Registered for a race and shin splints

I'm officially signed up for the Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon!

On leap day there was an great deal for Rock and Roll events, $29 off. I had to register for Seattle RnR!

If I could only choose one race to run a year this would be the race. Not because I love the course, cause this year they changed it so I really have no idea what to expect, or because I kind of feel like Washington is my home even though I only lived there for 3 years (yes I miss it there but I do love Idaho). I would choose Seattle RnR because of Wear Blue Run to Remember. It's more than just another race I get to add to my list or medal I get to hang up. Every step means something. Every step honors a Soldier that is no longer here with us. Every step puts a name to a face so that we may never forget. Every step honors the service and sacrifice of the American Military.

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I am hoping I didn't register for this race prematurely. If anything I can always drop down to the half but I would rather run the full and drop my spring marathon. I'm hoping that won't be necessary though.

I did get in 3 runs last week. A 3 miles on Tuesday (outside), 3 miles on Thursday (treadmill) and 8 miles on Sunday (outside). On my Tuesday run I felt a little bit of soreness, but it would go away and then come back. It wasn't painful to the point that I needed to stop or anything. I iced and compressed and took the next day off to see if it felt any different. Honestly I didn't really feel much but just a slight soreness going up and down stairs, same on Thursday.

On Friday I decided to do some cross training so I spinned for 30 minutes then did around 20 min of walking lunges with 12 lbs weights, squats with 12 lbs weights, 15 lb kettle bell swings. Then I did 10 minutes of stretching/foam rolling. When I woke up Saturday my whole lower body was SORE!! My butt was even sore! I decided to wait to do a longish run on Sunday which worked out perfect cause Cambry text me that day to see if I wanted to get together for a short run. And it was also 60 degrees!!! A beautiful and welcome changed from the cold weather we have been having.

View of downtown Boise

Cambry and I met at the Train Depot and ran to downtown Boise and back which was exactly 3 miles. We just talked and enjoyed the sun. I did feel soreness in my shin when we first started out and we stopped and stretched at the lights. At about mile 2 I didn't feel much soreness anymore.
After she left I went down to the greenbelt and ran 5 more miles. I would only feel soreness in my shin after I would stop and start running again. I did wear my compressing socks (with a running skirt, yay for skirt season!!) and I also wore some k-tape.

I'm not sure if the compression socks or k-tape helped but today the only time I feel any soreness is up and down stairs. I did take today off but tomorrow will try another run on the treadmill and see how it goes.
As of now I am just trying to figure out how to jump into training. If all my runs this week go ok I will attempt a double digit run this weekend.

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Here's another picture from my 8 mile run yesterday.

There was a photo session going on but I had to get a pic of the depot :)

Hope you have a great week!

10 miles that turned into 12

Thank you everyone so much for the birthday wishes!

I had a fabulous day that included lunch at Jimmy John's with some of my coworkers...

The boss, Gene, me, Katie (across from me) and Rylie

Jimmy John's has the best bread ever. We tried to get a free loaf of bread for my birthday but they said they didn't do that :(

It actually was snowy out and took some time to get there but it was one of the last times we will all be together since Katie is leaving us and moving to the city where the young retire... Portland. (Reference to Portlandia.. do you watch that show? It's stupid but in a funny way)

I'm sad she is leaving cause she made work fun. We would joke around, quote movies and songs all day long. I might have to make a trip to visit her sometime this year. Her and her mom actually just signed up to run the Portland Half Marathon in October. It will be their first half! I'm so excited for her and glad she could come to me for advice on training plans, sports bras (I recommended Moving Comfort they are my fav!) and running shoes.

Anyway you can obviously see I'll miss her. Good thing we text each other random crap about once a day to make each other laugh. So back to my birthday...

All I really wanted on my birthday was to keep warm and snuggle up to my boys so that's what we did! Much better than being outside in the cold and driving around on a stormy day.

Keeping warm when I did venture outdoors. I heart my Brooks Run Happy beanie I won at the Las Vegas RnR expo

Snuggling with my boys (minus Gene he was taking the picture :)

Gene made us a fabulous spaghetti dinner! And after we had some yummy birthday treats...

Is it a brownie or is it a cookie??

Brownie mix with cookie dough on top

It's both!

So do you think it's called a brookie? or a coownie?  

And yesterday Gene bought me this bad boy...

I had my sliver with some milk not the beer in this picture haha.

This cake is huge!! You might have seen it at Costco. All I could handle was a small sliver it's very rich but oh soooo good! I gave a huge slice to my brother and our friend so they could take some home. I will probably do the same for my coworkers.

After all the desserts I was definitely wanting to go out and run off some of those extra calories I consumed all week.

So today I set out for a 10 mile run that turned into a 12 mile run. Yay me!

The day was actually pretty. Which means it wasn't snowing or raining, a change from the last few days. It was a little bit cold but the crisp air felt good. I set out on an out and back course. I had no specific pace in mind just wanted to keep it at a relaxed easy pace. At about mile 5 I was feeling good so decided to go out one more mile. The first 6 miles were without music. I just enjoyed the sounds around me and the scenery.

Icy lake and finally some snow on the mountains in the background.

 At the turn around I turned on Pandora and was enjoying the sun breaking through the clouds for a few minutes. There was a headwind that was making me cold but yet I was sweaty and hot all the same time which made for a gross feeling.

I thought the wind was slowing me down but looking at my Garmin stats after the run I was actually progressively increasing my speed ending with mile 12 with an 8:49 pace. I was pretty happy about that since lately during my long runs my last few miles were slower than the first and I never felt the extra energy kick in to make me want to speed up. Today I did. 

12 miles in 1:53 for an overall pace of 9:28

My week looked like this...

Monday - 8 mile run

Tuesday - 1.2 mile warm up & Strength- Chest & Triceps

Wednesday - Birthday! 2.5 mile run with one mile at at 7:53 pace to see if I had some sub 8's left in me. Strength - Shoulder, Abs & push ups

Thursday - Cross train- 35 minutes on the spin bike followed my stretching and foam rolling

Friday - rest day

Saturday - rest day

Sunday - 12 mile run and .3 mile cooldown walk

Total running mileage - 24 miles.

I just missed my goal of at least 25 miles. I should have ran Friday or Saturday or ran a little longer one of the other days.

I also wanted an extra day of strength but I'm happy with at least 2.

This coming week I hope to have my mileage at about 30 miles and 2-3 days of strength.

How did your training go this week?

Have you ever had a Costco cake?

They are HUGE but delicious! I love their pumkin pie's too.  

Our first of many miles together

Yesterday Gene and I went on our longest run to date together, 8 miles.

Saturday’s are Wear Blue: Run to Remember’s group run days (in Dupont, WA) so we wore our shirts for our run.

We started at about 10 am and it was already HOT outside! We ran along the Boise Greenbelt which helped keep us cool when we were along the river for the first 2 and last 2 miles of the course. The in between miles were the hardest cause they were in direct sunlight along a golf course with little shade.

At the turn around point Gene said his ankle was hurting. I think it was more due to the shoes but could have been cause of the mileage increase. He is following a Runner’s World training plan which made his first long run 8 miles. This is actually a big jump for his first week of training since he hasn’t ran in about a year. I should have paid attention to this before hand but we are going to look over the training plan and adjust the long runs to something that suits his better right now.

I knew his ankle was really bothering him at about mile 6. I felt bad cause he is relying on me to help him with his training. He is stubborn and if his training would have put him at a 13 mile run he would have done it and finished it even if he was hurt. He tries to compete with himself and wants to have the endurance and speed he had 2 years ago before he had deployed. When he was in Afghanistan he didn’t have much time to run or workout. But I know at the end of this training cycle he is going to be running circles around me again. That’s ok, he may have the speed waiting to be unleashed but I have the endurance :)

After the run we took a few pics as we cooled off. It was hot and I really was contemplating jumping in the river to cool off!

I had so much fun. And he admitted that he did too! This was of course a few minutes after the run. During the run I think he may have secretly been cursing me haha.

I can’t wait to do it again! What’s even more exciting is that we plan to try out some new trails I haven’t been too.

Do you run with your significant other?