run like the wind!

hey girls! just wanted to wish you all a happy running weekend. i'm off for a short stint (don't think i've ever actually used that word before) with the 'rents in miami so will be taking this weekend 'off'....which means i will do my best to run some, but will likely not do a super long run and my main goal is to rest and relax and get refreshed for the last bit of the boston winter and marathon training.

lauren, i understand your obsession. sometimes i just feel like my body itself is craving a power yoga class. don't get me wrong, usually i'm cursing the instructor under my breath for the first 20 minutes of class....but by the end, without a doubt, i'm so content and stretched out and at peace, that it makes it all worth it. (ha! that's the yogi inside of me speaking)

what do i do for cross-training? well....my usual week consists of only running 4 days (this is a new thing for me, and was hard to accept at the beginning.....but it's just the way it worked out b/c lots of times i'll have to do my workout at 5:30 am before work...and with it cold and dark and snowy, running just wasn't going to happen). i try to run 4 days per week, and on 2 days i do the elliptical machine in the morning....and then either a yoga class or indoor rock climbing in the evening (which i also highly recommend as a fun alternative to strength training......see picture).

great job with the blogging!

Yoga or Sliced Bread

I can't figure out which is more popular in Berkeley, CA. Even my downstairs neighbor (who is a little crazy) and her boyfriend are both yoga instructors. I admit I love yoga too!

One quick suggestion though, next time you look online for a schedule and show up to a yoga class...make sure you have the right studio. I looked up "Yoga Mandala" online and it showed a 7pm class one night and I showed up to shut doors! Then I went back to the website and realized I had been looking at "Yoga Mandala" in Worcester, MA! Wouldn't know from the website. Ha ha.

Also I HIGHLY recommend swimming and biking for cross-training. Not that I run much these days, but swimming on a Monday feels Heavenly after a 70-mile bike ride on a Saturday and a 10-mile run on a Sunday, it feels Amazing to get off your feet! Yoga for me keeps me to be able to run, And keeps me relaxed in life.

Happy Trails! Your guys runs sound so fun, I have had boring runs lately, I need a buddy, my sister ditches me for snowboarding every weekend.
XOX Megan D

Spin Class

Hello buddies!

First, Jenn, I just want to tell you how much I am OBSESSED with power yoga! I am so excited to go to the class every weekend. I only go once a week too, but just that has actually given me shoulders and I swear I have better posture...I don't slouch as much! I've never been to that studio in Porter Sq. but everyone I know that has gone there has raved about it. I will have to go next time I'm home.

And Mary, don't knock the cadbury mini-egg pancake til you try it! If you like chocolate you'll be in heaven :) Maybe I should try marketing it?!

This morning I went to a Spin Class with Sheeds at Gold's Gym. I was sorta nervous at first since I had never been to one before and it sounded pretty hardcore....but I really liked it and it was a great workout! I think anything longer than 45 min though would have been tough...I started looking at the clock with 15 min to go. The instructor is this guy in his early 30s...pretty hilarious with his remarks...and he played 90s rock music the majority of the time. Brought me back, I must say. It was definitely a nice change-up to using the elliptical or biking on your own. What do you guys usually do for cross training and how often? To be honest, I only cross train when I'm really sick of running or if I have an injury, but this morning I went just for fun...makes me remember that cross training is a really good workout too.

Caputo

Long Run

My run last Saturday was 18 miles. This weekend I will try for the big 2-0. There is really not much to report....I did it by myself because John was out of town. It's weird but I think I run better by myself sometimes anyway. When he's not there to complain to, I suck it up! Anyway, it was a nice run. I mostly stayed off the roads and ran on running paths and trails. I ran around Lake Fayetteville (see picture), which I do often and is 5.5 miles, part trails and part paved. I ran around it twice. It is hard to find a loop around here that isn't super hilly, and repeating myself was a way to make it so. Not that I avoid hills....I mean, I know I need them. But the hills around here are like WALL hills. Short and steep. Not ideal on your 15th mile. A typical 5-miler near my house can be pretty crazy. Someday I'll post an elevation profile of a run.

But I digress. Another point: I LOVE GU. On my long runs I typically bring a gu or two and eat one every hour or so. And I carry a water bottle. Somehow I find it the most delicious thing ever after running for a long time. I've tried drinking gatorade but I can't handle it. It sloshes too much in my stomach. Do you guys carry fluids/calories? (I know Jenn Edelmann is a camel....).

And my final point....every time I finish a long run I am always thinking, How on EARTH did I run a marathon last year, and a lot faster than this too? I guess it was adrenaline and tapering and a lot of hard work. But running this long is no joke. Crashing on the couch and eating Mini-Egg pancakes is perfectly excusable. (Just kidding...there is NO excuse for eating Mini-Egg pancakes...that is just weird, Caputo!) After my long run I.....ate grilled cheese and tomato soup and then did my taxes. I think I fell asleep at 9 that night though, don't worry.

hello MARCH!

hello ladies!
just wanted to write a quick update on my training......
so, "how was my long run?"...well, it was just that...one real LONG run. ha!
but i survived.
i wanted to get in my first 20 miler, but b/c i missed the 16-mile marker on the course (which was my turn-around point), i think i went closer to 21+ miles. grrr...i hate when that happens.
i ran on sunday b/c of the friday snow here...and was accompanied part of the way by my new friend adam (the guy i met at a bar while out in central square some weeks ago....he's good...keeps me mindful of pace). anyways, all in all the run wasn't too bad.....we conquered heartbreak hill, and it was nice and sunny throughout the whole thing. BUT once i got back to my apartment i was pretty much out of commission for the rest of the day. lauren, i love the way you said you were on your couch for an hour. hi - try 5 hours! :)

oh yeah, also wanted to comment on your doing power yoga.
don't you love it? when you were in boston did you ever go to the baptiste studio in porter (it's a hot power yoga place)? i've been going for the last fews years....just once a week....but i think it's done wonders on my overall strength and flexibility and core muscles and sense of balance etc. etc. i swear it's one of the reasons why i've been able to stay injury-free in my running (knock on wood).

anyways....time for me to get ready for bed.
hope everyone is doing well and loving the fact that march is here at the end of this week!!!

keep up with the posts.....i find that they really help me stay motivated.
talk soon,
jenn

ps - i feel like since i asked everyone else what their goal times were...i should disclose mine. well, i honestly have no real goal time for this upcoming boston. ideally, it would be awesome to come close to my PR (3.06)...but realistically i think this race will be closer to 3.20ish. but who knows!?!
would be fun to start off with some of you if that's possible.....g' night!

26 Miles Running Aint That Bad...

Hi Friends:
I am not a marathon runner. I like to spectate and ride my bike along...26 miles running certainly sounds like a long way. Well here's a short story to make it sound much more manageable perhaps :)

So I gave my ex-boyfriend Tim a call on Saturday night. It was his birthday. I ask how he is. He says "Great!" Always happy that boy. "Except for one thing. I have a broken leg." I ask him how did he break it, knowing full well it must have happened surfing, his passion in life. He said yes, he was surfing and fell on a massive rock and broke his tibia and couldn't walk etc. "Where were you?" I ask. He proceeds to tell me about his 4-day adventure to the 'Lost Coast' of California. At the 'Lost Coast' way up in Humboldt County CA, there is a 30-mile stretch of untouched land, forest, and beach, with no roads or people anywhere. Many people do a 3 day hike through Lost Coast to get away from it all. It is very beautiful I can assert.

Tim was hiking Lost Coast and decided to spend a few days surfing about 20 miles from his car, he was camping out, surfing, and spending time with his Dog Bunker. Well one day he breaks his leg surfing and there is nobody in sight for miles and miles, no phones, no car, no nothing. So he goes on to drink half a bottle of tequila that night because he is in agonizing pain and cannot walk. Finally the next afternoon a couple hikes by and he hobbles over, giving them some phone numbers telling his situation. A day and a half later, Tim got helicoptered out of the Lost Coast by the Coast Guard and put right into a cast. Tim said he would not have made it and stayed in good measure if not for his dog Bunker!

He said 20 miles sounded like the farthest thing in the world that day.
Yet many marathon runners can run 20 miles in 2 hours! If only you were there to help ;)
Happy Training. You guys got it going on, I'll say!!

Happy Monday! How was everyone's weekend? Claud, how did the Coach Bubba race go? Stef and I completed our first 20-miler this past Saturday...it was a big loop though DC that went through Rock Creek Parkway, all the way up to Betheda, MD, and then back down to Georgetown along the bike path. It's pretty crazy we actually ran to Maryland...a whole other state. I don't think I've ever done that before. We ran with 4 other girls (3 of whom are also doing Boston) so we had a nice big group to run with...it definitely keeps it entertaining. I felt pretty good the whole way, except at the end I always get tired and start running sloppy...I definitely need to work on that! And my hips always get a little tight, but I guess that just comes with running really far and I just need to stretch a lot before and after. After the run, Stef and I made chocolate-banana (choc-ban!!!) pancakces and they were SO amazing! I added some Cadbury mini-eggs into my last pancake to make it extra tasty...it was a choc-ban pancake on steroids!! The pancake-fest induced my body into a food coma and I totally passed out on my couch for an hour...oops! But I guess it was well-deserved after running 20 miles :)

Yesterday I went to a power yoga class with Stef and I am really hurting today...which is a good thing! This class was pretty hard-core...I think we were doing the flow sequence for like 10 minutes straight and I thought my arms were going to snap. Luckily, they didn't :) Hopefully all these yoga sessions will make me stronger!

How was YOUR long run?

Caputo

Adventures from Caputo

Hey everyone! I was so excited to see new posts I had to respond right away, even though I'm work right now hehe. Sooo, my runs have been going well...although I had a little scare last Tuesday after work. It started to rain after work and the temperature dropped really quickly, so the rain started turning to ice when it hit the ground...and some areas quicker than others. I was walking along, happy to be out of work...and hurrying to the metro...when all of a sudden...I slipped on the sidewalk...flew in the air...and literally landed on my back! Just imagine a cartoon character getting the rug pulled out from under them and that was me!! No joke! I was ok, thank god...I saw two other people do the same exact thing in the next 5 min. It was treacherous! The secretary of defense slipped and broke his shoulder that night...and I think about half my office slipped and fell. Not wanting to push it too hard, I took Wednesday off from running and relaxed. And I was able to run Thurs through Sunday with no problem so I'm glad that fall didn't take me out for a while!

I did 17 on Saturday with Stef and Sheeds which went pretty well...we ran part with our friend Tim so it was an entertaining run. We actually ran out to Hains Point...I'm sure you've seen this picture before!

Oh and I've been doing yoga which has been awesome! I think it's really going to help me with jsut being stronger overall.

As of right now, my marathon goal time is 3:20, although I may revisit this goal and maybe push it a little faster! Mary, we should try and run together...I bet we will be in the same corral! (I was 3:32 from last year...). I invited Lolly to this post who is one of Sheedy's runner friends and who ran a 3:32 in Dallas so she will be right near us also. I think we need a name for our team...

Happy running! Post soon.

Caputo

happy pres day!

hello everyone!
mary, sorry to hear that you didn't get today off.
but congrats on that awesome pace run and your 17-miler!

like you, i don't have too much exciting to report to the blog crew. this weekend i ran a 16-miler along the charles river. (next weekend i plan to jump up to 20).
this morning's run was fabulous (fyi, that's sarcasm). i didn't think it was raining too hard....so decided to go out again to the river (since i had run on a treadmill yesterday and couldn't bear the thought of another run on that machine). anyways, so at first it was fine....raining somewhat steadily but all in all, not too bad. then i crossed to the cambridge side and was heading in the opposite direction and it was like all hell broke lose. the sky opened up and rain just poured down. and the wind was insane. the raindrops were literally stinging my face.......it sucked so much i almost had to laugh out loud during the run. but nonetheless i finished the mileage i wanted to do. and spent the rest of the day warm and cozy in my tufts sweatshirt.

by the way, am i allowed to ask what everyone's goal times are for boston? and has everyone on this blog already run a marathon?
as for me, i'm taking this marathon as a 'let's see what i can do with limited training'....in other marathons, i've been much more insane with my preparation (track workouts, running journal, hill workouts, etc.).....but i've decided to go easy this go-around.

well....hope everyone had a good 3 or 2-day weekend.
keep up the good work ladies! almost to the 2-month mark!

Successful Weekend

I don't have anything exciting to post....I am sort of just procrastinating at work. (I work for an unpatriotic company that doesn't give us President's day off. Or Patriot's Day! WTF?) BUT I am going to share my most recent triumph. On Friday I did my 9 mile pace run. I averaged 7:42 (goal is 7:40-7:50) with a bit of a fast start, a couple 7:50's in the middle but a 7:30 last mile. And I felt fantastic. It was the best pace run I've had yet. The next day I did 17 and felt decent considering the pace run the day before. So it seems the hard work is paying off after a difficult couple of weeks (the long skiing break probably helped too).

How is everyone else handling the increased mileage? Please report your adventures! Even though running adventures are sometimes hard to come by ("Um....I put one foot in front of the other. For a long time. It was good.")

I will try to find a good picture for you guys too. Maybe something inspiring.

Okay I didn't find anything good. But this one is Old School and has three of the Bloggers on it.

Training = another job?

Hmm. After reading about that woman and her daughter, I do feel like this training regiment is a cakewalk. But there are times when I feel like it's like having a second (or third in my case) job. We make schedules and programs that dictate the pace of our week. We (ahem Caputo) get up at ungodly hours to squeeze in our track workouts/runs before our next scheduled activity. We pound water like it's beer (especially if we had too many beers and need to "hydrate" in time for next morning's long run.

Why do we do this? Because we feel awesome after the completion of each workout, speed session, long run, and tempo. It's like our Zoloft, a stroke to our running ego, a reason to feel little/no guilt for hitting the Kirspy Kreme. It's totally worth it, sometimes difficult to explain to the non-running community.

Next weekend, I'm doing my first "speed check" race- the Coach Bubba 20K. It's a race put on by my track club (Carolina Godiva Track Club) to honor our club member Bruce that died during a run. He was a marathoner himself, a big guy (don't you feel like all Bruce's are big guys?) that was a motivational "coach" to newbie runners.

I'm pumped-it's a mix of hills and flat goodness. And I had to take the day off of work at the clinic to for this race; my other job comes along with its own set of responsibilities too.

Two Trials

Hi folks,

My parents found out about this woman in Maine who is running the US Olympic Marathon trials in Boston (the same weekend as the Boston Marathon). She is doing a fundraiser for the Maine Children's Cancer Program because her daughter is undergoing treatment for childhood leukemia. You should check our her website:

http://twotrials.org/.

It's really inspiring. She has a training blog on there telling about her daily runs, as well as a blog about her daughter's treatment. Seriously, both in the intensity and volume of her training and in the other stuff she's dealing with on a day-to-day basis, it makes what we're doing look like a piece of cake!

I had a fabulous weekend of skiing with Megan and Liz in Colorado (and five days off of running!). We did do some cross-country skiing on Sunday, which was a blast. Now I'm refreshed and ready to get back into it...nine miles this afternoon. Hope you all are having a good week. Caput and Stef, I am amazed at your early wake-ups! I hate doing speedwork in the morning because of that tired, dazed feeling. Easier runs I can handle...I just go really slow though!

Morning Bird

Nice posts girls! Right now I am hanging out in the critt cott (critter cottage...that is my my apartment with Sheedy)...we're drinking some wine and just finished watching Project Runway. I was just lamenting how I don't get enough sleep anymore...because I stay up late watching tv...and because I get up between 5:30 and 5:45 nowadays!! Yes, you read that right. Lauren Caputo...the usual night owl...gets up at the crack of dawn. I am the ultimate morning bird now! How is this possible? I have no idea to be honest! I myself cannot believe that I get up that early to go running. It's insane to me. Tuesday morning I woke up at 5:25 so I could eat a little granola bar and get ready before Stef came over to the crit cott. Then Stef, Sheeds, and I left at 5:45 to jog up to the track where we did a little trackie workout...and we were back at the crit cott by 7:15! It's actually kind of nice cause you don't have any time to think about the workout at all, and it's over before you know it. The only bad thing is you are kind of tired in the first couple of intervals...you need a little more time to get into the workout. Pretty crazy huh!

Stef and I are doing a long run on Friday morning since we are both really busy this weekend...(Stef has Meet The Parents weekend and my sister Kristi is visiting this weekend)....so I'll fill you in on that soon.

Happy Hump Day!!

Caputo

Poor Patriots! :(

Morning ladies! How was everyone's weekend? Did you all enjoy your long runs?

The mood is pretty sullen and dreary here in Boston.....poor Tom & crew. Though I must admit I'm kinda pumped b/c I won some money from our office pool.

Anyways, this weekend my runs went pretty well. I did an easy 14 miler on Saturday along the Charles. It was sunny and somewhat mild.....yet I was fighting a nasty headwind on the Cambridge side.

Yesterday I went for a brisk 7.5 on the Charles again. Funny story - did the run with a random guy that I had met at the Field (bar in Central) on Saturday night. (By the way, for the record, I don't normally do this). My friend Emma and I just started talking wtih some guys and it came out in the conversation that I was a runner and was training for Boston....and one of the guys said he was into triathlons and had run a marathon in Buenos Aires....and he was dumbfounded when he asked my best marathon time....so he said we should run together on Sunday. Little did I know he would totally kick my ass and we would be sprinting the whole time. But it was a nice change of pace...and perhaps we'll run together again soon. :)

Alrighty....time to start the workday.
Happy Monday!

Pace runs....

Scare the crap out of me!

In my effort to improve my marathon time in Boston over my qualifying race in Austin, I am trying a more aggressive training program. I am (roughly, and with less mileage) following this Hal Higdon program: http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/advancedint.htm because I'd heard good things about it. (There's a nice picture of Hal for you too....he's pretty hard core.) One of the cornerstones of the program is the marathon-pace runs done two out of every three weeks that increase in distance up to 10 miles. I've been doing them faithfully and so far I have done one 5-miler, two 6- and one 7-. Today I have to do 8. I do them Fridays after work at a measured running trail around this lake. And every time they make me nervous all day!

The thing about them is, I try to hit my goal pace of 7:40-7:50 miles, which is roughly 3:20-3:25 for a marathon. I've done it successfully so far, but when I run that fast for 6 or more miles, it's hard, man! So it makes me doubtful that I can actually run 26.2 miles that fast....but hopefully in any case these workouts will make me stronger.

Anyway, wish me luck, and I wish all of YOU luck on your long runs, etc. this weekend (or Monday). I am running 16 this weekend but next weekend I am taking a break from running to go skiing in Colorado with Megan and Liz. Woohoo!