Reflections on the 2011 Season

Wow, I cannot even believe that it is December 20th! Santa Claus will be here in five days! And I haven't updated my fitness blog since June (gulp...don't judge!)I can at least throw out some lame excuses like starting a new job and getting married or better yet TRAINING! Clearly one of my 2012 resolutions is to update my fitness blog more regularly!

So, for those of you who wonder if I just fell of the map after June, I assure you I was busy racing. Additional races completed since the last post in June were as follows:

• 6/26/11 - Akron Crossfit Sprint Tri - bombed the swim on this and had ridiculous cramps during the run. Should have most definitely won age group but was 4th in age group. Fail.
• 7/17/11 - Milton Man Sprint Tri - decent swim, decent bike, decent run. Took first in age group. 
• 9/11/11 - Revolution 3 Cedar Point 70.3 - finished first 70.3, had a blast. Swim was decent, bike was decent, dogged the run but had fun finishing with hubby.
• 9/18/11 - Portage Lakes Sprint Tri - swim was off, bike was terrible. legs sore from previous week's 70.3 so walked some of the hills, run was fine. Not happy here but managed third in age group.
• 10/9/11 - Towpath half marathon - Great race, crushed my old half PR by finishing with a 1:39:37 despite lack of serious training. Was 13th of 581 women. Not too shabby. Fantastic race course and weather conditions. definitely doing this one again!

I had a very up and down season with the heel stress fracture in April/May and came back to race strong in June-October. I am happy with how the year ended given the circumstances and learned some things along the way. Overall I feel my biggest successes of the year were The Twinsburg Duathlon, Miltonman Sprint, Completing the Rev3 Cedar Point 70.3 and finishing strong in the Towpath 1/2 marathon. 

I am training strong right now in the off season and gearing up to train for some serious stuff in 2012! watch for my next post NEXT WEEK (promise) about the 2012 schedule!

Mentor Flag Day 5K - Easier Said Than Done

My friends and loved will know this about me...that I sometimes have unreasonable expectations of myself when it comes to racing. They accept that about me because I have been known to throw a temper tantrum after a bad race (I'm working on this). The Mentor Flag Day 5K was one of these instances. It was a last minute decision to sign up and I wasn't really trained. I know what you're thinking...train for a 5K...who needs to do that? It should be easy right? That is what I thought too! Considering I had just started running again two weeks before and hadn't run more than 2 miles I somehow did not think I would stand the chance of bombing this race. In fact, I thought I might even be able to win if the super fast chicks stayed home. I thought I could pull out a 21 or 22 minutes easy. I thought wrong.

The race starts downhill and I mean downhill! So my first mile was 6:03! Just a wee bit more than the 6:45 I was aiming for. So by mile 2 I was pooped out and took a little break. Back to it and holy crap was it hot and hilly that last mile. Clearly I had underestimated this little 5K. I walked a couple more times that last mile and figure I easily lost 2+ minutes because of it. I was not a happy girl at the finish when I looked up and saw 23:57. Yuck! Not a bad time really but I was certainly capable of the 21 or 22 I had hoped for had my race went better. So I was mad and wanting to leave.

Steve on the other hand had a great race of 19:36...a personal best for him. I didn't think there was anyway I would place but thought he might so we stuck around for the rewards, which took a while. He placed third in his age group and amazingly I took first in my age group. The winning female times were 20-22 minute range. So while I should've been happy I even placed I was mad at myself for having a bad race. This is just me. I knew I could have done better.

Another one in the books. Lesson learned. The training continues and I hope to get my endurance back soon and to learn to be a little easier on myself.