Melissa likes to pretend you care

featuring: mostly things about which probably only I will be excited

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Also terribly important:

my 101 things in 1001 days list

my race results

Photo Post
thoughts while running this race on Thursday: This hurts. My lungs are really unhappy. Oy, why do I do this to myself again? I need to learn how to run a race for fun and not care what my time is. I might hate myself less while it is happening. I do not enjoy this pain. I think I should go on a racing hiatus. Perhaps until April 29th. If I had realized beforehand that they spelled my name incorrectly (Mellissa, not to be confused with the Melisa who ran the NYC Marathon), perhaps I could have used that anger as additional motivation/distraction from the pain.  I managed to PR, shake Ashenfelter’s hand, and leave there with a sleeve of Oreos, so I consider that a successful Thanksgiving morning.

thoughts while running this race on Thursday:

  • This hurts. My lungs are really unhappy.
  • Oy, why do I do this to myself again?
  • I need to learn how to run a race for fun and not care what my time is. I might hate myself less while it is happening.
  • I do not enjoy this pain. I think I should go on a racing hiatus. Perhaps until April 29th.

If I had realized beforehand that they spelled my name incorrectly (Mellissa, not to be confused with the Melisa who ran the NYC Marathon), perhaps I could have used that anger as additional motivation/distraction from the pain. 

I managed to PR, shake Ashenfelter’s hand, and leave there with a sleeve of Oreos, so I consider that a successful Thanksgiving morning.

Posted in this is why I run too
Photo Post
PR! The Nat sisters’ first Half together! Running, you are tricky. Last Wednesday I ran just 3 tempo miles at a slower pace than this and it wrecked me. I was ready to accept that perhaps the lack of roller derby (and the 2-3 practices per week that came along with it) in my life these days meant I was not in the same shape I was last year even though I’m using the same training plan. After that run I could not comprehend coming in anywhere close to last October’s Boston Half time (my PR) when I raced this weekend. No. Way. The planets aligned, though, and, obviously motivated by the promise of Bret Michaels at the finish line, I PRed by 9 seconds, which is awesome for my training confidence, and, oh, my sense of accomplishment in general. The weather was ideal, and the course was lovely (even if I managed to ignore most of the historic sites we ran past), and made me all sentimental because I spent many a spring Sunday morning along the Schuylkill River for crew races in high school (back when I was a girl who found just running around a few laps around the park at practice torture - how times have changed). Good stuff all around. The rest of my training week: a mere 31 miles total because of faux-tapering for the race, my long run being only (ha) 13 miles, and because I opted to skip my mile time trial because the trauma-to-value ratio for getting that accomplished is super low.

PR! The Nat sisters’ first Half together!

Running, you are tricky. Last Wednesday I ran just 3 tempo miles at a slower pace than this and it wrecked me. I was ready to accept that perhaps the lack of roller derby (and the 2-3 practices per week that came along with it) in my life these days meant I was not in the same shape I was last year even though I’m using the same training plan. After that run I could not comprehend coming in anywhere close to last October’s Boston Half time (my PR) when I raced this weekend. No. Way.

The planets aligned, though, and, obviously motivated by the promise of Bret Michaels at the finish line, I PRed by 9 seconds, which is awesome for my training confidence, and, oh, my sense of accomplishment in general. The weather was ideal, and the course was lovely (even if I managed to ignore most of the historic sites we ran past), and made me all sentimental because I spent many a spring Sunday morning along the Schuylkill River for crew races in high school (back when I was a girl who found just running around a few laps around the park at practice torture - how times have changed). Good stuff all around.

The rest of my training week: a mere 31 miles total because of faux-tapering for the race, my long run being only (ha) 13 miles, and because I opted to skip my mile time trial because the trauma-to-value ratio for getting that accomplished is super low.

Posted in this is why I run too NYC 2011 26.2 take four