You can take the girl out of the competition....

Part of what I enjoy about running is that I can really enjoy it. I think I've said this before, but I grew up in a fairly competitive family. My parents always encouraged us to do our best. Which my sisters and I always took to mean to be THE best. Winning was always the goal. Second place was never good enough. Mind you I say all this and I know that it wasn't that my parents thought that second place was horrible. It was that in my mind I HAD to win. Anything less was unacceptable. Which is why I spent many a state tournament in tears, feeling like a failure. But that's a story for another therapy session.

Running gives me great pleasure because I can just run. I'll never be fast enough to win my age category let alone the entire race. So I'm able to put it out of my mind and concentrate on beating my personal records throughout different runs. Last Friday my competitiveness, type-A, personality got the best of me. This was the day of the 4th of July 4 Mile run and I ran with Allison and M. The course was fairly flat so it was supposed to be a nice easy run. We started out at a nice pace and before I knew it we were at the 1 mile point at 9:50. I thought certainly that wasn't a mile. A turned to me and said: well we were going pretty fast..." I look back and realize yikes! I never prepared M for a 9:50 pace! The best we had done was a 10:30 minute pace on an all downhill run! So I back off and try to get a regular pace. Of course at this time I've already freaked out M's system. It doesn't help that she wasn't feeling well to start with and my crazy pace only upset her stomach that much more. We hit the 2 mile point at about 22 minutes or so. Because I'm never sure when to push people and when to back off, I decided to see if she was up for running. The big eyes and the shake of the head said absolutely not. Not yet. So we walked for a while, ran for a couple of minutes. Was just having a good time in general. That's when it happened: Crazy competitive Helen reared her ugly head.

One of the girls from work passes us. Mind you she doesn't say: see ya suckers! She just says hi and keeps her steady pace. But in my mind I'm thinking OH NO! She CANNOT beat me! And at this point I start having this internal drama. Part of me is saying: you're the reason your friend isn't feeling well. besides you got her into this running thing! Stay with her. The other part of me is saying: She CAN'T beat me!! Well as she starts to round a corner and is about half a mile from the finish line Crazy Helen takes over. I look at M and say: I'm sorry! I'll come back and finish with you again! But I can't let her beat me!" She said ok! go! So I begin to haul butt to the finish line. I think that's the fastest half mile I've ever run.
After crossing I start to head back to go find M. And I see her hauling butt to the finish line too!! I find her near the water and she says: I didn't want her to beat me either!
Turns out my craziness is catching. :)

Race Report/Training update

Hello! Yes Yes I know! I have to get better about posting on a regular basis.
I did a relay half marathon a couple of weekends ago. After the fiasco that was the Beach to Bay marathon I was a little apprehensive about having to run with a baton again, even if it only was for 3.2 miles. I ran the last leg of the race so this gave me plenty of time to stress out about dropping the baton. So as I waited I played with my gatorade bottle and the label around it. Before I knew it I had made myself this nice gatorade label bracelet. So I kept playing with that. Then it dawned on me. I could use this to help me hold the baton!!! I simply wrapped it around my hand, slipped the baton between it and my palm and viola! I had a handy baton holding bracelet! It held the baton nicely in place, didn't bug me and I only had to keep my thumb lightly on it! So I did all 3.2 miles with no baton issues! Hooray!

(there's no good way to transition into the training part of this entry, so pretend I had some sort of great transition)

Training for both marathon teams seems to be going well. I still feel like I'm doing ALL the work for the work team, but I guess that's my own fault for not being able to say no to people. So my duties include mapping all the routes for the long runs, setting up water stops, sending out emails on weekly basis with training info oh, and let's not forget the fact that I developed both training schedules for the full and half marathon runners. So I'm feeling overwhelmed.
The good thing is I have a great group to run with on Sundays at Fleet Feet. Everyone is so much fun and encouraging and I don't have to do all the work :) My shoulder has been giving me some problems on long runs and bringing my pace down to 12 minutes/mile instead of 11 or 11:30 minute miles. Oh well. I've already run 7 miles and I'm only running the half so I should be OK come November.

I'm doing the "Freedom Day Four Miler" this Friday. So hopefully that'll be fun. And speaking of the 4th of July don't forget to thank the people you know in the military for giving us the freedom we celebrate. They are doing and have done amazing things for this country!
So I'll say my own special Thanks to my Dad, Larry and Dennis!