Tag Archives: 5k

6th Place: Relative Danger.

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Today was D-day for my 5K with my sister. The race started at 10:30, which meant we had plenty of morning to…get nervous! I was up until 1:00, making sure I had hot beats to jog around Ypsilanti to. Getting up at 8:30, I knew we were in trouble.

On Friday, I arrive in Michigan to 80 degree weather. By Saturday afternoon, it was 50 degrees, and rainy. And Sunday morning? Race morning? 42 degrees. Pouring rain. Dripping rain. Rain sideways. Rain upwards, downwards, blustering across the roads, flooding the race track.

As we drove to Ypsi, I realized that I was under dressed, nervous, cold, and maybe worried that I was not ready for this after all.

“Maybe they’ll cancel the race,” I said.

“I forgot my rain jacket, maybe we should turn around and go home and get it. We’ll…make it back,” I gasped.

“There’s no one here, we should go,” I chimed as we pulled up.

“I am pretty sure I can’t go.” I blurted out.

“What if I am last?” I mused.

“Then I’ll run behind you so I’m last,” Nikki said, as she basically pushed me out of the car. Before I was out of the car, my mom did manage to give me her long-sleeved shirt so I wasn’t so cold, and then Nikki and I ran into the building to find the check in. There were so many people around (although Nikki assured me this was one of the smallest races she’s run in) and we had to figure out where to get our bibs. We finally did, and managed to pin them on and find a place to stretch.

“This is the most I’ve ever stretched before a race,” Nikki said. I felt tight. I felt weak. I felt nervous. I felt cold. But alas, here we go.

We headed out to the start line with the crowd. bib on, headphones ready. Headphones on. Headphones not working. Definitely a moment of panic as I looked to Nikki, screaming in the pouring rain, “IT’S NOT WORKING. IT’S NOT WORKING.” I pushed the start button once, twice, three times…nothing. “Do you want mine?” Nikki said. And then, fourth’s a charm, and my tunes were on.

“ON YOUR MARK,” says the man, “GO.”

We were off. In my morning haste, I had also forgotten my watch. So, per usual, Nikki was boss. We were off. The rain was pouring down, and we were soaked by two minutes in. My jams were jamming, but I was running pretty slowly. But I was running. Nikki was running with me, making sure that I only walked when I really needed to, and kept alternatively singing out loud, yelling at me to run, and looking at her watch.

As we rounded mile 1, I couldn’t believe we had so much more to run. Mainly because I was freezing, wet, and already my ankles hurt. But we persevered. Or I should say, I did, as Nikki obviously could have finished no matter what. Anyways, so we got back to the beginning, as this was a lapped course, and  we had to run around it twice. There were people stationed along the route cheering for us, and I looked for my parents, who were warm in their car, and beeped at us for encouragement.

As we went around the first bend again, and I tried to trick myself into running harder, running longer, running at all. Nikki definitely kept me moving, but it was definitely hard. We hit the mile 2 marker running, and I knew that we were getting somewhere. The rain just kept coming down, and I just kept moving. Finally, about the 2.5 mile point, Nikki said, “It’s freezing, we’re cold, we’re wet, let’s go.” I picked up my pace, pushing myself as much as I could.

As we got around the final bend, I skipped through a couple jams to get myself to the end. My parents were at the finish line, cheering us on. In our matching shirts, Nikki and I finished at 41:11 minutes. It wasn’t my goal (under 40 minutes) but it was finished. I had done it. In my age group, I came in 6th place. As a sister team, we came in 4th. And Nikki and I did it together. In matching shirts. And, matching wind-burned cheeks.

Will I do it again? Well, I told Ellen I’d run one with her this summer. I definitely want to explore swimming more, and I am really enjoying going to yoga regularly. I want to work on my endurance by really focusing on 1 mile runs to run for longer. I am glad I did one, and I am excited to find a sunny LA one to do this summer.

Thanks for all your support guys! It’s made running a 5K a piece of cake.

 

 

Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard

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Well, last night I went for my first 5k-training run outside. And it went fine, surprisingly, all things considered. Here’s my path:

As you can see, this is more than three miles, something I did not remember. I had made another path, but this almost-square was easier to follow. I couldn’t remember where the two mile and three mile markers were, which probably slowed me down because I didn’t really have mile-goals so I didn’t know how I was doing. Somewhere around Gower and Santa Monica, Sheryl Crow was just stuck in my head, on repeat, as I jogged down Santa Monica in sunglasses, sun setting over the Hollywood Hills.

I probably finished around 40 minutes. The run from Santa Monica to Sunset is entirely uphill, which I knew, but I didn’t know any other way to stay below Sunset. I thought that Sunset and Sycamore was the three mile marker, and at that point I was at 43:08, so I am guess I was around 40-41 at the actual three mile marker.

I did try to run the entire first mile, which did not happen. I blame this on my foot, which has been hurting on the arch, on my left shin, and on my two-week lapse. Nikki seems to think I can run a mile before slowing down to walk. I disagree. I work in short bursts. We’ll see…

Before I left for my run, Jeff made a comment about getting one of those running lanyards that you can put around your arm, so you don’t have to, you know, tie your key to your shoe. “Well, after this weekend, I don’t think I am going to be doing much running,” I said as I tried to finagle my key onto my lace.

“What? But…you can’t stop running! You’ve inspired me! You’re my hero!” he said. Now, everyone that knows Jeff can imagine the voice he was using — his half serious, half in jest voice, that usually ends up in him speaking in an accent (Spanish, Indian, etc.) But I could tell he was (somewhat) serious.

So maybe after this 5k, I’ll keep running. Or maybe I’ll take a break and do some serious swimming. I know my Dad is starting his 5K training, so it looks like I’ll need to at least keep it up to run one with him in the fall. We’ll see.

All I know is last night I had a cookie after dinner, and I didn’t feel a little bit bad. So maybe running isn’t the worst thing that’s happened (or been forced) into my life.

Whatcha doin’ for the rest of your life?

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Hey folks. This day is proving to be a stellar one. Although, I haven’t run my yet — first to be outside, three miles, today. So talk to me after that.

Meanwhile, I now have a shirt to wear for the 5k this weekend, Mat Kearney’s new single is out, tonight (after my run, eek) I am watching Babies with Jen T., and we received a water cooler in my office. (It’s the small things, folks.)

Last night Rebecca came over. I lured her over with tofu and veggies, a la stir fry with Thai Red Curry sauce. (Which by the way, is all I ever feed Rebecca. She’s a vegetarian, and I just am not good at feeding her. I sometimes switch it up with a pasta dish, but I get sick of pasta, since as Italians we eat it so much, and I take opportunities to eat tofu very seriously. Anyways, if you have any veggie friends you cook for, send recipes my way!)

Anyways, so after I basically had Rebecca make us dinner and then ate it with her, I gave her a beer, and said, “We need to work on this craft project.” Which, as it turns out, took us until 11 pm. Luckily we had Jeff, Rebecca, and I, so I think the t-shirts are much better looking than they would have been had I did it on my own.

There was a hilarious moment right before we started ironing on letters where Jeff thought one side was down, whereas Rebecca interpreted the other side as being down. He tried to prove himself by taking a spare letter and affixing it to a white t-shirt he had lying around. He ended up affixing it to the shirt he was using as the shield (so the letter doesn’t melt) and now my Ben and Jerry’s shirt (Lauren remember when I got that shirt in Rhode Island, circa 1999ish?) has a nice “S” on the back. Rebecca and I laughed, laughed, and laughed, and it was Becca, 1, Jeff 0. Now, onto the iron-on letters.

We laid the letters out then ironed them on one at a time, while Jeff dealt with printing the design onto the iron-on paper.

Now I was carefully turning the shirt inside out, so we could iron from the other side.

The reveal. Did they stick? Will they stay??

Success.

Now we moved on to placement for the front and back iron-on papers.

*Time lapse.* My shirt is magically done, too!

 

Don’t let these pictures fool you. I did not do much of the work. I merely ironed. Rebecca helped with the placement of the letters and patches, Jeff printed the patches, and they both read the directions and just told me how to iron. Oh, how I love having creative people around me. And a big shout out to Jess, who designed the patch for me in the first place!

Jeff helping me figure out how to get the front patch on. We marked ’em, but I don’t have an eye for straight lines, as it turns out.

Here we come, 5k!

 

 

 

 

…who did NOT die…

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In A Christmas Carol, the Muppet version, during the last scene, Gonzo/Mr. Dickens is holding the reveal. Did Tiny Tim make it? Or did he have a date with death? Gonzo lets us know, by stating: “And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die…” It’s probably one of the funniest Muppet moments, and certainly one of my favorite movie moments. It was even funnier this year when we watched it with a large group of my friends and Gonzo delivered his perfect line to a perfect crowd: everyone erupted into laughter, and my friend Scott and I still get the giggles (or whatever the giggle equivalent is for men) when one of us mentions it.

Anyways, my point is, on Friday, I ran 3.1 miles. It was on the treadmill. It was at zero incline. Flat surface. I had to stop twice to loosen my shoes and stretch my calves, for one minute each. I wanted to quit at mile 2. I wanted to quit at mile 2.5. I wanted to quit every second of the last half mile. But I prevailed because I had to. So I did the 3.1 miles. I was supposed to do 3 miles, but you know, I figured I should probably know whether or not I could actually go 3.1 miles just in case maybe that last .1 mile is really what was going to push me over the edge.

It took me 39:24. That’s an average of 13 minutes and 8 seconds. Slower than my best mile (of 11:35) but faster than you know, walking. Less than my original (arbitrary) goal of 45 minutes. It’s not fast. It’s not fancy. But I did NOT die.

The three miles were a little faster than the 13 minutes and 13 seconds it took me on Wednesday to run two miles. And my two miles today were a little faster, at 25:45, which was 12 minutes and 52.5 second average. These two miles were 58 seconds slower than my fastest two miles. Which is a smidge discouraging, but it’s better than nothing. Am I right? (Let’s hope I’m right.)

Jeff and I went to Michael’s today to get stuff to make Nikki and I shirts for the run. So at the very least, I’ll be well dressed. Less than a week left. Here goes nothing.

 

Relative Danger: a story of sorelle

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Chicks, it’s Friday. I am trying to keep my spirit up, despite the fact that apparently I am allergic to the entire state of California.

Last night was a hectic night, as are most nights at the HAP house. We’re shooting a photo shoot this weekend for Garlic, My Soul, and we had some prep cooking to do. We made doughnuts, pancakes, and muffins last night, and Corelyn spent today decorating our baked goods. Becca will be on hand for makeup and quiche-making, and Jeff will be around for man-power. Literally.

Anyways, this week has been long – and it’s been the week of 2.25 mile runs. I can’t believe I am already past 2 miles, and its killing me. I think it’s because I haven’t been to yoga in a while — too busy!! — but my shins have been KILLING ME. My sorella told me I could take a break, so this morning I dragged myself to the gym to do the elliptical machine. At 6:50, I was already late and turns out, it takes you longer to travel the same distance on an elliptical, unless you pump your legs so hard you have to hold on to the machine so you don’t fall off.

I kept an eye on the clock, and had to jump off at 7:20 to make sure I got to work on time. 1.75 miles is all I got before my time was up. It took 22 minutes in all (which actually was about the amount of time it took me to run it, so I guess I wasn’t that far behind.) I somehow had forgotten my lock (who knows where it is? I am hoping on the floor at home) so I had to go out to my car to get it then hustle back inside to get ready for work.

Needless to say, it was another crazy morning. Where’s the yoga when I need it? But when I got to work, Nikki and I signed up for the race. That’s right, folks; on the day I broke and needed a running break, I signed up to run a 5k that I’m not even sure I can do. We signed up with the team name “Relative Danger” just the right amount of truth and cheese. So cheer me on, send me shin stretches, and good vibes…I’m going to need them.