Race Season

Thursday morning was my last "training" run before the Quarter Marathon Sunday. It was cooler than Tuesday's run. That was nice. I know before long it's going to be crazy hot every day. 

I'm thinking about a new Garmin. This one has been nice & works but there are some newer models that have a lot of improvements that would be nice to have. I'd love one of the fancy Fenix models. My brother won one & it's so cool. However, the price is not! There's another model that's considerably less expensive that I'd like. We'll see. I hate that my birthday, anniversary & Christmas are all in the last 3 months of the year. I should've planned my wedding date better. 

Friday was a yucky rainy day. We went to dinner at Caliente. 

It doesn't get much better than margarita's & guac! I finally got the tuna & it was soooo good! It's only on the Lent menu which is a bummer. 

The LSU game ended up getting postponed to Saturday because it wouldn't stop raining. That means there was a doubleheader. It was cold & windy. Cindy & Diane kept texting me pictures from Disney World where it looked to be a beautiful day. This is the pic they got in return.

At this point I was wondering what had gotten in to me. Why was I sitting there freezing?? I made it to the 6th inning & then I went home. I had to get more layers because I was skipping out on the second LSU game & going to watch Logan in his first t-ball game of the year. 

He's playing first this year. I'm sure it's because he's the biggest kid on the team. He can catch the ball too.

He takes baseball very seriously.

He cracks me up with those batting gloves.

He hit an inside the park homerun. I really enjoy watching them play. These kids are so funny. It was hilarious when one kid got a hit & ran straight to third base while Logan was on third base. The look on Logan's face was priceless. 

After the game I hit the Little Caesars drive thru & headed home to thaw out. 

The Quarter Marathon I ran Sunday was my last "longer" race of "race season". Most of the races in Baton Rouge are in the winter because of the excruciating heat during the summer. I plan to run the 5K for Logan's school in April but then that's it for awhile. The race was for Anna's Grace Foundation. They help families who lose babies from miscarriages, stillbirth & infant loss. This was the inaugural race for the foundation. They chose the Quarter marathon distance because a quarter of pregnancies end in loss. 

So pretty much everything that could go wrong did Sunday morning aside from actually getting out of bed early. I got up, ate, my clothes were ready to go, the whole bit. The start was downtown but closer to home than normal & there was a free parking garage right by the start so no hunt for parking. Because of that I left later than I normally would for a race. The race was at 8:30. I went the way I normally go downtown but the police were already out & the streets were closed. I was confused by this because of the time. I had to turn around & go around to get there. Not that big of a deal but annoying. At that point I wondered if I had the start time right. It just didn't make sense to me that the roads were closed 40 minutes prior to the start of the race. Especially because this wasn't a big race. I checked the website & yeh I screwed up. It was starting at 8:15.  I got there, got parked & headed to the elevator. Normally, I would've walked but at this point I was short on time. Well, the elevator was out of service. At that point I used my savvy navigational skills & walked the longest way I possibly could to get out of the parking garage. I didn't realize this until after the race when I was walking back to my car. I was only on the second level. 

I got to the starting line at 8:10 & was immediately accosted by a little cajun lady. Have I mentioned I'm not a morning person? Yes I get up at a ridiculous time but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it or want to talk. Clearly, this lady didn't share my views. I immediately learned that she lived "across the river", if you lived in Baton Rouge you'd know that there was absolutely zero need for her to tell me this, the accent told it all. She has asthma, runs on the treadmill all the time unless she runs in a race, she's fast on the treadmill but slow on the road, she asked her Dr. if her lungs are working at 100% because she has such a hard time with her breathing outdoors, he said yes they are, it's because she doesn't run outside, she needs to practice, her allergies are just so bad, she uses nasal spray, she doesn't like pills, she goes to nursing school, Varsity thinks she should run with them but the time that they run isn't convenient for her, can I take her picture of her & her name is Tina. I got all that in 5 minutes. I'm sure I missed something. She was in mid sentence when the horn blew to start the race. I took that opportunity to take off. I started faster in this race than normal because I was trying to get away from her. Sorry. I just couldn't take it. 

It was cold. Like 42 degrees cold. Fine by me. I like cold running. The one thing I have a hard time with  is deciding what to wear. The sun totally changes everything. You warm up much quicker. I knew pretty quickly that I had on too many clothes. I could've taken my top layer off except that's where my bib was with the timing chip so I had to leave it on. It was going to be windy too. The race was an out & back & the out was along the levee. It wasn't windy at all which was great. We ran to LSU's baseball stadium, through the parking lot & back. On the back part I realized that there was wind, it had just been blowing at my back. The last 3 miles was rough. Steady wind in my face. Somewhere between 10-15 mph. I was having a decent run but the wind was definitely taking it's toll on me. The last mile was hard. At some point my watch was off. It was perfect the first few miles but it beeped for mile 5 a good bit before the mile 5 marker. Not cool when you have wind blowing in your face & you thought your were closer to being done than you are! My goal was to finish in less than 1:05 but  I really didn't think it was going to happen. I finished in 1:04:44. Yay! 

So, there I am, #4. 4th in my age group. I was so annoyed! 4th! Ugh! 

There were physical therapist out there to stretch you, so I did that, drank a bottle of water & decided that I actually wanted to eat a banana. At that point I head to my car. That's when I noticed just how far out of my way I went to get out of the parking garage. I then dropped the banana on the floor of my car after I'd peeled it. Nice. Once I was home, I stayed there. I was tired of wind & cold weather. I didn't even go to the LSU game. 

The medal is cute.

Tuesday morning's run looked a lot like Thursday's. 

I ran 5 miles in 54:30.79 & 54:30.73. Weird. Funny that the day I was the tad bit faster, my heart rate was lower & I burned less calories. I think it's so interesting to see times vs. heart rate & calories. I also remember when I first started running my average heart rate would be in the high 180's. Just goes to show what happens when you get in shape. 

Toodles!