wrong in all the right ways

so im sitting here this morning, drinking coffee and watching the news as the rain pours down in buckets outside our living room window (google describes "torrential" as: falling rapidly and in copious quantities... yup that about sums it up). there are so many things running through my head (and it surely doesnt help that i have a headache... i only had one glass of wine last night... you should see this glass i have, it holds 750ml!)

i woke to more news about the 6 year old boy, camden, who they found dead on the side of the road last week in south berwick, maine. i dont have any children but i cannot even begin to wrap my head around how anyone can do something so horrible to their child. may he rest in peace and may she suffer in jail for the rest of her selfish, sick life.

tyler met with the house inspector yesterday and everything looks good to go (a few little things needed to be changed/fixed, but nothing major). the builder says the house will be completed by tuesday, and we close a week later. potential moving date is june 4th or 12th (eeeeeeeeeek!!) so when can we get our puppy?

but the biggest thing ive got going on right now (bigger than getting a new house? yes.)...

on october 7th of last year i sent out a message on facebook trying to put a 12 person team together of a bunch of fun/wild/crazy women. cuz it was my idea to put the team together, i decided to captain the team.
first mistake.
a bunch of awesome ladies quickly said "im in!" with great enthusiasm. a few came and went throughout the upcoming weeks/months. at one point i miscounted and had 16 people trying to sign up, so i had to tell people they sadly were out. i didnt hold onto them for alternates.
second mistake.
as is common with these sort of things, life got in the way for a few people. ive been there before and have had to back out of commitments ive made. it sucks but we deal with it. and after much stress, numerous do-overs, spreadsheets, text messages (i swear i would be broke if i didnt have unlimited texting), it is complete.

we have a team of 11. of which one runner is semi hurt but is going to take it easy and run 2/3rds of her legs.

this whole experience has been eye opening for sure. i never realized how much work it took to captain one of these things, and i really thank the captains of the two teams ive been on for the past two years ive done the new hampshire race. of course they were a little less anal/ocd more organized than i am, having a few team meetings before the race (pfffft, whatever), preparing for extra runners, etc. BUT i kept my composure (barely) and this is going to work. it is. it HAS to.

i spent much of the day yesterday filling out a spreadsheet that Eric sent me (someone on his team has a lot more time on their hands than i do!) that helps figure out who runs when, how fast, and estimated times for all runners legs. this spreadsheet is UNREAL. we start tomorrow morning from wachusett mountain at 9:30am, and should potentially reach the beach at 1:58pm saturday afternoon. this is assuming i dont walk all 5 of my legs (yeah im running 5 legs. not 3. potential third mistake)

we are 11 women, in 2 vans (well, one van, one chevy traverse), running 201.04 miles (in the rain), in approximately 28 hours.

we are:

and we are

meet the freaks:

kelly

"look out boys, im chasing after you... to PASS you!"

jessie 

@kissing_frogs

little known fact: she hopped on that one foot the entire race. now thats talent!

danielle

(ohhh, thats me!)

@RTdanielle09

julia
@swimrjul
a runner and a dirty little freak fashion runway model! 

elizabeth

@fiftyforbilly

"anyone wanna do jello shots? i brought 100 of them"

kate j

"so really you guys, this whole thing seemed like a good idea 5 months ago"

mary

if this pic doesnt scream "IM SUPER PUMPED AND CRAZY AND A FREAK" i dont know what does

alison

if i had to bet, this dirty little freak is holding a flask in those hands

regina

the true, innocent smile of a dirty little freak

(fun fact: ive never met regina. also fun fact: ive never met jessie, julia, kate j, kate d, alison, or molly either)

molly

theres no telling whats in that "water" bottle

kate d

i can only hope she brings this to wear while running... i mean, it is going to be a wet weekend!

and our DD/official photographer for the weekend...

sarah

@gksarahj5

this hardcore dirty little freak has no idea what shes in for

and dear god help me if she sings "cuz baby youre a fiiiiiiiiiiiirework" even ONE time.....

so raise your glass....

lets DO this ladies!

a sign

in my last post i introduced you to my new little running friend. his name was strategically chosen due to my ambition and marathon goal. but incase i needed another sign, i pulled into a parking spot at a restaurant on saturday night and this was the car in front of me:

it was meant to be.

i took mark for our first long run saturday morning. ive never run by HR before, but from experience i know i usually start off too fast and end up suffering at the end in a major way. for example: one of my 5k splits were as follows- 7:05, 7:45, 9:12. huuuuuuuge suckfest. (ok you can stop laughing at me now).

im not sure how to run by HR in order to get faster, but im determined to figure it out. from a little bit of reading and research (following Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger), ive figured out a few things:

my resting heart rate is 57 bpm

my maximal heart rate is 186 bpm

my heart rate reserve is 129 bpm

those numbers mean a lot in terms of different work outs ill be following during my marathon training (18 weeks beginning on may 31st). these few weeks leading up to the beginning of that training are crucial for me to figure out how to train properly and to make sure i am eating right, hydrating properly, and establishing a base for the intensity that comes with an 18 week training plan. 18 weeks is a LONG ASS TIME (um... its may. my marathon is in october. blah!)

so anyway... a 10 mile run is classified from my plan as either a "general aerobic" or "medium-long" run, for the first couple weeks. this means my hr should fall within about 70-84% of my maximal hr. that is 130-156. lets take a look at what happened on saturday:

(mile, pace, avg hr, max hr)

1. 8:39, 152, 167

2. 8:50, 155, 165

3. 9:08, 148, 167

4. 9:25, 158, 168

5. 9:16, 159, 170

6. 9:26, 155, 161

7. 9:32, 153, 171

8. 9:37, 153, 173 (please note: highest max hr, slowest mile. fail.)

9. 9:28, 149, 167

10. 9:23, 154, 168

the averages throughout each mile were all just under the maximum of where i wanted to be for these runs, but on so many occasions throughout this run i had to slow down to allow my hr to come down. im not used to running over 9 min miles but i must say i felt so good when my heart wasnt beating out of my chest and my legs were not really sore at all on sat night/sunday.

besides my sub 4 marathon goal, i also have a goal ive been chasing for over a year now.... a 22:xx 5k. im pretty close but i just cant seem to get it, and i really think its because of the massive mile 3 fail i keep having. if i can evenly pace myself to run 7:22 miles, and not go out too fast and die at the end, its definitely do-able. i think monitoring my heart rate in the upcoming months is going to be a real key to my speed work and endurance.

say hello to my little friend

i said i would never do it. i said i really didnt care about all the technology and heart rate and cool graphs and feaures my nike+ didnt do. i said the money wasnt worth it and its too big (thats what she said) and why bother and... and... and...

alas, i finally caved.

meet "mark" (of course he has a name, come on now... that shouldnt surprise anyone):

he is quite a bit larger than my nike+  (side note, no i am not missing the end of my digits... i am in desperate need of a manicure and i didnt feel anyone needed to see that hot mess):

ive never had such a complicated watch... the box was packed full of all sorts of goodies! (including a 75 instruction manual, yikes!)

so how did the name "mark" come about? the whole reason i got the garmin 305 in the first place was on the recommendation from my super cool marathon trainer. you might have heard of him before, i think ive mentioned him a few times here and there. he suggested this model to me... not too expensive and will do all that i need/want it to do. i have a goal for the maine marathon on october 2nd... not suck. and by not suck i really mean go sub 4. ive run this marathon twice... both times i took training to a whole new level of fail:

2009- 4:43:15
2010- 4:43:30

(side note: i know i am capable of better than this, i finished sugarloaf marathon in 4:15:25 in may 2010)

needless to say i want to kick this f**ing marathon course right in the face, and i WILL succeed this time. its the first marathon i have this year and i am ready to really focus on my training to get myself there, of course with the help of sam, pfitz 18/55, and now "mark".

so i have the ambition.
and i have the goal.

when i searched both of those words on an online thesaurus this is what i found:

Main Entry:	goal
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	aim, purpose of an action
Synonyms:	ambition, design, destination, duty, end,  intent, intention, limit, mark, mission, object, objective, target, use,

Main Entry:	ambition
Part of Speech:	noun
Definition:	something desired
Synonyms:	aim, aspiration, desire, dream, end, enterprise, goal, hope, intent, mark, objective, purpose, target, wish

and there you have it. MARK my words, this will happen. now lets DO this.

a little friendly (competitive) bet

so you see, theres this girl who lives waaaaaay far away from here (here = maine). waaaaaay far away is south dakota. her name is jeri, and you should head on over and say hi to her (HERE and HERE).

meet jeri:

hi jeri!

shes way cool and loves the green bay packers and all things green, and running, and shes awesome.

and about that whole "she loves running" thing... shes also fast. lets take a look at her race PR's:

5k- 23:55 (7:42) Beresford Celebration

10k- (no official 10k race... really?) *update- 1st official 10k race is this saturday. potentially redeeming.

13.1- 1:50:57 (8:28) River Rat Half
26.2- 4:12:00 (9:37) Cellcom Green Bay Marathon

so now let us compare, shall we?

meet danielle (oh hi, thats me!):

hi danielle!

im pretty cool too, and i love pink and beer and the red sox.... and oh yeah, running. so lets take a look at my PR's:

5k- 23:24 (7:32) Frozen 5k

10k- 47:50 (7:42) (beach to beacon 2009, no blog recap... since i had no blog then)

13.1- 1:51:23 (8:30) Maine Coast Half

26.2- 4:15:25 (9:45) Sugarloaf Marathon

so why the introductions? well you see, jeri and i have been overly slightly competitive throughout the last year with our races, going back and forth with times and PR's. we (and by we i mean jeri) decided it was time to have a little friendly competition. heres what we (again, jeri) came up with:

jerilee40 Jeri 

@RTdanielle09 New challenge...? Whomever has the lowest cumulative time for best 5k/10k/HM/full for 2011 wins something sweet. Thoughts?

why yes, jeri, that sounds like a fabulous idea!

so far this year jeri has run a 5k (27:27) and a half marathon (1:50:57). (alright, alright... please note: this 5k was a fun run. she is much faster than this and will of course run another one which will bring her closer to beating me.... but will she really?) her 10k is this weekend, and she has a marathon coming up in may. so far this year i have run a 5k (24:48) and a half marathon (1:52:18). not to get competitive or anything, but so far im winning (by 1 minute and 18 seconds).

get how this works? we have until the end of the year to run any race of those four distances to try to be the fastest. i dont have an extensive race schedule planned out but i do know that i will CRUSH my marathon PR in october, hoping to go sub 4 hours. my current 10k PR is on the beach to beacon course from 2009 and im running that race again in august. jeri and i have always tried to go 22:xx in a 5k... can we do that this year?

so what are we betting? thats the fun part.... we havent decided yet, and we want YOUR input! online running store gift certificate? a surprise gift for the winner? give us your ideas and we'll pick the best one!

let the racing begin! (also see: "Challenge Accepted!")

ABC's of boston 2011

A. awesomeness
words cant accurately describe the niketown photobooth... that we completely took over, as the store was closing and completely dominated it.

B. bloggers & boston creme pie
i could write on and on and on about my weekend in boston but it would end up sounding much like everyone elses weekend recaps... so just go read theirs! makes my job easier. pictures are still fun to look at though so ill keep putting in a bunch of those. im so happy to have met all of you guys (minus sarah, i know you already in real life) and i cant wait til next year to do it all over again sometime!

sarah, katie, susan, morgan, ally, christy, becky, kim, lauren, jill

i dont like yogurt much and i suck real good at trying new things. but i saw this on the morning of the marathon and figured i would give it a try. and what do ya know, i actually liked it!

C. city sports
long story short i had a lot of time to shop around with a shabby princess at city sports, a fun running store that we dont have in maine. so i took a photo tour.

D. "does this not look like a mussel?!"
mmmmm garlic breath

E. elevators
somehow we ended up in a few elevators this weekend, so we felt the need to take pics... ya know, incase we got stuck and never came out.

one elevator was fun and not sketchy

and then there was the death elevator

F. 5k fun & finish line

BIB NAME AGE M/F CITY ST CTRY CTZ 2769 Sterling, Danielle 30 F South Portland ME USA Official Finish Overall Gender Division 24:48 877 / 4198 262 / 2441 53 / 387

pre race blogger meet up

heres your pic miss shabbyprincess

crossing the finish line of the boston marathon, despite only running the 5k, was incredible.

G. giggle sauce
im convinced my food on sunday night was coated in this stuff

H. helping hands

I. i didnt get a pic of caroline white for a specific reason, but kudos to her for qualifying for the olympics. probably a really shitty experience for her though.

J. joan benoit samuelson
totally awesome and rockin the age group win. yay maine!

K. kara goucher & katie
um yeah... kara is awesome. can you have a baby and 7 months later place 5th in the boston marathon?! maybe you can, but i cant.

and i finally met katie. which was fantastic. we didnt have babies or run a marathon this weekend, but we ate and drank a lot. and thats alright.

aaaand i even "convinced" katie to have a beer with me. before noon.

L. luau
luau ran by us towards the finish line and heard us cheering for him... and promptly turned around, ran back through the crowd of runners to come find us and take pics with us!
(2nd photo stolen from his blog. so sue me. i havent seen a copywrite)

M. map
i barely looked at one, nor was i good at reading them when i saw one on the T, but this one was pretty cool.

N. neon & new balance
lots and lots of neon this weekend

and i won a pair of new balance minimalist sneakers (retailing $100!) at a blogger happy hour! after wearing them walking around all day on sunday and monday, feet fairly sore, i read the tag that came with the shoe regarding breaking them in slowly and not wearing them too much to walk around in. whoops.

O. operation jack
boston marathon goal: sub 3 hours
boston marathon finishing time: 2:57:53
mission accomplished.

P. PICKLES! seriously.... seriously?!

Q. quotes: "girl, you will not buy that sweatshirt for your baby bump"
"yup. shes on my island"
"um alright well were on the wrong train"
"im gonna need more whipped cream"
"so i guess i should tell you, ive never had an espresso before"
"before we leave i will be taking your photo on that toilet"
"were eating dinner at a bowling alley in a parking garage"
"im gonna go buy you a beer but you have a job to do"
"are these real strawberries?"
(on marathon training): "do i have to lift weights on my off days?"... "are you going to stop and lift weights during a marathon? no."
"im gonna have to lose like 5 pounds"... "where are you going to lose 5 pounds? cut off your leg?"

ohhhh this list goes on and on and on....

R. ryan hall & rooftop party
oh yeah, our friend ryan hall finished 4th. word.

S. sox
nothing like 4th row from the back wall of the beachers! thanks for the tickets, sam!

T. t rides

U. UMmmmm.......
boston in and of itself was a
V. VERY
incredible weekend. it was full of
W. WILDLY
incredible friends, family, runners, walkers, spectators, and supporters alike. if youre planning on going to the marathon next year, DO IT!! just make sure you leave plenty of
X. XTRA
time to take everything in and meet all the incredible people out there. everyone has a story, and they are amazing. *(you thought i was going to have to put xylophone here, didnt you!?). alright boston, ill see
Y. YOU
again next year... maybe from the other side of the metal bars? and now its time to catch up on the
Z. ZZZZZZZZZ's 
i lost last weekend.