Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Team Fight

 Ok blogger, you win, I'll post this without pictures.

I'm finally doing something I've been wanting to do for a long time - using a race as an opportunity to raise money for a wonderful cause. I always feel so guilty when people are like "so....are you doing this race to raise money for anything?" and I'm like "uhhh....no just selfishly throwing my money away for the t-shirt". I have raised money for organizations my doing a breast cancer walk and a 5k, but I am really excited to use the 2011 Baltimore Marathon as a fundraiser. PS it seems weird that I have to add the date now since it's my second Baltimore Marathon!

I decided to join Team Fight, an organization that supports young adults who are battling cancer. There are so many worthy organizations its hard to choose but since you would be hard pressed to find a single person who hasn't had a direct or indirect experience with cancer that seemed like a good choice. This past year someone close to me had a cancer scare (which turned out to be fine), but the scare was horrible enough and I can't imagine how hard it would have been to actually go through. I also lost my grandmother to breast cancer when I was only 3 - I don't remember her much, and it's sad that I didn't get to grow up knowing her, my brother doesn't remember her at all, and my sister never even got to meet her.

If any of my wonderful readers would be willing to donate, please visit my Team Fight website - every little bit helps!

Does it count as two-a-day if you do yoga and run in the same day? Or does it have to be the same workout? What if both workouts are so intense that you fear puking in front of everyone both times?

Bikram - 90 minutes of hardcore yoga in 115 degree heat - if you have tried and it and can get through it without nearly vomiting or feeling like you may black out, please share your secret. Before I ever did yoga I thought it was just stretching and not a "real" workout - oh how wrong I was.

Running - I had my first track workout of my training program for the Baltimore Marathon. At this point I'm not sure what exactly I'm training for, but the group I run with is a marathon training group. After my second 50K it will be officially just marathon training.

When we arrived, we found out we were doing a 2 - mile timed trial - run 2 miles all out to get a baseline for your ability. Had I known we were running 2 miles all out in 88 degree weather, I maybe wouldn't have totally dehydrated and exhausted myself at Bikram, (or the Baltimore Ten Miller, for that matter) but what was done, was done.

According to my Garmin, my two mile time was 15:35, which really annoys me, because my time at the beginning of last year's training was 15:07. Between that and adding 4 minutes to my Baltimore 10 Miller time, I feel like I am getting slower and slower. Is it just the focus on distance, not speed this spring? Are my legs still tired from racing? Is my loyalty to dessert and eating massive amounts of cake somehow not compatible with running faster?

4 comments:

  1. Two miles in 15-something minutes? I wish! It's hot out. I say give yourself a break :) Cake is a necessity!

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  2. Maybe you need a hair cut. I hear that makes you faster. :)

    I'm considering raising money for the Marine Corps Marathon, but I'm afraid I won't be able to make my goal and I don't know what they do to you then...public whipping?

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  3. Definitely not the cake. Maybe blame it on the 88 and just after Bikram. I'd have a hard time running all out in 88 too!

    Or maybe the haircut thing like Kara said. I did get a haircut in between my April and May half marathons and I shaved off 3:30, so I think it would be safe to say my PR was due to having less curly hair bouncing around :-p

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  4. dude I need to raise money for a race too. I can't believe I've never done it. If I had one wish in the world it would be for ice cream to make everyone faster :)

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Thanks for commenting! Comments make me probably more happy than they should.