Massacre Marathon Relay

Running, spending time with friends, and dressing up in festive attire are all high on my list of favorite things to do, so it's no surprise that I'm a huge fan of relays.  Fortunately my friends are like-minded, and were on board with ordering the somewhat-overpriced-but-totally-worth-it holiday sweater tech shirts, so we felt confident in (at the very least) being the best dressed team out there!

Speed-wise, I wasn't really sure what I could expect of myself.  I threw a faster-than-jogging mile and some 400s into a run on Wednesday to test out the knee, and thankfully had no pain, but hadn't done any speed work or tempo running since my injury in December so even those short efforts felt incredibly hard.  I do think the cycling has helped me avoid getting completely out of shape, but I'm definitely lacking running fitness and had no idea how the 1.6 mile intervals would go.

Fortunately, I have very fast teammates, so I figured they'd give me a big lead and I wouldn't have to worry about it too much.  Last year we were edged out by four cross country girls, who, thanks to their homemade shirts, we referred to as the Puffy Paints.  Sure enough, the puffy paints were back, and we were determined to take them down this year.  Allie started us off with leg 1, which is a little longer than the others at just over 2 miles (to get the total to an even 26.2), and to my surprise, puffy paint #1 came in a few seconds ahead of her.  Allie is crazy fast, so that was not a good sign, and I hoped that, like us, they'd put their speediest woman first.  Caren ran leg 2, and kept even with her puffy paint girl, so I started leg 3 a few seconds behind.  As expected, they'd put their slowest runner in 3rd position as well, and to my pleasant surprise, I found that I was actually running faster than she was!  The first part of the course includes a relatively big uphill, some flats, and then another uphill section.  The great part about the course layout is that the corresponding downhill is at the end of the loop, so you can see the finish as you come out of the woods it's all downhill from there.  I was happy to hand off to Ellen showing an average pace under 7 on my watch, and even happier to have put a few seconds on the puffy paints.  

The remaining laps went by in similar fashion, with Allie, Caren, and Ellen pretty evenly paired with the fast xc girls and blasting laps at near 6-minute pace.  Though I was by far the slowest runner on our team, I was able to put additional time on Puffy Paint #3, who was finishing each lap in about 12 minutes while I kept it close to 11.  By lap 3, I felt that our lead was safe, but was inspired by my super fast teammates to not slack off too much, and was thrilled to average under 7 minute miles for all 4 laps.  Happily, redemption was ours, and we finished as the first women's team (5th overall) in 2:48:33. 

Victory!

Overall, I was really pleased with how the race went.  I didn't think I'd be able to run sub-7 but my body is responding to returning to running pretty well.  I am not where I had hoped to be and have a lot of work to do, but the last couple of weeks have me feeling pretty optimistic.  When we did this race last year, I had a lot going on and was preparing to fly home to visit my mom in the hospital, so it was a very emotional time and I didn't really race well, but I decided to compare this year's splits to 2013.  While I expected this year to be quite a bit slower, my splits for laps 1 and 3 were actually exactly the same, and 2 and 4 were faster this year!  I'm definitely taking that as reason to be optimistic, and hope that all is not lost for my spring racing season after all!

2014 Splits

Lap 1: 10:55 (6:49; 2013: 10:55)

Lap 2: 10:48 (6:45; 2013: 10:57)

Lap 3: 11:02 (6:54; 2013: 11:02)

Lap 4: 11:06 (6:56; 2013: 11:17)

Big thanks to my awesome friends/teammates for being supportive and encouraging through everything! 

Ragnar DC

The entire Ragnar DC experience with #TeamShittens was so amazing that writing about it actually seems daunting, so here's the short version... 

Ragnar DC in photos...

It was my birthday weekend, so in addition to having an entire case of Shittens courtesy of our sponsor, I was also gifted with many sweet gifts, including this amazing mug

I was also given some birthday bling and a cupcake headband, and this fabulous Shittens high-five turnnel 

#TeamShittens!
(Official name: "We're just here for fun... and to win)
I couldn't have asked for a more fun group of women to spend the weekend with!

We may have used a lot of energy jumping, but it all worked out in the end

In between photoshoots, jumping, and handing out Shittens, there was also some running.
Leg 1: 5 miles, 8:28 pace. Only moderately hilly, but I do not know how to handle single track!  I think it would have been beautiful, but I was too concerned with my footing on the rocky, rooty trail to be able to enjoy the view.  I would have liked to go faster, but only 2 guys out of our start wave finished ahead of me, and despite 137 ankle rolls, I came out unscathed, so I counted it as a win.
Leg 2: 4.6 miles, 7:12 pace. Night run through the middle of nowhere.
Leg 3: 4.2 miles, 7:29 pace.  Perfect morning running weather, passed a few more people, and held a fairly decent pace without vomiting or needing the Shittens despite some overnight GI issues (shared by several of us, so I think the dinner stop in West Virginia was probably unwise).  But as the team mantra went... everything was fine, nothing was f@#%ed.

Entertaining ourselves at exchange 12

The Shitten-mobile

Hand off from Jennifer to start Leg 2

Exchange 24 photo booth... who needs sleep?

Love my running BFFs!

We started at noon, with only about a dozen teams in later waves.  The rest of the field went out in waves starting at 5:30am, so some had a pretty sizable head start and the majority of the race was in front of us. Combined with Van 2, our team passed over 200 runners!

Team finish!

"We're Just Here for Fun... And to Win"
Done, and done!

This was definitely an amazing way to spend my birthday, and I am so thankful to have had such a fun, fast, and fabulous team!  In addition to having a really great time, we won the team spirit award and won the women's open division by nearly 3 hours while finishing 11th overall out of about 300 teams.  #TeamShittensFTW!

Rockin Marathon Relay RTP

This morning I had the pleasure of running a marathon relay with Ellen, Allie, and Sarah.  I haven't done much faster-than-marathon-pace running in a while, and the few attempts to do so since Boston have fallen pretty flat, so I wasn't sure what I could expect of myself.  The race was supposed to be run on roads in RTP, and I thought staying sub-7 seemed like a pretty reasonable goal.  A last minute course change brought the race to WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, and the loop was now a very hilly one on the cross-country course.  Though not excited about the change, there wasn't much I could do about it, so off to Cary we went...

We arrived at the race and there was plenty of parking, check in was a breeze, and there was more than enough room to set up our gear... I do appreciate the easy logistics of running a super small race!  After a short briefing, the race was underway.  The first lap was supposed to be 0.2 miles shorter than the rest (after which each lap was 1.65) to get an even 26.2, but the race started about 200 meters in front of the finish line, so I would guess it was a little long.  Allie took the lead leg because she had to take Z to tea with Miss America (isn't that what everyone does on a Saturday?), and came through in first overall right behind the lead bike.  Sarah ran the second leg and kept our lead, and so I was actually the lead runner until the guy on the team that would eventually win passed me about a quarter mile in.  I tried to stay with him as he went by, but redlined and pretty quickly realized that was a horrible idea.  After a flat/downhill section through a field we came to the trail and hit the steepest of the hills.  I passed some runners here already, which shows how fast our first two runners were!  After that it's pretty much rolling until coming back into the field, which is a .4 mile incline to the exchange zone.  I was definitely not a fan of the long, gradual uphill finish!  I managed to (barely) keep it under 7 minute mile pace, but it wasn't particularly fun!  Given our big lead over any other women's teams, I ran the next laps more like a tempo run than a race, so that really made it a lot easier and more enjoyable!  My pace for the last 3 laps averaged 7:10-7:08-7:02, so not setting any speed records and once again played the role of the team turtle, but it is what it is.  

We ended up finishing in 2:58:03 (turns out the mid-race team photo put us over 2:57!), good for 2nd overall and 1st among women's teams.  Our prizes: a very fancy medal (not really), frosted beer mug (which the victorious men's team was nice enough to fill with beer for us), and a box of Balance bars.  More importantly, of course, I got to spend the morning with my friends, who entertained everyone with a stellar rendition of Living on a Prayer (complete with dance moves). 

Now that my calendar is clear of marathons for a while, I am hoping to run more short stuff and incorporate more speed work and tempo miles in hopes of getting faster.  I may just not be built for speed, but I am at least willing to give it a shot... time will tell... 

Splits:
Lap 1: 11:22 (6:56)
Lap 2: 11:45 (7:10)
Lap 3: 11:42 (7:08)
Lap 4: 11:36 (7:02)

Hood to Coast Relay

Hood to Coast was my first long relay, and I have to say it was even more fun than I expected (despite the sleep deprivation)!  

The short version:

Leg 1: 6.96 miles, 49:24, 7:04 pace

Leg 2: 5.00 miles, 35:03, 6:59 pace (last mile in 6:52, yeah!)

Leg 3: 7.72 miles, 59:03, 7:40 pace

Team finish: 28:05:21, 8:25 average pace, 49/362 mixed open division, 238/1070 overall

More details after the jump!