I am not signed up for a running race until the October 2nd Milwaukee Marathon. And it feels good. I think I overdid it a bit with racing this winter/fall – 11 races and 2 walking events. And 5 of those were in the month of April – in four different states. Too much racing. I don’t think I am (mentally) built to race every weekend, or even every other weekend. Maybe every three weeks to a month.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t have events in mind for the upcoming months before the marathon. I do, but those events are supposed to be for fun (I say that now). I want to take a breather, focus on getting healthy (ha ha), and work on my mental running game (triple ha). I don’t want to lose the excitement of racing by overdoing it. Racing is supposed to be a treat!

How often do you like to race? What frequency of racing is “too frequent” for you?

Alright, so I am “training” for the Milwaukee Marathon, and I am a little bit less than 16 weeks out. I made a nice little plan for myself that builds me back up to marathon distance in 16 weeks.

I am not cool, so I don’t have a google doc to share, but here is my long run distance for each of the 16 weeks:

And here’s my question – I have somewhat of a high mileage base built up, so should I be maintaining that base or giving my body some rest by running the shorter distances in the table above?

I’d appreciate your thoughts/input!

Day 596 | June 6, 2011: rest

Day 597 | June 7, 2011: cross

I was in Louisville on travel and used the hotel gym, appropriately called Club 360° – for its location on the top floor of the hotel and 360° views of Louisville!

I used some elliptical bike thingy, then the recumbent bike and the regular bike.

NUStep Crosstrainer Time: 5:00 
Recumbent Bike Time: 30:00 | Distance: 6.8 | Level 5
Bike Time: 25:00 | Distance: 5.7 | Level 10

Day 598 | June 8, 2011: rest

Day 599 | June 9, 2011: strength

I had my third personal training session with Brian. We used these giant soft balls to do fun crunches and passes, and used huge disk weights with handles to work my lower and upper body. I felt like I had a bit of a core break so that was nice!

Day 600 | June 10, 2011: Ragnar Relay (6.5 m run)

I ran my first leg of the Ragnar Relay on Friday afternoon. I didn’t record the temperature for any of my runs, but I am SO HAPPY it was not as hot as it was in the beginning of the week. It was in the 60s/50s for each run. Very humid though.

Distance: 6.50 | Time: 1:00:05 | Avg Pace: 9:21 | 1: 8:50 | 2: 9:34 | 3: 9:18 | 4: 9:18 | 5: 9:31 | 6: 9:40 | 7: 3:52

Day 601 | June 11, 2011: Ragnar Relay (2.5 m run + 9.8 m run)

My second run was at 2:00 am on Saturday, and my third run was at 11:00 am.

Distance: 2.50 | Time: 21:57 | Avg Pace: 8:48 | 1: 8:21 | 2: 9:17 | 3: 4:18
Distance: 9.80 | Time: 1:44:34 | Avg Pace: 10:39 | 1: 10:03 | 2: 9:54 | 3: 10:20 | 4: 12:13 | 5: 10:52 | 6: 10:29 | 7: 10:31 | 8: 10:52 | 9: 10:55 | 10: 8:21

Day 602 | June 12, 2011: cross + brick (15 m bike + 2 m run)

In the morning I attended the Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) walk in the Independence Grove Forest Preserve. My personal trainer’s son has SMA, and a few of us from the club attended the walk to support him.

It was a beautiful day for a walk, and great to see so many families and their supporters out there.

Afterward, I met Erin at the Half Day Forest Preserve for my first brick workout! Ha ha. Can I call it that? We rode 15 miles and ran 2 afterward.

It felt good to get my body moving again after the relay. I think it was better to get outside than to sit on my behind.

And I had a fun time chatting with Erin! Despite being together for almost two whole days before we still had a lot of talk about. Ah, the sign of true friendship (or maybe just that I am a blabbermouth?).

Bike Distance: 15.04 | Time: 1:15:17 | Avg Pace: 12.0 mph
Run Distance: 2.0 | Time: 18:41 | Avg Pace: 9:19 | 1: 9:16 | 2: 9:22

Week Summary: 20.8 miles

I am really impressed with the amount of exercise I can get in at this weight, but I need to LOSE weight. I am such a fattie right now and am making every workout more difficult for myself by carrying all of this extra weight around.

I’m home, had a warm dinner, took a nice shower and feel like a new person! The Ragnar Madison to Chicago relay is over. I’m not sure what our overall team finish time is yet, but I know we started around 10:30 am on Friday and finished around 4:30 pm on Saturday.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my in progress posts during the actual relay!

A lot of people (in real life) have asked me how this relay works, so I will try to explain it here too. The relay is 36 legs long, and goes from Madison to Chicago, covering 197 miles total. Each non-elite team has 12 runners, and each runner runs three legs. The distance in each leg varies. There are two vans, one carrying runners 1-6, the other carrying runners 7-12. While runners 1-6 run their legs, their van (#1) goes from point to point, carrying each runner to meet up and continue the relay. While they do this, van #2 carries runners 7-12 to the next major point to meet runner #6, then after the meet up, carries runners 7-12 from point to point, while van #1 goes to the next major meet-up point. Each minor meet up point has porta parties and parking, and the stuff at the major meet up points varies – porta parties and food for sure, but some had places to sleep and real bathrooms.

Anyway, the two vans do that leapfrog thing, meeting at major points, until you finally meet in Chicago.

The amount of organization behind doing one of these relays is kind of crazy. You have to get a team together, inevitably find new members later on when people can’t do it anymore, find drivers and volunteers, figure out who runs which legs, rent vans, coordinate who’s bringing what, when you meet, when you take off, directions, decorations (we didn’t decorate)… the list could go on and on.

I ran with Erin‘s work running club, and everyone was pretty organized. I felt like I didn’t have to do much except show up. That was nice! I was in van #2, and we left Chicagoland at 11:00 on Friday morning, to meet our team up east of Madison by 2:30. We had to do a safety check-in, then our first runner was off around 3:30.

I ended up running at 4:30 pm on Friday, and 2:00 am and 11:00 am on Saturday. My first leg was 6.5 miles, windy and uphill, but I felt fine. My second leg was the hardest. I expected it to be the easiest because it was only 2.5 miles, but I ran too fast and my knee felt sore at the end. My last leg was 9.8 miles, and actually felt really good, because I ran so slow. Overall, I ran 18.8 miles in less than 24 hours!

Everyone in our van had a really funny sense of humor. Okay, it was a bunch of smart asses. So that was fun. There was lots of joking going on the entire time. Which was good – you spend a lot of time waiting around for other people to get to checkpoints.

This type of race is definitely a unique, fun experience. I am not sure if I would do it again though! I think I am too much of a party pooper and the sleeping situation was just not good for me. I didn’t feel well rested. I am not used to getting by on less than an hour of sleep a night. I think if I did this relay again I would have the team drive to my house during one of the long lulls while the other group was running. We could sleep on real furniture and take real showers.

It was really fun finishing as a team in Montrose Harbor – running in together on the sand. We got really neat medals (here it is next to the shirt we got). It’s funny – we hardly spent any time with van #1, except for a bit of chatting at the major exchanges. I feel like we need to have another get-together to catch up on all of their experiences!

I am sure I will have more to say when I am less out of it! I can’t wait to get in to bed tonight!

I just finished my 9.8 mile leg! Hurrah! The start:

(The good ole McDonald’s to baton pass off)

The finish:

I took this run very slow and easy, and… my knee felt fine! I was actually running through towns I know in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Very pretty course that went from city to naval base to path. I was worried I got lost a few times though – I was running for a long time in what felt like industrial areas without many other runners. But I was actually never lost.

I was able to sleep a bit in our van before this leg too. Yay!

Only four more legs and my team will be finishing in Chicago!

The drive up to the relay and the first legs were really fun. The trying to sleep in the high school gym? Not so much. I basically laid there awake for two hours, listening to the hustle and bustle of people coming in and out. Oh, and there was the person who stepped on my right ankle while I was laying down. But they had spaghetti there in the cafeteria (I ate before)!

I got really pumped up for my second leg. I AM SO HAPPY IT WAS ONLY 2.5 miles.

It was really misty and foggy when I was running it. When I got to the end they asked my number and I said 625 instead of 165. I tried to call my teammate’s name but I was so out of it I couldn’t remember it. Oops.

And now we have a bit of this going on:

I went out too fast and now my knee is bugging me. My last 9.9 mile leg should be interesting!

I want to be in my bed right now.

Go Team Norm and Friends!

I am in Wisconsin running the Ragnar Madison to Chicago relay (with the Most Interesting Man in the World). I am runner #8 (of 12). My first leg was about 6.5 miles, hilly and windy.

Here’s the pass off to start my leg:

And the pass off at the end of my leg:

Geez, the photos look like they were taken in the same place.

Only 24 legs left (and two more runs for me)!