Year in Review – 2012 Resolutions

It’s that time of year again when I look back at my last year’s resolutions to see how I did. 2012 was a pretty good year for me. Several things that I had hoped to happen came to pass and a couple things I didn’t expect also occurred. I had goals in the area of running, decluttering, and social and I feel that I did a pretty good job in all three.

Me, right after finishing the Seattle Half in November

First, my running goals were as follows:

• I have two running goals. The first is to PR in a half-marathon this year. If I’m healthy, this shouldn’t be too hard. I hurt my knee five miles into the race and hobbled along the rest of the way. Ideally, I would like to break 2 hours, 30 minutes, but anything shorter that the 2:55 I did would make me happy.

• The second is to run a total of 500 miles for the year, which is an average of about 10 miles a week (taking into consideration recovery time after races.) Last year, I ran a little over 200 miles, but my training was very inconsistent and I took long breaks. I’m hoping having this goal will help me stick to my training schedule.

I ran a total of four races this year: one 10K, one 5K, and two half marathons. I first did the Rock and Roll Half in June and finished with a time of 02:46:41. I was hoping for 2:40 but fell a little short of that. It was a good race, though, but I don’t think I will do it again this year.

The Seattle Marathon 10K was at the end of August. My summer training was not consistent, so I didn’t have high hopes for this race. However, instead of running a fast race, I ran a smart race and still ended up doing better than I had expected. I finished the 6.2 miles in 1:10:44 and I was happy with that.

This is a group I regularly run with just before the Dawg Dash in October. Toby and I are on the far right.

The Dawg Dash 5K doesn’t really count as the main reason I did this one was to run a race with my dog Toby. He did a great job on his little legs and seemed to have fun with it. I walked briskly and he jogged/walked most of it. We ran across the finish line together in a time of 48:51 – not a great finishing time, but that didn’t matter.

Finally, I did the Seattle Half-Marathon in November. What a difference from last year! Last year’s weather was horrid – spitting rain, brisk winds from the wet and cold temps. This year, though, was much better. It was still cool at race time – only about 40 degrees, but there was a bit of fog to keep the humidity up, no wind, and as the fog burned off, a bit of late fall sunshine. For me, this was perfect weather for a race. I ran my best half time yet with 2:42:12. I was really happy with this time as the fall had been rough at work and my training had suffered for it. So, I may not have made my goal of 2:30, but I did consistently PR in each race I did.

The second goal, logging 500 miles, was also very close. Instead of just running, I decided to include all the walking miles that I did when taking Toby out for his training. We’d do at least a mile almost every day this summer. So, even though I may not have been running, he kept me consistent in getting out and moving. The fall was much tougher to get consistent runs in with the added load at work. I have a hard time getting out of school before dark, so my fall running numbers were much lower than they should have been.. My total mileage for the year was 409.84, according to my MapMyRun page. I’m pleased with that.

My household goal was:

• My household based goal is to work on purging a lot of the stuff I have and don’t need. When I moved from NYC, I took a lot of stuff that I thought I needed. Turns out, after four years in storage, I realize that I don’t need a lot of it. Also, with my Kindle, a lot of the books I have I don’t really need anymore. So the Goodwill and Half Price Books will be my friends this year as I try to pare down the stuff I have accumulated.

I had actually sort of forgotten about this goal, but managed to complete it anyway. Over the spring and summer, I’d grab a box of stuff, take it into the living room, put on a DVD or Netflix (Battlestar Galactica anyone?), and sort through the box. I got rid of a lot of stuff that I had accumulated over the years. I found a box full of old Playbills from Broadway shows I’d seen, cards that no longer had any emotional significance, and a lot of other stuff I really had no need for. I made trip to the Goodwill and currently have a large tub of books to take to Half Price Books. I’m not done with this decluttering, but I made great progress this year.

My social goal:

• Finally, I want to be more social. I know this is the same as last year, but I don’t feel I did a great job at it. I’ve started branching out and moving closer to the city has helped.  I’ve made friends through running and I would like to get involved in some other activities that can only help.

Again, I kind of forgot that I had made this goal, but managed to do it anyway. Sometime last spring, a colleague of mine invited me to her house for an after school gathering. I started to get to know some of my other colleagues outside of school. The group regularly met for a Friday night happy hour at a local ale house and I was invited to attend. Over the summer, a friend decided to move and I was invited to her going away party. This fall, I have had social engagements several times a month, from a girls’ night out in Ballard to a cookie party for the holidays. I even hosted my own pre-Christmas gathering which was quite successful. So, I finally have a social life again and I’m very pleased!

So, the year was a success in terms of my goals. In my next post, I’ll post my new goals for 2013!

Six weeks to go

Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon Finisher (Photo credit: anthony_goto)

I realized this morning that I will be running my next half marathon in six weeks. In some ways, that seems like a lot of time. In others, it’s just around the corner. I admit, I’m not where I’d like to be heading into this race. At this point, I hoped to be a little more consistent with my workouts and be able to handle a little further without walking. But, life happens.

After my last half in November, I ended up taking pretty much all of December off. I hurt my IT band during the race, but was determined to finish. I did complete the race, but it took awhile for my legs to recover from it. I spent the end of December visiting my sister out in New Jersey, so there was no workout then. It didn’t help that while in NJ, I got a sinus infection that lingered for quite a while. So, in January, I had to start from scratch and build up my endurance again.

I did, however, find away to force a workout into my schedule and get paid to do it. My school offers an after school program which is open to all students. Teachers can suggest activities that they would be willing to read. I offered to do a Run and Read class. No, we don’t read while running. We spend the first half hour or so running in the neighborhood around the school. After snack (which is supplied by Seattle Parks and Rec), we head back to my classroom and spend the rest of the time reading. It’s a great way to get one of my shorter, easy runs in and I get a little extra money to do it.

I’ve been working with the Seattle Green Lake Running Group since August and that’s who I do my long runs with. I was supposed to do a 7 mile run yesterday, but woke up with a really sore throat. I made it out by myself today, but only managed one lap around the lake (~3 miles) before my breathing became so labored I thought I was going to pass out. Next week we’re up to 8 miles, so hopefully this throat thing will be gone by then and I’ll be able to run. Because in only 48 days, I’ll be running 13.1 through downtown Seattle and I really hope I’m ready.

Related articles

• Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon will start and finish at Seattle Center (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

The Finish Line

One week ago today, I ran my first half-marathon. It was quite a journey and it’s taken me until now to really get my head around it and to recover from it.

My running journey started in March. I began a Couch to 5K running program on the treadmill at my mom’s condo.  It wasn’t a very inspiring view (the parking lot) and not very exciting, but I went from being able to run about two minutes straight to 30 minutes.

Around this time, I went out to lunch with some colleagues during a professional development day. One of the women was trying to get together a group to participate in the Seattle Half or Full Marathon in November. In March, November seems a really long way off. So, I let her talk me into it. Throughout the remainder of the school year, we would try to get together once a week (barring meetings and other events) and go running around the school neighborhood.

Over the summer, though, we were on our own. I spent a chunk of my summer out in New Jersey and several surrounding states. I tried to get as much running in there as I could. I remember one morning I got up just before the sun rose and did 4 miles. It was already 73 degrees with about 75% humidity. Had I gone any later I wouldn’t have made it.  The temperatures only went up the rest of my time out there, so my running suffered.

Returning home, I met up with a great group of people in the Seattle Green Lake Running Group. I got up every Saturday morning and was out running around Green Lake and beyond. There were several of us gearing up for the Half marathon, so it was great to have others to work out with.

Last Sunday was the race. Before this, I’d run one race – the 10K Dawg Dash on the UW campus. It had gone well and was a good ramp up for the half marathon. However, I was much more nervous for the Half due to the sheer length of the race.

I woke up that morning at 4:30 and took my dog out. Breakfast consisted of leftover scones from Thanksgiving and some Cranberry Apple Butter. I washed it down with a cup of coffee. The temperature was much warmer that morning than I expected and much warmer than I had run in the past few weeks. I removed one of the layers I planned to wear and I’m glad I did.

I caught the 5:45 bus downtown and got to the Seattle Center around 6:25. After a quick trip to the restroom, I swung by the bag check and dropped off my extra (warm) clothes, and went to meet up with the Green Lakers.

The race began at 7:30. I started near the 2:30 pace person – I figured that was ambitious, but there was no 2:45 and 3:00 was too long. It was cool and raining lightly when we began. It took almost 5 minutes to make it across the start line – thank goodness for the timing chips! We ran down 5th Avenue. It cracked me up how everyone would yell and wave each time the Monorail went overhead.

The first five miles of the race was fantastic. I felt great, I was running well, and I was happy. Somewhere around mile 5.5 or 6, though, my knee started bothering me.  This had happened once before on one of my last long runs before the race. I walked for a few minutes, felt better, and started up again. I repeated this for most of miles 6 through 9. Somewhere in there, the 2:30 pace person passed me and disappeared into the distance.  Mile 9-12 were excruciating. I was in more pain and ended up walking almost all of those miles. It was the hilly part of the course, so I wasn’t alone.

Around mile 10, we exited the Arboretum area and it felt like we were hit by a wall of weather. Previously, we’d been pretty sheltered along Lake Washington, but as we turned that corner, everything changed. The wind had picked up significantly and it was raining harder.  I kept up my brisk walking pace until mile 12. At that point, I figured I only had 1.1 miles left, so I didn’t really have to save anything. I picked up the pace, doing more running than walking for the last part. I entered the stadium running. Just in front of me was a guy that I had passed several times (who in turn, had passed me). I was determined to beat him, so I gave everything I had for the last 200 yards. I crossed the finish line at 3:00:17 (clock time) and finished ahead of my nemesis.

I don’t really remember a lot about what happened next. I remember getting my medal. I remember almost falling over when I tried to lift my bad leg up onto the basket so the volunteer could remove my chip. I remember struggling to get the silly space blanket on my shoulders.  I wandered along with the rest of the crowd who headed into the recovery area. I drank some water and some chocolate milk. I sat down until I felt well enough to carry on. On my way to bag check to pick up my stuff, I heard the announcer say that the marathon leader was about to enter the stadium. I went to the railing and watched as the guy ran across the line. He’d started 45 minutes after me, ran twice as far as I did, and finished less than 20 minutes after me. Oh well, I was still happy with finishing.

My official time was 2:55:13. The most frustrating part of the whole thing was that except for my knee, I felt great. I felt strong, well hydrated, and ready to run. I just wonder what I could have done if I hadn’t been hurt. Oh well, there’s always the next race!