So what happened to October?!?

Hello all!  Don't worry, I am not dead (even though the long absence from posting might suggest otherwise!).  September and October were a blur, filled with a busy work schedule, a wedding, and some other personal adventures.  Once again, I apologize for neglecting this blog!

"Proper" carb loading for the hat trick!

So, as of last post, I was targeting the Airforce Marathon.  Unfortunately that race did not come together for me.  The original plan was to travel to Ohio and run with my brother and father.  However, my father's Achilles tendon did not heal in time for them to make the race, and (although I am sure Ohio is lovely) I was not excited about traveling by myself (my husband's schedule would not allow him to come with me) to Ohio to run 26.2 miles by my onesies.  Instead, I decided to make my own "hat trick" race weekend.  I ran a 5k on Friday Sept 19th (with Kevin at the Chattahoochee Park), a 10k on September 20th (Vibham 10k race), and 13.1 mi on Sept. 21st (5k with Horse Rescue Relief Retirement Fund + 10 miles on the trails at the park afterwards).

Kevin and me after the 5K on Friday

Back to back racing is hard, particularly if you really race the events rather than simply run them as you would a regular training run.  I enjoyed it though and learned how hard I could push myself.  I PR'd in the 10k race on Saturday and the 5k race on Sunday.  My legs were dead though by the last 3 miles in the 10 miles after the race on Sunday.  I did not bring enough fuel for that run which I can usually deal with but after a weekend full of hard racing I could not deal with minimal fuel that day.  I feel very confident that I had no glycogen stores left anywhere!!  After I finished, there was a food truck in the park selling gelato (he had just opened).  I ran straight up to it and immediately bought a large cup of mango flavored frozen sugary goodness.  I had to sit down and drink a whole water bottle and eat the rather large serving before I felt ready to (safely) drive home!!

Dad and Kev getting ready to race on Sept 20th

After the hat trick, I took it easy with some light running mixed with cross training.  At the beginning of October I got suckered into doing back-to-back races (again)!  The race on Saturday was my first race at night!  I will say that I would have killed myself if it wasn't for the head lamp that I brought with me.  Night running is fun, but definitely nerve racking!!  In the Sunday race I agreed to pace my friend who was shooting for a 5k PR and we ended up tied for third place in our age group!

My legs were really tired after that race weekend in October, so I took two weeks off completely from running.  This gave my legs time to recover from a fall race schedule that was perhaps a little more intense that I had intended it to be.  Now I have started training for the Albany Marathon in March.  While I am disappointed that I will not be meeting my goal of running a full marathon before the year is out, I am really pleased so far with how my running has progressed this year.  I have stayed healthy and set PRs, so I would say that overall this fall racing season has been a success!

Happy trails!

Gelato to the rescue!!!