I’ve moved! Please follow my new blog!

Hi everyone! If you’ve been following me on Correle Martha, welcome to my new home on Brownie Runs! I’ve enjoyed running and blogging so much that I have switched to a self-hosted WordPress site. Please go to www.brownieruns.com to continue following my journey!

I am new to the wordpress creation world and there is a steep learning curve. So be patient while I switch over all my pages and menus and figure out what the heck I’m doing.

Tomorrow I will blog about my 17 mile run last week and the upcoming 49 days before the marathon!

Hope you’ll join me!

Week 10- The not-so-good longest run so far and my wedding anniversary!

It’s been such a full week and it’s only continuing now. I’d like to blog more often because I feel when I finally sit down I have so much to tell, but it’s hard finding the time to just sit still and write!

This last Sunday was my longest run to date- 14 miles! I got up bright and early to meet my team at 5:30 in the morning. I’m being featured in the Space Coast Runners Newsletter in the ‘ Run a Mile With’ column. Basically a little feature about runners in our community. I was excited they asked me to be interviewed and submit some photos. I knew I wanted a picture of my team so we took one this last Sunday.

Well the picture was the easy part! I didn’t have time that morning to eat, I only had my smoothie. I think this along with other things going on that day made my iron drop. I felt drained.  My friend started having hip pain so around mile 11 for me (9  for her, she was doing 12), we dropped back from the group. Instead of doing 30:30 intervals, we started running 30 seconds and walking 1:30. We did this for the last 3 miles or so. On the way, we found a guy that was running on his own and struggling. He joined us and we chatted along the way. He used to be really athletic in high school and college, but now in his 40’s, he had a hard time making exercise a regular thing. The three of us encouraged each other and had a good time.

I came home and rushed to get ready to go to church. I don’t always go to church on Sundays due to my training, but my husband was helping during the service. We go to a Methodist church that we enjoy a lot. The vision statement is ‘ Love God, Love each other and Love our neighbors in extraordinary ways”. I think having such an open, welcoming and accepting vision as this is what it’s all about.

We then headed to a fundraiser for the Melbourne Avian Rescue Sanctuary. One of my friends is a bird owner and deeply involved with the organization ( she’s on the right hand side). Did you know many of these birds live for decades, sometimes 80 years! That’s why this rescue organization is so important, many times they take in the same bird over and over. It’s not as glamorous as a puppy rescue, but I love all animals. We had a great time.  There were 4 wines to taste and my husband loved being surrounded by all women (the girls in the middle were sitting with us).

When we finally came home, I think I was too wound up to actually take a nap. We decided to order in a pizza ( I had, after all, a 1400 calorie deficiency). While I was ordering the pizza, my Twitter notifications started going off. My friend Laurita over at Espresso Con Leche was holding a giveaway on her blog for Marc Anthony tickets. Now before you knock him, he is an idol in the salsa genre. I admit that I do not like him singing in English, but this man knows how to do salsa well. I’ve been wanting to see him for a while know, but as he lives in Miami, Florida concerts are some of his most popular. Tickets are always expensive. But I had thought, ‘Why Not?’, since this is the actual day of our 6th wedding anniversary. I bit the bullet and bought the tickets. Then on Sunday, it turns out I won tickets on her blog! I promptly sold mine on StubHub. I was worried we’d be up in the nosebleeds, but these are club level tickets! I am elated to celebrate our anniversary listening to one of our favorite singers. I’ve always said one of the best things we did for our marriage was learn how to dance. There is so much non-verbal communication and it’s also downright hot when a man knows how to dance. So pardon my wedding collage.

My wedding, like most of my life, was on the Texas-Mexico border. We got married in a church in El Paso, TX where I went to school and had friends, but later, we crossed into Cd. Juarez for the reception, where most of my family lives. To this date, my friends say it is one of the most fun weddings they have attended. The mariachi was first class and was a gift from my dad. I wouldn’t have wanted my wedding any other way.

I could take up a whole blog on marriage lessons, but this is a running blog after all. This last year has been so fun, taking up running and new challenges and getting fit together.

This week is a semi-off week, with less mileage. Definitely well timed as we will be on celebration mode this weekend.

Is there an artist you’ve always wanted to see?

Week 9: A rocket launch, speed work and a trip to India!

Whew what a week! I had a slacker running week, running paltry 12 miles this week. It was a recovery week after our long run and I did my recovery week proud.

I did start the week with a little of a hard workout. During the hot afternoon sun. I was basically too lazy to get my butt up on Tuesday morning to run, so I punished myself and went running with my husband on Tuesday afternoon. I’ve started doing some interval running to help increase my speed. I looked up what my 400m pace should be, based on my new one mile time, and I came up with a 2:15 goal. I challenged myself to do 10x400m, with walk breaks anywhere between 1 min- 2:15. My first few intervals were energizing. At about the 4th interval, I started to slow down a bit, questioning whether I would finish the workout. I always try to make a deal with myself, like ” Well, 8 wouldn’t be so bad right?”. Then I get to 8 and think I would feel awful for not finishing the workout. It was definitely challenging, but none of my intervals were more than 2:25, and I felt accomplished when I finished. And dead tired and hungry.

On Wednesday, my friend Mel and I did our regular Wednesday run of about 3 miles. I’ve really enjoyed running with her, I know she can run faster but she keeps pace with me. I think she mostly does it for the beer we have afterwards. 

We had one beer then rushed to the beach (where we both live) to watch the rocket launch. 5 years ago, my husband and I moved from Denver to Cocoa Beach due to my his job. He works as an engineer for a company that launches these huge rockets, mostly carrying secret government payloads and satellites to make our everyday lives better. He wanted to be on the front lines, so we moved here! Well the Delta IV Heavy rocket is the one he primarily works on and this rocket usually carries important payloads, since the 4 boosters get it out into deep space. This was carrying a government satellite to enhance communications for our troops!

Courtesy of: United Launch Alliance

It also makes the most sound out all the rockets.  The video is a little long, but here it is. Watching a rocket launch over the ocean at dusk is one of the experiences that makes me happy to live in Florida. At around 1:35, what sounds like a strong gust of wind is actually rocket breaking the sound barrier.

I slacked off on Thursday (and Friday and Saturday). I felt a little mentally drained. Working 2 jobs has caught up to me and I just had little energy. So Jerry and I spent the weekend doing some fun things. 

I’ve wanted to go to India for a long, long time. We had planned to go this coming year, but I don’t think it will be possible just yet. So we settled for the next best thing: IndiaFest! The Festival was small, but the food was phenomenal. I had this potato based dal, and we ordered a vegetarian plate with all kinds of curries. Not as good as a vacation in India but it will do. 

 

I finished the week with an easy 6 mile run on my own (my team was taking an off week) and I greatly missed running with them. Running Marine Corps Marathon without them will be pretty challenging. I haven’t worked on my mental preparation as much as I need to and it was obvious this Sunday.  I did manage to snap this amazing picture of the sunrise though!

We’ll be running 14.5 miles next week!

What is your exotic dream vacation?

Week 4 Marathon Training- Double Digits and Turtle Tracks!

This was a truly amazing week. On Tuesday, I decided to do 400 m repeats, as advised by the plan my husband is on. According to this, my speed should be about 2:25 for those segments. I did 8 with a 1 minute walk break in between and I was beat! The picture of me sweating below  was well before 7 am. The humidity has been above 90% here, and there’s no escape. 

During the week I also made Seitan Saltado by Terri Hope Romero which appears on the book Viva Vegan. Now, I’m not really cool with giving out recipes that have not been previously posted online by the author, but if you google it, you’re bound to get some recipes. The premise is red or white seitan (I had a little of both) with Peruvian Aji chiles, onions, and tomatoes served with brown rice and fresh french fries. It was just what I needed for dinner after running and working. If you don’t already own a copy of this book, I highly recommend it. It’s been super delicious.

On Friday morning I woke up at 6 am and was delighted that there was a super low tide. Off to the beach I went to run. Once I got to the beach, no more than a couple minutes passed by when I saw it: two fresh sets of turtle tracks, and large turtles at that. If you don’t live anywhere near the ocean, you may be unaware that May-August is Turtle Nesting Season. Turtles of all kinds come ashore to lay their eggs which will hatch in about 55-75 days, depending on the turtle. If I haven’t told you the story of why I started running it’s simple: sea turtles. Over 3 years ago I conquered my fear of the water and got scuba certified. My first sea turtle sighting was unbelievable. So when I read there was a 5k to benefit the Sea Turtle Conservancy, I was all over it. A year later, and here I am still running. So to see the turtle tracks was something really exciting. On the off chance you ever see a turtle coming on shore, don’t disturb it. If it gets scared it will ‘false crawl’ meaning it will go back to the sea without laying eggs. If it goes too long without laying eggs, she will release them into the sea, where there is no chance of survival. 

Of course now I am more motivated than ever to keep up my beach runs, maybe I’ll get to see the baby turtles or at least the tracks. If you want to find out more about sea turtles, check out the Sea Turtle Preservation society here.

Then Sunday came. As I might have mentioned before, my training program is for those training for the Space Coast Marathon here in Melbourne, FL, which takes place Dec.1st. Although I am running this race, I first have to run the Marine Corps Marathon a month earlier. This is why I’ve felt like I needed to do more. And more I did. I did over 11 miles on Sunday.

If you’ve never done the Galloway Run-Walk program like me, I can tell you that this Sunday made me a believer. I have never felt so good after completing over 11 miles. The experience marathoner group (which I tagged along with to get more miles) met earlier than everyone, at 5 am. Boy it was tough getting up at 4:15 am that day. But before I knew it we were done with our additional 5 miles and were joining the other ladies. We had done the 5 miles in 2:1 intervals ( 2 min run, 1 min walk) and kept a pretty good pace. We then continued with everyone else for the 6 miles at 30:30 intervals, which seemed really short, but I welcomed them on such a long run. We managed to keep about a 13 min pace for the entire way and finished the 11 miles in about 2:30 hours. Mind you I ran most of my half marathon in January and finished in 2:38 and I was BEAT. So with a little more juice I can see how this program works. I am a believer. We run on this two lane road in a wealthy stretch of narrow road, where the homes have a river on the front and a river to the back. If you hadn’t known that day that the road was meant for vehicular traffic, one would have thought it was a running trail. It is definitely marathon season. 

My husband and I are signing up for the North Face Endurance Challenge in Georgia in September. i don’t do much trail running, but I figured I can tag along and do the 10k while taking my time. He’s doing the marathon. Trail running interests me, but I have yet to set foot on a trail.

So on to week 5 and I am feeling pretty good! What did you accomplish this week? How’s your training going?

 

 

It takes a special kind of idiot….

“Any idiot can run, but it takes a special kind of idiot to run a marathon”

It all started with sea turtles. You know, those beautiful, gentle, mysterious creatures that burrow themselves in a reef to sleep, come up for air every now and then and nibble on jelly fish. Well, technically, it started with scuba diving. 5 years ago my husband and I moved from Colorado and being a certified diver, my husband convinced me i had to get certified as well. Snow skiing obviously wasn’t an option around here. Only caveat was, I couldn’t even swim. Swim lessons at the YMCA and one spectacular night dive filled with turtles so close i had to be aware of every inch of my body in order not to hit them, and my love of turtles was born.

Then I heard about the Turtle Krawl 5k in Indialantic. Having never been athletic and always being either somewhat active or in that ‘I’ll go to the gym tomorrow” cycle, a 5k was a challenge. When I started the Couch to 5k program, I prayed those 30 second running intervals would be over. A few months of slow and steady training, and when I crossed that finish line, I was hooked. I set my sights on the half marathon. Seriously, I quit high school soccer and softball and went to be a choir geek instead. I didn’t know what had gotten into me.

Distance training is 90% mental in my opinion. Your body say either you can or can’t finish and either way, it will be true. That’s why training is so important, so you can train your mind to be your friend, instead of your enemy. It does still tell you every now and then ‘ What the heck are we doing running before sunlight?”

My first half marathon was the Miami Marathon. Sun, salsa, and one of my favorite cities, what could go wrong? 13 miles of running is what. I crossed the finish line at 2:37, so emotionally and mentally exhausted that when I saw my husband (also a runner) I burst out in tears. Crazy sh*t.

You know those people that date in college, then the next step is getting married, then having a family and buying a house? Yeah I’m not one of those people. But with running. I am such a ‘next natural step’ kind of person. The marathon is the elephant in the room saying ‘ Is it my turn yet?’.

I started training with the Jeff Galloway program at Running Zone this morning at 6:30 am. I wish everyone training could meet an Olympian at the start of training. It’s so motivational and Jeff had nothing but positive and encouraging things to say, even to those with injuries and those old enough to remember the first time a woman ran a marathon.

The premise of this program is that by taking enough walking and running intervals, anyone can tackle the distance while remaining injury free and not running as many miles a week as other programs recommend. Jeff is an Olympian so I trust his judgement.

We did a short 3 mile run (never thought I would think ‘Just 3 miles’) today and will continue to build up. There are some really amazing girls in my group including one that has registered for 3 half marathons and has never run one because she always manages to get pregnant. I asked her if maybe twins were in her future since she registered for the full marathon.

With the right support, training, and willpower, I really think anything is possible. Welcome to my crazy journey!

What challenges have you taken on lately that you never though you would overcome?