Tag: Travel

Race recap: Motatapu Miner’s Trail 15k

On By shorterandfasterIn Fitness, Running1 Comment

When J and I officially settled on our honeymoon dates in New Zealand, one of the first things I did was start searching for races happening while we were there. I knew that having a race on the books would be a good way to keep up my Boston training, and racing internationally seemed like a unique experience to add to our action-packed trip. I certainly wasn’t looking for a trail race (after spraining my ankle during my first trail race attempt), but the Macpac Motatapu fit into our schedule and looked like a ton of fun. The event has a pretty amazing number of options: an 8k, a 15k, a trail marathon, an ultra, a tri, and a bike race. We opted for the 15k–it looked tough enough given the elevation gain (see below!)

5 Unique events in beautiful Motatapu, Queenstown New Zealand.The morning of the race we plugged the race address into Google Maps and for the first and only time on our trip, got ourselves completely lost down a dirt road to nowhere. After a few minutes of frustration we turned around and took a much more legitimate road the the race start in Arrowtown, which is outside of Queenstown NZ. The signage around parking was a little bit unclear but there was space on the side streets, so we found a spot and rushed over to the bib pickup.

As with everything in NZ, it was super low-key and organized, so within a couple of minutes we were all set and ready to go. They were really nice about taking our jackets at the bag check–the morning was super chilly but it warmed up fast. The restroom lines were also a breeze–the event starts were staggered and ours was one of the smaller ones, so it felt a bit empty in the start area.

When the start time came around we seeded ourselves into informal corrals, which were then set off in staggered waves. This was really easy and helpful to keep the narrower parts of the course from getting too crowded. The most surprising thing at the start was that almost everyone had a hydration pack on–which seemed a little excessive for a 15k with two water stops–but it was a tough course so I could see why a slower runner would want their own fuel! J and I were more than fine sharing my handheld bottle, though.

The race started up a steep pitch on dirt roads. It was hard to not run the whole way up but I insisted on some fast hiking to conserve energy (which paid off for sure!) Everyone was chatting and encouraging each other, and by the first water stop I was down to a tank and shorts. We stopped to use the “loo” since we knew it was the only option and took off again, continuing the climb as we looped through open pastures and up along golden ridges. The vistas were gorgeous but I definitely had to keep my focus on my feet–trails are tough! We wended our way up to the highest point on mostly single track, which sometimes was so narrow that runners couldn’t pass one another. J and I took turns leading, but at this point were had a good crew around us to keep pace with.

Once the downhill started we really had to keep our eyes down on our feet–the trails were a bit slick and super narrow, with some areas that had rope holds for balance. We locked into a few other runners and one of the Kiwis warned us that the much-anticipated river crossing was coming up. We were feeling good with 2k left and excited to laugh and splash our way across the shallows to the finish.

Well, we were dead wrong–the course looped us back and forth across the same river ELEVEN times! At some points the freezing cold glacial water was almost up to my waist. I do have to say I think this was a little unnecessary–no one loves soaking wet feet and we got the point after one or two times. But we took it in stride and ran it into the finish, ending well under our goal of 2 hours.

Post-race we hightailed it to a local brunch spot and grabbed some well-deserved mimosas–there were lots of vendors at the post race area but everything cost money (including the massage tent!), so we figured we’d rather sit and eat. It felt great to warm up and dry off in the sunshine.

Overall, this was a fantastic experience and I’m definitely looking forward to more trail races in my future–including my first ultra in just a couple of months. I’ll have at least another post or two about our New Zealand trip in the coming weeks–please let me know if there’s anything you’re curious to learn more about!

Do you prefer roads or trails? Have you ever raced internationally?

My bachelorette in NYC, aka the best weekend ever

On By shorterandfasterIn Uncategorized3 Comments

Something that I’m not very good at is accepting help from people without feeling guilty and/or obligated to immediately reciprocate. Being in a healthy and happy relationship for close to five years (crazy!) has helped a ton, but I’m still uber-sensitive about being indebted to friends. So wedding planning has been pushing me in a good way to do two important things–first, to take a deep breath and not be anal about every single detail, and second, to let my wonderful friends and family do nice things for me without feeling guilty.

I have eschewed a lot of the standard wedding stuff simply become it doesn’t resonate with me–I’m requesting no gifts at my shower, I’m skipping the expensive bridesmaid dresses, and I’m wearing something that’s non-traditional and very “me.” But I wanted to have a bachelorette party so that I could spend some quality time with my girlfriends before the wedding weekend–and I had a few requirements:

  • I wanted to go to NYC and go trapeze-ing outside, a long-time dream based only partially on that Sex and the City episode
  • I didn’t want people to have to do things they aren’t into or spend money they don’t want to spend
  • No invasive games, underwear gifting, or penis stuff (just, no.)

Well, my friends blew the thing out of the water and I had the most fantastic time. Other than snuggles and catch-up time with my favorite humans, the highlights included…

Delicious meals! We ate like queens all weekend–my favorite spots we visited were BKW by Brooklyn Winery (get their dry rosé and die happy) and Two Hands Cafe for brunch.

Two thumbs up for Two Hands!

Running! I harangued a few of my friends into going for a jog with me along the river and the High Line. The weather was perfection and I just couldn’t stop smiling the whole time.

 

Theater! I’m a total musical nerd, so we snagged tickets to see Josh Groban in Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. It was a really interesting and offbeat show–definitely not your typical cutesy musical–but the singing and staging were fantastic.

Trapeze! We channeled our inner Carrie Bradshaws and 8 of us intrepid adventurers did a flying trapeze class at TSNY. It wasn’t my first time, but it was my first outdoor class and SO much fun to do it with friends. I’m glad we don’t have a place to trapeze in Boston any more because all of my money would be gone. Such a rush!

NOT graceful.

If you ever have a chance to try flying trapeze, it is incredible. It was a perfect cap to a incredible weekend–we even had nice weather smack in the middle of a disgustingly cold and rainy week. On top of everything else, my mom drove down and came with my cousin and her daughter (my junior bridesmaid) to brunch before everyone headed out. I felt so overwhelmed and loved all weekend long, and it made me even more excited for the wedding.

Back to more running-related posts soon, I promise! Linking up with Amanda today 🙂

 

Chicago marathon recap part 2: the weekend

On By shorterandfasterIn Uncategorized2 Comments

img_0583Howdy, friends! I’m back to recapping my time in Chicago–click here if you missed my race day recap. It was such a fun weekend to be in town! Chicago is one of my favorite cities, and it happens to be where one of my favorite friends lives. Here’s a recap of what we did before and after the race–including lots of food and a little bit of Hamilton!

I’ll rewind back to last Thursday, when we flew out late in the day and popped into Lyfe Kitchen for a quick dinner. We really liked it–they had a nice and varied menu with lots of gluten free options. Friday morning we were up relatively early–J wanted to pop into the November Project workout and I wanted to get rolling pretty early to the expo. We hopped on a shuttle around 9am from one of the downtown hotels and it dropped us off right at the expo–definitely a super smooth way to get there.img_0600

Having been to the marathon expos in both NYC and Boston I have to say this one was really well organized and actually not that overwhelming–although we did miss Shalene Flanagan’s book signing, which I was bummed about. We snagged my number and t-shirt and then I picked out my splurge marathon swag item–a red half-zip I have basically been living in since the race. It’s really easy to get overzealous and spend way too much time walking around (and shopping around) at the expo, so I’m pleased we were able to sneak out with just a few purchases. J did get me one of these babies as a marathon present and I LOVE IT. Totally worth spending the money for the real deal.img_0610

After the expo we meandered our way up to Wheat’s End Cafe, where had to keep myself from ordering every single thing on the menu–the entire restaurant is gluten free!! Nirvana. In the end we split a pumpkin cinnamon roll and I had a fig, brie, and prosciutto sammie. Next time I’ll have to come back and try the gf popover!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering down through the zoo–I’m not the biggest zoo person (they make me a little sad) but we had a great time. It’s super cool that the zoo there is free and easily accessible. img_0618We met up with my college bestie Deby and made our way to The Northman, which is a cider bar! So cool–I really loved the ones we tried. We need one of these in Boston, stat. The evening was spent catching up and chowing down at Homeslice, which has fabulous gf pizza. Good food, good times, good people 🙂img_0670

Saturday morning I harangued J into coming on my shakeout run with me, so we did some run-sightseeing and stopped by the bean for the requisite photo opp. We also checked out the runner reunite area to get our bearings for Sunday. Post-run we met back up with Deby and ventured to Grange Hall for my pre-race lunch burger. This baby is sitting on top of two slices of gf french toast and is topped with bacon, Canadian bacon, cheese, and an egg. WOOF. I swear there is actually a burger under there somewhere…img_0626

Basically all that eating had to be enough to sustain me through the many emotional ups and downs of finally seeing Hamilton!!! I am a total musical nerd and have been obsessively listening to the soundtrack for a good year, so when I saw the show was going to be in town I bit the bullet and spent way too much on a couple of tickets. I have to say that it was totally worth every penny–I laughed, I cried (a couple of times… ok, maybe 3…) and just absolutely adored it. It was hands-down it was one of the best theater experiences I’ve ever had. Other musical geeks, get at it–it’s worth it.img_0655

Post-Hamilton we grabbed a simple dinner at Whole Foods and hunkered down for some TV time while I prepped all of my race stuff. Then, you know, I ran a marathon (obviously it has its own post). After the race we wound down at Deby’s and then had lunch with another college friend. I’m usually not super hungry after a big race (the next day though, watch out!) so we took things easy. It was so nice to celebrate with these fine folks!

dindinJust to make our departure experience extra exciting, we got to the airport to watch our flight get delayed due to the hurricane… twice… so we bit the bullet and decided to reschedule for the following morning, which meant staying at a hotel and eating some microwaveable meals for dinner. Definitely not a high note on which to end our weekend, but I was SO ready to sleep and grateful to get home at a reasonable hour. Overall it was a wonderful weekend and lovely to see so many great people and eat so many delicious things!

I’ll be back shortly with a more running-centric look at what went well, what went not so well, and what my future plans are in regards to the marathon.

Talk to you soon!

Leah

Linking up with Tuesdays on the run!

Chicago marathon recap part 1: the race

On By shorterandfasterIn Fitness, Running, Uncategorized14 Comments
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The many feelings of marathon running.

I think it’s going to take more than one post to fully cover all of my thoughts on my Chicago Marathon experience, but I’m going to dive in and get right to the heart of it with a recap of the race itself. Warning: long post ahead!

Let’s go back in time to early Sunday morning, when I woke up around 5 and headed down to the kitchen of our (super cool and nice) hostel to make my bagel and banana. The whole place, of course, was full of sleepy runners chowing down on their pre-race meals. I left myself lots of time to eat and sip coffee leisurely… by which I actually mean running to the bathroom 7 times. #runnerprobs. The coolest thing about Chicago other than the fact that it actually starts at a reasonable morning hour (looking at you, NYC and Boston and your post-10am start times) is that most people end up staying close enough to walk to the start. Even in the dark, at 6 am, the city’s main streets were full of runners all heading downtown. Excitement! Nervousness! I have to pee again!img_0656

I rendezvoused with the girls at Alexa’s downtown hotel and we made our way together to the start area. Despite being a huge race (around 40K finishers–for reference NYC has around 50K and Boston has approximately 30K) everything was incredibly well organized, and we found our start gate no sweat. We had a few minutes to spare before our 7:30 start time so we waited for one last stop in the porto potties before entering our corral. We squeezed up to the front and chatted a bit with some of the vets around us–and then we were off!

As pretty much everyone will tell you, you run under a bridge during the first mile or so of the race and everyone’s GPS watches get completely thrown off for the rest of the race. So that happened. For evidence, take a look at my Strava which somehow thinks I ran 27.6 miles… yeah, NO. Also, we tried our best to follow the blue line painted on the street that is supposed to help you run the shortest race distance–not sure it was helpful, but it was definitely distracting!

The first 13 miles were a little bit of a blur, but a really fun/fast one where I got to see J and my Boston running friends Aime and Liz all within the first few miles (hi guys!!) One of my buddies, Danielle, had a 3:30 pace bib on her back so we ended up with a little crew of people all aiming for the same goal time. We ran with them for about 15 miles or so–they were lovely! Given our messed up watches we had to put a fair amount of mental math into keeping ourselves on pace, but we hit the half mark at 1:45:40, putting us almost exactly on track for our goal. (I think this was mistake number one, TBH–more on this to come!)

img_0650The second half was where things started to unravel a little bit. I lost both Danielle and Alexa around mile 16. I ran with one of our other newfound 3:30 buddies until mile 18 or so when I stopped for a quick bathroom break. This was followed by a couple of miles of pretty bad cramps, which I think may have been due to a bit too much water too fast (it was getting hotter and I was definitely drinking to compensate). Either way, I was not feeling fantastic, and my pace definitely reflected that.

It was about at this point that I knew 3:30 wasn’t going to happen.img_0645

I’m actually glad I was alone at the moment of that revelation. It wasn’t easy, and I needed to keep my head in the game to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I plugged in my headphones and set my mind on thinking about mile 21, where I knew Jeremy and my bestie Deby and her bf would be cheering. Headphones on, my new goal was just to keep moving. My cramps had cleared up but I was feeling it in my legs. And hot, still hot–it had been in the mid 50s at the start but it inched up to almost 70 in the sun at the finish. I trooped by my fans, which gave me a big boost, and aimed my mind ahead to the finish. I HAD this. I was going to finish and I was going to hit a big PR! The last few miles were loud and crowded, and I kept my focus forward, trying to ignore the runners around me who had juice left to pick it up for the final push.

At the very end of the race there is a tiny hill/bridge that feels like a mountain–I pushed myself to work up it and ticked off the 800, 400, and 200 meter signs to plod through the finish line. It was a big rush of emotions–mostly grateful to be done, mostly proud, a little bit angry that I still had to walk to get to Jeremy and a place to sit, and a little bit disappointed. I held it together and hobbled out of the chute (which is not as long as NY but not short) and grabbed a water, snack bag, and a bag of ice (because why not…?) I trekked through family meeting area, where I pretty much collapsed onto J and let a couple of tears and a bunch of sweat fly onto his shoulder. I was DONE, and ready to be happy and proud. I did something I never thought I could come close to doing.img_0646-1

So the big overall takeaway? I ran my first marathon 11 months ago in 4:05:54, and I ran my second marathon this past weekend in Chicago in 3:36:03. I am incredibly proud of this accomplishment–I know that it’s no trivial feat to cut 29 minutes off of a marathon time in less than a year. That said, I would have loved to scoot in under 3:32 or so for a Boston Qualifying time, and I think that given the right circumstances it’s something that I still have in me. Much more to come on my weekend adventures in Chicago, HAMILTON, the marathon expo, and my reflections on this training cycle–where I’ll revisit my takeaways from last year and and see how I measure up. Plus I’ll include some thoughts on what’s next for me 🙂

Thank you for reading, commenting, and supporting me throughout this training cycle! I’ve had so much fun documenting everything and will absolutely be continuing to chronicle my journey moving forward. Happy trails!

Leah

Linking up with The Weekly Wrap!