That's what friends are for...!

Went for 5 miles today instead of 4...should have gone for 6. :)

Tomorrow I rest. 
Tomorrow cannot come soon enough.
I got something EPIC on the agenda.

Miss-I run insane amount of miles on a treadmill AND I love it- will be here.
Right here.

I cannot wait to see her.

I thought that I could help her with this hmmm situation she has difficulties with:

I am a good friend and I think that I can offer help with this. 
EMZ don't you worry, you will be all better once you come out of the darkness...and see the BLUE light!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A demain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Day after Tomorrow

The Day after Tomorrow
2 more Days
Friday March 9

I get to meet my Arizona Friend.  (using blue-Duke just for you here)

It is crazy to me that we have never seen each other in person yet.
I cannot wait to see her!
EMZ you better wear something OTHER than this shirt

Actually why don't you just bring it with you, I need  new rags to clean the windows of my car.

Running.....
I made some changes in my plan, sorry Hal.
I used to rest just on Fridays.  This does not work anymore because after 4-5 days of running in a row I tend to have pain in my calf and Achilles and that leads to Plantar Fascitis coming back also. So I have decided to rest every 3 or 4 days instead.   I also decided to stop running 3 miles run except on taper week or if I really only have time for 3 because I have other obligations like volunteer at the boys school.  Friday is the day I go to their classrooms to help their teachers and I used to rest on Friday, well now sometimes Friday will not be a rest day and I don't want to stop helping at school.   I want to have the weekly runs at 4-6 miles instead of 3-5 miles.  I think it will be better for me to rest every 3-4 days and run longer to prepare for half marathons. 

I have been using my foam roller every day.  Now I get why most of you said it is a LOVE-HATE relationship....I never thought it would hurt that much to roll my legs on that blue thing. 

I also continue doing the exercises that Jill told me to do to help with PF.  It does help, thank you Doctor Jill.  I am doing them religiously because I am afraid one day she will come here to check up on me!!! ha ha!!

I am waiting for my new PURE FLOW to arrive.  If they show up on a rest day...I will have to cheat and go for a short 3 miles...!!!

EMZ: 48 hrs from now! or as you would say : 48 FREAKING hours!

You know if you stay a little longer in town you could actually experience the joy of  watching the BEST TEAM play WITH ME in the same room
That's right:  Duke 4 pm.
I would even let you borrow one of my Duke Shirt, cuz I am nice like that.

Knob Creek Metal Arts Medal Hanger

Where do you keep your medals?
These are my nicest ones, 8 half marathons plus the one on the left that is from the only race I did back home in Quebec and the huge Beach Cities Challenge Medal.

I started looking for a Medal Hanger and I found this fantastic store on Etsy.com:
Knob Creek Metal Arts.

I received this really nice medal hanger for this review and I LOVE it!



This medal hanger is hand made from high grade steel. It comes with 5 hooks for the medals. It has two mounting holes already in the rack. The rack is finished in hammered black and it is beautiful!

It is now on the wall in our den: All 10 big medals are on the rack!

Knob Creek Metal Arts offers a great selections of medal hangers and all for great prices also. 

They have over 200 items in the store.  This is a good place to find gifts for people who have everything!  I found a lot of things that I love.  Here are some of my favorites:

Fleur de Lys Clock:  This is the perfect gift for me!  Reminds me of Quebec (Fleur de Lys are on our flag)

 They have a great selections of original Bookends, I love this one:

Mini Urban loves this one, of course....anything with guitars!!!

And this guitar hanger:

Key Rack:

I love these kind of items that are unique and handmade! 
If you are looking for a medal hanger for your hard earned medals I highly recommend you visit Knob Creek Metal Arts!

I want to thank Eric from Knob Creek Metal Arts for sending me the beautiful Women's Running Medal Rack.  You can find this item here.  It looks fantastic and I could not ask for better quality!

You can follow Knob Creek Metal Arts on Twitter here!

Dairy Ayres 5K Race Recap

Today was a busy day for the family.
First a 5k race for me and 0.5 mile for the kids, followed by a basketball game for Will, lunch and a soccer game for Jonathan.  After all that the plan was to rest and watch my Blue Devils beat UNC....yeah....that part did not go well..... It's OK, March Madness is coming up and they will bounced back. 

The Race.
It was a small local race, first time I do this one.  I think we were about 600 runners for the 5K.  They had T-Shirt and medals for all the runners and time chip also.  The course was nice and flat as a pancake.  It was windy,  you can see in the pictures...the finish line structure was knocked down by the wind!! 

 I started way too fast....I looked at my Garmin and saw 6:xx....not good....

I slowed down.  I did have trouble with my breathing , I don't know what was going on; probably because I went out too fast, I struggled for 90% of the race to control my breathing.
I passed by Bill and the boys at half way point so I thought this would be a double loop but it wasn't. 

 I was on my way to getting a PR.  I remember telling myself "Don't panic and don't puke!" On one of the turns the wind pretty strong made me loose my balance a little. 
Next thing I knew, the finish line was in the near distance!

 

I heard Bill yelling "Great Job!" and I looked at the clock.. 27:11....and I was just a few steps away.

My time is 27:14:08!

My old PR was 28:59, Nov 2011

2 years ago, I made my debut in the running world.  I ran my first 5K on March 6, 2010.  My time was 35:12.  Progress is good. 

I was 5th in my AG today. 

Kids Race

The boys ran the 0.50 mile kids race.  They had a blast.  I love to watch them run these races!

They did great! 

Here the Finish Line Standing

And a minute later.....Oopsy...

Luckily nobody got hurt

Big brother Will kept his dignity and came in ahead of Jonathan. He knows how to finish a race!!!!

Love this last picture!

Jonathan did great too!

Good Times!

Change of Plan

People don't like changes.  Well some do of course and they embrace it even but most don't.
My next Half Marathon is the Hollywood Half Marathon.  This is a brand new race.

So far they have been doing a great job at keeping people informed about everything concerning the race on their Facebook page and on Twitter.  They had several promotions also and I used one when I signed up and save a lot of $.

They asked people input for the shirts, the medals and for other things.  Of course when you ask hundreds of people for their opinions you will get it all and you will not be able to please everyone.  I think they were going all out to try to please the majority and make this a great event and that they really have the best intentions.

So it was "marketed" as a Hollywood event, with red carpet at the finish line and a "Run with the Stars" theme with big finish at Universal Studios.  (They never named anyone famous who would be running this event. ) I signed up because it looks like it will be fun and it is close to where I live and it was pretty cheap at $50.  Cannot beat that.

The course was to take runners from Universal Studio down to Hollywood, on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame Blvd and Sunset Blvd and back up to Universal Studios.  The course was a loop with one big hill in the second half of the course.

Yesterday, the race director made an announcement and posted that the city has decided to modify the course and presented an alternate route which eliminates the hill at the end.
This is the new course

• Point to point instead of a loop.
• Downhill course.
• Shuttle will be needed to get back to Universal Studios.

The race director is very upset by all this.  The race is in a month.  This change would mean increases of fees on road closures, shuttle buses, gear check, finish line decor in 2 places because they would still keep the big festivities they have planned at Universal Studios but also offer the choice to the runners of getting their medals on the red carpet at Universal Studios OR after they cross the finish line.

People went nuts on Facebook.  Of course they did.
A lot of complaining.  "It is not Hollywood anymore"  " I want the hill"  "I don't want to get on a shuttle after the race"  "I want my money back"  "I  don't have time to wait for shuttle after my race"  "If I wanted to run LA I would run LA!"  "I am training for hills, now what am I supposed to do?"  "This is not right"  "Who will pay for my hotel room that is at the start" (really?) "I will not do the race if it changes BOO" "No hill? that is stupid" "I want to run Hollywood because my work is there"...and much much more.

I feel so bad for the poor race director.  It is all out of his hands.  Nothing he can do about it.

Me I don't really care.
I am happy that I get to do it.
I am happy that I get to do any race actually.

The truth is I would have signed up if they had presented the 2nd course to begin with, it still goes on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and at Hollywood and Highland and the medal is really nice.   And who knows who I will be running next to....or after?!

People don't like changes and people LOVE to complain.

The Google Apocalypse

So Google is making changes to blogger.  No more Google Friends connect.  So now what.
I saw some of you have added other ways to let people follow your blog: email, RSS feed and Linky are some I have seen.  Some have even make the jump to World Press.   This whole thing is just a pain.  I am not a lazy person but for this I kind of am.   I do want to make sure that I will keep following your blogs.   Are we loosing all our followers with this change?  Do we have to RE-follow everyone using a different way?  If you are all on my Google Reader list, I am good right?

I added the email and RSS follow me sections to my sidebar.
If you have any advices with this please share!

I have a race this weekend: A 5K. 
My last one was the Turkey Trot and now I have 2 lined up for March.  I used to be scared of running a half marathon now it is how I feel about a 5K!  I am no sprinter.  I have a tendency to puke at the end of a race, I even have picture of this now..., and that usually comes with sprinting.  Fun times ahead!!!  I am optimistic about beating my Turkey Trot time though.  My chances for PR are better this weekend than at the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure where  there's a lot of walkers. 

The kids are also running Saturday, this will be fun.  We are a little overbooked that day:

• Race for me at 8 am
• Race for the kids at 9 am
• Will's Basketball game at 10 am
• Jonathan's Soccer game at noon
• Will soccer game : don't know the time yet

Are you one of those?

A couple people mentioned to me that I met the criteria for this

1. 2 Half Marathons within a 16 day time frame.

2. 3 Half Marathons within a 90 day time frame.

I do see people with  these shirts at all the races.  I went on their website just to see what it was all about.  I am not sure I get it.  I mean I get the part of having crazy goals and reaching them.  That is clear.  The part that is not clear is what do you get for the $ you pay to join this group?

Membership cost - $35.00
Membership with shirt $65.00
Yearly dues - $10.00

So last night we had a winter here in Southern California...lasted about 7 seconds but it was as close to a real winter as we can get here.

I miss winter.  WHITE winter.

Gait analyse

Before I talked about my gait analyse I wand to thank you ALL for your comments on my last post.  Your support and kindness amaze me.  I am lucky to have you as my friends.  I don't know who this anonymous person is...do they know me personally...I don't know..I hope not :).  I know that if I was this person I would stay clear of my buddy Jim-the-running-machine.  This is what he said: 

Dear Anonymous:
Please leave my friend Caroline alone - she is one of the most amazing bloggers and runners out there. And on a personal note, if you want to compare times or running stats or mileage or anything with someone ... why don't you square off with me??? You couldn't hold my dic-!!! And also, sign your name next time pus--!!! Stop wasting everyone's time - you are insignificant. Picking on poor ol' Caroline ... really???
I got your back C!

Thank you Jim.  Please visit him here if you don't already know him and also his really awesome (her favorite word) wife Michael who is a brand new marathoner.

 

 

So OK now on to gait and shoes.

I have been wearing Mizunos Wave Inspire 7 shoes for a while.  Those are Stability shoes. They were OK but I would not say that I felt "perfect" in them.  I don't have a lot of knowledge as far as running shoes go and it can be overwhelming to look for shoes as you know.  I have a problem with spending money on shoes that end up being wrong for me.  It makes me feel really guilty. 

Not so long ago I started having problems with plantar fasciitis.  I would say it is mild.  It comes and goes and I only had one day that it was really bad. 

Jill, who blogs HERE, was great to me and she took the time to send me emails with great advices on how to deal with PF.  I followed her advices and I am happy to report that my problem is under control as of now.

I also changed my shoes and bought a pair of Brooks Ravenna 2.   Those shoes are Guidance shoes in the Brooks line, a bridge between neutral and stability for runners with mild pronation.

I have been wearing them for 3 weeks now and I like those better than my Mizunos.  I have no pain so far and I feel lighter when I run.  They have more cushion than my other shoes and they are less bulky also.  They are the same size as my other pair of shoes but they feel smaller...that is the only thing I don't like for now but that could be fixed with getting 1/2 size bigger next time.

I wanted to go to the running store and have my gait checked to make sure I am wearing the shoes I need.

The gal at the store was great, super patient, very well informed and she is a runner of course.  She said that I overpronate very mildly and just on the left side and that I have a midfoot strike.  She said that Ravenna are good for me and also that I could even wear neutral shoes but that I don't need the full stability shoes.  I asked about the new line Brooks has called Pure Project and she said I could try the Pure Cadence or the Pure Flow but that I should make sure my PF problem taken care of  first.

She also said that it is a good idea to have 2 pairs of shoes in rotation and that they don't have to be different kind.  She said this is good for people like me who run 5-6 days a week because it allows the shoes to "rest" between runs.  She said it takes 24 to 48 hours for the shoe to go back to their original form. 
This makes sense to me, I just have to decide if I get another pair of Ravenna, they have the Ravenna 3 out now, or one of these:

pure cadence

pure flow