Hanging up my running shoes

[rteetz]

Awesome! Congrats on conquering the hill!

 

[Ariel484]

That elevation chart...

Great job on getting under 2:30, especially after that knee injury. You rock!!

 

[CherieFran]

Congrats on a great race! That hill looks intense!

 

[ZellyB]

You conquered the Hill! What a great time and great paces!!

Love the outfit, really looks good together! But I think my favorite part of your outfit is your neon yellow shoestrings....awesome!
I so love your TRs!!

I was digging my outfit. Monkey really pulled me through. Those shoestrings are pretty bright huh? Thanks for reading along!

Way to go! Holy smokes that is a really legit hill (more like a mountain!?!?).

That hill is just stupid. Yet, I didn't learn my lesson last year and came back for more punishment.

Awesome! Congrats on conquering the hill!

Thank you! I really think it was more an issue of surviving it rather than conquering it.

That elevation chart...

Great job on getting under 2:30, especially after that knee injury. You rock!!

Thanks! I really wasn't sure how it was going to go, so it was a huge relief to find that my knee didn't abandon me.

Congrats on a great race! That hill looks intense!

Thank you. The hill is very intense, but the crowd support on that hill is pretty amazing and that really does help a lot to get through it.

 

[ZellyB]

FANATICS GOTTA BE FANATICS
​

For those of you waiting on the edge of your seats to know our final decision on whether or not to pursue half fanatic status, we just finished registering for the Rock the Parkway half marathon in Kansas City next weekend.

We'll plan to go up and stay with Chris' brother on Friday and run the race. The course looks pretty good. A pretty basic out and back that is relatively flat. Looks like a gradual uphill at first, but that means you get to go downhill coming in to the finish. A nice change after this past weekend. No time goal for this one, just looking to finish and check off the first goal of the year.

 

[Ariel484]

Awesome! You us have totally got this and I think it was super smart to see how your knee did first.

 

[disneydaydreamer33]

Congratulations on accomplishing your time goal for your half! That hill looks pretty intimidating to me!! Great race report!

 

[ZellyB]

Awesome! You us have totally got this and I think it was super smart to see how your knee did first.

Thanks. Here's hoping it holds up as well in the next one.

Congratulations on accomplishing your time goal for your half! That hill looks pretty intimidating to me!! Great race report!

Thank you. I'm not sure what possessed me to run that race again. You'd think one time up that hill and I would have learned my lesson.

 

[Chris-Mo]

I think we have some kind of sickness going around our house!! I just signed up for a 50K with 11 weeks to train!! It is a good thing I have ZellyB to keep me motivated!

 

[Ariel484]

@Chris-Mo you are crazy (in a good way!)

 

[ZellyB]

I think we have some kind of sickness going around our house!! I just signed up for a 50K with 11 weeks to train!! It is a good thing I have ZellyB to keep me motivated!

Just so we are clear, ZellyB did NOT sign up for the 50K. No.No.

 

[roxymama]

Woah, that's a heck of an elevation chart! My legs are burning for you.
First things first, you look great in that monkey shirt
That medal is humongous and I kind of want it (I bet wearing it would be slimming on me...make me look tiny!) Do you need a super re-inforced medal rack to hold that thing?
Congrats on getting under your goal time, knee issues and all!

PS (At first I thought that floral bed spread was part of the race shirt and I thought how pretty before I realized my mistake)

 

[ZellyB]

Woah, that's a heck of an elevation chart! My legs are burning for you.
First things first, you look great in that monkey shirt
That medal is humongous and I kind of want it (I bet wearing it would be slimming on me...make me look tiny!) Do you need a super re-inforced medal rack to hold that thing?
Congrats on getting under your goal time, knee issues and all!

PS (At first I thought that floral bed spread was part of the race shirt and I thought how pretty before I realized my mistake)

Thank you!! I love my monkey shirt. Here's a race shot. I look pretty happy don't I? This was long before the big hill.

I think it would take some kind of reinforced medal rack to hold that sucker. Last year's medal was big too. But, we generally just shove our medals in a drawer where they rarely see the light of day again. It's funny because getting that medal is a motivator for me but after the initial thrill of getting it, I just tuck it away. I really should think about getting a medal rack. I'd at least like to display my Disney medals.

Thanks again for the congrats!!!

 

[roxymama]

Thank you!! I love my monkey shirt. Here's a race shot. I look pretty happy don't I? This was long before the big hill.

I think it would take some kind of reinforced medal rack to hold that sucker. Last year's medal was big too. But, we generally just shove our medals in a drawer where they rarely see the light of day again. It's funny because getting that medal is a motivator for me but after the initial thrill of getting it, I just tuck it away. I really should think about getting a medal rack. I'd at least like to display my Disney medals.

Thanks again for the congrats!!!

I'm making a "medal" Christmas tree this year. We upgraded to a new tree last year and have an extra smaller one now in storage. Thinking about putting it in the basement and handing our medals on it. Your giant one would make a good "star"

 

[Chris-Mo]

Just so we are clear, ZellyB did NOT sign up for the 50K. No.No.

Maybe not but you still could there is time...at least the 25K you do that all the time!

 

[ZellyB]

I'm making a "medal" Christmas tree this year. We upgraded to a new tree last year and have an extra smaller one now in storage. Thinking about putting it in the basement and handing our medals on it. Your giant one would make a good "star"

A medal Christmas tree sounds like a really great idea!

Maybe not but you still could there is time...at least the 25K you do that all the time!

Hmmm....

 

[ZellyB]

Let's Talk Carbs
​

So, I think I mentioned that we finished up with our Whole 30 and we did reasonably well (although we were not as strict as you should really be), but still it did get us back off most of the added sugar and back to eating more whole foods and all of that is good. I do feel better overall and just healthier. All good stuff.

The downside is that I really didn't lose any weight. I didn't lose a lot the last time we did this either, maybe 5 pounds or so, but this time I maybe lost 1 pound. Boo. Still, I thought that if I just resisted going back to a lot of added sugar and processed stuff that eventually the weight will come off. But then Chris started talking about moving to a really restricted carb diet. (psst: I love carbs.) Our friend who runs the 100 mile races, has been eating this way for a long time and follows a regimen that is supposed to help your metabolism convert into a more efficient fat burning system. In order to do that though, you must heavily restrict carbs. Chris bought this book to help explain it

I haven't read it, but Chris gave me the rundown. Theory is that your body will preferentially burn carbs rather than fat if it has the opportunity. Carbs are readily available/easy energy. When you consistently feed your body carbs (especially before and during exercise), you body will not burn as much stored fat. Also, even after exercise you body continues to burn energy and will burn fat for some time after you quit exercise, but the moment you feed it carbs, that fat burning switches off. At least that's how I understand it. The goal here is to heavily restrict carb intact (<50 g daily) which forces your body to begin burning fat more effectively. You force your body into a state of ketosis. Basically when your body burns fat it produces ketones in the blood. This is something that diabetics have to watch for carefully because with insulin imbalance you can get dangerously high levels of ketones. In the case of a healthy balanced diet and exercise though, it can be an effective weight loss strategy.

Your body is supposed to start to kick into ketosis after about 3-5 days, I think, although some information says it takes longer. I really only started yesterday (Chris started Monday), so we will see how it goes. Our ultra runner friend has lived this way for several years and his body is incredibly efficient. He routinely runs 20 miles without taking in any fuel and feels great. Once you can get your body to burn fat, fat has a tremendous amount of stored energy. I could babble on more about this, but I've probably already lost most of you. @Chris-Mo may chime in with more info - brace yourselves. So, we shall see how it goes. I miss carbs already. When I went to bed last night there was a commercial on for Olive Garden. I had to change the channel quickly.

 

[Ariel484]

I am SUPER interested to hear how you guys do on this. I don't know if I could give up carbs, but I've heard about the theory you're suggesting. I hope it goes well for you!!

 

[DopeyBadger]

I'll be interested to see how this goes for you guys. Best of luck!

 

[ZellyB]

We Be Fanatics!!!
​

Well, we managed to pull off goal number one for the year. We completed the Rock the Parkway Half Marathon in Kansas City this morning which officially qualifies us for Half Fanatic status. I can tell you a few weeks ago with my knee acting up and my training going slower than anticipated, I was not optimistic we could do this. But, perseverance and stubbornness can sometimes pay off. Read along with me on this mini-race report.

Friday morning got off to a very rough start for us. Chris woke me up around 5:30 to tell me that our golden retriever, Sandy, had diarrhea. She sleeps in a kennel at night, so unfortunately, it was all over her. She's an old girl (around 12 or so), so getting her upstairs and into the bath to get her cleaned up was rough. We did manage to get her clean and sent her downstairs while we got ready for work. Unfortunately when we went down she'd gotten sick all over my dining room area rug. Poor baby. And...YUCK. My saint of a mother came over to help clean it up, so we could get to work. We both left work early to get home and things cleaned and settled for her kennel and left out with instructions for the kids for the weekend.

We got up to Kansas City and hit up the expo where we got our bibs and shirts. The race is a wave (corral) start based on your expected finish time. We had said 2:30 since we knew after running last weekend we wouldn't be setting any PRs. We were in corral F (second to last). This is a pretty fast race presumably and on a heavily traveled road, so they have a time limit of 14 min/mile pace. We headed over to Chris' brother's house and had some dinner, scoped out where the start of the race was and then laid stuff out for the next morning. Flat me!

We got to sleep at a decent time with plans to get up at 5:45. I slept pretty fitfully, but was ready to get up and hit it when the alarm went off. We had a quick scrambled egg breakfast and headed out for the race. It was cold (around 34 degrees) so we both decided to wear sweatshirts too. Look!!! Twins in highlighter yellow sweatshirts!!!

We got parked and headed to the start line and found our way to the F corral easily. This corral had 2:30 pacers right ahead of us, so we figured we were in the right spot. It was a pretty good crowd ahead of us.

Pretty soon we were crossing the start line. It was relatively tight heading out and basically nobody around us was doing intervals so it was pretty impossible to do our :90/:30 intervals without causing problems, so we basically ran the first mile right behind the 2:30 pace group. Chris finally said we need to get out in front of them to have any chance of getting into our intervals, so with some weaving and speeding up a bit we managed to get into some space where we could start running our intervals. Phew. The course is advertised as pretty flat with a downhill finish. They are liars. All races seem to claim to be flat and fast no matter what. Still, the hills were pretty minor and rolling, so not that bad. Support along the race was fantastic too. Lots of music and spectators and volunteers.

The race goes along Ward Parkway in KC which has some absolutely beautiful homes on it. It was so pretty!!! Here's a couple I got a shot of

These were just the start of it and were quite modest. Some of the ones later on were literally like mansions. I didn't get more pictures, but they were beautiful. We also started yo-yoing with a couple who asked us some about our intervals. They had heard of intervals but always longer ones, so they were really surprised to hear about our :90/:30 plan. We pretty much see-sawed with them the whole way until I got tired in the last couple of miles.

I had to snap this picture while running down a street. The flowering tree at the bottom was just gorgeous. Best of all when we got to the bottom there were neighborhood people there handing out beer. YUM!!! (Not low-carb)

Speaking of low-carb, Chris and I have been doing well on our new eating regimen, but weren't sure how to handle this run. We decided to go ahead with some normal running fuel (honey-stinger waffle and chews) and just try to limit it. That became a bit of a challenge for me late in the race....

We cruised along some more and pretty much had the 2:30 pacer group behind us the whole way. The pacer lady was very...excited. It was great a first, but started to bug me as the race went on. Oh well, at least we knew we were where we wanted to be. The course circles a really pretty park and then heads back. More rolling hills and somewhere around mile 10 or 11 I started to bonk a bit. Just fatigue and my calves were not happy with me. At one point, I actually got pretty light-headed and dizzy. Yikes! I really think this was less about fuel and more about not enough electrolytes. We didn't drink gatorade, but did bring our own replay drink, but I don't think I drank enough. There are some warnings with this change to low carbs that you need more salt and fluids because carbs actually help to store fluid and you get depleted more easily. So, yeah, lesson learned. We switched to :30/:30 intervals and just some random running stretches down hill etc. Luckily the last mile or so truly is down hill and we managed to finish pretty well with a final time of...

Only about 30 seconds slower than the Bentonville half last weekend. Not too bad all things considered. And with that finish we became officially eligible for Half Fanatics!! The first goal of the training year is complete. We got our medals and the mylar wraps they were handing out and snapped a quick selfie before heading to the car.

We got back to Chris's brother's house and I took a second to get a shot of the medal. It was really big again.

That's a big fountain that you run past during the race. It was too cold today, so the fountain wasn't running, but it was pretty anyway. Then we were back on the road and headed home. Stopped off for a nice lunch (steak and asparagus) and then home to find that our other dog, Teddy, was now sick as well. Sigh. Hopefully both will be on the mend soon.

So, that's it for this trip report and so happy that I didn't have to give up on my first goal of the year. We have to better figure out the fueling and hydration thing, but I think we will accomplish it. I'm pretty excited to see how this new eating system works as our serious training season gets ready to start.