Today's entry is about the Evils of the Internet! RAWR!!

. . .

Okay, not really. But it IS about how I got distracted online for 45 minutes and didn't head out for my workout until 9 this morning, making for some rather hot 400s. I tried to console myself by thinking it was only 75 or so out (and tried to ignore the humidity factor) and maybe I was just running at 2 in the afternoon instead of 9 in the morning. That sort of worked. In any case, to the Superior track I went!

It appears as though college pre-seasons have started already, as some football players came onto the track during my warm-up for some sprint drills. Luckily, they didn't actually need any of the track that I was using, so I didn't have to move at all. About halfway through my 400's, a women came on and walked some laps with a stroller and the older kid kept yelling "Go runner!" in a not obnoxious way when I went by, which was cute and even motivational.

So today's workout was 6 x 400 repeats at 1:30 pace in prep for my race Saturday. Results? 1:28, 1:31, 1:29, 1:29, 1:28, 1:28. So not too bad. I did increase my rest times because of the heat from 1:30ish to 1:45-2:00 depending on how I felt so that definitely helped as well. There was a nice wind on the back stretch which sort of had a cooling effect, so that was nice. All in all, they went pretty well and went by fast since the last batch of 400's I did was 11 at 1:30 pace. I could have done more today if I needed to but a lot more would have been tough since the heat made everything much more difficult - often I can almost feel humidity sucking the energy out of me and my breathing came a lot harder than usual. I know a decent amount is all mind work, though, so I've been working hard at staying positive on hot runs and reminding myself that I only have to get used to things. I would prefer it to be hot all week if it's going to be hot for the race so that I can get more used to heat before then.

8.6, Kris! The run was 8.6 miles!

So, yeah, last Sunday's run was a bit brutal as it was coming off of a week of sick and not much running, was my longest run in a while and was on un-mowed trails. But I did still enjoy it and I'd like to head back. About 2 miles in, we hit some puddles that were completely unavoidable and so - wet feet. Now, my rule about wet feet is that if something like that happens, you are then obligated to purposefully jump into any following puddles since your feet are already soaked through. So I did a couple double-feet-plant jumps and a one footed leap into another puddle - which ended up being much deeper than it looked so I backed off after that. I also did NOT jump into the beaver run that crossed the path, which is good.

At least it wasn't all that hot, though. I did an evil hot run yesterday morning at my parent's house - 5 miles with 2 1/2 at my 10K goal pace. Luckily, I did it around 7:30 a.m. so it was only 70 something out when I started, though I forgot to check the temp when I got back. I'm hoping it cools down for my 10K on Saturday. I've semi-decided that if it's crazy hot out (8am race start) that I might drop down and do the 5K but I really want to do the 10, so we'll see.

Well, the Park Point 5 miler is today. Gee, shock, I'm going to miss it!

I've never had very good luck with getting to this race. I've tried a few times throughout high school and college and every time, something would conspire to prevent me from getting there. The worst was the time my parents and I actually made it to Duluth in high school, only to have the car break down as we drove into Duluth. This was back when we drove in through town instead of through Proctor and down the hill so luckily, it was near the mall and we got it to a car place right there easy enough but we didn't have time to make it down to Park Point so we checked the car in, got a rental and drove back home. At least I hadn't pre-registered. This year, it's the release of the last Harry Potter book tonight and since I work for a book store, I am somewhat required to work tonight for the midnight party craziness. I've never heard good things about this race anyway. I'm told it's always hot and rather miserable. It's a straight out and back course and who wants to race a course where you can see the turnaround and then the finish the whole time?

So I did turn out to be rather sick and it's probably good I didn't run on Friday. I spent Saturday on the couch or in bed taking a nap, but felt a bit better Sunday and Monday and felt just fine Tuesday. So what did I do? A hard run Monday and another run Tuesday. Resulting in me being sick and miserable right away again, so I guess it wasn't really out of my system . . . But I haven't run since Tuesday and I ended up taking yesterday off of work to assure my ability to work until 2:00am tonight so I think I'm good now. Mostly. We'll see how this overnight goes tonight.

It's always frustrating to me to have to take time off. I feel as though I haven't run in ages, though it's only really been two days. You can imagine how antsy I was in college when I got injured and missed a whole track season.

Has anyone else been loving this wonderful fall-like weather we've been having? It makes me happy.

What does everyone use as a gauge as to when you're too sick to run? I can never figure out a good guideline and am never too sure what my body is going to think of heading out with any particular symptoms. This results in wildly different patterns in my sick running. Sometimes I'll run when I'm nauseous and headache-y (though usually not when dizzy) and other days something that seems sort of minor (such as todays burning, painful throat that hurts to swallow and hurts to talk with) still seems like something that should keep me in. I think, though, it's a measure of how well I know what is wrong with me. If I know what's going on, I am more likely to head out regardless but if I have weird symptoms and I'm not sure what they indicate, I'm more likely to stay in or be convinced to stay in. I know I also try to pay attention to my heart rate and if it's higher than it should be, that adds to the argument to stay in - usually.

Good thing I'm not sick all that often.

This weekend was my first race as Samantha Carlson! Well, I guess I was a Carlson for Grandma's, but I was registered as a Frey so that didn't really count. My friend's sister races under her maiden name (at least, I'm pretty sure she changed her name when she married) and it's nice since her name is more easily findable in results and I've toyed with doing the same thing but I don't think I will.

I had never run the Deer River race before - I think because it's always right after the 4th and I used to do the Hill City race the morning of the 4th and never wanted to do another race so soon. That and this race has a reputation for nasty hot weather and as you all know now, I hate heat. At least it starts fairly early in the morning - 8:00 - so I figured the heat couldn't be too bad yet. Of course, this also ended up being a 94+ degree day so it was evil hot right away but that's how it goes, I guess.

So to Deer River we go! Registration is at a table in the road by the high school. Pretty easy and only $12 - possibly the cheapest road race I've run. Only two pins to hold on race numbers though, which I thought was strange, though I guess it worked just fine. It's a point to point course so we were to get on buses that would drop us off at our respective starting lines (10K, 5K and 2 mile(?) walk). Since this was a prep race for my 10K and it was so evil hot, I decided on the 5K. Buses were scheduled to load at 7:45. At about 8 (when the races were supposed to start), we climbed on. It wasn't too big of a deal, though, this was a pretty laid back race and everyone seemed to have a flexible attitude. More amusing was when we heard the officials talking over the bus radio and wondering if the 5K was ready to start yet, since the 10K was. We were still on the bus driving to the start line, so no, not quite ready.

My only real complaint with the race was the start. Since all the races were to the same finish line and they wanted to use the same clock, they had an official at the finish line start us by radio. This was never really explained to us, however. We were roughly lined up and the official at the starting area was holding up a walkie-talkie and it went something like this:
Guy over the radio: Runner's set, go!
5K runners to each other as the starting guy stays silent: Wait, what? Was that the start? I think that was the gun . . .
And off we went, 5 or so seconds after the gun actually went off. Only annoying because my watch tells me I was under 21 minutes and the official time does not. Actually, I had a couple friends at the race and one of them told me after the race that I was the one who started everyone going since I jumped off the line as soon as I realized that we had missed the gun, though I swear there was a handful of us going at the same time.

The race was mostly on back roads, nice dirt back roads which was very nice. It was only rough to run on (washboard-y) for a short while and no soft sand in sight. The course was basically flat and had a nice downhill going to the end. It was crazy hot out already, though, and I didn't even bother starting with my tank top on and just ran in my sport bra. I could have used more shade but it's not as though anyone could do anything about that! The race quickly settled into the lead guy - Mr. Sackett, my friends' dad and a fixture throughout my middle and high school running career and just behind him was another guy who I didn't know and then me. We were all about equal distance apart for most of the race.

What this race did awesome was it's water. There were two water stations for the 5K plus a fire hose sprinkler we could run through in the middle of the course (this was a firefighter fundraiser so I think most of the volunteers were fireman). I've seen hot 10Ks with less water. There was also a fire hydrant sprinkler set up at the finish line.

We finished on tar road (less than the last mile), a straight downhill stretch and then around a corner to the finish line about a block away. My watch told me 20:59 - 6:45 miles - a time I'm quite happy with. Especially considering that it was a bit of a lonely race and it was evil hot - I figured I had slowed down more than I did. So it's good to know that, while the heat kept me from wanting to really challenging the two guys in front of me, it didn't slow me down all that much.

There were coolers of Gatorade and water at the end, but I didn't notice them right away so one of the officials came over to me and offered me some, which was very nice. T-shirts were also at the finish - you just went and grabbed the size you wanted, they were in boxes by size. I loved this - I hate getting the shirt before the end of the race and one of my pet peeves is people wearing the race shirt during the race. Since this was the Wild Rice festival, the main prizes were . . . you guessed it - wild rice! There was a board where they posted times and if you knew you got an award, you just approached the award table and asked someone what to grab. They had beautiful tins with a pound of wild rice in them - I was told to grab three! One for being third overall, one for being the first woman and one for being the first in my age group. I also got a ribbon for being third.

So a very enjoyable experience all the way around. I would definitely go back and do this race again - though I think I would stick to the 5K if weather was hot again - and I definitely recommend this race to others.