Hey, has anyone seen my quadriceps?

I think they fell off on the Hill of Death last night. If you find them, can you return them to me? Don't laugh. Yours would fall off too if you had to run the entire Hill of Death four times. Oh yes, I can see by that wide-eyed look of shock on your face that you now understand the intensity of the situation. And as if that wasn't bad enough, we also had some 800m repeats thrown into the mix... you know, for fun. So yeah, my quads weren't too happy with me and decided to take a vacation. I'm sure gonna miss them...

So here was last night's FAST workout... 2 mile warmup, 2 x (2 x full Hill Of Death loop, + 1 x 800m). So, we ran the entire Hill of Death loop twice, then ran an 800m repeat. Rinse. Repeat. Got that?

I knew I was in trouble when my quads started burning on the first hill. It did not bode well for the remaining hills. I was thankful that Coach Maggie ran with me up the second hill. Otherwise I might have been tempted to walk. Or puke. In the end, I did neither. I ran all four of those hills, and refrained from vomiting. The 800m repeats were... tricky. Running with any sort of speed after doing the Hill Of Death twice is a feat unto itself. But the 800m distance was on an undulating trail, covered with sticks and leaves and rocks. So it was basically an obstacle course. Fabulous.

After I finished my fourth and final Hill Of Death loop, Coach Brad caught up with me and insisted that he was going to run the final 800m with me and fellow FASTie, Melody.

As a quick aside, Melody is new to FAST this season and it turns out she and I are very well-matched for pace. I think we'll be running together a lot, and that's a good thing for me because she's a very fascinating person. She's getting ready to run the Pikes Peak Marathon next month. That race is not for the faint of heart. I got winded just reading the website. And yet, there's that teeny tiny voice in my head going "Ooooo, that sounds so cool - you should do that someday!" That teeny tiny voice really needs to shut up.

But I digress (I do that a lot, don't I?)... Coach Brad ran the final 800m with me and Melody and I knew I should have been concerned when he ran ahead of us and basically set the pace. But when we got near the turnaround point, he said "Okay, after the turnaround, we're going to pick up the pace." WHAT? Haven't we been doing that already? Melody leaned over and whispered to me "Maybe we should stop to walk now..." I like the way she thinks. Nevertheless, we kept running, trying to hang onto Brad. When we turned around, sure enough, the pace quickened. Our fatigued legs burned, and our breathing became very labored. Before we knew it, though, it was over and we were done! It wasn't so bad after all.

I'm sure it's not so hard to pick out the four Hills of Death on that graph. My quads are on one of those hills, crying in agony.

Tuesday's FAST workout was another goodie. And by "goodie", of course I mean "death trap". The intensity was compounded by the fact that it was 2.4 billion degrees outside and 435% humidity. *note: weather figures have been slightly inflated for dramatic effect

So here's the rundown for that workout: 1 mile warmup, 1 mile @ half-marathon pace, 2 x 800m @ 10k pace, 1 mile @ half-marathon pace, 1 mile cooldown. After the first couple of repeats, it became pretty obvious that Melody and I should be running together. And so after that, we did. It was a win-win situation, because chatting with her kept my mind off of the torture of running in 4 trillion degree weather, and my pacing helped keep her from running too fast. There's something about sharing pain with someone that makes it... well... less painful. Even with all the chatting during the final mile repeat, we still ran it faster than the first mile repeat (10:06 vs 10:24). Score one for teamwork!


My hubby and I are doing a little traveling this weekend to visit our cutie-patootie nephew, who has grown so much since the last time I saw him (in March) that he's probably getting ready to head off to college soon. So I'll be doing my weekend running in a different place, which is good and bad. Good because there's a change of scenery, which is always welcome. And bad because I'll be missing all my Stashies. But the long run this weekend is "only" 10 miles, so I'm not too worried about it. Although it will probably be a bit more difficult to run with my quads gone AWOL.

Peace. Love. Train.

...And here's the cemetery where we did our engagement photos...

This morning, I had the very distinct privilege of running my entire 14-miler with fellow FASTie and Stashie, Kristi. Kristi is a faster runner than I am, so I don't usually get to run with her, but she told me she wanted to slow down a bit for her long runs because she had been running them too fast. After this morning though, she may have decided that running faster isn't such a bad idea after all.

You see, I may have rambled on a bit too much about this and that and the other. The route we ran took us past my old apartment, my orthodontist, and even the beautiful park where my husband and I had our engagement photos taken many years ago... never mind that the park also happened to be a cemetery. There is, of course, a long story behind why we had our photos done in a cemetery, and I assure you, Kristi heard the entire story. Just know that you can't see headstones in our pictures, I swear! But I digress... and I may have digressed quite a bit during our run this morning. It will be very interesting to see if Kristi runs with me again. Let's hope, for her sake, that the next route doesn't take us past all those places where I did all those things....

Senseless rambling aside, we actually had a really great run. I can't speak for Kristi, but the 14 miles was over before I knew it and I felt good for the whole run. For the most part we got progressively faster as the run went on, which is really saying something when you look at the elevation profile. The out-and-back course was largely downhill going out, and uphill coming back. Our last mile was our strongest, at a blazing (for me) 9:24 pace.

(click to see larger image)

As always, it was a pleasure to be part of the Stash group - their camaraderie, encouragement, and helpful advice break up the monotony of the long miles. Our fearless leader, Frank, has run over 100 marathons in his life and we are so fortunate to have access to his wisdom and experience. And today he was wearing these really cool funky purple shorts and you just know that in logging however many thousands of miles he's logged (no doubt, tens of thousands), he has enjoyed every step and maintained a sense of humor. I want to be like Frank when I grow up!

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Now, before I forget, I do have a race report to write this weekend. Yesterday I ran the Limestone Rocket Run 5k in Bartonville, IL. I have told you all many times that I simply cannot run a race without racing. Well, as it turns out, I was wrong. I managed to not race yesterday, and you know what? It was liberating! That's not to say that I jogged it at a super-easy pace. I found a sort of middle ground - a pace that was not 5k race effort, but not easy-peasy either. In the end, I finished in 28:13 (a 9:05 pace) and felt pretty good. But let's talk about the actual race details...

This was the 11th running of this particular race, and it showed. It was well-organized from start to finish, and the swag was excellent. Our race packets included a nice non-white t-shirt (cotton, yes, but still, at least it's not white), and lots of samples of things like cereal, BioFreeze, and bandaids. Pretty decent for a small-town race (there were about 230 participants). The race was not chip-timed, but in an event this small, chip timing is probably not worth the expense.

When we arrived to the start location, we noticed the sky was looking rather ominous. And by ominous, I mean terrifying:


And yes, it rained. I got decently soaked for the first mile or so, and then I looked up at the sky and saw a beautiful full-arc rainbow. I think if I had been racing hard, I might not have even noticed the rainbow.

The crowd support was surprisingly strong - the local high school had their cheerleaders, sports teams, and marching band in various spots along the course to keep us pumped up. I got running high-fives from the entire girls' volleyball team - they were particularly enthusiastic.

The course consisted of a lot of rolling hills. Nothing terribly long or steep, although the finish line was essentially at the top of a hill. This made a finishing kick rather difficult.

The post-race refreshments were very impressive. The spread was larger than you might find in some buffet restaurants. There were pizza, bagels, cookies, bananas, watermelon, oranges, Twinkies, smoothies, and more. It was a veritable smorgasbord of post-run treats.


I did not partake of the pizza, nor did I taste a Twinkie, but I did welcome the watermelon (it was even seedless!) and chew on a chocolate chip cookie. (Do ya like my creative use of alliteration there?)

There were dozens of door prizes, which were given away randomly to race participants by bib number. And the race trophies were impressive too. Several of my friends earned age group trophies - and to them I say "Congrats!"

All in all, a very nice race - well-organized, fun to run, with lots of great goodies. I will definitely be back next year. I placed 5th in my age group this year - maybe if I really try to race it next year, I can take home one of those awesome trophies.

Peace. Love. Train.

Save the Flying Pigs!!!

Yesterday, I was driving merrily to FAST, whistling to myself and thinking happy little running thoughts, when I drove by a sign that made me do a double-take. I was so alarmed by what I saw, in fact, that I drove back around the block so that I could get a really good look at the sign and make sure I saw what I thought I saw. My more sensitive readers may need to look away now, as what you are about to see is not for the faint of heart:


I don't know about you, but I am shocked and outraged. Flying pigs are obviously an endangered species (when's the last time you saw one in the wild???) and they need to be protected! I hope that you'll join me in the fight to save the flying pigs. Together, we can make a difference and stop the senseless slaughter of the beautiful and majestic winged pig (latin name, porkus aviaris).

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, we can return to running-related topics. *whistles happily again*

With Coach Brad on vacation this week, us FASTies are under the complete control of Coach Maggie. After the workout she had us do last night, I have come to realize that this is a very scary thing. *shudders at the memory*

It was another hot and humid evening in central Illinois, and instead of running in the relatively comfortable shade of the cemetery, that crazy woman had us doing ladder repeats on the track! Where there's no shade! NONE!

Here's the workout in a nutshell: 2 mile warmup (at least that was shady), then repeats as follows - 2000m, 1600m, 1200m, 1000m, 800m, and 400m, each one increasing in speed, with about 3 minutes rest between each.


As you can see from the graph, I did a most excellent job of increasing my speed with each interval. It helped that Coach Maggie told me (and all the other marathoners) to run the first two repeats at about marathon pace. Well, for me, marathon pace is really not much faster than warmup pace, so those repeats were no big deal. Except for the scorching sun and stifling humidity. But I digress. Once I got into the shorter repeats and started picking up my pace, things got harder. The 2-3 minute rests between each interval definitely helped, but still... it was a brutal workout. After I finished my 400m interval, I came startlingly close to inheriting the Puke Crown. Actually, several of us had near-ralphing experiences last night. The combination of the sun beating down on us, the heat and the humidity, and our skyrocketing heart rates made our stomachs feel like they were full of lead. But since nobody actually threw up, Niki is still the proud owner of the not-so-highly-coveted Puke Crown.

But maybe if she brought a bucket of pig wings to pass around before the next FAST run, she could easily get rid of the crown. Just sayin'...

Peace. Love. Train.