I love meeting people while running. Sometimes people run past you and just say hi or good job and sometimes they will chat with you. I have personally found that trail and ultra runners tend to be a bit more laid back and more open to a quick chat while in the middle of a race.
So while Elaine and I were in Waterhole Canyon after the 28.5 Aid Station, we found ourselves in a bit of an obstacle course. There were several ladders that we had to climb to get up and over some of the cliffs. At one point, we were right behind this guy….and after he got over the ladder, Elaine went right after him…well, it wasn’t the easiest ladder to get up and over so while he was still there, she asked him to help her up. He was very nice and helped her…and I needed help too. I remember hearing him say something about “your hat” and “your shoes” but I was concentrating on not falling off the ladder.
One of the ladders we had to go over. (picture courtesy of http://www.runningwithoutlimits.com/antelope-canyon-50k-not-always-what-you-expect/)
We ran a bit together and Elaine asked him, “Why did you mention the hat and shoes? Are you an Altra Ambassador?” (Elaine had her Altra hat and I had my favorite Altra Lone Peaks shoes). He was pretty humble about it and said…well, I’m actually the co-founder, Jeremy Howlett. Whoa! How cool was this? As a running coach, I’m not one to be tied to a particular brand of shoes but if there is one brand that I tend to use the most, it’s Altras. I was so excited to have a chance to meet him! I told him I was a ChiRunning Instructor (we tend to like Altras because they a natural shoe for your foot: Zero Drop™, wide toe box) and how much I love the shoes. He said he knew Danny Dreyer (the founder of ChiRunning) and mentioned what a great guy he was and how supportive he is of the shoes as well.
Met Jeremy Howlett, the co-founder of Altra shoes 😉
We chit chatted with him for awhile and then started running again. We leap frogged with him a few times and then we lost each other.
I met a few other cool people that I’ll be blogging about. I’m very grateful for my Altra shoes and so glad I had the chance to run and chat with Jeremy!
My current Altras: 1 pair of trail shoes, 1 hybrid and 1 road shoe
My friends love their Altras too!
For any of my local peeps that like to support our local shoe stores, you can find them at I-Run and Sole Sports!
(I am not an Ambassador for Altras….yet…might have to look into it though!)
I normally don’t like to post videos that are over a few minutes but I was doing a speech project for my Toastmasters club so I figured I’d make it into a blog post too. Toastmasters is one of my other passions. I’m already a Distinguished Toastmaster and I’m working on my 2nd one now. This speech was from the Advanced Manual, The Entertaining Speaker and it was Project #4 which is The Dramatic Talk (scroll to project 4 if you click on link). My objectives for the speech were:
Project 4 – A Dramatic Talk Dramatic stories are another way to entertain an audience. Through drama you create images in listeners’ minds, which enhance and add interest to your message. Vocal variety is critical in a dramatic talk. Vary the volume, pitch and rate of your words. Also convey drama through your body language and facial expressions. Make sure your voice and body language reinforce, not dominate, your verbal message.
Objectives
Develop an entertaining dramatic talk about an experience or incident
Include vivid imagery, characters and dialogue
Deliver the talk in an entertaining manner
Time: five to seven minutes (I did 6-8 min)
You may have to turn up the volume as I didn’t have a microphone. The “script” is below if you want to read it instead.
I realized when I was running this morning that today is the 20th of March and it’s been 30 days since my race! I’m obviously not writing a blog a day but my goal is still 50 blog posts for the 50 miles.
Introduction: Lisa Pozzoni is delivering a speech from the Advanced Manual: The Entertaining Speaker. This is Project 4: A Dramatic Talk. Her objectives are to develop an entertaining dramatic talk about a personal experience. She is to include vivid imagery, characters and dialogue while delivering the talk in an entertaining manner.
Lisa has been a Toastmaster since 2004. She has already achieved the highest level of Toastmasters: Distinguished Toastmaster and is working on her second one.
Lisa is a running coach, the owner of The Running University and the only ChiRunning Instructor in Arizona. Her passion is to help people cross finish lines they never thought possible.
Please help me welcome, Lisa Pozzoni, The Sands Of Time
Speech: It’s 4:30 am on Saturday, February 20th 2016. I’m in a hotel room in Page, AZ. I wake up super excited! It’s the day after my 45th birthday and a day I’ve been waiting for 5 months!
I’m sitting in the “library”, doing what most of us do: phone in hand, checking facebook and emails. I know my friend Elaine is also up at this point so I send her this text (SLIDE ).
An hour and half later, at 6am, we find ourselves at the start line with 200+ other crazy ultra marathon runners getting ready to run 50 miles. This is Elaine’s 2nd 50 miler and my first!
The air horn goes off and we have 15 hours to complete our mission. Plenty of time! I just did half that distance a few weeks before in 5.5 hours. (SLIDE) But we also have cutoffs to meet at specific aid stations. If we don’t meet them, we are disqualified. And then add about 40 miles of sand to run through but we trained for that …we got this!
Our first challenge was to get to the first aid station cutoff. We had 3 hours and 15 minutes to get through 11.5 miles of sand. Not only was there sand though, (SLIDE) we had the privilege of running through Lower and Upper Antelope Canyon, one of the most photographed canyons in the world! We stayed focused while taking in the amazing scenery and kept running…BAM first cutoff made with 30 minutes to spare!
Our next challenge was to be at the 28.5 mile aid station by 2:40. We knew we would have no problem….well, until we got to the hardest part of the run. (SLIDE ) You’d think the sand was the issue (not that it wasn’t) but all of the sudden we are on at Horseshoe Bend and climbing up and down cliffs. I was literally channeling my inner Spider Woman and was on all fours a lot! At some points we are about 5-6 feet away from the huge canyon drop off (SLIDE) (I’m terrified of heights). We kept waiting to see the road as we knew that would be the aid station but it felt like a scene from Groundhog day. Up and over a cliff and the same exact scenery. We were climbing and not running which slowed us down. We finally could see the road but we were cutting it SO close! We got to that aid station at 2:29 BAM (high five), next cutoff made with 11 minutes to spare! We quickly grabbed some stuff and moved on.
Oh no! Here we go again as we approach Waterhole Canyon. We arrive to the trail with a small danger sign right before it….takes a sharp right turn, then straight down…. I slowly creeped down on my butt the whole time until I reached the bottom. We went through a beautiful canyon and approached several ladders that we knew would be there. OK getting up them but thankfully had some help getting us up and over. We lost some GPS signal and my TomTom died. (SLIDE ) We had no idea how far we were from the next aid station but we were cutting it really close again. …we kept pushing each other until we could see the aid station from far away.
We got to the next cutoff at 4:04pm BAM (high five), next cutoff made with with 6 minutes to spare . I gave my hydration pack to my boyfriend to fill it, got my snacks, and started heading out when I realized I forgot something. I forgot to give my honey a kiss! I run back while Elaine is yelling at me, “the sweeper is going to be leaving any minute…let’s go!” (SLIDE) We started walking real fast up the next sandy hill and kept looking behind us to make sure we stayed in front of the sweeper. We are making the calculations …OK we have to do 5 miles in an hour and 40 minutes. We got this! More sand…we realized we hadn’t seen trail markers in awhile and lo and behold, we passed a turn. We had to back track a bit …and there was the sweeper again…I was literally 50 feet in front of her.
We get to mile 38.5 at 5:40 BAM (high five), next cutoff made with 10 minutes to spare. This was the last cutoff outside of the 15 hours to be done (9pm). We had already agreed that Elaine could go at this point as I’m slower than her and I had a few friends who were going to pace me the rest of the way. We were finally done with the sand and I could get a good running groove going. My pacers were fresh and helped me stay focused.
I asked my friend Lori several times how were doing on time. We were OK but still cutting it close. We get to the very last aid station which is .75 miles away from the finish. The guy very matter of fact says you have 10 minutes until 9pm. No words of encouragement…just the facts.
I scoot down another hill on my butt…it’s dark now and we both have our head lights. Off the hill and there is more sand! WTH?! I start swearing when from far away, I can hear my friend Susan yelling “come on. You have 2 minutes.” I’m seriously like, really? I’ve been galavanting around the desert for the last 15 hours, cutting is so close several times, I was like, whatever…if I make it, I make it! She keeps screaming at us to hurry. I can’t see the finish line as I finish straight up a hill …now they are both screaming at me telling me to hurry…I turn the corner, I can hear the race director on the microphone, saying my name and something about my birthday. I can’t believe I’m sprinting at mile 49! I look up at the clock right before I cross the finish line…
I cross the finish line at 14:59:10….….(SLIDE)
That was my most epic finish at any race! (SLIDE 10) Yep I was the last official person to cross the finish line! In the racing world we call that .. DFL …as a running coach, I say:
Dead F Last is better than Did Not Finish, which trumps Did Not Start.
My boyfriend, my BBE (Best Boyfriend Ever), my running widower, Greg, Gregorio (that’s what my Italian parents call him 😉 )….whatever we call him, he is one of the biggest reasons I am able to do what I do. Continue Reading →
I assume this is a common way to refer to your trail training partners that spend more hours with you on the trail than they do with their actual spouses? I’ve heard the term golf wife so I’m sure it applies. Continue Reading →
Here is a list of my blog posts that I am writing after my first 50 Mile race. It’s combination of what I learned, what I am grateful for and a way for me to keep the memory alive. It was one of the proudest moments of my life! My goal is to have 50 of these 😉
Updated on 7/30/17: I’m realizing this just isn’t going to happen. It was a great idea when I had it but I have other ideas for blogs, etc and too much time has gone by now. I have found that writing blogs works best for me when I feel inspired and too much time has gone by now to continue with this series. I hope you still enjoy these 😉
Another reason for my success was sticking to my training plan. There were a few times that I was not able to stick to the plan but they were few and far between. This was by far, the hardest part of the entire process.
It was not the training that was hard but the amount of time it took. I knew it was going to be a big commitment but when you add the mileage, and add driving back and forth to trail heads, it was a part time job. In addition to the time, it was hard to focus on anything mentally after a few long days of running. My business suffered a bit from it and I spent less time with my boyfriend as well. Thankfully he is very supportive and that will be another blog post 😉 You have no idea how tempted I am right now to sign up for another 50 miler this year while my body/mind are trained! But I know I need to get refocused on my business and I truly need to be patient with the process. I see too many people get too excited and then things start falling apart. I want to keep running for the rest of my life and don’t want to burn my body or mind out!
I followed a training plan from Ultraladies. It’s a cool schedule generator so you plug in the date of your event and it spits out a training plan. I started training for my 2nd 50K and then switched over to the 50 Mile training. Here is my spreadsheet (50K on one sheet and 50 miles on another). My goal was to follow the plan as closely as I could but life gets in the way sometimes. If I couldn’t follow on the specific days, my goal was to try and meet the weekly miles and make sure that I was able to get my back to back long runs in. If you talk to any ultra runner, most of them will tell you that back to back long runs are crucial as it’s the way that you train to run on tired legs.
The other thing to do is make sure to find out the elevation profile of your run and what conditions you will be running in. Everything I read about Antelope Canyon was that it was 40 miles of sand. So I did quite a bit of training in the sand although the sand was coarser in our park washes than the fine sand in Page. I also made it a point to focus on ChiWalking and hiking. The idea was to get as much time on my feet so these helped quite a bit as well.
I was worried that 31 miles was my longest run and I didn’t know what it would feel like to run 20 more on the same day….but it really did come together on race day. My legs were tired but no where near as bad as I thought it would be.
I always tell my runners, you can go out and complete a race with little training, but how do you want to feel during and after? Training is an important part of any race, both mentally and physically.
I found this awhile ago and it cracked me up…if you are an ultra runner, you know you can relate 😉
I’ve heard so many horror stories about people with GI issues when doing long events or having to DNF (Did Not Finish) because of poor nutrition.
I am NOT a registered dietitian or nutritionist but as a trainer, I know what it takes to help people lose weight. I’ve helped many clients achieve weight loss goals via nutrition and exercise. However, I knew that training for endurance event was going to be an entire different situation. I have no background in this area and I’m a big proponent of reaching out to experts to help (I’m always so grateful when runners come into my workshops and know that some more expert advice will help them perform better).
So, I decided to hire a registered dietitian who specialized in endurance events. Brooke Schohl and her husband own Destination Kona (a triathlete store) and I’ve done a few free ChiRunning clinics there. She also owns Fuel To The Finish. I’ll admit it was a bit more money that I would normally spend but that’s how important it was for me to get this right. Again, these posts are not in any particular order but I would say that my nutrition plan up to and during the race was in the top 5 reasons why I was successful.
Before Brooke: She analyzed my diet and most important my macronutrient ratio (fat vs. carbs vs. protein). Right away she noticed that my protein was too low and my carbs were too high. We discussed the Metabolic Efficiency “Diet”…it’s not really a diet but a plan. So my goal was to have 40% fats, 35% carbs and 25% proteins (keep in mind that everyone is different so not recommending this for anyone. Please consider talking to Brooke or someone who is trained in this field). Long story short, I was teaching my body to burn energy more efficiently by using fat rather than the sugars.
Before Brooke…
During training: it was a challenge for me to lower my carbs and grains (I’m Italian, I love my carbs!) and increase my protein. The first few weeks were weird as I had low energy. But once it started kicking in, I couldn’t believe how much more energy I had and how good I felt. She asked me if I wanted to lose weight during the process and I said if I lost a few pounds I would be good with it. I’ve never been this focused on my nutrition (maybe when I lost the 40 lbs a long time ago but I was on a serious mission here) I used My Fitness Pal to log my food daily. Well, I lost about 10 lbs in the process and never felt this good in my life from my nutrition! On long training runs, I was to limit gus and gels and focus on real foods. I did 20+ mile training runs and never had a gu or gel! And felt great!
Example of how I was eating for 3 months…
Race Day: We had a final meeting to discuss my nutrition plan for race day. We picked the foods that I used while training and created the plan for the entire day, eating 150-200 calories every 90 minutes. I felt pretty good about my hydration and salt intake so I was going to listen to my body as I went. One the way up to the race, I had a genius idea to set alarms on my phone to go off every 90 minutes so I didn’t have to worry about reminding myself!
Had my alarms going off every 90 minutes to remind me what time and what to eat based on my plan!
The rule was to follow the plan until the last aid station (one of the reasons I picked this race is I was supposed to get birthday cake at one of the aid stations. Brooke said if it was too early in the day, not to do it as the sugar could mess with me. I was bummed but I never saw the birthday cake or cared). So at the last aid station, it was a freebie and I could do what I wanted. Which I did! I had 8 miles to go and I had a Coke (I don’t drink coke except for trail runs towards the end and it’s always soooo good), bacon and a quesadilla with Nutella! I even broke out with Honey Stinger gels with 4 miles to go as I knew I was close.
I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW MUCH THIS HELPED THROUGHOUT THE DAY! I never bonked or felt sick! I felt good all day and stuck to my plan!
I can’t thank Brooke enough! I’m very grateful I made the investment as I’ve learned a lot more about fueling my body and it helped me have a great race! I highly recommend her!
I think one of the reasons I want to write a post a day for 50 days is because I want to keep reliving this amazing, life changing experience I had! I promised these to be short and sweet. Please note that these are not necessarily in any order although ChiRunning is in the top 5 reasons why I had a successful race. How do I measure my success? Well, not by speed, obviously! I measure success based on how I felt during training, the race and after. Although there are several other factors that contributed to my success, ChiRunning is a HUGE part of it.
It was just last year that I suffered from plantar fasciitis and had to take several months off from running due to overuse and not listening to my body.
I would never even consider doing this race if it weren’t for ChiRunning. If you are a ChiRunner already, you know what I’m talking about. If not, I highly suggest you look into it.
First and foremost, it’s about proper running form. Technique is the key to success with any sport. In ChiRunning, you learn to minimize using your legs to run and use your core and gravity to do the work for you. When you use your legs less, you are less prone to injury and you use less energy which in turn can translate to better recovery time, speed and/or distance.
Most people run upright, overstride in front of them and use their legs way too much! This causes most running injuries and is an inefficient way to move forward.
I had no pain while training and I was averaging 50+ miles a week for awhile. I had no pain during the race at all even though we were in sand most of the time and climbing because I knew how to use my body properly for these (you learn to adapt your technique to the environment you are running in). Of course, I did quite a bit of ChiWalking as well! I’ll admit that the day after my body was a bit sore and I was waddling around but on Monday, I barely felt any soreness. I know this is also due to my conditioning but I know my technique had a lot to do with it.
One of the reasons I love ChiRunning, is that the more you focus on it, the better you become at it. I’m a Master Instructor and have been teaching it for 6 years. I focused heavily on my form on my training runs with my ChiSchool audios and ChiRunning app and have felt a huge improvement in my form and efficiency. I felt great pretty much the whole time during the 50 miler.
ChiRunning is great for beginners wanting to learn to properly the first time around and also elite athletes that are looking at getting better/faster at their sport. As we say, “Practice Makes Progress” and you never know how a little tweak in your arm swing or your head position can negatively impact your running form….and when you are running 50 miles, you want to be as efficient as possible.
ChiRunning just used this comment in one of their facebook posts and I wanted to share: “ChiRunning and Total Immersion share the belief that you are ALWAYS working on your technique, because you can always improve on some level, whether it’s getting more physically fit, focusing your mind, elevating your mood or learning the art of internal stillness in the midst of activity.”
And for the record, ChiRunning has changed my run but more importantly my life in so many ways! I highly recommend checking it out if you are a runner! Imagine the possibilities!
I personally don’t want running to be hard…why would I keep doing it? The easier it is on my mind and body, the more likely I’ll keep doing it and be able to do it!
My 2nd 50K is in the books! I finished the McDowell Mountain Frenzy put on by Aravaipa Running. Not sure where to start but will try and make this as short and sweet as possible. I’ll start in reverse with the Ugly and saved my biggest aha moments for the end…….
The Ugly WARNING: this part contains some material that might gross you out.
The worst part about the whole race which impacted me more than I wanted or expected it to was being on my period (feel free to skip down if you aren’t interested in this 😉 ). Sorry, I know this might be TMI but seriously, this is a real issue for women. I realized too late in the week that it was happening so had no way around it. I don’t eat until I’m hungry when I run in the morning and I can’t take Motrin until I eat so I started out the first few hours dealing with cramping. I hate taking Motrin anyways but knew it would help me. I also couldn’t get control of my heart rate for those first few hours. In addition to dealing with the cramping until I could take some Motrin, I had to deal with no bathrooms. Therefore I had to get off the course so no one would see me. Only women will understand this but I didn’t bring enough products and was torn between not going to the bathroom and holding it OR going and not having a tampon to handle it..this impacted my ability to run so I had to walk more than I wanted to. Lesson #1: Be more prepared.
The Bad
I wasn’t attached to any results for this race as it was a training run but I still wanted to do better than my last one. I finished at 8:19 and my last one was an 8:24. So it’s better but I was really hoping to do it in 7 hours. Issue above impacted me and I’m over it.
I trained on part of this course but couldn’t do the whole thing. I wish I had. Even though I’ve been doing quite a bit of trail running, the 3 mile climb at about mile 20 did me in. I pretty much hiked most of this way and was hoping to catch up on the downhill…I did a bit but it was a rocky downhill and my knees were starting to bug me.
Elevation profile
Lesson #2: Try to run the entire course or talk to more people that have completed it or just be better prepared. ChiRunning: As my knees started bugging me, I realized that I was over striding which was causing the pain. As soon as I realized I was doing this, I immediately shortened my stride and the pain when away.(In ChiRunning you learn what causes pain and how to address it. You become your own detective). Every time I felt myself getting tired uphill, I realized I wasn’t being efficient and I would start using my upper body. This is one of my favorite techniques for ChiRunning hills.
The Good So much to say here and trying to summarize:
Before I left for the race, I had a chance to see many of my good friends, my sister, niece and nephew. I was creating the conditions for Chi to flow by relaxing and doing my body looseners but being surrounded by my family and friends was a great way to start! (They started counting down for the start and I had to rush to the start line…this frazzled me a bit but I tried to get back into my “mode”).
Pre Race photo with some of my friends and sister!
ChiRunning: Make sure you are relaxed before you start and get together mentally and physically. Nervous energy serves no purpose and doesn’t help with relaxing your body.
Shane! He seriously helped me get through several rough spots during the race. He was doing his first 50K. We met earlier this year as his wife used to take boot camps from me at her work. We ran a bit before together in the Javelina Jangover race. We carry a very similar pace so we started together. Unfortunately he had to deal with me griping about my “girlie” issues. We made a deal though. I told him not to wait for me when I had to get off the beaten path to take care of my business. So we ran probably about half the race together in total. We ran the first 6 miles together then we split up…then we found each other at an aid station at mile 12 and ran until I had to go again…then the hardest part of the race came (hilly part) This was the hardest part for me mentally and physically. I was sooo happy to see Shane at the next aid station at mile 22. We fueled up and he carried a great pace downhill and we made up some good time. At the end, my legs were tired and there were some steep up and downhills so he went ahead and finished a bit ahead of me. Lesson #3 Make a deal if you are running with someone on what you are doing. I wouldn’t have wanted him to wait for me as this was his race too. This could go either way..either stay together no matter what happens or decide it’s your own races and it’s OK to separate if necessary. But have no regrets…if you want to finish the race, do it, with or without your friend. These take a lot of training and time and you have take ownership for your race.
Shane and I… nice and fresh at the beginning of the race!
The trail! McDowell Mountains are one of my favorite spots to trail run. I love our Arizona desert. The trail had a lot of variety. ChiRunning: One of the many things I love about ChiRunning is keeping my mind occupied with form focuses. Not only is focusing on my form a good way to be as efficient as possible (and injury-free) but when you have a long way to go, being in the present moment helps time go by. I also love doing a running meditation where I am focusing on each sense one a time for a few minutes. So great to hear, smell, see and feel the desert.
My amazing friends! I could hear people cheering as we approached the finish line. My legs were pretty tired and the last few miles were the technical part of the trail. I told Shane to go ahead! I could hear cheers for him and realized these were my friends! Several of them had done the shorter distances and they waited for HOURS to see me finish! My boyfriend also drove up to see me finish too. The last few hills sucked and I was cursing at this point (well, I had cursed more than once before this point 😉 ). As soon as I crawled over the hill, I could see my friends who were all cheering for me. Elaine was leaning over the fence and handed me a beer….I ran through the finish line, cold beer in hand getting hugs from all my friends. Couldn’t think of a better way to end a race!
Last hill to get to the finish line..really?!
Post Race with my friends!
Grabbed and beer and ran through the finish line! I love how happy I am here! I did it!
I did it!
Other AHA moments:
#NeverSayNever this is my new favorite hashtag. I remember saying I would never do a half marathon! I have discovered the art form of running. I love that I can run short or long distances, on road or trail, etc. There is so much to this sport that people don’t realize. I want to enjoy it for the rest of my life and the possibilities are endless..but always remember, it’s your running story! You choose where you want to take your running journey (and coaxing from friends doesn’t hurt either sometimes!)
I had this thought SEVERAL times….and I signed up for a 50 miler? How the hell am I going to do 20 more miles? As I’ve been told, you just don’t think about this…this is true regardless of distance….I remember wandering this same thing after a half marathon while in preparation for a full marathon…but somehow, and sometimes you just can’t even remember how you do it, you just do it.
Biggest AHA moment: Don’t downplay your mileage! Up until midweek, I kept thinking, “this is just a training run”. I said that to myself and others several times. Maybe I kept saying it so I wouldn’t get nervous and waste energy…or didn’t want to make it a big deal…but dang it, I finished my 2nd 50K and that’s the 2nd longest distance I have ever ran in my life…so yes, it is a big freaking deal! So don’t downplay your mileage (whatever it is) and celebrate that heck out your finish line!
Thanks to Aravaipa for putting on an amazing event as always and all the volunteers!
(P.S. I am raising money for Girls On The Run for my 50 miler. I’m on the Board of Directors of this amazing organization. The 50 mile run is the day after my 45th birthday. I wish I had this program when I was a kid as I would’ve started running much earlier in my life. Running has changed my life and I want to help as many young girls as possible realize their full potential. Any donation is greatly appreciated!)
One of my new favorites!
Life is short! Do It!
From My Running Story to Yours…. (if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)
Just finished Week #12 and excited to be into a taper week! I usually dread taper weeks because I feel like I lose momentum but it’s very important for the body to get rest before a big event (next weekend is the 50K which I first signed up for and has become a “training run” for the 50 Miler.)
My Biggest Struggle: this is a part time job! I’m getting frustrated because I need to get my training runs in and I have several projects that I’m trying to work on for my business. I can’t seem to ever get ahead…as a matter of fact, I keep falling more behind. I had a conversation with my business coach and he told what I already knew: I need to figure out what to give up so I can get my stuff done…not sure I have decided yet but I need my sleep (rest is crucial for my mind and body); I cherish spending time with my boyfriend, family and friends; and I need to get work done! Hoping during this taper week I can get caught up a bit!
Here is what Week #12 looked like: schedule and actual
Week Of
Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Miles
23-Nov
12 CD
0
4
10
6
0
10
8
38
0
5.5
10
3
10
0
6
34.5
Tuesday 11/24: Did 5.5 miles on trail at South Mountain with my friend Vicki. Saw a coyote and a road runner! One of the many things I love about trail running is you get to be closer to nature. Here are some of my pics. Wednesday 11/25: Did 10 trail miles at Papago with my friend Lori. I am enjoying running with different friends! We had fun just exploring around. Thursday 11/26: Thanksgiving morning! Love our annual tradition. It was the Friends 4 Fitness Annual Turkey Trot. So great to see many of my friends that I don’t get to see often! Friday 11/27: Decided it’s time to get a bit more serious about sand training (Antelope Canyon 50 miler apparently has 30 miles of sand!) Elaine, Vicki and I went out to McDowell Mountain and started some sand wash training. Our goal was to do 10 miles in the sand until Elaine mentioned it might be smart to work our way up…AGREED! So we did 4 miles in the sand. I was ChiRunning as much as I could…tried not to use my calf muscles but the sand was pretty deep…happy to say I wasn’t sore the next day so I that’s a good sign! Sunday 11/29: Did a 6 mile trail run with a few other friends (so grateful for all my running friends so we can keep each other motivated!) Today I also took an amazing Restorative Yoga class from my friend Lisa Hecke from Sacred Harts. She does this class on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I’ve done it for the last 3 years. A great way to relax the mind, body and spirit!
No major aha moments (outside of my biggest struggle). I have not been sore, even after the long weekend of running last week. I’m grateful for my ChiRunning form as I know this is THE major reason why I can even attempt 50 miles mentally and physically.
Next Saturday is my 2nd 50K! I’m oddly jazzed up about it mainly just to see how I will do.
