Right on track (ba-doom)

One more weekend done, with a fair amount of bike racing and some crappy weather on Saturday with a lot of knitting, movies, and Wii.
Track on Friday was really awesome. It was the regional qualifiers for elite nationals, so most of the women who normally race with the 3 or 1/2 men raced with the other women. This drove up the pace, drove up the distance (20 laps versus our normal 8-12 for a scratch race), and drove up the number of racers (18 versus 8-12, again) but it was incredibly fun. The scratch race was fast and featured quite jumpy at the beginning, with a lot of attacks. I didn't seem to have any trouble staying with the group and put in enough work at the front so as not to feel guilty, though I definitely wasn't attacking. I wouldn't be able to go to nationals (top 5 in the race qualified), even if I wanted to, so I was mainly just racing for fun. Somehow with a lap to go, I was in an incredibly position and was able to sprint into the final corner neck to neck with another racer vying for 5th place, another racer who actually intended to go to nationals. In the 2 seconds I had of noticing where I was, I realized I should just try to keep 6th, so I sprinted enough to keep it. I truthfully don't think i could have actually gotten 5th if I'd wanted, but I didn't let anyone else come around me. The miss n' out went really well, too, though I was actually trying for top 5, as it wasn't a qualifier, and didn't get it. I ended up in 7th, the second to last person pulled from the field. Considering that our field had jumped up about 3 levels in caliber for the night, 7th sure isn't bad.
I did an actual road race on Saturday, the Skagit Flats (I think) circuit race. It was only 25 miles, 5 laps of about 5 miles each, and it was pretty fast as it was 1-3s. Amara and I were riding together during the neutral part, mentioning how we had no idea what type of endurance we had due to our track racing. The first couple laps were really punchy with attacks coming really suddenly. I didn't attack, but I did help reel some back in (I'm much better at that than attacking, anyway). There were only 14 women in the field (less than at the track!), and eventually 2 women got off the front. No one really tried to chase them down seriously for too long. We eventually got organized: 5 of us rotating through, the rest hanging on, but it was way too late and the gap kept opening. I felt way better than I expected and was really able to do my share of the work, which was surprising giving how I haven't been doing any training other than track racing and the occasional mountain bike rides and crits. Also surprising was that I was the only one from my team. I haven't had that happen since my days on the now defunct Ti Cycles. TGH is normally crazy out in force but apparently not on this past Sunday (weather was marginal for what it's worth). Anyway, I totally was screwed for positioning with about 1 km to go, we swallowed one of the women who had fallen off the break, and another woman made a jump close to the end and held on for 2nd. I somehow moved around some people and got 5th in the field sprint, for 7th overall. Top half, oh yeah. It was incredibly fun, despite the frustration from the small field and no teammates. But I'm glad to know that I have at least 25-30 miles of endurance in me, good coming into cross.
And today. Today was not so good. I had taken some hard core antibiotics over the weekend, and I think they've totally destroyed my digestive tract. I went for a 6 mile run, having eaten about an hour before (normal for me), and I just felt like I was going to puke the entire time. It wasn't like a really-pushing-myself feeling, too; it was a queasy feeling. Every time I got water, I had to walk for a couple minutes to calm my stomach down. My legs felt fine, too; all problems were in the stomach. Tomorrow, I will only eat yogurt. Sure.

A dog named Murdoch

From Westport Bound

After a weekend of fun mountain biking at Duthie (which was awesome to ride and play around the infield) and a trip to Westport, WA (where I made friends with a black lab named Murdoch), I've been getting my running in. I haven't been doing any biking during the week, seriously, for the past couple months, so the running is just bonus.
Monday evening: 4.8 miles in about 50 minutes
Thursday morning: 5.4 miles in about 55 minutes
I actually registered for the half marathon on Labor Day. I need to work up to at least 10 miles before then. I think it shouldn't be too difficult. I've felt good after my runs, though this morning I was a bit slow to start. I'm definitely doing 10 minute miles, not too fast, but I think that will get better as I figure out this whole regularly running thing. I'm going to try for 6-8 miles in one run this weekend, probably Sunday. We'll see how that goes.

I might be crazy

So, I've decided that I'm going to run a half marathon. I've chosen the Super Jock and Jill Half because it's close, flat, and soon (and doesn't overlap with cyclocross significantly). I have Haruki Murakami's book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running to blame for this. I never cared about these types of distances before, but now I want to try. And, no, I'm not going to start reading other running/sports books. I normally don't like them at all, but Murakami is one of my favorite fiction authors, so I thought I'd give it a try.
I posted on Facebook about this, in inquiring whether it was a crazy idea to start training now for a run in Sept., and people offered a lot of useful and positive suggestions. Some were overzealous in there advice for a training plan, but I won't hold that against them. I've learned that using a training plan makes me hate things that I'm supposed to love. And based on track season this year, I apparently can still race into shape successfully. If figure as long as I can work up to 10 miles in one run, I can whip out 13, though obviously I'm going to try for 13. I'd like to do it in under 2 hours, but I really don't care that much about time as long as I run the whole thing.
So in order to kick off the running, I went for a 3.1 mile loop from my house to Greenlake and back. I found a little website (livestrong, really, maybe you've heard?) that's 20 billion times better than mapmyride.com in terms of ads and negotiability, so here's the loop. I think I took about 38 minutes to do the full 3.1 miles, though it was the first time I've run in over a month. Plus, I got stopped at a bunch of crosswalks, including the longest traffic light in Seattle, apparently. Excuses already! This is going perfectly!