Labor Day Weekend Shenanigans

It was a busy weekend for this girl:

• 20 mile training run in Breckenridge
• Copper Country Music Festival
• CU vs CSU game
• Park to Park 10 Miler
• Dinner with my good friend Amanda

Needless to say I didn’t really get to relax on the long holiday weekend, but instead bounced from here to there hanging out with various family and friends.

Saturday - Mountain Getaway

Just me and the road

Saturday was another typical long run Saturday in my life. Alarm went off at 4:30 and I was out the door my 5:30 too meet up with some people from the MHTC to head to the mountains. We headed to Breckenridge to get in a good 20 mile downhill run to Frisco. But As I neared mile 13 my knee started to bug me so I (for the first time) really listened to my body and cut my run short. Normally I would have been extremely grumpy about this and sulked around the whole day, but I was able to run those 13 miles at goal marathon pace and I didn’t really feel winded. I was especially happy with this considering there was a doozy of a hill at mile 8. Not a really long hill, but one that slaps you in the face and then laughs at you when you have to start walking it. Based on this run my confidence has been boosted a bit for STG.

Monday - Park to Park 10 Miler

Run Colorado represent!

After the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon I made the decision not to sign up for anymore races until after a good long rest period following the Marine Corps Marathon on October 27th. I really need to focus on preparing for the Saint George Marathon and most importantly staying healthy so I can do 2 marathons in one month. But last week at the Run Colorado Pub Run I won a free entry into the Aetna Park to Park 10 Miler for demoing a pair of Brooks Pure Flows and who can say no to a free race entry??

Since I had 20 miles scheduled on Saturday, turning around and running another 10 on Monday didn’t sound like the best idea to be. However I was quickly persuaded once I received some coaching advice:

• Take Saturday’s 20 nice and easy. Easy enough to keep a conversation going the entire time. 
• On Sunday a 30 minute jog to get the legs moving again and then stretch it out.
• Then Monday push myself as hard as you could and race the full 10 miles. The reason being that racing on tired legs shows you where you stand in your training. So race I did.

I have never felt better during a race. Everything just kind of clicked for me! And I let my legs take over. I started out running with 2 ladies from my running group and we were flying through the first couple miles at a pace that I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up for 10 miles so I kept trying to pull back a bit, but that never happened. And I just kept going and going. Surprisingly the miles ticked by quickly and before I knew it I was halfway done AND clocking my fastest mile of the race (on rolling hills).

At the 7.5 mile water station I could feel myself start to slow down. I took a 30 second walk break gave myself a quick pep talk and then started running again. Somehow I don’t really remember running miles 7.5-9, but before I knew it I was heading into Washington Park with one more mile to go. I pushed it with all that I had left even though I felt like I was running through molasses. My legs were heavy and my form (will what little form I had) fell apart. Basically I looked like this:

I still managed to cross the finish line with enough time to give my a new PR by 4 minutes and 22 seconds! And my time was good enough to get me an AG place! Everybody had a fabulous race that day - multiple AG places and PRs! I have to say Run Colorado is a force to be reckoned with at races nowadays!

bRUNke'S on the RUN

This weekend I had low miles scheduled after a few weeks of heavy mileage. It was a breath of fresh air not having to prepare for a double digit run! I didn’t have to go to bed before 9pm, I didn’t have to get up at 4am. It was a rare occurrence for this girl, and I cherished it.

Instead for this weekend I signed up for a local 5k with my mom. Since it was near our house I decided I would run the 5k and then run back to our house to get in some extra miles. But what I didn’t count on was actually racing...

Jericho Jog Race Report:

Yes you read the title of this post right, multiple Brunke’s raced this weekend.

@ the start line

A few weeks ago my mom signed us up for a local 5k at our church, the Jericho Jog. Going into it I knew the course was going to be rolling hills. So I had no anticipation of racing or having a decent time. I figured I would take it easy and push myself on the hills to test out my legs. But something came over me going down the first hill that made me kick it into another gear. I was feeling good and decided to run how my body felt. And my body felt good despite all the punishment I had put it through during the week.

The race was small, only 200 people. But it was a lot of families with young children so I figured I might of had a chance if I went for it. The first mile ticked my quickly. It was mostly uphill and I used all those Thursday morning  hill repeats to my advantage. I was able to separate myself from the pack and get a good distance in from of them going into the second mile. Here it flattened out a little bit, but still had some good short rollers. So it was hard to get a good rhythm going.  One I popped out onto the main road I knew I had another mile that was mostly uphill, with a good hill at the very end. I used the downhills to make up some ground and pass a few more people. When I came to the big hill at the end I was mostly spent. My legs were talking, letting me know they were grumpy. I told  myself I had enough space and time to walk up the hill if I needed to. I kept running along until the very top. At that point I was more annoyed than tired. The hill never seemed to end. I told myself I would walk the last portion and then sprint it out to the finish to make up the time. I was just about to slow down and walk and a woman was at the very top telling me i was the 5th female over all and that i had one close on my heels.  So I had no choice by to push it to the finish. I ended up 2nd in my AG (19-39) and 24th overall. If it wasn’t for that spectator I would have given up and walked the rest of the hill. I was 10 seconds off my 5K PR. But being on a hilly course means that I can go even faster on a flat one. Looks like I need to find one of those ASAP and test out what my legs have!

Mommy also placed second in her AG (40-59). Her first ever AG place :) And I think it made her catch the racing bug!!! Now if I could just convince her to do a marathon!

Mom coming into the Finish and us with our AG medals!

A Focus on Cross Training

Over the past few weeks I have been trying to figure out what has been different about my training for Saint George compared to the Colfax marathon. And then it hit me - I have done ZERO cross training. During Colfax training I was doing some form of cross training at least 2-3 times a week. I would mostly swim, do some core exercises, and some weight lifting to mix up my routine. But this time around cross training completely slipped my mind. I am I paying for it. I am a stronger runner than I was a year ago.  I have conditioned my legs, lungs, and most importantly my mind. But without cross training all that goes away.

Recently I read a few articles about the importance of cross training for endurance athletes and decided I need to get my butt in gear if I want to have a successful race at Saint George. The main points I took away from most of the articles were cross training:

• reduces the possibility of injuries
• allows for faster recovery from injuries
• provides greater anaerobic fitness
• gives runners more power in their legs
• allows runners to be more efficient in their movements.

So I created the below schedule, determined to get everything completed this week. Since my marathon training plan has me running 5 days a week getting in cross training is hard to do unless I do two-a-day workouts. Not my ideal situation, but once I get back onto the swing of things and get my strength back I will dial back on the number of days I cross train and the type that I am doing.

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Running	Rest	5 Miles	8 Miles	5 Miles	5 Miles	Rest	Jericho Jog (5k) + 8 Miles
XT	Rest	Swim	Body Pump	Core + Stretch	BodyPump	Core + Stretch	Rest

Sunday was an easy day of strictly rest. Which was good considering I had a hectic weekend and ended up sleeping most of the day. Monday was a different story. I had set my alarm the night before to get up at 5am and run before work. At 5am I promptly hit the snooze button and fell back asleep for another hour.  I woke up at 6am feeling extremely rested and figured that I could get my run in after work. After consulting the weather forecast I decided that I would just skip my run and go for a swim that night. By 8am I was ready to crawl back into bed and had completely discounted heading to the pool after work.  By three o’clock I had changed my mind again and decided that I should go to the pool and not be a lazy bum. But guess who forgot to pack her goggles? This girl. So basically day one was a complete fail at working out.

Tuesday was a different story again. I woke up at 4am and could not fall back asleep to save my life. I tossed and turned for an hour before I finally decided to get up, pack a bag, and head to the office to get some miles in before work. I managed to get 5 in and still make it to my desk in time. Not the 8 I was hoping for but it worked. I had then planned on going to the gym and taking the BodyPump class to get some weights in BUT (there always seems to be a but) they had canceled classes due to the parking lot re-paved. So I laced up my running shoes again and ran the rest of my miles for the day. So the day was not a total loss.

The rest of the week I was spot on! Maybe I was a little too ambitious this week with the amount of non-running activities that I added to my schedule. But I have low weekend miles so I figured my body could handle it. But I am exhausted. I am going to enjoy my rest day tomorrow and prepare myself for next week:

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Running	Rest	5 Miles	8 Miles	5 Miles	5 Miles	Rest	20 Miles
XT	Stretching	Swim	Rest	Core + Stretch	BodyPump	Core + Stretch	Rest

Solid Week of Training

With less than 50 days to go until the Saint George Marathon it was about time I had an entire week of solid training. I hit all of my weekly miles and felt great during Thursday’s track workout and somehow still felt strong come Saturday’s long run of 18 miles.

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Rest	5 Miles	8 Miles	Rest	Track Workout	Rest	18 Miles

On Saturday I met up with some people at 5:30 to knock off 5 miles before the official Saturday run started so we:

a) could beat the heat 

b) wouldn't be the last ones out on the course.

Only down side to doing this was that I found out what the regular course was going to be once we met up with the group at 6:30. It was the course that I have never had a good run on, something has always gone wrong on this course:

• dehydration
• unknowingly ran with the stomach flu (good thing is that there are plenty of places to duck off the trail)
• IT band flared up

I had 5 miles to prepare myself for this course which was a good thing because I had a great run! Only times I stopped were at the water stations and miles 16-18 when my left calf muscle tightened up and I needed to work it out. Other than that I had no issues! I am taking this as a big win for my mental game of running. Hopefully it will play well into this next week of training.

As an added bonus these fellows were
20 feet away from us on the run.
Completely unfazed by our presence. 

Logging the Downhills

These past two weekends have been focused on running downhill. Why you ask? Well, the Saint George Marathon loses 2,560 ft over the course of 26.2 miles. Talk about a quad burner. So to prepare some of the group from the MHTC decided it would be good to get in some long stretches of downhill miles in back to back weeks.

August 3rd we decided to head up to Rollins Pass Road just outside of Winter Park. We were told that this road mimics the same downgrade of the STG course but in just 13 miles. Little did we know that we chose the wrong side of the pass to do this one, but it was still a great run nonetheless. Since we needed 2 cars for the trip (one to take to the top and one to have at the bottom) we met at the crack of dawn in the Run Colorado parking lot to carpool up.

On the way up we discussed our strategy about how to tackle the road. All of us had different distances on our training calendar and we knew the road was only 13 miles long. Earlier in the week Mike had given us some advice not to run the whole thing completely down as it could open us up for injury and a long recovery period if we burned our our quads too much. So we agreed to park a car at mile 11 on the road run a mile up and then the rest down. But as we started driving up Rollins Pass Road we realized that it was taking us a long time. There were lots of bumps to maneuver around making it slow going. So we parked the car at mile 9 and agreed to run more than one mile uphill. I had planned on running 3 up and then 12 down, but as I neared 2.5 miles I was exhausted. The altitude started getting to me and I knew burning my legs out going up would not work well going for going down. Thankfully the lady I was running with agreed and we turned around to head down the hill.

Why I love this gorgeous state. Run Colorado!

The scenery was BEAUTIFUL! Which kept our minds off of what we were doing. And before we knew it we had caught up with part of our group who didn’t run as far up as we did. But this time the feet had begun to hurt a little and I was getting tired, but the company kept me going. Soon enough behind us came the rest of our group and we ran down the rest together. We ran into a group of mountain bikers and stopped to ask if they could take couple pictures of us. And in true bRUNke fashion I ended up standing on an ant hill. And not just any anthill, an ant hill that had biting ants. I tried to ignore it but soon enough the shoes and socks were flying off and I was jumping up and down to get them out of my clothes. Once that got all sorted out we trekked onward. The last mile was the toughest. My legs were shot. I started feeling every rock through my shoes. It was getting hotter. I just wanted to sit down. And then in our sites was the car! WAHOO!

Progression of ants in my pants...

As we were standing there stretching and regrouping another one of our MHTC members was driving down the hill. I guess great minds think alike. I ended up grabbing a ride home with her because I had a commitment in Denver that I needed to get back for, which was  good thing as the rest of the group didn’t make it back until 5pm that night. Talk about a long day.

The first thing I did when I made it home was hit the foam roller of pain. My legs screamed at me the whole time, asking why I was torturing them even more. But I attribute rolling out to not being as sore as I would have been if I had just stretched. But all that stretching didn’t keep the soreness away. I took Sunday off (mostly because I wanted to sleep in). Monday I still didn’t feel like running. So Tuesday I forced myself to get out on the road. It was only 4 miles but my legs talked the whole way. Wednesday I forced myself out again and again the legs talked. This made me nervous about running the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon that Saturday so I contemplated not going to track Thursday morning as the workout was hills. But I knew I needed the miles so I went anyway. And thank the lord I did! Something about that workout completely loosened up my legs. Friday I took as a rest day to prepare for Saturday’s downhillish “race”.

Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon Race Report:

Some of the group at the start line

Second year doing this race and I still cannot figure out if I like it. Don’t get me wrong, the course is great, the support is awesome, overall it is a well put together event, and I have PRed each time I have ran it. But logistically getting up there is a hassle. You have to get up ridiculously early and take a bus to Georgetown from either Idaho Springs or Evergreen. And then if you park in Evergreen (which we did this year) you have to wait for another bus after the race to take you back to your car.

I didn’t have a plan other than to run how I felt for this race. But I got a nice reminder from a fellow runner that morning that I shouldn’t fully race it and hold back a bit to prevent injury and decrease my recovery time. Those words were in my head from the moment I crossed the start line to about mile 12 when there was a possibility of me PRing. This race was fun until about mile 10 when I started to get grumpy. It is at this point that you think the finish line is just around the next turn, but when you get to that turn there is another and another and another, until Idaho Springs about smacks you in the face. I kept chugging along until I saw the mile 12 sign and I looked at my watch. If I kept my pace I would have finished a minute faster than my previous PR. So naturally instead of listening the words of wisdom I heard earlier in the morning and kept my same pace I pushed it. My legs were feeling good and my breathing was under control so why not? I came flying into Idaho Springs (at least I felt like I was at my sub 9 pace) and I was feeling good. About a quarter mile out from the finish line I was stopped dead in my tracks because some ahole decided he needed to leave in his car. Right in front of me. Thank goodness I had dropped a headphone when I got into the town so I was able to hear the car before I saw it otherwise I  might be a pancake on the ground in IS right now. Not going to lie I screamed a few profanities at him (as did the people behind me) and he proceeded to sit there in his truck instead of driving away.  After about 30 seconds of screaming at him to move he finally did. But it was too late. I had already lost all my momentum and still had a quarter mile to bang out. Somehow I managed to cross the finish line in 2:05 exactly. A 2 second PR!

Congrats to everybody from Run Colorado and the MHTC who ran great races! We had quite the crew out there this year!

MHTC/Run Colorado GTIS FINISHERS!!

No Running, Just Hiking

I was a bad girl this week. Absolutely no running happened. I had a crazy busy weekend and after running with Run Colorado Saturday morning, tailgating all afternoon before the Kenny Chesney concert, getting home around 12:30am and then waking up at 5am to meet some of the MHTC to run Waterton Canyon Sunday morning  I was drained. As much as I should have gone out running, taking some time to rest up from my hectic weekend sounded like a much better idea. Plus I knew I had a 4 day llama camping trip starting on Friday to look forward too.

For those of you who are unaware my dad owns llamas, yes llamas. And each year we try and go on a backpacking trip with them as a family. However this year my brother opted to go to Vegas to celebrate a friends 21st birthday, so I got to bring my man instead :).

I won’t bore you with details, rather I will just give you the main highlights:

• I rolled my ankle twice (3 fewer times than last year), but the second one knocked me on my butt for a good while and was swollen for a few days after we got home. However instead of resting I was back to running the day after we got home
• My favorite flowers were in bloom. Last year when we went camping we were a week too late and they had all dropped their flowers. But this year we camped in a field of them!
• I happened upon a mountain goat as I was walking down the trail. It was so fluffy and soft looking. I just wanted to pet it.
• We ate like royalty.
• It rained… a lot.
• Over 4 days we hiked approx. 20 + miles.
• And of course I repped Run Colorado!

Ready to hit the trail!

Bill Goat!

Lunch time among the flowers.

River crossing like a pro!

Favorite flowers in the entire world! 

The fisherman and cooking up the catch for a snack.