Wednesday, January 16, 2013

I'm baaack!

WHAT?!?! It’s been almost FOUR months since my last post? And I missed the You Go Girl Half review as well as the Portland Marathon 2012 and Foot Traffic Holiday Half reviews. No more promises. I might or might not get to those, but given the timeline, it doesn’t really matter…does it? :)

What’s been happening with me lately is all things running. I have been running…a lot. In addition, I have been doing the obligatory cross-training in an attempt to avoid injury and get stronger. (So please don’t ask me if I’ve been doing any quilting lately, my free time is spent reading about running and doing it!)

I am registered to run this year’s Boston Marathon as well as Big Sur Internation Marathon a couple weeks after Boston and the Tacoma City Marathon a week after Big Sur. I’ve never run that much in such a short period of time and must admit to being a bit nervous about the idea. I caught the “crazy” bug from a gal I met through a local running group. The group is called Coach Jim’s Elite Runners in Training and the gal is Honey Badger Melissa Fryback. (Crazy, funny, inspirational gal who just ran Disney World’s 5K, half Marathon and full marathon with fellow crazy HB Rose Logan-Surgeon all in one weekend AND they ate bacon on the course. GAG!)

Nothing helps a reluctant runner more than running in groups of enthusiastic and supportive runners of all levels. There is usually someone slow enough to run with, fast enough to aspire to, and encouraging enough to keep you coming back. I am sooo lucky to live in an area that has many running groups from which to choose.

I started out with the Portland Fit group a couple years ago and did some assistant coaching for them last season. (I may do it again this year but haven't figured out the logistics of training for my spring marathons and the start up of PFit training. Perhaps a post for another day.) Training during the winter months is challenging. Last year I did it with the StayFit group, a group of PFitters that continued to meet on weekends to run. However, most of them were not training for specific distances and so I did most of the LONG runs on my own. It was tough and not something to which I relished doing again this year.

Thank God I found a group that is training for spring marathons, i.e. Coach Jim’s Group. In joining that group, I have met a wide variety of runners. Old (like me), young, strong, those looking to get stronger, fast, slow, and every pace in between. The glue that bonds them is the love of running. Through this group I have discovered a whole bunch of people from the area that are also going to Boston…and some doing the Boston-2-Big Sur Challenge. This experience even convinced me to have an actual training plan written out specifically for me. I still hate training in winter, but the company makes it worthwhile.

Now I promised a few running friends I would share my “Bitch” runs that I occasionally reference in Facebook posts. After seeing what some of these runners do, I am beginning to think my runs may just be “warm-ups” for them but I’ll share anyway. ;)  Being techno-challenged at times (duh, I did tell you I am old), I have had a difficult time getting my map courses to transfer to a spot easily viewed by others. Therefore, I am posting these screenshots for their viewing. Enjoy! And share your favorite hard runs if you wish. :)

Okay. For comparison purposes I will first show the elevation chart of a route Coach Jim’s group ran up Terwilliger, a local hill feared by many. ;)



My so-called Bitch 1 run:


My Bitch 2 run: