Race Recap: DINO Series 5k, Town Run Trail Run

Last weekend was another race in the DINO series. We missed the second race at Eagle creek; instead we headed down to brown county for those trails and delicious vegan food. This race was at Town Run - a place I would never know existed were it not for this race. The entrance to the park is an unmarked dirt road turn-off from a busy road filled with big box stores and shopping malls. I was so surprised this was here right under my nose.

Naturally, there was rain the previous night and light drizzle as we got there so the trails were pretty muddy and slick. A considerable improvement over the first race, but as you can see above; still required some caution. The 15K went off first, and then the 5K ten minutes later. Per usual I situated myself a little back from the start line as this was a single track course and I wanted to let as many fast people pass as possible.

The course was really fun; lots of gentle undulating hills and no gnarly roots to worry about. I felt really good for the entire race. Going up hills I felt strong and down I felt like I was about ready to fly. The first mile I spent a lot of time carefully passing people but I finally seemed to find a place that put me mostly by myself. For the entire last half of the race I was coming up on a 9-year old boy who would intermittently sprint and walk. When he'd hear my steps getting close he'd sprint away, then tire a little. I eventually caught him and told him "you're making me work hard! good job." The final stretch of the course snaked up a hill and then popped out of the woods - where the same boy out sprinted me in chute. You win some you lose some. Final time: 29.14. Thank goodness it was under 30 minutes.

I waited around for Scott to finish the 15K where he came in 4th I believe. Once he stopped we quickly realized his knee was bleeding a lot from what he said was a total wipe out. He had mud on his eyelids.

Once the results were posted we found we both came in first place in our age groups, and I was 8th in the women's race. And I set another new trail PR! We spent the rest of the day painting our bedroom and devouring Thai food.

This weekend we are going to spectate the Mini like we did last year and next week is Ragnar!! I can't wait to meet everyone and have a great time running and eating. If you want more info of what a Ragnar is, and why 36 vegans are running it check out our website here: http://strongheartsveganpower.com/

To the front!

Race Recap: DINO Series 5k, Mounds State Park

I mentioned months ago that I signed up for the entire DINO (Do INdiana Outdoors) 15K trail series. Due to the severe norovirus I got 3 weeks ago, I made the wise decision to drop down to the 5K. I am STILL not completely over this bug; major symptoms yes, but my digestive system is totally out of whack. So bad that I haven't been able to run really at all. I can barely go grocery shopping with out needing to run to the bathroom so running was pretty much out of the question. But thankfully I am recovered enough now to run, but I was so glad I dropped down to the 5K.

Recent snow melt and rain meant for an extremely muddy course for the day, but it's trail running. That's part of the package. My goals for this race were to complete it with out needing to stop for a bathroom break. Nothing more. I know that my body is kind of weak right now, my weight is probably down (but I don't know because I threw away my scale, hurrah!) and my endurance is crap.

Report wise, I don't really have much. It was muddy, and slow and full of stairs. I definitely need to work on strength/hills to really improve my trail run times. But overall it was a fun race, I finished in a not too embarrassing position (2nd in my age group FTW) and had fun spectating Scott in the 15K.

Scott finished 4th in the 15K! And we both got age group awards annnnnd discounts to Runner's Forum. Mostly I am just happy to be able to run again!

Will update later with my time, but from my watch it looked to be around 32:xx. Meh.

Update: 32:02.6 final. Still Meh! But technically a new trail 5K PR. 

More pictures!

For some reason I have been compelled to take pictures of things (and not just for instagram) for this blog. No reason, just you know.... content.

Yesterday we kicked off Valentine's day with a run at Brown County State Park. We got there right around 8 am. It was chilly and windy which I think was why the park was DESERTED. We had it almost all to ourselves.



I ran for about 1hr 10 minutes (6.5 miles? 6 miles?) and Scott put in his 16 mile long run. This run showed me that I am completely out of trail shape, but it was enjoyable none the less.



The solitude of an enormous park like this really highlights how absurd urban life is most of the time. I've been reading Walden lately - so I couldn't help but feel kindred with Thoreau and his quest to return to nature.

After the run we headed into Bloomington, per usual, to pick up all the best vegan baked goods this college town has to offer. Once back in Indy we spent the rest of the day in bed watching TV. Wild right!? We both agree that we want nothing more from our weekends - a hard effort of running in the morning, refueling with something delicious, and then returning to sweatpants and cats.

We did go out for Valentine's Day, our friend that owns an all vegan restaurant was putting on a 4-course dinner and gifted us tickets. Needless to say it was amazing. Roasted butternut squash canapés amuse bouche, arugula salad with cherry chutney and smoked coconut, seitan steak!, and an absolutely decadent brownie for desert. It. was. amazing.

And since that wasn't enough, we returned home (back to pajamas and bed) and ate artesian vegan chocolates from Lagusta's Luscious.



So I'm feeling sufficiently spoiled right now and can't say I'd want my life to be any other way. Maybe more cats.

Fashion! (David Brent voice)

I made Scott take some pictures of me on Friday. Half to document my outfit, half to work on not hating myself in pictures. I don't hate 'em.

Yesterday we did trail running in Brown County - I absolutely love that park. I feel so awesome after 70 minutes on the trails. That will get anyone into running, I swear. Now, onto Sunday!

Inner demons

I can go a long time where everything is fine and I'm not caught up in my head, but I seem to eventually get to a point where it gets too loud and I have a bit of a break down. Unfortunately this week was that week. In reality, everything was fine. I was running well, work is going well, things with Scott are going great - but I was spending more and more time fretting over what I know are inconsequential things.

I think I'm pretty level headed and rational but I cannot give myself a break on my appearance. I started feeling all insecure on Tuesday when I run with arguably some of the fastest runners in Indianapolis. It's not that I think I should be running with them - I know that I am just working on myself and my abilities, but I for some reason felt particularly "unathletic" looking compared with the group. Wednesday I made Scott take a picture of me (I usually abhor pictures, but I am actively trying to fix my issues with my self-perception) after what felt like a slow run but turned out to be much quicker than I expected. I should've felt happy and proud, but I spent the rest of the day and most of Thursday mentally nitpicking it and ultimately asked for him to take it off Instagram. Who does that?!

This anxiety about not looking like a runner kept building and building in my head until I kind of dissolved into a crying mess on Friday night. Scott tries to help me see things objectively, but I still was feeling like total crap, and actually starting to feel very depressed when I woke up Saturday to go trail running. I couldn't really keep it together and I could feel myself sinking into actual depression akin to last summer and fall. I really really didn't want to be back there. I didn't want to put Scott through that. I didn't want it to stop me from running, and more broadly, living. I sat in the car for a while after Scott went out to the trails trying to muster up some motivation to get out. Eventually I did. Mostly I think I told myself I was already in running clothes and I needed to earn breakfast.

The trails were so incredibly green and beautiful and interesting that I kind of forgot everything I was freaking out about. It was almost like "oh, hey human - here is this beautiful expanse of nature that is here to run through and you are worrying about how you look in running shorts. That's ridiculous." It started raining softly, then much stronger as I finished up running and it kind of made me feel renewed. Not spiritually or anything, god no, but it reminded me of what is real and what I just make up in my head.

After we reconvened at the car I was in a considerably better mood and we went to find a friend that was running a 50 miler in the same park. Through those interactions with friends I realized that the reasons that I like people have nothing at all to do with what they look like, so I'm not sure why I still hold myself to these other extreme standards. I can't say I'm completely confident in my appearance or anything now, but I do feel like I dug myself out of the pit I was crawling into this week. Which is a small success. So, hopefully more of those to come.

Week 3/31-4/6

Monday: Off

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: 3.8 miles, 9:04 pace

Thursday: 3.0 miles, 9:09 pace

Friday: Off

Saturday: 3.0 miles (?), trails

Sunday: 3.5 miles, 8:45 pace

Total miles run: 13.3

Monday and Tuesday I was not feeling ok to run with my knee still very raw and un-bendable, but everything was fine by Wednesday. Saturday we made it out to Brown County State Park to run Hesitation Point, a moderately rugged trail with a steep decline to the forest floor. It had been a while since I'd run trails, and good trails (I wasn't much a fan of the ones in Kansas) at that. Though it had rained in the days prior, the trail itself only had a few muddy parts and I thoroughly enjoyed crashing down to the bottom. Of course, I then had to return to the top, which was definitely hard but a good hard. Some points I thought I'd never reach the top, only to find moments later I was getting another wind. My ankles today feel pretty sore from all the stabilizing they did yesterday, but another 3.5 miles felt good and fast on the treadmill. The 8K is this coming Saturday, which I aim to keep a 9:00 pace (or under) for the run. I also picked up this year's model of the Brooks PureFlows as I hadn't bought a new pair in a year. Bright blue this time instead of bright pink. Black anyone? Please?

On Repeat:

Queens of the Stone Age - Go with the flow

A new beginning

Hello internet! I spend so much of my time perusing other running blogs, science blogs, and personal style blogs that I thought "Hey, why not try to slap that all together?" so here we are. I plan to use this as a way to catalogue my progress with running, my attempts at developing a sense of style and my love of all things nerdy. I'm not completely sure of the exact direction I want this to go, but I'm sure that will become more clear as this continues.

A bit of history on my running first: I never considered myself athletic whatsoever until college. As a mandatory requirement we had to take a gym course. I immediately looked for the easiest one I could get into which was fitness walking (yes, that is a course at my college, and it fills up fast). I don't remember much about the course other than walking really quickly around the intramural fields and feeling very embarrassed when the students in the run conditioning course blazed past us. Every time the class was over I had built up so much energy from not running, that I would go to the track and run until I actually felt like I got a work out in. That was maybe a mile. But after doing that for a semester I had built up a bit of stamina.

I then joined the club rowing team that many of my friends were on because it seemed so fun and social. Many of our land practices were various running exercises. The 'dorm run' where we had to run to 9 dorms on campus and back, reporting the building number to our coach in between. Pyramid track work outs we did with a partner that became so competitive we were 'uninvited' by the gym as our cheering scared other gym members. Long runs around campus when the streets were still dark and quiet. It was during these long rungs that I realized I wasn't half bad and regularly finished second or third out of the girls team.

After college I kept up with running in graduate school as a way to exercise and entered various 5Ks, a 10K, and three Krispy Kreme Challenges (not really a race, but more of a disgusting college experience). Last year I ran my first half marathon, and it was a disaster - but I'm planning on redeeming myself this year. After a bit of a break from running, I've gotten back into it and am training for a 5K.

My PRs are certainly nothing impressive, but I have won two 5K awards (honestly due to very little competition, but hey, winning is winning).

Road

• 5K - 26:01 (2011 Cary Road Race. First in my age group. Out of 4)
• 10K - 1:00:42 (2011 Old Reliable 10K)
• 13.1 - 2:17:34 (2013 Kansas Half Marathon)

Trail

• 5K - 33:37 (2013 Pi Day 5K. First female, third overall. Again, very little competition)
• 10K - 1:22:55 (2013 North Shore Trail Run, a very very technical course)

Yeah, so there is LOTS of room for improvement. We'll see where this year takes me.

I also am pretty confident my writing skills are only of the "the reaction was neutralized with 1M HCl, then extracted with EtOAc" variety - so I apologize in advance.