Ilanarama!

I ran the Steamworks Half Marathon this morning. It was my third time running this race, but my first time actually managing to train for it, and so I had high hopes for doing far better than the slightly more than 2-hour times I had run before. I always have multiple goals, and as I posted over at runners, these were mine:

Fallback goal: better than 1:56 (my current half marathon PR, which was actually the first half of the Baltimore Marathon)
Stated goal: better than 1:50
Seekrit goal: 1:48:xx
All the stars align and someone throws magic pixie dust on me: better than 1:48

Well, the pixie dust was flying, apparently: I ran 1:44:19, third place among Masters women (40-59) out of 37, and 8/140 women overall. I am, to put it mildly, stunned. Especially since that works out to be just under an 8 minute mile - and I ran maybe a total of 4 miles during training at that speed. Even my speed miles were mostly in the range 8:05-8:20, which I found it hard to sustain for the full interval distance of 1-4 miles - so how come I managed to do slightly better than that for 13.1?

I started out running at what I thought was a comfortable pace, and kept sneaking glances at my Garmin, thinking, oh, it must be reading off, there is no way I am running that fast. And then I hit the first mile marker and it still told me I was running too fast. Yet my heart rate was well within what I had laid out as my "don't run faster than this or you will suffer" level. It was downhill, so I reasoned, hey, I'm just getting a boost from the hill Same thing happened the second mile. And the third. And by then I just figured I would roll with it, keep the pace, see how I felt, and much to my surprise I felt pretty good until about mile 12, when I just wanted it to be over, damn it, but talked myself into finishing by promising my body it could keel over after the finish line. (Which it did.)

Then I drank three beers. \o/

This morning I rose early, ran 4 miles, took a shower, had breakfast, and drove 5+ hours to Breckenridge for a conference. This group I work with does it every year about this time, and it's a boondoggle I adore. I get to see all the people I work with face to face instead of via Skype. I get to see the people I used to know when I worked physically at NCAR, and those at other institutions I only see once a year at this conference. There are plenary talks about What The Climate Model Tells Us About How Very Doomed We Are, and there are the working group meetings that are relevant to my interests; and then there are the meetings of other working groups that I don't have to go to, and so those of us who don't have to go to them get together and go mountain biking instead. I am looking forward to going mountain biking!

I have a hotel room all by myself. I'm sprawled on the sofa with my laptop. I feel like I'm pretending to be grown up.

That 10-miler I did last Sunday? I DID WIN. Well, I came in first in my age group (women 40-49) and okay, there were only 8 of us, but I WON. (I came in 17/56 of all women.)

I should have stuck around for the awards ceremony! I emailed the race director but haven't heard back yet, but I think I should be getting some goodies, woo!

Okay, I didn't, like, win, or anything. But I came in at 1:24:20, which is a big PR over my time 3 years ago in this race (1:30:33) and beat not only my publicly stated goal of 1:26 but my seekrit goal of 1:25. I also made my goal of "not walking up the big hill." Also of "not feeling like I want to throw up."

It rained all night - I woke up at 5 and it was still pouring, went back to sleep, woke up again at 7 and realized I had to scramble to get to the race which started at 8. Had a cup of coffee and a couple of fig bars - it had quit raining but was still beautifully overcast and cool, yay. Jogged to the start, did a couple of strides, said hi to the people I knew, and it was time to run!

I felt really good - no cramps, no aches. The only issue I had was that I started getting a sort of asthmatic wheeze going around mile 3.5, and looked forward to the aid station - and they didn't have water, just this red sticky Powerade, and I drank a little, and ICK. So I kind of wheezed my way up the big hill and the next water stop they had water, thank GOD, and I drank it and felt a lot better.

The other sort of amusing thing is that the course crosses the tracks for the tourist train to Silverton right around mile 2.5, and it parallels the tracks for a mile or so before that, so I could see the train coming and it looked like we might get to the crossing at the same time! Fortunately it worked out (and I adjusted my stride) that the train just finished the crossing as I got there, with all the tourists waving at us - I ran right behind the caboose! (Two runners got caught and had to stop and wait.)

Also it started raining around mile 8.5 but by then I didn't care, it was fine.

So, let's play the game of "guess the course profile"! Here are my splits: 8:10, 8:15, 8:28, 8:36, 8:42, 9:44, 8:29, 8:06, 8:01, 7:48. I guess you can see the big hill, huh? My pace on the steepest half-mile of the hill averaged 10:32, not bad considering the 7.7% grade! The total elevation gain/loss was around 500 feet.

Anyway, I am totally thrilled with this result. I wanted to average 8:20-8:30 without the big hill (up or down) and I think I got it. That 8:06 is actually for a pretty flat mile, and overall I averaged a little better than 8:30, which gives me a lot of confidence for the much-flatter half marathon in another four weeks.

I managed not to die horribly during the Telegraph Trail 10K, but it was a near thing. I am not sure who made the bone-headed decision to schedule this race to begin at 10 am (and then, 15 minutes late...), but it was 74 degrees, and sunny, and the course is unshaded desert and quite hilly - altogether a miserably, brutally hot experience. My calves began to cramp almost instantaneously when I started heading up the major ascent (Telegraph Hill) and my HR climbed faster than I did - I ended up walking quite a bit of this ascent, which was kind of a bummer. Then again, lots of others were walking it as well. I passed a few people but got passed by more.

Then the screaming Anasazi Descent, about 500 feet in half a mile. I used all my technical downhill skills on this one (i.e., "a more or less controlled plummet") and passed four people and somehow avoided going over the edge of the cliff or tripping over any of the rocks. After that, the course was mostly rolling, but mostly rolling uphill, damn it, and I drank a bunch of water and dumped the rest of it on myself and walked a little and ran a little until I finally got to the second summit and bombed downhill to the finish line.

Because of the winding and switchbacky nature of the course, my Garmin read low, although I wasn't sure by how much during the race. When it beeped 4 miles at me, I looked at the time - 50 minutes - and thought, shit, no way can I make it under an hour (which was my personal goal). Then after running another 5 minutes I recognized how close I was to the start/finish and thought, oh, maybe I can make it if I hit the afterburners! So I blasted the last (downhill) bit and made it in 58:07, not a fast time, but hey, I survived. Yay.

Just got back from running 13 miles, in the rain, uphill both ways. Actually not nearly as miserable as it sounds. Now I am wearing a fuzzy sweater and drinking hot chocolate.

I decided to get an account at Dreamwidth, mostly because free accounts there don't display advertising, unlike at LiveJournal, and there are a number of people reading my LJ who don't have LJs - notably my parents, and Eric (hi, Eric!) and a few others. Right now I have a paid LJ, but I am not going to renew when it lapses. I have imported all my old entries, and I am going to crosspost in the future.

If you're on LJ, read me at LJ. If you are moving your primary account to DW (and I don't think anyone on this flist is, but I figure I'll mention it anyway) feel free to defriend me (or filter me out) at LJ and read me at DW if you like. If you are reading me directly, you might want to change your bookmark to http://ilanarama.dreamwidth.org. But you don't have to.

Incidentally, DW is operating on the invite code system, and although I don't have any invite codes at the moment I expect to get some shortly, so if you would actually use a Dreamwidth account, let me know and I will hook you up when I can.

Marilyn Chambers:
From "Behind the Green Door" to
Knocking on heaven's.

ETA: I have gone through and tagged all these haiku. I may have to tag the rest of my journal. I am astonished at how interesting I used to be.

I have uploaded our photos from the Queen Charlotte Track, Wellington, and the Coromandel Peninsula, added 9 photos to the Waitomo (black-water rafting) set, and added 6 photos to the Tongariro (Mount Doom) set.

( A few of my favorites: )

...of green beer did not pass my lips last night. Instead I uploaded some more photos:

15 West Coast and Arthur's Pass photos
12 Franz Josef and Fox Glacier photos

Here is a fern and some mountains:


And here is me doing the Safety Dance: