Race Recap: ATC's Father's Day 4-miler

Photo courtesy of the Atlanta Track Club

This was my first 4-miler race. I think I like this distance. I signed up for another next month. The route was super hilly, as to be expected when running any given route in Atlanta. I'm glad I'd been running hills and speed training previously. The hills in Grant Park are no joke. They can be super discouraging. Although I was used to hills, I hadn't run a steep hill without slowing down in a while. I was VERY surprised that I not only got up the hill at a good pace, but kept a steady pace even afterwards.

My first bib with my name on it. I was pleasantly surprised. :-)

The finish line was the best so far! We ended the race right inside of Turner Field. I hadn't been inside Turner Field before. The last time I went to see the Braves play, they played at the old Atlanta Stadium and I was in elementary school. I kinda can't wait for the next one.

My 1-Year "Racer-versary" & Today's Workout

Packet pick-up area at ACS's Starlite Stride 5k

This past weekend I celebrated my one year anniversary of racing. :-) I ran the Starlite Stride 5k Run/Walk to benefit the Atlanta Children's Shelter. This was my first race last year, except it wasn't at night. It was cool. Pretty low key. Much less people and theatrics than last year (Phaedra from Real Housewives of Atlanta who is/was on the board and her cameras were there following her, as well as a former Falcons player). I wasn't expecting much. I'm glad actually. It's a genuine charity and I could tell they went the cheap route on everything. To me that shows they could actually be putting the money back into the facility and the kids it supports. One of my near future goals is to volunteer here.

I didn't get an overall PR, but I did beat last year's time by a little. Clock time said 29:51. My watch said 29:38. The best part of the race was high-fiving some of the children cheering us on while running through the second mile.

Today's Workout
I wanted to run the trail this evening, but the weather kind of ruined that wish.

Before I did anything, I had breakfast...

Mixed Berry Smoothie

1 cup of mixed berries 

(strawberries, blueberries, raspberries)

1 cup of spinach

1/2 cup of orange juice

1/2 cup of plain nonfat yogurt

1 serving of vanilla soy protein powder

348 calories

...and then got to it.

45 minutes of intervals on Level 9.

The 2 extra minutes were from working in reverse.

Who knows if that's how many calories I really burned. This HRM didn't come with a chest strap, which I hear is more accurate. The elliptical calories can't be accurate either, because I didn't hold on to the handles the entire time for it to accurately measure my heart rate and account for my level of intensity (& those inclines were intense).

No gym access, not always a problem!

And after that, I came home and did a 20-minute circuit training, including the short warm-up and cool down.

Race Recap: Firefly Run ATL

I'm super late with this post...

The FireFly Run Atlanta was my first night 5k (10/1/11) and it was so much fun! At first I was going to use this as a "fun run", but with a $35 registration cost, I quickly recanted that thought.  I decided this was going to be the perfect race for me to earn a new personal best in the 5k.  Not only had I done the route several times with my running group (before they made the route public), I loved that it was at night and we'd have glow-in-the-dark gadgets, etc.  I love, love, love running in cooler temps.  Matter of fact, that's how I started out.

The most exciting news is that I PR'ed! Yep, I'm finally apart of the sub-30 club, finishing at 29:10.  I had a goal of finishing sub-29, so that 10 seconds is kind of annoying.  I'm blaming that on the hill at the very end though.

In other news, I'm back down to 140lbs (my original -60lb weight goal and what I now consider my "race weight") I have two more races this month. One is another night race I'm doing for the camaraderie and in support of another up and coming runner.  At the end of the month I'm doing a major race (at least for me), the Atlanta Marathon Relay. I'm very excited to be apart of a relay team, and not until last week did I think being apart of a marathon (besides volunteering) would be occurring so soon.  But more details on that in a later post.  

Here's a few pictures from my night race...(I vow to get better with remembering to take pics in the first place lol)

Race Recap: My 1st Race

Atlanta Children's Shelter 5K -  6/11/11 - Piedmont Park

I chose the ACS 5K (3.1 mi) race to support the stabilization of homeless families with young children.  Kids shouldn't have to suffer.

I started my Nike+ GPS app a little early, so technically I ran 3.4 mi in 31:47 (9:20 pace).  I had no prior knowledge of the exact route, so this wasn't bad considering it was very hilly!  Hopefully I'll meet my time goal of finishing a 5K in under 30 min. at the next race in two weeks (HBCU Alumni Alliance 5K).

I RUN to maintain my weight loss and it's a challenge I've always wanted to conquer.

Calories burned = 230 calories in 31 minutes