Race Review: Green Mountain Marathon

Over the weekend Brett and I road tripped north for the Green Mountain Marathon in South Hero, Vermont! This was marathon #4 for me and US state 4 out of 50 (which I realize I've never talked about in a blog post before... details on that to come)! One of my former-student-turned-friends, Carly, is taking graduate classes at UVM in Burlington, so she graciously let us stay with her the night before the race. It was so great to see her and we even got to grab some dinner with her, her partner, and one of her friends!
We woke up bright and early Sunday to head to South Hero (which is about 25 minutes from Burlington) so I could pick up my bib and race t-shirt. South Hero is an extremely tiny town on one of the Lake Champlain islands and the start and finish were both at this very small elementary school, which was very fitting for the field of a mere 152 marathoners and 368 half-marathoners (that's 520 total runners for those of you keeping score at home - TINY)! There were plenty of facilities, parking, and places to stretch and warm up for this race which is always helpful in making race day a bit less stressful.

Mile 1

At 8:30am Brett and Carly wished me luck and sent me on my way and I was off on yet another marathon journey. The course itself was an out-and-back along the edge of the island, Lake Champlain never that far out of sight. The route was flat with a water stop every two miles, and the weather was cool and cloudy with some windiness coming off the lake - perfect marathon conditions! I was around many runners until the half-marathon turn around at mile 6.5. After that point the field dropped off significantly and I started to find myself more alone on the course than not for the rest of the race.

Bird house forest at mile 2 + 24
Unfortunately, right around mile 13, my legs started cramping. It was... not fun. And it continued to be not fun for ten. freaking. miles. I spent a lot of time alternating between walking and running and stopped many times to stretch. I fell waaaaay behind the pace I could have run and with each runner that passed me I felt more and more discouraged. There were multiple occasions where I questioned whether or not I would make it across the finish, but I knew that I'm not a quitter and I had already come so far that I was going to finish the race, even if it meant my legs fell off in the process.
Eventually around mile 23 my legs stopped cramping and while they were sore, it was no longer excruciatingly painful to run. I continued on my way through each remaining mile, and with the encouragement of everyone I passed and the cheers from Brett and Carly via text message I stayed motivated to reach the finish line. Brett met me at mile 26 and ran in the last .2 miles with me and Carly and Kirby were waiting and cheering for me at the finish! And finally, after getting a medal from the lovely volunteers still waiting at the finish and grabbing a water and some hugs from my awesome support crew, we hopped in the car and headed back to Carly's.

While this marathon did not go to plan, I still managed to finish the race. At 5:36:42 I was the last female marathoner to cross the finish like (54 out of 54... yikes) and third to last overall (150 out of 152), but I FINISHED and this still wasn't my slowest marathon (that still goes to the NH Marathon at 5:40:19), so WIN! I feel like I learned a lot in what I could do better to prepare for my next 26.2 and I'm hoping to have a much better race when that rolls around. But, for now, I'm going to bask in the glory of finishing another marathon and allow myself to be a little bit lazy. :P
I vlogged over the weekend, so click play to see more road trip and marathon fun!

Family, Football, and Fall Festivities

It's been a while since I've sat down and given a bit of a life update here on the blog. I've been posting up my vlogs as I've been posting them on YouTube but I also haven't been doing a ton of daily vlogging lately, save for readathons which don't really focus on my daily life. I thought I'd pop by and give you all a bit of an update on what's been going on lately!

The school year is finally underway, I survived September, and things are finally settling down a bit. If you've been following along with this blog for a while, September and April are always the busiest months of the year at work. I'm really happy with how September went for us this year - we have multiple succesful programs, we're trying out new things, and - the best part - really connecting with the students. Our staff is still fairly new (the majority of us have been at MHC a year and a half or less) but there's definitely a difference in how we're connecting with the students this year which is making our work so much easier.

The Nichols football program is doing much better this year than they have in previous years! It's been great to see the football program Brett dedicates so much time and energy to finally make some visible and tangible improvements. While they're 2-3 half way through the season, Brett is confident that they have the potential to pick up a couple more wins which is amazing. I can't wait to see how the rest of the year goes!

I did lose my grandfather a few weeks ago. I mentioned this last week here on the blog and in my Tackle Your TBR vlog & wrap up but I didn't feel right writing a "life update" and not including this. He was a loving and hard working guy, and always ready to crack jokes and enjoy himself with his family. It's still weird as he's always been in my life and we will miss him dearly. <3

I'm running marathon #4 on tomorrow and I am NERVOUS. Training this summer went really well, but as the school year kicked off and my schedule got busier training got pushed to the wayside quite a bit. I'm trusting my body and my knowledge of fueling and stretching properly to propel me across the finish line, but I'm still pretty apprehensive about taking on 26.2 for the fourth time. (Can you believe it?! Marathon #4. I still remember everything about marathon #1 so vividly!)

Life is still quite busy but I'm happy with how most things are going. I have a huge stack of books I want to get through, I'm drawing, blogging, and YouTubing more consistently, and I would say that I'm overall content! I'm looking forward to the coming weeks that will be packed with family visits, holiday food, and lovely end of the year festivities. I hope all is well with you guys, too! Happy fall :)

October 2016 Goals

Happy October everyone! It literally feels like I just sat down to write out my September goals. But here we are in yet another new month and it's time to set a new handful of goals to keep ourselves motivated as we head into one of the busiest times of year! October is always an exciting month for me. For the last 3 years it's been the month I've run a marathon in. It's the month we celebrate Brett's birthday. It's the month of my favorite holiday - HALLOWEEN! And it's the month to cozy up, enjoy the changing colors of the leaves, yummy warm food, football, and scary movies. I really love October and I'm pretty positive it's tied with July for my favorite month of the year! <3

1. No book buying!

September.... I went fairly crazy in the book buying department. It seems like with every paycheck I was perusing Book Outlet for new deals and filling up my cart to the brim with new reads. I feel like I'm in a place where I should cool it when it comes to book buying for a while and focus on the books that I have unread on my shelves. I have plenty! I do have a couple of pre-ordered books that will be coming throughout the rest of the year but no more book buying at least through the month of October (save for books I plan to purchase as birthday gifts for others)!

2. Finish the Green Mountain Marathon

Gah! The Green Mountain Marathon is happening in just 5 DAYS I'm feeling super nervous and not really feeling all that prepared, but I'm pretty sure that's how I feel before every marathon that I've run. Again, the goal is to finish. I was toying around with the idea of hitting a sub-5 hour marathon this time around but considering how the tail end of my training has gone (read: not great because September eats my whole life every year) I'm again, just shooting to finish. (Though beating last year's PR of 5:08:24 would be icing on the cake!)

3. Read 6 books

I have 6 books I want to finish this month (which does not include the books I plan to read for the readathons I have planned for October):

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald  

A reread originally intended for Tackle Your TBR

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Originally intended for Tackle Your TBR

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Buddy reading this with Shannon!

What the Dog Knows by Cat Warren

A non-fiction study of dogs who work with police and in other investigative capacities

Bloody Mary by J.A. Konrath

For the PopSugar prompt "A murder mystery"

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

This has gotten such positive reviews AND it's about monsters so totally appropriate for October

4. Participate in Inktober

I'm going to try my hardest to participate in Inktober this year. Inktober is a month long challenge that prompts you to create one drawing using ink each day. I've been sharing my drawings on my Instagram so make sure you're following me there to see my progress! I'm not sure if I'll complete all 31 days, but I'm definitely going to try to do as many days as I can!

5. Participate in SpookAThon & BookBuddyAThon

These are the two readathons I will be participating in this month! SpookAThon will be taking place from October 17th to October 23rd and encourages you to read (you guessed it) spooky books! There are a few prompts to this readathon which follow the theme of reading thriller/horror novels and include:

-Read a thriller
-Read a book with red on the cover
-Read book with a spooky word in the title
-Read a 2016 release
-Read a book with a paranormal character/creature

BookBuddyAThon is a readathon that you participate in with a buddy! My friend Shannon and I will be participating together. This readathon overlaps with the SpookAThon by two full days and will be running from October 22nd to October 28th. There are also several prompts for this readathon which include:

-Read a book with a title that starts with the same initial as your book buddy's name (since I'll be reading with Shannon I have to choose a book that starts with 'S')
-Buddy read a book with your book buddy (We'll be reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn throughout the month and have chosen to count it as our buddy read for this readathon as well!)
-Read a book with pictures in it
-Read a book that you really want to read
-Read 5 books

TBRs for both of these readathons will be going live the week before they begin, so be on the lookout for those! I'm looking forward to another month filled with reading and getting to know people in the bookish community!

6. Prepare and officially announce BorrowAThon

I've been mentioning this in my YouTube videos and very briefly in my Reading Challenge Update that I posted last week but I am hosting a readathon in November called BorrowAThon! You'll be getting all of the information about this readathon on both this blog and my YouTube channel this month but please go follow the BorrowAThon Twitter page for more information for the time being! :) Hope you can all make it in November!

And those are all of my October goals! I hope you all have a fabulous month and accomplish everything you want to in the first official month of fall! <3

To read my update on my September goals, click "read more"!

August 2016 Goals

Happy August, everyone! Alas, it is the last month of the summer and the last month before another crazy busy year begins. I've really enjoyed the summer and am not looking forward to seeing it go, but I'm feeling like I'm just about ready to take on the year. These next few weeks are critically needed but once they pass I'm hoping I'll be in a good place to take on the 2016-2017 academic year! Now, onto my goals for the month...

Read four books - I have four books I want to read this month, and I'm actually already reading all four of them! I have a vacation at the end of the month and I am planning on reading until my eyeballs fall out. I can't wait. This month I'm hoping to finish reading Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen (I'm listening to the audiobook on my commutes), The Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson, Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow, and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Register for the Green Mountain Marathon - With how good I'm feeling in my training lately, the time has come to officially register for the Green Mountain Marathon. It's always a great (and scary) feeling when you're officially registered and really lights a fire under you. I'm looking forward to this fall and hoping it's my best marathon yet!

Get special events for first two months of the semester ready to go - This is a work goal - I'm responsible for our special events calendar that is planned by our office so I would REALLY life to get all of September and most of October good to go before September 1st, so I'm able to just focus on working with my students - the most important part of the job! I'm pretty sure I can make it happen. Just gotta stay focused!

Complete a painting - I haven't painted in a good long while and I figure my vacation would be the perfect time to pick up the brush again!

WATCH AS MANY OLYMPIC EVENTS AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE - Guys. The Olympics officially start tomorrow. And I am SO EXCITED. The summer games only come around once every four years and I love them so much that I really want to watch as much as possible before they're over yet again. I'm especially excited for my favorite events - the gymnastic and swim meets, the track and dive meets, and all the sports you don't typically see on TV like fencing and weight lifting and synchronized swimming and the marathon, of course! I cannot wait for the events to get started!

And those are my 5 (yikes) goals for August. I'm really looking forward to having this month to gear up for the school year and to squeeze every last drop out of summer that I can! I hope everyone has a fantastic August and make sure to click "read more" to get an update on my July goals!

Race Review: Midnight Owl 15K + Marathon Training Update!

Saturday night my parents and I ran the Midnight Owl 15K in North Conway, NH! This was a different kind of race called a prediction run. The idea is that you can start running at any time after 9:30PM, but you have to be one of the first to cross the finish line AFTER midnight in order to be considered one of the winners. Oh, and you're not allowed to carry any sort of timing device on you, which includes watched, phones, or ANYTHING that displays the time (which basically means you're running with your thoughts and that's pretty much it). Pretty awesome if you ask me! Because we were running at night we were required to wear

It was a really unique experience running without having any idea what time it was or what my pace was. Luckily there were mile markers so atlas I had some sort of sense of where I was along the course but other than those I was (literally and figuratively) in the dark! There weren't even clocks at the finish so I had absolutely no idea what my time was! I only knew what time I left (10:21:03pm) and I made a general guess of how long before I crossed before the alarm went off for midnight (I made a guess of 6 or 7 minutes... granted I had no idea how close we were to midnight until AFTER the alarm for midnight went off and I had already been stretching out after finishing!) but we weren't informed of what time we crossed the finish line until two days ago when the race coordinators emailed the results.

(I finished 6 minutes and 5 seconds before midnight - not bad for guessing!)

Though I finished before midnight, I'm pretty happy with my time! I did the calculations - my total time was 1:32:52, giving me a 9:59 pace! That's pretty excellent for me and I am very happy. It's always good to gauge performance in a race situation and I always forget that when I'm in training. This just proves it! I'm looking forward to race day in October even more now!

What I Loved

I really loved the whole concept of a prediction run. I've never heard of it until my dad introduced this race to me and it is so unique. I don't know if there are any more races like this in my area but I would love to do another one in the future!

I also really loved that the field size was really small. There were 93 total runners in this field which I'm pretty sure is the smallest race field I've ever participated in. Small race fields give races a really awesome sense of camaraderie that you can't really feel at a big-name-bigger-attendence-race.

Lastly, the volunteers at this race were awesome. At the start, each water stop, and the finish line they were cheering for us, chatting us up, and all around making the race environment really positive and fun. And it's awesome they could get so many volunteers to come out and wait around in the dark (and probably getting eaten by mosquitos!) while all 93 crazy people took their time crossing the finish line.

What I Didn't Love

While I know there wasn't any timing allowed at this race (as it basically defeats the purpose), I really wish there was chip timing of some kind or at least a hidden clock accessible somewhere after you cross the finish line. I was dying to know what my overall time was because I felt like I had a really great run (which I did). It's not a huge draw back, though, because they end up sending you your times via email, you just have to wait a bit longer to know what your results are.

The BIG thing that I didn't love was that there didn't seem to be anyone sweeping the course to ensure runner safety. We were (of course) running in the dark, in a fairly wooded area, and many of us were going out on the course alone or in very small groups. Also - due to the rules - you don't have a phone on you so there wouldn't really be able to contact anyone if you got hurt or lost. There definitely weren't bikes sweeping the course and it didn't seem like there was a car sweeping the course, so being super careful while I was covering several miles completely alone and in the dark was at the front of my mind. It would have made me feel a lot more at ease if I knew there would be volunteers checking on the course!

The Swag!


Race swag was a really soft cotton t-shirt and a finishers medal that doubles as a bottle opener! Definitely one of the coolest medals I've gotten so far! It would have been even better if the yellow lettering and moon on the medal glowed in the dark! Maybe next year. ;) Overall I really loved this race. It could have been even better if we had the peace of mind of course sweepers but even without them this was definitely a really well-run race, especially for an organization that *isn't* a race company. I would absolutely love to run this race again next year and would recommend it to anyone that is looking to try something a bit different for a race!
Marathon Training Update

I know I've mentioned off-hand in a few posts that I'm marathon training but I'm not sure if I've let you all know what marathon I'm training for! I am training for the Green Mountain Marathon that will be in South Hero, VT on October 9th! It's a very affordable marathon ($55!), fairly flat (despite the name), with a beautiful out-and-back course along Lake Champlain! 

It's sure to be a really scenic marathon with the lake views AND the Vermont foliage in early October is going to be even more gorgeous. I'm sure I'll be snapping pics and taking video the whole way through! (Until, you know, mile 22 when my legs are basically dead.) 

Training has been going wonderfully this time around. I'm hitting my runs, making time for lifts and stretching, and feeling really great about progress! I truly think most of this success in training so far has been attributed to having a training partner. I have never trained with a partner and I'm so happy my friend Danielle are making plans to run together at least once a week! She's also training for an October marathon (I believe her race day is a week after mine) so it is perfect timing for us. 

I hope to continue this consistency throughout the summer and the craziness that is September in HigherEd and hit my time goal (yes, I have a time goal this time around!) of a sub-5 hour marathon. My time for the Maine Marathon last October was 5:08:24, so I think this is a totally achievable goal as long as I keep working hard! I'll keep you all periodically updated on my training process and of course be sure to tell you all about my experience in South Hero this fall!