Hyde Park Blast Results!

This weekend was the Hyde Park Blast in Cincinnati, OH~ and Kyle's FIRST race! yayyy!
Making people crazy runners, one race at a time!
<-- Photo: Kyle & Stephanie in front of the Hyde Park Square Fountain

I won't do a full race report because this was not a marathon. BUT, it was a VERY fun race. It's a 4-mile run through the streets of Hyde Park-a posh neighborhood in Cincinnati where EVERYBODY seems to run! This race had some major hills for such a short distance-- poor Kyle! But he did very well, beating most of the pack-- making us regular runners look pretty bad!!! TONS of free stuff at the end and great great tech T's! Yeah, for a 4 miles race, can you believe it????

This was a full day of events which included some serious bike racing. I didn't understand much of it, but apparently there were all these tiers in bike racing and the 1/2 tier were the best-- and they were FAST! Very cool to watch.

Funny fact... there were significantly more women than men!!! This wasn't designed to be women or men exclusive so I can't tell what's driving this change.






And here are Kyle's results. Mine are pretty much the same as I ran with him for the race, but my place was ONE ahead of his... his listened to my warning in the last post! GOOD JOB KYLE!

This week's good and bad of running

So today there were 2 things I wanted to write about- 1 being very good and exciting and 1 being well.... there's no better word for it but a "rant." Well, here we go...

The GOOD...

Today is a "drop down" week for our long run -- NOOO that isn't the good news-- but for our drop down week we'll be running the HydePark Blast-4 Miler (HPB) here in Cincinnati, OH! The extra exciting part is that this will be Kyle's very first race!!! The naturally (what looks like) 1% body fat Kyle has no need to ever run. So he's been training very hard for the past 2 weeks! He's going to do great but if he beats me I'll be forced to trip him at the finish line in front of thousands of spectators... Do you hear me Kyle???

The Bad...

Today I went for a morning run so that I have my evenings free to go see transformers 2 (so excited) and something happened that realllllly irked me! MEN! That's what happened!!! Dirty, no good, perverted men! Can SOMEBODY please explain to me why when women look: 1) Blotchy 2) Sweaty 3) Dirty, 4) Out of breath, 5) De-Make-up'ed, 6) Unshowered (AKA running) do men feel the need to Ogle, Yell, Slow their cars down, and essentially use women's bodies for their on voyeuristic pleasures!?!?!

First off, WHY???? We look DISGUSTING and second WHYY? What you're doing is very noticeable and rude! You don't stare at women in your office like that. You don't blatantly slow down your cars to stare when you're walking into the office do you? It's rude and on top of that VERY scary! FYI.... when people slow down, stare, and are not intimidated by the object staring back then it seems like they're dangerous!!! Also, EW! I say we all pick a morning and call it "baseball bat run day!" All women can carry baseball bats and men get ONE chance to look away. If they continue to stare or if they honk or yell, women have the right to shut them up!

Summer Marathons are in Season!!!

The summer has started and so brings a new string of marathons!!! Summer running sounded great back in the winter when bulky gloves and multiple layers were necessary, but now that heat, humidity, and VERY early morning (or very late night) runs can get a little annoying. I'm still a few weeks off from my next marathon so I wanted to dive a little into summer marathon training, upcoming races and injury prevention!

Schedule:
The summer months are difficult to schedule races due to the heat and humidity, but thanks to Marathon Guide and to the Marathon Maniacs Race Calendar, I think I've found a few that are manageable and in states I haven't completed yet! For my full schedule please go to the "Upcoming races" link above. Currently I have planned for about 2 races per month for the next 4 months. Ideally, I would like to space them out so I have 2-3 weeks between races.

Training...
After the string of marathons in the past month, I'm back on a regular training schedule. I'm going to continue to do 1 day of speed, 1 day of hills, 1 day of race-pace, and 1 "long run." I've also started toward my Post-50 marathon, goal: Triathlon training! Well, I've started to build a base so that when I DO decide to start training it isn't too hard. I've begun a beginner program for swimming that has me in the pool 3 days a week! I will also be taking 1 day completely off from working out-- HEAVENS NO! Ok, well I'll TRY and take a day off here and there!

Speed: Yasso 800's. This is my favorite type of speed work for distance running. The idea behind Yasso 800's is to get your target marathon pace through this mathematically-base speed work plan. Essentially you do 800 meters at your target marathon pace turned into minutes and seconds. So, if my target is 3 hours and 40 minutes, my target pace for my Yassos will be 3 Minutes and 40 seconds. I started doing these by taking 10 seconds off so that's what I still do. You then jog for that same length of time (obviously not going quite the 800 meters). If you can do 10 sets of these, you should be able to do a marathon at the targeted pace! If you've done these are would like to try them let me know how it goes! I've never worked up to 10 before but I'm planning on it before my August marathons.

Status: I was up to 7 before my string of marathon last month. I'm back up to 6. I'll up 1 a week, except marathon weeks.

Hills: I run on Wednesdays and some of my long runs with the local Cincinnati Galloway Group! Wednesdays for this group have been hill repeats. I'm pretty sure this is not ACTUALLY part of the program, but it definitely helps build hill tolerance-- especially for long graded hills. You start at the base of a long hill (preferably on a non-busy street) and you do sets of hill runs at your 5K-10K pace. A "Set" consists of 3 x 30 seconds up the hill with 1 minute job back down between. Followed by 1 X 60 seconds with a 2 minute jog. So it will look like this...

• 30 Seconds up (5k-10k pace)
• 60 Seconds down (jog)
• Repeat 2 MORE times then...
• 60 Seconds up (5k-10k pace)
• 2 minutes down (jog)

Status: We're up to 8 sets (~ 6.5 miles with a moderate warm up before)! We get to 10 and move onto tempo runs, but I think I'll start alternating between hills and speed work when we stop doing them as a group.

Long Runs: I hope to have my marathons scheduled so I'll have to do very few non-race long runs. But, in between races I like to do 1, 13-18 mile run, depending on how much time I have between. If I have less than 3 weeks the long run is unnecessary.

I'll follow up tomorrow with a post on injury prevention!

(Note: No Runners- or stars- were hurt in the creation of this post)

Advice on Blog Layout...

As you can see, my blog has been under a bit of construction. I've managed to figure out how to add a navigation bar above using HTML. I was fairly impressed with myself considering I've taken 1 class in computers 6 years ago and only passed because of the guys in my class who did my projects for me (it helps that I was 1 of 2 girls in the room).

I've also altered my picture above and added a snappy phrase (borrowed from some site I found in google image). Now I need some input...

1. Does this navigation bar help??? Those same links were posted in the upper right hand corner before, but I thought the Nav bar would be more like "normal" website and people had a better idea where to look for things.
1b. ... Was it better the way it was before? Links in the upper right hand corner?

2. Is the picture/page header too big??? It looks bit to me, but a lot of that is because I'm the site owner and it gives me the "edit" picture.
2b... if you think its too big, do you think it would be better where it was? Right above the blog posts, shrunk to fit between the left margin and the right menu?

3. Snappy Phrase... with or without the runner foot & wing? Whatcha think?

4. Any other thoughts? Additions? Deletions? Something you would like to cover? Anything! Just let me know...

Hatfield-McCoy Marathon Race Rating and Results

Ratings...
Overall Race Rating (weighted): 4.8/5.0
Average Calculated Rating: 4.5
~ This was a great race overall. It has been officially rated SFMC Small Race of 2009! I plan on going back again next year to make it my Kentucky marathon. Since this race runs in both Kentucky and West Virginia it can be counted as 2 states for the 50-state challenge!

Organization: 4.5/5.0
~ The organization of this race was phenomenal... for the most part. The start went off with a shotgun (literally) without a hitch. The mile markers were all perfectly marked both on the road and on the side of the road. There were little blue hillbilly feel that marked the way. Water stops were frequent and had both water and powerade. There were "carb-boom" stops (which we all know how I feel) but at least something was provided. 1/2 marathon split off was not only clear, but was exciting to run through. At the end you received an ice cold towel immediately and the mason jar with your place (loved it)!

The bad side... the CARS! When we were on the road 1 lane was open, which is understandable with such a small group of runners. But many of the cars were FLYING through and would have to go to the runners side to move out of the way of oncoming traffic. Very dangerous! Also, my fellow blogging friend didn't receive his mason jar! :( Apparently there was some confusion and his was given to somebody else. Boo...

Course: 5.0/5.0
~ UNBELIEVABLE course! I loved it! I put pull details about the course in my Post Race Thoughts entry. But to sum it up... the course had a little bit of everything, you were shaded most of the time, very scenic... I would recommend this run to anyone!

Spectators: 4.5/5.0
~ This is a scaled score because of the size of the race. There weren't a TON of spectators-- but u can't expect that when you're in the woods and on long roads without houses. There WERE water stops every mile or so with people so you weren't without. Most of these water stop were "themed." And you voted at the end which was the best. I'm not sure what they received but there were a few cute stops... I liked the hillbillies (so apropos). Besides, you didn't really need a ton of people because the river, mountain, woods, were so pretty to look at!

Pace Group: DNE and didn't need...

Runner/Corrals: 5.0/5.0
~ No corrals of course, but the runners were SO nice! I think this is a big race for people trying to qualify for 50 states and for the marathon maniacs... both very social groups, and you could tell in the runners! I made friends with a 50-state-attemptee who was going about the same pace as me. I saw a very tall maniac taking lots of pictures and still keeping a sub 4:00 pace-- so jealous of those long legs! I also made friends with some guys at the end who were walking when I came up... I got them running and then one beat me!!! How rude!!! JK they were all very nice.

Expo: 3.5/5.0
There wasn't an "Expo" for a marathon this size so I'll put the packet pick-up under here. I didn't get my packet until race morning because we got in so late. We got there pretty early... only about a dozen or so people were there and when I went to the table to check in and get my packet and t-shirt I was handed only a t-shirt and no packet! I pre-registered so you would think they would keep enough packets aside for those people who would pick them up on race day.

Also, lets talk tshirts. Now I KNOWWWW this is a small race without a ton of $$ HOWEVER, the t-shirt was both cotton AND ugly. Now I've seen the nice tech tee's with a really ugly picture and I've seen a cotton t-shirt with a really pretty shirt but I've never seen a cotton T with such an ugly picture... of a PIG... a large pig. That's pretttty much it. I'll post a picture of the shirt later. They still got a 3.5 because the packet pick-up and start was in front of a friendly grocery store that had hot breakfast items for the non-runners... aka Kyle! He claimed it was good... it looked sort of creepy to me, but I didn't have to eat it! I was also able to get bandaids that I had forgotten!

Results... Results are finally in!!!!!

Place: 52 Overall (Uh oooh gonna have the play the mason jar switcharoo game!)

Gender: 10/63

Division: 2/7 ~ Apparently if you got top 3 in your age group they will send us plate for the back of our mason jars!!! Laura even got 2nd... Yay New York!!!! (Ok I know it says Cinci, but I spent 22 years in NY and 2 years here so I still call myself a New Yorker!!! Oh and Brittany, a fellow marathon blogger got 6th in our age group as well! You DID beat someone and you made great time! Good Job to all!!!

Who needs rest??? ... This IS a challenge to everyone reading!!!

Soooo I signed  up... for another marathon. I can't seem to "Just say no." 

Dances with Dirt Devil's Lake marathon. But I'm STILL getting my much needed rest. I'll be getting 4 weeks of rest between races rather than 6. Hey! for me that's a lot! I was literally NOT sleeping because I was so worried about taking a whole 6 weeks off. Really I'm going to get better rest BECAUSE I signed up for the race... yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

THIS IS YOUR CHALLENGE (if you choose to accept it!)...

You know I'll give the "RUNdown" as we get closer to the marathon, but for advertising purposes I wanted to give ya a little background. I'm hoping SOMEBODY I know signs up! No maniacs are doing it and it wasn't listed in the Daily Mile as an event. I think I'm going to make it my personal obligation to get at least TEN people to sign up!!! So between the maniacs, blogspot, and Daily Mile there have to be TEN people out there that are up for a challenging trail marathon!!!

What?: Dances with Dirt (DWD) Devil's Lake Marathon

Type: Trail

Distance: They offer an ultra, marathon, half marathon, and relay (I say marathon!)

Why: This race looks hard core. According to the "Head Goat" (yes I was apparently emailed by a goat) "it's a very tough single track trail marathon." Why does this sound so exciting? READ the name of the blog... CHALLENGE! I've never done a trail marathon, so this is even more exciting!

DOES it COUNT?: It's NOT a Boston Qualifier (BQ) but it does go toward the 50 states (acc. to the goat)

*Also, I think I booked a 2 bed hotel so if any ladies decide to do it, it's not as costly! Let me know!!!

So... c'mon, dust off those old sneaks (cause you KNOW you don't want to run with any kind of new white shoe) and sign up!!! 

http://www.dwddevilslake.com/

Need advice!!! STAT!

Hello, my name is Stephanie and I'm a marathon-a-holic (chorus: "helllooooo Stephanie")

Ok... does ANYBODY know ANYTHING about the Dances with Dirt Marathon in BARABOO??? I know there is a lot out there about the other ones (Hell, MI, etc.) but I need to know about Baraboo on July 11th.

Ok I know JUST 2 days ago I said break until San Fran but being the addict that I am I have an ongoing spreadsheet of upcoming marathons and the airfare to get there. Yes, it's sad but I'm in finance so I use that as an excuse to find an inappropriate number of uses for excel spreadsheets-- and the price for the flight went WAY down (gotta love Wednesdays when you're looking for flights!). Anyways!... This is all I know about DWD Baraboo..

1) It was rained out last year! Yes that's right RAINed out! Its a trail marathon (I believe) and the rain washed away the trails orrrrr something... IDK

2) Not one maniac has it on their list (bad sign? good sign? scary sign? sign pointing left?)

3) It looks like a kick-butt marathon... literally I attached the elevation chart below AND they tell you that you may get lost and the only downside they address is "It may take longer to finish"-- AWEEEESOMEE!

Now... what I need to know...

1) Will it count toward my 50 states??? (It doesn't say anything about being certified but that wasn't a problem for counting Hatfield-McCoy so I'm guessing its ok???)

2) Is ANYBODY running this race? Is it still on? I know there are other races at the same time

3) Is this a good race??? Any trail runners out there? Anybody doing the ultra??

... If you have anything leave a comment or send me an email.