Feet Move Forward

I'm super late in posting this. My tardiness speaks to my level of exhaustedness (is that a word?) and evidence that I ran my buns off, resulting in a 13 minute PR.  Pre-race, chilly and nervous It was pretty cold that morning and when I got to the starting corral, they were all but empty. I went to stretch and warm up inside a nearby building where other runners were waiting, thinking that I could just hop into the corral right before the start. I ended up waiting a bit too long and the corrals were packed by the time I got out there. I actually ended up standing outside of the corral and had to make my way up to the 3:30 group over the first two miles. The half marathoners started with us so it was pretty crowded until mile 3 where they split off from us. The course for us heading straight up a long, gradual hill where I just concentrated on maintaining an even effort and didn't worry so much about pace. In my original race plan, I had wanted to stay with the 3:3...

I'm still here. I've been incredibly busy these past six weeks (new job, new apt, lots o' running) and haven't had much time to blog. AND I also don't have Internet in my apartment. I'm currently "stealing" it from the Starbucks across the street. Rather than bore you with paragraphs about what I've been up to, I'll let some pictures do the talking. Over the past six weeks I've... Moved. I don't have a picture to illustrate this because I was too busy moving to care about taking pictures so use your imagination. Sorry to let you down right off the bat. Ran (and won!) another 5k. Met someone. Fine, not really. (I should note that this photo was taken after I spent several hours at a wedding reception and then had some beverages to celebrate my aforementioned victory. Benefit of living in a small town #278: News travels fast that you won a road race and people like to buy you drinks. Le ...

This article (and photo) was in the Henderson Independent... Andrew Gerdts was the overall champion at the Sauerkraut Days 5k. Hannah Schroeder won the women's division and set a course record. (Photo by James Brenno) Records set at 4th annual Sauerkraut 5k Run For the second year in a row a course record was set at the annual Sauerkraut Days 5k. This year, however, it wasn’t the men’s course record that fell. Instead, Hannah Schroeder of Le Sueur won the women’s division and set the women’s course record at 20:48, nearly two minutes faster than the previous record of 22:23 set by Jamie Bachaus back in 2007. But Schroeder, who finished 16th overall, wasn’t the only one to best that record in the women’s division. Parry Larson finished the course with a time of 21:05 and took 18th place overall and Jessica Eibs finished at 21:52 and took 20th. Overall, soon-to-be LS-H senior Andrew Gerdts defended his title and course record as Gerdts was the overall champion with a time...

Remember this post about my goals? Goal number two was to place in a race and guess what? I DID! The course for this run was essentially two loops around the lower portion of Henderson, meaning it was relatively flat. There were maybe 50 or so runners and another 50 walkers/mom's with strollers. I lined up a few rows behind the starting line (all the boys) and tried to size up my competition for the girls. There were some girls that looked pretty fast (long, lean, young) and I was watching them warm up, envisioning myself getting dominated. To start the race, there was no gun, no horn, just some guy yelling "GO!" And off we went. My first mile was definitely too fast but I wanted to keep an eye on the girls that took off out of the gate. Soon enough they burned out and I passed them, trying to keep my pace as even as possible. It was extra incentive being the female front runner to keep my pace up. I didn't want to get passed by another girl or anyone. And I ...

What: Grandma's Marathon Where: Duluth, MN When: Saturday, June 19, 2010 The Expo I know that some people aren't huge fans of the expo but I love them! Free food. Free gifts. What more can you ask for? It's also a great place to pick up some fun running stuff, like this shirt by Sistas Shirts . I thought it was pretty applicable. It's also a great opportunity to learn about new organizations. Before I left for Duluth, I saw on the Grandma's Marathon Facebook page that Medals 4 Mettle would be at the expo. This organization collects medals from races and gives them to people fighting serious illnesses or that have debilitating handicaps. Their mission is really personal to me because of what my family experienced with Joel so I donated all of my medals from past races. The highlight of the expo by far was hearing Kara Goucher speak. She is my favorite runner and I've been following her for quite a while. She was just as down to earth as I had ho...

Just in case you thought I do all of this without rhyme or reason, here are some running/fitness goals I've set for myself for the summer. Sharing them makes me accountable and accountability is good. You can all shame me mercilessly if I don't reach them. 1. PR in Grandma's Marathon :  Ultimately I'd like to run anything under 3:50 (but secretly am wishing for something under 3:45). I finished the Twin Cities Marathon last year with a time of 3:55:46. 2. Place in a race : Small towns, here I come! Here's the thing that makes this one completely doable: A week after Grandma's, there is a local 5k race for Henderson's annual Sauerkraut Days  where the female course record is 22:23. A few weeks ago I ran a 5k route during a training run in 22:43. How awesome would it be to not only win the race (for girls) but hold the female course record?! I think I have this one in the bag as long as 1. The marathon doesn't kill me; 2. The fast girls do...

You've probably guessed from the title of this post that I went ahead and ran the Half. No, I wasn't feeling much better and wasn't even entirely sure that I would be able to make it through the whole thing. But I did. Here's how it all went down. I never sleep well the night before races. I think it's a mix of nerves and paranoia that I'll somehow sleep through my two alarms so I was awake long before my planned 5:30 wakeup. I immediately started my pre-race ritual of making coffee and having a small breakfast (an English muffin with pb), took a hot shower, and spent some time on the foam roller. Getting dressed proved to be a challenge as well. The weather report said the temperature at 8am would be 38 degrees with a wind out of the north at 16mph. Yikes! I had been planning on running in shorts and a long sleeve but decided to whip on my tights at the last minute. I am SO glad I did! I went to the race by myself since it was miserably cold and the cours...

Went to see The Back-up Plan... Heed the reviews it's been getting and save yourself. I thought it would be a sorta cute romantic comedy. Um, no. That's 90 minutes of my life that I will never get back. I did, however, manage to eat an entire box of Sour Patch Kids. I'm calling it early carbo loading for my 17 miler on Sunday. But the highlight of the night had to be this: After one of my mocking comments during the movie, my friend Emily punched my thigh and promptly said, "Holy shit, your legs are hard !" I love running. Images found here and here .

These past few days have been crazy! It began on Thursday with baking nearly 400 cupcakes (more on that later) and my weekend activities included my first trail race, frosting and decorating the aforementioned cupcakes, a baby shower and the beginning pains of plantar fasciitis. Now on to the race details. For the Trail Mix race series in Bloomington, I was part of an all women's team for the 50k team event. We all start together and run a 12.5k (7.75 miles) loop. Our individual times are added together for our final score. A friend of my mom's, Cheryl, asked me to run with her and her sister, Laurie, and her friend Melanie. I had never run a trail race before and the website didn't show a course map or elevation chart. Because I didn't really know what to expect- and started to have pain in my heel- I set a tentative goal of an 8:20 pace. Here we are pre-race: Cheryl, me, Melanie, Laurie We arrived up there around 8:30, an hour before the race started. It was per...

It's gorgeous out today so it's fitting that I am completely unmotivated to do anything except laundry and watch "reality" tv (hello, E!). I've been running pretty hard all week- actually, for the past few weeks- and I think my body is starting to rebel. My shins are suspiciously sore and I know they are secretly planning a rebellion against this weekend's runs (8 Saturday, 10 Sunday). Perhaps ice will placate them. I'm Hannah, by the way, and I've been running for as long as I can remember. There is a picture of me running on the beach in California when I was five while on vacation with my family. In elementary school I took pride in beating the boys on Track & Field Day and in Jr. High I ran with the Varsity track team. Once in high school, I found other distractions and running became something I did just during the spring track season and I was content with my "never first, never last" placement in races. College brought what college...