Race Day

This morning was the St. Patrick's Day 5k Race in Bay City and several members of my support group turned out for the event! I'm so proud of everyone who finished -- you guys are amazing!  Here's the times:

• Karen - 36:45
• Lori - 49:09
• Tammie - 52:09
• Lorie - 55:40
• Michael - 31:17
• Josh (Lorie & Michael's son) - 55:39 (finished 5th in his age class!)
• Jean - 47:38
• David (Jean's hubby) - 47:09
• David (Jean & David's son) - 47:09
• Pam - 55:40

We froze our butts off but at least Mother Nature had the common courtesy to hold off the rain until after the race -- in fact, it only started sprinkling as I was walking back to my car after the whole parade was finished! After I finished the race, I changed my clothes and grabbed my camera bag to meet up with my photography group for a photo walk. So after doing 5k for the race, I estimate I did another 5k walking the parade route back and forth for a few hours.

Good job everyone!
~Pam

Race Day

The Bay City WLS Support Group is amazing!  Look at this group of athletes - I'm so proud of them all. It was freezing cold the morning of the race and we were all bundled up in layers of warm clothes. But by the end of the race we were sweating!

Good job ladies!

Race Day

Kristy was really trucking during the race. She's been a race maniac this year and has already done a bunch of races this season. Me? Nope, not so much. This was my first race of the year and with my hectic schedule I haven't been doing much training lately either - so I figured I'd be crawling across the finish line. But I tried to keep up with Kristy's pace for the whole race. Before the 1 mile mark I was already sore and felt like my legs were going to fall off! But I kept pace with her and we crossed the finish line together.

At one point Kristy turned to me and said, "If I'm holding you back, go ahead and leave me behind."  LOL! I laughed at her because I was dying and busting my butt to keep up.

Record finish time for me!  And it's all Kristy's fault!

Distance: 3.1 miles
Time: 47:14  --- New record!
Pace: 15:04
Weather: drizzle and chilly (an hour before race time it was raining hard, so clear weather was nice)

Cheryl (far left) and Mary (far right) are friends from OH who we met in Holland for a meet-n-greet. This was the first race for both of them. They did great and finished the race like troopers!

The Racing Crew

While I was stuck at home plowing through school work, members of my WLS Support Group were racing their hearts out!  The Dow Live Earth - Run for Water Race was today in Midland. The course is 6k - which is the distance many people around the world have to walk each day to get fresh water. I'm so proud of these guys!  They are amazing!

Pictured here:
Michael, Jean, Janel and Cheryl

More Race Stuff

Two weeks ago I walked the 10 mile race course during the practice run. A couple weeks before that I walked most of the course with my training group (about 8.75 miles). Both of those training sessions were done much faster than my official race time and both had been done on much hotter days - basically I worked harder the two previous times than I did on Saturday. So why am I so much more sore this time around? Remember the ankle injury from a year ago? That's been bothering me all year and I've just been walking with some low-level pain since then because it doesn't seem to want to heal, so figured that's just how life is. Now that ankle is hurting much worse than it has in the past several months and I'm limping a bit today. Remember the knee pain I've been complaining about lately? Although it is a bit tender today, it's not nearly as bad as the ankle. The knee has been what's bothered me all during this training season and has been progressively getting worse, so for it to not be "that bad" after the race on Saturday is surprising. And perplexing. So for now I'm going to baby my body a bit. Let the ankle heal again before I push too hard doing anything else. Which is annoying, of course. I still want to continue my Travel Race Mania goals (2 races per month through October). But that last race of the season is not going to be the half marathon I'd planned. I've got some race applications for September and will need to pick a couple that are toward the end of the month to give myself time to recover a little, I guess. And will find another couple for October. But the half-marathon isn't happening - in fact, I've already dropped out of the extension training program -- otherwise I would have a scheduled 11 mile training walk coming up next weekend. I'm somewhat disappointed that I won't be ending this season with a half marathon. Kinda. One side of me wants to achieve that goal again, but the other side figures I've already "been there, done that" and I need to move on to something else. I think lately I've been getting bored with walking .... but that's a whole other post and thought process. For now I'll continue with my goal of doing the races as soon as my body recovers some. ~Pam

Race Day

I'm sorry I didn't get this posted yesterday --- it turned into a hectic day and I just didn't have the time.

The Crim 10 mile race went well. I had to part a million miles away from the startline (it was actually about 1.25 miles) and got downtown much later than I'd planned. Met up with my friend Karen and waited for the race to start in the crowd of other racers. It took us about 7 minutes to get to the startline after the race started and we walked a moderate pace the whole way. I knew that Karen doubted that she'd be able to make it so I wanted to stick with her for the race in case she ran into any problems. She did good though!

One major problem of the race course was the lack of restroom facilities. It wasn't until almost halfway through the course when we found he first porta-john and the line up was horrible. It took us a good 5-7 minutes of waiting to get our turn, which seriously cut into our time. It would have been nice to see 2 or 3 facilities at that location instead of just 1. (BTW- see the guy sitting on the lawn next to the potty? Yes, he really did do the whole 10 miles with a cast on his leg and walking on crutches!)

The weather was gorgeous and I''m so thankful we didn't have to battle the typical heat and humidity of August. It was more like a pleasant spring day.

After the race I went to the Flint Farmer's Market to score some goodies. I love that place! They had stuff stacked high in anticipation of the crowds-

and it was definitely crowded. I got some vine ripened tomatoes, yellow grape tomatoes,

zucchini, squash, corn on the cob, green beans, cabbage, red and yellow plums and probably more stuff I can't remember. I'll be cooking later today for sure!

Distance: 10 miles

Time: 3:15:06

Pace: 19:31

Weather: Mid-60's, partly sunny and breeze. Beautiful day!

Race Eve

Tomorrow is the 10-mile Crim race. Last I heard there were about 18,000 race participants signed up with about 5,000 of them doing the 10-miler (they also have a 8k, 5k, 1 mile and a few other races all on the same day). So I'll be in the huge crowd at the startline tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. The race is broadcast live on the local TV station and also on their website. See if you can pick me out of the crowd - I'll be the one in a yellow tank top and black shorts. LOL! So today I'm in prep-mode. I'm hitting the water hard today to be super-hydrated for the race. I'm also not limiting carbs much today so my muscles have the glycogen stores they need to get me through the race. Since the alarm goes off at 5am tomorrow, I'll be hitting the hay early tonight for some good sleep. I'm so glad to be walking tomorrow with Karen and possibly Lynn -- both fellow WLS gals who have trained hard this summer to finish the race. April, Lisa, Dennis, Jim, Candise and Mike will also be doing the race tomorrow -- all folks who have had WLS or have been training with us the past few months. I'm hoping to get a group picture! It's exciting to see this opportunity to achieve another goal approaching so quickly. I'll definitely be glad when I cross the finish line and know I have done this again! ~Pam

Race Day

Today was the 5 mile Blueberry Festival Race. It was very humid and I was tired from my playing on the beach all day yesterday. The cool thing about today's race was that Helen and Shannon (the Pink Team from The Biggest Loser) was part of the race. They both walked the race - Helen was fast and hit the front of the pack right away, Shannon was about my same pace and walked just ahead of me most of the race. (I talked to Helen after the race about my GoWear Fit and plaeatu, I'll blog about that another day.)

The other cool thing was that most of my Crim training group just so happened to be there too and I was able to walk with a few of the gals. We've only got 6 days left before the big 10 mile race!

One more cool thing. I place first in my age category. Not bad for an old lady, huh?

Distance: 5 miles

Time: 1:20

Pace: 16:00

Weather: mid-80's, humid with a tiny sprinkle at the end of the race to cool us off

Practice Race Day

Sunday morning was the practice Crim race. The entire training program (1500-ish people) and anyone else who wanted to run the course informally was invited to do the 10 miles together. I was suppose to meet my regular Tuesday night training group, but could only find 2 members - the rest of the group was no where to be found. So we walked alone. (Eventually a couple other members found us on the course later.) It was HOT. And HUMID. It felt like walking through a sauna and breathing humidifier air. The high of the day was around 94 degrees and I believe it was already creeping into the 80's when we started at 8am. It was exactly the same weather as last year's race and the first really hot and humid day we've had here in Michigan all summer. I was sweating before we even started! But I made pretty good time. In fact, I beat my time from last year by nearly 20 minutes. Now if everyone could please do a dance or sacrifice to the weather gods so we can have some beautiful weather for the real race in two weeks, that'd be nice. Distance: 10 miles Time: 2:56:46 Pace: 17-something Weather: hot, humid, sweltering. Sweated like a pig.

Race Day Rain Out

Late Friday evening I registered for the 10k race in Flint for Saturday morning. I knew there was suppose to be rain and thunderstorms passing through overnight and the weatherman said they would linger through morning. But I was hoping for good weather anyway. I went to bed last night around midnight and the rain hadn't started yet.

When my alarm went off at 5:45 a.m. this morning I was already awake because of the loud thunder and pounding rain. I had no desire to get up, drive 45 minutes to the race and walk for two hours in the middle of a thunderstorm. So I turned the alarm off and rolled over to go back to sleep.

But mid-morning, when the sun finally came out, I went out for some photowalking. I grabbed my camera and knew I wanted to hit a couple of my favorite spots in Bay City. The Farmer's Market was open on Saturday for the first time so there wasn't much to see or buy. The Flea Market was hopping, but I didn't see anything I couldn't live without. I walked down to the cemetary to see if I could get some interesting photos, then back up Center with all the victorian houses. When I got back downtown I found a car show in full swing so I did my civic duty and support the concession stand run by the Boy Scouts and had a hotdog and a snow cone. I took a bunch of photos all along the way, of course. And when I got home I used www.MapMyWalk.com to figure out how far I walked. 5.09 miles. Not bad for skipping a race today, huh?

~Pam

Race Day

At 10:00 last night I remembered that I had to do a race today or else I'd miss my goal of 2 races a month. Well... I knew I needed to do it this weekend, but I hadn't bothered finding a race yet. So last night I dug through my pile of race flyers and found one in town.

So let me tell you about the pooping man...

When you do a lot of local races you tend to see the same people at most of them. There's this one man, about 60 years old, who seems to walk about the same pace that I do. He's always within site of me, but almost always up ahead. I'd guess I've walked about 4 or 5 races where he was there too. Today marks the THIRD time I caught him coming out from behind a tree along the race course. The other two times he was just tucking in his shirt and looking all innocent and continued walking. Unfortnately today I was a bit too close to the tree he'd chosen. As I was approaching his rest area I see his head pop up from behind a branch and I get a glimpse of his tighty-whiteys as they are bring pulled up from his knees. OMG! Yes, I just said that.

Ok, so this time there were a group of 3 other women up ahead of me - technically 2 teenagers and probably their mother. They saw what I saw and all three of them were dying of laughter. My reaction? I said, probably too loudly, "Seriously?!" I mean really dude, there's an outhouse just 1/4 mile up ahead and there's a playground within eyesight of your bathroom choice. I was seriously flabergasted. But... he just buttoned up his shorts and tucked in his shirt while he was walking out from behind the tree to rejoin the race. As if nothing was wrong.

So I'm really contemplating avoiding any more local races. And if I see this guy milling around the registration area of any races I'm doing -- I don't know if I can do the race. Really. It's just strange. LOL!

So, about MY race. I felt like I was dragging my butt today. It was the first race I'd done this year where it was hot and humid so early in the morning and I was sweating like a pig. I had my Podrunner music set to 140bpm which was the highest I've evern attempted and I was pretty much keeping pace. But still I felt like I was moving in slow motion. When I rounded the corner and saw the finish line I was shocked to see the time. Remember my best time so far was 49:00 ... so when I realized I was within that range it surprised me. So here's how I did:

Distance: 3.1 miles

Time: 49:45

Pace: 16:04

Weather: 80's and humid

Race Day

The weekend up at Mackinac Island was beautiful and relaxing. The weather on Saturday was beautiful and sunny (but the wind was very cold). Kristy and I did the 10k race during the Lilac Festival (although we never did see anything that looked festival-like). It was rainy on Friday when we arrive in town and rained Sunday when we left. But Saturday was sunny all day and eventually warmed up to a gorgeous day. My favorite part of the trip to the Island was when we had lunch on that patio overlooking the lake -- basking in the sun for a while. The big hill in the first mile of the race was a serious killer. For those who have done the Crim and know the Bradley Hills -- yeah, the Mackinac hill was a million times worse! Oh my! The rest of the course was scenic and a lovely chance to see some of the back part of the island. My goal was to finish the race in about 1:45 to 1:55 ... which would mean the same pace as a regular 5k race with an extra 5 minutes to play with. I actually finished at 1:40!! Distance: 6.2 miles Time: 1:40:13 Pace: 16:10 Weather: 45 degrees, sunny and windy

Race Day

Today's race had me laughing a bit.  First of all it was a race to benefit the local beauty pagent scholarship program so there were a lot of very beautiful girls either participating in the race or there to volunteer.  It was pretty hilarious to see these beauty queens all decked out in their designer sweat suits, full make up, perfect hair -- out there trying to run.  Then there was another set of folks out today -- moms maybe?  At two different times on the race course I saw some middle-aged women wearing their race numbers and in their perfectly pressed work out gear and they were stopped along the race course puffing on cigarettes.  Definitely not your typical race full of athletes today.

Distance:  3.1 miles

Time: 49:01 -- a new record!

Pace:  15:49

Weather:  62 and sunny with a stiff breeze off the water

Race Day

Yesterday morning I met up with Kristy and Lori for the 5k race at the Bay City State Park.  It was Lori's first race and she did amazingly!  Kristy rocked too finishing just 9 seconds behind me. 

This race was actually pretty tough because of the course. Much of it was on hard-pack trails with gravel. Then some of it was also over grass which was wet, too long and obviously not on even ground. 

I have been practicing some speedwalking techniques in my workouts lately - upright posture with shoulders back, buttocks tucked in, core engaged, shorter steps, arms close to the body and used to propel me forward.  When I'm on pavement I feel like I'm walking much faster than my normal pace - it doesn't work so well on rough terrain though.  I've yet to time myself with the speedwalking to see if it's really making a difference. 

Here's the results for Kristy, Lori and I:

32. Pamela Saginaw, MI 39 50:21.09 197 

33. Kristy Bay City, MI 51 50:30.18 198 

39. Lori Saginaw, MI 42 51:20.84 205

My Stats:

Distance: 3.1 miles

Time: 50:21

Pace:  16:15

Weather: 55-ish, chilly and drizzily

Race Day

I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to find a second race for April.  But earlier this week I discovered a little race in my hometown to be held today.  There were about 40 racers total with only 5 walkers (me being one of them).  The weather was gorgeous and sunny -- definitely a perfect spring day!

So a couple observations about today.  

First, when I am part of a race where there are very few walkers I usually end up at the end.  Today I finished last.  It is so discouraging to finish last even when your brain is telling you it doesn't matter.  

Second, I need to learn some techniques for walking faster.  I was booking today and I can't figure out how to get faster.  Hopefully the pace training that is a part of the Crim Training Program will help me figure this out.

The good news is I got a medal today for 1st place in my age group for walkers.  The bad news is that I was the only person in my age group, male or female.  Still kinda cool to get a medal.

ALSO --- today's time was my best ever.  Felt good to beat myself, at least.

Distance:  3.1 miles

Time: 49:38

Pace: 16:01

Weather:  58, sunny and beautiful

Race Day

It's interesting to participate in a road race sponsored by a running club.  It was about 95% runners and 5% walkers .... and even the 5% walkers were made up of mostly power walkers (who walk just as fast as some of the runners).  So yeah, I was in the minority this morning.  But that's alright because I finished the race, I got a pretty decent time and I didn't freeze too bad.  

Distance: 3.1 miles

Time:  51:15

Pace: 16:32

Weather:  34, cold, overcast, sprinkling

I Finished the Crim 10-Mile Race!

I finished!

The heat and humidty was brutal and I was sweating like a pig and drank a ton of water... but I finished and I'm proud of myself.

See that picture to the right? Yep... that's what the start line looked like. From the time the start gun went off to the time I actually crossed the start line it was about 6-7 minutes. I knew there were about 15,000 racers signed up, but you don't really understand what that number means until you're inside the crowd. Truly amazing to be part of something that huge.

I was a bit unsure about what to eat on race day. I loaded up on carbs the day before, which was fine. And I had some protein ice cream at around 5:30 am on the drive to Flint. I also brought along some sliced turkey, grapes and cheesesticks figuring I'd eat a little something before the race. Big mistake! Stupid Pam! I knew my pouch didn't like solid food in the morning, so why would I attempt meat and cheese? I should have done yogurt instead. I ate the turkey and grapes on my walk from the car to the spot I met my training group. Yep - you guessed it. Breakfast got stuck!

When I have food stuck, one of two things happens. 1) I get the dry heaves and things rearrange themselves enough to be comfortable or 2) things stay stuck for about 3 hours and I just have to suffer through it. Once I met up with my training group I stood around hoping the dry heaves would come (it's not something I can force or make happen on my own). It took about 25 minutes, but thankfully they came and my pouch rearranged itself and got the turkey unstuck. So about 15 minutes before the start of the race I was still a bit shakey and hoping all would be fine. Once the race started I was feeling normal again, but I was definitely worried I wouldn't be able to do the race at all. Stupid, stupid, stupid... no more solid food before a race!

One of the big highlights of this race is all the supports who came out to cheer us on. All along the 10 mile route residents were out on their lawns clapping and cheering as we went by. Regular old people had water stations set up in their front yards, so many people had their garden hoses out offering free showers to racers (which was wonderful!), a couple fraternities were out - one with a beer station and one handing out Krispy Kreme Donuts - lots of local bands playing along the way, marching bands from local schools too and even residents who set up personal karaoke machines in their front yards to sings for the racers. Who needs an iPod when you have that kind of entertainment to keep you motivated!

Around the 6.5 mile mark I came upon a friend from my training group. She was really struggling with cramps in her feet and soreness in her hips. She has always been one of the leading walkers in our group, so for her to be struggling was a big deal. I stayed with her for those last 3.5 miles and we walked together. It was slow going at the end, but we finished the race together. Just hitting the bricks in downtown Flint and crossing that finish line is an emotional experience.

We got our finish medals and wore them proudly around the festival grounds afterward. I'll have to snap a photo of it and post it here ... it's pretty cool!

After the race I made my way to the Festival Lot where they had pizza and beer for all the racers (I chose water and could only eat about 1/2 of a slice of pizza). The sheer number of people milling around afterward was awesome. There were food vendors and a beer tent and kid's bouncy things and a DJ then later live music -- a celebration party for all 15,000 participants.

There was suppose to be a kiosk set up where we could have our timer tag scanned to find out our official race time. It wasn't working, so I never did find out my official time. I had my stop watch on, but forgot to stop it when I crossed the finish line. But I think I was right around 3:05. The race times will be posted on the Crim website soon, so I'll update when I know more.

So that's about it. Good race. Definitely proud of myself and looking forward to starting the next round of training for the half-marathon. I can't believe that in 6 weeks I'll be doing this again!

Thank you all for you support and well wishes! You all mean so much to me!

~Pam