Maple Leaf 5 mile

On September 29th LJ and I ran the Maple Leaf 5 mile race, which was a part of the Oktoberfest celebration in La Crosse.  It felt good to run a race, but I wish I would have trained a little bit more.  I did most of my runs leading up to the race with Henry in the BOB stroller and most of my runs were 3.5 miles or less.  I probably should have conditioned a little bit more and actually run 5 miles before the race, but I met my goal which was to run 10 minute miles or less.  I finished in 47 min, which is a little over a 9 min mile pace, so I was happy.  LJ stayed with me the whole time encouraging me and providing motivation!  Thanks babe!
                                  

 I need another race to train for so I have more motivation to run further (and hopefully faster)!  

All done with my work out and its only 8am!  9/29/12

The last race I did before getting pregnant was actually the Colorado Relay in August 2010, so its been a long time!  The Colorado Relay (now the Ragnar Relay) is a fantastic relay race where teams of 10 people run through the mountains of Colorado taking turns and running through the night.  Each person runs three legs and has close to 8 hours of rest time in between each leg.  Many of the legs are beautiful trail runs through winding Aspen stands and rivers, but some of the legs are just along a road (especially the legs during the night).  I've done the race twice (once in 2007, when I captained a team, and again in 2010) and LJ has done it three times.  We both love the race and the camaraderie you feel when you spend over 24 hours running, driving, running, and *trying* to sleep, with 10 awesome friends.  When we did the race in 2010 it was about 170 miles and started in Georgetown and ended in Carbondale.  Now that the race has become the Ragnar Relay its about 200 miles and they've totally reconfigured the route.

August 2010 on top of Vail Pass

Hanging with my girls, Jessie, and Margaret. Getting ready to run 7.5 miles off the pass and into the town of Vail.

The Colorado Realy usually starts on Friday and ends on Saturday.  In 2010 that Friday happened to be the day that there was a "meet your teacher" event at my school (it was the Friday before school actually started) so I worked that day until 4pm, then hopped in my car and drove up to Copper Mt, which was where my team was at that point and joined up with them.  I had to miss running one of my legs, but my good friend Morgan (who was then training for a marathon) happily helped out and ran it for me.  I ended up with two great legs though!  One in which I ran close to 8 miles from Vail pass into Vail, and another great leg 4.5 miles through Glenwood Canyon.

Getting the transfer from LJ, and taking off on my scariest leg!  7.5 miles IN THE DARK through the WOODS all by myself!
I kept yelling to make sure I wasn't "sneaking up" on any bears or mountain lions! 

FINISHED!  In 27 hours or something... our awesome team!