Just Keep Running: 2013

....it's been almost a year! Wow - excuse me for the overly long hiatus! I can't believe it has been so long since I've posted. I've been reading, but life got in the way of posting and, and, well, you know how that goes.....

I have, however, done a little bit of running...

So, as my comeback post of 2013, I'll hit you up with a running related "5 for Friday" recapping my running life in the last year.

1) Probably the most significant running related thing I've done this year is take a job working for Energy Events, a local event management company that puts on races. In June I took the job of volunteer coordinator and I TOTALLY love it!

It's really interesting to look at races from this side as opposed to solely from a runner's perspective. It also makes me appreciate how much it takes to put on a race, and also how much races depend on volunteers! I've been lucky to work with some great groups and individuals - and they amaze me with their willingness to just come out and devote a day to helping. I highly recommend volunteering for at least one race if you don't already - it's pretty eye opening! I'm still learning, but I'm really enjoying the job so far!

2) RACES! As you may recall, I spent 2012 ~~whining~~ ~~about~~ recovering from a terrible case of plantar fasciitis...oh it was awful!! But this year I've felt pretty much healthy and managed to get in a few races. Here's a quick recap:

In March I tackled the 15k Shamrock Run in Portland. I was relagated to the 5k last year (and not too happy about it) but this year I was back to tackle the hilly course and I felt great!

Red noses - it was cold in the morning!

This run is the kickoff to the Portland running season, so it's a great "test" to see where your legs are at. I was happy with my time - 1:21 for an 8:42 overall pace - and super happy with getting the first race of the season on the books and feeling good!

In April I ran the Corvallis Half Marathon. I felt like crud the whole time (seriously, I was the girl who needed electrolyte AND water at the FIRST aid station...at mile ONE!) I felt totally depleted the whole race. I ended up with a 1:53 - 8:38 average pace.

I came away from the race thankful that I was able to pull out a sub-2 even while feeling so bad right out of the gate - silver linings people, silver linings!

The most fun races as always are relays and, again this year I ran two. In July I ran the Ragnar relay with the same team I ran with last year. You can read my last year's recap here. It was all kinds of awesome and we had a blast. I think this picture pretty much sums it up:

And then in August I ran this little race call the Hood to Coast - you may have heard of it?

Team Zapatos Locos runs again!

As I've written about before, I have a long standing team of friends and we're going on 17+ years of running H2C. We always have a super fun time- it's really more of a social event with some running thrown in - and I got to celebrate at the finish with this guy who I happen to be married to, so that's always awesome!

is there anything better than a beer after a race? I think not!

3) Running Friends.
I get up early to run with my neighbor at 5am, 3x a week. But we've had more and more ladies join us and our group of two has grown quite a bit to eight runners now!

When one of our members moved out of the area we had some shirts made up to commemorate our running group with our tag line "5 @ 5" (cuz we run 5 miles at 5am, get it?) as a farewell gift to her.

The front of the shirt says "Running in the Hood" and the arm has the 5@5 tag line on it. Cute, right? I'm so thankful for these ladies! Knowing they are outside waiting for me gets me up and out of bed better than any alarm clock!

4) I have been devouring books about ultra runners these days - most noteably:

source

and

source

and, of course

source

I'm COMPLETELY fascinated by the stories of these athletes and their ability to push their bodies to such extremes. But, what is even more interesting is that they do it on an entirely PLANT BASED diet. I always thought that super athletes, especially endurance athletes, would need to eat a lot of meat protein - but these books have really opened my eyes, and I've started eating differently because of it. They not only believe that the plant based diet is better for you - but they also believe it has made them more optimal and healthier runners. Really interesting reading!

5) So I've got two more races coming up. I have a marathon in (gulp) three weeks. I'm running the Oregon Marathon which is a point to point race from Vernonia to Banks, Oregon.

I've done one 20 miler and I have a 22 miler coming up this weekend. I will be honest - I don't feel super prepared for this race, and I think my time goal will be about a 4:15. I have no thoughts that I will PR or any such thing - but I'm kind of excited to run another marathon.

I also signed up for the Orcas Island 25k. It's a trail run on Orcas Ilsand (Washington) on January 25th. This is the elevation chart:

Double gulp. So let's see - 4450 ft elevation gain....if some of the routes are too trecherous they will go to the "snow routes"....and I never run on trail, don't even own trail shoes. This sounds super brutal, horrible and yet at the same time completely awesome. I'm pretty sure I'll have my ass handed to me, but I'm also pretty sure I'm going to love every minute of!

Plus the race is 4 days after my birthday, so I have to do it, right?

Anyway - that's it for my FRIDAY five! I hope you all have an awesome weekend!