Round Two of Big Pimpin' Training

In which we discuss Big Pimpin' Long Runs!
Big Pimpin' Recovery strategy!
Big Pimpin' Fashion, per the norm....

I'm wicked tough but this 18 mile run over some kinda mountain made me want to cry.
This was in no way easy but I did it.
And it really was 18. Not 17.9. Silly imap app not correctly calibrated.
Longest run ever. EVER. ever.....

The aftermath of said run.
This also explains why I am so damn popular.
"Want to come over for compression tights and icing time? no? gosh, why ever not??"
Hmmmmm. Sexy and I know it.

This is not a good photo but it's important to mention that style is important.
My hair matches my fav running shoes.
Did I do that on purpose? no. I actually did not.
But it's big pimpin hair style for shizzle.

This week: Fail!

This was the weather this week.
I had to wear my cousins boots that he left here because my mud boots have holes.
These boots are 4 sizes too large.

The weather was awful to run in. I've managed a pitiful 13 miles so far...

I do have a long run planned for Sunday so stay tuned!

I was also chosen to ride in a very important clinic this weekend (this would be horse stuff...) Imagine playing a round of golf with Phil Mickelson. Yep, like that.
(but no golf involved....!)

Big Pimpin' Training, 95 Days to go!

The Theme for the upcoming Marathon Of Insanity is...
BIG PIMPIN' (glad to have such a logical theme)







Big Pimpin. The way I roll.

What? Since WHEN???

Since now? Yeah!

Nice gloves there ya tool.... 10 miles. OK

How I felt about the first 5... UGH...

 I haven't bothered running any farther than 13.1 since that 16 miler that I did in NH back in.... January? Dudes, that was so long ago that I don't even remember how it played out (that's a complete lie. I remember every step.)

Time to man up around here if I intend to run 26.2 mother trucking miles in 14 weeks and not embarass myself terribly. Which could happen even if I do train like a boss. I embarass myself on a daily basis because I'm pretty much an clumsy doofus....!

It was a pretty great day to run- 49 degrees and downright damp. Hence, the tights made a comeback along with gloves that probably belong to one of my second grade students. I wore my rainy day shoes which have 1200 miles on them (no lie) and my feet are a rather bloody mess now- bad choice (will remember that...)

The first 3 miles were an agonizing death march. Just awful. Legs junk. I felt incompetent. Inept. Impotent, even... Downright dreadful. Appalingly agonizing. Horribly Horrendous. I could continue indefinately with the alliteration but will cease in order to try to keep everyone from unfriending me.

What the hell? OK here's the hell: Had a long week. It was not that fun. Kinda tired... Wore heels last night for a long-ish time and that always kills me... Had almost 2 days off (early, early run on Friday- this run was on Sunday mid-Day). Took a bit just to get going but THEN, things were GOOD. Like, really good considering that 15 miles is about 14 too many no matter how you look at it! I was pretty pleased with clumsy, uncool self. Went home and sat on some frozen veg and contemplated my fabulocity (that line of though lasted point two seconds then I thought geeky thoughts about nerdy things per the norm...)

Anyway.

I might be able to do this.
(might)

              



What does a bad decision look like???

BIG NEWS!
So, am I known all the world over for my excellent decision making skills?
Hmmm. Perhaps we should save that discussion for another day! Anyway....

14 weeks to go. 26.2 miles. And a whole lotta crazy.....

This sums it up:

This is a pretty great text.

Not sure if Wakefield Mass is ready for us but they had better watch out...!
July 27, Around the Lake Marathon. It's official. Get ready for things to get pretty epic around here.

Running with my BFF or... Fashion FAIL!

Warning: If you do not wish to witness possibly the worst fashion that this blog has ever seen shut 'er down now.
Prepare to experience feelings of jealousy in my/our ability to dress ourselves. Or, feelings of horror/nausea!

This is my BFF. Since I am the Pied Piper of the running world here in the lovely vicinity of my-town Maine she has taken to chasing me around lately.
I get that a lot....
Because I am fun. Well dressed. hip. And shout NO STOPPING!!!
Which the BFF is clearly delighted about. Silly girl.
Would ya look at that little subtle gesture..... (just look at it!)

I'm not soing to lie and say that this outfit was an accident.
Oh no, a challenge was thrown down (not by me! oh no!) to put together the most heinous, rape repellant, clashing, eyeball burning outfit that could be managed.
I win.
Look at our muscles. Want tickets to the gun show??
Oddly, we both look to be about to punch ourselves in the faces. That's weird...

Man do we ever look good.
BFF has only been running for a few weeks so has had little time to assemble dreadful looking running attire. Once she becomes used to high mileage weeks she'll start buying everything off the last-years-worst-color bargain rack. Like yours truly...
I honestly want to cover my eyes when I look upon what I am wearing. That is the worst thing that I have ever seen. BFF looks straight off the fashion page compared to me- UGH HAHA!

Off we run! EPIC! BFF is about to run her FIRST 5K NEXT WEEKEND!!!!
Very proud of her and actually seriously pissed off that I'm busy and can't run by her side. I'm sure she'll kick it in the teeth though becasue she's a badass mo' fo'...!! Love her face...

Melting at the Marathon!!

Oh, has anybody heard?? IT WAS HOT ON MONNDAYYY! BOOM!
I went to the city for RACE DAY... I was excited as it was my first time ever, marathon spectator virgin here!

Do we really need to hear any more about the heat? Nah, we all know it sucked big time- just watching people run by left me horribly hot and sweaty, Poor me...
Per post race discussion with running friends we concluded that by next year the following will be infamous (yes, INFAMOUS. like Hitler.) For the following:
-It was 110 degrees
-200 people died
-Several have yet to be found....
Tragic, really. It was quite hot though, and I was not unhappy to be sedentary on the sidelines!
I made it to the city on Sunday and scooted around the expo (which was pretty fabulous if I do say so myself.)

Best thing about being the LAST person to walk in the expo door is that is is pretty damn quiet. I bumped into to a few other interwebbers who were clearly excited to slog around in the 314 degree temps, can't say I blame them (what's not to love about prepping to run on a heinous day!!)
They couldn't hang out for long so I was able to do some serious (read: budget...? kinda) expo shopping. Purchases to be righteously revealed in a later blog. I just wish to take a moment to (once again) thank Lululemon and their outrageously priced gear for making me feel well dressed and almost feminine.

So what did I do for a few 85 degree hours atop the GREEN MONSTER with my famous (NOT infamous) running friend (running friend. sports friend? friend friend whatevs...) Red Sox bitches, that's what. Have I mentioned that I'm a fan and that the only thing that could possibly have distracted me from the pagentry, vomiting, and general mayhem of the marathon portion of Marathon Monday would have been a game? Well, it happened and it was the bomb dot com. (they lost. booo suckahs..) But seriously. Look at that view! Have a heart attack! Be jealous of me because I am awesome (well. my friend is. I wasn't the one who made this happen.)

.....and it's impossible to say why the pics got all tiny at this point. WHY, pictures? WHY!.......

Me sans running attire. It does happen on occasion. Marathon in the BACK, Fenway in the FRONT. Huh, is that like a sports mullet? It is indeed.

Post game there was some serious Marathon watching to do. (see below for picture. having more formatting issues here, meh.) Everyone looked fresh and chipper at mile 25 or so! I 'm not sure if I have ever seen such a cool, calm and collected bunch of runners.... Seriously everyone- these old legs would have given up around mile 0.2 so way to rock it. Not awesome conditions at all...

Walked a mile or so to chill with some actual hardcore runners in the general vicinity of the finish (lots o' foot traffic, not moving very fast...) They looked a bit broken and drained but not half bad all things being taken into consideration...! (I had a more fun day then they did, I expect!)

Somehow despite the wretched conditions I left with some serious race envy and a bit of motivation to get there myself. Probably because I was happily sitting in the shade slogging beer all day and was hence, oblivious to the pain/suffering....

OR

I'm Crazy. But we already knew that!

In which many running questions are answered...

Hey look! Another picture of me looking dejected... Caught by the running paparazzi looking as though I'm about to hurl upon my shoes. (I'm not actually. people who as as awesome as I am simply can not be bothered to blow massive chunks upon their purple kicks. ahem...)
I had just finished up a 10 miler, which simply should not be a big deal. BUT. IT. WAS. It was essentially a death march and I was in NO way pumped about it. YUCK. (running, we are in a big fight today...)
But I digress.
This is kind of a bonus post for this week but I thought the most recent round of pictures present the opportunity to answer a few pressing quesitons.
(question "a" being "did you vom" a: NO..)

Q: How many miles does it take for me to consider a run to be legit? As in, worth slapping on 3 horribly conflicting shades of purple for (gahd woman, get a mirror.)
A: While I might be saying 10 in this picture since that I what I managed to get my stupid jerk legs to haul me thru yesterday the answer to this question is 6. I have a profound dislike for wasting perfectly good (semi clean, even) (and color coordinating!) running attire on anything less than that...

Q: Man Sara, you clearly love to run! You must always feel so awesome about it! Puppies! Kittens ! Rainbows! Freaking unicorns!

A: (eff off)

Just kidding. Just kidding. (but really, eff off..!) Look at my FACE. Do I look pumped? Do I look FAB? NO! Honestly though, I like running 99% of the time. The other 1% I hate its guts and think that running is the biggest ass**** that I have the pleasure of knowing.

And bonus Q since I have heard this one 300 times this week:

Q: How did you manage to go from a 1:51 1/2 to a 1:36 1/2 in TWO weeks??

A: I didn't. Not at all. The truth of the matter is that 1:45 was where I was comfortable before last Saturday (which, while awesome wasn't exactly cozy comfy awesome sauce...) But here's how:

-I worked long and hard and (that's what she said...)

-I was shamed into speed work. At Hampton my running friend pointed out the painful obvious that if I did it I'd get used to it. Fricking revalation there for Miss Genuis.... Oy! PALM! FOREHEAD!

-I'm running a lot. Period.

-Rather simple, and (sadly) no shortcuts or magic elixer (but if you have one I'll take it...)

On a side note: I had a whole post prepped to talk about that super cute new Nike ad (the "I'll run to you ad) but can't imbed the video link. Anyway- it's all over the interwebs so go watch it and get the warm and fuzzies. (or the crabby and hatefuls, depending on how you roll...)

In which I show you how to master the recovery run... And fashion?

Post Legendary Half Marathon I thought it seemed wise to dress in my finest, expose (once again) a modicum of my horribly heinous pale legs and hit the road for a recovery run. As you can see, I was so sore and tired (not to mention nastily full due to gorging on Easter candy) that my heart was, perhaps, not in it. Drama, much??

Apparently I went from crying to my sister's dog to beating fists upon her island. Just to clarify: This is NOT head/desking (which is truly an expression of extreme frustration.) This is simply fist/islanding and is rather self indulgent.

I thought that maybe the best choice would be to bail on the run and just steal some beers. So tempting, as beer really washes away the taste of about 12 pounds of cadbury eggs and sour jelly beans. Snap, my poor belly.... I also thought that a beer or two paired with a righteous fistful of advil might help to quell my upper butt and calf pain...

Upper butt pain. Yeah, go ahead and take a LOOK AT IT. That's my butt. Thanks go to Lululemon for making it internet friendly... And sweet baby Geezus, would ya check out my damn calf muscles. Good gravy! Why can't I balance those things out with some bigger boobs???

I sucked it up and ran 6 miles. So slowly. Molasses in January is damn speedy compared to my laborious lumberings and tedious trundlings.... UGHHHH. Then I spent some quality Easter time icing the HAAA-YOUGE legs and (finally) drinking a beer.

And THAT is how to do a recovery run up right!

Great Bay Half Marathon!!

Clearly this picture is worth 1,000 words because simple verbiage could not do justice to the EPIC fashion that we Mainers display. Thanks to the Danielle from Ooh Breathe, Just Breathe for hooking me up with the layers. Cos man, it was damn cold at the end of that race!

OK. For those of you who just want to stop reading now and move on with your Easter Sunday here it is:
My OFFICIAL TIME for the dreaded GBH: 1:36:40
115th place, 4th age group, 15th place woman..... SHOOT!

Yes, you read that correctly. ONE hour THIRTY SIX minutes (THIRTY SIX! SQUEE!) And FORTY EFFING SECONDS!

And as we say, BOOM goes the DYNAMITE.

I probably need to say no more, but say more I will.

I threw all my crap, sans warm clothing into my car and left. And still arrived late. VERY late...

Just take a look at all that crap in my car before we move on....

I was excited to meet Danielle, as mentioned, because we only know each other on the internet (the internet is where I am cool. she is cool in person too!) She had a couple friends in tow who are insane and training for an Ironman. Hardcore shiz. Since we had approximately 30 seconds from the time I graced Newmarket with my presence to the race start we left the chatter for later and hit the ground running. (next time, I will attempt to be less of a late arriving jerk. I simply do not have my act fully together...)

OK y'all. You know the feelings that I've had for the GBH since last year. We don't have a warm, cuddly relationship. I pretty much got it in my head that the GBH sucks giant, hairy balls... Giant, hairy, smelly, SWEATY BALLS!!! Sure, I'm in good shape right now and felt like a PR was possible but maybe not so much on the side of the fricking mountain. UGH!

I started off at a much more brisk pace than in previous Half's but I have been working on that and it was part of the PLAN..
At mile 0.5 I passed the 8 minute mile pace group and knew I had it in the bag.
OHHHH! Let's all laugh about that now becasue at mile 0.5 I know that I have nothing in any bag, the bag is still empty. EMPTY! (but I did know that as long as they didn't pass me, a PR was a guarantee.)

So I ran the damn race.

And it was PERFECT. I zoned out and daydreamed for about 7 miles, no lie. At mile 7-ish it occured to me that I still felt excellent and could run faster. So, I did. And I passed the 7:30 pace group about 1.5 miles later. SNAP.

Around mile 11 or so I met Danielle coming the other way movin' right along with her hair looking annoyingly perfect (I need tips) we high fived and she yelled out words of encouragement, to which I responded with some sort of grunt or groan or non-word word. Talking and running at the same time- not a skill I have (or, my manners are just crap?)

I finished. (I could have kept going... hmmmm) I saw the clock and, like the cool, smooth, has shit together girl that I am BURST into tears like a complete tool. So there I am at the finish, on the grass, head on knees weeping like a silly little school girl..... I need to work on my fabulocity because that isn't cutting it!

All my newfound friends finished right in the 1:48 range which is just insanely fast. (I think they might have had a fight on the way home about who beat who and such...?) We ate pizza. Put on 1,000 layers. Drank a beer. Talked about how the internet rules our lives. It was fun.

And THAT was the story of how I KICKED GBH in the face and scored a 9 minute PR.
CRAZY....

Ready to kick Great Bay in the FACE!

As the title of my post suggests I'm prepared to even up the score with the dreaded GBH.

Unless I'm not...

OH I AM....!!!

Maybe.....

Excellent oscillation there, no?
I'm about as ready as I can be, and took an easy week in an attempt to repair whatever funky thing happened to my right leg during last week's 10K. (I hope this is the last I'll need to speak of that little issue and that it does not rear its ooooogly head today..)
I hope to get thru it feeling a helluva lot better than last year.
Preferably under 3 hours.... (I kid, I kid. Kinda.)

Wish me luck.... Speed. And neverending logic and reason (lost cause.)

Cohasset 10K, a story in pictures

Instead of a logical little pre race shake out run my cousin Evan and I went hiking. Then unicycle riding...
Some epic pre-race fashion....

Snagging a little pic with the finish...

Pre race, cool and cloudy...

Big crowd = bright shirts so we could find each other!

Walking towards my family after finishing in 44:01- PR big time....

Evan nailed his 1st 10K with a 48:38- CRAZY FAST! (his Dad is my running Uncle!)

Out of order (oops!) About a quarter mile after starting- passing by my terrific family!

Shoot, look at the kid flying thru the finish!!

DONE! YAY!

Me: 44:01, 82nd overall, 3rd Age group (30-39)

Evan- 48:38- 210th overall KICKASS First 10K!!