Indianapolis Women’s Half Marathon

Half Marathon – 9 weeks post baby!

OutForARunAdmin — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:31:00 +0000

Hooray for the first post baby race!

The Indy Women’s half marathon was 9.5 weeks after Marshall came into the world. After a LONG 6 week wait to run, I was on a mission to squeeze in a quick 3.5 week training to run the half.

It was quite the quick turn around, and although I didn’t run much more than 5 miles during my pregnancy, I knew I could do it- I just had to be willing to hurt a little bit. (Here’s the Training plan I threw together.)

One thing I was sure of… there would be no PR, but I did want to run a respectable time. I wanted to work hard and push myself, it’s been a long time since I’ve really done that. It was nice to not have the pressure of trying to PR- we had friends and family over the night before for my birthday and Marshall decided to not go to sleep until 1:30am and once he did go down, I just couldn’t sleep. So at 5:00am when it was time to get up, instead of worrying about the sleep and how I would possibly PR with 3 hours of sleep, I just didn’t care. This whole having a baby thing has made me realize I was way to anal for way to long about obsessing over sleep. Yes, it’s good to get a lot of sleep, but yes you will survive on less and it’s not that big of a deal really.

Ericka and I got to the starting line at 6:50am and found some BoMF Indy ladies getting ready to run. We started out pretty far back, which was a mistake.. even though we weren’t “racing” we still had to weave in and out of people for a good 1.5 miles. (not bad compared to being stuck in a far back corral in races like the 500 festival mini)

We split up soon after the first mile and I quickly realized, I was probably running too fast but just kept on trucking. And by keep on trucking, I mean- you want to slow down, your struggling mentally, thinking of all the miles you have left, but you get tough and keep the pace anyway. At miles 6, I was sub 8 minute miles total and had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to hold that pace but kept trying.

It really started to hurt around mile 9, I got a burst of energy once I passed mile 10, but that quickly went away soon after passing mile 11… which ended up feeling like the LONGEST MILE EVER.

Having run 9 marathons, I always use those long races to my mental advantage. I was constantly breaking things down. “Once, you get to mile 9…. you only have 4 miles left… you’d be at mile 21 in a full marathon.” While it helped to compare this “short” distance to the full- I couldn’t help but thinking how insanely difficult a full marathon would be. That distance seemed so unfathomable. Let alone that distance running faster than I was running at that moment. (which I would have to do by a lot if I want a marathon PR… sub 7:47 pace) My anthem was constantly “you can do anything for 3 miles” “you can do anything for 2 miles” “you can do anything for 10 minutes”…. etc.

My final time was 1:46:54, which turned out to be 8:10 per mile. After my 11 miles the weekend before, I knew I would run well under 2 hours and kind of thought I could get down to something like 1:42, but half way through the race, realized that wouldn’t happen. My hope of speeding up the last three miles because I was tough mentally, didn’t really pan out.

Overall, I’m happy with the time. In a way, it gives me confidence, if I can run that so soon after baby, hopefully I can look for some real PR’s sooner than later. On the other hand…. it hurt really bad and normally that pace for 13 miles would be very comfortable for me. Will it really get better? Clearly….I need to be strong and leverage the confidence rather than those negative thoughts.

Favorite parts of this race:

Working hard again
Being on a familiar course
Volunteers at every mile yelling out splits
The Back on My Feet water stops- always motivating to see people you know and they were everywhere! THANK YOU guys!
The raspberry beer & fried shrimp at the finish

Least favorite part of this race:

Um… it was really humid. My black tank top was soaking wet. Should have worn dry-fit, but am still working on fitting back into my good dry-fit workout tops.
The girl that kept passing me around miles 5-6. She would pass and then move right in front of me, and then proceed to slow down. We had the whole road to work with… made no sense to me. We finally parted way after 1.5 miles of that.
It was a little lonely as the race went on and everyone spread out.

Ericka and I post race

Post race snuggles with my little monkey.

2 days before the Half

OutForARunAdmin — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:46:00 +0000

When I ran my 11 miles last Friday, I finished feeling a little beat up, but a little confident at the same time. It was hard, especially the last three miles. But I knew I would finish even though it hurt, and I finished knowing I could suffer through another 2 miles to finish the half the following week.

This week I have stuck to three – 3 mile runs. (Side note – I am getting used to running with the jogging stroller- I took it upon myself to clear Marshall for stroller runs… his head moves around more in the car… it’s safe) My right foot has been bothering me a bit and I am hoping it doesn’t get bad during the race on Saturday AND also hoping I’m not being an idiot by picking up the miles so quick and hurting myself.

Beyond picking up the distance… I haven’t bought new running shoes in over a year. That’s right over a year. I whole heartily believe that running stores have runners believing that they NEED to buy new shoes way too often. Why wouldn’t they… they want to sell that pair of running shoes that costs $130 with a 100% mark up. That being said- I actually do need new shoes, these things are beat up. I’ll get some next week after the race.

I still haven’t “raced” a half marathon since 2009. (This is because of my fear of fast running and also we were a little marathon obsessed the past three years, and oh yeah I was pregnant for 9 months) So, obviously 9 weeks after having a baby I won’t set a PR, but I want to run like I used to. I want to push myself, I want to feel like a real runner again. Hopefully my sister will feel the same way, and we can run her to a PR and we will both feel like we accomplished a big goal.

Oh and it’s supposed to rain on Saturday. Goodie!

Marshall, Marathons and an Ironman

GlennHein — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 19:16:00 +0000

Marshall is 5 weeks old. The first two-three weeks of his life were really hard. Amazing, but hard. I was exhausted, sore from surgery, breastfeeding was painful and I was scared to death every time we set him down for bed. Slowly but surely, everything started getting easier. You can learn more about his entrance into the world on his new pages tab.


Marshall at 5 weeks

Just sitting at the table like an adult.

I feel like I spend 24 hours a day just staring at this little human being, and although I get frustrated for 2 seconds when he wakes me up at 3am every night, as soon as I pick him up and see this healthy, thriving baby, my heart melts and there is nothing more peaceful and perfect in the world. I just still can’t fathom that he literally came from nothing and then grew into a little human inside of me. It is the craziest thing. Ever.

My RUNNING plan: I should be cleared to run next Wednesday and I can’t wait. My mom and sisters and I are all planning on running the Indy Women’s Half Marathon on September 1st, will be a quick turnaround…. 24 days of “training”, but I don’t really care. I want to just run it for fun, but also don’t planning on being a turtle. As I write this, I don’t really know how I will feel, but I am hopeful I can at least run faster than the pregnant pace I had been running the past nine months.

Beyond the Women’s half, I want to sign up for the Monumental– I’m not going to commit until I run the half and see how I feel. I’ve ran marathons untrained before, and am OK with running it semi-trained, but don’t want to be miserable. I figure as long as I get in at least one 20 miler and a couple of 15-18, I’ll be good. It’s just a matter of making that happen.

Beyond setting my sites on these upcoming races– other than Marshall of course, our house has been consumed with Ironman training. Glenn will be doing Ironman WI on September 9th and he is right smack dab in the hardest part of his training. We didn’t necessarily time this perfectly, having a newborn baby right now, but he signed up before I was pregnant. Although we knew it could be a possibility, we have always known that you can’t assume or just plan that sort of thing, so kept on planning and doing all of our other “life” activities. (hence, why I was signed up for Boston this year, but obviously did not run!)

He is doing great with his training, but I know the lack of sleep (even though I’m the only one who gets up for feedings at night, he is going to bed later and getting up earlier) is having an effect on him. He gets up at 4:30-5:00am most weekdays and either rides or runs, then swims his lunch break and some days runs or rides again when he gets home. On the weekends it’s a good 6-8 hour workout on Saturday and Sunday. So, I know he will be ready for the race and realize that to even complete your first Ironman is a huge accomplishment in itself, but he hasn’t put all of this energy into training just to finish, he wants to race a respectable time. I am trying my best to support his efforts and absolutely can’t wait until race day, but trust me, we are both ready for it to be done and perhaps he can revisit the Ironman again when we don’t have a newborn baby in our house!

And the Marshman is growing, he eats like it’s his job (and I suppose that is his biggest job for now) and comes by it honestly as we all know that his dad eats insane amounts of food.

He seriously looks so huge to me in this picture below. I keep saying I don’t want him to be so fragile anymore, but I am truly savoring every minute with him at each stage. I’m in love.

Getting big. 8.5 lbs already… up from 6.4 lbs at birth.