All posts in category Running

Fall 2013, Number 5: Set a new 10k PR

Where’s Sarah?! Should I have worn a stripey outfit instead?

This was my third year running the Boston Firefighters Memorial 10k – it was my first ever race at the 10k distance two years ago, and both last year and this year I ~~conned~~ convinced a bunch of my running peeps to do it with me. It’s a fun race with a great band playing after, and the weather tends to be perfect for hanging out post-race in a parking lot with good people. Plus, one of our running peeps happens to be a firefighter at the BFD, and we love to support him and his colleagues.

(I apologize in advance if you’re not a runner, this is kind of long but hopefully not super boring?)

I was determined to set a new personal record (PR) at this race this year. The course in past years was flat and fast, and thanks to consistent bootcamping I’ve been running faster in the last six months than I have since I started running again post-college. The course was changed not long before the race, so I didn’t know what to expect until the morning of the race…which made me a little nervous, but it worked out great – the new course avoided the big hill near the start/finish that I had been worrying about. Plus, now the final mile (1.1 miles if you want to get technical) loops through the park that was a part of our regular stomping grounds when we lived in Lower Mills – lots of good memories to get me through the last bit of the race!

I lined up at the start with a number of ladies from the running club, but knew that some of them are too fast for me to even dream about keeping up with, and some of them were taking it easy as they had run the BAA Half Marathon the week before. I jokingly commented to one of them, Angi, that if I pace with her I’d nail my PR – knowing that I run with her during our regular runs when I’m trying to get some speed in (and occassionally when she humors me and slows down to something closer to my usual pace) – but I also told her that I knew she was only seven days out from a half, so I was expecting her to run her own race and ditch me at some point to slow down and take it easy.

Boston Fire Fighters 10k fire boat | My Monotonous Life

But here’s the thing about running buddies…they love to crush their own goals, but they also love to watch and help you crush yours. It was honestly unintentional, but once I had planted the seed of “if we run 9:20 miles, I’ll PR this race” into Angi’s head, that seed started to grow. Our first mile was pretty comfy pace-wise and a little crowded, so we were just racing along each of us listening to our own music and thoughts. Right around the mile 1 marker there was a pothole that caught Angi and she fell. (I should note here that at least three other runners stopped to help her up if needed and make sure she was okay. Runners really are the best!) We walked for a minute and she tried to tell me to go on without her – it was my race…but I don’t leave my people behind, especially if they may be hurt. She was feeling okay and ready to run again pretty quickly, and I’m not sure if that was exactly when she decided I was going to PR or what, but as soon as we had our mile 2 splits (me on my watch, her through her phone), she told me she was pacing me to my PR and that was that.

A portion of the course is an out-and back on Morrissey Boulevard (love seeing the BFD fire boat in the harbor!) so Angi and I had a great time seeking out and cheering for all of the Running Dawgs as everyone turned around. Around mile 5.5, we passed another one of them – Pete2 (we have three Petes, so we numbered them. Pete1 is my Pete, Pete2 is the big brother of the group, and Pete3 we like to call the Mayor of Quincy because whenever we are out socially he runs into multiple people he knows…I digress). At this point Angi was trying to ~~kill~~ inspire me…she was keeping about 5-10 steps ahead of me and forcing me to chase her. I said hey to Pete2 as I passed him, and just kept chasing Angi. Then I started hearing someone chasing me, and realized pretty quickly it was Pete2. The three of us ran through the last bit of the park that way: me chasing Angi, Pete2 chasing me. As we turned the corner onto the street with the finish line right in front of us, we were side by side. And so this happened:

A finish that was 1 minute and 15 seconds faster than my previous 10k PR, complete with an awesome finish line photo of the three of us finishing side by side.

New 10k PR? NAILED IT.

6 Comments

by Sarah G on November 25, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in A List: Fall 2013, friends, Running

Posted by Sarah G on November 25, 2013

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2013/11/25/fall-2013-number-5-set-a-new-10k-pr/

Number 1: Get back into a regular workout routine

You have probably figured out by now that I’ve managed to create a running habit. Unfortunately, that’s about where my fitness habits usually end, and that means that while I’m in okay shape cardio-wise, I have the wimpiest muscles there could be. Last spring some of my co-workers put together a wellness challenge, and part of the challenge was to work out more, while another part involved weight loss. I knew that if I was going to earn my points in both of those aspects, I needed to get strong(er, at least) and I figured that the boot camp class I used to see sometimes when I was meeting my running club would probably get the job done.

Google-fu led me to A Healthy Balance – and lucky me they had a deal on one of the local voucher sites so I could attend eight boot camp classes AND get a massage for cheap. I heart cheap, and the timing was perfect, so I signed up.

Let me digress for a second. You guys, I really love to support my local community – the more local and close to my home, the better. I love to find local, small business that are doing great things. Then I love to spend my money there, tell everyone I know about them, and do whatever else I can to support them. I especially love to do this when I get to interact with the people running the business and they are cool people. I ESPECIALLY love to do this when I interact with the people running the business, they are cool people, and they are women. You see where I’m leading you, right? A Healthy Balance is run by two women, and one of them runs the boot camp classes. That’s Alicia, and I think she’s awesome.

I also think Alicia’s boot camp classes are awesome. I have never, in my life, stuck with any strength-related fitness routine…until I found A Health Balance. Here’s where I come clean: Alicia would almost certainly argue that I haven’t exactly “stuck with” boot camp either, and she’s not wrong – I have arthritis in my knees, (because I am 33 going on 80) and I let a flare-up last summer lead to a far-too-long hiatus. I put this on my Spring To Do list because I need to get this habit jump started and deeply engrained. I’m getting there! The knees have been flaring up again lately, and I’m trying my best to balance work and life and boot camp as best I can. You know what makes it easier? Having a class that is fun (even when it’s kicking your ass), where you laugh far more often than you would expect to while working out, and where you are constantly meeting other women that you think are pretty cool.

There are a few other bonuses, as well. I’m definitely stronger than I used to be. I can see muscles where there used to be none (specifically in my arms, although Pete is a jerk and does not agree. Pretty sure he’s jealous.). I’m also running faster, which is fun even if I’m not exactly competitive. You know what else? Even when I can’t make it to boot camp I end up doing all those things that magazines and TV shows and trainers and Pinterest all tell you to do: planks and squats and lunges during commercial breaks, wall sits while I wait for the microwave to finish, push ups when I’m working from home and waiting for a report to download. I think I can cross this one off the To Do list*.

* …even if I’ve got no pictures to prove it…there is video evidence somewhere, but I haven’t come across it yet. I’ll let you know when I do, as I suspect that may be what launches my future career as a fitness model. ;)

6 Comments

by Sarah G on July 10, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in A List: Spring 2013, Quincy, Running

Posted by Sarah G on July 10, 2013

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2013/07/10/number-1-get-back-into-a-regular-workout-routine/

How I found my people

I have been wanting to blog about this for a long time, but every time I sit down to write it gets looooooong. Here’s the shortest version of this I could manage:

I’ve got great people. My family is amazing, although for the most part they are 500 miles away. I’m incredibly lucky to have a group of friends that I’ve known since high school – twenty years now! – and am very close to. I mentioned our Boston Posse friends when I posted about out trip to Melbourne. They filled a gap that I don’t think I realized I had until I met them: they were my city family. We all lived within a quick T trip of each other (and in some cases, a short walk from each other), we were all up for just about any adventure, and we were all ready to get drinks or dinner without much advance planning. When contracts started expiring and our Boston Posse friends started moving back home or somewhere new (London, Amsterdam, Rome, Brisbane, Melbourne, Oregon, Atlanta), Pete and I really felt that empty gap.

But Boston is a notoriously hard city to meet people in, and I actually think it’s that much harder for someone like me: I grew up locally and have a social and support network….in the suburbs. When transplants meet each other, they have that much in common, but that missing link isn’t there for me to build a friendship on. Pete is a transplant – although he has been here for twelve years now – but he’s also an introvert. With the deck stacked against us, I spent a while trying to figure out where to find the community I was looking for.

It wasn’t until we moved to Quincy that we did it. I was trying to form a running habit that had long escaped me so I went looking for a local running club. See…I’m inherently lazy, I need the accountability of meeting a workout buddy to get off the couch. In other words, I’m a dog runner. A google search turned up only one option in Quincy, but it was a dormant group on meetup.com: The Quincy Running Dawgs I emailed the organizer, Harvey, asking if he would be willing to let me post events – I was planning to run a few nights a week after work, so why not just post them and see if anyone showed up? He was happy to oblige, so I quickly mapped out a short route that met somewhere public that was within walking distance of our new apartment.

I’ll skip the entire Quincy Running Dawgs history lesson and jump to the present…you guys! I found my people! When I first posted those runs there were only four or five of us that showed up. It took about a year for the club to turn out regular, sizable attendance, but as that happened I quickly realized that we were super lucky: everyone that joined and started showing up was friendly, easy going, encouraging, and had a good sense of humor. Our group has grown from four to forty regulars. We run together four times a week, we race together monthly, and we get drinks or brunch together in between.

More importantly, this group has spawned a lot of relationships that don’t rely on an event posted on meetup.com to bring people together. Pete and I have made friends who we sometimes text on a Sunday afternoon in order to make plans for Sunday dinner. One of them was awesome enough to cat sit for us while we were in Australia for two weeks in April! Sometimes during the football season, when I leave the house to avoid having to watch it I come home and find Harvey drinking beers and watching football with Pete. When we had no heat and power during the blizzard, it was one of our running club friends who took us in, made us coffee and frozen pizza, and let us soak up her heat to get warm.

This running club was the community I was looking for all along. They are my people, and I’m repeatedly grateful for having found them!

7 Comments

by Sarah G on June 10, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in friends, Quincy, Running

Posted by Sarah G on June 10, 2013

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2013/06/10/how-i-found-my-people/

So…June happened…

Umm, you guys? Are you still there? I would apologize for the lack of time I’ve spent here, only I’m not sorry! This summer has been flying by, and between some stressful work stuff and a lot of really fun personal stuff…well, there hasn’t been much in the way of pictures or blog stuff. I’m slowly catching up with the pictures, so I thought I’d catch you all up here, as well! When I started writing this post it included everything since my last post here…and then I realized it was way too much for one post, so here’s our June!

(This may take a while, you should maybe grab a beverage and get comfy.)

Back before even the unofficial start of summer, we bought a picnic table. There’s been a fair amount of this going on all summer long:

Sometimes there are neighbors involved, sometimes there are movies being watched on laptops, and sometimes there are guitars being played.

In early June, I ran a 5-mile race. This is what I look like when I’m running…although I’m sure if there’s no camera pointed at me, I look less happy about it:

Unfortunately I don’t have pictures to prove it, but the night after that race I went to see Lana in La Boheme, and it was awesome! I do have pictures of the following day, however, when I went to the (poorly executed) Food Truck Festival at UMass Boston with a few friends. We overcame the event’s poor execution with a divide-and-conquer plan, which led to lots of tasty treats and slightly less standing in line than most people experienced. It also led to me discovering the amazing corn salad in the photo, which I have since managed to recreate twice and am obsessed with. A beautiful day on the waterfront with good company and lots of good food…can’t really complain!

The following weekend, Pete ran eight miles from our house to the Harpoon Brewery with our running club, while I drank sangria and celebrated this little one’s third birthday. I’m pretty sure I got the better end of the deal on that one! ;)

Our last weekend in June was a long one, and we flew out to Wisconsin to see Pete’s family and celebrate his cousin Mitch’s high school graduation. We flew into Milwaukee and spent a few hours exploring downtown before we headed to Pete’s parents. We had fun in our short wander, and found more cool stuff than we anticipated. We spent a lot of our time wandering noticing all the differences between Boston and Milwaukee: one month of parking in downtown MKE = one and a half days of parking in downtown BOS. Real Estate is clearly not a premium in MKE, as evidenced by the abundance of above ground parking lots and lack of parking garages. All of the sidewalks in MKE are stamped with the year they poured (and often who poured them), while in BOS our sidewalks are only sometimes stamped, and only with the company that poured them. When it comes to the waterfront, you can see through the clear, blue water in MKE and well…you definitely can’t say that about the water in BOS! The rest of our weekend was spent catching up with Pete’s family and relaxing, which was much needed.

Upon returning, we celebrated this guy’s birthday with our running club. Our running club is pretty amazing, and I really need to spend a separate post talking about that some time.

And then? It was July.

Number Two: Run a 10k

Is this picture like Where’s Waldo? That’s me in the I heart Sweat t-shirt, in case you couldn’t tell. Pictures of people running aren’t very flattering – I look even goofier in the official “finish line” photo than I do in this one that Pete took.

So back in August I registered for the Boston Firefighters 10k, which is organized by the Local 718 IAFF, whose union hall is located just off the bike path that we used to run along back when we lived in Dorchester (and which I miss, A LOT). I wasn’t expecting to set any records and I’ve never raced this distance before, but I figured it was something to work towards. Something that would keep me running consistently and would push me beyond the mileage I was used to. Well, it worked! :) I ended up keeping my usual week-day running schedule and adding in a longer run than I was used to on the weekends. I even managed to stick with my training schedule for the most part, which surprised even me! I felt better on my longer runs than I anticipated, and I even convinced Pete to join me on my first six mile run – a distance record for him, too. Unfortunately, that’s where he capped out. When it came time for my seven miler, he ran the first three-ish miles with me and then turned back home while I kept going. Slacker!

As for the actual race, Pete played the part of sherpa for the day and carried a bag so I didn’t have to worry about what to do with my warmer layers from before we started or about carrying anything with me while I ran. Thanks, Pete! The weather was pretty perfect – low 60’s and sunny, although the wind could have been a bit less…windy and it would have been okay. The course was pretty scenic – following Gallivan/203 to Morrissey Boulevard, looping around UMass Boston, and then returning along Morrissey Boulevard and Gallivan/203. Nothing fancy, but nice views of Dorchester Bay for most of it (and there were a lot of flashbacks to my 3 Day training walks, as well!). I think there were around 1,200 runners total which meant the course wasn’t very crowded except for the first few minutes after the gun went off and that was really nice. The start was a free-for-all – no corrals or signs to line folks up by pace – and it turns out that I’m not even remotely good at guessing people’s pace by sight, haha! I figured I would try to line myself up to start near some folks that looked about my pace…and I failed miserably. :) In the end, I passed plenty of people and plenty of people passed me, and I finished close to my goal pace. Which is far more than I can ask for when I spent most of the previous day nursing a migraine and alternating between sleeping and nauseous instead of hydrating and relaxing.

I guess the long and short of it is that it was a fun day, I did what I wanted to do running-wise, and I’m looking forward to running this race again next year!

2 Comments

by Sarah G on October 17, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in A List: Fall 2011, Running, self portraits

Posted by Sarah G on October 17, 2011

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2011/10/17/number-two-run-a-10k/