The Girls Who Climbed Up A Hill and Ran Down a Mountain

Headed back down Ramo (taken in April).

This weekend we went over the mountain and through the woods to Grandmother's house in order to celebrate H's birthday and have the annual Granny/cousins camping trip. My mom sleeps out in the tent in the backyard with all the cousins (4 kids aged 3-8 spells good times for granny!) They each get to tell a bedtime story, they traipse back in the house no less than four thousand times, and then they're down for the count. All while my sister and I get to sit inside and watch a movie, visit and sleep in blissful childless beds.

It's now officially a habit that when we go to my parents' house, we get Sunday morning to ourselves to go running while granny makes endless batches of pancakes and generally entertains the kiddos. A girlfriend of mine, who will be running the Walla Walla Half with me in October, has also been joining us on several runs. On Easter weekend, I posted about our run at Ramo (Not so) Flats and this was my first weekend to re-visit that road.

My friend D joined Mrs. V and I with the goal of going up 3-4 miles and then turning around to enjoy the fruits of our labor with a downhill jaunt. I was a little nervous because I've been flitting around the 2-5 mile distances for awhile and this would be my first 'real' run in a long time. I loved it. On the way up, we walked for the most part...it's a pretty wicked hill the entire distance with a couple short spurts of flat-ish relief. My goal is definitely to be able to run more than I walk on the ascent. Really, I'd love to run the whole thing in the not-so-distant future. There is zero shade, but the bliss of Eastern Oregon is that your sweat evaporates with the dry breeze created by your movement, allowing your body to cool itself in the way it was designed. This was, of course, felt more on the way down than on the way up.

But the glorious part comes on the way down; you just cruise and chat the whole way. Because it's a rutted out dirt road, it's almost like a trail run, so you're really concentrating on your footfall and before you know it, you're at the bottom of your 3.5 mile climb. I honestly thought I'd be taking a lot of walk breaks on the way down, but almost without thinking, we'd covered a mile when I first glanced down to reference trusty Pam.

I also had the chance to try out my new Nathan fuel belt, (it looks like this one, except there's a smaller bottle tucked in beside the large bottle) and it was the first time I was able to successfully drink while continuing to run, it didn't slide up at all and fit my iPhone in the zipper pouch. I filled the bigger bottle with water and dropped a tropical fruit nuun tab in, and then let the smaller bottle be just plain water. When we finished, I was incredibly sweaty and a little bit tired, but mostly I just felt awesome. I had been feeling pretty discouraged about running for about a month now, because I felt like I'd finished a marathon but then was right back to square one. Each run I went on until now seemed to be abnormally difficult. It's good to know that my muscles were suffering only a temporary amnesia. With that great run under my belt, I'm renewed in my resolve to beat my prior half-PR, with a time of 2:56 or better.

What are your current goals? Have an upcoming race? If you're in the Walla Walla area, I'm always looking for people to do long runs with, especially as they creep into the double digits!

36k for Miracles

I recently got invited by Doug W. over at Really Not A Runner ,who's also from my old stomping grounds in MA, to participate in a virtual race to benefit Boston Children's hospital.

It's pretty simple; you run either a 5k, a 10k a half-marathon or the full 32k on March 20th then post your results and a picture of yourself (if you wish) to him.

The cost is super low; $5 for 5k, $10 for 10k, 13.1 (really 14) for half marathon and $32 for the 32k. Doug is going to be running all of the races consecutively on race day and if anyone beats his time on that day, they'll get a winner certificate and bragging rights. Really, it's all about the charity and having a great reason other than your shrinking behind to hit the road that day.

I'm so excited that this is the same weekend that I'll be in my hometown celebrating baby sis' 30th birthday and we were planning to run together anyhow. I'm signed up for the half-marathon, she'll do the 5 or 10k.

Check out the description of the race at 36K for Miracles on DailyMile. If you're not already a member at Daily Mile, it's a great way to track your workouts, and see great progress. It's also the way I met Melody and learned about the Worcester running group, so it'll always have a special place in my cold, cold heart.

Male and Female winners of each distance will receive a RoadID and there are some door prizes available for slow-mo's like me who happen to be good at social networking. So join up, buttercups, or I'll be left without a chance for bling!

My Better Half

This weekend, our oldest sister stayed with me for the weekend with her kiddos. It was so much fun, and my kids had a ball using their only (and revered) boy cousin as a jungle gym. Even though he's entered the teen years, he's not above romping on the floor with H and Charlie, and it always makes me proud of him to see how tender-hearted he is with them.

But above all that, a big bonus was that I had someone home to watch the kids while I did my weekend long run, as Big J was in Georgia serving Uncle Sam at a training. When I said how long I was going to run, my niece asked if I was joking. It caught me a little off-guard because seven miles no longer feels like that big of a deal. It's the longest training run for me in awhile, but because I have the big picture looming out there and am admittedly a little obsessed with it, it just seems like a normal stepping stone. It gave me a little extra pride in my workout for the day.

The skies were dark, so I had on my super awesome day-glo Athleta Wickit Workit shirt for visibility. Only a couple rain drops actually made it from the sky to my head as I covered the distance, but the cool weather was perfect. I'm still not jazzed at the idea of flaunting my full muffin top by strapping on the old fuel belt, but I knew I'd need to have fluids since what would take faster runners about an hour to cover takes me an hour and a half, so I carried one of the 10 ounce bottles from my belt.

Well, I'll not let my pride get in the way again, because about three miles into it, I was ready to chuck the bottle on the side of the road. The only thing that kept me from doing so was images of my parched booty laying face down on the side of the road at about mile six.

I love my compression tights, and my new acquisition of compression socks, as it feels like my legs are getting a nice hug when they need it most (I know, ack, but it's the best way I can describe it). Along with some fluids and the other half of my pouch of honey stingers, I ended the run happy and with a little bit of a spring in my step.

I realized that I only needed to add five miles to the day's run in order to get to a half-marathon, and that unless I injure myself in the middle of the run, there's no way I won't meet my goal of coming in under three hours. However, when I stopped to think that the distance I just ran was just over a quarter of the marathon...I'm still in the suspended disbelief stage on that one. I know that if I do the work, I'll be just fine, it's just that thinking of that huge number seems crazy to me right now.

With just two weeks of the 15k training plan (used to build a good base) left, I'll soon be starting the actual marathon training plan and I couldn't be more excited.