….and My Story Runs On….
My boyfriend, my BBE (Best Boyfriend Ever), my running widower, Greg, Gregorio (that’s what my Italian parents call him 😉 )….whatever we call him, he is one of the biggest reasons I am able to do what I do. Continue Reading →
….and My Story Runs On….
I assume this is a common way to refer to your trail training partners that spend more hours with you on the trail than they do with their actual spouses? I’ve heard the term golf wife so I’m sure it applies. Continue Reading →
….and My Story Runs On….
Here is a list of my blog posts that I am writing after my first 50 Mile race. It’s combination of what I learned, what I am grateful for and a way for me to keep the memory alive. It was one of the proudest moments of my life! My goal is to have 50 of these 😉
Updated on 7/30/17: I’m realizing this just isn’t going to happen. It was a great idea when I had it but I have other ideas for blogs, etc and too much time has gone by now. I have found that writing blogs works best for me when I feel inspired and too much time has gone by now to continue with this series. I hope you still enjoy these 😉
Race Report: Antelope Canyon: My 1st 50 Miler (with pictures!)
50 Miles of Gratitude: (1) ChiRunning
50 Miles of Gratitude: (2) Nutrition
50 Miles of Gratitude: (3) Training
50 Miles of Gratitude: (4) Massage
50 Miles of Gratitude: (5) My Trail Wife
50 Miles of Gratitude: (6) My Boyfriend
50 Miles of Gratitude: (7) My Epic Finish Line
50 Miles of Gratitude: (8) Altras and Meeting the CoFounder
50 Miles of Gratitude: (9) Training & Aravaipa Running
50 Miles of Gratitude: (10) Burning Out
50 Miles of Gratitude: (11) My Celebratory Tattoo
50 Miles of Gratitude: (12) Training & XTERRA events
I’ve learned this… #neversaynever
From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)
….and My Story Runs On….
Another reason for my success was sticking to my training plan. There were a few times that I was not able to stick to the plan but they were few and far between. This was by far, the hardest part of the entire process.
It was not the training that was hard but the amount of time it took. I knew it was going to be a big commitment but when you add the mileage, and add driving back and forth to trail heads, it was a part time job. In addition to the time, it was hard to focus on anything mentally after a few long days of running. My business suffered a bit from it and I spent less time with my boyfriend as well. Thankfully he is very supportive and that will be another blog post 😉 You have no idea how tempted I am right now to sign up for another 50 miler this year while my body/mind are trained! But I know I need to get refocused on my business and I truly need to be patient with the process. I see too many people get too excited and then things start falling apart. I want to keep running for the rest of my life and don’t want to burn my body or mind out!
I followed a training plan from Ultraladies. It’s a cool schedule generator so you plug in the date of your event and it spits out a training plan. I started training for my 2nd 50K and then switched over to the 50 Mile training. Here is my spreadsheet (50K on one sheet and 50 miles on another). My goal was to follow the plan as closely as I could but life gets in the way sometimes. If I couldn’t follow on the specific days, my goal was to try and meet the weekly miles and make sure that I was able to get my back to back long runs in. If you talk to any ultra runner, most of them will tell you that back to back long runs are crucial as it’s the way that you train to run on tired legs.
The other thing to do is make sure to find out the elevation profile of your run and what conditions you will be running in. Everything I read about Antelope Canyon was that it was 40 miles of sand. So I did quite a bit of training in the sand although the sand was coarser in our park washes than the fine sand in Page. I also made it a point to focus on ChiWalking and hiking. The idea was to get as much time on my feet so these helped quite a bit as well.
I was worried that 31 miles was my longest run and I didn’t know what it would feel like to run 20 more on the same day….but it really did come together on race day. My legs were tired but no where near as bad as I thought it would be.
I always tell my runners, you can go out and complete a race with little training, but how do you want to feel during and after? Training is an important part of any race, both mentally and physically.
I found this awhile ago and it cracked me up…if you are an ultra runner, you know you can relate 😉
From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)
….and My Story Runs On….
I’ve heard so many horror stories about people with GI issues when doing long events or having to DNF (Did Not Finish) because of poor nutrition.
I am NOT a registered dietitian or nutritionist but as a trainer, I know what it takes to help people lose weight. I’ve helped many clients achieve weight loss goals via nutrition and exercise. However, I knew that training for endurance event was going to be an entire different situation. I have no background in this area and I’m a big proponent of reaching out to experts to help (I’m always so grateful when runners come into my workshops and know that some more expert advice will help them perform better).
So, I decided to hire a registered dietitian who specialized in endurance events. Brooke Schohl and her husband own Destination Kona (a triathlete store) and I’ve done a few free ChiRunning clinics there. She also owns Fuel To The Finish. I’ll admit it was a bit more money that I would normally spend but that’s how important it was for me to get this right. Again, these posts are not in any particular order but I would say that my nutrition plan up to and during the race was in the top 5 reasons why I was successful.
Before Brooke: She analyzed my diet and most important my macronutrient ratio (fat vs. carbs vs. protein). Right away she noticed that my protein was too low and my carbs were too high. We discussed the Metabolic Efficiency “Diet”…it’s not really a diet but a plan. So my goal was to have 40% fats, 35% carbs and 25% proteins (keep in mind that everyone is different so not recommending this for anyone. Please consider talking to Brooke or someone who is trained in this field). Long story short, I was teaching my body to burn energy more efficiently by using fat rather than the sugars.
Before Brooke…
During training: it was a challenge for me to lower my carbs and grains (I’m Italian, I love my carbs!) and increase my protein. The first few weeks were weird as I had low energy. But once it started kicking in, I couldn’t believe how much more energy I had and how good I felt. She asked me if I wanted to lose weight during the process and I said if I lost a few pounds I would be good with it. I’ve never been this focused on my nutrition (maybe when I lost the 40 lbs a long time ago but I was on a serious mission here) I used My Fitness Pal to log my food daily. Well, I lost about 10 lbs in the process and never felt this good in my life from my nutrition! On long training runs, I was to limit gus and gels and focus on real foods. I did 20+ mile training runs and never had a gu or gel! And felt great!
Example of how I was eating for 3 months…
Race Day: We had a final meeting to discuss my nutrition plan for race day. We picked the foods that I used while training and created the plan for the entire day, eating 150-200 calories every 90 minutes. I felt pretty good about my hydration and salt intake so I was going to listen to my body as I went. One the way up to the race, I had a genius idea to set alarms on my phone to go off every 90 minutes so I didn’t have to worry about reminding myself!
Had my alarms going off every 90 minutes to remind me what time and what to eat based on my plan!
The rule was to follow the plan until the last aid station (one of the reasons I picked this race is I was supposed to get birthday cake at one of the aid stations. Brooke said if it was too early in the day, not to do it as the sugar could mess with me. I was bummed but I never saw the birthday cake or cared). So at the last aid station, it was a freebie and I could do what I wanted. Which I did! I had 8 miles to go and I had a Coke (I don’t drink coke except for trail runs towards the end and it’s always soooo good), bacon and a quesadilla with Nutella! I even broke out with Honey Stinger gels with 4 miles to go as I knew I was close.
I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW MUCH THIS HELPED THROUGHOUT THE DAY! I never bonked or felt sick! I felt good all day and stuck to my plan!
I can’t thank Brooke enough! I’m very grateful I made the investment as I’ve learned a lot more about fueling my body and it helped me have a great race! I highly recommend her!
From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)
….and My Story Runs On….
Where do I even begin? It’s only been about 40 hours since I crossed the finish line and I’m still on Cloud 9. I’ve decided to write a race report about the Antelope Canyon race today. Continue Reading →
….and My Story Runs On….
“When you cross the finish line, your life will change forever.” -Unknown
Crossing a finish line is one of the most amazing feelings! It’s one of the reasons I love being a running coach as there is nothing more rewarding than watching someone work their butt off for any event and cross that finish line!
I’ve had some incredible finish line experiences but I have to admit, yesterday was one of the most amazing finish lines I experienced for a few reasons:
Goose bumps carrying the flag through the finish line!
Unfortunately I missed getting in the photo but looks at this awesome group of supportive people!
Reflecting on this incredible day, here is what I believe contributed to my success (in no particular order):
One of the reasons they say sitting is the new smoking. The position of your head effects your ENTIRE body!
One of my biggest fears about the 50 mile training (aside from getting my plantar fascitiis back) was that I would burn out with all this running….the opposite is happening…I’m more energized and excited at all the new possibilities that running will bring to me for years to come!
What was your favorite finish line? Why do you remember it?
From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)
….and My Story Runs On….
I’m so behind on blogging about my 50 Mile Training journey but will get back to that very soon. I couldn’t pass up posting about the dreaded treadmill as I’ve wanted to post about this before and it hasn’t happened it.
I’m an AZ girl and even in the summer when it’s 120 degrees, I run early in the morning or at night. I’ve always hated the dreadmill! One of the reasons I love trail running is because I’m out in nature enjoying the great outdoors. I seriously don’t know how people run on the treadmill all the time! But remember, my message to everyone when it comes to running is that we each have our own running story so I respect that someone’s running story might just be about the treadmill! This morning it was pouring so I didn’t have a choice…
If you refer to the treadmill as the “dreadmill” or “Satan’s sidewalk”, you probably use it because you have to due of weather or maybe you are out of town on business and don’t know any safe locations to run. This morning, I didn’t want to run in the rain and realized it is possible to take the dread out of the dreadmill…here are my suggestions:
I am not an expert on purchasing treadmills but I found this website that has some great reviews about them!
So next time you have no choice (or do you?), try these tips and see how they work out for you. Heck, I might even just add a treadmill workout to my weekly routine after my 50 miler!
Anyone else have any other tips to share? 😉
From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)
….and My Story Runs On….
Trying not to beat myself up as it’s Tuesday morning and I swore last week that I would keep a draft and update this daily as so much happens I forget by the time the weekly recap comes up! (thankful for my Tom Tom app so I can go back and look at the maps of my runs which helps jog my memory!). I also was short 10 miles last week so I’m deciding not to beat myself up about that either…..
Last week was a Cycle Down week which means it was a week where the mileage was lower to help the body rest and recover. I decided I was going to try and get more miles in during the week as I knew the weekend was going to be tough. Here was the plan:
| Week Of | Week | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Miles |
| 26-Oct | 8 CD | 0 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 10 | 8 | 36 |
And here is how it went:
My training for the week finished like this:
| Week Of | Week | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Miles |
| 26-Oct | 8 CD | 0 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 10 | 8 | 36 |
| Actual | 0 | 6.14 | 6 | 1 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 27.14 |
AHA moments:
Fundraising update:
Haven’t really done much with it this week. Every little bit helps though!
Previous blogs posts in this series:
This process is a bit time consuming but I really want a record to remember how training for my 1st 50 miler went so I will keep on with this journaling process…
From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)
….and My Story Runs On….
This was my 50K training plan for the week:
| Week Of | Week | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Miles |
| 19-Oct | 7 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 20 | 10 | 48 |
Here is how my week went:
My training for the week finished like this:
| Week Of | Week | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Miles |
| 19-Oct | 7 | 0 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 20 | 10 | 48 |
| 8 | 2.5 | 5 | 6 | 9.9 | 10 | 41.4 |
I was a little short again but had a few back to backs and I’m good with this mileage.
AHA moments:
Fundraising update:
Haven’t really done much with it this week. Every little bit helps though!
Previous blogs posts in this series:
From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)