Cap to Coast Recap

I know it took me a while to find the time to write this post, but here it is: My Cap to Coast Recap. The Cap to Coast relay was my first race of this kind and I went into it without any specific expectations. But I was excited for the opportunity after hearing everyone in my running group talk about it for months after last years race!

Our team had two vans with 6 runners each. I was in van 1 and our assigned start time was 4:30am. This meant that my alarm went off at 2am, after only 3 1/2 hours of sleep. We were supposed to meet up at 2:30, so I started getting nervous when no-one was there yet at 2:35. But everything went smoothly and we made it to the start around 3:30, in time for check-in.

Obligatory pre-race picture.

Before we knew it Andrea, our first runner, was off. We got into the van to cheer her on at different spots throughout her run. Thanks to the race day adrenaline, I felt nowhere nearly as tired as I thought I would after only 3 1/2 hours of sleep.

Next up was Kelly. Her leg was probably one of the most difficult legs of the race, thanks to the early morning traffic. The street she was running on for a large part of her leg was starting to get really busy, there was not much of a shoulder, and it was still dark. The street seemed not very safe to run on under those conditions, but luckily everyone was fine.

During her run, the rest of us made a quick stop at Taco Cabana for breakfast tacos. Not until after they opened the door for us, we realized that we were there 10 minutes before their usual 6am opening time. I myself chose not to eat anything since my run was coming up soon and I didn't want to take any chances. I'll never pass up a chance to use the restroom, though. ;-)

Waiting at the first exchange point.

After Jenny ran leg 3, I was up. My first leg started at sunrise. It was so beautiful! The road I started on was very busy, but luckily we turned left after less than a mile, onto a much smaller side street. In fact, I started to get nervous that I had taken a wrong turn, I didn't see anyone (no runners, no vans, no cars) at all for a while! I started way faster than I had planned to. When my watch beeped at the end of mile 1 after only 7:11, I knew I had to slow down. I still kept pushing myself though, passing 6 runners during this leg, and finishing my 5.4 miles with an average pace of 7:21.

It was a great run, but I was glad when it was over. Considering that my current 10k PR was run at a 7:30 pace, I should probably have taken it a little slower... As soon as I passed on the baton to Carlos and stopped running, sweat started pouring down my face and into my eyes. All I wanted at that moment was something to wipe my face with, but our van was nowhere to be seen! Only Kelly was waiting for me, explaining that they had had to do an emergency bathroom stop, but should be back any minute. Luckily, I was able to get a baby wipe from another van that was waiting at the exchange, so at least my eyes felt better. But as soon as that was taken care of, I started sneezing uncontrollably. It must have been my allergies, or the dust from the dirt on the road! Either way, I was happy when my van finally returned.

At the end of my first leg.

Only two runners in my van were lef: Carlos and Janna. Both of them did an awesome job, especially since the weather was warming up quickly now that the sun was out!

Carlos handing over to Janna.

After leg 6, it was time to hand over to van #2. They had taken advantage of their later start time to sleep a little longer and have breakfast together, so they were still full of energy.

Team meeting at the first major exchange point (Delaney was running).

After handing over to the second van, it was time to decorate our van. Other than being attacked by fire ants, we had a lot of fun doing so!

Showing off our team pride. Of course we're "The most interesting team in the world"!

Andrea posing in front of the finished piece of art.

After decorating our van, we headed to Lockhart for lunch. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant (I forgot the name) that was already decorated for Halloween. I was not expecting to find many vegan options in a relatively small town in Texas, so I was happy with my guacamole salad. I was definitely still hungry after that, though, so after we returned to the car I helped myself to some leftover birthday cake I had brought with me from Austin.

After lunch, we were all really tired. Most of us were already half asleep when we were driving down a very bumpy dirt road to exchange #13. I think we slept for maybe one hour, then hung out there for a little longer, until we started wondering where everyone else was. This was supposed to be a major exchange point, and we had yet to see a single other runner! That was when we realized that exchange 13 meant we were at the end of leg 13, not at the beginning! Good thing we noticed it almost two hours before our runner #12 (Chris) was supposed to finish his leg...

On the drive back to exchange #12, we drove past a runner getting a massage and eating a snack on the side of the road. We figured that that had to be one of the solo runners! So of course we stopped to say hi. One of the guys that was with his team came up to our van with his notepad to ask us questions. I am not sure if he was some kind of journalist or blogger, or maybe he was just writing some kind of diary?

We got to exchange #12 with plenty of time. It was nice to just hang out at the exchange and watch people from other teams. We sat on the side of the road, in the shadow of the trees, having snacks and chatting. The temperature was surprisingly nice, at least when you were not running and in the shade. The runners however, were struggling in the heat. Chris looked very tired and dehydrated when he finished his run. Andrea took over, and she was having a hard time as well. She kept pouring water over her head to cool down, but was able to keep up a strong pace.

Meeting up with the other van at exchange #12.

Chris handing over to Andrea.

After Andrea, it was Kelly's turn again. Her leg was was another tough one, thanks to the combination of the afternoon heat and the rocky road. Towards the end I decided to jump in to keep her company, and together, we pushed through to the end.

Strangers practicing rodeo and throwing lassos.

By the time it was my turn again, it was luckily starting to cool down, as the sun was about to set. Just as Jenny was about to hand the baton over to me, we crossed paths again with Roel. He looked tired and asked if no one was about to start from that exchange point. I told him I was, and wished him a good run, but then took off at a faster pace. I felt somewhat bad for leaving him behind, but I was feeling competitive and wanted to see what I could do.

During my second leg, I again passed 5 runners. However, I had underestimated how tired I was, so even though this leg was even shorter than my first one (only 4.4 miles), I was unable to keep up the pace until the end. I don't know if it was the dust from the dirt road I had started on (I had turned onto a highway almost immediately after the start), or if I was just exhausted, but I felt more out of breath than usual. My legs felt extremely tired, too. In addition to that, at one point I was almost hit by a car. I was wearing reflective gear and a headlight, and was running against traffic on a broad shoulder. Oncoming cars were not an issue at all, they all gave me plenty of room. However, at one point as I was crossing a crosswalk (after the sun had completely set), a car wanted to turn right on red and started to give gas just as I was in front of his car. I was startled and made a sudden jump to the side, and that's when he luckily saw me. I guess for next time, I'll try to bring those glowing bracelets in addition to the reflective vest, for better visibility from the side... After that experience, I somewhat lost focus and slowed down even more. My overall pace for the leg was 7:35, which is not bad, but considering that I had started out at 7:20 pace and slowed down to about 8 min/mile my pacing could have been better.

Impressive solo runner Roel.

Start of my second leg at sunset.

After my run, I was completely exhausted, my calves and hamstrings felt like they were about to cramp up, and I was worried about my knees, because they hurt every time I got into our out of the van. In addition to that I was starving. Those crackers with almond butter were the best thing I have ever eaten!

Carlos was the last runner from our van again. He ran strong, but at one point he reported that he had stepped on a (semi?) dead armadillo. Gross!

At the exchange point after his leg, we stopped at a gas station that was about to close. Due to the relay, they had remained open for an extra 15 min, which we took advantage of to stock up on snacks and use the restroom. I had realized by then that I had brought too many sweet foods with me, but not enough salty snacks. At that point, I was really craving potato chips!

From there we headed to the school we would stay at over night. The school was near exchange 23, which was closer to where we would start running again in the morning than where we were at at that point. During our drive, we kept getting updates from the race organizers, that one bridge we were supposed to run on had somehow mysteriously vanished. They had been unable to find a safe alternative route to run on, so now we were supposed to skip legs 26 and 27. The details of the logistics of that were not clear to us until the morning after, but skipping those legs turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Carlos seemed to have injured his hip during his second leg, so it would not have been smart for him to run another leg. Now Jenny, whose leg was skipped, was able to take his leg, allowing him to rest. Kelly's leg was also skipped. I think she was a little bit bummed that she would not be able to complete all three legs, but her toenail was probably grateful for that...

When we arrived at the school around 11pm, they were not quite ready for us yet. We were told that the mats would be there soon, so we headed to the locker rooms of the school gym to take a shower. When we were ready to go to sleep, we were told it would be another 30 minutes until the mats would be there. At that point it was only 3.5 hours until we had to get up again, so waiting another half hour did not seem appealing. Finally, they told us to sleep on the library floor, which at least had a (very hard and thin) carpet. Considering the circumstances, I slept surprisingly well. I fell asleep pretty quickly, and didn't wake up until two minutes before my alarm went off at 2:45am. I guess I was tired enough!

Again, Andrea was the first runner in our team to run. During her run and in the 90 minute break after her run that we were forced to take due to the skipped legs, we stopped at two different "breakfast places": McDonalds and Whataburger. They don't really have anything I would want to eat there, but I was able to get a coffee and an orange juice, which I had together with some of my fruit and oatmeal squeeze packets before my run.

It was still dark when I started my run a little before 7am. As it started to get a little bit less dark, I started noticing movement in the grass next to me. I was slightly nervous about it at first, not knowing what it was. After a while I figured out that those were toads! Not nearly as scary as other animals I was able to think of! Around 15 minutes into my run, the sun started to come up, which meant that I was treated to another beautiful sunrise run on my birthday morning! I really lucked out with my legs this year! I decided that marathon pace sounded good. After all, I ran 26.2 miles at that pace two weeks earlier, I should be able to run 7.3 at that pace on tired legs, right? In the beginning of my run, my legs felt really heavy, and my shins, quads, and knees were hurting. However, after 3-4 miles it got better, and I was even able to pick up the pace a little bit!

Ready to run my third leg!

From the beginning, we were slightly worried about Janna's route. The people who did it last year had had a bad experience with some free running, aggressive dogs, so we decided to stay just a few meters behind her at all times. And indeed, when we came to the same house with the problematic dog, the dog came running towards her. We were trying to get our van in between Janna and the dog to keep her save. All the while, the owner of the dog was standing at his porch calmly watching the scene, not even trying to call his dog back. What was he thinking?!

Meeting up with van 2 after our van was done.

After everyone in our van had finished our legs, we calculated that we were right on schedule if we assumed the two runners on the deleted legs would have run their predicted pace. That means on average we hit our predicted paces almost perfectly! I thought that was kind of cool. 

Since our van was done running, Carlos, who didn't run a third leg and instead took a nap, offered to drive for the second van. I think they were grateful for that. Unlike our van, they didn't have a driver, so the runners had to take turns driving the van... 

We wanted to stay relatively close to the 2nd van, just in case they needed our support. However, we were also both hungry and tired, so we decided we needed a breakfast stop first. We headed over to the closest Starbucks to grab coffee and oatmeal. That felt so good! The morning before, van 2 had their time at breakfast when we were already running, and rubbed it in by pointing it out to us. Now it was our turn :-)

After breakfast, we met up with the other van and picked up two of their runners after their cool down, so their van would be able to support the runner who was currently running. Then we went ahead and drove to the finish, where we would finally meet up with everyone to join our last runner, Chris, to run through the finish together. 

It was an exciting moment to be done after so many hours of the race. I would have liked to jump into the water, but as soon as I was taking off my shoes, someone pointed out the fishbones that were lying around everywhere. And as soon as I had made a few steps, two of them were sticking to my feet... Later I noticed a lot of dead fish lying around everywhere on the beach. I am not an expert, but I feel like that is probably a sign that something is off with the water/the ecosystem there. I have been to other beaches and never experienced something like that.

We also met up with the other team from our running group, who had finished 2 hours before us. I think they were competing with us, but we were just out there to have fun! ;-) 

Good motto!

After arriving at our hotel, we got assigned to our rooms. Most rooms had four to five people. I was sharing a room with Sarah, Chris, Kay, and Steven. Considering that the room only had two beds, a couch, and a foldable bed they added for us, it should have felt very crowded. But compared to the van and the library floor, where we had spent the previous night, it was pure luxury.

Our post race festivities involved barbecuing (veggie burgers for the three vegans), and of course beer. They also surprised me with a tiny birthday tart and sung happy birthday for me. So sweet! We ate, took a walk on the beach, then hung out at the beach front of our hotel, enjoying the view and the company. We also ran into Roel again, and could not pass up the opportunity to congratulate him, ask him a couple of questions, and take a picture with him.

We were all super tired, so we headed to bed around 9 pm. I did not expect to sleep well, since I don't like hotel beds in general, and was sharing the bed with Sarah, so I had less room than I usually like to have. But again, the exhaustion won and I fell asleep as soon as I laid down. I first woke up at 6 am, because I had forgotten to turn off my alarm, then fell asleep again until 7:15.

Having fun at the after party!

Pretending to blow out the birthday candle.

Happy birthday to me!

Our third time running into Roel!

Both teams reunited.

After breakfast, I decided to go have a look at the USS Lexington together with the runners from van 2. Van one had decided that they preferred to head out earlier, so that they would get back to Austin at a more reasonable time. I could write another blog post just about our visit at the Lexington, but I will just leave it at saying that it was very interesting and we could have spent a lot more time there than we did, there was so much to see! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

In front of the USS Lexington. 

Those chains are heavy!

Volunteer Bill, telling us about the history of the ship and the different airplane types.

On the Lexington.

Before heading off back to Austin, we grabbed lunch at a Thai restaurant. We chose the restaurant because it was close and one of the few vegan friendly restaurants that the Happy Cow app suggested. The food was very good and the presentation was impressive. My curry was served in a young coconut, and with a big slice of pineapple for decoration.

As we were hitting the road, van 1 texted us that they were stuck in traffic due to an accident on I35. We decided to circumvent the traffic jam by taking the back roads. However, while Google maps is very useful in more urban areas, it led us astray in the countryside. We were driving down a dirt road, but when we were supposed to turn, both directions had locked gates. We had no choice but to turn around.

We decided to check out another possible route, even though signs on the side of the road were warning us pretty early on that the bridge was out. We just wanted to see it with our own eyes. Indeed, when we got there, the road was first blocked by a road block, then they had heaped up a pile of dirt to make it impossible to pass. We walked from there to where the bridge had been. The actual bridge cover was now lying several meters downriver. It looked like it had probably been washed out earlier in the year when there was flooding around Memorial day. There was even a car lying in the river bed!

In the end we ended up returning our van late. However, so did the other van that had left Corpus Christi earlier, and did not have a day that was nearly as fun and adventurous. So we have no regrets!

We were supposed to turn right here.

We found the missing bridge!

In summary, it was an exhausting but fun filled weekend. Would I do it again? Definitely!

Packing for Cap to Coast

In only a few hours, I will be cramped in a van with six other people and on my way to Corpus Christi. I just finished packing, all that is left to do now is blog about it (duh!), eat dinner, and go to bed early, to get at least a few hours of sleep before my alarm goes off at 2am tomorrow tonight.

For those of you who are not familiar with Cap to Coast, it is a relay run from Austin, Tx to Corpus Christi. We are going to run the entire 223 miles divided between a team of 12 runners, ending at the beach. Each of us is going to run a total of 15-21 miles, split into three legs. It is my first time doing something like this, so I am a little bit nervous and super excited! I promise I'll write a full recap in the days after the race :-)

Here is what I am going to bring. I am not going to post a packing list, there are plenty of good ones out there. You can find the ones I consulted here, here, and here.

3 sets of running clothes, running accessories, hoodie, pyjamas, "regular" clothes, bikini, tom's.

I packed all my clothes into 1 gallon zip lock bags, one outfit per bag, to make them easier to find. I was also told that those bags would come in handy to stuff the sweaty clothes back into after the run, to prevent the smell from spreading.

Toiletries, sun glasses, sun screen, wipes, disposable toothbrushes, chewing gum, cough drops, nuun...

Blanket, towel, inflatable pillow, eye mask, ear plugs, ipod, battery pack/cables, wipes (made it into both pictures), toilet paper, water bottles.

Food. No idea if this is a reasonable amount to bring. I guess I'll find out! 

Everything packed.

I hope I have everything I'll need and what I brought is not too excessive. I wish I had a duffle bag that is slightly larger than my school backpack, so I could fit the shoes and the towel in there. But this will have to do!

Training Reflections TCM 2015

One week after the Twin Cities Marathon, I would like to reflect on my training. This post is as much for myself, as for other people who are interested in reading about what I did. Sorry for the lengthy post! Feel free to scroll down to the pictures ;-)

Training Plan

For this training cycle, I decided to follow the Run Your BQ intermediate high mileage training plan. I have used a Run Your BQ plan successfully before (the beginner one), when I was training for the Austin Marathon 2015. Both times I have used their plan I have managed to remain injury free and finish the race with a huge PR. I think the strength of this training plan is that it includes warm up exercises and strength training, as well as a good balance of speed-work and slow mileage.

The intermediate high mileage plan starts at a weekly mileage of 31, which is similar to what I had been doing before the official start of training, and builds up to a weekly mileage of 53. It includes one weekly speed session (tempo, hill intervals, or fartleks). The plan contains two 20-milers, the last one two weeks before the marathon. The shorter than normal taper is another reason why I like this plan so much. Two weeks is plenty of time to recover, but not so much that you start freaking out (taper crazies are real!) and feel like you should have done more.

I got the RYBQ package back when it was new, and it was possible to only get the Essentials (ebook, videos, and training plans) without having to purchase a membership. Sadly, the RYBQ Essentials are no longer available. Otherwise, I think it would be one of the best training plans you could get, unless you are getting a personalized training plan from a professional running coach.

Weekly Routine

I guess the safest thing to do would have been to follow the training plan to a T. However, I felt confident enough to make a few changes to better accommodate my schedule, to still allow me to run with my meetup group, and to go to my favorite workout classes. 

A typical week looked as follows: 

Monday: Bike ride in the evening, run in the morning in the peak weeks.

Tuesday: Speed work/semi long run, total body workout.

Wednesday: Double (run in the morning and evening).

Thursday: Rest day.

Friday: Easy run, total body workout.

Saturday: Long run.

Sunday: Easy run.

This is pretty much the pattern I stuck with, other than when I was on vacation in the beginning of August. With the exception of one week when I was at a festival, I managed to keep up my running while on vacation.

No running here!

Fueling My Long Runs

My favorite pre-long run fuel was a smoothie. I usually add almond milk, oats, cashews, chia seeds, a banana, and frozen berries/ other fruit to it. However, I knew that I would not have my Vitamix with me in Minneapolis, so I also practiced with what I would be having before the race: Toast, banana, and peanut butter. 

For long runs over 10 miles, I like to use energy gels. I have a very fast metabolism, so I get hungry very quickly while running. I used Clif Shots, GUs (after they switched to a vegan formulation), and Hüma gels. I usually started taking them at mile 5, and had another one every 4-5 miles, depending on whether I was hungry or not. 

Of course, I also needed to refuel and reward myself for all the hard work. Most runs were followed by a veggie burger, and a salad plus dessert not too much later. My favorite post-long run treat was vegan ice-cream from Sweet Ritual.

Well deserved vegan ice-cream.

Best Runs

There are two run that stood out to me in this training cycle: The Hottest Half in Dallas and my 19-miler that included running up Mount Bonnell.

The Hottest Half was on August 23. At that time of the year, temperatures are not very agreeable for racing here in Texas. The high of the day was supposed to be 106. They are not kidding when they say hottest half! Luckily, by the time we were finished, the temperatures were still in the high eighties. I slowed down significantly in the second half of the race. I feel like I would probably have been able to keep up the 7:30 pace, had it been cooler. I still finished the race in 1:41, winning my age group! It also was a 5 minute PR for me. This race was a huge boost of confidence!

Running the Hottest Half.

The Mount Bonnell run was very similar to a run I did back in January when I was training for the Austin Marathon. So again it was nice to be able to look back and see how much I had progressed since then. Both times I started my long run super early so I could join my running group for an 8 mile run up (and down) Mount Bonnell. Most of my long runs were relatively flat, so adding an 800 ft mountain towards the end of it was definitely challenging. I was sore for days after that run! It did make the upcoming 20-milers feel a lot easier, though!

Other favorites included runs in forests or around lakes in Switzerland and Germany. We just don't have anything here that compares to that beauty!

Beautiful lake in Switzerland.

Worst Runs

While bad runs are definitely always part of running, I was lucky to have no really bad runs in this training cycle. The worst run was probably my last goal marathon paced (GMP) tempo run. It was three days after my second 20-miler, coming off two 50+ mile weeks. I was understandably tired. I was supposed to run 3 miles at GMP. After failing to hit that pace and suffering for two miles, I gave up and slogged along for the rest of my way to school. At least I knew why I had failed (I was exhausted), and I knew that I had put in the work, all that was left to do was rest to be recovered in time for the race. 

Things I Did Differently

For the most part, this training cycle did not differ too much from my previous one for Austin 2015. The main difference was that my mileage was a little bit higher. I had class at 8am on Tuesdays, so I decided to put a change of clothes and my textbooks into my gym locker the day before and run to school. That way I was able to sleep at least a little bit longer. 

Before this training cycle, I had also never run twice in a day. However, my training plan suggested a medium long run (8-10 miles) on Wednesdays. I was not willing to give up on the evening run with my meetup group, though, and their Wednesday runs are usually much shorter. My solution was to split up my Wednesday run into a morning and an evening run, keeping the total mileage the same. The first time I did that, it felt a lot harder than running the mileage continuously, but I got used to it. I hope that will pay off when we are doing Cap to Coast next weekend!

Another thing I introduced, not for this training cycle, but for the one before, was dynamic stretching/ warm up before the run. The routine I do includes ankle and hip circles, lunges, and leg swings, and takes less than 10 minutes to complete. I really believe that played a big part in injury prevention for me!

What Still Needs Improvement

Even though I am really happy with this entire training cycle, there are of course still some things that need improvement. Most of these things fit into the category of recovery for me. I know I should spend more time after each run to stretch. Also, I didn't nearly foam roll as much as I had planned to. While those things take time and are admittedly not very exciting, I know that it might have prevented my muscles feeling quite as tight as they did at some points during training.

I did not spend enough time with this!

Another big area that needs improvement is sleep. I usually slept well most nights, but I didn't get the amount of sleep that I would have needed. My body tends to feel best when I get at least 8 hours of sleep per night. However, I didn't adjust my bed time according to the earlier alarms for my morning runs. This resulted in me only getting 6-7 hours of sleep most nights. I could definitely feel it!

Summary

Overall, I am very happy with this training cycle. I managed to remain injury free, while running the highest mileage I ever have. In the end, all the hard work payed off, leading to a huge marathon PR! Still, there are some areas that need improvement, and I plan to pay more attention to those when I am training for my next marathon.

Race Recap: Twin Cities Marathon - BQ!

When I ran the Twin Cities Marathon last Weekend, I had no idea that I was about to start a running blog - otherwise there would probably be more pictures.

On Saturday, I headed to the race expo around noon together with a friend from my running group who was running the race as well. To be honest, I have a hard time getting excited about race expos anymore. I feel like I have seen most of the gear before. But it was interesting to try the new, savory Clif "gels". I could imagine using the pizza margherita flavor on future long runs.

Packet pickup was fast, and they let you check the chip on a chip reader to make sure there are no mix-ups. Something I definitely appreciated!

After the expo, we headed out for a short (2-mile) shake-out run. The weather was so beautiful, cool and sunny. I could have run much longer, but I knew that would not have been a smart idea one day before a marathon. Also, by that point I was starting to get really hungry, all I had had to eat so far was one banana and a couple of grapes. I usually never skip breakfast, and I was supposed to be carb-loading!

Ready or not - it's on!

On race day morning, I was not sure if I was ready to tackle the marathon. I knew I hadn't gotten enough sleep the two nights before and was feeling really tired. I was also nervous about running in the cold, not being used to that kind of weather anymore. We headed to the start with plenty of time to use the port-a-potties, do a quick warm-up, and drop off the gear check bag. I was wearing arm warmers, a throw away sweatshirt, and a heat blanket from a previous race to stay warm. From the beginning, everything seemed really well organized, and the atmosphere reminded me more of a party than of a race. I could feel that I was starting to get excited, and the music they were playing at the start made me want to dance.

Miles 1-6

Before the start of the race I introduced myself to the 3:35 pacer, asked him about his race strategy. I told him that I was planning to stick to his pacing group for at least the first couple of miles. I knew that I would have to be a few minutes below the official 3:35 qualifying time to actually get into Boston, but I was afraid that without a pacer I would start to fast, only to crash later in the race.

During the first mile, a guy started talking to me. He told me how excited he was about running the marathon, and that this was the best thing ever. He was having so much fun. It was his first marathon, but he didn't seem to have a single doubt that it would be awesome. Now I wish I still remembered his bib number, I wonder how the rest of the race went for him.

After two miles, I decided to drop my arm warmers. They were cheap, so I don't regret having them for the start of the race, but 45 degrees felt so much warmer than I thought it would. I was glad to be running in shorts and tank top.

The pacer started out a little bit too fast, I think. With the exception of the first mile, which was a little bit slower due to the crowded start, all miles I ran with the group were under 8 min/mile. Goal pace for a 3:35 finish would be 8:11. Since I was actually shooting for a time closer to 3:30, I was fine with it. But another girl running with us seemed less happy about it, and asked me if her watch was off. We started talking for a little bit, and I found out that that was her 22nd marathon (including three Boston Marathons), and her 5th Twin Cities. Impressive!

Not sure what mile this is, but enjoying myself.

Miles 7-13

Miles 7-13 were my fastest miles of the race. After mile 6 I decided to leave the pacer. I was feeling strong, and I was worried that if I stayed with the pacer for too long, I might not be able to make up enough time to actually get into Boston. I knew it was risky to speed up that early, but while I did slow down towards the end of the race, I don't regret this decision. Not running with the pace group meant that the course was a lot less crowded and I was able to pay more attention to the gorgeous neighborhoods and nature we were running through.

Miles 14-17

I remember thinking at the halfway point: I should not feel this tired this early in the race. I was still feeling strong, but I was already starting to feel my legs getting tired. I slowed down just a little bit to avoid bonking later on. I remember really enjoying the crowd support during this part of the course. There seemed to be plenty of spectators over all of the 26.2 miles, many of them cheering on runners or bringing their own music boxes to the course. I was wearing my No Meat Athlete shirt, but because the "athlete" was covered by my bib, people were just cheering for "no meat". Hilarious.

Still able to smile!

Miles 18-25

Miles 18-20 were where I was really starting to feel it. The uphill miles 21-23 were very gradual, but my legs were heavy and I just wanted to be done, or at least take a walking break.  I was so glad that starting from mile 21, there were water stops every mile. I just kept telling myself: Only one more mile until the next water stop. You can walk for 20 seconds then. This was also the part of the race where I started doing mental math. I figured out that I could slow down as much as 30 seconds per mile and would still be able to finish under 3:30. If I started to walk, however, who knew when I would make it. So I just kept going. I questioned my sanity (why do I keep doing this to myself?!) several times during this part of the course. 

Mile 26-26.2

I was surprised to still be able to speed up for a finish sprint. My garmin recorded I a pace of 7:26 for the last 0.4 miles! I raised my arms to celebrate achieving (and surpassing!) my goal, but was also really relieved that it was finally over.

At the finish line.

My official finish time for this race was 3:29:20, 5 min 40 sec under the official BQ time. I don't want to jinx anything, but I think that should be fast enough to actually get into Boston 2017. So excited!

My official race results.

After I stopped running, I just wanted to cry and laugh, but that hurt so much! That fact actually made me laugh even harder... Once we passed the finish line, we were handed our medals and heat blankets. I was also positively surprised with the post race snacks offered. After some races (looking at you, Austin marathon!) runners maybe get a dry bagel and a banana. Here, I had veggie broth, potato chips, a fruit cup, and a banana. Of course there were even more options for people who don't have my dietary restrictions.

I liked that the race shirts were only for finishers. It is also nice to have a long sleeve shirt, although I probably won't have too many opportunities to wear it here in Austin. I didn't like, however, that it was white. It seems like it is almost transparent and will get dirty very quickly...

Overall, it was definitely one of the best races I have ever done. Very well organized, perfect weather, beautiful course (they don't call it the most beautiful city marathon for nothing), lots of spectators, and most importantly, a great atmosphere! If you have any doubts whether this is the right marathon for you, I highly recommend it!

Introduction

I have thought about starting a running blog for a long time. I love reading about other people's running, so why shouldn't there be people who enjoy reading about mine? In addition, I like the idea of being able to look back in a couple of years and see where I was now.

Let me start by introducing myself: My name is Helen. I am currently living in Austin, Texas. I absolutely love this city, but the temperatures during the seemingly endless summer can make running a lot harder. About a year and a half ago, I started to run with the Austin Runners Meetup. Before then I had been running on and off, depending on my motivation. Running with the group has not only allowed me to make new friends outside of school, it also kept me motivated to show up to run on a regular basis. Even on days where otherwise I might not feel like running, I just can't pass up the chance to see the friends I made there, or the delicious post run breakfast after the weekend runs!

Since I started running with them, I have really fallen in love with running. While being "fast" is always relative, I am proud of how far I have come. When I trained for the Austin Half Marathon in 2014, I was doubtful if I would be able to finish in under two hours. One year later I ran the Austin Full Marathon, finishing in 3:48. More recently, I have run the Hottest Half in Dallas, finishing in 1:41, placing first in my age group. Finally, last weekend, I qualified for the Boston Marathon with a finish time of 3:29 in the Twin Cities Marathon.

Proud me after finishing the Twin Cities Marathon.

I am vegan for ethical reasons. But while that is the "veg" part of "veg girl runs", I doubt that that will make up a large part of what this blog will be about. When I first made the switch, it obviously took up a lot of my thinking. But now, after 3.5 years, it is just one small part of who I am. Mostly this blog will focus on my training, races I run, and thoughts I have about running and life in general. I am curious where this journey will lead me.