I started running in the fall of 2007. I truly believe I was inspired to start running and I have seen some very big blessings come my way because of following that inspiration.
Ran Boston Marathon 2013 & 2014. My favorite PRs: 2011 at the SG 1/2 and 5K where I ran the 5K in 22:22. 2013 Nebo 1/2 (downhill) 1:36:15
Short-Term Running Goals:
Long-Term Running Goals:
Running throughout life with Tom. Staying healthy and happy.
Learn from others, learn from myself, work hard, do my best, enjoy!
On running and on life.....
On occasion we need to make a second effort - and a third effort, and a fourth effort, and as many degrees of effort as may be required to accomplish what we strive to achieve.
~Thomas S. Monson~
Personal:
Going to St. George? Bag the hotel and stay in one of our condos instead!
Tom and I decided to sleep in a bit and get the run in later. That isn't always a good idea. It's hard to get out later. But we did it. I kept mine to 3 1/2 to watch the pains for today. No soreness in the knee and less pain in the arch of the foot than Saturday. So that is a good sign. I didn't want to push too hard though. I figure that today was a good day for some low and slow.
We went to the Payson Onion Days Parade. The weather was just perfect, (61 degrees), until we could see the flag coming down the street. Then it started pouring and pouring and hailing! It was crazy! We were sitting in a river flowing down past our feet. Our seats were a huge puddle! We were soaked through! We had to brave it out to see our son, Jansen, on the Icelandic float. We noticed that the temps dropped to 41 degrees quickly! We were sitting by a bank that had the temps on a sign. We watched as much as we could stand, but the hail actually hurt as it hit us and we were freezing in our soaked through jeans! So we piled in the the van with wet, wet chairs, blankets, jackets, clothes, hair and broken umbrellas and went off to find Jansen and come home to warm our bones!
The weather is nice now. We are planning on going to Thanksgiving Point to a luau tonight, so I hope we don't get a repeat of this morning!
It's exactly 12:00 noon and I just barely got my run in for the day. I was alone with my thoughts and the sunshine today. I feel more encouraged about my foot pain today than I did yesterday and I felt better yesterday than I did Saturday. However, Saturday's run was suppose to be 20, (I cut it to 16+), yesterday was only 3.5 and today 6 so I'm not sure how to compare the pain. I'm trying to wear old running shoes more in the day instead of flip flops in hoping that the arch support will help me out. Tom and I are going to call on a good friend who is a massage therapist and get some pointers on the things that are ailing us at the moment. SGM is just around the corner and we both want to make it there feeling our best.
We took our girls to the Thanksgiving Point Labor Day Luau last night. It was fun, but the lawn was wet from the pouring rain of the morning, so we sat in water again all night. It was a day of wet and cold, but fun!
Tom and I joined in with part of the Payson Canyon downhill group. We did the eight mile run instead of the 11 today. We have a 1/2 marathon here in SF this Saturday. We aren't sure how hard we will push ourselves for this one. I think I will try to keep it as a training run and not try to "race" it. I will just see how I feel that day. We will also be helping with some of the prep before and clean up after. Then I will be off to a stake Primary luncheon that I have to help at and clean up after. So as far as running my hardest on Saturday, I'm not sure. My biggest goal right now is to be at my best come October 4th! Today my foot didn't seem to give me much grief. yeah! :oD
Holy Cow! 68 degrees is hot to run in! I am use to the nice early morning temps but Tom and I decided to get a few extra needed zzzzs this morning. It looks like I had better get out in the heat a bit within the next few weeks or that St. George sunshine is going to bring me to my knees those last tough miles!
Last night Tom and I had our friend, Nate the Great massage therapist, come over to work through all our aches and pains. He spent about an hour and a half on each of us. We are planning on having him come over a few more times before the big day. Money well spent at this point of training.
Tom has the day off today. We just went out for a short, easy run. One, because we have a 1/2 marathon tomorrow and two, because Nate thought it would be good to keep it that way today.
We'll go get a temple session in while the kids are at school and hit the temple cafeteria for lunch.
Now....which button shall I push at the bottom here? And how long will we have to look at the lady with the arrow on her nose?
Spanish Fork 1/2 marathon (13.1 Miles) 01:47:39, Place overall: 21, Place in age division: 1
Easy Miles
Marathon Pace Miles
Threshold Miles
VO2 Max Miles
Total Distance
13.10
0.00
0.00
0.00
13.10
OK....so these are my didn'ts
warm up
cool down
stretch
pack water
take any Gu
These were my dids
run with Koby
run faster than I planned
feel WAY better than expected
place numero uno in my age division
Tom and I helped get the race packets together last night and then helped with some set up and packet pick up this morning. That made it hard to get the warm up in. Koby introduced himself to me and we knew we wanted similar times. So we lined up together. It was then, (just moments before the start), that I realized my water and gus are in the truck. Being involved with the set up threw me off a bit. I decided not to stress on it.
I was planning on getting 1:55 and coming in feeling really good. But that changed right from the beginning.
8:07
8:27
8:40
8:09
7:51 (Kellie S. was watching from the side after doing her own 15 miles and joined me for a bit. Thanks Kellie! Said hi to Clay watching from the sidelines also.)
8:39
8:18
7:41
8:17
8:08
8:07
7:58
8:01
1:09 (7:18)
I was very pleased that hardly anyone passed me. Unlike Hobble Creek where I felt like I got passed by 10-15 people in the last few miles.
At mile 12 I could tell Koby had a little more to give than me. I told him I'd see him at the finish line. It felt good and gave Koby and I a lot of hope for St. George. Thanks Koby!
Tom had a great race. Can you believe he can take 12th overall and only 4th in his age group?! Bummer!
Oh, and to all of you lurkers out there who come up and tell me you read my blog and others blogs....get on the blog already! You know who you are!
Great to meet JulieC today! Great job on your race!
Monday's are always nice and easy recovery time for me. Felt great this morning. I'll be doing a longer tempo tomorrow, so I'll enjoy the ease of today.
Ole' hubby/coach took me on an 8 mile tempo run today. He was able to go into work an hour early so he could take a longer lunch to help me out on this. Thanks for having a flexible job/boss Tom! I met him in at Novell and we started with a 2 mile warm up. We then did the 8 miles at an average 8:25 pace. We finished up with a one mile cool down and a good cold drink of water! I tried to focus a little more on a quicker turnover. It seems to help take the strain off of my IT band when it starts feeling a bit overworked.
We had a fun time at our neighbor's 4th annual fish fry last night. They had 120 fish fillets along with chicken and hot dogs for the non fish lovers. Everyone brought side dishes and dessert. There was even a live band there. There was about 130 people and everyone, young and old, seemed to have a really good time. Thanks Tuckets for hosting a very fun family home evening!
I am keeping today, tomorrow and Friday all pretty low mileage so I don't go much over 50 for the week after my 22 miler on Saturday. I REALLY don't want my IT band telling me I ran too many miles in a week at this point!
My dog, Rui, was happy as could be to go out with me this morning. He was actually mostly well behaved. He's a psyco small dog that likes to be excited for all reasons so he's usually kind of hard to take running. We kept it at a 9:30 average pace.
Tom and I went out for a quiet morning 5 miler. Too much traffic on the river bottom roads this morning!
I'm working on a list for the marathon. I am going to dedicate each mile to someone. I am also associating a hymn or primary song with each one of the people. I am going to make a little paper bracelet to wear so I can be reminded who each mile is for. As I run that mile I will think of that person and how they have affected my life for good and how the song reminds me of them. I will also picture that person cheering me on through that mile.
Tom has the day off today so we went out after the kids left for school. I was wanting to keep it closer to five but we over shot the distance a bit. After my 22 miler tomorrow I don't want to be much over 50 for the week. Tom is still out getting a bit more in.
We had Nate come over for our Thursday night massage. I'm glad we decided to have him help us out a bit. Hopefully we will be feeling nice and fresh and relaxed and ready to run on Oct. 4!
Time to reevaluate my SGM. Today I was suppose to do 22 miles. My left IT band only likes to do 18-20. I had to stop out in the middle of nowhere and then walk 1.5 to a place where I could tell my son how to come and get me. Usually if my IT band starts hurting while I am running it will feel OK while I walk. Not this time. Pain with every step. Frustration along with the pain of each step.
Tom is trying to console me and tell me that the taper should help when it's actual marathon time. I will try to believe that is the case, but I also must face reality. When I tried to start running in 2006 my IT band took me completely out of the running scene. It is the weak link in my running and I need to realize that "just finishing" may be what I should shoot for.
I am going to break my running streak of 6 days a week on Monday and take an extra day of rest. I think ice and rest are my best help right now and I will do what it takes to try to do MY best come Oct. 4. I'm still excited about the marathon, I just want to play my cards a little different. I'm not going to let the excitement of trying to hit any certain time take away from my first, (and who knows...possibly last), marathon. I am happy with 1/2 marathons and 10 Ks, maybe that will be what is best for me.
Life is good. I am not just a runner. I also have many other things that define who I am. Whatever happens with my marathon and running in general will be the best that I can make it. And life will go on! Have a great day! :o)
Teena's friend brought me the prewrap stuff she uses. I MIGHT go out for 1 or 2 miles tomorrow and try it out. I am feeling good while walking and I have been icing and resting as much as possible. I hope I stopped running soon enough yesterday to as not cause too much trouble.
Today our LDS ward sustained a new bishopric. Our good friend, Matt Bowman, is now Bishop Bowman. We are thrilled to have him serve our ward in this calling! Great man with a great wife and great family! We will be blessed under their care! My full support to Bishop Bowman, Brother Memmott and Brother Tucket. Lots of love and laughter await our ward with these fine men!
So far today I am choosing to take an extra rest day. I've had a pretty nasty sore throat all weekend which has resulted in some bad night's sleep. Also with the knee thing I feel the best thing for me right now is to let the energy my body has go towards healing. I may or may not feel like getting 1 or 2 miles in later.
P.M. I wanted to try my new prewrap that Teena sent down for me to try. I thought it would be nice to go out and try it on something very short to see how to adjust the tension. I feel like it was about right. I didn't feel pain in my knee, but then again, .5 miles isn't very far to really know with. I will wrap my leg and do an easy 5 or 6 miler tomorrow and see how it feels.
I decided to try to sleep a little longer again this morning instead of going out with Tom. When I was getting ready to go out alone I was wishing I was already done. But once I got out there and got going it went quite well. Although rather hot to me with the sun shinning down on me. I used the prewrap. I thought it might bother me to have it on, but it didn't. I felt a few twinges on my knee but nothing that made me feel like I had to stop.
(9:07 ave.)
Happy birthday to our sweet ray of sunshine, Tani! Eleven years old today! She was born about 15 minutes after we reached the hospital. It was quite an exciting middle of the night activity! She has kept us entertained right from the beginning! Love you Tani
Well, the wrap above my knee seems to be keeping the major pains at bay. Saturday will probably be my best test with the wrap. I'll be doing a 15 miler. Then I will just have to hope that with the wrap and the taper and a lot of prayer and some good luck and race day magic that I'll actually be able to run 26.2 miles on Oct. 4!
Tom and I had a nice morning run down in the river bottoms this morning. The almost full moon was shinning down on us. Just a few others out and about. My knee felt good. I had the wrap on. Tomorrow I am going to try about 3 or 4 with no wrap and see how it feels. I want to know where I am at for my Saturday morning run.
I am feeling extra chipper today. I don't know if it's because 22 years ago today I was waiting anxiously for the next day when I would become Mrs. Thomas Lee or what! But I do know that even though Tom and I have had our share of trials in the past 22 years, I made the best decision of my life when I chose to be his wife! If I were doing it all over again tomorrow I wouldn't change a thing! (Except my wedding dress and my haircut and my colors and the photographer and the food and the really long line that people had to go through and shake hands with.....)! But the husband choice was A-number-one then and it is A-number-one now! Love you Tom!
I am choosing to run ZERO miles today! I am a little worried about my knee and feel that today as a rest day would be the way to go! I am really hoping that tomorrow I can run 15 miles pain free! If I feel pain I am stopping and Tom is running to get the van for me. I will not risk things at this point! The next few weeks are probably going to be more of a taper than I had originally planned. I want to make it to the starting line healthy and I really don't want to be hobbling the last 6 miles in total pain and know that I am injuring myself even further! Oh what a fine line we travel at this point in training. Good luck to all running TOU tomorrow! Can't wait to hear how it goes for everyone!
Tom and I hitched a ride with the nice southerners, (Mike, Marcie, Dustin, Bill, James and a couple of their friends), from the finish line of SGM up about 14 miles. Thank you so much to Mike and his wife, (Calleen, I think), for letting us join in with you!
It was quite fun running down the SGM course with Tom! My knee tried to wimp out on me between miles 11-12, but with a little slow down it did fine the whole way! We were hoping more for a 15 miler, but the finish line came at about 14.25. We went around the park a bit to get to 14.5, but then the drinking fountain and bathroom looked very inviting so we called it a day!
Later we went in to the St. George Running Center to check on some shoes Tom had ordered. While there, Steve and Logan hooked me up with a new pair of shoes that I think I will use for the marathon. Thank you so much to Steve and Logan for some very great customer service! You made my shoe buying experience much better than I have ever had! I've never had anyone that knows what they are doing sit down and help me like you did! I definitely reccommend anyone who needs running shoes to go in and visit with one of these two guys!
Anyway, Tom and I had a great time down in St. George! Thanks so much to Tyler and Kellie Shepherd for letting us use their cute little home down there! It's kind of fun to forget you are parents for a few days! (However, it is now Sunday and we are back home and I am very happy to be with the kids again too!)
OK, here's the details. I'm writing them in purple so they look happy and cheerful! :o) Knee started hurting at about 2.2 miles. I stopped to stretch about 3 or 4 times but had to walk home after 3.2 miles.
I've tried lots and lots of things to help my IT band, but I think what it needs more than anything else is REST! So I think, (unless anyone who really knows tells me differently), that I have ran my last run until October 4th. I feel like that at this point anything else I put on my knee is going to be a negative impact on it. If I rest it I will probably be slower than I would have liked to be, but I will hopefully be able to cross the finish line and not just the starting line. I no longer have any goals but to CROSS THE FISNISH LINE...HOPEFULLY IT BAND PAIN FREE!
I'm not quite sure how I will do emotionally by stopping my running at this point, but I think I will take the negative emotional aspects better now than if I am not able to complete this marathon on race day.
I feel good about my decision but I welcome any advice or feedback. I may put this on the discussion board for further advice also. However, in the end, I will follow my own feelings...they always seem to know best.
Today was my first day of a little cross training action. I got 1 hour and 10 minutes riding a bike while Tom did his run. I am glad we gave our daughter a new, soft seat for her bike for her b-day last week. :o) I'm not counting any cross training miles because at the end of the year I want to look and see how many miles I actually ran this year.
I went to Josse yesterday for a massage and scrape! Holy Cow! I came home and showed my kids my leg. I told them that Josse's plan is to cause so much pain in other areas that I don't notice the pain from the IT band! ha ha! :o) My one daughter thought I was serious and gave me a pretty funny look. Anyway, I really feel good about what Josse did for me. Thank you Josse! I am still going to rest at least for this week. I will go for a bike ride this evening and do some stretches that have been reccomended. Next Monday I MIGHT try a very gentle run. If all goes well I MIGHT try another one on Wednesday.
P.M. SF Runner's Club Moonlight Run was tonight. I took the bike and made it a moonlight bike ride. I had fun, but was a tad jealous of the runners.
Kind of busy around here today. Weddings, hospitals, doctor appointments.....I got a little cross training action on the bike this morning. The doctor I went to wants me to try about 3-4 miles running on Monday. We'll see how it goes.
It's very hard for me to believe, but our second son is now 18 years old! Hmmmm....I guess we ought to go out and get him a present or something....It's been such a crazy week.
Bitter/sweet day yesterday. (See Tom's entry from yesterday for details.) Unfortunately our sister-in-law is still in the hospital. Missed her own daughter's wedding. I sat with her in the hospital last night while everyone else was at the reception. Makes me think a bit differently about the posibility of me missing a measly old marathon. If I can't make it over the finish line I will get another chance if I want. Your only daughter only gets married once...(hopefully!)
Today and tomorrow is are full days of rest. I had an injection in my knee yesterday and I need to lay low for 2 days before trying the knee out again. Monday morning we'll see how it feels. A big thanks to Felicia, (Pinkie on the blog), for some really great, extra mile service!
Four mile test run this morning. Tom and I were going to get up and go before he had to go into work, but when the alarm went off we decided another hour of sleep would do us good today. So I went out after Tom went to work and the kids were off to school.
I was a bit nervous with this first test. I felt something...still trying to figure out what it is I felt. Maybe stiffness from not running for a week? Maybe stiffness from the injection? Maybe phantom feelings? Warning signals? I don't know....but I do know it WASN'T pain! I never felt pain! There was no pain! Pain was not there! Ziltcho on the pain factor! Granted...it was only 4 miles and my average pace was 9:17 but I felt NO PAIN! I do understand that on Saturday it will be much longer than 4 miles and I'm hoping I'll have a faster average than 9:17, but as of right now I am slightly encouraged!
I think I will bike tomorrow and run on Wednesday and we'll take it from there. (Did I mention there was NO PAIN this morning?!)
I decided to run in the sun today. I might as well face it, I'm going to be in some heat come Saturday. I did a 1 1/2 mile warm up and then wanted to see if I could remember how to run a mile around 8 minute pace. I'm not sure if I was suppose to do that or not, but I want to be prepared and see what my knee can handle. I didn't look at the Garmin until the end. I just wanted to run and see what happened. I was hoping it would be close to the 8 mm. When I got done I looked and I had ran the mile in 7:31, (I even had a road kill, which is probably why I ran faster than I had planned. I was pracitcing taking people down. Little did that really nice lady know she had a target on her back. :o)) I was definitely breathing hard, but my legs felt great! I wore the band around the top of my knee to see how that felt. I think I will wrap it on Saturday too. If I decide I don't like it I can always take it off.
Isn't it funny how dedicating something to someone works? I've been talking to people that I am dedicating a mile to and it is interesting to see their response. I feel honored to have them to dedicate it to and they, in return, feel honored to have the dedication in their behalf. It is a simple thing for me to do and yet it means so much to me and to them. Simple things....they are so important. We all need to do more simple things for each other! Here's to simple things! :o) (o:
