I’ve taken some time off from running to properly rest up. So I’ve had some extra time on my hands. So I’ve been baking. Homemade brownies…
brownies
I love any recipe that starts out with melt two sticks of butter…oh yeah!
Posted in baking
I’ve gotten some great questions about my 50K. Here are my favorites:
1. Did you train for it?
I bit my lip pretty hard when I heard this one as it was from a woman who recently completed a marathon. Do people think you don’t train for something like this? I’m not being sassy but serious. But then again, the woman who asked the question thought she could have died running her marathon while I was very confident that I had a greater chance dying on the WAY to the 50k than during the actual race.
2. How are you still alive?
I honestly think that most people have no idea how much their own body is capable of with proper training and nutrition.
3. Are you crazy?
I don’t think so but I’m not a trained professional. This question came from my mom and makes me smile. Usually when she asks this I interpret it as “Aleta, I love you and please be careful.” Don’t worry, Mom. I am.
3. Why would you want to run that far?
To see if I could. I knew I could. But I guess I wanted to see what would happened if I was racing the distance rather than a training run.
4. How do you run that far?
Train for the race. Then on the day of the race you put one foot in front of the other until you are done.
5. Will you ever get all that mud off your shoes.
Doubtful.
6. Can you walk?
The day after the race it was slow going getting out of bed but once I got moving it didn’t hurt that bad. Yesterday was way better especially with all the stretching. Today is much, much better. I still have some soreness in my lower legs.
I was pretty sure after I finished Hagg that I wasn’t going to run for a month or so. But today I’m definitely missing being outside. But I’m going to rest up for a few more days and then ease back in.
Posted in running
Yesterday I finished my first 50k race and it was muddy, slippery. The day started out rather early 3:45ish. I got ready and hit the road before 5am. It was really cold outside so I packed some extra clothes and was on my way. I hit Highway 26 and noticed an issue with my suspension. I was really nervous so I attributed it to that.
Hagg Lake is far off the main road so as I pulled onto a side road, my wheels spun. Then I realized the roads were frozen. Great. After a series of communication breakdowns and not being able to find Deb’s house, Deb, Jodie, and I arrived at Hagg Lake with 7 minutes until the start of the race. Eek!!
The ladies of Hagg Lake 50K early start!
Funny
We had to start out slowly due to the black ice. It’s only 14.1 miles around Hagg Lake so in order to get to 31.1 miles, we ran out and back for 2.9 miles and then around the lake twice. It was absolutely beautiful watching the sun come up at the lake.
We slipped and skidded around the lake, tripping and falling, crossing the creek, and running through the mud. Oh and mud there was. I have never seen so much mud. Although I had run there several weeks before, I was unprepared for the sheer amount of mud.
Crossing the creek!
This is part of the race course!
Crossing..
Steady as she goes.
My goal was to finish the race in 8 hours. We finished in 8:46:02 so my pace was very slow. I wasn’t very excited with the way I finished the race. In the last 14.1 miles, I felt my form fall apart and I had trouble keeping up with Deb, Jodie, and Dorothy ( a lovely woman who joined us). At one point, I decided to continue on rather than nosh on food at the aid station. I separated from the group and slowly ran by myself. I cried. I admit it. I cried. The race was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be both mentally and physically. And I wanted to drop. Badly. My chest ached and I felt like crap. I just wanted to stop running.
If I were to say that I felt 100% ready for this hard 50k, I would be lying. We moved, I got sick, and we went to San Francisco for Christmas. Although I did get in some great runs in San Francisco, I didn’t complete as many long runs as I wanted to. Or should I say as I needed to. I knew I was going to struggle in this race as hills aren’t my strong point. But one of my strong points is that being slow, I’m used to being on my feet for a long time. So I kept running. And running. And running.
The last 4.3 miles (or so) were really, really, really hard. I just kept chanting “4.3, 4.3, 4.3…” over and over again. I had run 4.3 miles absolutely exhausted before. I could do it now. Besides my car was at the finish. What else was I going to do? I felt horrible that Andy had waited to long at the race to see me finish. I tried to run as fast as I could those those 2 miles but my legs simply could not do it. It was at this time that I truly appreciated the effort that athletes that do Iron Man, 50 miles, 100 miles, etc. put into their races.
We were approaching the finish line when I heard, “Go Aleta!” I looked out towards the lake and saw Andy standing there with a camera. I started crying. I saw the timer and a group of people waiting. I hit the chute and was unsure as to the actual finish line. Andy told me to keep going which I did. The race folks looked at my bib and recorded my time. I grabbed Andy and cried on his shoulder. I was so happy to be done.
I am on the far right..
Running for the finish line
Looking at the race results, I wasn’t last. I was second to last though…Now that Hagg 50K is over and done with, I’m really going to think about what I want to accomplish this year and how I’m going to make that happen. I think that 50k is the farthest I will run in 2011. I need to work on my endurance and speed. I’ve only been running seriously for less than 16 months so I will cut myself a little bit of slack. I also want to do a few triathlons this year. I’m going to rest for a week or two and then get to running while trying to incorporate more of the bike and swimming.
Posted in running
I received the wrong packet when I got my race packet for the Hagg Lak 50K. If you don’t believe me, look at my husband:
Yeah ’cause this guy jumped out with my shirt on and posed for photos. What?
Posted in running, Uncategorized
Recently I signed up for a networking event hosted by PSU’s Multimedia Professional Program. It sounded like a cool thing: people talking about their digital marketing success stories and breakfast. Okay. Mostly I was curious and wanted free breakfast.
Here’s where it gets interesting. I was on Meetup.com checking out a few tech groups when I saw this event. So I signed up. I got an email last Tuesday from Meetup.com reminding me about the event. So the next morning, I get up super early and head downtown. I get to PSU’s Rec building and don’t see any signs telling me where to go. I go the dude with the computer who’s sitting behind a desk. He checks and says he has no information about this event. I go up and down floors looking for the event and cannot find it. Turns out I had the wrong date. Okay. Bad me.
I get to my office with a bagel in hand and send an email off to the coordinator the the Multimedia Program asking what floor the event will be on. She responds that it was in the confirmation email I received. I looked through all my emails and no there was no floor mentioned. I communicate how Meetup.com didn’t include this information. She tells me I have to register on another site for this event. Okay. I’ll play. So I register yet again for this event. I notice that only 4 or 5 people have registered including her. Not much of a networking event, huh?
This might have been the end of the networking saga but then I receive a reminder email late last week about this event. Okay. Great. Then yesterday I received another email from the coordinator reminding me about the event. At this point, I am officially annoyed. I registered on two sites and received 3 reminders about this?
So last night I realized I had a lot of meetings today and so much to do. I decided that the ‘networking event’ simply wasn’t worth the effort I had put into it.
Moral of the story: promoting your event through multiple sources is good but don’t make your participants work this hard to attend an event. And for goodness sake, three reminder emails is absolutely ridiculous!
Posted in Aleta 2.0
I love oysters and sardines. But I think I may be buying too much though…
Posted in Food
I’m all for Minimalism. I think its a great movement. But I gotta say, I hate the list on this blog post. The author lists out all the stuff she takes with her on her trip. She has listed out her belongings in other posts. They were annoying too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the list. I make them daily. But my beef here is that:
1. The list is incomplete. Did she not take any toiletries with her?
2. The list is boring! It’s like listening to those annoying women who list out everything they have eaten in the last 24/48 hours in excruciating detail.
“And then I had one chicken breast the size of a deck of cards with 2 cucumber slices and then six almonds.”
If the author is cool with keeping OCD lists of all of her belongings, that’s great. But I do not get it. She talks about the serenity of living with less but she took a picture of each of the 34 items. How much time does that take? What is serene about that? Is she trying to convince us or herself that this is serene?
Like I said, I am a fan of the lists. But I refuse to become a slave to them. Sometimes I write things I have all ready done on the list just so I can experience the satisfaction of crossing the item off. I usually will use a list for the grocery store or for projects like camping. In the past, I have been guilty of making lists of tasks no human being could ever complete.
I think that in our effort to take our lives back from the things that have taken them over, we tend to get a little weird. We start taking mental (and sometimes physical) inventory of everything. For some people its physical possessions and for others its food. When you get into this type of behavior, it seems (to me anyway) that you have merely traded one master for another. What do you think? Am I missing the boat?
Posted in Minimalism, Uncategorized
On Saturday I woke up bright and early to go run trails with the ladies. It was a good time!
It was Teri’s birthday and she wanted to run the entire Wildwood trail. After running 28.7 miles at Hagg Lake the previous weekend, I wasn’t up to running that kind of distance. But I did put in 15 miles. Hagg Lake 50k is in 13 days…
I just received my confirmation that I can start at 7am for the Hagg Lake 50k. Several of the ladies I know are doing the early start which give participants 9 hours to finish rather than the 8. After running Hagg Lake this week, I think I need all the time I can get.
Me, Lynne, Deb, & Lori @ Hagg Lake
This last weekend, I met several friends out at Hagg Lake to run two loops or 28.2 miles. Miles 14-18 completely sucked. But at some point, the pain cannot get any worse. So it gets better. I was so happy to finally see the end. It was glorious. Excited and nervous for Hagg Lake.
Posted in running
