Time for a name change and an update for the MONTH, sorry it's a book!

First post... I decided to change the name of the blog, it's still kind of a mix of my life and posting about my addiction... exercise. I wanted to change it to something that was like my facebook group WE GOT THIS but that wasn't available and then I checked some others that weren't available either. Bummer

May has been a huge month for me and I wanted to post about it so that I can remember everything next year when it comes time to see if I decide to do all of this again. First of all, the weight has FINALLY started dropping off and as you can see by my ticker, I am finally down 19 lbs, 1 lb away from my goal. I actually think I might have made it to my goal but forgot to weigh myself until after the duathlon, I had eaten and had drank about 32 ounces of water by then and I was a half a pound from my goal. I am guessing I will probably be up again tomorrow due to swelling of the muscles and that I will eat a lot today since I burned a lot but either way, I'm almost there!

Indianapolis Mini Marathon
Okay, going to take a step back and write about the Indianapolis Mini Marathon I did on May 7th. This is a huge race as you can see on this photo on the website... http://www.500festival.com/, about 35,000 people participate in this race. I did it last year for the first time and finished in 2 hours and 28 minutes which was awesome considering I had no training and had just been ok'd to run by a foot Dr. and had just been released from a stress fracture. I really enjoyed the race and everything about it (well other than the weather) in 2010, in 2011, not as much. There are SO many people, I felt like I was dodging people the entire time, there were tons of potholes and I almost fell a couple of times. The first time running around the IMS (Indianpolis Motor Speedway) is a great experience and so exciting... you will see people get down and kiss the bricks (the finish line of the race) and people stopping to take it all in and take pictures of themselves on the track.... it's all that the first time, the 2nd time for me, it was the longest, most boring 2.5 miles of your life. After the IMS, you're going into mile 8 (I think), that was where I really started feeling it, my hips were getting sore (along with probably lots of other things). It was pretty cold again this year and started raining, first sprinkling lightly and then it rained pretty hard as I was finishing. I really didn't notice because I was so hot and because I had a visor on and just didn't feel it much on my face. Somewhere around mile 11, I start losing my mind, not remembering what mile I'm on and how much further I have to go, you start losing faith in yourself. I finished in 2 hours and 30 minutes but I finished. I was majorly disappointed with my finish time. Last year being my first time, I really just wanted to finish, this year, I wanted to beat my time and I couldn't believe that with no training last year, I did better. This year, the longest run I had done before this was 6 miles so I wasn't fully prepared and didn't even plan to run it but took my cousin's entry at the last minute. I had ridden downtown with some friends who were very supportive and made me feel so much better that I just finished, 13.1 miles is not easy and props to anyone who does it and finishes it, no matter what your time is!

Then, I had 2 weeks off from a race, of course I continued to workout and was not even really that sore from running the mini, last year was rough!

Geist Half Marathon
On to the Geist Half Marathon, personally, I like this name a lot better than MINI marathon because as Alan said, there is nothing MINI about running 13.1 miles! This one has far fewer participants but still a big race and a HARD race, there are lots of hills on this one. One of my spinning instructors has done the Boston Marathon and has said that this is harder than Boston. I still find that hard to believe it's harder than 26.2 miles but I'll go with it! Here is the course map and the elevation chart at the bottom of this page... www.geisthalf.com/course.asp I did this run in 2010 and it was the most I had run without stopping which was 8 miles, around 8 miles, there is a HUGE hill and I also wasn't prepared for all of the running downhill and ended up having to stop to get my knee wrapped and that made the rest of it really difficult to finish but I finished in 2 hours and 38 minutes, still not too shabby.

This year, I was supposed to run with a friend who wasn't able to and I basically MADE my husband take her entry, ha, it really wasn't that hard to talk him into it. He had only done the Indianapolis mini last year and really enjoyed this race, other than having run 8 miles the day before for a torch run he did for work purposes but the course of this race is very scenic, pretty homes, water views of Geist reservoir and lots of homeowners come out to cheer us on, play music, little kids giving your high fives, water, etc. It's just a fun all around race and it's in my neck of the woods and doesn't take me an hour and a half to get downtown and fight with all of the downtown traffic like it does the Indianapolis mini.

So on to the race, we got there much later than we had planned so we parked where ever we found which ended up being at the back of Hamilton Southeastern High School, we could have taken the shuttle to the start line but that's just not us so we really had to jog a mile to the start line, good warm up, right?! HA So we pretty much got to the start line and stretched for a minute and then we went! It took us 3 minutes to cross the start line (unlike the 10 minutes it took during the mini... okay, I'm seriously not trying to bash the mini, just point out some comparisons). I really don't remember how I felt for the first 4 miles so I assume I was feeling pretty good. I remember about mile 4, I was already starting to think I couldn't do it, my hips were already hurting, my knee was hurting and I had a blister on my toe from the mini that started hurting too. Fortunately, I had my husband with me to keep me going. I'm kidding, I would never quit unless I was injured and even then, I didn't quit the year before! I don't know why but I just have this mental block that makes me think I can't do these things so that's one of the reasons I wanted Brad to run with me. When we got between mile 7 and 8 and faced the HUGE hill, I thought there was no way I could run up that hill and most of the people around us didn't but my awesome husband kept telling me I could do it and I did, we ran up that horrible hill and were passing people left and right, it all seemed like a blur at the time and I felt like I was walking because I was going so slow but we did it! Again, around mile 11, I started losing it again and couldn't remember where I was, I had actually hit my wall around mile 10 but was really losing it by mile 11 and was thinking I can walk the rest of the way but thought there was no way that I could run the rest of it. We did walk for a short time because I was just out of breath and it was hot! Then came mile 12 and I thought We've GOT this! My husband was starting to cramp in the thighs and told me to go ahead but even though I felt like I was going, he was still right behind me. I started to sprint across the bridge and then felt like I was going to have a heart attack so I stopped and he yelled at me to RUN, I did. Again, I did the same until almost to the finish line and stopped and he yelled at me along with some other people and I (WE) finished. I finished in 2 hours and 26 minutes, that's 12 minutes faster than my time last year, 4 minutes better than my Indianapolis Mini time and 2 minutes than my personal best. It felt amazing, I was so proud of myself and HUGE thanks because I don't think I could have done it without my husband!

Energy2Action Duathlon
On to my next race, I was very sore from the Geist hills, I had to walk down the stairs in my house backwards for 2 days! WOW, I normally would be right back to working out on Monday but was really so sore that all I could do was take a long walk with my son. So, this one was a little different, a duathlon only 1 week after Geist. My friend Jen who lives in Colorado had done one and I have always wanted to do one (read about it here... http://jeepjenjen.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-race-i-did-it.html), she was already going to be home visiting family and friends for Memorial Day and found this race http://www.energy2action.com/, it was a 2 mile run, 16 mile bike (it says it's 15 on their website but the actual map shows it's 16) and then 2 mile run again. This was today so I can't say how I felt after the race yet, I worked out yesterday which was probablynot the smartest thing but oh well! It was pretty far for us but Brad and Wes got up and came with me, we got up at 6, left at 6:30 and it took us about an hour to get there. When I got there, I rode my bike up to the registration desk, got my number marked on my arms (yes, both) and my legs (yes, both) and had to pin my number on. I assume that because they don't use timing chips but keep track of this manually, that they had to have numbers everywhere to assure someone would see it and write it down. It's a pretty small race but I think that actually made it a little better. I was a little nervous when Jen said that the bike route wasn't marked at all but it actually was and there were people at every corner you turned to block traffic.

Initially when I got there and put my bike on the same rack as Jen and already had all of my things in my gym bag so it wasn't too hard to get to things but I put my helmet on my handle bars and set my bike shoes out. The running course was nice, fairly flat and it made it easy to run the full 2 miles, I felt pretty good but I think I drank a little too much fluid before the race since it was such a long drive and I had a protein shake before and nothing else so I was feeling a little like puking with everything sloshing around in me, ha. When I came back in to get my bike, the transition area was nice and smooth, changed my shoes quickly and hopped on my bike. Brad reminded me to put on my helmet so I started out trying to buckle my strap and ride. I felt great on the bike for the first several miles, there's a good size hill toward the beginning but it was pretty easy, it's an out and back course, I didn't feel the wind at my back but it was pretty chilly. Only 55 degrees, I think, then when we turned around to come back in, the wind hit us and it was tough, I need to get a new bike computer so I have no idea how fast I was going but I think Jen said she was at around 21 mph on the way out and around 16 mph on the way back so I assume I was similar, there were some fairly large potholes on the bike course but they had them marked well. When I came back into the transition area, it was smooth and nice to be able to ride to the end of the bike racks instead of having to run thru it like I did the Go Girl last year. I did have to run the length of the bike racks but it wasn't far. After 16 miles on the bike, the last 2 miles were a bit challenging, your legs feel a bit like jello. I ran next to another woman most of it as her and I were about the same pace at that point and we joked a couple of times about how we felt, etc. I'm just really thankful that I signed up for this one first before I signed up for an International Distance Duathlon though I am considering doing one later in the summer, I will definitely have to do a couple of bricks to work on the running after biking. So here are my results though I'm not sure if this will display properly...

Since I ran under my cousins name during the Indianapolis Mini, the sex and divisions aren't accurate.
NO FN LN DIVISION OVERALL DIVPL SEXPL 10M BRICKYARD BRICKYARDTOD GUNTIME TIME PACE
40172 Sean Reaves M3539 18056 1724/2165 10456/14275 1:53:59 1:26:59 9:10:55 2:40:35 2:30:13 11:28

Geist Half...
NO FN LN DIVISION OVERALL DIVPL SEXPL 5MILE RATE RANK 10MILE RATE RANK LAST5K RATE RANK TIME PACE
575 Brooke Arnold F 35-39 1763 158/257 730/1389 51:26 1018 1658 1:49:19 1056 1740 37:27 1205 1773 2:26:45 11:13

And I don't have the results from the duathlon yet but I will say that I did the first 2 miles at a 9 minute mile pace which is fast for me and I was super happy about that!

Oh and I have to say that my friend Jen rocked it, she ended up placing 2nd out of all the women! WAY TO GO, Jen! Someday maybe I can be like you! :)