I’m Officially a Marathoner!

Throwback Thursday–Phoenix Marathon Edition (My First Marathon!)

hellyontherun

Boy, oh boyโ€ฆ..

That was without a doubt the hardest, most fun thing Iโ€™ve ever done in my life.

Iโ€™ll start at the beginning ๐Ÿ™‚

You guys knew that I was dreading the inclement weatherโ€ฆnot even so much the rain, it was more the wind that was making me nervous.

And it was definitely windy.

My husband dropped me off at the bus pick-up around 4 a.m. It actually wasnโ€™t tough waking up so early and I actually felt like I slept despite my jitters.

The bus ride was about 20 minutes long. I sat next to a complete stranger who happened to be an Ironman (I found this out after some small talking). He offered some good advice, โ€œDonโ€™t start out fast.โ€ โ€œTrust your training.โ€ etc., and even gave me an extra trash bag to protect myself from the rain. This would be really helpful later.

I wore shortsโ€ฆ

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Week 15 Phoenix Marathon Training Recap

This is it! I’m officially on my LAST training week of Phoenix Marathon. WOW.

Last week was a tough, tough week health wise. We were all sick and dad was out of town the entire week and this mommy was exhausted. I tried my hardest to make it all about resting and recovering for me. I’ve been soooooo sick and the taper crazies have been at an all time high as paranoia over whether I’ll get better by Saturday lingers in my head. My kids were also sick last week and either one or both of them stayed home from school the entire week. ๐Ÿ˜ฆ

Luckily, it looks like we’re all on the mend. Fingers crossed that we all continue on the healthy train.

Okay, last Sunday and Monday I did nothing but Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate. My knee was still being funny and that along with my cough was stressing me out big time. Monday, I was off from work because of President’s Day so I was able to just hangout at home with my kids (who were also sick that day).

Tuesday, I mustered up energy to meet up with my run club for my usual 5 miler. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be considering how awful I felt. It might’ve been just what I needed to make me feel better ๐Ÿ™‚

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Wednesday I was supposed to go to track but I was just not feeling good. It had been a long night with my kids, my daughter especially, who was sick and wanted to sleep with mommy. I took a rest day and planned for a run on Thursday.

I was able to get in a pretty decent 4 miler the next day. Again, I felt good despite lack of sleep and a stuffy head.

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Fridays are my usual rest days and my husband came home from his work trip ๐Ÿ˜€ I was SOOO excited for him to be home. I don’t function well without him and then on top of that, being sick made him being gone that much more tough to handle.

I managed to get a decent night’s sleep and my run the next morning, Saturday, was planned for 6 a.m. (sleeping in for me!). I met up with my run club and talked with a few friends. I was wanting to go 8 miles and most of my buddies were shooting for 6. I erred on the conservative side since I still wasn’t feeling good and oh boy, was I glad I did.

Those were tough 6 miles and they did nothing for my confidence level. My legs had the same heavy feeling they had when I ran Lost Dutchman the week before. I just felt sluggish and each mile felt like eternity. My average time definitely felt a lot worse than what it actually was: 9:33/mile.

But I got it done and I celebrated my last long run of the training cycle by heading straight to my daughter’s last soccer practice ๐Ÿ™‚ Technically, next week is her last day but because of mommy’s marathon, we’re missing the official last day.

Goooooo team!

Goooooo team! (My daughter’s in the pink–total mommy fail for not having her in uniform lol!)

On Sunday I had big plans to go to a book signing. I’m an English teacher and I am always looking to see what authors are visiting the valley. Well a couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail notification from one of my favorite bookstores that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was doing a signing of one of his young adult books! Basketball? Books? YES!!!

I got to the bookstore early despite having been assigned a group letter (I was C and yeah, it went all the way to Z!). My buddy and got in line and then one of the bookstore people asked if I’d hold the Group Letter for my group: my first official pacer job! ๐Ÿ˜€

I'm having fun pacing, not sure about the guy behind me though lol!

I take being a pacer seriously ๐Ÿ˜€

Two hours of standing later (yeah, that def wasn’t conducive to my tapering), I finally got to meet the big guy!

Yay!

Yay!

It was so awesome. If you’ve been a reader of mine for a while, then you know that I’m a pretty huge basketball buff. Getting to meet Kareem is definitely a top moment for sure!

All in all, a decent week. I’m finally feeling better and I plan on just resting as much as I can as the big day approaches. I’m trying to have the same relaxed mentality I had for Fiesta and RnRAZ when I went in without much stress and ended with great results. I think it’s harder this time because this is THEE race I’ve been training for you know?

Total Miles: 15 miles

Water Intake: B+ (I did good this week! Only missed 2 days and not by a lot!)

–How was your running week?

–What athlete would you like to get an autograph from?

 

5 Arizona Races You Should Run {link up}

So I’ve been slacking on my Lost Dutchman 10k Recap–not because I did so poorly I swear!–but because I’m still sick ๐Ÿ˜ฆ

After quite a few days of yuckiness, I’m finally starting to feel like I’m on the mend (don’t want to jinx it though!).

I absolutely love the Lost Dutchman race and have done it twice, both times running the 10k distance. Instead of recapping just the race though, I’ve decided to include it in Cynthia, Courtney, and Mar‘s Friday Five: 5 Races to Run in 2015 ๐Ÿ™‚

Now I know the race is in the past, so technically you can’t run it in 2015, BUT, it’s still a race that I super highly recommend, especially if you want a beautiful Arizona race.

1. Lost Dutchman

I love this race because you get a lot of options. There’s an 8k trail race, a 10k, a 1/2 marathon, and a full marathon to choose from. Tons of people from my run club love and swear by the half marathon raving on its stunning views and overall fun course. I have yet to do the half because this race is 2 weeks before Phoenix Marathon and I’m always scared to race race so close to a full. So I stick to the 10k.

The 10k has some small, rolling hills (and from what I’ve heard, the 1/2 and full as well). It’s an out and back and the first 3.1 miles has you running with a huuuge mountain as your scenery. It’s gorgeous.

Seriously though

Seriously though

The race is super family friendly with the start line for all races at an actual park. My husband took my daughter to cheer me on and they played on the playground while I ran ๐Ÿ™‚

This year I didn’t run so well, unfortunately. In fact, I might venture to say it was my worst race ๐Ÿ˜ฆ I think the fatigue of training and my sickness caught up to me and I just couldn’t muster the energy to run fast. Last year I place 2nd in my age group and snagged a 10k PR so I had a lot to live up to. Wasn’t even close this year. Oh well…it was still a super fun race. One that I love because of it’s small size and homey feel. And killer views ๐Ÿ™‚ I’ll do this race every year for sure.

and she loves it too!

and she loves it too!

My fave cheerleader

My fave cheerleader

2. Esprit de She 5k/10k (and du and tri)

This is another smaller race that I really like. There are several states that this race is held in but it’s def not a super big one. It’s an all female race, which I kinda, really like. It’s basically a party with bunch of girlfriends. Wine included!

There’s a 5k and 10k option and the one in my city was a loop you circled twice (for the 10k). This was another race I didn’t do so well in (damn 10ks!) but it’s still another that I’ll do every year because of how much fun it is. The post race party is THEE best.

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Me and my beautiful friend, Nadia (who placed 4th overall!)

Esprit de She also holds triathlons and duathlons. Someday, I might get crazy and attempt the du ๐Ÿ˜€

I’m an ambassador for EdS and while I don’t have a coupon code to offer for the race, you can use my track code, EDS003 It’s NOT a coupon code, it just tracks how many people I send to the race (in any city).

If you do want to do the du or tri, that I do have a code for: AMBASRD will save you 15%.

3. Phoenix Marathon

I’m kinda biased ๐Ÿ˜€ This was my first marathon and I’m so glad I chose it as my first. I love that it’s not a HUGE race ala Chicago or Marine Corps (although those are amazing) and you can’t not like the elevation chart

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The race has a 10k, 1/2 marathon, and full marathon option and it’s quickly become a top marathon to run if you’re attempting a BQ. Duh right? With an elevation chart like that? The full sold out for the second year in a row.

There are a gazillion bloggers/IGers who are doing this race next weekend so you will def be seeing a lot of pics leading up to and the day of. You can also follow #ItsGoingDownAtPHX if you want to see double the fun. Seriously though, a TON of people are doing this race. Except this person who should be doing it, dammit.

4. Aravaipa Trail Race (or find a trail race near you!)

I love, love, love trail running and the trail races to do here in Arizona are put on by Aravaipa. I plan on doing more of their races in the future but the one I have done was SO FREAKING HARD AWESOME. It was a night 27k trail race. Yes, night. I had no idea what I was doing; it was my first trail race and my first race at night and it was def hard. But something totally cool and something I will totally do again.

Adrenaline 27k

Aravaipa Adrenaline 27k

Wouldn't this distract you too?? Photo Cred: B. Swanson

I โค the desert.

If you haven’t done any trail running, I highly recommend it. There’s something so liberating about the trails. It’s like there’s less pressure running on the trails then the roads. Less focus on time, more focus on the love of running. On the feeling of awesomeness that is running. Just do it. You’ll love it.

5. Pat’s Run

This is the race to run in Arizona. I can guarantee if you’re in a room with people someone will have run this race at some point. Maybe all of them will have.

It’s a 4.2 mile course in honor of Pat Tillman, former ASU and Cardinal football player who wore #42. He left the NFL to defend our country after the events of 9/11.

This is not a race to run if you’re super focused on time. It’s just way too crowded. There are TONS of people who run this; it sells out every. single. year. Pat’s Run also has “shadow runs” in different states where runners run the same distance, 4.2 miles. Check out the website to see if there’s a Pat’s Run in your are (those stateside).

This will be my little girl’s first race! We signed her up last year but then had to cancel when we took our impromptu trip to Spain. She’ll be doing a 42 yard dasher โค

The race ends inside Sun Devil Stadium (Arizona State University) at the 42 yard line. So you get to run through the tunnel and enter the stadium as you finish. It’s pretty awesome.

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I’ve also written more about this race here ๐Ÿ™‚

I stayed local and that’s because there are so many awesome races here! So if you’re ever in Arizona and wanna race, make sure you let me know you’re coming though so I can run with ya! โค

–Do you like small, local races? or larger, more well known races?

–What is the race to run where you’re from?

Thanks to the DC Trifecta ladies again for hosting!

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