Family weekend / Bit O' Race Envy

I had a good weekend with my family (despite Lil' C being sick). We camped out (in the back yard), tried to teach J-Man to skateboard (not sure why he decided he wanted to), J-Man was in the Memorial Day Parade and I got a little bit of work done around the house. I was able to get a couple runs in too on Saturday and Monday morning.

On Saturday, it started to rain a couple miles in. I don't mind rain, sometimes I welcome it. The rain was nice, but if it's gonna rain, I prefer that it just keep raining. It all but stopped after a couple more miles and it got really humid. I ran again early this morning. I left at about 7:30 but should have gone even earlier - it got pretty warm rather quickly. For both runs, I didn't feel too hot for the first couple miles and then felt better.

This morning, I wanted to run at about an 8:30 min/mi pace, but my legs just didn't want to move, especially early. The yard work I did over the weekend must have been tougher on me than I thought (and yet another reason why I avoid it for as long as I can). I was running at about 9 min / mi for the first half of the run and gradually sped up as I got loose, finishing at 8:47 min / mi. With the "heat", that was fine.

Spending time with my family was more important than racing, but I felt a bit left out with so many people racing at Bayshore in Traverse City on Saturday. Megan and Matt each ran their first marathons and Alexis set a big 10k PR. They all did great. While I missed racing, I didn't miss driving up North on a busy travel weekend or trying to get a hotel room, again on a busy travel weekend. I still would have dealt with that if I was ready to do a marathon, but I just don't have time right now to dedicate myself to that kind of training (That and I am enjoying running shorter distances at the moment).While I could now get ready for a half marathon in a few weeks, marathon training is something completely different. Maybe next year...

Level up!

I had a really good practice run yesterday. I did a 5k in about 23:15, which is by far my fastest practice time at that distance. In fact, it is faster than any of my 5k races except for the last one - and I wasn't racing. I knew I was going pretty well to start and tried not to look at my watch, but peaked at it after a mile and saw that I was moving a little quicker than I thought. Thankfully, I was able to keep it up and even finished a little bit faster than I started. There wasn't anything "magical" about the run, but once I finished, I felt like I had "leveled up".

If you haven't played a video game RPG, in many of them, you fight battles or do other things to gain experience so that your character can "level up". Upon leveling up, you often gain more power or learn a special skill that will help you advance in the game. 

It just feels like something has clicked in the past couple weeks where I can run faster and better. There has been a gradual improvement over the past couple months for certain, but things just seem to be falling into place lately. A few examples:

Running negative splits without specifically setting out to do so.

Running faster with the same perceived effort.

Actively seeking out and attacking hills.

Running with more powerful strides.

I am really looking forward to racing at the Open Door Julie Run on June 9. It is one of my favorite races for several reasons, my little girl is going to run and do great, and I hope to crush it. One of my previous posts mentioned that I have been feeling competitive lately and nothing has changed. I am setting my goals really high for this one. I intend to best 22 minutes and I intend to place in my age group and don't think I will be satisfied with much less.

There are plenty of people both much faster and slower than me, but this is where I am now and these are my goals. I can let work and everything else wear me down or I can focus, rise above and accomplish things that looked so far away just a over a year ago. There is no pressure to meet anyone's expectations but my own when I run, and that is liberating.

• Have you met or exceeded your goals lately?
• When you meet a goal, do you take time to celebrate and appreciate it or do you immediately set new ones?
• Can one have high expectations without creating excessive pressure on oneself?

So Proud of You

Lil' C completed her Couch to 5k Training and I am very proud of her. Despite a lot of complaining about various things nearly every time we went out to run, she did everything that was asked of her and did a great job. I think she feels a sense of accomplishment and that was what we were going for. And to celebrate her efforts, 4 year old Lil' C will sing her bigger self a song:

---

---

I think that is a pretty good song for a 4 year old to make up off the top of her head. It had structure, a chorus and everything. I am very proud of you too C! You can do anything you want to do with some effort and perseverance. You will do great at the race and we love you! Awwwwwwwwww.