Today is the Spartan Sprint – 4 miles with 15+ obstacles, mud and who knows what else!
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Brackets busted!
Well, I definitely won’t be winning $1 billion for my NCAA bracket and that’s only partially because I didn’t get one submitted on time. When I fill out a bracket, I use the same one for every contest I enter, so the one I filled out for work is the same as the one I did on espn.com and would have been the same for the Quicken Loan challenge. I, like most of the rest of the country, had Ohio State winning the first game. In fact, after the first game, over 80% of those who entered the contest were eliminated – 80%! After Duke got upset in today’s game, there’s only 16 people left in the contest with a perfect bracket. No one in my work bracket (of 18 people) picked Duke to lose. I was only one of 4 people who picked someone other than Duke to make it to the Elite 8, half of the group picked Duke to make it to the Final Four and 3 people had them winning it all.
One benefit I have being an outsider to NC basketball is that I have no allegiance to UNC or Duke and I’m very aware of the limitations of my college team, Pitt. If anything, I’m more conservative than most of my coworkers when it comes to Pitt and the tournament. When they made it to the Elite 8 in 2009, I had them out after Sweet 16 – one of my coworkers had them winning it all! Being a Pitt fan and watching them dominate regular season play only to choke in the Sweet 16 (or earlier) throughout my time there gave me an appreciation for the fact that the regular season record goes out the window as soon as the tournament starts. I had a lot of coworkers chiding me for my bracket in 2009, but when the last (and only other) time Pitt made it to the Elite 8 was in 1974, I certainly had my reasons for the picks that I made.
Having watched NC basketball for several years, I was very interested to see how Pitt would do in their inaugural season in the ACC. The ACC game is very different than the old Big East. As a complete basketball novice (honestly, I only watch the playoffs and NCAA tournament), the ACC seemed so much faster and more skilled. The Big East was built on teams that played a rough and tumble type game. I mean, Pitt once had a player who poked an opponent in the eye causing the player’s eye to pop out of its socket. Those teams played basketball like it was football – the more contact in a game, the better! So, I was expecting Pitt to have some major challenges as they changed conferences this year and adjusted to a new style of play. Pitt played a good game against UNC in the ACC tournament and surprised a lot of people by winning that game, especially given how the last 10 minutes played out. At one point, the announcers said: “One of the biggest comebacks in ACC tournament history. It was 61-41 Pitt with 7:22 to play in the ball game. I know the Pitt fans, they can’t believe that this is where it is…” (Pitt only up by 6 with 1:03 left). I posted to my Facebook wall that clearly these announcers don’t know Pitt fans – I wasn’t surprised by that and judging from the comments on my wall, neither were those I went to school with. It’s not that we don’t want our team to win, we will root for them all day every day, but we’ve also built a defensive shield not to get our hopes up if things start to look too good. If it looks to good to be true, it probably is and the only thing that matters is what’s on the board when the buzzer sounds.
Tomorrow, Pitt takes on Florida and while I’ve picked Florida to win the game in my bracket, I will be watching and rooting and yelling at my TV the entire game for Pitt to win. I hope I’m wrong about my pick and my bracket will crumble, but I’ll take a Pitt win over a perfect bracket any day. Hail to Pitt!
2014 Race Calendar – sign-up frenzy!
Even though I’ve been focusing on my soccer responsibilities over the past two weeks, it hasn’t stopped me from looking at other races I can do this year and today was a deadline of sorts for me – I had to make a decision about whether or not I was going to commit to a few different races.
Race #1: The Color Me Green 5k is coming up in two weeks and I had a lot of fun doing it last year. There’s a lot of St. Patrick’s Day activities to check out while you’re there, so I figured I’d give it another go. I’m hoping Salomon will be there again this year to let us try out their trail shoes – the ones I used last year were pretty awesome! Plus, I want to get some training in before…
Race #2: I have officially committed to joining a team for the Ragnar Trail Appalachians, WV. I’ve never met anyone on the team and found them on the Ragnar Facebook page because they posted that they needed more runners for their team. I think it’s a great way to meet new people and try out trail running without committing to a half marathon or something longer. The legs for this race are two 10ks and a 3.6 miler. The elevation also doesn’t look too crazy either, which will be good. Plus, this will check WV off my 50 states running challenge!
Race #3: Some of my friends ran in The Scream half marathon last summer and we talked about it while we were on our Key West adventure. Who doesn’t love the idea of a completely downhill half marathon, especially when runners are telling you they took 15 minutes off their normal half marathon time without changing any of their training?! There’s over 2,400 feet of descent, roughly 150+ feet per mile – definitely the complete opposite of The Bear which I will be doing the week before! Registration is limited to 350 participants and opened today, so I wanted to make sure to get in before it filled up.
I did miss out on the early registration for Thunder Road which is in Charlotte in November, so now I have until the end of May to decide if I want to run that race. It’s an iconic race in Charlotte and one that I think I’d like to do at some point – I just need to figure out if 2014 is the year for it.
What about you – have you signed up for any races lately? Are there any on your radar that you’re waiting for registration to open?
Signs you’re crazy about running
Women’s Health published the 25 signs you’re crazy about running a few months ago, but it popped up on my Facebook feed today, and some of them definitely resonated with me!
I’ve got 2, though there is a lot of overlap between them: Quick Feet & Running Mix. I use the Running Mix most of the time, but I’ve also used my “Work Appropriate” mix for when I’m not using my headphones – don’t want to scare off any other pedestrians I come across on my runs.
Maybe not “intensely” but during the Ragnar Relay, there was definitely a good discussion in our van about handheld vs. fuel belt vs. refusing to carry anything. I’m definitely in the fuel belt camp, but I am going to start training with a hydration pack now that I’m getting beyond the half marathon distance for my long runs.
Honestly, I probably do this more after soccer games than after running, but I definitely do at least half of my grocery shopping immediately following my long runs.
How about when you don’t even realize you’re driving up a hill until you try to run on that same road?!
When I start my runs from my house, I usually try to figure out if there are any errands I can do on the way back home – so far I’ve stopped at the drug store, grocery store and hit up the ATM. I’ve been trying to figure out if I can run to the local post office to check my P.O. box, so the last time I drove the route, I checked for sidewalks (very busy road) and unfortunately, the sidewalk ends before my destination, so that’s going to have to continue to be a driving route.
This one is usually at some point during the race that I have this thought – it certainly popped into my head a couple times during the Ragnar Relay and by the time we were driving to the airport to fly home, we had half of the team committed to doing another relay race in September!
Do any of these (or the others in the article) hit home for you?
Load up on the bling in 2014!
I ran across the Digital Running Club site when I was checking out Running on Candy‘s recap of her experience in last weekend’s Ragnar Relay in Key West.
The Digital Running Club has a lot of content on their site, but one of the things I immediately checked out were the 3 challenges they’re running in 2014:
- Hat Trick Challenge – run 3 of the following race distances: 5k, 10k, half marathon or marathon.
- Grand Slam Challenge – run all 4 race distances: 5k, 10k, half marathon & marathon. Bonus = you get the Hat Trick medal too once you complete 3 of the distances.
- Interstate Challenge – run a half marathon or marathon in 2 U.S. states, 2 Canadian provinces (or 1 of each).
The earlier you sign up for the challenges, the cheaper they are, but they max out at $25-$30. I’m contemplating the Interstate Challenge since I’ve got a half marathon in Kentucky and North Carolina already scheduled, but I did sign up for the Grand Slam challenge since I’m already registered for a half marathon, marathon and have plans to do at least one 5k – now I just need to find a 10k.
Do you have any plans for a 10k this year? Have you ever registered for challenges or other activities to get more bling?
Tapering plan (or a lack thereof)
My teammates and I have been discussing our tapering plans the past few weeks as we approach our upcoming race and we quickly realized that everyone approaches tapering very differently. Some people are trying to get rid of some last minute aches / pains and others are cautiously approaching their first relay race while a few of us have opted to keep our schedules consistent throughout our training. MapMyFitness posted an article on this very topic a couple of weeks ago. The general advice is the longer your race is, the more rest you should take leading up to the event, but I’ve found that if I change my standard routine too much, that’s when I start to have issues (usually my IT band). So, instead of taking a week (or even multiple days) off, I decided to continue playing soccer throughout this week. I plan to take tomorrow off completely and then my part of the run will start around lunchtime on Friday, so I’ll be sure to share how my “tapering plan” works out for me!
What’s your typical tapering plan?
It’s all in the shoes
This is my experience with the shoes noted below and what I think happened in my case. I’m not a running / shoe / injury expert and can only say what’s worked for me. Use your best judgement for your situation.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been running on Nike Vomero 8 shoes since last October. Before that, I was wearing the Adidas AdiZero Boston 3 shoes. In training for previous half marathons, I have had issues with my left IT band, but while training with the AdiZero shoes, I started having a lot of tightness in my right hip. Originally I thought it could be that I was overcompensating for my left IT band, but I brought up the issue to my group run leader and he asked to see my shoes. He looked at the soles and told me that they were still in good shape, but that one problem could be the way the bottom of the shoe was designed. Below’s a comparison of the two shoes:
I’ve never spent much time thinking about the bottom of my shoes. I’ve been fitted a few times for shoes and have heard that the longer distance you go, the more neutral of a shoe you should have, but other than that, I don’t really know what to look for! What the group leader was able to point out was the the heel of the Adidas shoe (bottom right) has unbalanced cut-outs (i.e. the left and right sides are not the same). His theory was that because of this unevenness, as I ran longer distances, the outside of my shoe was giving more than the inside, which in turn strained my legs (ultimately my hip). He recommended I try out the Nike (bottom left) which has an even sole all the way around the shoe.
I switched shoes and immediately the tightness in my hip disappeared. I still have challenges with my left IT band occasionally (mainly if I go too far too fast) but I’ve had no more issues with tightness in my hips. I never would have guessed that my issue started because of my shoes (actually, I had assumed it was because of overtraining), so when in doubt, check your shoes!
Have you ever had foot / knee / hip issues that you could attribute to your shoes?
The Bear!!
If you’ve ever wanted to challenge yourself by running up a mountain, I would highly recommend trying out the Bear scheduled for the evening of Thursday, July 10. The race starts in the town of Linville, NC at 3640′ and ends 5 miles later at the top of Grandfather Mountain at 5181′ with a view that can’t be beat! I’m officially registered for this race for my third year in a row – 2012 was cold and rainy where you couldn’t see more than 100′ in front of you while 2013 was sunny and you could see the spectacular views of the valleys below. If you’ve ever been tempted, I would recommend signing up as soon as possible – registration opened today and caps at 800 people (it sells out every year). For anyone who wants even more of a challenge, there is also the Grandfather Mountain Marathon which will be held on Saturday, July 12.
What’s the most elevation gain you’ve ever had in a run?
New gear!
Last week I was able to hit up a Nike outlet store to check for a new pair of running shoes. I started using the Nike Vomero 8 when I started having some hip issues training for my October half marathon and I know I will need a new pair before too long, so every time I am near an outlet mall, I try to check the Nike store in case they have these shoes in stock. Luckily, this time, they actually had them! The first pair I bought, I had to get quickly because I was 2 weeks from my race so I got them off of Amazon for over $110. This time I found a pair for about $80 (still not cheap, but $30 is a good amount of savings). I also found a long sleeve running shirt for half off. Both items are from the LiveStrong collection, so they coordinate with a nice pink & red pattern. The only concern I have about these shoes are the fact that they’re mostly white!
How long do you think I can keep these clean?
Exercising indoors
With the continued cold weather and snow / ice in Charlotte, my soccer games were cancelled for the second night in a row last night, so instead of getting some running in, I decided to search online for something I could do in the house instead. I was hoping to find something on Netflix, but ended up going with the Daily Home Workout from The Biggest Loser website. No exercise equipment required, which is a definite plus!
- 50 jumping jacks
- 15 crunches
- 10 tricep dips
- 5 push ups
- 10 squats
- 10 lunges (each leg)
- 10 standing calf raises
- 15 toe touches
- 15 rotating elbow planks
- 30-second plank
Luckily, on the site, it gives you examples of each exercise, including pictures, in case you don’t know what they’re referring to. I did the workout twice, but the second time I switched up the order of a few of the items so that I didn’t have as many arms and legs in a row. This was definitely a challenging workout and I can certainly feel it in my muscles today, especially in my arms and hamstrings. The hardest exercise for me was the toe touches – I don’t think I’m coordinated enough for that one! Maybe with more practice I can get the hang of them, but I definitely struggled this time.
What’s your go-to workout for when you can’t get outside?