Broad Street Run 10 Miler 2015 Recap

I can't believe it's almost October and I still haven't written this recap! This was one of my favorite races (injury and all) and I hope I can remember enough to recap it properly. My husband and I decided to run/walk this one together since neither of us were in competition mode and we figured it would be more fun to suffer together.

We got into Philly on Friday and had the WORST time trying to find parking. We drove around for half an hour before I finally told my husband to stop and let me out so I could walk to the expo and get our packets before it closed. I got our stuff with plenty of time to spare thanks to the wonderfully organized expo and I snagged myself a big, comfy sweatshirt as well. After another half an hour, my husband finally texted me that he found a place to park and we met up for margaritas with my friend Jess.

My favorite view !

The race morning was a breeze. We woke up, walked to Broad Street to catch the free train to the start line, and waited for the race to start. The only negative thing I have to say about the race at all was that we waited FOREVER to start and we were no where near the back of the pack. But I suppose with 40,000 runners that's to be expected.

We tried to stick with 1:1 intervals, but it was hard to keep track of my watch beeping when there was so much noise and energy on the course. I had such a blast even though I couldn't run the whole thing. There were people everywhere on the course and so much support, it was insane! Towards the end, the crowds were actually so heavy that they were closing in on the course, which honestly made me hot and claustrophobic. Some fences or better crowd control would have been greatly appreciated.

We wound up finishing together with a time of 2:04:50, which ends up being an average pace of 12:28/mi. All things considered, I was pretty pleased with that. The medals are awesome and we thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the largest 10 miler in the country! Here's hoping we make it through the lottery next year because I would love to actually run this!

Scranton Half Marathon 2015 Recap

On Sunday, I completed the 2nd annual Scranton Half Marathon. After my fairly painful experience at the Hot Chocolate 15k the weekend before, I was slightly nervous about the half. I actually debated dropping out for a brief moment, but we ran the inaugural race last year and it's really important to both Joe and me that we become legacy runners for this awesome local race. Besides, I'm not the type of person to just drop out and not even try. :P

The expo was nice and not overly crowded when we picked our packets up on Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, they were sold out of this year's hoodies, but I scored a water bottle and stemless wine glass from last year's race on clearance! I learned my lesson and will be preordering a sweatshirt next year for sure because I'm really bummed that I don't have this year's. A girl can never have too many sweatshirts.

Puts it into perspective, doesn't it?

Race morning started by dragging myself out of bed at 6am, getting dressed, eating some oatmeal, and heading out the door just after 7am. We got to the race by 7:30 and were able to park nice and close in the high school parking lot. We lined up around 8:45 and the race started promptly at 9am. I didn't really have a plan; I did want to use intervals, but the timer app that I downloaded wouldn't work if my phone screen was off so I ditched that right away. I ended up basically running the downhills and walking the uphills, with additional walk breaks whenever I felt I was pushing too hard.

The course was the same as last year and I felt like I enjoyed it more this year because I got an extra hour to take it all in! The weather was also fantastic just like last year. It was 37 and sunny when we started and 55 and sunny when I finished three hours later. Somewhere around mile two or three, I wound up around two women running for Team in Training. They were doing intervals that matched up pretty well to what I was doing, so I creepily followed behind them for a while and I'm so glad I did. Those two women were so uplifting to listen to. They thanked every volunteer, built each other up, and cheered on other runners and walkers. Their positivity really resonated with me and helped change my mood from "ugh this sucks being injured and being in the back" to "I'm so thankful that I can still be out here doing this even if I'm not 100%".

Lackawanna Heritage Trail portion of the race

I ended up following those ladies (not the ones in the photo, I passed them :P) until mile eight when my good knee turned into my bad knee and I had to switch my knee brace over and walk for a while. I decided that I would walk to mile 10 and in the meantime, I took some ibuprofen and a salted caramel Gu. They both kicked in right around the same time and at mile 10, I was ready to go! I knew it wasn't smart, but I ran a lot of the last three miles. I just felt so good and I knew it was because of the pain killers, but I wasn't feeling the snapping in the back of my knee like I usually do and that's not something pain killers can dull, so I figured I was okay to run. I finished with an official time 2:57:36, which is officially my slowest half marathon, but you know what? I'm not mad. I wasn't disappointed when I finished and I haven't felt upset at all in the days following. I'm just happy that I was able to get out there and participate in this great event and enjoy a beautiful day.

The medals feature an electric trolley, part of Scranton's history as the "Electric City." It's fantastically heavy and although I like last year's design better, I'm thrilled with this one too. They also gave out awesome fleece blankets at the finish like last year! The list of reasons why I love this race is far too long. Hopefully I'll be healthy and fast(ish) again for next year!

Hot Chocolate 15k Philadelphia Recap

On Saturday morning, my husband and I completed the Hot Chocolate 15k race in Philadelphia (bum leg and all!). We love going down to Philly to run because we get to stay with my best friend and her boyfriend who we don't get to see nearly enough. I got out of work at noon on Friday, so we drove right down and went to the expo, which was fantastic. We got there around 4pm and there were hardly any lines for bib or goody bag pickup. They had a separate area where you could try on your sweatshirt and switch sizes if needed and every single volunteer we interacted with was so kind and helpful! We walked around for a few minutes, got a few free samples, grabbed some hot chocolate and marshmallows, and decided to head back out.

We stopped at the Reading Terminal Market right before they closed and looked around a bit before heading back to the apartment to make dinner (pasta, obviously!), play Cards Against Humanity, eat candy, and go to bed early. We woke up the next morning planning to leave around 6:40 to get to the start around 7 and it worked out perfectly. We got dropped off a little ways away from the art museum and walked to the starting area, thinking it would be a great warm up but nothing was going to warm us up from that wind! It was around 50 degrees but the wind was killer! We watched the 5k start and then huddled in the merch tent to stay warm until they called us to line up in our corrals.

The 15k started right on time at 8am; Joe started in the first corral and I started in the second. We submitted proof of time to be placed there and I stayed up there to give me a cushion against the time limit since I knew I wouldn't be running the whole thing. I ran the first half mile and then started doing quarter mile walk/run intervals. I made it to mile 5 with that strategy with minimal irritation before my leg started yelling at me. From that point on, I walked and tried not to hate myself for possibly messing my leg up further.

The course itself was nice aside from the wind, which obviously isn't the race director's fault. It didn't seem very hilly to me, although I know there were some hills. They don't seem as bad when you're walking them. ;) I typically don't like out and back courses, but the view of the river and Boathouse Row was a great distraction, plus the Philadelphia Museum of Art makes an awesome finish line area. I wound up with an official finish time of 2:18:34 which winds up being juuuuuuuust under the required average pace of 15:00 min/mile.

The finish line area wasn't crowded at all; I found a volunteer and got my medal (so cute!), grabbed a bottle of water from another volunteer, and made my way over to Joe who waited to get his finisher's mug until I was done. Seriously, I have the best husband ever. The mug had hot chocolate, a banana, and chocolate fondue with a bunch of little things to dip in it. We made our way over to the "Rocky steps" with the thought process being that they would block some of the wind (they really didn't) and enjoyed our mug there. My leg actually felt decent, so we decided to start on the two mile trek back to the apartment in the wind.

I showered, iced my leg, ate a delicious salad from Sweetgreen, and we headed out again because I wanted to go to Lululemon and Whole Foods. Between the race and all the walking around the city we did, my FitBit clocked me at 20.62 miles for the day! Needless to say, I spent the rest of the weekend being totally exhausted and I'm still not even totally caught up today.

Despite not being in proper running condition, I had a great time and would absolutely come back to do this race again when I'm healthy and able to run the whole thing! The organization was great and I can't think of a single thing I could complain about. And can we talk about the perks for a second? The medal is adorable and so detailed and the sweatshirt is so nice! It fits great and I loved that they allowed you to switch sizes at the expo if you needed to. I'll be getting a lot of use out of it! Two thumbs up for the Hot Chocolate series!!

PT Week 3 Update

Well, I'm almost done! I only have one week of physical therapy left. The good news is that I was able to run this week! I did ten minutes on Monday and fifteen yesterday. The hammy still doesn't feel 100%, but it felt better the longer I ran so I'm happy with that progress. I have been wearing a neoprene knee sleeve and it seems like it helps keep me from overextending my leg when I run or walk.

I was instructed to walk the Hot Chocolate 15k tomorrow. I plan on doing that, but if I feel good, I might sneak a couple short run breaks in there too. I'm actually a little worried about keeping up with the time limit (which is a foreign feeling to me thankfully), but I got placed in one of the earlier corrals so I think that I should be okay.

I have a half day at work today and we are leaving for Philly as soon as I get done, so I'm counting down the minutes even more than usual! I can't wait to hang out with my best friend all weekend and eat absurd amounts of chocolate tomorrow! ;) I'll be back sometime next week with a recap of the race!

PT Week 2 Update

The good news is that I'm feeling better. The bad news is that I'm still not in running condition. During my appointment on Wednesday, I warmed up on the bike and elliptical (neither bother me at all) and then tried running on the treadmill. Within two minutes, the stiffness in my knee returned and I had to stop for fear of making it worse. However, apparently my mobility is improving and my therapists are now fairly confident that this is a hamstring strain and not a medial meniscus tear.

I'll be going to PT for two more weeks so I'm hoping to see big improvements in the next fourteen days. As it looks right now, I'll be walking the entire 9.3 miles at the Hot Chocolate 15k in Philadelphia next weekend which hopefully won't be as boring as it sounds. I'm being optimistic and thinking that I may be able to do run/walk intervals for the Scranton Half in two weeks. We'll see.

Berry Smoothie Bowl Recipe

I don't know what rock I've been hiding under, but apparently I've been missing out on this smoothie bowl thing for quite a while. This insanely gorgeous and delicious trend is one I've been getting behind full force in the past week. I started with the Superfood Chocolate Breakfast Bowl from Tone It Up, which is amazingly good (plus you get to eat spinach for breakfast and don't even know it which is awesome). After perusing Pinterest for an unacceptable amount of time, I decided I needed to make a vibrant smoothie bowl and I needed to do it now.

Unfortunately, to make most of those gorgeous hot pink bowls, you need pitaya packets (seriously expensive) or acai powder (also pretty expensive). I did find a couple of alternatives without those ingredients, so I started trying them each morning. I started out with a strawberry mango chia bowl, which turned a delightful light pinkish orange shade. Pretty, but not what I was going for. Then yesterday it hit me while grocery shopping, what if I just used berries? Would they not create a beautiful pink smoothie? I hustled over to the frozen section and grabbed a bag of organic frozen berry mix, secretly wishing it was time to go to bed so I could wake up and try my experiment.

I'm happy to report that my hunch was good, frozen berries do indeed a gorgeous smoothie bowl make. The best part? There's four ingredients here (and one is water!). I'm a huge proponent of uncomplicated and quick recipes and this is about as quick and uncomplicated as it gets.

• 1 heaping cup frozen berry mix
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 scoop Perfect Fit vanilla protein powder
• 1 cup of water

My berry mix contained blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries, but I'm sure you would get the same result with any frozen mix. You could also use a fresh banana, but I just had some frozen ones to use up and my fresh ones aren't quite ripe yet. If you do use a fresh banana, you might need to throw some ice cubes in there depending on the consistency that you prefer. Lastly, the cup of water is approximate; you basically just need enough to make everything blend nicely.

So now you have your gorgeous pink smoothie! Pour it into a bowl and go nuts topping it with whatever your heart desires. I used granola, chia seeds, strawberries, bananas, and kiwi. You could also use nuts, flax seeds, coconut flakes, etc. Enjoy!

PT Week 1 Update

It's hard to really say whether I'm feeling optimistic or not right now. My leg has felt totally fine while walking the past two days, so that's an improvement, but I can still tell that there is something off with it. When I went to PT on Monday, we did an evaluation, massage, stim, and ice. On Wednesday and Thursday, I started a strengthening program involving lots of balance work and kettlebells (!!!). I love the shit out of kettlebell work outs.

 

I got to use the stationary bike to warm up and I LOVED it. I was excited to be able to bike outside, but since it's currently precipitating white stuff, I don't think I'll be able to get out there this weekend. I'm also nervous that the hills nearby won't get along with my leg, but I suppose I won't know until I try.

 

I'm generally a little sore from the new exercises the past two days, but I do think I'm seeing an improvement. My therapist said he would like for me to try a short run next week when I go in, so hopefully that will end well and with no pain. I'm excited to see what next week brings and I'm remaining hopeful that I'll be able to run (or run/walk, or even just walk, I don't care!) the Hot Chocolate 15k in Philly in two weekends.

Diagnosis... Kind of

My physical therapy appointment was last night after work. After a lot of pushing and pulling and moving my knee around, we don't have a definitive diagnosis of what is wrong. The signs point to a hamstring strain, but there is also a chance that it could be a slight meniscus strain, which would be worse and take longer to heal. My therapist seems optimistic and wants me to come in three times a week for the next two weeks. He thinks it will be improving by then, but if not, he wants me to stop and go see a doctor and get whatever scans/tests my doctor recommends. They can only see me by law for thirty days without a prescription anyway, but hopefully it won't come to that.

I will be doing some stretching and strengthening for the next two weeks, as well as lots of icing/heating and using the stim machine. Last night, we did IASTM, some light stretching, and then I got hooked up to the stim machine with some ice. I had never used that machine before so it was kind of neat. It feels like a bunch of teeny tiny kittens purring on the back of my knee.

This morning, my whole knee area feels achy and part of my lower hamstring near the inside of my leg is so sore that I can hardly touch it. I'm hoping that means that's where the problem is and we can focus on it and heal it quickly. I know that having a positive attitude can help tremendously with recovery, so I'm trying my hardest to be optimistic. I'm also cleared to cross train/yoga/bike so at least I won't be stuck on the couch doing nothing. We'll see what the next two weeks bring.

Injury-Induced Depression

I had good intentions. I planned on resting my leg until this Sunday and seeing how it felt from there. Actually wait, let's back up so I can fill you in completely on the issue. Two weekends ago, I ran my 8 miles for half marathon training. The roads were slippery and I didn't want to chance it, so treadmill it was. I felt mostly good throughout the whole run, but towards the end I could feel my calves getting a little tight, which isn't totally abnormal for me. When I got done running, I stretched on the floor for a while and when I got up, it hurt to extend my left leg to walk. I figured that I just pulled something, so I spent the next few days hobbling, icing, rolling, and stretching the crap out of my legs.

I tried to run again the next weekend, no go. I said, "okay, I'll be really good and give it a complete week off and stretch and ice and hopefully we'll be good to go." That lasted until two days ago. I had been out walking around while shopping with my sister and my leg was feeling great. It was so warm out when I got home and I was dying to run, so I made the idiot decision to go out for a mile or two. I knew before I had gone half a mile that I shouldn't have done it. I felt the tightness behind my left knee start again and the pain shortly after that, but I ran two miles anyway. Towards the end, I was in tears realizing that this would probably be my last run for the foreseeable future.

As I broke down in tears on the porch, I couldn't stop agonizing over why this would happen. I had been so careful to NOT get injured since I spent most of last summer in physical therapy and not running. I was cautious. I've been cross training and I didn't try to increase my speed; I took my runs nice and slow and easy. What the heck did I do wrong this time? I guess my dream at a sub-2 hour half marathon is going on the back burner yet again.

I spent yesterday on the couch and called my physical therapist to make an appointment Monday after work. I have a bad feeling about what he is going to say, but I'm trying to keep my hopes up. Maybe with a couple weeks of rest and some KT tape, I'll be healed enough for our 15k in three weeks and half marathon in four. That's the best I could hope for right now.

Anticipating the Disney Princess Half 2016!

Long time no see! Unfortunately for me it hasn't all been good times since I last posted. Right now I'm spending some time on the couch with a behind-the-knee pain in my left leg. However, my awesome, amazing, handsome husband recently promised me that we can run the Disney Princess Half Marathon next year!! I've been obsessing over everyone's photos on Instagram and I absolutely cannot wait! This has been one of my top bucket list races since I started running two years ago and am so excited at the thought of it. Is it next February yet??

View from Fort Wilderness Campground in 2007

So what have I been up to since I last posted? Well, I went skiing for the first time yesterday and am totally wiped out today! I spent a lot of time on the ground so got a good full body workout pushing myself up all the time. I had a fun time though and would definitely go again!

I also have been really really on point with my diet! I've been following the Tone It Up nutrition plan and I really love it. They focus a lot on a whole foods, "lean, clean, and green" approach and it seems to work great for me. I feel fantastic on the days that I eat appropriately and the recipes in the plan that I've tried so far are delicious. Would definitely recommend! 

As far as running, before this recent issue, I had been doing pretty well. I was starting to get my speed back up a little bit during training for the Scranton Half and am so frustrated that I'm derailed yet again. After some thought, I think that the training plan that I'm using might be too much for me. The Hal Higdon plan has me running four days a week and increases mileage pretty fast, so I think I'm going to cut down a bit once I rest a week or so and see how it goes. (Also super sick of snow!!)

My plan is to take a week off and hopefully next weekend I can start running again slowly. I also want to post a little more frequently over here, so I'm going to work on that! :)