Radrunnerdad

Lack of sleep. Lack of food. Lack of hydration. Too many gin and tonics last night.

I wanted to use every excuse in the book today but got out and ran anyway. Since I was supposed to do a “fast” four yesterday and a long run today, I switched it up to get them both done.

The run consisted of: 1UP, 4 fast – 6:49, 6:47, 6:45, 6:48, 1ish down for 6.2 total

Was excited to test out the Strawberry Kiwi Honeystinger gel before hand and I must say, it is very palatable and the caffeine really helped out on this run.

And a great big thanks to Injinji for keeping these little piggys blister free with the rain today!

I can’t believe that 2018 is already done and over with! I’ve had an easy going year all around that it seemed to blaze right through to the end. Some of the highlights of 2018:

Remained injury free

Had FUN running

Hit the highest mileage I’ve done in one year – 1728!

Other than that it was just a nice easy comfortable year for me! I enjoyed just taking it easy and with the decision to drop from doing a marathon in October left me in a sort of limbo. The great thing about that though is that I started gearing up towards my base build for a spring marathon in 2019.

I ended December with around 220 miles with hitting a max of a 56 mile week, which I’ve never had that distance at the end of the year. I’d wager 98% of the entire miles that I did in the last couple months were all aerobic and building the best base I could without overdoing it and causing injury.

This tactic was put to test when I put on the annual BYOBib 5k on January 1st. This new year run is usually a crapshoot, last year it was freeeeezing cold and this year we ended up getting some rain/snow the night before which caused the pathway to have some terrible footing. All things considered, I ended up pushing a 19:56 for the 5k and think I could have dropped 15-30 seconds total if the footing was good! Check out my Strava activity here.

Had a good turnout!

After the 5k I’ve decided to take the entire week off since I will be starting offical marathon training on Monday January 7th. We have a group that will be heading to the Illinois Marathon on April 27th. Although I’d REALLY love to get a BQ, I am going to be OK with just getting a good PR off this as sub 3 is a very daunting task at this moment.

Other than that I will be racing some local(upwards to 90 minute drive) events ranging from 5k to half marathons for the first part of the year. Depending on how things shake out for Illinois is what I’ll plan on doing after that. It’s nice to have a goal race in the horizon!

I always say it, but I’m going to try and stick with it, I’d like to start posting more on here and Instagram to keep a good journal of how things are shaking out. I think once a week is a bit much so maybe 1-2 times a month will be a good start.

Anyway, hope everyone had a great 2018 and I hope 2019 brings you nothing but great experiences and new PRs!

Be sure to follow me on my other social media sites! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

I can’t believe its already December! This year has just blazed through even though I ended up cutting back and not doing a Fall marathon.

A couple things have popped up since, but the key thing is my training is still going absolutely great!

I ended up snagging a super great deal on a Garmin Fenix 3 HR new in box, $200 at Walmart…was lucky enough to grab it as there were only 2 left. She’s a beaut!Another thing that is an accomplishment is that after calculating after my run on 11/24 for the rest of my miles for the year, I’ll be at a record amount in a year…this was solidified by run yesterday on December 2nd where I am now over that threshold.

I am currently at 1543 miles for the year and have at least 180 miles scheduled. Last week capped off my 2/3 week at 50 miles and this will be a down week followed by a 50 mile week and 2 weeks at 55 to crest me through the end of the year. I’m feeling great with the load of miles i”m putting on and I think building this base and then throwing speed work into it starting in January is going to put me where I need to be to run my best marathon.

On the side of the social aspect and the Dubuque Running Club, we had our annual Friendsgiving on November 29th and couldn’t ask for a better “family” to spend time with.

I might be silent until after the new year, so I hope everyone is having a great rest of the year!

Be sure to follow me on my other social media sites! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

Not a bit update, but finished off 40 miles between October 15-21 and hopped into 45 miles build last week. As stated in my previous post, I’ll be doing 3 weeks total of 45 until I up my mileage to 50.

Legs are a bit tired and sore and I had a terrible amount of sleep last week, but glad to finish it off on a good note.

We also had the Dubuque Running Club’s end of year cookout on Thursday October 25th. The Shoe Shack brought their Saucony vendor in to demo shoes and then had a potluck afterwards. This is always a great time…especially when you have people dress up! I should have done a little more work, because barely anyone guessed I was Forrest Gump, either way it was fun!

Happy Running!

Be sure to follow me on my other social media sites! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

Well – another year has passed and I turned 32 over the weekend! I used last week as a very large down week due to me getting the stomach bug early in the week, but was lucky enough to get two runs in. Thursday was 3.1, the last run as a 31 year old. Friday was 3.2, the first run as a 32 year old. Trending faster as I’m getting older? Sure!

This year, especially this fall, has been kind of a crap shoot. Marathon training for Whistle stop had a big halt due to home and work stress that led to me actually being smart and just shutting it down completely.

Since then I’ve been building a base as much as I can to get started on a spring marathon but not without even more issues coming up. We’ve had house issues, we’ve had stomach bugs, we’ve had just about everything under the sun, but guess what? We are persevering!

As some people may know, the Boston Qualifying times have been dropped 5 minutes faster per age group. This really upset me initially but thinking through the change has got me motivated to try and push myself even harder to accomplish a sub 3:00 marathon. I’m going to need to be hyper focused during training, but I’ve come up with a schedule through the next couple months to really build my base up so when the hard work comes, its just really speed work added in and not ramping up mileage as well.

What do I plan on doing? KISS – keep it simple stupid! I need to let my body adjust to the training that I’m going to be putting forth and will be sticking at a max distance for 3 weeks total and then upping it by 5 miles all the while not even looking at speedwork. Similar to the following:

W1, W2, W3, W4 – 40 miles, 45 miles, 45 miles, Down week

W5, W6, W7, W8 – 45 miles, 50 miles, 50 miles, Down week

W9, W10, W11, W12 – 50 miles, 55 miles, 55 miles, Rest week

Week 12 will lead into a pretty close to complete rest week, but soon after real marathon training will begin. I think a few of the Dubuque Running Club members are leaning towards the Illinois Marathon in late April as its a great course, usually good weather and pretty close for travel.

On a side note, I got accepted into Honey Stinger hive for the 3rd year in a row! I’ve recently picked up their gel flasks and the bulk Gold and its been working really well to dilute it down to drink easier on longer runs.

Expect to see more posts from here again as I am wagering war with the marathon! Excited to start this training again and really pushing myself to the limits!

Race information

What? Parkinson’s Half Marathon

When? April 8th, 2018

How far? 13.1 Miles

Where? Cottage Grove, WI

Website: https://parkinsonshalfmarathon.com/

Strava activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/1494572498

Goals

Goal Description Completed? A Sub 1:30 No B 1:30-1:32 Yes

Training

Training for this half started in the dead of winter in January. Kind of snuck up on me but realized I was 12 weeks out, so put together a makeshift plan that was based off of Higdon advanced half schedule. Overall had a really great training cycle over 12 weeks and listened to my body with the top end of distance at 40 miles a week with a couple cut back weeks. Ended up getting some knee pain a couple weeks out, but it was one of those “not getting better, not getting worse” types of pains so decided to keep at my training until after the race where I planned on a week off anyway. Overall I had 5 days of running and two rest days. Monday was rest, Tuesday mid distance, Wednesday easy recovery, Thursday rotated between tempo runs and 400’s, Saturday at “Marathon Pace” and Sundays were for long runs. Despite running through winter, I think I may have only missed one run and that was the week of the race and finished the entire schedule with 389 miles(race day included).

Pre-race

It. Was. Cold. I’m the nut bag that runs through out the winter in only shorts unless it gets below 0 degrees, so me saying it was cold is absolutely correct. Although it was 18 degrees~ at the start of the race, there was 10+MPH wind that made it absolutely freezing. I was second guessing myself on what to wear and almost considered actually running in tights. Other than that I did a nice easy 1 mile warm up with my sweats/wind breaking gear and felt OK. I’ve ran shorter distances at these temps, but never have done a half or more so I wasn’t exactly sure what to wear. Ended up with a tank/tshirt, fleece arm sleeves, doubled up gloves and just shorts. Got to the starting mat about 5 minutes early, so was easy to keep warm between the warm up and the start. I’m usually more nervous, but I think the cold really just cut a lot of expectations out before hand which was a relief.

Race

Mile 1-3 The start was supposed to have an air horn go off, but the cold actually made it not work, thankfully the announcer was forward thinking and yelled it out! Race day adrenaline picked up and I hit out the gate at about a 6 flat, but soon jockeyed into position. I knew I wanted to start my first 3 miles at a relatively slower pace if possible to keep me from jumping into anaerobic way too quickly and I felt like I was able to keep myself in check. Pack ended up getting together and I kept behind two guys and just strided it out with them

Mile 4-6 During the next three miles I started getting in my own head. I knew if I wanted to hit under 1:30 I’d have to pace out at 6:52~ and sticking behind the two people I did seemed to be messing with me. I tried to surge past them a couple times, but I think they were not wanting to get passed themselves so I used that energy to surge and then ended up just dropping back. After several attempts at this and a disheartened mile 5(6:59 pace) I finally decided to make a strong push on mile 6 to get past them. It’s amazing how much more mentally strong I became after I started running my own race and not depending on keeping the two people ahead of me pacing out. I ended up hitting a 6:45 pace for mile 6 and dropped both of the people. Right before the mile 6 marker, there was a road crossing and one of the volunteers let me know that I was in 11th overall which gave me that little extra motivation!

Mile 7-10 Finally started pushing through the halfway point and I didn’t feel all too much taxed but since this was generally an out and back course, the turn around also turned into the wind. As I mentioned before it was a cold day and the wind made it even more so. I will say at first it was a good relief, but soon it was more of a hindrance than a help. I kept pushing through and was still on target, but one thing I didn’t realize was the fact that on the way out, there was a slight decline. What goes down, must go up! I had to flex some mental muscle through the smaller incline of the course but soon I got back to the volunteer who initially told me what place I was in and cheered me on to “go get the two guys ahead of you!”. I made another surge to catch up to the first guy before I hit mile 10 and passed him with a thumbs up, but unfortunately I could feel the bolts falling off.

Mile 11-13 Womp – the wheels completely fell off. I started feeling terrible through mile 11 and dropped down to a 7:00 pace. The cold was getting to me and I felt I was exerting a lot of energy just keeping warm. The feeling in my face was almost gone, I could barely keep my eyes open and I felt like I could just close them and fall asleep. I’ve felt that running through the winter before and it’s not a great mental place to be – I definitely ran at one point with my eyes closed for 5-10 seconds..smart, I know. Overall I think I was out of gas and it was the cold and also lack of nutrition at that point. I hadn’t trained at that pace during the training cycle with nutrition and I’ve had bad experiences before taking nutrition at that pace if I didn’t train with it. Mile 12 bombed a little more at a 7:11 pace followed by a 7:18 pace for mile 13. The last portion of mile 13 was up a smaller incline, but as most people know any kind of incline at that point is complete torture.

.1 Finish Luckily that incline to finish mile 13 gave me a downhill finish. I thought I heard someone behind me but at that point all I wanted to do was finish so I leaned forward and just let my body go. Ended up finishing at a 5:57 pace due to the downhill but I was spent and saw the clock already over 1:31. Ended up with an official finish time of 1:31:11(6:58) pace.

Post-race

Got through the finish, grabbed my medal and a space blanket and promptly sat on the grass. I was spent and didn’t want to move but as I got up, my abs cramped! I didn’t realize how crampy I was until I finished and actually was able to process any pain I had. The knee held up though, which I was thankful for! Waiting for the results I made sure to bundle up and finally got a stomach to eat, which is great because they are known for their great spread of food! Once they announced the awards were available I was happy to see that I was 10th overall, 8th male and 1st in my age group! I had the lingering thought during the last couple miles of how hard it can be in my age group as a male(30-34) and the amount of times that I’ve finished in the top 10 and still never received a medal! Overall I felt I ran a great race and my splits were really consistent and showed exactly what fitness level I was. Could a warmer day have proved to make a better race? Would it have been more beneficial if I trained with nutrition? Maybe, but either way I got an extra medal and set a great start for 2018!

Splits

Mile Time 1 6:54 2 6:54 3 6:56 4 6:53 5 6:59 6 6:45 7 6:51 8 6:50 9 6:55 10 6:53 11 7:00 12 7:11 13 7:15 13.1 0:45 (5:57pace)

This post was generated using the new race reportr, a tool built by /u/BBQLays for making organized, easy-to-read, and beautiful race reports.

  Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

Howdy All!

Moving along through the month and I finally have a fire under my butt! I finally created a schedule for the Parkinson’s Half marathon in April and last week was Week 1 of it. I’m feeling my fitness coming back but also trying to get used to working out 5-6 days a week. Have to keep smart and healthy to get where I’m going!

This is the training plan I have set so far and I think it’ll push me pretty hard:

Other than than, we have been making a huge push for the DRC to grow! We just had our social group run for the month on Thursday January 25th and had 29 runners plus a lot more just for the social aspect after!

It’s a great feeling to get the running community together for these events and have such an awesome impact on the lives of so many people.

Almost forgot, but I also won a contest from Nathan Sports! They had a “frozen face” contest and I was selected as the winner with the following picture:

I wont a ton of great gear from them and I am super excited to have been picked!

That is about all I have for now, but can’t wait to get back into the consistent running and shoot for some PR’s this year!

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

It’s 2018 and winter in the Midwest has come!

I’ve been busy updating the Dubuque Running Club site with the 2018 race calendar, while searching for some races to do myself.

With the holidays behind us I’m really focusing on eating healthy so I can get down to a better running weight. Sunsetting this with running and riding on the trainer, I’m hoping that I come out this spring well rested, healthy and a beast.

Here is a good picture from this mornings run!

Happy running!

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

As the title states, I’ve been up down and all around! I’ve been trying to get a couple runs in a week, but sometimes life has different plans. But I’ve also been hopping on the trainer too!

On Tuesday December 19th I hosted the Dubuque Running Clubs 5th Annual Light Run. This was such a great turnout with over 30 people! Gather together at local school and run down one of the bigger “running” streets in Dubuque, lights optional!

So glad to have this running community and being able to bring all of us together!

Happy Holidays!

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

Howdy all!

It’s been months since I have posted and I should have dropped a line about progress and overall my feeling of my social media presence.

Obviously I’ve been taking a break from most of my social media and its been pretty rewarding not having to think about it. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my family and have had a few flops here and there with running, but I think its time to get back to it!

Highlight of the year: Ran the Dick Beardsley marathon in September – Learned a lot from it, even though I ended up bonking pretty hard at mile 20. No marathon seems to be the same! You can check out my strava here

I don’t have anything lined up for 2018 yet, but as always I’m sure I’ll be chasing that BQ. I’d like to keep it to shorter distances, but brains are not something that you can predict.

Hope all is well with everyone! I will be updating more frequently from here on out.

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

April 29th marked the day of one of my favorite 5k’s. This was the 5th year that I’ve ran it and I’ve always had a positive experience running the race.

I’ll start by saying, I am not in the shape that I was expecting at this time, but I am OK with that. With all that has happened I’ve been happy to keep around 20-30 miles a week, so I couldn’t expect too much coming into this one.

I did a “priming” 20 minutes before the race for a warm up – 3 minutes easy, 1 minute at pace, 3 minutes easy, 1 minute at pace. I’ve been doing this for a while now for 5k’s and it seems to get my heart going and puts me about 10 minutes before the race to chill out and focus on what I’m doing.

The race started as any does, I went out a bit fast but slowly locked into a good pace. The first half mile was nice as there was buildings blocking the 20mph winds, but once we rounded a corner, it hit us head on! Mile 1 clocked in at 6:25

Mile two started and again, the headwinds were pounding away, but wait…there is reprieve at 1.3 miles because we are heading out of the wind…into a hill! I slumped down and at the top of the hill my watch was showing a 7:15~ pace for the mile so I took the downhill as hard as I could without overtaxing my body. Mile 2 clocked in at a  6:44

Mile three started at a water station and one of the workers there actually made laugh by stating “ICE COLD WATER!” in a response to the fact that the real feel was around 35 degrees. At this point I was pacing off with someone the entire race so I was trying to push a bit harder to keep ahead of him. I kept up a solid pace and just kept the finish in my mind. Mile 3 clocked in at 6:24

With the finish line right there, I knew well enough that I wasn’t breaking 20 today, which I kind of knew from the beginning. Typically I have a really huge kick in the end, but knew there was no one next to me and I didn’t need to push it extremely hard. I did clock in an average of 6:00 for that last .1 finishing in an official time of 20:17(just like the year!). I finished 8th overall and 1st in my age group!

I am happy with what I hit and it really pushed me to know where I stand in fitness. Had it been a flat course, had there been no wind, I think I could have broke 20, but that’s neither here or there. Time to evaluate my VDOT to push my abilities again and do another test closer to when marathon training starts…in 3 weeks!

The finish line face of pain!

Dan(left) was 1st overall, me, Dennis(right) was 5th overall and first in age group

Chart for the race, as stated my start time was a bit fast!

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

So as the time looms a little closer(about 3 weeks~ until I start training for the marathon) I really need to put in perspective on what I’m trying to accomplish and what I’ve done in the past to self sabotage myself from accomplishing goals. I’ve compiled the four biggest culprits that have really prohibited me from reaching what I want. In no particular order:

Lack of a proper sleep schedule – This is always something that seems to bite me in the ass. I typically get around six hours of sleep a night when I’m busy, and this is honestly due to me just not going to bed. How am I supposed to recover fully if I’m not sleeping to build everything back. I need to designate a specific schedule to adhere to, even if it means, “I need to go to bed at X time to get X amount of sleep”

Over training – I am fairly certain this is something that happens to me a lot more than it should and I’m knowledgeable enough to know when I am over training, but I still seem to do it. I think sometimes I get way into the numbers of things and see 5 miles on the schedule, and I need to hit those 5 miles. I need to listen to my body and not my schedule!

Lack of proper diet – Diet Diet Diet. The saying you can’t outrun a bad diet is 100% accurate. I recently went 130+ days restricting sugar out of my diet and got to my lowest weight I’ve been in a couple years. I got back on that train pretty hard and gained about 4-6 pounds back, which I need to drop. Diet is one of those hard things to do, because once I start putting in ALL the miles, I want to eat ALL the things

Lack of Strength Training – I did incredibly well with 3x strength training last year for the marathon…until about half way through. I think this went along with being over trained and not wanting to put an extra 5-10 minutes in 3 times a week to essentially make me a better runner. If I’m already logging 5- 7 hours a week running, whats an extra 30 minutes to make me a better and stronger runner?!

I think there are a few other things that hold me back, but these four seem to kick my ass every time. I need to come up with a system to keep myself accountable in all of these during training, whether its just actively monitoring them or actually tallying at the end of the week whether I was able to accomplish these and if I wasn’t, what can I do to change?

I’m shooting for a hefty goal again, try to BQ, so I think seeing this as the big goal and then sub setting them with smaller goals might be my best option.

Does anyone else suffer(or previously) from any of the above? Whats your plan of action?

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

  Man, time flies when you’re having fun right?!  It’s been a couple months since I last updated, but I feel like I’m finally getting my running “mojo” back!

I’ve been putting a lot of time into my family lately and now that it’s getting even more nice out, we’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors. Between keeping up with the kids, work and running, I’m still swinging about 20-30 miles a week.

The last couple weeks I’ve been eyeing Boston again and with the actual Boston Marathon happening, it got me revved up. I think I’m going for one final effort to get into Boston 2018 at the Dick Beardsley marathon in September!

Trying to keep a base up and will be working my hardest to increase my aerobic capability without major impact to my legs.

You’ll be seeing more of my posts soon!

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

This week  was a complete wash! I felt completely worn down, sore throat and overall crumby. I didn’t do too much but only did any activity on Saturday and Sunday, but plan on getting back on a good schedule next week.

Saturday – Easy 6.3 miles, HR was a bit high at the start but felt good to get out and run. Strava link here

Sunday – Got out with Dennis and Jamie today just to get a run in, planned for 7~ miles and got a little more than that in. It felt good getting back-to-back days in again, just need to keep it up with all that is happening! Strava link here

Hopefully there will be more than 2 posts next week !

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

It’s 2017…WOOOO!

I haven’t been able to train as much as I wanted with the holidays and hanging out with the family, but I started the year off by hosting a BYOBib 5k!

It’s been up and down lately and I’ve been exhausted but I feel like I ended up working pretty well on the 5k and hitting right under 20 minutes…so no fitness lost but unfortunately no fitness gained.

As 2017 rolls in I think I’m changing the format of the blog a little bit – rather than giving detailed reports I’m going to shoot for Week 1-52 reports and keep it simple. If one workout is better/worse than normal I’ll keep it posted, but otherwise a simple, “5 easy miles today!” type thing.

Hope everyone had a great holiday and got through 2016 unscathed!

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

Howdy all!

On Sunday November 6th I threw together a BYOBib (Bring your own bib) 5k to see where I was at fitness wise and ended up surprising myself!

I invited everyone to show up but I was the only one that did and without competition I was able to pull down a 20:05! This surprised me a whole lot as I have not done any speed work since marathon training in June.

Going from here I will be doing a 12 week 5k training program based off my VDOT pacing and increasing the speed slightly every 4 weeks. I am hoping to really get my fitness level back up to where it was last year and I think I can do this quick, and most importantly, smart by utilizing VDOT.

If you’re not familiar with VDOT, please check out the link here. This uses your recent race times to put together pacing that you should run in order to keep increasing your speed and not causing injury due to running to fast.

Here is my schedule for the next 12 weeks, variable on Sunday runs as I know 60 min is a bit short for what I am at right now.

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Week Dates WEEK MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN 11/7-11/13 1 3 m run 5 x 400 Rest or easy run 30 min tempo Rest 4 m fast 60 min run 11/14-11/20 2 3 m run 8 x 200 Rest or easy run 30 min tempo Rest 4 m fast 65 min run 11/21-11/27 3 3 m run 6 x 400 Rest or easy run 35 min tempo Rest 5 m fast 70 min run 11/28-12/04 4 3 m run 9 x 200 Rest or easy run 35 min tempo Rest or easy run Rest 5-K Test 12/05-12/11 5 3 m run 6 x 400 Rest or easy run 30 min tempo Rest 5 m fast 60 min run 12/12-12/18 6 3 m run 9 x 200 Rest or easy run 30 min tempo Rest 5 m fast 65 min run 12/19-12/25 7 3 m run 7 x 400 Rest or easy run 35 min tempo Rest 6 m fast 70 min run 12/26-1/1 8 3 m run 10 x 200 Rest or easy run 35 min tempo Rest or easy run Rest 5-K Test 1/2-1/8 9 3 m run 7 x 400 Rest or easy run 40 min tempo Rest 6 m fast 75 min run 1/9-1/15 10 3 m run 10 x 200 Rest or easy run 40 min tempo Rest 7 m fast 85 min run 1/16/1/22 11 3 m run 8 x 400 Rest or easy run 45 min tempo Rest 7 m fast 90 min run 1/23-1/29 12 2 m run 6 x 200 30 min tempo Rest or easy run Rest Rest 5-K Race

I have week 1 in the books(will post that with week 2, so I don’t spam) and I felt relatively great during all my workouts. Hoping to really hit a good stride and start 2017 in fast note!

Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles! instagram.com/radrunnerdad twitter.com/radrunnerdad Strava

How does a runner ring in a milestone birthday? They run a milestone distance!

I put into place a goal that by the time I turned 30 I wanted to run a 50k, so why not create one specifically for me, on my 30th birthday? In come the Field of Dreams 50k. I had my brother in law make the logo below for it, and it turned out amazing.

Field of Dreams 50k Logo done by my brother in law

My alarm went off at 4:40 am and I debated taking a snooze hit for another 10 minutes, but laid in bed knowing I wasn’t going to really benefit from it. Got out of bed to do my morning routine, ate a pre-made PB & Honey sandwich and a banana. The nerves were rolling, so the bathroom was not an issue(we’re all runners here right?!).

The first of very few obstacles hit on the drive down, the main road I was going to take was closed off due to maintenance for a bridge, but no worries it was a quick reroute to get down to the Port of Dubuque to meet up with my Fuel Mules Rob and Cory.

As soon as I pulled into the parking lot HUGE drops of rain started coming down. It was not looking like it was going to be too much fun, but thankfully it stopped. I handed off my nutrition and dry clothes to the guys and we had a little delay due to a air pump malfunction, but soon we were off!

Quite a bit of the gear I was bringing along

6 AM start included headlamps!

The first 4 miles or so we had light rain and mist, which considering the day before called for heavy rain all day, we were happy to take it. I was wearing my Honey Stinger arm sleeves that kept me nice and toasty and just my DRC New Balance shirt and this was enough to keep me warm. The amount of rain we did end up getting was just in the start, so it really kept me cool the rest of the way without being over saturated.

At mile 6 I started alternating taking  Honey Stinger Gold and Ginsting every 4 miles, along with making sure I was taking 1-2 oz of Tailwind every mile to keep up hydration and fuel. I was extremely happy to have my Simple Hydration bottle to keep my hands free and quick/easy access while running as well.

I am happy to report that there wasn’t too much variation or outlandish things happening on the run. Every time my bottle was empty I passed it off to Rob and Cory and they would fill it up and meet back up with me. We got a couple photos on the trail, you can check them out below here.

Not sure the distance, but feeling really great!

10 miles in and rocking out!

Halfway point at 15.5 miles! Smile on my face and beer in Cory’s hand!

At the halfway point I did my first Facebook Live post, It’s hard to talk/text/learn new programs  while running!

I had my live track on so around mile 21 fellow DRC member Jen drove out and cheered me on, it was a brief pass by, as I was feeling strong and didn’t want to stop, but I was happy to see her and pushed me to keep going.

Now when people talk about hitting a wall during a marathon, you expect to hear stories of how they were mentally faltered or their body seemed to give out and couldn’t push anymore. I hit a wall at mile 25…but this was a literal one! Earlier on the trail I saw a sign stating “Bridge out after mile 18 marker on trail” and this was the only sign I saw for it. Hoping and thinking that whatever issue there was would not have hindered my approach to the finish.

Rob biked ahead and snapped us a photo showing that the bridge was actually out…in a big way. It was right around mile 25 where we came up onto the bridge and we stopped trying to figure out the best approach to get around it. As we were contemplating, I asked them both if it would be OK if I just hopped over and and kept my momentum going, which they whole-heartily agreed just verifying before if I had enough hydration/fuel. I hopped the barricade, tiptoed around on the wooden beam and climbed up and jumped off the other side, thinking this is where I was going to get hurt…thankfully that wasn’t the case!

Hitting a literal wall at mile 25!

Can’t stop, won’t stop!

With that wall out of the way, I kept grinding. I saw my heart rate steadily increase and I knew that there was no way to recover it unless I slowed down. Earlier in the day I said that if I had to start walking, I hoped that I would at least make it to the marathon point and as Cory caught up to me, with Rob and now Tom(he biked to catch up) shortly behind, I hit the Marathon point at 3:49~ and showed absolutely no signs of stopping.

At this point we took off from the Heritage trail and hit the back country roads to make it out for the last 5 miles to the Field of Dreams. We were mostly covered by trees on the trail, so getting on the Iowa country roads meant that there was a lot of wind since it was open. I wish I would have taken some pictures, or in the least, had the guys take pictures because the scenery was perfect for the last 5 miles. I did however, write all the turns down on my wrist so that I wouldn’t get lost and run extra miles!

Sometimes the path is not always easy

Right after the marathon distance – cutting out to the back roads!

Between mile 27-28 I made mention that I have felt much worst on 16-18 mile runs than I did at that point and by this time I thought I would have been feeling a lot worse, but the only thing that was feeling off was tight hips with the up/downs of the country roads.

We made the cut to the final stretch of the run and I could see the Field of Dreams in the distance. I saw Allison outside with Finn and I started getting that rush of adrenaline and my emotions were running wild. I rounded into the driveway leading to the field and Allison caught me with only .25 miles left!

I wanted to make it a point to finish my run by rounding the bases, so I ended up having to run the outfield and then one more time around the bases for good measure!

Final stretch I go!

Finishing up my first 50k!

And just like that, I had become an Ultra marathoner! I was so happy to have finished and kept strong the entire way! My final time was 4:29:26 (Garmin , Strava) – After doing the math, my first 15.5 miles was 2:16:32 with my second being 2:12:51, almost negative splitting it by 4 minutes! The elevation profile was essentially an incline the entire way. The only time I stopped was to wait for traffic at intersections and the little bit of time when we were looking at the bridge.

8:41 average pace with 156 BPM on my Heart Rate. Was on an incline most of the way!

So the day I turned 30, I ran 31.05 miles(need to get that extra so Strava didn’t steal it!) at 8:41 average with 940 feet of elevation gain with an average HR of 156. I am extremely excited about how the day turned out and how well the entire run went!

I have a couple thanks to give out and I’ll start with the products first:

Simple Hydration – This bottle lead to such a great hands free hydration experience. Please check them out if you never carry water, as it tucks nice and clean into your waistband and don’t have to worry about weighing your arms down

Honey Stinger – I was first introduced to this product line from a friend and have never looked at another solid fueling source. Since its made with mostly honey(Gold gel is essentially just honey) it sits really well in my stomach

Tailwind Nutrition – Getting 1-2oz of tailwind every mile, the combination of gels and this were perfect and kept me energized the entire way. I had zero feeling of being crashed and had a constant stream of energy!

Spibelt – The Spibelt has been a great addition to my running gear as it helps keep my phone with me and can hold a lot of my gels with little bounce.

Injini socks – I have fat feet. I have fat feet and my toes used to get blistered on most runs. Since I’ve transitioned to Injini’s, I have had very few issues and when I did, it was mainly due to wet shoes. 31 miles folks and I had zero blisters, and I didn’t even need to change them out!

Garmin – Running with a GPS watch has been a giant help in my running, but the addition to allow live track has kept peace of mind to my family as they can catch me and make sure my dot is still moving. 31 miles and not a single issue!

Strava – Strava or it didn’t happen!!!!

And most importantly:

Allison – Thank you for everything you allow me to do and supporting me non-stop even when I do crazy things. You are the best wife and the greatest mother to our children!

Finn & Artie – I wrote down DIFF on my arm, meaning Do It For Family – My kids are high drive of what I do and they were in my thoughts the entire 31 miles

Rob – You’ve been a non-stop support system since I can remember and I couldn’t have done this successfully without you. I might have ran your first 5k with you, but 50k with me is more than I could ever imagine

Cory – We’ve been training partners for the past couple years and you’ve helped me increase my potential. Thank you for thinking of even ever running to The Field of Dreams as this would never have come across my thought stream

Dubuque Running Club – without everyone from the DRC, I don’t think I would be as close to how I am, running or otherwise, if it weren’t for the continued support that we all bring to the table. Here’s to many more!

Now here are some pictures at the finish! I am looking forward to doing this again sometime, whether I run it or bike it as a mule 🙂

Rounding the bases for the final time!

Hanging out with Finn on the pitchers mound. He was a little cold

Field of Dreams!!

Cory caught me on this one, not sure whats going on!

Right around mile 29 and the last incline!

Very fitting fortune from the Chinese I ate after

Snuggling with my boys after a long day