Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Countdown Begins

Providence is officially 1 month gh away.   Not sure where the heck the  last few months ago.   I feel like yesterday there was snow on the ground and I was just planning all this out.   This is a time in my life where I wish I could slow it down, just a little.   This weekend was the start of the big push to be prepared just to even finish the race.   It consisted of 18.5 miles of running and 45 miles on the bike.  

I know I said this for all my other races but this time its true.   I am going to keep repeating it too so I dont sway towards pushing myself too hard and bonking:   I dont care what my time will be for the half.  I just want to finish.   Still have no clue if I will but if I do, I will tell you for sure....there will be tears in my eyes of how happy and proud of myself I will be.

The goal for this past weekend was to see how well my leg  held up.   So far so good but i am holding my breath that other than a little sore, everything will stay that way.  I ran a loop of the park Friday, the Woman's Mini Saturday (more on that below), and did our first long brick yesterday  of a 45 mile bike and 6.2 mile run.  All and all thats 45 miles biking and 18.5 running in 3 days.  

The races in Central Park lately have not been that much fun.  I am not sure if it is because they are so damn crowded or if its because I need to get into them for the Marathon next year.   I have been like 'lets get this sucker done' or been combining with additional mileage before the race.
Saturday's race was such an exception.  It was the Womans 10k mini.     Its called 'mini' because in the 70s when the race was created mini skirts were big.  To bring in the woman, they called it the mini, for the mini skirt.    To honor that, I decided I would wear my pink running skirt that I got a few weeks ago.  Not sure why but I was super excited for this.   There is something about wearing a skirt and running.   Plus I thought I looked pretty cute  :-)


The minute I got to the race, I could feel the excitement in the air.  It was the MORE all over again.  Even the lines to the porta potties were super long again.    There were 100s of Team in Training runners and each time they passed each other, they would clap and congratulate each other on what they were about to do.   Made you feel like you were part of something special.

The actual race was fun but I learned one big lesson,  I cannot eat Buckwheat and Hemp granola (this stuff from One Lucky Duck is so good) the night  before a run.   My stomach was yelling me for the whole run.  That sucked since my leg felt good and I realized I had a  chance to break 8:00/miles.  I ended up at 49:50.....8:01/miles.   Will have to wait another race to get faster.

My favorite part of the race was at the end cheering on the runners.   I was at the 400m mark, waiting for Kathy to pass.  As I yelled (yes, I actually yelled and Lauren said to me, holy crap, your voice is officially back!)  for the women to keep going, you could see the happiness in some of these ladies faces and some of them were crying on how proud they were.   Reminded me that the race was bigger than me.

I went out Saturday night and for the first time in a while was frustrated that I had to get up early.  I had two beers but made myself opt for water after that and left fairly early.   Not sure if it was that the past few week have been stressful but I wanted one non thinking night and go back to my old self.  Then I remember that will have to wait....i would be super pissed at myself in the am.   Good thing since I did not get up til 9:00 anyway, completely not me, I am up by 7  the latest normally.
So....the big brick.  Really not feeling it yesterday and off from the late start, I started out the ride saying 'this was going to suck'.  Thank god Lauren came out for the ride or I prob would not have gone.

It started out a little eventful.  A mile in, I had my first fall  on my bike. Sadly, I cannot even say it was an exciting fall.  I was standing at a light with my right leg unclipped.  I was trying to stretch my left leg, some how lost my balance and landed right on my butt, left leg still clipped.  Pathetic.  I got a nice bruise on my leg and cut on my arm to remember how stupid I was.

The rest of the ride was not bad.  We headed back  up to Nyack, same ride we did a few weeks ago.   It was muxh easier knowing where you are going the second time.  Though we said we were going to ride straight through  we could not resist stopping at the Farmers market in Piermont.   Hung out, talked to some of the vendors and tried some yummy toffee.  Then got back on and finished the rest of the ride.

After the ride we got our sneakers on and headed out for the run.  Nothing changes with the run no matter how many times you do it.   The first two miles suck.  We just ran slow until we got our legs under us.  It ended up being not too bad.  I felt I could have  gone a litttle more though I was super hungry.   Along with all this exercising, I am still learning how much I have to eat and when.  I read in Thrive to eat when you are still good  not when you get hungry.      I had two blocks every hour or so til they ran out.   Think I could have used one more set.   I was dragging a little on run.   We were out for almost 5 hours

When we got back, we had the biggest workout of the day, dinner.  While running we passed a pizza place.  It smelled so good I asked Lauren if she wanted to go to Pizza Fusion, an organic pizza place near me.  Starving, we both ordered large salads and a large pizza.  The salads were huge but we both finished them.  Then the pizza came out.  They made a mistake and cooked us a x-large pizza.   Taking one bit, it was sooooo good.  7 slices later and an empty platter, I was exhausted.   I dont think I had ever had that much pizza and sadly I was not super full.  The waitress even came by and was amazed that we finished thw whole thing. I tried to explain that we just rode and ran for 5 hours so she did not think we were pigs!!!  


Yes, it was that big and we ate the whole thing!

At least we had our salads before. 
By the time I dropped Lauren off to the train, went shopping at Fairway, and arrived home, I started to feel the effects of my noshing.  I dropped my bags, laid on the couch and passed out for almost 2 hours.  Next time think I am going to stick with just the salad.  Going from not eating pizza to eating massive quantities is not something I recommend. 

3 comments:

  1. The pink mini was indeed very cute on you.

    Not to say you two were wrong in any way for refueling after such a grueling 5-hours; by my book you both deserved the respit. However, I would have been very surprised to see you two take down such a large quantity of food. Not in the, "OMG, those ladies are such pigs!" sort of way, but in the, "where the hell did it all go!?! They must have fed it to some local canines" way.

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  2. Ha ha, thanks Drew!

    I have to admit, I have no clue how we ate that much. Well...Lauren only ate 5 slices, I had one of hers to make mine 7. I think I lapped her twice with my slices. I felt like a human garbage disposal. I did not tell you I went home and had a protein shake when I got up.

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  3. rebecca, what a monster day and congrats to pushing through! We biked about 100 km in France over 2 days and i can't even believe that's what we'll have to do in just ONE day. I'm going to have to join you for a big push one day soon.

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