The Maine Marathon is only one week away. After 12 weeks of workouts, the last few days are more about not overdoing it than gaining new speed or endurance. Many runners find this time, known as the taper, to be quite nerve wracking. It feels like you might get out of condition, but it’s definitely better to scale back and feel antsy and excited at the starting line. I’m planning to take the same approach to this race as I did in Duluth back in June. The first 5 miles I’ll be working on keeping the pace under control. That section of the course is supposed to be very flat. The next 5 miles, I’ll be working on running steady. The final 5K is where I’ll try to run harder if possible. Last week I got one of those fun boxes in the mail from Road Runner Sports that says “You are going to love what’s inside!” like Stephanie posted with their new shoes. My box contained an assortment of Gu packets. I pledge not to be stingy with the Gu and take one whenever I feel the need. Speaking of rooting...the runner tracking for Sunday’s race is being done by Race Joy on their app. I’ll be keeping my cell phone with me so I can be tracked along the race map. After the race, my husband and I will be enjoying several days of the ocean, lighthouses and fun foods. A friend recommended a donut shop that serves gluten free pastries that I want to try. We are also planning to eat some Maine lobsters. Yum!
i hope everyone has a great week. It’s much easier to look at Monday morning knowing it’s 5 work days til vacay. Happy running. Missee
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Saturday was a fun day of watching high school kids run at the Mega Meet. For as many times as we've attended this meet, we have had most every kind of weather. This year, the weather was probably the most variable I've seen and the first time I've ever seen a course evacuated and then resumed. The heavy rain we experienced while sitting in Stephanie's car made the course a wetter, muddier experience than we'd expected. We made the best of it enjoying some snacks and chatting. Stephanie had crawled into the 3rd row of her SUV and commented that "It's really hot back here." Her husband wondered aloud, "Do you think it's hotter back there than anywhere else?" He then turned on the AC; I'll admit, it was also pretty warm in the second row, and I would have opened my window if it wasn't raining so hard. Dad thought maybe we could try the sun roof, which we did not! It was fun to watch all the runners and cheer for my niece and nephew. My niece even consented to a selfie together. Teenagers generally find the other adults in the lives cooler than their parents...sorry Stephanie. By the time she ran, the rain had picked up again. Our feet had been wet so long, I was wondering if my feet would be wrinkled like prunes forever. There were thoughts that perhaps my wet feet would rot into a bad case of trench foot! I did bring extra socks, but figured there was no point in putting dry socks back into wet shoes. My shoes were so soaked that they were still wet on Sunday. I have been carrying around some dollar store ponchos for several years, especially to races, knowing that someday they'd come in handy. We sat on one and I wore another. Stephanie's were nicer ponchos, but mine worked for what I needed and I'll be putting them on my list to get a few more before the Maine (Half) Marathon in only two weeks. Notice that we also had our sunglasses handy! The umbrella was a freebie at a food show. If it would have gotten lost or damaged, no bid deal :-) When I got home, this is what my step counter read: so I took Charlie around the block to be sure to get past 30,000 steps on the day! Before going to the meet, I got up early to get a two hour run in the books. It was already 72 degrees and 95% humidity at 5:00. The run was pretty slow and sluggish, but we got it done. I am really liking these long runs by time instead of distance especially when the weather doesn't always cooperate. It was a fun day and now I'm looking forward to a race of my own less than two weeks away. I've been checking the weather already and early forecasts call for a high of 61, low of 43 with variable cloudiness. That sounds absolutely perfect. Everybody keep your feet dry, no one needs trench foot. Happy running--Missee
My children competed in the Milaca Mega Meet yesterday. The Mega Meet is the largest single day high school cross country meet in the world. According to their website, they host an average of 150 schools and more than 5,900 runners. The meet also draws large numbers of spectators. Missee and my parents joined us in cheering on the runners. The weather did not cooperate for this year's meet. Within minutes of me taking the above photo, instructions were given for everyone to clear the course, as a storm was moving into the area. My parents, Missee, my husband, and I gathered up our gear and headed to our car to wait out the storm, while my children took cover in a bus. Due to the rain delay, my son's eighth grade race and the boy's 7th grade races (both 3200m) were cancelled. Seventh and eighth grade boys were invited to join the boys' 9th grade 5K race instead. My son opted to participate in the race. My daughter's 5K race was near the end of the race schedule. By the time she ran, we had more rain which meant more mud on the course. I was proud of her strength and determination!
It was a fun day to watch running with my family! I was glad that Grandma, Grandpa, and Missee were there with us! Happy Running! -Stephanie When running solo or out walking Charlie, I prefer an audiobook or a podcast. Last week, I heard two podcast episodes that had me laughing out loud. It was like running with a good friend and hearing the antics of their week. The first was an episode of Another Mother Runner. The guest were Lauren Fleshman and Jesse Thomas, a married couple who are both professional athletes and creators of Picky Bars. The part of the show I most enjoyed was their description of living in Bend, Oregon and their abundance of roundabouts. The city where I live also has a lot of roundabouts and while I love them, or at least the way they allow traffic to flow, visitors find them confusing and frustrating. Maybe this would help... Lauren and Pete on the podcast expressed that people in Oregon must signal out of the roundabouts. We don't signal in MN, but I'll admit, I've been trying to pay attention while I'm going around to see if signaling would help. I'm quite sure that giant stop light would be bad, bad, bad in a roundabout! The second podcast I listened to was with Minnesotan Carrie Tellefson. The title of her podcast is C Tolle Run. On many episodes, Carrie and the guest go for a run along the Mississippi River in St. Paul. This week's guest was Parker Stinson who is the 2019 25K US Champion (15.5 miles). He had lots of tales about racing professionally as well as at Oregon. When asked about how he started running, he talked about running with his dad and sister, then begging his dad to let him run cross country. His dad told him that cross country was for "people who aren't good at anything else." Since Parker is the 25K US Champion, I'd say he is plenty good at running and good thing he kept begging to run! This weekend is the Milaca Mega Meet which is the world's largest single day cross country meet in the world. Stephanie's kids are running and I'm hoping to go watch them. My boys ran in the meet from 2008 through 2017. It's a fun meet where there are separate races for grades 7,8,9 and 10 plus JV and four divisions of varsity races. My oldest, Blake, earned ribbons and medals several years. David earned some individual ribbons and even a trophy when he was 4th as a 9th grader. But more impressive was his faithful group of running friends who managed to win their team division as 7th, 8th, and 9th graders, then on varsity in 10th and 11th grades. When they were seniors, their coach opted them up to the largest division to get more prepared for State and while they did not win, they put on an impressive performance. I'm really missing not being a cross country mom if you can't tell :-) . I especially miss Taco Night on the eve of the Mega Meet. We hosted supper with lots of tacos, fruit and all the fixings. It was always fun to have the guys around on a day they weren't nervous about their running. Here's one last piece of Mega Meet nostalgia with David's senior year race. It was a super hot and sweaty day, but he ran excellent. We were already blogging then...check out our archives from Mega Meets past. If you are looking for a good podcast for running, driving or cleaning the house, I hope you'll give Another Mother Runner or C Tolle Run a try. I find them entertaining. If you have a good suggestion for a podcast for me to try, please put it in the Comments. Happy running! Missee
Those who read our blog often may have noticed that we do all sorts of runs for all sorts of reasons...and that our reasons may be very different than what motivates you to run, walk, bike or however you like to move. Yesterday, my training plan called for 1:45 run with no particular goal of pace or distance. I was joined by two running friends who are not currently training for any particular event, but had their own reasons to do a long run. I haven't run with this particular trio since back in November when Deb had a foot surgery which took her away from running for a few months. By the time she returned to running, Marian was too uncomfortable in her pregnancy to keep running. Well, fast forward to September and Deb's foot is good to go and Marian's sweet little boy is four months old. Deb has run up to 10 miles a few times in late summer, so she was game to do the whole 1:45 hoping to stretch 10 miles to 11 and change. Since Marian was concerned that her pace might not be fast enough, Deb and I added three spurts of speed in the first hour so that we might be a little tired when we picked her up to go the last 45 minutes or if not tired, have satisfied any "need for speed." The first hour went great and we met up with Marian at my house as planned. Our town has a brand new high school that is a mile or two north of our house, so we thought it would be fun to go out and look around at the new surroundings at running speed. The new school did not disappoint. We were able to admire the layout of the buildings and grounds. The building is 300,000 square feet, so I'm glad I don't have to vacuum that! My husband works in the new building; a quick tour of the outside puts a visual to what he describes in the evening. On the way back, I noted that we had nine minutes to go. When Marian asked, "and then we get to walk?" we talked about how we are adults who can walk whenever we want, but since our goal was 1:45, we were CHOOSING to run nine more minutes :-) . For the record, these three adult ladies did choose to finish what they had started. The run was super fun and went so fast. Later, as I was pondering the enjoyable time, I thought it was interesting that we each had something different that we wanted or needed from the run and hopefully everyone got it. I truly think they did... 1. Deb got in more than 11 miles which is the furthest since her foot surgery. Hurrah! 2. Marian finished her longest run since baby was born in May. She finished the planned amount strong and the pace isn't as difficult as in the first few runs this summer. Super! 3. I ran the whole 1:45 on my training plan, got in a couple spurts of speed to test my legs and had a great time running with two lovely ladies. Yeah! In the original movie Mary Poppins, Mary pulls out a measuring tape and measures the children. The results were not in inches or centimeters, but in pointing out some of the growth areas for the kids. When she measured herself, she got this result: I'm quite confident that if my Garmin was as magical as this tape measure, I'd have gotten a "practically perfect in every way" on my screen for our run yesterday. Even the weather was lovely. Have some practically perfect runs this week--happy running! Missee
Sometimes I notice things while out and about that make me wonder how did that ever happen. It reminds me of an old C+C Music Factory song....Things That Make You Go Hmmm. I saw a couple of these "Hmmmm" items in the past week. How did a person lose one shoe, a mile north of town, and have it land nicely on a bench next to the bike repair station? It seemed to be a nice, newer looking shoe, so I hope its owner came back for it. However, a couple days after this discovery, I saw this one... Some unfortunate soul somehow walked right out of this insole right along the bike bath and right next to a fire hydrant. Dogs do indeed like to pee on hydrants, so I do hope that the lost insole got reunited with its shoe before it got "marked" by the local canines. It's pretty common to see things like gloves and pacifiers along the bike path, but it would seem pretty unlikely for an adult to lose a shoe or a piece of a shoe and still make it home in any successful fashion. I'd love to know the backstory on either of these items or even how the story ended. Things that make me go hmmmm...keep life interesting. I can mosey on for miles wondering how things like this end up. Probably 99% of the time, the story I come up with in my head is way more interesting than the truth. Tuesday is the first day of school in my district. I work in foodservice although I do not cook anything. My job entails making sure the food is planned, secured, cooked, served and documented properly following regulations on the federal, state and local levels. Some days it's very enjoyable and other days it can be pretty exhausting. However, I look around the building and notice that there are upsides and downsides to every job everywhere. I concur with Stephanie that all of us who work in schools will need a week or two to adjust to the schedule again after the summer. I am really starting to look forward to my next half marathon in 5 weeks. Last night I watched the race course on www.viewtherace.com and was feeling really happy that I chose to concentrate on the half marathon instead of the full. It is an out and back course that starts with two miles the commentator calls "perfectly flat" along the bay. The next three are almost flat, followed by a five mile climb for the full marathon. I will be looking for a cone about 1.65 miles into this section at which time I will turn back and give a big wave to the brave souls who will be tackling 13 miles of rolling and progressively steeper hills before getting back to anything flatter. It was fun to see the course online so I'll know what to expect. According to the race website, they have a runner tracking app that goes with my cell phone so that family and friends can follow my progress on their phones via my phone as long as I carry it with me. I do plan to do that so that I can listen to music if I feel like it--of course with my Aftershokx so that I can hear spectators and visit with other runners along the way. More info on the running tracker when the date gets closer.
Happy first day of school to everyone headed back to school. I will be volunteering at a cross country meet this week at the school where I work. I love the kids' energy and enthusiasm. They love seeing familiar faces out cheering for them as they compete. Happy running everyone! Missee It has been a long time since my last post. Thank you to Missee for keeping the blog going while I was away! Summer vacation is over and I am back to teaching full-time. Our district started school for students on Monday, August 26. We have a Flexible Learning Year. This means that we start before Labor Day and I love it! Once fall sport seasons start, summer is pretty well done anyway. The start of a school year is one of the most exciting times of the year. It is also one of the most exhausting times for teachers. The first four days of school also included two cross country meets for my children. They each got two races under their belts and did awesome! Grandma and Grandpa traveled hours to watch both meets. Thanks to Grandpa for taking the photos. My only job at a meet is to cheer for the runners. I appreciate that he is able to cheer and be the photographer. On a separate note, I bought a wall decal for my classroom when I was teaching in our middle school. I ended up transferring back to the elementary school and never used the decal. I recently decided to hang it up in my exercise room. I think it looks great! Have a good day! Happy Running! -Stephanie
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AuthorMissee and Stephanie are two Minnesota sisters and moms who love to run. We are not experts in running, parenting or anything else, but we do have years of experiences that may be helpful or entertaining to others. Archives
May 2020
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