Lake Lowell Half Marathon Recap



Lisa, Kim and I carbo loading the night before the race

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:30am, ate a bagel with almond butter, got dressed and headed to Nampa, Idaho to pick up Kim and Lisa from their hotel. It's about a 20 minute drive and I got there right at 8am.

The start was a Lake Lowell Park and we got there about 8:20 so I drove straight up to the chip pickup area, Kim and Lisa jumped out, grabbed them and were back in the car out of the cold in a hurry. We parked the car and waited till about 8:45 (race starts at 9am). We got in the long line for the bathrooms but then the race directors wife told us there was a porta potty down the road so we took off for that one.

While waiting we had to take some pictures of course...

Yes I'm extremely short! I need to wear heels for ALL pictures from now on. I am 5 ft nothing in case you were wondering :)

The 5k, 10k and half marathoners all started together

Take from Lisa's blog

As we all gathered together I turned on my ipod shuffle and it said low battery! So sad! So I turned it back off and figured I'd turn it on when I really needed it.

Soon after they said go and we were off! Lisa started ahead of us and I ran with by Kim for a little bit. The first few miles is when my shin bothers me and it's always hard for me to find my stride during that time so I tired to focus on that but a mile into it the first big hill was upon us and with no music and my shin still wanting to be center of attention my pace slowed. We also had some headwind on the out 

Garmin elevation profile. Out and back course. The two big hills sucked.

I turned on my ipod at about mile 4 cause I needed something to keep my mind occupied. This helped and my stride started to get better which helped me pick up the pace too. At mile 6 it ended up dying but around that time the leaders were on their way back. I loved this part of the race! I was yelling out good job and giving high fives to my friends. It gave me a big boost of energy and they ended up some of the fastest miles of the race for me. I saw Lisa up ahead and was so excited for her and told her she was 3rd female! 

Just after the turn around I saw Kim, she gave me a high five and told me I was 16th female! This gave me another little burst of energy and with no music, my focus was to not let any other woman pass me and to pass as many as I could. I passed one girl pretty quickly.

My stomach had been feeling a little weird for most of the last half of the run, not sure why so I only took water at the aid stations (I had take a Gu gel at the turn around).

The last uphill sucked and seemed like it would never end. My stomach wasn't happy at this point so I stopped for just a second and saw two girls closing the gap between us so I started running again. I also ended up passing a couple I was playing leap frog with for a few miles at this point.

 Finally the downhill came so I picked up pace as did the girls that weren't to far behind me. At mile 12 I remember seeing my watch say 1:51 so I knew if I ran the last mile in under 9 minutes I could come in right at 2 hours. One of the girls told her friend the same thing I was thinking and they sped up and passed me so I said good job. 

One of the girls ended up slowing down and her friend went ahead. By this point my watch had already passed the 13.1 mile mark and another lady running near me said her watched says we already ran a half marathon, why are we still running. I told her mine did too! The girl who's friend had sped ahead was really struggling and I tried to encourage her. She told me this was her first half marathon. I told her she was doing such a great job and was going to come in at a great time. Her breathing was pretty bad and she really sounded like she was about to keel over! I told her just control your breathing you are doing awesome and it will all be worth it at the end! 

At this point I also saw Lisa off to the side and she was cheering me on which made me smile. She told me she was going to wait for Kim and they would meet me at the finish line. 

Thanks Lisa for taking this pic of me :)

As we entered the finishers shoot I could hear someone else breathing heavy trying to pass me so I sped up and finally crossed the finish line.

Coming into the finish

My garmin read 2:04:02 for 13.45 miles!!

Official Stats:

Chip time: 2:04:00

Gender: 13/70

Age group: 2/14

Overall: 37/117

Splits:

Mile 1 - 9:00

Mile 2 - 10:25 (long hill)

Mile 3 - 9:21

Mile 4 - 9:19

Mile 5 - 9:24

Mile 6 - 8:50

Mile 7 - 8:56

Mile 8 - 8:50

Mile 9 - 9:07

Mile 10 - 9:09

Mile 11 - 10:02 (long hill)

Mile 12 - 9:00

Mile 13 - 8:30

last .45 - 9:08

I chatted with some of my friends at the finish area. We planned a 22 mile group run for Memorial Day with one my friends who ran the race. We have pledged to run our miles in honor of the 6,444 Soldiers that have given their lives in the Global War on Terror (Will blog about that this week so please check back so you can pledge your miles too!)

Lisa and Kim had to get back to their hotel so they could catch a flight to Oregon later that afternoon (they were running another half the following day in Portland!)

So we got our awards early. I got my second place ribbon but it turns out because Lisa got 2nd place overall award it bumped me up to first place in our age group! I don't have a picture of it yet cause I have to go pick it up but here's me with the second place ribbon :)

Overall I was really happy with my performance on this race considering the hills. I also walked at the water stops for a few seconds. I know I have lots of room for improvement!

Half Marathon #10, #3 of the year. Next half marathon is May 19th!

I was also really happy I got to meet Kim and Lisa! It was great to be a part of their double half marathon weekend. Even though Nampa, Idaho isn't the most scenic place for a race, I tried to show them that Idaho is a fun place to be, even if they only spent less than 24 hours here :)

I ended the day with a yummy margarita at dinner

And happy late birthday to my Dash aka Peanut

Laying with his favorite toy, a stuffed rope monkey. His bday was Cinco de Mayo :)

Pre-race post

This week has been so busy! Well the last few weeks have been busy. With work, my son's baseball schedule and getting home late from either one of those two the only thing I want to do when I get home is read my book and and go to sleep. But in a weird way I love when things are so busy. With summer coming up and baseball ending at the beginning of June I don't know what I'll do with all my time! Well maybe i'll have more free time to run instead of running to my son's practices to make sure I fit in my runs :)

So tomorrow I'll be running the Lake Lowell Half Marathon! I had originally wanted to run the full but was changing my mind since it's such a small race. I actually got contacted by the race director earlier this week cause he had come across that post and offered to upgrade me to the full marathon for free. I thought that was really nice! I declined cause my mileage isn't up their enough to run a full marathon. The longest training run so far is 16 miles. In fact I pushed my first marathon for this year until Seattle RnR on June 23rd. Mostly because of these darn shin splints that are still bothering me during runs :(

Anyway I'm excited to run the half tomorrow! I got to meet Lisa and Kim today at dinner who are also running the half. They are both flew in today for this race and then are getting on a plane a few hours after the race tomorrow to fly to Oregon and run another half on Sunday!

I picked up their race packet as well as mine today which was took me all of about 2 minutes to get. They had sent out an email earlier saying the race shirts wouldn't be available till next week and our timing chips need to be picked at the race so all we really got was just the bib and a few coupons including one for $5 or $10 off their wine run in the fall. That race is actually on my radar so I may be more inclined to register for it.

My race bib and we also got some scentsy's in the shape of shoes

After dinner at the Olive Garden there were a few shops across the parking lot so I stopped in Ulta which is kind of like a Sephora if you haven't been to one. I was looking for a new perfume. I ended up getting Daisy by Marc Jacobs. It smells sooo good and I got two tote bags as a gift with purchase!

I finally decided on what to where. I had been debating on which skirt and socks to where but after trying them on I decided to go with this combo...

My goals for this race is just to enjoy the run and finish in around 2 hours.

I'm going to finish my updated my playlist for tomorrow then I'm off to bed!

If your racing this weekend have fun and good luck!

Catching Up

Lets play catch up with bullet points!

• Thanks everyone for your comments on my last post about switching marathons. I have decided to go ahead and run the Lake Lowell Half Marathon on May 5th and run the Famous Idaho Potato Marathon on May 19th. I think it was just a better choice for me. This also means I get to meet and run with these two ladies (here & here) at the Lake Lowell Half :) This also pushed marathon training back 2 weeks.

• My strength training has been going awesome. I've been doing about 2-3 strength training workouts a week. I am still using Jamie Eason's Live Fit Trainer. I don't follow every workout to a T but I have seen lot of strength improvement. Arms, back & chest are the area I've been working on most. I want to look good in those tank tops this summer! This past Saturday I did some kettle bell swings while Gene did some heavy rope wave exercise. We take turns usually doing 30 seconds. I always start sucking towards the end and can barely get the wave to go to the end of the rope.  Then we did some tire flips. Man that thing was heavy! I did a few of them before we called it a day.

• My mileage has been low these past two weeks. Part of it is cause I've been a little lazy in the running department (not the best thing since marathon training starts soon). I haven't had the motivation to get outside so my runs have mostly been on the treadmill. The other part is cause I've been experiencing some lower leg pain on my left leg. On Monday I did a 5 mile hill workout on the treadmill. I started at .5 incline for a mile warm up then did quarter mile repeats where I increased the incline from 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5,  then back down to 5, 4.5, 4 with a flat cool down. It made the 5 miles go by pretty quick. After the workout I felt a little bit of soreness on my lower left leg. I've felt this off and now for a few runs. But yesterday, the day after the hill workout, I could actually feel more pain than the day before. And it hurt more when I went up and down stairs. This obviously freaked me out and I was thinking the worst so I turned to the internet for answers, cause you know that's the easiest way to self diagnose yourself. I found that pain I was experiencing was just like posterior shin splints. I've never had shin splints so this wasn't the first thing that popped into my head. In fact I always thought shin splints were only on the front of the leg (Anterior Shin Splints). I found this picture that shows exactly where my pain is (Posterior Shin).

I tried some of the stretches that work the calf muscles that are tight (Gastrocnemius and Soleus) and I definitely feel the tightness. I also did some icing and wore my compression socks yesterday, which I read the compression can help. I did do some slow running today after my strength training. I did a walk warm up with some slow running then a walk cool down for a total of 1.2 miles. I could feel the pain, or more like soreness, at the beginning of the run and I could feel myself wanting to change my stride to compensate for soreness. Towards the middle of the run it started to fade and my stride was feeling more natural. I did some stretching after the run. I wore my compression socks again today and it actually doesn't feel as sore as yesterday. I can feel the tightness going up and down the stairs but not the way it felt yesterday.

 I read that hill training and speed training can cause it as well as outworn shoes. I think the hill workout I did caused the pain to become more apparent instead of just a light soreness I had been feeling the past few weeks. And also wearing my shoes longer than I should have and that may be were why I was feeling the soreness off and on for the past few weeks. I did get 2 new pairs of shoes recently and had a new pair on when I did the hill workout.

 For now I will wear my compression socks, ice, stretch and take it easy on the running this week and see how it goes :/ I have some K-tape at home and I also have access to it at work that I was thinking about trying to see if it helped any.

• On Monday I also registered for the Race to Robie Creek Half Marathon. This race sold out in 9 min and 49 seconds. What makes this race so special you ask? Well it's dubbed the "toughest race in the Northwest" and apparently there are 2100 people who are crazy enough to want to run it and I was one of them. I still am not sure what I got myself into. But this is one of the biggest races in Idaho and I have to try it at least once. You can read the course description HERE.  It starts at Fort Boise (elevation 2725′), 8.5 miles up Rocky Canyon and over Aldape Summit (elevation 4797′), to a 13.1 mile finish at Robie Creek campground (elevation 3065′). Translation: You run up hill for 8.5 miles, followed by a steep downhill till mile 12 where it finally flattens out. Should be fun right? 

I was pretty surprised I got in. I had been going back and forth on if I wanted to run it or not. When it was registration time at 12pm on Monday I logged in at about 12:05 and filled out all my info then hit submit and waited till my transaction processed 3 minutes later and I got my confirmation that it went thru fine. When I logged back onto facebook I read the race had already sold out so I just barely made. I was surprised by the amount of people that were pissed off they didn't get in and were complaining about the registration process. They use Active which is what a lot races use but if you have that many people wanting to register for a race at the same time there is bound to be problems and servers crashing. Guess it pays to have fast internet :)  They do have a second chance lottery drawing and from what I've been reading there's always people selling their bibs as it gets closer to the race. They have a theme every year and this year it's Samurai Sailtoad... I have a few costume ideas floating around in my head :)

Have you ever had shin splints?

Any recommendations on what I should do to improve?