End of May - Beginning of June

Recap time. May sucked! Somethings went right, I did get out on my bike more, 4 times for at least 2 miles each time. I know it doesn't seem like much but that is at least 4 more days that I would have done nothing otherwise, it goes in the win column. I also learned how hard it is to do simple balance poses on a full size trampoline. If you do yoga and have access to one or can get into one of those trampoline cardio classes do it. I could really feel a difference in my ankles, which lead to looser calves, #2 in my win column. I lost 7 workouts to either rain or pure laziness, they go to my needs to improve column. I finished the month with a total mileage (running, biking and walking) of 77.49, which even if you subtract out the bike miles is still 10 more miles than April, win #3 for the month.

June will be better. It has to be. June I think is the hardest month to run in, in Houston. Any hope of cool and less humid days is gone. Summer hits and your body is no where near as acclimated as you would like it to be. Getting in afternoon runs to help speed the process along helps but nothing helps more than just plain ole' consistency in your schedule. I am also now officially Marathon training. Well I should be anyways. I have my first meeting with the Cypress-Fit group towards the middle of the month to help me get motivated for my next goal.

That "postponed" half I mentioned in an earlier post, the Coasting the Coast Galveston. I really think it's starting to look like more of a scammed race but only time will tell on that one. It was called off the day before it's first packet pick up and when runners pressure them to be able to pick up their bibs and t-shirts they were answered back with a long list of excuses as to why they couldn't do it. Most importantly that they have neither to give out and it being 8 days from the race leads me to believe is was set up as a scam run. About 2 hours after it was posted on their FB page the page was shut down by the organizers so that also leads to something funny going on. I did what I could to request a refund thru Groupon and also filed disputed claim with my credit card to see if I could at least get my money back that way, since it is obvious it will not be refunded by the RD of the race. Really thankful I didn't pay full price. It does however break the one-half a month streak I had going since October. I am working on getting some of my running ladies together instead to cover the distance so at least the training won't be for nothing.  

Now the only race I have for June is the No Label 5k on the 14th. I am however joining the Houston Marathon Committee for their 2 events this month, National Run Day and the Run for a Reason Kickoff Party both in Memorial Park and of course there is always the HWP free 5k to look forward to. Since I have no long race for the month I am going to focus on keeping my long run in the 10 mile range. Also I am back on with the full week of training, one day speed, one day easy to acclimate and one day tempo.

Texas City Run Fest

I got out to the Texas City Run Fest on 5/31. What a good way to end the month. Training wise I am "tapering", although I am not really sure what that means for me these days. It sort of seems like an excuse to not run as hard or as long as I should be and honestly that's not what I need to be doing right now. I have been "training" (another term I am not sure I know how to use right now) for the Coasting the Coast Half in Galveston 6/7 (which was just "postponed" but more on that in another post) and this race just happened to fit perfectly into a taper. One last good hard run, in the heat, under threat of severe thunderstorms. Running under impending doom is not really my strong point. It's been since March since I have logged any miles in the rain and I was kind of looking forward to it. As the summer heat and humidity hits the area this could just be the last semi-decent weather I get to run in.

I ran into these during my warm up. 

Texas City is a small town right along the Galveston Bay and the organizers took advantage of that. There is a hike/bike trail along the levee that just happens to run right along the coastline. On one side you have a field that leads directly to the water and on the other a buffer marsh land that the city keeps up as soccer field, volley ball courts, horseshoe pits and picnic areas dotted along it. It also has a crushed granite walk/jog path that leads to the many pavilions in the parks. I took advantage of these paths for my warm up run.

A Blue Heron, I think

As far as the race itself went. There were a couple hundred people for a combined 5k/10k start. There was a slight bottle neck exiting the parking lot start and getting on to the bike path but there were not enough people to have it make a real difference in the race. Then there was a little confusion where the path first turns around and has to you have to cross running traffic but again there aren't enough runners to make it a big issue. The bigger issue was the only real incline. One steady climb lead to the point where the 5k and 10k split. 10k to the left, 5k to the right, no confusion here as they manned it with a few really vocal girls doing there best to shout over the Disco buses' music. The disco bus I have to say was great, it was at a good point in the race, at top of the hill to get you rocking and then when you turned around and finally got back to it, it kept you rocking as you ran to mile 5. There were a number of water stops on top of the levee, most you got to hit coming and going, as well as port-a-potties that I am not sure were there just for the race.  In the last half mile there was a nice long downhill to give you some free power and a big crowd cheering at the finish where they handed me, not a medal but almost better, a cold towel. The finish was stocked with Blue Bell, 3 kinds of beer, water, gaterade, sodas, fruit and granola bars. You also had What-a-Burger giving out cookies and Walgreens handing out bags and water bottles (my collection now needs another shelf). It looked like most of the crowd also stayed to party afterwards and they were giving away tons of door prizes. This is one that if there is a hole in my calendar I would definitely do again.

My Run Binder

A good motivation page is a must!

One of the things running wise that I get asked a lot is how I keep track of my schedule. I know running two races a month doesn’t seem like much but making sure I don’t double book races and keep up with training is. So today I am going to introduce you all to my Run Binder. Where ever I go, it goes with me. I am not kidding, I made sure the last purse I bought it would fit inside it, it also fits in my run bag and easily slides between my seat and center console in my car for when I'm looking for directions. It’s just a simple ½ inch binder with a set of 12 month tabs and then a print out of each months calendar basically it’s a homemade Dayrunner. I know in this electronic age we all have accounts for Garmin Connect and Map My Run that keep track of our daily distances. Yes, I know  that if you want to get further involved with these apps they will track your full race schedule thru their calendar programs. I find that sort of limiting since I do not carry any mobile electronics other than my gps watch. For shame most people think, you run without your cell phone? OMG! It’s really too much for some ladies I know to handle. They have to have that ability to be in constant contact and personally I find it much too distracting. If my husband were to call me while I was out on a run or worse while I was in the middle of a race, I would lose my shit. My run would become about talking on the phone not paying attention to the run itself. That’s too much for me. In fact the truth is I don’t even have a cell phone, when I am unavailable, I’m truly unavailable.

May's page, stars and all.

I still prefer to be able to physically touch things; there is something in being able to write a race on the calendar or inking in a distance and time on paper, something more real about sticking my “star” on the calendar after a good work out.  I guess I am old school that way. The other thing I like about my binder is that I get instant feedback. I can flip the page and see where I am compared to where I was last year. I can also flip the tabs to see what things I have coming up and if I see a race I like it’s easy to see where it would fit in my schedule without have to login in somewhere and wait for the page to load. I also keep print outs of registration emails (cuz you never know when you’ll come to packet pick up and not be on the actual list, it happens even at the best of races) and hotel confirmations, directions to races and any cool places to see while in the area, all neatly sorted into the month I will be using them. It's also great to have on hand at expos so when I impulse buy races I can check immediately what else I have going on. Only draw back I have right now is that I really should remember to write in birthdays and holidays so I don't book races those days. 

So far for May my page has a few holes. It's been rainy and I have been using that as an excuse to not run. I do get to finish out the month in Texas City at their "Run Fest" which is super hero themed this year. I'm going as the Flash (yes, for the irony of it). Nothing like a 6 mile tempo run to close out a month.

Kona Kase update

I while back I bogged about Kona Kase. Well 3 months in and it is now a nightmare subscription. First of all, they raise their monthly rate and even tho it's only $2 more, they never bothered to notify customers of the increase. In fact they have barely updated their website to reflect the new price. Strike one. When I emailed them about it...crickets...no reply. So being me I went from strike one to your out. If a company doesn't even have the customer service skills to reply to a simple inquiry they do not deserve my business. So then I waited for my May subscription box to come. Billed on the 5th, "shipped" on the 10th and I gave it until the 19th to ask them WTF...once again crickets. Until today when someone notices that I sent them a tweet wanting to know where my box was. Well folks too late for them. I had already sent in a "disputed charge" to my credit card. Maybe 24 hours isn't too much to wait but when in actuality I have been waiting 2 weeks to hear any sort of reply from them, I wasn't holding my breath now. My reply to their tweet "@konakase seriously too late, your lack of customer service has caused me to dispute your charge on my card and cancel my subscription" finally got their attention. To which I got a follow up email that, was written about was well as one that my 5th grader could send. Not very professional, no apology for not fulfilling their end of the bargain, no trying to make it right. Not. A. Damn. Thing.

I think I am done with subscription services for a while. 

**I feel like ranting a little more. It's a fucking subscription service. It should run in the background. It should happen and I should not have any hassle, the only thing on my end should be "ok look I got a box today". My oldest daughter subscribes to Ipsy and we have never, never, never had one issue with it. They charge my card, it ships and arrives around the 15th every month. I think that is the thing that really pisses me off about the "nutrition" subscriptions I have tried, there seems to always be an issue. It should be seemless and they aren't and KK can suck it!!

Tailwind

Tailwind, have you heard of them? There are just as many hydration products out there in the market as there are shoe makers it seems these days. Over the past few weeks the new name I have heard tossed around is Tailwind. From Half Fanatic boards to my MRTT group. One of the bad ass MRTT ladies just came back from Miowk offering up her old mixes, stating that Tailwind is what she was going to be using from here on out. So when someone tough enough to tackle a 100k talks about this stuff I try to listen. First off they have a few flavor options so I went with a 4 pack of assorted flavors. I ordered on a Wednesday and was hoping it would arrive  not for my long run that week but the week after. Well I was WRONG. I got it that Friday, as in 2 days later. Only Amazon could have been any quicker (and no it's not available on Amazon). I also was able to grab a 15% discount by "liking" their FB page, so if you're going to give them a try start there.

Before we start, a little about what I was doing. I have been using Cytomax. Which is a low sugar electrolyte. I came to it quite by accident when I won a can of it in a raffle after a flash mob race. I have about a 1/4 of a can left so I will continue to use it during my mid-week runs. On a normal long run I typically take 1 bottle of water (10oz), 1 bottle of Cytomax (also 10oz) and 2 GU's (every 4 miles) and a pack of honey (for my cool down), that normally gets me to 12-13 miles.  To compare the two I noticed right off that the sugar content is different, or is it. Cytomax labels its carbs (22g) as an "advanced carb system" that has 12gs of sugar, no fancy name for the carbs on the Tailwind just 25gs that come from 25g of sugar. Seems simpler. My next concern is the sodium content, but use Sodium Citrate at about the same level (115 mg - 120mg)  but Tailwind also lists sea salt under its sodium content at 188mg. That means Tailwind has more than twice the sodium, 303mg total. For those of you who think sea salt is better for you because it has less sodium, you're wrong. Salt is salt. The notion that sea salt is better comes from the fact that sea salt grains are larger so when you measure out the same amount of sea salt vs table salt you get less sea salt so yes, you get less sodium but if they are ground to the same grain size, they are the same. It is however better for you because it is nothing but pure evaporated sea water. Sorry about that, where was I going with this? Oh yeah... the main thing I am wanting to accomplish by changing hydration is that at the end of a hot long run I am still sweating and am not left chugging that horrible gateraid stuff or sipping Nuun for the rest of the day to make up for what I just depleted by body of. 

The test. Mother's Day. It's a relative easy long run 5-8 miles, only 73 out with 94% humidity at 6 am. (UGH! but these are the conditions I am going to be running in until November) I chose to try the berry flavor and followed the directions on the website to measure out for my 20oz bottle, packed a GU (just in case) and a honey packet (cuz you never know) and $5, in case I have to loop my run to anyone of the convenience stores along my route. I started with my normal intake schedule at 2 miles and then every mile after wards. It didn't have that strong of a taste and it didn't leave a funky aftertaste or feel in my mouth. I did feel a little stomach girggling about 2 1/2 but pushed on, my body was noticing the difference in sugar. When I got to 4, I normally would have needed the GU but I held off, still feeling pretty good. At mile 5 I was still debating how far I was going to run, I took the GU, thinking I might go for 2 more miles. I was having luck that the sun hadn't broken the clouds and there was a good breeze out but as I ran to 6 the clouds parted and the sun broke so I headed home, finishing just under 6 1/2 miles for the day. First thing I noticed as I took my cool down walk was that  I wasn't dying, I didn't need to suck down my honey as I usually would and I still have sweat dripping off my elbows. I did finish off what was left in my bottle as I waited for breakfast.

The aftermath...even taking in account that this run was the shortest long run I have taken in the past few weeks adding the fact that it really was the first "summer" type run for the year, I didn't feel completely spent and it didn't take the rest of the day until I felt "normal" again. So that is success enough to try it again on my 9 miler next week. The only problem and I'm not sure if I should blame the Tailwind or the meatballs from Saturday's dinner but for the rest of the day I got to enjoy quite the game of "let's just blame that smell on the dog." 

UP next, still training, Texas City 10k 5/31, Coasting the Coast Galveston Half Marathon 6/7, No Label 5k 6/14, Baytown Heatwave 5 miler 7/4, Xterra Magnolia Hills 7/12. Also looking to hook up with the USA Fit Cypress group in June to start marathon training.

Biggest Loser Run/Walk Beaumont

I ran the Biggest Loser Half Marathon 5-3-14. First off Beaumont is in Southeast Texas and the weather this time of year is a complete crap shoot, normally landing on hot. Most of the week leading up to the race were beautifully unseasonably cool and humid free. It was looking like this trend was going to hold into the weekend and even tho the temp crept up a few ticks the humidity didn't. Start line temp was beautiful.  Finish line temp not so much. I admire what this race series is doing. Getting people to take accountability for their weight and encouraging weight loss thru diet changes and good old fashion exercise is fantastic. Not to say that weight loss surgery is wrong, it is necessary for many but most of us really just need the encouragement to get out there and get moving.  

I thought the crowd would be bigger, but this is in Beaumont and although I did see some of the regular Houston runners out on the course and I am sure folks came in from Louisiana (the border isn't far from here) there just isn't much of a local population to pull from. I had thought 5-7000 would be there but in reality maybe 1-2000, for both races. Had it been larger I could have understood the wave start but really for this small of a crowd it wasn't much needed UNLESS they were taking in account for the constant turns on the course and were hoping to keep any bottle necks to a minimum. So yeah let's talk about the race course for a minute. I saw on the map that it was a very turning course but it was really ridiculous. Down 3 blocks make a right down another block make another right and repeat for darn near the rest of the race. Also thanks to this layout it made it real easy for runners to cut the course. There was no one preventing someone from skipping one of the many switchbacks. I am also guessing the way the course was laid out was the reason why the mile markers were off by so much. By mile 2 the marker was 1/4 mile short, at mile 8 it was 1/2 mile short and by the time I reached the marker at "mile 12" it was 3/4 mile short of the actual distance making it 1.6 miles to the finish. Over all the course ended up being about 1/4 mile short, which is within reason for any half.

As for the rest, the downtown area was a ghost town, either because all streets leading to it were close or that it just how Beaumont is on a Saturday. The only spectators on the course were the few who were there to cheer on their favorite runner and the people manning the aid-stations. There were a few who cut the course to cheer on runners from many locations and there was one lady I must have passed 8 times. Talk about being a dedicated spectator, she should have gotten a medal for being out there too and after the finish I gave her a hug and thanked her. The aid-stations were well stocked but not very well manned. Some only had 1 person there but that did not stop that person from making sure things were taken care of and cups were filled.

The half medal is mine,
my daughter earned the other walking the 5k.

So how did I do? I did GREAT! I ran the first mile to warm up and then settled into 3:1 r/w intervals and maintained that to the finish of the race. I crossed the finish in 2:31:01, a PR by 5:41. AMAZING!!!

Overall it was a good race. The finish line was lacking in any real food, something with protein would be nice after 12.9 miles. There was your usual bananas, water and stale bagels, oh and cuties, can't forget the cuties. Would I do one of their races again, YES! Would I do it in Beaumont, No.

Coming up, not a damn thing until the end of May when I run the Texas City Dyke 10k. Easy miles until then.

April Recap

Can't believe it's the end of April. I ended the month on a rest day. Not really needed but part of my schedule none the less. I have managed to keep pretty much on track since the middle of the month, logging my 2 week day runs, 2 strength training days and well really just the one long run (but hey, it was a 25k race so that counts double, maybe?). Ended the month on a mileage low of 61.5 total miles. The lowest amount I have ran during a month in, well a year, so maybe I was due. In fact April last year I only logged 52.5 miles and that was with effort, I am going to be delusional here and say that if I can log 60+ without having my heart in to it, I'm ok.

May is going to start out with a bang! I've go the Biggest Loser Half Marathon in Beaumont this coming weekend. So I don't stay skip it I roped my oldest daughter into r/w the 5k. I can't seem to motivate myself but if I can take someone else down with me...that'll work too. Problem is the rest of the month is pretty much open until the Texas City Fun (10k) the last weekend of the month. To keep things interesting I am going to swap a day of strength training for at least 30 minutes out on a bike, one morning a week is all I am asking of myself. A little change always does me good. 

Looking forward. I bit the bullet and bought a Groupon for a June half in Galveston. Being a Half Fanatic I just couldn't let a month go without a viable reason not to run my distance. A little thing like heat isn't going to get in my way. Well not until August anyways. Also looking forward in June to joining up with USA Fit Cypress and  getting my marathon training under way.