Preparing For My Next Race: A 3K!

 My next race is a 3K.

Now if you're a die-hard running enthusiasts, you're laughing at me right now. You're preparing for a 3K?  Really?

Even if you're a casual runner you're probably still laughing at me right now.  And if you're like so many people and you don't like to run at all, you're probably pretty impressed.  You're probably also wondering how far a 3K is.  

Well, don't get too impressed. A 3K is just under two miles or about 1.86 miles. Now, why am I preparing for this race? Well, I haven't run a race in a year now and a year is a really long time to be out of the running game. At least that's what I think so I need to get both my mind and my body ready to race again. 

Before we go any farther, I should be clear that I really only race against myself. I'm not fast enough to ever place. Maybe when I'm 70 and the field has thinned out a bit.

Back to what I am doing to prepare myself for this race.  Well, running is obvious but here are a few others:

• Strength Training:  I'm keeping this really simple.  Typically, my strength training involves doing lunges and squats during our daily walks around the neighborhood.  To work on my arms I'll do push ups against the stairs or tricep dips on the back of the couch.  I'll also use our weight machine downstairs to work my hamstrings (boy, do they need it) or quads.
• Foam Roll:  This has been so helpful for my back!  In the past, I've mostly focused on my legs, specifically my shins and calves, but I'm finding the more I work my lower back, the better my feet and calves feel.  I'm also working on loosening up my hips to help my Achilles which was tight during my last run.  
• Working on my Form:  I wrote a blog post about that HERE.  While I run I'm really concentrating on keeping my shoulders down, my arms low and my foot strike and less on how fast I am running or how fatigued I feel.  

Is this all helping?  I ran 2 miles recently, the longest I've run in about a year, and I felt great the next day.  Even my feet feel fine.  

I can genuinely say that I am excited for my first race of the year on October 28!

When is your race?  Tell me in the comments below!  I want to hear about it.  

Lesson for the Day: Fixing Your Mistakes

Yesterday at the Little Pumpkins Dash, Scarlett received a medal for her efforts. She was thrilled! 

On the way back to the car after the race I told her how lucky she was to get a medal,  that even I didn't get one. She replied very sincerely, "It's OK, Mommy. I'm sorry you didn't get a medal. Maybe next time?  You can have mine if you want."  An older couple walking by her heard what she said and chuckled to themselves. It was very sweet.

Then we got home and couldn't find the medal.

We frantically checked the car and emptied out the bag that we were sure it had been placed in. Then it dawned on me - in my haste to find my bib at the start of the race I had dumped most of the bag's contents on the ground. The medal most likely was left in the grass. Ugh.

Since it was my fault that the medal was left behind,  I quickly shot off an email to the race organizer and hoped that in the meantime, Scarlett didn't notice it was missing.

Luckily, he got back to me that there were 10 medals left and I could have one if I could make it in to pick it up. I thanked him and quickly made my way down to get it.

Success is mine!  I have the replacement medal! 

Now, if my daughter had lost her medal I wouldn't have jumped through as many hoops as I did to get another one, but since it was my mistake I had to make an effort to fix it.

And I'll be sure to let her know what I did so she can learn how to be responsible for her mistakes too.

What lessons has life taught you lately? 

2016 CHaD Trick or Treat 3K and Little Pumpkin Dash Recap

Let me just start by saying I really didn't want to run this race.  I signed up last minute because I thought it would be fun for my daughter to participate in the kids' run and frankly, I knew I would need something to motivate me to get my butt moving again after my second half marathon.  But I woke up exhausted from Trick or Treating the night before and staying up way too late watching scary movies.  Can we talking about The Conjuring?  OMG.  I must have jumped 50 times!

How I wanted to spend my day!

It didn't help that the race was held during The Pats game and if you don't know already football is an institution in this house.

Opening game at Gillete for the 2015 season. 

But after I ran a barefoot mile on my treadmill, I schlepped my butt to Manchester with my costumed family in tow.  

I'm glad I did.

They have a little Halloween "festival" set up for the kids before the races.  Scarlett loved the bounce houses and the bunnies in the petting zoo.  One of her friends from her class was running the race too so she was overjoyed to run around with him.

After a quick warm up led by a man in an apple costume, the girls' ages 4 and under race started.  I ran behind Scarlett so we wouldn't lose her in the crowd.  She sort of stopped towards the finish line so I grabbed her hand and pulled her along.  She loved the medal they gave out but unfortunately it went missing somewhere along the way.

Luckily, she hasn't realized the medal is missing... yet. 

Then it was time for my 3K, the shortest race I've ever run by the way.  I was looking forward to being done in a decent amount of time.  Mentally I couldn't handle another half marathon not with the amount of pain I've been in since my last one.  

This race also had a first for me:  I lined up in the corral WITHOUT MY BIB ON.  What was I thinking?  I was so distracted by helping Scarlett with her race that I completely neglected to put mine on.

I realized this 30 seconds before it started.

Luckily, my family was standing not too far away so I mouthed to my husband that I forgot my bib and we got to work grabbing it out of the bag.  Thank GOD I always pack extra safety pins for just in case.  This was definitely a "just in case" moment.

It probably took me less than a minute to fix my mistake, but I was stuck behind the walkers and strollers by the time I was ready.  In a way this helped me because I took off at an 8 MM pace!  I quickly slowed once I hit the first of 2 decent sized hills.  It didn't help that I was dodging a lot of people who were walking or running intervals.

The second hill helped because I was able to zoom by a lot of people.

OMG, I zoomed up a hill!

Since this was just a 1.86 mile race, it was a nice out and back so you could see the leaders at one point.  It made me feel better to know I wasn't that far behind the pack not that I'll ever be in the front.

Overall, I felt great!  My lungs were a little full but I've been battling colds lately and I changed up my allergy medicine.  My feet were a non issue and it was so nice to run down hills without wincing. 

As I approached the finish line I tried to really kick it. My arms were swinging hard as they did most of the race, but I looked on helplessly as a flood of people passed me.  The last kick has been an issue for me lately and I really don't know what it going on.  I just can't seem to sprint anymore.

My final time was 19:23 and my pace was 10:23/mile.  Not too shabby all things considered.

Next, I'll keep rowing, running barefoot on the treadmill and strength training.  I've got to work on strengthening my hamstrings.  They are so weak!