Run like the wind bulls eye!

[Katie Little]

Great training week. Keep up the good, consistent work. It will all pay off!

Thank you sooo much!!!!!

 

[Katie Little]

Armed Forces 5k - Plan!

Okay! So Armed Forces 5k is exactly 2 weeks before my Quarter Marathon. Because of this fact (and the fact that I have a 5 mile long run the day before), I’m going to run this race at my easy pace of 17:17. So my finish time should be 51:50. My only goal for this race is to have fun and not be disappointed if I finish last.

 

[Katie Little]

Today didn't go as planned! There were storms all day long, heavy rain, thunder, lightening, wind and even hail at one point. I chatted with @DopeyBadger and let him know that I would have to skip today. His suggestion for the rest of the week was to just skip the work out and not fret too much... I immediately started crying because I would have to skip a run. I got over it pretty quickly but I just thought I'd share. That way, next time you see me complain that "I don't want to run today!" you guys can remind me about that one time I cried because I had to skip a run.. .

I did do 20 mins of zumba so I got some cardio in tonight... Was really disappointed because today was a speed work out.. but it is what it is. The storms started early this morning and are still going so there really wasn't anything I could have done better (aside from call in sick and run - there were 4 hours in the middle of my work day where it was just light rain... I'll have to remember that one next time.)

 

[Katie Little]

Armed Forces 5k Recap

Mile 1 – 14:04
Mile 2 – 15:36
Mile 3 – 15:59
0.11 – 13:34
Official Chip Time 47:45

I know what you’re thinking!! “But Katie, what about taking it easy? What about your 17:17 pace? Did you over do it?” The answer to all your questions is… “I have no idea.” Here’s how it happened.

Mile 1: So before the race starts they sing the national anthem, and then they do this super awesome thing where they play the song for each branch of the military and all of the veterans/current members of the military come forward. It was kind of a magical moment and I was just so grateful to be in a place with super amazing people who have done wonderful things and I could just tell that this was going to be a good race. The air horn blows and we’re off. I run the first solid minute (When my timer buzzed that my 15 seconds was up It was kind of hard to slow down. So I ran through the 30 second walk break and for the 2nd 15 secs.) After that I stuck to the run for 15 walk for 30 plan. It was raining so I kept my phone in my pocket and didn’t check my pace. Also, most of the 1st mile was downhill, so yes 14:04 is extremely fast for me.. but since it was down hill and I don’t think I over did it.

Mile 2: So the bell buzzed in my ear and Strava told me my pace for the first mile, and I was like “WOAHHH I need to slow down.” So I backed off quite a bit, but the 2nd mile was also mostly down hill. A couple up hills and some flat areas but mostly down hill.

Mile 3 and .1: Time to conquer the hill! (You know the one that resulted in the miraculous 14:04 pace.) Honestly, it wasn’t bad! Like it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t bad. That’s really all I have to say about it. It was also the most beautiful part of the course though because you could see the D-Day Memorial from pretty much the bottom of the hill and the rest of the race. I ran the last min of the race. I mean you can’t start walking once you see the finish line – I think it’s an actual law or something.

Overall I feel great! I ran it 3 mins slower than my PR, but it was easy! It wasn’t a hard effort at all and I had plenty left in the tank. I feel very surreal right now. If I had even tried a little, I feel like I could have PR’d… I’m not upset that I didn’t or anything, I wasn’t trying to.. but I needed a race like this. I needed a race where I wasn’t last and the fact that it was easy and kind of accidental is just frosting on the cake!!

 

[DopeyBadger]

Congrats!

Nice to be 3 min off a PR for a 5k and feel the effort was relatively easy.

 

[Katie Little]

Congrats!

Nice to be 3 min off a PR for a 5k and feel the effort was relatively easy.

I believe that a large part of that was thanks to you and your amazing plan, sir!!! so Thanks!!

 

[DopeyBadger]

I believe that a large part of that was thanks to you and your amazing plan, sir!!! so Thanks!!

I'm most certainly the small part. You're the one who has to actually do it. So thank yourself for the opportunity you gave yourself today.

 

[Katie Little]

Training Update Week 20!

Total miles ran – 11.2
Month to date – 29.9 <--
Year to date –133.35

Planned work outs:
Monday- 3 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces
Wednesday- 1.5 mile @ Easy + 1.5 mile @ 60/30 sec @ 13:30/18:00 paces + 1 mile @ Easy
Friday - 5 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces
Saturday - Armed Forces 5k - (easy pace)

Missed workouts – The weather kept me from running Wednesday but I still got in a decent cardio session in with some zumba.

Things I learned this week –

Bug spray is just as important as sunscreen. Especially when it’s been raining for 3 days straight. I’m eaten alive.

I learned (especially today) that I’ve made huge amounts of progress!!


Other Updates that seem important


Yoga- not really loving it so much. But I’m going to stick out the program for now.

Days till next race – 15 day to the Run and Ride Quarter Marathon


Plan for week 21:

Monday- 3 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces
Wednesday - 1.5 mile @ Easy + 2.5 mile @ 60/30 sec @ 13:30/18:00 paces + 1 mile @ Easy
Friday - 3 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces

 

[Katie Little]

It was storming again last night so I didn’t get my run in! I canceled the gym after winter because my husband and I were just going to save the $60 a month and buy a treadmill. He wasn’t going anymore the only reason I went was if it was snowing and I needed to do my miles on the treadmill... I’m second guessing that decision now and may join a cheaper gym. Anyway, the good news is this week’s schedule is a little more flexible than last week so I don’t have to skip, just move till tonight. The rain is supposed to stop soon so that’s good news. Don’t get me wrong - I actually love running in the rain. I feel so much more BA for doing it. It’s a badge of honor for me to say “I ran in the rain!” However, thunder and lightning - not so much :-(.

 

[Katie Little]

Training Update Week 21!

Total miles ran – 6
Month to date – 36.2
Year to date –137.88 <-- It’s only been 4 weeks since I broke the 100 mile mark.. What is this life?!

Planned work outs:
Monday- 3 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces
Wednesday - 1.5 mile @ Easy + 2.5 mile @ 60/30 sec @ 13:30/18:00 paces + 1 mile @ Easy
Friday - 3 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces

Missed workouts – Stupid storms delayed Monday’s run until Tuesday. I did Wednesday’s run on Thursday and it was pretty bad. I skipped Friday’s run all together. I was having some pain in my feet and ankles and just wasn’t in the mental head space to run after Thursday!

Things I learned this week –

You have to be flexible!! The weather simple does not allow anything else.

Other Updates that seem important

A little bit about why Thursday’s run was terrible. I had a bigger day than normal, my company took us on a team building bowling day. I had a really heavy lunch, a couple beers at the bowling alley. Of course it was much more active than my typical 9a -6p desk job. Then for dinner, I had another heavy meal (Mexican food of all things!!). Got home, waited about an hour or so to let the food settle and by the time I hit the pavement it was 10pm. Usually, I’m finishing my latest runs around 10p, so this was late even for me. Also, because of all the storms that have happened the humidity was 87%... heat wasn’t too bad lower 80s but the humidity had me swimming. I ran my warm-up mile and as soon as the 2nd mile (the first race pace mile), I could tell it wasn’t going to be a good run. I just couldn’t find the 14:44 pace!! So I decided to just stick to the run for a min and walk for 30 secs and not worry about the pace. I did that and the pace was slower than my 17:17 and also incredibly hard… I switched back to the 15/30 run for another mile and called it quits. I didn’t really write an update in the moment because I was just gutted that I didn’t even finish the 4.5 miles. I also knew it was my last speed work out for this plan and absolutely hated ending on such a bad note. Then yesterday when it was time to do yesterday’s run I was a little sore, it was storming for most of the day (geesh what’s with this weather) and I was still in that head space and just decided to take a day. I hate that I skipped a work out and I’m not making excuse for it but I honestly can’t say that I’m too disappointed. I enjoyed the time off and I feel a little more refreshed and ready to run tomorrow.

Yoga - not happening... I promised myself that if at any point running became too hard, I would stop yoga. I’ve been extra exhausted and run down the last 2 weeks, so I held true to that promise. I didn’t quit but I’m taking a break until the running gets super easy again.


Days till next race – 8 day to the Run and Ride Quarter Marathon


Plan for week 22:

Monday - 3 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces
Wednesday - 2 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces
Friday - 1 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces

Sneak peak to week 23:
Sunday - Quarter Marathon

Question for you guys: Sunday’s race is at a theme park. We’re traveling (2 hours - nothing crazy) and doing a little of the park on Saturday and a little on Sunday. Any advice for managing Theme Park/race day?

 

[Katie Little]

Tomorrow is the big day and I realized that I didn’t put make a race day plan... well I didn’t type it up anyway. I have to get to bed so I’m going to keep it short and just paste part of @DopeyBadger’s advice for me based off of weather analysis!! “... aim for something around 15:20 to start and then progress faster from there towards 14:57.” My A goal is to finish smiling. My B goal is a loose “1:40:00.” By loose I mean if I’m 1:49:00 I’ll be happy.

 

[Katie Little]

1:40:49!! More to come, but I totally PRd and crushed my A goal so I couldn’t wait to share!!!!

 

[Capang]

Woohoo!

 

[Katie Little]

Quarter Marathon Recap!

Mile 1 – 14:45
Mile 2 – 15:28
Mile 3 – 15:12
Mile 4 -14:33
Mile 5 – 15:05
Mile 6 – 14:35
Mile 0.7 – 15:46
Official Chip Time – 01:40:49

What a race!!!! So 99% of the drama and bad stuff happened on Saturday before the race. I woke up Saturday morning with a super nervous bad feeling in my stomach. I just “knew” this race wasn’t going to go well. Traveling down was fine except for one little stretch of I95 where the heavens decided to open up and dump buckets of water on us. I also realized that I forgot to pack headphones (dun dun dunnnnn). I know a lot of people don’t like when runners where headphones on race day; however, I run intervals and don’t have a fancy watch so I rely on my phone (hence the headphones) to ding in my ear when it’s time to run and walk. Then, we get to packet pick up and I had about a 45 min long anxiety attack because my race bib had the word “Marathon” on it and apparently I wasn’t ready for that kind of “pressure.” This was followed by an additional 20 mins of self loathing because once I got my senses about me I felt terrible for freaking out over something soo dumb… Gotta love anxiety! We enjoy the rest of our day at the theme park but it was extremely hot and muggy and I didn’t want to over do it. So we left the park at 3pm and checked into our hotel.

Once we relaxed a little, we hit up the local target and bought headphones (YAY!!). On our way out the door it was pouring down rain and we had to run to the car… This was when my whole attitude started to change. As I ran to the car, I noticed how comfortable that run was and how fresh my legs felt compared to my last official run. When we got back to the hotel, I took an ice bath. Something I have only done once before, but man does it make my legs feel fresh! I was in bed by 9pm and got a full 8 hours of sleep before my race!!!

6am this morning! I wake up and I know this is going to be a good race! My husband looks out of the hotel window.. “You don’t want to know” he says. It was pouring down rain!! I open my phone and look and there is 100% chance of thunder storms starting at 6am, 7am and 8am (thank goodness Apple Weather is always wrong.) so I sit there for min or two waiting for my race cancelation email to come though – it doesn’t happen. We get to the race and it looks like the rain just might hold off – we may get by with a light drizzle (perfect race conditions if you ask me). The air horn blows and boy were we not that lucky. Not only did the airhorn signal the runners, but it apparently also signaled rain of what an overly dramatic person may call “biblical proportions” (A normal person would call it heavy rain).

The rain continues for the first 5k!! It let up around the end of mile 3 and hardly drizzled for the entire 4th mile (ironically – this is the part of the race that was through the water park.) Mile 5 and 6 were boring but still good.

Over all, I had an awesome race! I finished with a smile and I PR’d a couple different ways. 1) this was my first quarter marathon so that’s an automatic PR. 2) my 10k time was 01:32:51… That’s 10 mins faster than my other 10k!! and 3) My other 10k was actually 6.4 miles, so even though I’ve never run a quarter marathon, I feel like it’s close enough to consider an apples to apples comparison.

There were about 5 or 6 times when my phone dinged to start running where I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Also, I have a race day ritual where I put the song “good to be alive” on right before the finish line. It’s usually not an issue, but this time my phone was soo wet that I spent quite a lot of time trying to get the touch screen to work. If I had of skipped 1 less run interval or maybe not spent so much time fiddling with my phone, I bet I could have broke 1:40:00. I still feel great about my time, I just want to make sure that I learn the lesson going forward and maybe think about this next time I want to skip a run interval.

I also wanted to take a moment to thank @DopeyBadger – His plan revitalized my love for running (not going to lie I was considering quitting after my 1st 10k). The plan was so customized to me and my needs that it was almost impossible to fail. He also answered a lot of my questions behind the scenes and couldn’t be more educated on the subject!! If you are running with any other running plan… why though??

 

[Kerry1957]

Katie, you may not be one of the fastest runners on these boards, but you are one of the most inspiring! Congratulations on a great run.

 

[Katie Little]

Katie, you may not be one of the fastest runners on these boards, but you are one of the most inspiring! Congratulations on a great run.

That means soooo much to me!!! Thank you!!

 

[Katie Little]

Training Update Week 22! (I’m including Sunday 6/3 in this one).

Total miles ran – 11.55
Month to date – 41.2 (May) 6.55 (June)
Year to date –149.43

Planned work outs:

Monday - 3 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces
Wednesday - 2 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces
Friday - 1 miles @ 15/30 sec @ 16:00/18:00 paces
Sunday - Quarter Marathon


Missed workouts – Technically I missed Friday’s one mile, but between all of the deep cleaning of my house and the getting ready to go out of town errands, I’d say I got the cardio in. Plus, Saturday we spend the first half of the day at an amusement park so there was no lack of exercise.

Things I learned this week –


When your training goes well, your race goes well. (Seems like a no brainer but given the race day conditions, I thought I was doomed. But somehow the extremely heavy rain was a non-issue once the race actually stated.)

I gained confidence as a runner and have significantly less fears about the 10 miler and half marathon I’m doing this year. <- still a little terrified though...

I learned that ice baths really help me.. Even if it is a placebo effect – it’s totally worth it (for me anyway).

Rain and bad race day conditions, can sometimes be a blessing in disguise. I was focused so much on the rain and how soaked to the bone I was, that I had been running for an hour and didn’t even notice… I couldn’t believe when I got the “you’ve run 4 miles notification.”

Other Updates that seem important

@DopeyBadger is hard at work on my new training plan that will start 6/11 and will take me through my half marathon in November. If you haven’t messaged him about a free training plan – you are missing out. <-- cause he grants your running wishes... get it? lol

Recently found out there was a 3.5 hour time restriction on the Mayberry Half Marathon. I should be finishing in roughly 3.5 hours so I picked another half just to have a bit of a cushion. This pushes my date up by a week, but it’s the Richmond Half Marathon and it seems to be a little bit cooler of a race than Mayberry (though the little southern girl inside of me is slightly disappointed). Should I take the Andy Griffith theme song off of my running playlist now? LOL


Days till next race – 53 days until the VA Commonwealth 5k

Plan for week 22:

Rest, relax and I have fun. I may run a little and I may not. We’ll see what happens.

 

[Katie Little]

Guys!! I finally figured out how to share pictures here, so here are some of my favorite race pictures!!

This is from the race that started it all! The 4 mile walk in September of 2016!

[GALLERY=]138928-269-019h by Katie Little, on Flickr[/GALLERY]

Mission Possible Color run!

[GALLERY=]Untitled by Katie Little, on Flickr[/GALLERY]

Victory at Yorktown 10k

[GALLERY=]Untitled by Katie Little, on Flickr[/GALLERY]


Quarter Marathon!! Not my favorite finish line photo; however, I'm just glad you can see how much it was raining.

[GALLERY=]Untitled by Katie Little, on Flickr[/GALLERY]

 

[Katie Little]

Race Calendar Updates:

July - was planning on doing the VA Commonwealth Games 5k! Instead I'm doing the RunDisney Virtual 5k!! The commonwealth games are basically VA's Olympics so the 5k is a little competitive. I looked up previous results and the last place runners were around 45 -48 mins. That's fine for me right now, but @DopeyBadger suggested I take it a training pace in order to have a better 10 miler and half marathon. I'm okay with finishing at 48 mins and being last, but I don't want to finish in 54 mins and be super last ya know? I'm super excited to have a runDisney race on the calendar though.

August - Doing a local 5k that's part of the Lynchburg Half Marathon.

September - VA 10 Miler!!

October - Another Local 5k - Desmond T Doss 5k

November - was planning on doing the Mayberry half marathon but instead I'm doing the Richmond Half Marathon. The little county girl inside of me is kind of disappointed that I won't be getting my celebratory Chinese Dinner in Mt Pilot; however, TBH the Richmond Marathon looks way cooler. Mayberry has a time limit of 3.5 hours and if my training goes perfectly, I'll finish in 3:24. Richmond has a 4 hour time limit, so it's nice to have that extra cushion.

December - TBD. Probably a 5k maybe a 10k but definitely not more. if anyone knows of a race that's close-ish to central VA let me know!

 

[Katie Little]

I got in a mile today! I’ve been off work since Sunday’s Race and litterally all I did all week was sleep in and watch TV (yes it was as awesome as it sounds!!) the new plan starts next week and I was feeling a little stiff from my week of laziness. The weather was perfect and my 1 mile loop was just right for losening up and getting ready for the new plan!!! But something kind of weird and kind of awesome happened...

I put on my running shoes and they were instantly 10 times more comfortable than they’ve ever been. I have a therory and I’d like your guys expert opinions on it. Is it possible, that running in soaking wet shoes for 6.55 miles molded the insoles to my feet? If so, running in the rain gets another tick in the pro column from me!

It’s also possible that my feet were less cramped than usual because I have had a full 6 days of rest (and I mean rest - my max step count on Fitbit was like 2000 steps for a day). It could also be a little of both.. but honestly who cares?! My Hokas were already comfy and now they are like 10 times better so it’s a win!!!