Weekend Fun + Week 1 Recap

6/6/11
7 miles tempo / 1:01 / 8:43 avg pace
1 mile easy, 5 miles at 8:35 (MP), 1 mile easy

Date day/night with Hawk was fun.  First up was a stop at Kelly Drive.

Yes, I really am this un-tan.  It’s not the camera flash.

Mr. Hawk seemed to enjoy himself.

Next we strolled around Philly and got some drinks.  Guess who we bumped into?  Mayor Nutter (a.k.a., mayor of Philly)!  He was checking out a menu with 2 other people (staff?).  Matt and I were across the street and one of his staff noticed I was holding my camera and waived us over for a picture.  Mayor Nutter is always present at all the Philly races so it was nice to meet him in person.  Of course, Hawk got in on the picture.

The rest of the day went unpictured:  dinner, trying to find a patch of grass for Hawk to use as a toilet, sleeping in, and brunch (pancakes for me, french toast for Matt).

Lehigh Valley Marathon – Week 1 Recap
MON:  5K + 1.5 mi warm-up
TUE:  8 mi tempo
WED:  rest
THU:  8 mi easy
FRI:  5.4 mi easy
SAT:  13 mi long
SUN:  rest

A total of 39 miles for the week.  Overall, I’m happy with how the week went.  I got some hill training in and did my tempo run on a trail.  I also like how I’m starting out at 39 miles, considering last cycle I maxed out at 43 miles 🙂  Fun, fun!

How was your weekend?  Any good races or training runs?  Are you tapering or just starting up like me?

Birthday Cake and 18 Miles

2/6/11

18 miles

Sorry peeps, I don’t have split times and an average pace for you today.  I had a Garmin malfunction, caused by me.  The wind was blowing my earphones out of my ears (good times) and around mile 3 I stopped and readjusted my iPod.  I stopped my Garmin and then never started it again.  Thankfully, I’m obsessed with watching my pace and noticed that the numbers weren’t moving about a mile later.  It could have been worse (devastating, I know).  I think my average pace was around 9:20…at least that’s what the Garmin kept saying throughout my run.  Since I ran 17 and 20 miles the last 2 weekends at Kelly Drive, I estimated where the turnaround would be for 18 miles.  Not a bad run, MUCH better than last week, only had to slow to a crawl for a few icy spots.

Onto more fun things!  Last night my family got together to celebrate the February birthdays.  We celebrate early since my snowbird parents head to the Florida Keys in mid-February.  Usually it’s my birthday (2/9), my mom (2/24), and my nieces Catherine (2/28) and Sarah (3/9) but we have an addition this year…Hawk!  Our buddy turns 1 on 2/23!   After dinner we headed back to our house for cake and ice cream.  The delicious cake from Bredenbeck’s (seriously this cake is amazing, if you need a cake in the Philly area go here!)…

"Happy Birthday Hawk and Others"

Yes, that’s what the cake said.  When I called Bredenbeck’s I warned the woman that I was going to ask for something different to be written on the cake.  Apparently they get strange requests all the time.  So this is perfectly normal.

Some more pics…

Yeah February Birthdays!

Hawk sniffs the cake to make sure it's OK

Hawk is clearly over the cake and would rather play with his toys.

“The Others” also enjoyed the cake.  In fact, we have leftovers and I think cake would be the perfect post-run fuel right about now…

PS – I’m on Twitter!  And I have no idea what I’m doing!  If you are a twitter-er (tweeter?), please follow me!

The First 20

1/29/11

20 miles

3:04

9:12 avg pace

I was looking forward to this run all week, mostly because I had a goal…to run sub-9:00 min miles.  I knew I could do it.  But Mother Nature didn’t cooperate.  I headed to my go-to place, Kelly Drive, which is always plowed.  Turns out it wasn’t so plowed.  I guess there was just too much snow for them to keep up with it.  They were actually plowing as I ran but the bottom 2 inches were just ice/snow/slush that remained on the ground.  Waaaaaah!

So this is how the run went:  run fast, hit snow, run slow, run fast (yeah! no snow), hit snow, slow down ($%&^!).  I included my splits below and you can see I was all over the place.

I know I’m being hard on myself – 9:12 avg pace is pretty good for all that snow.  I keep reminding myself that I’m only in the 4th week of training and I have many, many long runs ahead of me 🙂

Splits:
M1 – 9:58
M2 – 9:14
M3 – 9:01
M4 – 9:14
M5 – 9:03

M6 – 9:08
M7 – 9:08
M8 – 9:11
M9 – 9:07
M10 – 9:14
M11 – 9:07
M12 – 9:18
M13 – 8:58

M14 – 9:31
M15 – 9:09
M16 – 8:44
M17 – 9:00
M18 – 9:29
M19 – 9:30
M20 – 9:45

Some pics from today’s run:

Pretty, but awful to run on

Boathouse Row

Well hello Rocky!

Tonight is date night and Matt and I are heading to dinner.  Can’t wait for much needed beer and a good meal (with dessert)!