it's two, two, two posts in one!

It was a blue shirt weekend!

So I'll just cut to the chase:

Last weekend was a two race weekend.  AND a two PR weekend!!!

I'll try to make this (relatively) short and sweet, since I'm so far behind in my blogging.  I really need to catch up on things.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I'm not exactly a pro at brevity. Let's just let it go and see how things end up, shall we?

I haven't done my week 12 training recap yet, but I can tell you right now, "training" was pretty much non-existent that week. I had another SUPER tough workweek - I knew it would be - so I gave myself permission to run or not run, just do whatever I could, and not bitch myself out about it or feel like a failure if I didn't get any running done.

Anywhoo...... Friday rolled around and I hadn't run once. I knew I had a hilly half marathon on Sunday, and I wanted to get a few easy and relaxing miles in on Saturday. And I was really in the mood to run through some mud.  So I decided to run the Down & Dirty Women's 8k Trail race again. I had so much fun running it last year - it was my first ever trail race!

Down & Dirty Hills

Ummm, yeah......it was hillier than I remembered.

That little climber at mile 2?  That was tough!  I just tried to relax, enjoy the scenery and not fall and hurt myself. Success!!

Saturday's Down & Dirty Women's 8k Trail Race.Can you
spot the keys and iPhone carefully concealed in my SpiBelt? 

I had a great time!  The weather was perfect, the course was lush and green, and it was the perfect antidote to an incredibly stressful week. I was a happy runner!

And when I was done, I saw that I shaved 6:20 off last year's time!  How fun is that!?!?!  (48:06 official time. Last year I did this same course in 54:26.) Whoo hoo!!

GarminElectra's report:

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	48:13.0	4.87	9:54
1	9:47.5	1.00	9:47
2	10:11.6	1.00	10:12
3	9:57.0	1.00	9:57
4	9:54.8	1.00	9:55
5	8:22.1	0.87	9:40

It was fun to see a bunch of running friends and it was especially fun to be able to go out and have a joyful trail run after a crazy week. My only complaint it that it wasn't muddy enough. I wanted to get dirty!

=======================================

On to race #2:  Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon.

Yeah, this one was kinda hilly, too.

The hills of the Lake Minnetonka half marathon.  

My butt was already feeling the effects of the previous day's race.

Another perfect day for running, weather-wise.  Rain, heavy rain, was in the forecast so I figured I was in for my third soaking wet half marathon in three weeks.  But it turned out that the third time was a charm - it was raining hard when I left my house - and the running gods were smiling upon me as got closer to the start line of the race as the rain lightened to a drizzle and then stopped and stayed away for the entire race! It was an hour drive so I had lots of time to obsess over what I was going to wear - my thriller jacket..... or  a long sleeve shirt...... or maybe I would just throw caution to the wind and go all  crazy and just wear a short sleeved shirt with nothing else to protect me from the elements.  (Yeah, I brought all that stuff with me so I could decide at the last minute.)  Aren't I just so daring and living on the edge and crap?  Wild thing!!

She's almost as tall as I am!
Amazon women.

I ran with a co-worker for part of the race.  We discovered we were running the same race on Friday, realized we run similar paces (although she has a faster PR than I do), and we were both running solo.  We decided to meet up and start together and if one of us was feeling good we'd just run our own race. It was fun to run with her!  We're both new to the company so we had lots of stories to share.  We stayed together for the first nine miles and then I lost her.  I thought she was alongside me but it was some other chick in the same color shirt.  Didn't see her again until the end.  Racing side note: I did some laundry on Saturday (including my running clothes from the race) and pulled things out to wear on Sunday and of course it was the EXACT SAME outfit I wore on Saturday.  Not a huge deal other than the photo ops showing me needing some variety in my clothing....... Yeah, I'm all about the details folks.

Anywhoo, talk about an absolutely GORGEOUS course!  We ran through some beautiful neighborhoods, and of course we ran along Lake Minnetonka, and up and down several hills. There were some hills on that course.  Did I mention the hills?  No?  It was a hilly course.  And though it didn't rain, it was HUMID. I was sweating buckets.  My pony tail was soaking when when I was done.  From sweat.  If it had been hot and sunny, it would have been a totally different race for me.  But it wasn't hot or sunny, and this race ended up being my fastest half-marathon to date!!  2:10:50 official time.  That's a PR, pumpkin!! And I did it in humid conditions and on a hilly course!!!  I kept the wheels on for the entire race this time, too.

I am strong like bull.

Here's the view from splitsville:

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	2:10:24.9	13.15	9:55
1	10:17.7	1.00	10:18
2	9:55.2	1.00	9:55
3	9:59.5	1.00	9:59
4	9:49.6	1.00	9:50
5	9:46.3	1.00	9:46
6	10:05.9	1.00	10:06
7	9:51.6	1.00	9:52
8	10:00.1	1.00	10:00
9	10:02.6	1.00	10:03
10	9:35.1	1.00	9:35
11	10:09.5	1.00	10:10
12	9:57.3	1.00	9:57
13	9:37.6	1.00	9:38
14	1:17.0	0.15	8:19

So there it is.  (Not a horribly long post, is it??)
Two days, two races, two PRs.  What a fun weekend!!