Manchester Road Race - 75 Years of World-Class Racing!

               It has been a busy last week and a half. Thanksgiving Day was wonderful in a number of ways. To start out, I competed in the famed Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving morning. It was a very exciting race due to the fact that they were celebrating their 75^th anniversary, which called for a lot of fanfare complete with a pre-race flyover by a plane that was used in the Berlin Airlift. The race was a huge celebration of the history of road racing.  The first woman to ever compete in a professional road race was there to run, 50 years after the first time she ran the race! She even wore the same garment that she wore 50 years ago – a blue dress. Yes ladies, a dress! It was really awesome to see all the history surrounding the Thanksgiving Day race, and on top of that it was a great success for me. The course is 4.7 miles long with a huge 1 mile hill in the second mile. The race went out, and in my head I was thinking “man, I am in 6^th place and this pace doesn’t feel comfortable.” The mile clock loomed and I looked over to see 4:58. A little yellow light bulb lit up in my head “well, that is why the pace didn’t feel good. Now I will just settle in and use as little energy as possible to get up this huge hill and then I will let the legs fly!” Up the hill we went. I held on to the back of the pack and worked up the hill, towards the end passing the majority of the girls in the pack.  Once at the top we made a hard left turn and started down the hill we had just climbed. I moved to second place, dueling it out with one other girl for a short distance, but once I finally got in front I never saw her or any of the other girls again. I was looking ahead for SallyKipyego who went out really hard and stayed there the entire race. I could see her a ways ahead, but for the time being I was running with a group of two guys. As the race progressed I was still feeling pretty good, but the guys I was running right behind were starting to slow down. I didn’t want to have to cut my stride and slow down to go around the two men…so I did the next best thing, gave them each a love tap right at their center of gravity, a.k.a. their hips, and they moved to the side and I went right between them. The next mile went by uneventfully, I caught another man who obviously took exception to being caught by a woman because every time I made it to his shoulder he would put in a quick sprint and be 5 meters ahead of me again. I largely tried to ignore him and just continue to run hard, trying to see if I could make up any time on Sally. Finally 800 meters to go, and the guy next to me was brought sharply back to my attention because – and I have to admire his competitive spirit – he began to dry heave….once, twice, three times. I swerved far to the right so as to avoid any type of substantive eruption and began to surge for the finish. Soon the finish line loomed, I crossed it still in 2^nd in a time of 25:02. Another success!

                After the race I quickly cooled down and jumped straight into my host family Bill andCarol Oneill's car. Carol whisked me away to catch my flight that was scheduled to take off only 2 hours and 10min after I finished the race. I flew to Tennessee where my husband and I spent a few quality days with my family celebrating Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be thankful for, I have a truly blessed life and consider myself very lucky. Thank you to my family, friends, and all of you who have joined me on this journey. And, the many people and organizations that make my life as a professional runner possible - Team USA Minnesota, Road Runners Club of America, Life Time Fitness, Twin Cities in Motion, Ron Wayne at Mizuno, and many more.   

                Now, as I am writing this blog I am sitting in Las Vegas, getting ready for the Rockand Roll Las Vegas Half marathon – The Strip at Night! The race starts at 5:30pm, so the strip will be fully lit up. It should make for a fun race. Can you imagine it?!  I am using the race to test my fitness and see where I am in my preparation for the OT Marathon. I will keep you all posted and let you know how it goes, stay tuned! 

MinneSNOWta - You betcha!

I have gotten a little off of my schedule in the last two weeks, but now I am back! In the last two weeks a couple of significant events have occurred in my training. Firstly, I completed my first almost-marathon, a 26 mile training run. It was a combination of good, bad and ugly.

I went into the run with the idea that I would treat it just like race day, the only difference being that it wouldn’t be at race pace. So I got up in the morning and ate a bagel with cream cheese and a banana, and spent the rest of the morning drinking the fluids that I plan on using during the OTMarathon. The only problem was that after I ate my breakfast I had to go to work for about 3 hours before doing my run. So I ate my breakfast at 9am and then left work to go do my run at 12:30. The first part of the run was fine, but once I got to about 18-20 miles I started to get the feeling that my head was floating away from my body, like a kite on a string. I was conscious that I was still running, but I felt like I was floating. I shook my head a few times and was able to focus again, but the rest of the run was really long. I think my problem was that I had not consumed enough calories for the run, and I had only taken one Hammer Gel with me, which was not enough. I guess I learned that lesson the hard way.

The second event that occurred during the past week and a half is that it finally decided to snow here in minneSNOWta, which officially marks the end of doing workouts outside. So yesterday, while it sleeted miserably outside I made my merry way to Life Time Fitness in Eden Prairie and jumped on a treadmill to do a 20 mile run. Life Time’s facilities are really fantastic and top notch, so it was the best possible alternative to running outside. I cranked the treadmill up and put it at 1% grade, to compensate for the fact that I am running on a treadmill not the ground, and settled in at 6:53 pace. The first 15 miles passed by quickly enough because I was watching the Michigan V. Nebraska game – quick shout out to my friend Katie McGregor, GO BIG BLUE!  It wasn’t much of a game as Michigan crushed the Corn Huskers 45 to 17, but hey, it kept my mind from spelling out M-O-N-O-T-O-N-Y with every stride.  The last 5 miles which I ran at close to my threshold pace – aka 5:45 min/mile – were a test of my mental fortitude…but I guess I need some of that during my training for a marathon.

Emily Brown and me dressed as presents, participating in the Life Time Fitness Reindeer Run 2010.  It is is hard to run when you can't use your arms! 

My fitness continues to progress and I am excited to see what the next two weeks will hold as I prepare to run in the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving day and the Rock’n’ Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon on Dec. 4^th.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Make it a good one and don’t forget to get your run in before you eat Turkey, because although it is just a wives’ tale that the tryptophan found in Turkey makes you sleepy, I know there is something about a Thanksgiving Feast that makes you not want to get in a run after it.