I’m an extrovert. I think calling myself an “extreme extrovert” is not an exaggeration. I make friends and trust very easily. I love being around people. I love meeting new people. I thrive in the middle of the crazy .. when everything is loud, moving and out of control, I’m at my best. When stressful or bad things happen, I want to tell the story about a million times. To anyone who will listen. Once you are my people, I will do anything to be there for you.
My worst nightmare? Dying alone. Hours and hours of seeing people in the ICU with multiple injuries, vented and sedated sitting alone didn’t help, but this has always been a huge fear of mine. Please, please don’t leave me alone. The thought is terrifying.
Running lots and lots of miles (over 100 miles/month) is hard. It’s hard in general. It’s REALLY hard when being alone is not your favorite thing. Some days, going out to run 8-10 miles alone is the LAST thing I want to do. I’ve been known to Netflix and treadmill my long run when the weather is perfectly acceptable to be outside, just because I can’t stand the thought of being out that long by myself. I struggle with the fact I need people. I can take care of myself. I can take care of my children. I’m fairly certain I would be able to run whatever team anyone ever gave me. But when it’s just me, I long to be surrounded by my people.
The whole month of June, I did a lot of miles alone. There has also been a lot going on in my life. New job, husband got a new job, my grandparent’s estate sale, etc. It’s been a really long 6ish weeks. On top of all that, both my running buddies are out of town. I ran a lot of miles alone. By the last week of the month, I was emotionally done. I didn’t want to go out. Even when the weather was perfect, I did not want to. I needed my people. I love being out on the roads or trails, but when I get to a certain point, all I want to do is run with others.
So. Running as an extrovert is hard. I’m very very thankful for my running buddies Adam and Bryan that run a LOT of miles with me. And my coach Nick who puts up with my whining when all I want to do is stay in, and he pushes me to go out. I need my people, and I want to run with people around me who are happy to also be running.
If you are an introvert runner, and can’t imagine running with people all the time, tell me about it! I’d love to hear it!
What is Ragnar you ask? Ragnar Relay is an overnight running relay event. You have a team of either 12 or 6 (if you are super extra crazy) people who split up into 2 vans (for the 12 person teams) and run 200ish miles from Point A to Point B over approximately 24-36 hours. Fun right?!
So last year, I found an AWESOME team from Chicago who had a spot for 1 runner on their Ragnar team. I was so excited! And then injury struck. Ah well.
This year, I put myself as “available” on the Ragnar site. I figured why not! Bryan reached out to me about 2 months before the race. .. I was thrilled! Perfect timing, as I didn’t have anything to look forward to after the Mini Marathon. We corresponded via email a few times and text message closer to the race, but other than that, I didn’t know anyone on the team with me.
Fast forward to race weekend. I took Thursday and Friday off work, as we had to drive up on Thursday, and our start time was 5AM Friday (NOT me, thank goodness). I met Bryan and most of the rest of the team at his house on the northeast side of Indy, and got in a van with 8 people I had never met before to drive 8 hrs and run 200 miles. As I’ve told this story, some people look at me with their eyes bugging out. . but really it was great. Now that I look back on it; it could have been really bad. . what if there was someone in there that I just couldn’t STAND to be stuck with for 36 hours?! The good news: It’s only 36 hours and I would have never had to see them again. The REALLY good new is that totally didn’t happen and I got to meet some really awesome people. Also . .6 dudes, 2 girls. Andrea and I got along great and I was very glad to have another girl along for the ride!
If you don’t want to read my (pretty long!) race recap, you can watch this awesome YouTube video put together by my teammate Mitch.
Winona MN is 491.5 miles from Indianapolis. That’s about 7.5 hours. . and we had to stop in Chicago and pick up another runner at Midway. We left Indy at 11AM, and arrived in Winona at right around 7:50pm. (We had an hour in our favor when going from IN to IL with time zones too). We literally made it right at the end of the safety briefing time. Also. . we may have run out of gas, and had to push the Yukon XL about a half mile to a gas station. Team building, right?
Night before the race! We all look so eager!!
The way the race works is that you split up into 2 vans, and switch off (if you have 12ish people). If you are an Ultra team, then you have one van/SUV that runs the whole time. THIS I think would be crazy. Rest time when you are cramming so many miles into a short amount of time was much needed (at least for me).
Van 1 started at 5AM on Friday. We asked for an early start time, as our average pace was going to be around 11 min/miles so we wanted to be sure to finish in enough time to enjoy the post-race party. My van had a late start, so we had time to get breakfast at the hotel, and make it to the first major exchange with time to decorate our Yukon!
At a equipment dealership and basic general store in the middle of nowhere!Team Name: Run4Fun. All kinds of good stuff.
The first van came into the exchange, handed off the 80’s era day glo orange slap bracelet and Andrea was on her way!
By the time it was FINALLY my turn to run my leg, I was SO ready to go. My first leg was my longest, and hardest. It also happened that it was 98ish degrees with a heat index of 100+. It was 8 miles, and it took me FOREVER. I had taken gels and water, and there were 3 water stops on the route, but it was just SO hot. I walked a lot. . even more than my walk/run intervals. I couldn’t get my HR down at all. Even walking was putting me over my range. At the 2nd water stop, the girl was like “take some ice and put it in your bra”. I thought “duh, why didn’t I think of this!” As a nurse, we put ice packs on people’s groin/neck/armpits to cool them off, and what I needed was to get my core temp down. After the ice in the bra, taking off my shirt and throwing it to another van (for real . .I told them my team # and REALLY hoped I’d get it back as it was my very fave running shirt), I negative split the last 4 miles. Also, I drank 50ish ounces of water. I filled my bottle up twice, and it was full when I went out. And I still didn’t have to pee when I got done.
Obviously I had no idea how difficult this run was going to be!
We ran our legs, and finished up around 630pm. We had reserved a hotel for the middle of the race to share between the 2 vans, about halfway between the 2 major exchanges that were happening at night/early AM. Best. Thing. Ever. Shower, an actual bed to sleep for a couple hours, and peaceful downtime. I didn’t realize how really great this was until I saw lots of people asleep at the early AM exchange on the tennis courts, football field, grass (chiggers, people, CHIGGERS!!) at the local high school. This was probably the best extra $ spent all weekend, I would highly recommend this!
My 2nd leg was in the middle of the night. It was a nice 5 miles of city running. It was still VERY humid, but much cooler. My pace was almost 2 min faster per mile. Some of my teammates had great country road running which somehow I missed out on. HOWEVER they also had climbs of 500+ feet vertical gain, so I’m not sad I missed that(see #1 below). The night runs required headlamp, reflective vest and blinky tail light. Lots of blinking lights to follow, so that made it easier to make sure we were going the right way!
My 3rd leg was almost all downhill, and crossed and followed the Mississippi River. GREAT views. As I was coming up on the river, a bald eagle came from the left, crossed over in front of me and went down towards the water. Beautiful.
Note I don’t look quite as eager as I did for Leg 1.Crossing over the river for the final time in Minneapolis.
When you come in to the finish, the team all gets to join your runner and cross together!! Super fun. Also, one free beer, and it was Sierra Nevada. I chose the Oktoberfest, and it was excellent.
This team was really awesome to run with! An adventure for sure.And then we had beer 🙂
Ragnar is quite the experience. Once again, I have learned that I’m much more capable than I believed myself to be in the beginning. I ended up running almost 20 miles over the course of the 36 hours! It made me realize that a full marathon isn’t that far out of reach (did I just say that OUT LOUD?!). I would totally do this again. It was fun to do with people I’d never met before, and I can guarantee it would be a BLAST if you did it with people you knew (just make sure you are fine with being in VERY close quarters with them for 36+hrs!!). I was the navigator for most of the time (sort of default when you’re the one who needs to sit in the front or be carsick) and I LOVED it. My Dad would be proud of my map and direction abilities!
Some things we didn’t anticipate:
Lots of hills (and a couple of named mountains!! I had no idea that MN/WI was SO HILLY.
Small town=not as many places to stop and get ice/snacks as you’d think. It was better the 2nd half of the race (and I LOVED running thru the country!!) but we had a moment where we were worried we’d run out of water before we could fill up the cooler.
The heat. Wisconsin had 3 days of 90+ degree weather so far for 2015. 2 of those days, we were running in. Heat indexes were over 100 most of the mid-day running hours.
Really really hot. And humid. Weee midwest weather!
Otherwise the whole experience was awesome. Would you do a relay race with people you’d never met before?
•Writing the calendar down or printing it out. So I look at it before each run. I ended up shorting myself a mile on Saturday because I didn’t look at the calendar before I went to run. Oops. I think I’m going to put a calendar with my training schedule on our bathroom mirror where I can easily see what I’ve done and check off the workouts as they are complete(who doesn’t love to mark things off a list!)!
• To be helpful, technology must work. My Garmin is awesome. However, it’s never accurate for me on the treadmill. I think I need a footpod, it may be because my stride is short due to the fact I have a 27 inch inseam. Also, my HRM is acting crazy. I know while running a 11:45 mile, that my HR is not 70. I’m no Lance Armstrong!! Going today to get a new battery and some conductivity gel and hoping that fixes the problem.
•Trying to restructure an old habit (as opposed to starting a new one) is harder when you are away from home. Traveling for work is hard enough. Traveling out of the country, and trying to start a new habit while working is not fun either. Now that I’m home. . I have to start a new routine again!!
• I like knowing I have to be accountable to someone. Nick is making me log all my runs at logarun.com. I’ve never used this system, and am still getting used to it. But the fact I have to account for each run makes it easier to get motivated to do them!
•I still love running a lot and I’m so glad I’ve been able to get back into it after my injury. When I was injured, I was really afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to run the way I wanted again. I didn’t know if there would be any lasting tendon/ligament issues. Thankfully, so far it’s going well!!
Looking forward to what the next few weeks will bring. I’m in the “aerobic build” phase of training. . I think that is fancy-talk for “going easy on me in the beginning” !
So..I missed the ball on this one last week. Oops.
I will give you the last couple of weeks reviews, and my summary for February!
The week of the 17th was awesome. Three runs, and strength class. Whew!
The week of Feb 24th I was sick. Fever, sore throat, body aches. Started on Sunday the 23rd, and I did not really feel myself until Friday of this week. I took from the 22nd until the 25th off. I probably over did it a bit.
Once again, Lora over at Crazy Running Girl had a post about “Should We Run When We’re Sick?” right on time with when I was feeling like crap. Here is the link if you’d like to know her take on it as well. I think she is right on with her “don’t run if you have a fever, body aches, feel really bad” statement. And the “Head Rule” she mentions is good as well.
I will be honest. I’m not one to lay down and do nothing, especially since there is always SOMETHING that needs done–laundry, dishes, picking up toys, vacuuming, etc, but Sunday I laid down on the couch. My husband came over and asked me “Are you OK??” See above. I never lay down! Anyway, I had a fever from Sat-Monday. It was no good. I’m glad I took those days off to rest and let my body heal.
So…Final tally of miles for February!?
31.1 miles. (0.7 of those were on the elliptical, but the rest were runs). I’ve not done over 30 miles in a month since November (and really, I don’t think that should count as 13 of those were my half marathon) so really, more like October. Felt great. My IT band has been fussing a little bit, but nothing a foam roller can’t fix!
This week has been much better. Very busy, but much better in the workout and sewing department.
My husband started with a trainer last week. He is going two days a week!! I’m so proud of him! He sort of hates me when he can’t lift his arms, but I keep telling him to stick with it; it will get better!
I have decided to give up Diet Coke. We will see how this goes. Replacing with hot and cold tea. . which has to be better for me, right? For my “bubble fix” I found that Nuun works really really well! I might try some more “natural” sodas, but for now, I’m going cold turkey. Mind you, I am NOT giving up caffeine. . my AM coffee is a must-have for me!
I was able to get in two runs and two days of strength training, and I might very well do a double workout today so I can get a run in while it’s warm. I guess “warm” is a relative term; it’s already 34 degrees this AM, and might get up to 45 tomorrow! As long as it’s not raining, you can bet I will be out there.
I ran on the treadmill Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday was windchills in the -30’s, so inside it was. Wednesday, I did BodyPump at lunch and abs class. The new release of BodyPump was tough! Good, but tough. I always struggle with how much weight, and end up adding or subtracting weight in the middle of the set. I think the instructor said we did 170+ reps for the triceps track, WOW!!
I think that my strength training is really paying off with my running. My 2 miles I did on the treadmill on Tuesday seemed “easy” to me. I walked out after doing that and planks/abs and felt really good, and was surprised. I’m exited to hopefully get to be a faster runner and stronger all around this year.
Thursday was a rest day. We went out to supper with a friend, and had a good time!
Today will be Strictly Strength at lunch, and then maybe a run tonight if the kids cooperate, if not maybe first thing in the AM tomorrow.
My running goal for the month of January was 30 miles. With the pretty serious snow and cold weather we have had, and my strong dislike for the treadmill, I was able to knock out almost 23 miles. Last year, I didn’t run over 20 miles in a month until August, so this is a great start!
I wasn’t able to get in as much sewing as I would have liked this week, but I did get the quilt as you go panel for my Sew Sew Modern 4 swap partner done, and all the pieces cut out and ready to interface and put together.
And everything hurts. Full body strength class Friday, Saturday I ran 3 miles outside (which felt like 6 with the 27 mph winds!), and then shoveled the driveway. I will be glad when shoveling does not count as one of my workouts.
Yesterday evening the kids and I went to a birthday part at a bouncy place, and it was crazy.
Today I will be getting all my things for my Sew Sew Modern 4 swap partner, as well as for a special friend’s bag who starts chemo next week, and going to the grocery store. Meal planning is done! I always have a better week when I’ve meal planned and grocery shopped in advance. Makes the evenings go much smoother!
Stay tuned for progress pics! Stay warm, and have a great week.
Thursday, I did Zumba at lunch with my favorite instructor, Stephanie. She had a new routine to the Pitt Bull and Ke$sha song “Timber” which is one of my current favorites! So fun. We also did “Apple Bottom Jeans”. . her routine leads to 100 jumping jacks in the song (yay!) and then “Push It” which is 4 min of squats (body weight) and then 4 min of arms/shoulders. It was a GREAT class!
Friday was Strictly Strength class at work.
Saturday, I went to the Y, and ran 3 mi on the treadmill. My IT band is still giving me fits, so I took it slow. It actually felt much better than after my 4 miles last week, so I’ll take it. My first race this year isn’t until May (the Indianapolis Mini Marathon) so I am feeling okay about having some low mile weeks. We are also STILL having snow, so it’s hard to get outside. Better safe than a broken anything!
Today, I will be shoveling the 3-4 inches of snow off the driveway, chasing children and taking the dogs to get their nails trimmed. I think that counts as #sweatnsew!
Oh, and hopefully piecing a little more of my Briar Rose quilt this afternoon! Here it is all laid out in my sewing room on the floor. Hoping for a design wall sometime soon!
Will Run For Fabric 