Bloomington St. Patrick's Day 5k {March 18, 2018}

2018 Bloomington St. Patrick’s Day 5k

Bloomington, IL//1:00 pm

-21:27 (6:55 pace) *with stroller/Gabey!*

-1st in F35-39 AG (out of 44)

-6th Female of 818

-43rd out of 587 total finishers

(my 4th race of the 2018 season)

With this race always being the first one of each year where most (if not all!) of the Often Running Racing Team is in attendance, it is always kind of a stressful one for many of us! I know I dealt with some anxiety (why?!) leading up to the race, but did my best to keep my head on straight Sunday morning leading up to the race.

Last year I ran a 20:34 at this race (also pushing Gabe!) which is my standing Stroller 5k PR (my solo PR is 20:20, set at Evergreen in August 2017). I knew I wasn't in sub-21-minute shape going in to this race, but I hoped to (a) be faster than the 5k I ran the day before in Davenport, Iowa (I wanted to "negative split" my weekend races! Ha!) and (b) get sub 22/as close to 21:00 as possible.

Planning to get to the VFW where the race starts around noon (for the 1pm start), we left our house around 11:40 and went to pick up our friend Tanya on our way to the race. We joined our crew at the back of the VFW in our "usual" spot and got to work on our usual pre-race preparations. Clint, who had asked someone to pull his race entry shortly after filling it out because he didn't feel up to racing...ended up registering for the race after we arrived (he had packed clothes and shoes "just in case"...oh Clint...you keep us guessing ;)).

The weather felt like an amazing gift after the "wintery mix" of precipitation and 34 degree temps we dealt with the previous day at the St. Pat's 5k we ran in Davenport! I went out for a little warm up, shooting to do around a mile and a half. Clint joined me for a quarter mile and ran a quarter mile back to the start to get in a half mile total warm up (he had already run five and a half miles out on the trails at Comlara that morning).

Family pic pre-race, pre-warm-up, pre-nap

I felt good but not great during my warm up. My stomach was in knots - hard to tell if it was anxiety or just general GI distress (the name of my game all too often) or a combination of factors. My right knee felt a little achy, but not terrible. When I got to 3/4 of a mile out, I turned around to run back to the start to get in a mile and a half for a warm up. It was nice to actually feel WARM during the warm up, as opposed to the previous day!! Gabe fell asleep before I had even finished a mile - and I prayed and crossed my fingers that he would stay asleep for the remainder of the race. He's never slept through a race before - but most of the time, races are in the morning and this afternoon/nap time race was a different story!

After the warm-up, Gabe was OUT for the count!

 We took our place at the left side of the starting area (the first turn on the course is a left-hand turn so I wanted to be as close to that side as possible).

Look at that starting lineup (esp. the tired guy on the right!!)

4 of the 5 ORRT Ladies pre-race - I am a fan of this crew

As we got situated, I noticed that the starting guns (yes, plural!) were not far from where Gabe and I were standing. I got a little bag of fruit snacks prepped in the back of the stroller, assuming that the gun shots would wake him up as we started off! Before long, the shots rang out and we were off...somehow Gabe actually managed to stay asleep through the blasts! I guess he really got super worn-out during the previous day's festivities with his cousins! I'll take it!

I watched Clint sail off quickly with a big group of other fast runners. I did my best to settle in to a pace and joked with friend/teammate Gary who was right next to me for the first tenth of a mile or so to hurry up (I tend to always take off too quickly - with Gary right behind me for a few strides before ultimately passing me).

I took the first of the eleven turns (yup, I counted - unless I counted incorrectly, of course!) in the race and headed to the left before taking another left hand turn through a neighborhood.  I did my best to make wide turns and to stay out of other runners' ways.  I heard both Paul and Joe (other teammates/friends) behind me and tried my best to cheer them on a bit here and there. Mile 1  was over in 6:52, according to my watch, but according to the guy shouting off splits to my right directly before a right-hand turn, my first mile was in 6:42. I laughed and said out loud, "Well that's way too fast for me today!" Regardless, I ran a sub-7 mile for the first time in a while - swell!! 

My favorite part of this course is the turn around mile 1.3 or so where the course turns back on itself on the same road so you get to see the fast guys as they speed on by. I gave Clint and some others a cheer and watched with envy as they cruised on through the course with beautiful, graceful, speedy strides! Ah, to be that fast!!

Somewhere after the halfway point, we ran down a familiar-looking street...it didn't hit me where I was until I heard a voice saying, "Go Rachel!" I looked to my left and saw my friend Jamie and her husband and their two sweet girls cheering from their front porch! Too cool! Thanks for the cheers and the sweet pic, guys!

Mile 2 was over in 7:15.  "Ok, Rachel, time to buckle down and do work," I told myself. I really felt like I had let myself slack off on that second mile.

The third mile includes a long stretch of a slight incline that probably doesn't feel too bad to the average person, but I feel like is dang torture pushing the stroller. I willed my arms to stay strong and I picked out a few people to try to pick off as I ran up the slight hill. I saw Tim and G + J who cheered (thanks for the pic below, Timmy!)...I grinned and gritted my teeth and powered on.

The final right-hand turn down to the final 6/10ths of a mile or so beckons a mentally tough part of the race - it's the final stretch, yes, but it is also longer than it seems. It can be a challenge to stay 6:58...woot! Back under 7:00 and faster than my 2nd mile! Not exactly negative splits, but I'll take it!

I saw Clint cheering me in to my right and he yelled at me to get off my heels. Come on now, Coach!

I crossed the finish line with a still-sleeping babe in a clock time of 21:26.7. The final 0.06 according to my watch was in a 5:56 pace (not quite as impressive as my final 0.11 according to my watch in yesterday's race ;))....but still kinda fun to be sub-6 if even just for a few seconds!!

After I crossed the finish, I jogged around a bit with Gabe to do a bit of a cool down before joining some of the rest of the team at the finish to hand out water bottles (here's looking at you, Gary and Paul and Steve and Clint!)

Gabe was still sleeping, but I had to get Dan Anderson to stand next to him for a quick pic!
Can't believe he did the race like this!

We headed back inside the VFW for the awards ceremony and chatted with friends for a while. I snacked on some sweet potato/coconut oil chips (BYO! Ha! It's whatcha gotta do when you are on a "special" eating plan) while Gabe snoozed away in the back of the LOUD room. When someone started talking on a microphone, though, he startled awake and got really freaked out - like "where the heck am I?!" Poor, sweet, disoriented babe!

This year's race was held in honor of an Army Ranger who died in Afghanistan. His mother spoke for a bit and shared about his service and about the loss of her son. It was honestly hard to listen as I stood there and held my own little (almost) two-year-old boy as she spoke of the loss of her twenty-two-year-old boy. I cannot even begin to fathom the pain!

Age group award winners each received a neat pair of socks with the initials of the Army Ranger who was honored at the race - pretty special!

The weekend's age group awards...

When I went back to review some times I'd run in previous years, I saw that I ran a 21:31 in 2015 which was my very first race as an Often Running Racing Team member. I remember (and I texted this to some friends/teammates before this year's race!) that I was a bundle of nerves during the week leading up to the race. With it being my first race as a ORRT member, for some reason I had put a lot of pressure on myself to do well and I was PRETTY convinced I was going to trip/fall/otherwise make a fool of myself. While I was a little bit off of my then-current PR of 21:09, I was satisfied with my race and pleased with getting 2nd in my age group and scoring a sweet pair of red, white, and blue USA socks (that I still enjoy wearing to this day!).  I also ran the race in 2016 when I was 33 weeks, 2 days pregnant and managed a 28:33 (in Gabe's 11th race!). Sadly I missed out on the sweet/kinda weird drawstring bags made out of cotton sweatshirt material that were presented to the age group winners that year ;)!

For fun, I decided to start a little graph of this year's Stroller 5ks. I plan to (hopefully!) add to it as the year goes on...and HOPEFULLY we will see those times drop as the year moves forward (but who knows!!).

BIG THANKS to Mitch for allowing me to be on the Often Running Racing Team for this (my 3rd!) season. Thanks to the spectators extraordinaire for the cheers and fun pics (including, but not limited to, Sharon, Jamie + the Garrison Fam, Tim + the Van Hoof Fam, and Toddy + Soph).  Thanks to my teammates for the support, pushes, advice, camaraderie, laughs, etc. Thanks to Saucony for the awesome-looking and ever-trusty gear (busted out my GREEN NYC Freedoms for this race, but of COURSE!). Thanks to Coach Clint for the guidance. Thanks to Gabe for the tolerance...and the stroller zzzzs in this race ;).

My main man, around mile 2.5 (Thanks for the snap, Sharon!)

Next up...BOSTON?!

CASI St. Patrick's Day 5k {March 17, 2018}

2018 CASI St. Patrick’s Day 5k

Davenport, Iowa//10:00 am

-22:11 (7:08 pace) *with stroller/Gabey!*

-3rd in F35-39 AG (out of 136)

-16th Female of 905

-98th out of 1532 total finishers

(My 3rd race of the 2018 season)

Our friend Aaron Van Lauwe, who I am "informally coaching" as kind of an experiment of sorts (maybe Wells and Wells Coaching could be a thing someday, eh?! ;)) had his sights set on this spring 5k and suggested that we come up to the Quad Cities and do the race as well. Around the same time that we had started considering participating in the race, my sister let us know that Koo Koo Kanga Roo was going to be performing at a children's museum in Bettendorf, Iowa not far from where she and her family live later on that same day. TWO great events in the Quad Cities on the same day, plus getting to see my family?! Count us in! So, we made plans to head up to the Quad Cities on Friday night for the Saturday morning race and Saturday afternoon concert. Clint Gabe is quite obsessed with Koo Koo Kanga Roo and we were pretty pumped to be able to give him that "experience."

This race also happened to be the same weekend as/the day prior to our local Bloomington St. Patrick's Day 5k that is one of our Often Running Racing Team team races - so we had already been planning on doing this race as part of our team responsibilities/commitments. However, we love novelties - doing two 5ks on back-to-back days? Sure! I decided to try to do both of them (as long as Gabe was cool with it ;)) with the stroller - never had I ever done two stroller 5ks on subsequent days! Since my body has been less than cooperative with volume lately as far as long runs/Boston training goes, maybe I can beat it into submission with some 5k pain. Ha! We have both done a fair amount of races in the Quad Cities area, but we had never done the CASI St. Patrick's day 5k and were excited to try a new event.

Friday, Clint ended up taking a half day (I was already off on Spring Break!) which was really nice because it meant we got to leave earlier than we were anticipating (we originally planned on leaving around 5:30 when he got home from work, which would have probably ended up being more like 6 or 6:30 knowing our track record...ha!). We drove to my parents' house first and dropped Gabe off, who was all too happy to hang out with Gram and Pa for a bit. We then drove on to Davenport where we picked up my race packet...and Clint ended up registering for the race. Surprise (eye roll, wink).

Ok, I can't even really begin to explain HOW EXCITED I WAS that at packet pickup there was a booth advertising a variety of other Quad Cities races, including one of our faves - the Quad Cities Marathon. AND - at this booth they had a bunch of leftover Quad Cities Marathon GLOVES that they were giving away for FREE!!! I am a dork, I know, but the gloves that they gave participants at last September's Quad Cities Marathon and Half Marathon were AMAZING. I LOVE mine - they are actually so warm that they are TOO warm at times! I was afraid I had lost one of mine this winter after a run, but thankfully ended up finding it. But now...both Clint and I have BACK-UP pairs of the best gloves ever and we have FOUR pair in our household! This is the kind of stuff I get worked up over, guys. Thrilling!! :)

After gathering our things, we headed back to my parents' house. First, though, we made a pit stop at one of our favorite Quad Cities places - Natural Grocers. We stocked up on a few things and then went to join Gabe and my parents. We prepped some dinner (kinda late at this point, but oh well), played for a while, and then headed to bed.

Race day morning we woke up and Clint prepped his coffee. We "admired" the gross-looking cold/rainy weather outside while we got our things together.  As usual, I let Gabe sleep as long as possible before getting him up...he ended up waking up on his own around 7:30 with a simple shout out to "Mama! Dada!" from his room at my parents'. We ended up leaving a bit later than we had hoped (the story of our lives ;)) but got out the door between 8:15 and 8:30 (we had been shooting to leave around 8 to get to downtown Davenport before 9 for the 10am race start). We ended up getting to a parking garage not far from the start around 9:10 which ended up being just fine. We got the stroller situated and headed for the race area. We had to double back when I realized that I had left the all-important fruit snacks for Gabe in the car. BIG error!!!

After gathering the snacks, we headed back toward the starting area again. In addition to being just plain cold (around 34 degrees) and windy, it was starting to sleet...amazing!! HA! We got Gabe situated inside the stroller with the weather cover on top and arranged some toys and snacks for him inside his "bubble." Clint and I then jogged around a few blocks for a 0.6 mile "warmup of sorts" in the nasty "wintery mix" falling from the heavens prior to jumping into the starting corral. As we stood there, I looked around a bit for Aaron but was certain we wouldn't see him among the crowd of 1500+ participants. By some twist of luck, all of a sudden - there he was, to Clint's right!

Clint's festive, shiny new green Saucony Triumphs...
because who doesn't like a bit of "wintery mix" to break in a new pair of shoes?! ;)

We situated ourselves in the starting area about 5 or so rows back. Clint, at that point, still hadn't decided if he was sticking with me and Gabe or if he was going to run his own race. That guy ;)...such a funny one. In my head I knew the odds were slim that he would stick back with us - but I was game for whatever happened. Considering my current fitness level (not as high as it was at this time last year), I was hoping to stick as close to 7:00-minute miles as possible.

I wished the boys luck and got ready for "go" time. When the starting signal went off, it became woefully apparent that we had not situated ourselves nearly close enough to the front of the corral. I found myself having to really hold back to not run over any ankles and had to loudly (and as politely as I could muster!!) say, "excuse me!" "coming through!" and other similar statements a few times as we made our way down the first street and through the first turn to the left and second subsequent turn to the left as we entered 3rd street. I saw Clint streak off past me...no patience for the crowd, for sure. Ha!! See ya, Cleent! ;) The bulk of the course was spent running first west on 3rd Street and then making a sharp turn around to run back east on 3rd street before heading back down to the start/finish. In spite of the crazy navigation required, mile 1 clicked off in 7:07.

Around 1.25 miles, I hit the turn around and made my way back down 3rd street INTO THE SLEET AND WIND. Uuuuughhhhhh. I was grateful, for Gabe's sake, that I had put the weather shield on the stroller but, MAN, that thing makes the stroller feel like a TANK as I push it!  Mile 2 was over in 7:12. I was actually kind of impressed with my relative consistency.

With a large portion of the race running back on itself on the same street, there were lots of people-watching opportunities. It was fun/funny to see many people had broken out their St. Patty's Day best for the event. WOW - some people really get into the costume thing! I love it. Ha!  Also, it was fun to hear some of comments people made about seeing a stroller runner (one kid said to his mom, "WHY does she have a BABY with her!?" Good question, kiddo! :)).

Shortly after making the 4th of just 5 turns in the race, Mile 3 clicked in 7:22. Honestly, these splits (while positive instead of the desired negative) were pretty dang consistent. I eyed a girl about 50 yards in front of me and decided to buckle down and see if I could catch her. I caught her literally as we crossed the finish line. My clock time was 22:11. Later I was utterly astounded to see the final 0.11, according to my watch, was in a 5:39 pace. WHAT?! Ok, I realize that it was just a tenth of a mile, but for ME this is crazy fast. Kinda cool!!

After crossing the finish line, I continued on to do a tiny little cool down - trying to get in the habit of letting my body cool down like a "real" runner (even if it is just for a bit). After 0.4 miles (basically just a jaunt around a block), I joined Clint and Aaron to chat a bit before heading up to the tent where they had set up the post-race snacks. Aaron told us that he had clocked a 21:04 which is a 5k PR for him (about 20 seconds over his previous PR set last October) - SWEET! Of course, HE did all the work...but it was kind of encouraging that my advice/informal coaching had resulted in a 5k PR! I'm excited to see what he will continue to do as he works toward his next goals!!

Aaron headed out to run his cool down to his car that was parked about 2 miles away before heading out to drink green beer with a friend. It was good to see him for a bit, though!  I was thrilled to see some of my favorite Kind bars in the boxes of post-race food - the Pressed Pineapple Banana Kale Spinach bars...a pretty random sight at a post-race party. Usually there is a bunch of stuff I can't eat (pizza, sandwiches, cookies). We printed out our results and were pretty entertained to see that we had both gotten 3rd in our respective age groups!

Cool to both get 3rd!

Kinda neat, considering this was a big race (bigger than we are used to, for certain!).  We stuck around to collect our awards during the awards ceremony and then made our way back to the parking garage and then to my sister's house to clean up, eat some lunch and get ready to see KOO KOO KANGA ROO!

Dada gave the little guy a lift so that he could see the show better!

Clint helped hold the parachute for the concert-goers to rush under at the end of the show.
Gabe is all, "What the heck is going on?!" 

We played in the museum for a bit after the show. Gabe loved the "fufuflies."

This concert wore him out...and inspired him to rip off his shoes and socks prior to passing out in the car afterward.

After the show, Gram and Pa came over to my sister's family's house for
playtime, reading, and dinner before we headed back home to BloNo.

After the race, I didn't feel very worse for wear (my Achilles pain has really been minimal lately*, though my knees are still acting up) - and felt somewhat confident that I could at least stay upright to finish a 5k in our hometown the next day! I was excited by the idea of successfully completing two stroller 5ks in 1 weekend and made a loose goal for myself of "negative splitting" the weekend and running the next day's race faster. Seeing as it was a local-to-us event and an Often Running Racing Team event, I wanted to be able to do my best at it, too. Stay tuned...

Next up - Bloomington St. Pat's 5k!

*Thanks to a variety of factors, I decided to try the AIP (Autoimmune Protocol) diet. Basically, this is an elimination diet that requires a person to stop eating a ton of stuff - including grains, legumes, nightshades, sugars, and dairy. It supposedly helps heal your gut and decrease inflammation in your body and is recommended for people who deal with autoimmune diseases. I have celiac disease (I was diagnosed in 2008) and therefore do not eat gluten (truly never - no cheating). Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease and sometimes other food intolerances run hand in hand with the gluten intolerance that celiac disease is known for. Honestly, I have known that other foods "bother" me (namely dairy), but I am pretty stubborn about it all because food is delicious and elimination diets are HARD WORK. Long story short, the inflammation in my achilles is almost nonexistent since eliminating sugar. I hate to admit it - but, for my body, there might be something to this food intolerance stuff (more than just the gluten thing that I have known about for almost 10 years now). As of the day I am writing this (Monday, March 19), I have been doing the AIP diet for 14 days. I definitely don't plan on doing it forever...but I am using it as a way to try to figure out how to be the most healthy that I can be and to see what works for my wonky body. There are many details that I am not including here, but this is the short version!

Miller Park Zoo Stampede {March 3, 2018}

2018 Miller Park Zoo Stampede 5k

Peoria, IL 10:00am

-22:17 (7:11 pace per mile) *with stroller/Gabey!*

-1st in F26-35 AG out of 43 (weird age group range again - just like the Frosty 5k in Peoria in Jan! Is this a new thing or something?! Ha!)

-4th Female of 155

-22nd overall of 279

(My 2nd race of the 2018 season)

This race was informally on my radar because I thought running with Gabe through our local zoo would be fun - I thought he might get a kick out of seeing some animals during our run, and I was pretty sure from previous years (I volunteered in 2016 with friends Tanya and Amber while I was pregnant with Gabe!) that the age-group awards were something animal-related which could be fun to give to Gabe.

However, this day was also my good friend Jillian's daughter Ruby's big 4th birthday! She had planned a little birthday party/concert trip that included herself/Ruby/Ruby's little sister Nadya (my goddaughter), our friend Susan and her son Asa, and myself + Gabe. Of course I didn't give the race another thought and was instead SUPER pumped for the concert (Laurie Berkner in Peoria!). I was SUPER sad/disappointed (though not nearly as much as Jillian and the birthday girl!!) when Laurie apparently got stuck in NYC in a snow storm Friday night prior to the Saturday morning Peoria show and the show got canceled! WAHHHHH!!!! Jillian ended up quickly planning a substitute musical party that involved the wonderful Meryl Brown at her music therapy business in town that would go down on Saturday afternoon. Therefore, I had Saturday morning unexpectedly "free." Well...why not go for a nice little jaunt through the zoo, after all!?

Saturday morning, we woke up and got ready to head out to Miller Park, where the race was held.  Clint decided to come with us (thanks, Dada!) which was really nice. As we drove to the race, I thought about my plan/goals for the day - really, I just wanted to get in a good/quality tempo workout and I knew that running in a 5k race situation would ensure that I pushed the pace for at least those 3 miles.

Prior to the race, I needed to make a visit to the bathroom...but the downstairs bathrooms were super crowded. I was happy that the "secret upstairs bathrooms" were NOT crowded so Gabe and I enjoyed a moment of silliness in the bathroom before heading outside to run.

I went out for a mile warm-up through Miller Park, nice and slow, and Gabe enjoyed getting to view the large train near the entrance of the park ("CHOO CHOO! CHOO CHOO!").  We made our way into the starting area and lined up near Julie Sibley and chatted a bit.  A girl who looked fast-ish had lined up behind me/to my right and I could tell she kept looking at my stroller with irritation. I turned around, smiled, and kindly said, "Do you want to get in front of me?" She nodded and I scooted a bit to the side to let her past. Communication, people! You help me and I'll help you! I know there are many people who get annoyed by strollers in races but I really do try to do my best to anticipate other peoples' feelings and stay out of peoples' way (even if it includes things like going wayyy to the outside on turns since most people naturally want to take the inside).

Soon enough we got the starting signal and we were off! I did my best to break out of the starting corral as quickly as possible, as usual, and to navigate around the crowd of runners without getting in anyones' way. We turned to the right and looped around the zoo parking lot and over past Gabe's beloved train. Mile 1 was over in 7:05. Satisfactory. As has become my MO lately, I just wanted to keep things as "close" to 7:00 as possible.

I felt things slowing down during mile 2...I just didn't feel any get-up-and-go, but I tried to keep pushing.  Mile 2 was over in 7:21.

Somewhere in the third mile there was an ascent that really isn't TOO steep but was enough of an incline to be annoying. As is typical whenever there is any kind of incline when I am pushing Gabe, I curse my decision to push the stroller and will my arms to somehow stay attached to my body.  The uphill challenge is rewarded by a descent down around the lake and around the back of the pavilion before the course goes into the actual zoo for just a bit. I pointed out some sort of elk-looking creature to Gabe (??) before rounding the final curves and heading out of the zoo to the finish. Mile 3 beeped in a slower 7:31 (I will say, navigating the stroller through the hairpin turns inside the zoo portion of the course did make for a challenge).

Nearing the finish line, cheered on by some sort of dino-creature! :)

The final 0.1 was in a 8:25 pace, however I didn't stop my watch right away as I crossed the finish and definitely slowed down...so who knows what it actually was. My 22:17 clock time/7:11average pace was just over 30 seconds behind the Frosty 5k that I ran with Gabe five weeks prior (21:44) which was kind of disappointing but I shook it off...it is what it is!

After crossing the finish line, we continued on right away to get in a mile cooldown to be sure to get in 5 total miles for the day.  After our cooldown, we made our way into the very crowded pavilion where I got a nice stretch-out performed by a PT group that was there (felt great!). After that, we hung around and I ate a banana with Gabey while we waited for awards. I was excited to get 1st in my age group (a large age group again!) and to earn a little painting done by a snow leopard who lives at the zoo - cute/fun!

On our way back to our car, Gabe insisted on visiting the playground for a bit and of course we had to oblige him (though it wasn't quite as warm as it looks in the pics!).

After some playtime, we headed home for lunch and a nap for Gabe. After naptime, we went to Ruby's birthday party where Gabe had an absolute blast. It was so wonderful to be able to celebrate a special birthday with great friends. The party also happened to be at the same place where we had Gabe's first birthday and where he took music classes all summer last year. It was fun to be "back"!

Next up - a St. Pat's weekend 5k two-fer!