Asheville Citizen Times Half Marathon Pics... And I'm a Winner!

I finally figured out how to share my race pics with you all. It's the little things that are important, right?

Heel strike much? And, yes, I'm pretty much wearing the same outfit that I wore for the Lady Distance Classic (the only other race I have pics from). I can't help it, I love that Nike Miler shirt. I love it so much I'm gonna share it with you all very soon!

And speaking of sharing, I woke up to find out that I won the Go Girl Skirt Giveaway over on Christy's blog, My Dirt Road Anthem. Now I can change up my race outfits! If only I could borrow Christy's legs too... Kidding... Kind of.

If you don't follow her you should go check her out immediately and you should VOTE FOR HER HERE for Team Refuel.

Asheville Citizen-Times Half Marathon Recap & Review

Recap

If I had to choose a theme for this race... It was hills, hills, HILLS. Oh my goodness.

And yes, when I first decided to do this race I read all about it and people definitely mentioned the hills. I just chose to forget that I'd read about them and continue in blissful ignorance.

Then I got the race instruction email and this little chunk of buzz kill was included:

Seriously? More on that later.

So I got up at 530, had a Cliff Bar and drank some G2. Packed up all my crap and headed downtown.

From the top left:  iPod and accessories, bib, garmin, cliff bar, iFitness belt on the bottom, already packed with my phone and shot bloks.

PS - wore the iFitness belt for the first time (I know, such a no no), and it worked great. The only thing I didn't like was it didn't hold my bib the right way (or I couldn't figure it out, which is WAY more likely). But the main thing was:  that sucker didn't move or bounce at all. Perfect.

We lined up for the race and I headed to the back, I didn't really have a goal time in mind, my main goals being to finish and to do so with a smile on my face. But I noticed the 2:30 pace group near me and they were a really nice group of girls. One explained that their plan was to run a little faster on the flats and downhills, and if they saw a hill that made them wanna say S, D, or F that they'd walk it. I thought this was a great plan and made an impromptu goal to stick with them.

That's the start line WAAAAY up there. I stuck with the pace group for the first 2-3 miles. I was feeling really good, and went on ahead. I thought that might have been a little silly of me, but whatever. I felt great and the time was flying by. At some point (I think at a water station) they passed me and I ended up finished about a minute behind them.

I can't tell you anything about my splits because my Garmin (or its operator) is stupid. Anyone have any tips when Garmin Connect keeps saying that no device is attached? Dumb.

Here's one of the hills. And it was not the worst one.

I'm taking this picture from up on the next switch back. Torture.

There were lots of spectators and alot of the course was through various neighborhoods. Some people had orange slices out for us and lots of little kids cheering us on. There was one group tailgating with mimosas. Yum.

What I couldn't get over was how fast this race flew by!! I never got bored and only once thought to myself "Are we there yet?" (at like mile 12.5). I talked to a few people during the race, which always makes the time fly. I walked the hills and ran the rest. I walked through all the water stations and got water or gatorade, and took shot bloks at miles 6.5 ish and again at 10ish. I think I took three each time. I wanted to take the first ones earlier, but I got all confused and wasn't ready at the water station. The race miles were coming at me faster than they were on my Garmin.

According to Garmin I did 12.91 miles in 2:31:56 (average pace 11:46)
Official time:  2:31:12 (11:32)

It was very cool and even sprinkled at a few points, but felt really great outside.

It was AMAZING to cross that line and get my medal:

There was lots of food after the race (Earth Fare provided trailmix, apples, bananas, some kind of nut butter, and yogurt covered pretzels). The only weird thing was that I actually had to walk around to find water after the race. Highland Brewing Co. offered 2 complimentary beers for racers.   

After the race I grabbed a water and a banana and hit the road. I wasn't that hungry (oddly) but I knew I would be soon. I stopped at McAllisters and got a baked potato and salad. I came home to get in the torture chamber  ice bath. Brad called (he had to work) and let me know he'd gotten me ice and left it in a cooler for me (how sweet!). I went upstairs and found this:

He's pretty awesome. And I'm pretty blessed.

I got in the ice bath, then took a hot shower (does this completely un-do the ice bath?). Then I proceeded to lay on the couch and watch a bunch of True Blood. Perfect day.

In short... I LOVED the race. Yes the course sucked but I still loved every minute. I can't wait to do it again. And I also want to volunteer at a big race soon. Stay tuned. I think I'm addicted :)

Review

I thought the course was tough.

The volunteers were amazing. There were tons of water stations. Offering water at first, adding Gatorade and pretzel sticks later on in the race. It was extremelely well organized and started on time. There were 3 or 4 pace groups. The shirts were super cute tech tees. I loved the medals. I really liked that there were two different shirts (one for the half and another for the 5K). We had to pay to park which was kinda stinky, but understandable and only cost about 3 bucks. They had a bag check that was very efficient.

I'd recommend it to anyone, especially if you're looking for a challenging course. It was almost like running a mile then doing 20 squats, then repeating 13 times.

Asheville Citizen-Times Half Marathon Expo and Packet Pick Up... And my first GIVEAWAY!!

Just got back from the expo and packet pick up! I can't believe this is actually happening!

It was at the Sherrill Center on UNCA's campus. I'd never been up there, they have a nice arena. There were a decent number of vendors there. We stopped at the Jus' Running and Foot Rx booths. Brad found a pair of Mizuno shorts for 50% off and I got a belt at iFitness. I also saw a booth for a The Haunted Half Marathon. Should I or shouldn't I? I'm gonna decide after Saturday, but I'm thinking YES!

I picked up my shirt and bib:

**This is actually the third shirt I got. On the first two the screen printing had smeared and looked crappy. I HATE taking things back or saying anything about stuff like that, but dangit this is my first half marathon shirt and I want to be able to wear it all the time. Even to sleep.

So I'm off to eat some delicious carbs (I keep reading that you shouldn't carb load the night before but that you should eat a few more carbs for a few days before the race). I can probaby handle that.

Now that I've made you suffer through all that, let's get down to the good stuff... my first giveaway!

A mix of my favorite fuels! Shot Bloks, GU's and sport beans. You'll get everything pictured, and maybe a few other sweet treats! Want to enter? Here are the ways you can:

**MANDATORY - must be a follower** (1 entry)

Optional entries:
Blog, tweet, or facebook a link to this giveaway. (1 entry for each)
Tell me your favorite race fuel. (1 entry)

Leave me a comment for each entry pretty please!

Good LUCK! I'll pick a winner on September 24th at 11pm (ish, let's face it I'm not punctual at all). I'll either use the random number generator or figure out a way to let Riley pick.

We've Come A Long Way Baby

I cannot believe that the half is in 3 days. I started this blog in May with the goal of becoming accountable for my training. I never thought in a million years that anyone would read my ramblings, let alone comment... And followers?? Yeah right.

I have had a blast. What an amazing world of encouragement and friendship.

THANK YOU. From the bottom of my heart. You all have helped to push me through this training and taught me so much!

(Speaking of which, Ashley (AKA Redonkulous Runner) posted some awesome links on how to customize your header. If you're in Google reader, please come check out my new design!)

Now I'm off to pick out my playlist for the




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Can't believe I'm actually doing this!!!

Small Predicament

Yesterday I did a 4 mile tempo run at the gym. This was my first ever tempo run, and I did a mile at 5.5, two at 6.0, and another at 5.5. I know these aren't blow you away fast times, but for me, running more than a mile at anything above 5.5 is a big win. I might have sweat a little.

I think I've mentioned it before, but my face turns beet red anytime I work up a sweat. Super attractive, I know. Does this happen to anyone else?

After the gym I ran home to shower immediately went on a secret mission. I'll share later today, when I have lots of pics! Then I actually did shower, and had to head to work for about an hour and a half for my yearly evaluation (yikes! stuff like this stressesmeoutsomuch!) But it went really well, and I'm glad it's over. I don't know why I let stuff like that stress me out, but oh well.

So back to my predicament. I was supposed to do my tempo run on Wednesday, but I worked 12 hours on Wed and Thurs (I don't usually run when I have to work a 12 hour shift). So I pushed it to Friday. Today is supposed to be my long run. Do I do it today? I'm thinking yes. What do you think?

Does it bother you when you don't follow your training plan exactly? Yes but it's something I'm working on this time around!

Do work evaluations stress you out too?

Half Marathon Training Plan

Today I spent some time checking out the Asheville Citizen-Times Half Marathon Website. It got me super pumped for the race. This week I have taken it super easy as far as running goes (not so much as life goes), and I'm ready to get back into the swing of things.

One of my  June Goals was to get my half marathon training plan figured out and I've been feeling really unaccomplished  so I thought I'd go ahead and check this one off the list (I'm OCD and love checking things off lists, it relaxes me).

I'm going into this training with a comfortable running base of about 10-15 miles per week. I've never had that before, and I've always thought it was a major contributor to not finishing training. I also only wanted to run 3-4 times a week. I did not want to burn out again.

I will need your all's help to get through this. Being as this is the third time 'officially' starting half marathon training, I've got this huge cloud of doubt in the back of my head telling me, "you've tried this twice and failed, what is going to make this time different?" So time to quit listening to my head and overthinking every little thing.

I posted the plan under one of my pages at the top. Let me know what you think. Looking it over it seems kinda easy. My longest run is 9 miles. I may tweak it, but it's posted in its original form, as the Runner's World Smart Coach spit out for me.

Have you ever used the Smart Coach?
What training plans do you like?
Do you like your long run to be as long as the actual race?

Asheville Citizen Times Half Marathon

ACT Website

So as I mentioned before, I have officially signed up for the ACT Half Marathon. We moved to Asheville during the Summer of 2009, and I considered doing this race in 2009 and 2010. Both years I was scheduled to work, so I made excuses and didn't sign up. I am scheduled to work this weekend, but I'm just taking a leap of faith that I can somehow get out of it. I'm not going to let work be my excuse. Also, husband pointed out that if I'm going to do this, why not do one close to home?

If you're wondering what the title of my blog refers to... This is it. Two times I have put myself through months of training for two different half marathons. Round one went down my first year of pharmacy school. We had a wellness project and for it one of my classmates, one of our mutual friends, and I decided we were going to train for and run the Kentucky Derby Mini Marathon. We began training in January for the race that was the last week of April. We worked our butts off, got up at 5am to get our runs in, and completed all of our training runs (we used a training plan for novices on the race website). Our longest run was an 8 miler. What happened? Spring Break happened.

Spring break consisted of a whole lot of these. I don't remember much else (kidding... mostly). What I do remember was that it was H-O-T in Orlando and we all forfeited a week of training. When we made our return to reality, we were all burnt out and my friend found out she had a stress fracture. So what did we do? I hate to say the word, but we did. We quit.


Fast forward 2 years later to Summer of 2010. We are in Asheville and the way our jobs work we have a lot of days off during the week, AKA: I don't have kids to keep me busy, shopping everyday is seriously depleting my checkbook, and you can only watch so many episodes of Glee, Gilmore Girls, and One Tree Hill (to name a few). I also needed some motivation to workout, and having a "plan" that I can follow and check off as I go usually works really well for me. So I started training again. Once again I made it to my 8 mile long run... Then I quit. It's hard to put my finger on why I quit this time. I was training alone. In the heat of summer. I never actually signed up for a half so I wasn't excited or committed financially.


So yeah, I've been a quitter in the past, but I'm going to change that this time. I know I can make it to 8 miles, so there is no reason why I can't do it again. And I'm going to keep goint after the 8 so that I can run this half. That's where the blog comes in. I need YOU to hold me accountable. Because obviously I haven't been able to do it myself!

Oh Crap!

I just signed up for the Asheville Citizen Times Half Marathon!! I'll write more later but for now I've gotta go run. So excited/nervous/what the heck am I thinking?!?