I've fallen a tad wee bit behind in posting in here.
I'd like to thank Vitargo/Gener8speed and Fein for their support in the US races and Running Skirts for the skirts :-) You guys rock!!!
Before I left, I ran the last of the summer xc series in the 2 mile on the 5th. I ended up 2nd in the overall standings because I skipped the August race because I needed to be fresh for the half the next day. Ah well :-( I otherwise would have won easily. I likely won't bother with the winter series. I am going to miss the first race on Nov 2 because I'm running the Chicago 50k. I am tentatively planning to run the Zelenograd Marathon Dec.7th so that puts me out of the 2nd race in that series. March? I'll probably miss and do the snowshoe and April is up in the air. You need at least 4 of 6 to be in the standings, but to be honest, if I am going to get beat, I'd rather it be by an athlete of better ability than I am as opposed to someone who can rack up more points in my absence. The same thing happened to me in 2010-11 indoor season in the mile. I missed the first race because, golly gee, I was running WC 100k in Gibraltar that day!!! After that, I didn't have a hope in hell of finishing top 3 at the end of the season so motivation for those races went right into the honey bucket. I ended up finishing behind slower runners in the standings because I missed ONE race. That was a total drag. So, I think I'll just opt out til the spring and do an occasional Park Run 5k in the winter for speed tuning.
Hell, it's now November and November is my REST MONTH. Some of that resting otfen carries over into December too. I had a very long and intense season and REST is badly needed. Needless to say, I did four races while in the US October-November. The first of which was the prairie State Half on October 12th in Libertyville, Il. I decided to skip the Chicago Marathon fpr a couple of reasons. First off, shitty Delta Scarelines came up with EPIC fail on the inbound from Moscow. The a$$wipes cancelled the connecting flight JFK- Chicago and I ended up spending the night on the floor at JFK. Delta, once again your customer service sucks beyond suck. Your company sucks for not at the very least putting us up in a hotel. After that mess and only being able to fly out the next morning, I finally got to Chicago a dat later and nearly 48 hours after I had left. As I suspected, yeah that would take the next week to sleep off. Secondly, I figured it would be best and smartest to keep my legs fresh til the 50k. The Half was on a beautiful course in the park-entirely trail be it dirt or gravel. No, it was not a fast course but pretty with the fall color. This was less than 4 days after I finally arrived, and I was still feeling not all there when I was running. I was just sleepy-yeh I need 4-5 days in normal non delayed-on -the-airport-floor- conditions to race at 100% but this time the process was dragged out thanks to sh!ttya$$ Delta screwing up. I finished 2nd, but was just planning this race as a tempo run to help prep for the 50. It was well organized and the medals were super cool. I got a goft cert to Sports Authority to boot :)
warm up
MOUNTAIN of bananas at the finish
3rd lady
Top three
The next race was for MOM! The Care 4 Breast Cancer 5k in Woodstock, Il . I wanted to see if I could win this one again for Mom. Just before the start the press asked me wat this race means to me and why I'm running it. I showed the guy with the camera the sign on my back and that pretty much summed it up. I am in the US this time of year each year and try to not miss this race. I do it for Mom. I miss my mom more than anyone and get really angry with people who treat their moms badly. Mindy and Brad were out there too. Brad was on stroller duty with Dylan and Parker (my cute little nephews), and Mindy ran.
It was foggy and colder this year.There was a hard frost on the grass in the morning. I ended up all alone after the 2nd mile because the guys I was running with dropped off. The last km was pretty lonely. I won again this year-a little slower than last year but I think that had to do with being alone. Last year I had people to push me and the 2nd lady stuck to me until about the 2 mile marker.
Immediately after finishing, I ran back to the car to get the camera to get pix of Mindy at the finish. She was also very pinked out :-)
Mindy in PINK!!!
Leonid and Mindy at the finish
Dylan with his donut
Awards ( I get gear from the Running Depot:))
Awards
Leonid winning age group(4th overall)
MEMORY LANE -Oct 26th Shannon McNamara 5k in Rolling Meadows, Il. This one was a really nice race and well organized. It started on the pavement then moved onto the xc course at the high school and finished on the track. This was a total walk down Memory Lane for me. I lived in RM from 79-87 and wento to school there until late 7th grade when we moved. The race was at the high school which was just up the street from my old elementary school: Central Road Elementary. I got to the race in time to warm up and check out the course. It was right at freezing in the morning but sunny and not windy so it felt warm. The race is in memory of Shannon McNamara who was murdered in 2001. I remember when it happened and was in the news. Veyr very sad
http://www.shannonmcnamara.com/story.html The race entry fee goes to a scholarship in her name which is really nice.
The course was mostly on the xc course on the grass. I won this one too and got to run with the boys xc team for company as we helped each other out. Leonid didn't run as he was sttill feeling a bit under the weather. That's ok though, one of my prizes was a gift cert to Running Unlimited, the other was to the Diner in Arlington Heights where we went for lunch :)
I was late for trick or treating this yr because ummm errr I won the 5k and had to wait for the awards:) Valid excuse! Parker and I are clowning around :)
Lakefront 50/50 2-Nov
I'm not going to bother posting a big report on this one. I'll just be to the point- epic fail and I am not proud of my pitiful performance at all. I started feeling tired a couple days before and something just didn't seem right. I felt tired during the race and especially shitty between 28-35k for some reason. My time- not fit to print. Sure it was sub 4 but so what? I've done a helluva lot better and it's nothing to write home about. I finished 2nd- also not particularly proud of that to be perfectly honest.
It was only after I got back to Moscow 2 days later I realized what had been going on. Yeah- I was in the process of getting REALLY FCUKING SICK :-( The flight I'm sure was the last straw. I was having hot/cold flashes on the drive home WTF? I ended up with the Damn Throat Bug From Hell for the next 2 weeks and a voice that made me sound like a middle school boy hitting puberty. I actually had to postpone a couple lessons because I felt like hell- had a temperature one day which for me is very rare to have. The next, I felt ok but then after that, that was the end. Thankfully I felt the shittiest over a 3 day weekend. I never had a stuffy nose just this crap in my throat and dry cough I drugged the hell out of so I could go to work without sharing the love. I did feel very fatigued though. All I wanted to do was sleep sleep sleep sleep. So November is typically a rest and do not much of anything month and that's pretty much what I ended up doing. Yes, a super shitty way to end a season if you ask me. Honestly, my season was over when I sat out Daugavpils in August. It was really hard to sit out an A race then try and find much motivation after since there was not much else to train for this yr. I have never ever skipped an A race. The fact that I was in shape leading up to it to take a crack at a PR and possibly sub 3:40 just added insult to injury.
After having a crap race in Valmiera, I should have done the wise thing and just held off on long races til 2014. My speed was still decent for the stuff up to the half. Plus, I had no real idea which fall races I'd be doing until less than a month before I left for the US because 100k WC kept getting repeatedly cancelled. Chicago 50k is likely not going to be on the menu for next year because I have 2 races I'm going to try and do decently- 50k in Daugavpils in June(will run unless the forecast if for hell hot) and WC100k in Daugavpils 30, Aug. That means I'm going to be out of commission a good chunk of September and I may be better off doing a series of shorter races in the US 6-8 weeks later. After my down month in May this yr, I actually got my speed up and did decently in shorter races up to the half this summer. Any marathon I would do after the 100 would not be fast so, there really isn't a point in going there. My window for a fast marathon in 2014 would be March April before I run the 50 and 100 and although there are some good options like Barcelona or Rotterdam, both are not in my budget.
I'm racing the mile this weekend in the first of our indoor series this winter and I am willing to bet money that I'm in such pathetic shape after all this, I might not even make it under 6 :-( I started doing light workouts just to maintain fitness on the indoor track this week after they ust finished overhauling it. It's all nice and spiffy now :-)I was planning to do the Zelenograd winter marathon on the 7th of Dec, but that's in question now too.
getting ready
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