Back from the Dead

I'm still here! The last few weeks have been terrible in terms of work and school, but I'm back now! Let's see...what's happened since the last time I posted?

• Two 5K races
• One 5 mile race
• Three  PRs (because I haven't done a 5 miler before)
• Some swimming (but not enough)
• LOTS of wonderful foam rolling. My calves are happier than they've been in a loooong time. 

First was the Chesterfield Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, which I ran with B. I broke 23 after a slow start. There were more than 3000 people there and many, many people lined up way too close to the starting line. I had never run a big race without corrals! It was lots of fun though.

The 5-miler (the Believe in Girls 5M race) was on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I placed well but wasn't trying to race hard. My goal was to keep an even pace with good form. I held consistent 8min/mile and finished at 39:59.

Yesterday, B and I ran another holiday-themed race, the Santas on the Loose 5K in Webster Groves. Everyone who entered was given a beard and a santa hat. I elected to forgo the beard because I always get way too warm when I run. It was 60 degrees! St. Louis has been burning up lately.

There were cookies and hot chocolate at the finish line, yum! This course was also hillier than expected. I don't think I've been giving Missouri enough credit, I thought it was flat all over. WRONG!

Small hills,yes, but they just kept coming! 

But - amazingly - I PR'd with a 22:28. I didn't feel like I was running that hard, but the start was much smoother than the Turkey Trot so that certainly helped. I don't love the 5K distance, but I don't want to swear off it until I break 22. I think I'll be able to do it pretty soon with a flat course with a good race plan.

So - that's been my schedule for the past month. I can write up some individual recaps if anyone is local and is interested in doing these races next year.

As for my life outside of running....
I made Thanksgiving cookies, using this awesome blog as my inspiration.

Oh yeah - done with our Christmas shopping! And see those golden star gift tags?

I made them! They were super-easy. I made some salt dough (like you'd see on pinterest), cut out stars with a cookie cutter, made a holly pattern with a big rubber stamp, and painted them with gold paint after they were done drying. 

Carly getting into the Christmas spirit...

Of course, I've been working a LOT. Here are the fruit flies that I stare at all day, e'ery day:

Well, I think you guys are more or less caught up on my oh-so-exciting (not) life. I tried out a few recipes that I'll be sharing over the next few days, including the best butternut squash soup everrrr. And marathon training officially starts tomorrow!! Very excited over here in the AIDIH household.

Have you done any holiday races this year?

Hermann London Halloween 5K

B's parents are visiting this weekend! His mom was one of the people who first inspired me to get into running competitively, and now B is showing a renewed interest in the sport. We toyed around with the idea of running a race together, and it was a done deal once I found out about a local Halloween run. Racing PLUS a costume contest? We're there.

After several phone calls to both of our parents, we decided to try for the "best group costume" prize and go as a shark, a swimmer, and a surfer/victim. Sharks have always been my favorite animals and this wasn't the first time I dressed as one for Halloween! B's parents stopped by my mom's house to pick up my shark costume from yearrrssss ago, and they schlepped that thing all the way to St. Louis. Meanwhile, we got our "surfboard" (old foam boogie board) ready for the race.

It was actually the first race that B and I ever ran together, so it was pretty special. He's usually my bag holder/jacket giver/man slave before races, and he hasn't competed since high school cross country. It was fun to see him get excited about running again!

Sleepy breakfast time!

We arrived an hour early because we bought our race entries from Living Social (great idea, by the way) and were worried that our registration might have been messed up. It all worked out great, though, and we used the extra time to drive back to our apartment to pick up the boogie board that I had forgotten. Brilliant.

Lots of people LOVED the shark costume. B wore a very realistic bloody T-shirt (thank you, gel food coloring) with goggles and a swim cap, and his mom wore a swim suit with goggles around her neck. We decided to all run together because I couldn't see a thing and the course was open to traffic. Nothing could possibly go wrong!

We ditched the boogie board 5 seconds after this picture was taken.

The course was a lot hillier than we were anticipating, and we lost B's mom early on. I, of course, took each hill as a personal challenge and sprinted up as fast as I could. B stuck with me and was a great guide..."car on your right...pothole...parked car on your left...hey, let's pass this lady!"

The mesh covering my face turned to steel wool sometime during the second mile, so I'm currently sporting a nice red nose. Not gonna lie - running in that thing wasn't a ton of fun. It was hot and I couldn't see, but it was neat to wave at little kids on the course and to pass people who weren't in costume. 

We finished at a 26:16 - not nearly as fast as we could have gone, but we were pretty happy with our times under the circumstances. I heard one guy at the finish line say to his son "Hey, you see that shark? It beat me!" Chomp chomp. 

We didn't win the costume contest, so it was obviously rigged. For what it's worth, the race director's wife came over to us said that we were her favorites! They had hot dogs and chips for the runners, so we hung out for a little while and listened to the band play. This was my first 5K - I gravitate towards the longer races - so it was a nice way to recover from last week's half marathon and have some fun with my family. 

Have you ever raced in a costume?