Running Army Wife

I finished my first half marathon after having a baby yesterday. The last one I did was March 2014, so almost exactly 2 years ago, right before I got pregnant. I had some trouble in the couple long runs in the weeks before. I had some over-tightness that led to some muscle strain in my glutes and back. The longest run that I did for my training was 9 miles. I took the long run off the week before to give myself time to heal, took it pretty easy the week before, and then ran 13 miles.  After 7 miles in, I had to slow way down due to the pain. I was frustrated because I felt like I could have gone faster cardio-wise, but when muscles are just tightening up..  But I was able to finish (2:10, which isn't even my worst time), get my medal, and walk most of the way home (I was walking so slow that James carried me on his back for part of the way) and I had my favorite new fan cheering me on the whole way.  Jensen got excited and waved at me every time I pa...

I haven't been keeping up with my blog. I feel guilty about it. Truthfully, I'm at my computer 8 hours a day, and getting on my laptop when I come home at the end of the day isn't all that appealing to me. I miss blogging sometimes. It was something I needed during all that training and the deployment. Now I've got a job I love and a husband that loves me (that is actually home!) and there's just not a lot of extra time to blog. However, I do continue to have people that keep on stumbling to my site from pinterest or from googling about Ranger School. I really do appreciate getting comments and tweets from you. And there are those couple blogger friends that I made when it was hardest. I thought I'd give you all an update. :) On April 26th, James and the rest of his brigade competed for the Expert Infantry Badge. It's a little backwards, because a lot of them, including James, already have the Combat Infantry Badge, which basically means that you've ...

My husband got his PRK surgery done today! About a month ago, he found out that he got a slot to get the surgery done. The Army will only give a certain number of slots out for the surgery. If you've recently come home from a deployment, you're more likely to get a slot. They also tend to give priority to infantrymen- because, let's face it, they do need it the most. If they lose their glasses out there in combat, that's a bad thing. James had the choice between PRK and LASIK. For those of you that don't know, PRK is like LASIK eye surgery with a few differences. If your eye gets knocked the wrong way playing football years after you get LASIK, it can mess it up. PRK takes long to recovery initially but is more "sturdy" in the long run. Getting PRK also means he gets to keep his "jump" status (apparently jumping out of an airplane is too much turbulence for LASIK). Because he's an infantryman and an overall pretty active person, my husband ...

I've started packing. I'm heading out with my mom pretty soon to Fort Lewis area to search for a place to call home and wait for James.  My running accomplishments of the deployment.   In pretty much one picture, this is what I accomplished during the deployment. This included my 10k medal, 5 half marathon medals, the caution tape "human lives" that I claimed from 4 human runners in my Zombie 5k last Sunday, and my greatest accomplish: my first marathon medal. Theoretically, I may do another race or two in 2012 but I'm done with racing until James gets home. I also included my Team Salute singlet. Even though it was pretty uncomfortable, I did end up wearing it in the marathon. I exceded my goal of $520 and raised $657 for Salute Inc , an organization for military families in need. The Chicago Marathon Team Salute runners (about 100 of us) raised over $75,000. Training for the marathon became about something greater than just me, and I'm so proud tha...

Yesterday I did my 20 miler! I signed up for this organized training run (so I even got a race bib, but it wasn't a race) with water stops along the way and several hundred people to run with. It was a lot of run! It went by a lot faster than if I had run it myself. And it was my last really long run of training. I'm really really happy about how it went. I didn't walk at all except for a few steps through the water stops.  And I felt like I could have gone longer! Basically I'm totally confident now that I can do this marathon. blurry iphone #proof pic Also, I found my little Garmin Connect stick so I was actually able to upload the workout. Here's my splits! I found out that you're actually supposed to go really slow for your long runs compared to your goal race pace. That seemed pretty dumb to me but then my friend Army Army* mentioned that she did better in her second marathon when she did this.. so I did some more research.  There's somet...

I jumped into a half marathon on Sunday. Kind of literally. My friend Allyse was running her very first half marathon. She tweeted something about it, and I realized less than a week before the race that I had 13-mile long run on my training plan that day. I asked her what she thought about me jumping in and running with her and maybe helping her pace (not that she really needed me to). She seemed excited to have someone to run with. But I didn't really want to pay $80 to run a race that I wasn't actually going to "race." So I figured I would just be Allyse's pacer. So.. there's my confession. I bandited a race (for those of you unfamiliar with the term, "bandit racing" means to run a race without registering). I did bring my own water and gel, haha. I also took an old bib number and folded it over so you couldn't tell it was actually from a Turkey Trot several years ago. It ended up being a disaster though. I started off the race and felt...

Well. I have been posting race recaps for all my races, but I am not as excited to write this post. The good news is that I finished the race without passing out or dropping out. The bad news is that I had to walk a couple times, which is the first time that has happened since my very first cross country race during my freshmen year of high school when I totally didn't know what I was doing. Yeah. What I did wrong: Sleep . I went to the midnight Dark Knight Rises showing on Thursday night. Then I didn't sleep well on Friday night because, well, I never sleep well before a race. Something I need to work on, I know. Honestly, I was exhausted. I knew it was a bad idea to go to that movie, but I did it anyway. Water.  It was hot, hilly, and humid. I was sweating like crazy. There was water every 3 miles and I got some at every stop, but I think I should have tried to drink more at each stop, because I felt a little better each time I drank. I think I should have brought my cam...

The Chicago Marathon is in a little over 4 months. That seems pretty far away, but my training plan is for 18 weeks so marathon training actually starts today .  It's been marked on my calendar since February when I signed up. Feels really sweet that it's finally here.   I've mentioned before that I really want to break 1:50 in a half marathon. This is a little problematic since the marathon training that I'm using offers no speedwork. I'm pretty sure speedwork is what enabled me to run my 1:54. So I'm combining Hal Higdon 's half marathon intermediate plan with the marathon intermediate 1 plan. Basically adding in the midweek speedwork (and maybe some hills?). I only planned it up to the my half marathon on week 7 though and we'll see after that. Technically I'm supposed to do a half on week 9, but is anyone really able to coordinate the races exactly anyway? And I have another half marathon scheduled for week 14. Hmm. Maybe it will be possible...

Sorry this has taken a full week for me to put up. It's been a bit busy. My race last Sunday was supposed to start at 7:30 but they actually moved the time up a half hour because the heat was predicted to be so bad. It wasn't as hot as it is today.. but the 80s is definitely more heat that I'm used to running in right now. That's something I'm gonna have to work on with another race coming in July.. Me 2 min before the race. Awkward smile cuz I'm nervous.  So, as a result, I didn't run as fast as I would have liked. I tried to run with the 8:47 pace group but I actually had the opposite problem that I had last time . The pacers took off way too fast. I could see them and they crossed mile 1 at about 8 minutes. I was like.. calm down there, dudes. I think they were a little bit too excited or something. And you'll notice, my times are pretty much all over the place. No consistency at all. I think it was partly that I went out too fast with the hea...

New half marathon PR!! woohoo! Sadly the only picture I have for you is the one below for now. Haven't gotten pics from my father-in-law yet. Isn't the shirt and medal pretty though?  My official time ended up being 1:54:47 (8:45 average)! A PR by almost 4 minutes! Yay! The weather was beautiful. The course was beautiful (up Chicago's north shore). The only thing missing was my sherpa-photographer husband running next to me, cheering me on and infuriating me by not being out of breath at all. Sad smile . My goal was actually to stay with the 1:55 pace group. I started off with them and kept on checking my watch.. they were going too slow. I almost said something but I didn't want to sound like a jerk "um.. you aren't going fast enough." So I just decided to go at my own speed and if they caught up to me, then I would run with them. I only ran the first mile about 7 seconds faster than the pace group should have and I couldn't even see them when I...

I ran a 10k on Sunday morning! It was my first race of 2012. I was technically supposed to run a 15k race this weekend, according to my training plan . But it's too hard to find a 15k race that's nearby and I never did the 10k race that I was supposed to do.  AND I think I PRed! Unless I ran a 10k in track back in college that I can't remember. And I got 2nd in my age group! Yay! Not a huge race, but still I was happy. I had by my watch time 51:44. The official time was 51:45.. but it was not chip timed. Also, according to my Garmin, the course was a teeny bit short. As you can see, I went out way too fast (they started the 5k at the same time.. so it was hard not too). I got to mile 1 and I was like "oh no.. too fast." Then I kind of got consistently slower. And I probably wouldn't know it was that bad if it wasn't for the Garmin. And I also wouldn't know that the course was a little short. I guess you can round 6.17 to a 6.2? Can I still s...

Running is going really well for me right now. I think part of it is that I like my training plan better this time. It's the Hal Higdon Intermediate one. People from my old running club had been raving about it, so I decided to try it out. I'm in the middle of week 7 right now. Hal Higdon Intermediate Half Marathon Training Plan I had an 8-mile run last weekend. My average pace was a 9:08. I had run 8 miles the weekend before on the treadmill (I was actually supposed to race a 10k last weekend.. I decided to just run 8 miles again instead) and my average pace was a 9:35. And as I've looked back at my "long" runs, my pace has actually gotten better, even though I'm running a little longer each week. So that's encouraging! Half marathon PR on the way? Hopefully! I also just had a really good workout last night! My 400 splits were 1:53, 1:54, 1:40, 1:54, 1:54, 1:56, 1:55, 2:13 (had to turn around in the middle of last one so it slowed me down). But ma...

I'll tell you a secret.. my birthday is coming up! My mom got me an early birthday present. I also got a new camera from my hubby! I used it to take the photo above. If you look back at some of my most recent posts, you can see a line going through the pics. That means the sensor was starting to die. So now I have a working camera! After a really hard start to the week , it's nice that things are starting to calm down. I'm just still praising God for what happened.  I feel a little behind in the week, because we kind of lost an entire two days, but of course we're so happy with the happy ending and that life can go on. Also. I signed up for the Chicago Marathon yesterday. Omygoodness. I signed up pretty late at night and then woke up this morning with this feeling of.. "WHAT did I just do last night?" Oh yeah.. just signed up for my first marathon. Hitting the "submit" button was actually pretty scary. I'm committed now. One of my goals ...

I've had my Garmin 405 a little over 2 months now. I love it. It maps my workout for me. It graphs out my pace and elevation for me. AND it's got this little virtual running partner guy that I can set to the pace I want. This is probably old news for a lot of runner folks out there that have had these watches for a while. I'm a little behind. I'm still super-excited about it. Yesterday, my training plan called for a 400m (quarter mile) repeats workout. It wasn't that cold out, so I decided to try out the "workout" feature for the first time. The Garmin connect website has this sweet little interface where you can build your workout.  So I did my little workout. I left through the garage and my poor dog was like "oh no! she forgot me! and took off after me. So those spikes in the beginning are me getting her back in the garage. Sorry, Moka, I'll bring you next time.  If you look at the graph, it's kind of cool to see when I sp...

Alright. Starting to get back into gear. Recently celebrated 6 weeks down of this deployment (thank God!). Still don't know about whether the deployment will be shortened or not. So I can't make plans yet about Chicago Marathon. However, I did sign up for my first half marathon of the year! Woot. So April 1st will be my first half of 2012. One of my 2012 goals is to finish 6 half marathons, so this is a start. It's actually the first race of the Chicago Half Marathon Series . If you do 4 out of 6 half marathons, you are automatically entered and you can get points by how you place in your age group. Sounds awesome, right? 'Cept they haven't updated their website for 2012 yet. So I don't actually know if it's happening. I'm all about it, if it is though. I started this half marathon training plan . I've also been going to my local YMCA for pilates and yoga. It's been a humbling experience. Sure I can run, but I have no upper body streng...

So this is long overdue, but my life has been a bit crazy lately. Well, I was hoping for a 1:57:30. I felt more prepared for this half than I was for the Chicago Half Marathon in September (1:59:20), so shaving a couple seconds off each mile didn't seem too much to hope for.  I guess I underestimated the hills. Eek. We have some hills around our apartment, but nothing compared to this course we ran downtown. I was on pace for the first 5 miles or so, but then it started catching up with me. I finished at a 2:02:38. So an average 9:21 per mile, compared to Chicago's 9:06 per mile. Crazy how 15 seconds per mile adds up so much. But considering the hills versus the super-flat Chicago course, I decided I'm not too upset.  And of course, it rained. The weather was actually not to bad. Around 50 degrees, which is perfect for a race like this.  My wonderful hubby took all the pictures. This is the second half marathon that he's run with me as my photographer/sh...

Oh man. It was a good weekend. We celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and our Anniversary all in a few days. We visited Bainbridge Island, ran a Turkey Trot, made Thanksgiving Dinner, exchanged presents, and then ran the Seattle Half Marathon. Whew! I didn't take any pictures at the Oly Trot because it was rainy and we were both racing, but we did get these fun arm warmers instead of a shirt. I have plenty of race shirts, so it's kinda fun to have something different.  We then made Thanksgiving dinner together. The hubby made soft pretzels instead of dinner rolls. They were amazing.  I also made roasted green beans with cranberries. And a little sweet potato casserole, made with two potatoes.  And here's our complete little dinner for two!  We then exchanged presents. We then finished up the weekend with the Seattle Half Marathon. Hubby was my photographer and sherpa. :) So thankful to have a hubby that loves me so much....