Author Archives: Jessica

01.06.16
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My Running Year in Review: 2015

While my goals for 2016 may be more relaxed than previous years, I still wanted to recap 2015 and what I learned about my running.

Things I Learned

  • First of all, I met two out of my three goals for the year: I ran a sub-2:15 (and then a sub-2:10!) half. And I coached a Couch to 5k group. I did not get in 1000 miles total this year; in fact, I didn’t even run as many miles as 2014. A lot of this has to do with the burn out I suffered after April.
  • I ran my highest mileage month ever in January 2015, coming in at 123 miles. This was pretty amazing and set me up for some good races in the next few months. I was doing speed work and tempo runs pretty much every week. Not only was January my most mileage, it was my fastest month of the year. Let that sink in. I somehow managed not to get injured doing this. I do wonder if the run streak I did towards the end of 2014 somehow helped with the no injury thing.
  • Soon after that month, a bunch of stuff came along that derailed my training: an ice storm, a stomach bug, my wisdom teeth, more snow. Yet, even though my mileage was pretty average for the next few months (58 miles in February, 65 miles in March, and 71 miles in April), I still managed to pull out an awesome PR at my half at the end of April. I attribute this to the great base I built in January because I don’t know how else to explain it. I wasn’t really following a plan or doing speed work or tempo runs anymore. I only did one long run in those three months that wasn’t a race! Maybe racing is the key to unlocking my speed potential…
  • However, racing is also partly what burnt me out. I love racing; it’s my favorite part of running. But having to revolve my schedule around races practically every week was a little exhausting. Normally with long runs, if you want to sleep in, no problem, just go later in the day. Not so when your race starts at 7am. It doesn’t matter what you want to do that day or the night before. I need to learn a better balance.
  • I liked coaching during the summer. But it was very hard to keep up my fitness level while doing it. After running with the group, I pretty much forced myself to go run on my own afterwards. This did not help with the burn out feeling. I lost a lot of fitness and speed during this time. Would I coach again? Sure! But I would like it to be closer to my home and maybe at a pace closer to my own.
  • I hardly cross-trained or strength trained at all this year. I really need to get back into that.
  • My biggest takeaway from 2015? Don’t sign up for a ton of races months in advance. I don’t care how much money I want to save. I just don’t know what my circumstances will be then and it’s really hard for me to admit when I don’t need to be doing a race. Most of my races this year are going to be spur of the moment decisions, I think.

Random Thoughts from my Notes

I keep notes for every run, so I can go back and review what I did or how I felt. I ran 163 runs last year. Out of those, I mentioned the word “rough” 20 times and “tough” 8 times. On the other hand, I mentioned the word “good” 29 times and “decent” 7 times. Three runs were “terrible” but twelve runs were “great”. So for all my complaining, I did tend to talk about my runs more positively to myself!

Favorite Runs of the Year

    finishing the kentucky derby festival minimarathon

  1. By far the best was the Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon! It exceeded all of my expectations! I really didn’t think I could run a sub-2:10 half after my lackluster training in February, March, and April, but everything aligned and I DID IT! It was a fantastic race as well! I would love to run this one again.

    2. running around the rhine in cologne

  2. Scenery-wise, my favorite was my seven miler around Cologne. I was feeling good about training for an October half at this point and managed a decent pace as I went up and down and across the bridges over the Rhine River.
  3. I had one really good run with East Nasty in November. I had set my watch up to do intervals but felt so good that I ended up doing one minute fast pick-ups instead of walking! Wish every run could be like that!

PRs I set

5k – Tom King Classic 5k – 28:43
15k – Hot Chocolate 15k – 1:31:16
Half – Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon – 2:09:47

Totals and Averages

January: 22 runs, 123.2 miles (5.6 mile average), 21:22:52 (10:24 average pace)
February: 9 runs, 58.3 miles (6.6 mile average), 10:22:02 (10:40 average pace)
March: 16 runs, 65.7 miles (4.1 mile average), 12:03:16 (11:01 average pace)
April: 13 runs, 71.3 miles (5.5 mile average), 12:44:19 (10:43 average pace)
May: 15 runs, 51.3 miles (3.4 mile average), 9:20:55 (10:56 average pace)
June: 17 runs, 34.4 miles (2.0 mile average), 7:06:14 (12:23 average pace)
July: 21 runs, 42.5 miles (2.0 mile average), 8:52:25 (12:32 average pace)
August: 11 runs, 36.3 miles (3.3 mile average), 7:09:54 (11:50 average pace)
September: 10 runs, 32.7 miles (3.3 mile average), 6:10:21 (11:20 average pace)
October: 10 runs, 42.9 miles (4.3 mile average), 8:30:27 (11:53 average pace)
November: 12 runs, 55.4 miles (4.6 mile average), 10:55:39 (11:51 average pace)
December: 7 runs, 18.3 miles (2.6 mile average), 3:22:33 (11:04 average pace)
Overall: 163 runs, 632.2 miles (3.9 mile average), 118:59:56 (11:18 average pace)

01.04.16
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Week of 12/28/15 – 1/3/16: Rock ‘n’ Roll Nashville training, week 1

week of 12/28 to 1/3

Monday: rest day
Tuesday: rest day
Wednesday: 3.5 miles (10:53 average pace)
Thursday: rest day
Friday: 3 miles (10:42 average pace)
Saturday: rest day
Sunday: 5 miles (11:18 average pace)

A pretty good start to half marathon training, and a pretty good start to the new year. For the moment, I’m not following any sort of plan. I’m running some shorter runs during the week and a longer run on the weekends. That’s the only plan at the moment. Probably around mid-February or March I will start throwing in some structured speed work and tempo runs, but, for now, it’s just whatever I feel like doing.

That said, on Friday’s run, I did 5:1 intervals where the 5 minute portions were done around tempo pace (maybe a little slower, but I am a little slower since the last time I calculated my tempo pace). It felt good!

12.28.15
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Looking ahead to 2016…

I hope everyone had a great holiday season!

So I’m doing things a bit different for 2016: I’m not setting any super specific running goals.

While I did complete two out of three of my running goals for 2015, I think I need a year to really try to reclaim my enjoyment of running. After running seven different races in the first four months of the year (with four PRs and one 120+ mile month), I got severely burnt out. I enjoyed coaching my Couch to 5k group during the summer, but running on my own during that time was practically torture. I really want to get back the pleasure I once got from running.

Since half training takes up so much time and I have other things going on that I need to be around for in the coming year (decluttering and fixing up my house to sell being the most involved), Jonathan asked if I could cut back and not run any half marathons. I was already committed to the Nashville Rock ‘n’ Roll, so we agreed I would only run that one (and he’s running it with me!) and then just focus on shorter distances for the remainder of the year. I don’t want to get too much out of shape, but I definitely need to get some of my time back…at least until we can get my house on the market and sold!

Thus, my main running goal for the year is to just relax and not worry about the training plan!

12.18.15
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Five for Friday

Sometimes there’s things running and non-running related that I might like to write about, but don’t deserve a full post. I’ll put those things here.

  1. I somehow talked Jonathan into running the Country Music Rock ‘n’ Roll Nashville Half with me in April. I think he already regrets it.
  2. We just got back from a four day cruise to the Bahamas. We ate like kings (ask Jonathan about the filet mignon) and survived renting a car on Grand Bahama Island and driving on the wrong side of the road.
    3. gold rock beach

    The end result was worth it – we had Gold Rock Beach all to ourselves!

  3. I ran once while on the cruise, so I’m averaging about once a week at the moment. My leg does feel better, though, so I expect to start ramping that up soon.
  4. While on the cruise, we did not gain all the weight back that we lost on the 21 Day Fix, just some of it. I will eventually get around to posting the results, but we mostly gave up at the end and didn’t even take after photos.

    5. nassau port

  5. I can’t believe Christmas is a week away. I’m only half done with shopping, and the outside of the house has just one sad strand of lights over the garage because Target ran out of the lights we need to finish it.
12.15.15
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Race Report: Mt. Juliet Holiday 5k – December 5, 2015

This race consists of a half marathon and a 5k which start just before the Christmas parade in Mt. Juliet. This appealed to me when I was signing up, as it meant there would possibly be spectators along some of the route from the people who were waiting for the parade to start; I like spectators.

As I’ve mentioned, I initially signed up for the half, but as it got closer and closer, there were increasing signs that I shouldn’t run it. My training had not gone great. While I had made it up to an 11 mile long run, it was painful and hard and not fun. And after that long run, I started getting weird aches up and down my left leg (sometimes in my knee, sometimes in my calf, sometimes my ankle…it moves from day to day). In the week before the race, I considered dropping the run altogether and transferring my bib to someone else. Then Jonathan said he would run the 5k with me if I switched to it, so I decided to go that route and made the change three days before the race.

Race Day

The 5k didn’t start until 10:55am, so it wasn’t too early of a morning. We got up, Jonathan ate some eggs, and took our time getting ready.

We arrived at the school where the start and finish is around 10:30. We went inside for a final bathroom break and then came back out to cheer on the half marathoners as they started at 10:45. I felt some pangs of disappointment that I wasn’t running the half, but I knew it was for the best.

mt juliet holiday half and 5k

Ready to start!

Soon it was time for us to start. This wasn’t a huge race; the half and the 5k had maybe 200 people each. We placed ourselves in the middle of the crowd and soon we were off.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this race. I definitely didn’t have any time goals. I hadn’t run three miles straight through since the beginning of November (right before that 11 miler), so I mainly just wanted to complete the thing without walking, but that was going to be dependent on how my leg felt.

Mile 1: 10:54
At the start, Jonathan kept trying to urge me to speed up, but I was insistent that I not go out too fast. Even though he never runs, he is a lot speedier than me, so he’s not used to getting passed in races. We were doing a pretty steady 11 min/mi pace, and I told him to deal with it, hehe.

This mile was all along the parade route. We heard lots of kids yelling, “Look, elves!” as we ran by and I gave out a few high fives. Definitely the best mile of the race.

Mile 2: 11:21
On mile 2, we turned onto a residential road so the spectators were gone. A very hilly residential road. This mile was almost completely uphill, hence my slow down.

Jonathan ran ahead of me most of the time, but I was still determined not to push too hard and have to walk.

There was a water stop around the halfway point, which I was desperately thankful for.

Mile 3: 10:06
I began to push a little bit more, knowing this was the last mile. My leg was killing me and I was starting to have some GI discomfort, but I just tried to hang with it. Jonathan told me we should run this entire mile at his pace (7-8 minute miles), and I just looked at him. Crazy man. I told him I would when we got to the last tenth of a mile.

Last 0.1 (0.15 to my Garmin): 1:13 (8:09 pace)
As soon as we came out of the residential area, I began to really push with a final surge of a 7:20-7:30 pace. Jonathan still managed to eke by me at the finish though. 😛

Official Time: 33:32

Not too shabby. Even though it’s nowhere near my 5k PR, I was happy with this time considering how much discomfort I was in by the finish. I don’t think I could have pushed any more.

Photo Dec 05, 12 39 03 PM

Race Review

This was a pretty good smallish race. I liked the spectator support on the first mile, though I wish it would have continued throughout the whole race.

Packet pick-up the day before was no problem. The email they sent out said IDs would be needed and you couldn’t pick up other people’s packets, but when we got there, they didn’t check IDs and people were getting packets for their friends.

The shirts were unisex, which I didn’t realize when I signed up or I would have gotten an XS instead of a S. The goody bags had a couple nice little extras, like Chapstick and some plastic sunglasses.

The medals for the half looked nice; I’m sad about not having it!

The post-race food was good. There were bananas, chips, cookies, granola bars, and chili.

The awards ceremony seemed a bit disorganized. We missed the door prizes at the beginning because we didn’t realize where the ceremony was going on (it was in the school gym). There was supposed to be a costume contest, but we must have missed it. I don’t know if they did it before or after the age group awards, which is all we saw.

Overall, however, it was a holly jolly good time!