Day 97--Race Day (#2)

I hit my goal again. I was hoping to finish in 30 minutes and my official time was 29:42 That's 5:30 faster than my first 5K. I almost cracked the top 10 for my age group, too. I finished 17 seconds behind the 10th place finisher. I did beat 63 women in my age group, though. I finished 500th overall, out of 1,386 racers. I was 204 out of 772 women.

This allows me to set some clear-cut goals for my next 5K.
1. Break into the top 10 for my age bracket.
2. Finish the race in under 29 minutes.

I would love to be able to shave 1/7th of my total time off by the next time I run, but I know that's a totally unrealistic goal. That would mean shaving off another 4:23 from my time and finishing at 25 minutes. I'll be happy if I just continue to shave some time off of my Personal Best each time and will set goals that require me to push myself.

Day 96--Cycling

I've already hit 100 miles on my bike this year. That's in less than two weeks of being back on my bike. That makes 1000 miles this year seem reasonable. I did run a little over a mile this morning. First day with my new sports bra. It was nice not to injure myself while running. I'm feeling pretty good about the race this Saturday. Our team is up to four people. I don't think I realized that it starts at 8:30, though. Even thinking about that makes me yawn. Other than that, I think it will go well.

I will not be hitting my 50 mile run goal by Saturday. I'll have to reconsider what my next goal will be. Maybe I'll try to do a weight loss goal, instead of just hoping it will melt off with running and cycling.

Day 95--Rainy

I didn't ride in today because of the rain. I did get in a short run, something I wasn't able to do yesterday because of the running injury I sustained on Tuesday. It's not a serious injury at all. I just have what looks like road rash on both of my collar bones. My bra rubbed so bad that it created actual injuries. That did keep me from running yesterday, but not today. I managed to avoid re-injuring myself by running with my hands in my pocket. It wasn't as uncomfortable as I would have thought. My hands got warm, but other than that, it was fine. I also ran a 10 minute mile with my heart rate staying under 150. I've heard aerobic video leaders talk about the increase in heart rate when your arms are raised up, but I never actually noticed the effects until today. I'm going to try to run a full 5K with my hands low, like that to see if I can keep up a faster pace.

Day 94--rainy

The weather was just as cold as yesterday, and rainy, too. I was already up fairly early, so I decided to go into work and run before getting to my desk. I'm pretty lucky that by office building has a gym. It's not a gym I'd spend $30 a month to use, but for $0.00, it's amazing. It has 4-5 bikes, a few step and elliptical machines and 8 treadmills. Plus, it's normally fairly empty. I don't think I've ever seen 10 people in there over the full hour that I'm there.

I had more time than I do when I bike to work, so I decided to get in a full 5K. I ran it in 29 minutes. I know treadmill time and street time don't always line up perfectly, but that's still a much better time than I've ever done. I really think my morning mile runs on the treadmill are helping me to increase my speed. I was able to get the first mile in under 9 minutes, and didn't have to die, but was able to continue running another 2 miles. I'm feeling much more confident about the race on May 22nd. I will probably still be the slowest member of my team, but I think I can break the 30 minute barrier.

Day 93--Cold mornings

It was barely over 40 degrees when I left home today, so I stuck to city streets, instead of the lake path. City streets cut down on the wind a lot, which makes me much happier. There's also more to see on a ride down city streets. Maybe not more, but different. Many things that change every day and things I've never noticed before. I've biked the lake path so many times, that I have it memorized, and it doesn't really change.

I noticed a car parked about twice as far from the curb as reasonable, missing their side mirror. I would think that losing my side mirror would cause me to park as close to the curb as physically possible, but not this person.

I saw a sign for Hair Fairies while in the richest, most upscale neighborhood that I bike through. It's an entire chain of businesses set up to help parents avoid dealing with their child's head lice. Words cannot describe.

I then saw the side of the LaSalle Tower Condominiums which is the photo in this post. That's not real, it's Trompe-l'œil, which always impresses me, even when it's not the best example of it.

Once I got to work, I ran 1.25 miles on the treadmill. I ran a mile in less than 9 minutes. I'm not going to get to 50 miles by next Saturday, but at least I can get some speed work in every day.

Day 92--Cycling

Today was the first day of summer. Well, for me anyway, as today was the first day I got my bike out of storage and pedaled my way to work. I should get to bike to work the next 4-5 months.

I forgot how long it takes me to bike to work, so I ended up getting to my office building with about an hour to shower and get back to my desk. That's about 30 minutes more than I really needed. I used the extra time to get in a mile of running. It was nice to see my pace as I ran, rather than at the end of my run. I only ran a mile, but it was in a flat 10 minutes. I'm hoping to increase my pace a little bit every day to help me get to a 30 minute 5K.

Day 91--Running

I managed to fit in over 7 miles of running this weekend. That's good because the last few weeks, I've been spending most of my energy gardening instead of exercising. I've turned over the dirt in an area that had been bushes until last year when they cut them off at ground level. I don't think anything had been done to the earth in decades. I pulled out stumps and giant root systems. It was hard work, but didn't help with any of my running goals at all.

This week will be the first week I get back to biking to work. I was hoping to start tomorrow, but I have plans right after work Monday & Tuesday, and no light, so it will have to wait until Wednesday. I also need to get more running in, as I only have three weeks to get in almost 40 miles of running.