain. (At least my knees are barely bothering me anymore. Hooray foam roller!)

It might be the shoes (oh, please be the shoes!)  … both my Brooks and Nike shoes are getting old. They should have some life left, but I tend to be hard on my shoes and retire them early, less than 250 miles. Both pairs are now over 200. I’ll continue adjusting to my Newtons and have a fresh pair of Nikes ready to go.  Hoping for the best!