Elizabeth Clor's Blog, page 16

Running in Oslo

Wednesday, July 24: Alborg, Denmark
After leaving Warnemunde, Germany, our cruise ship headed for Alborg, Denmark. We were sailing for the first half of the day, which meant it was impossible to run outside. We could have opted for the treadmill, but neither of us were interested in that and we had planned a few days off on this trip, too.

Alborg (or Aalborg) was fun. We had signed up for a Danish Beer Walking tour, but due to low registration, the excursion was cancelled. This ended up being a...

Running in Copenhagen

Hello from Europe! This is my 400th blog post and I am writing it from the deck of the Viking Sky cruise ship, on the North Sea between Denmark and Sweden. We are sailing this morning, so I have some free time to write.

Sunday, July 21: Copenhagen arrival
Nyhavn, CopenhagenWe took an 8-hour overnight flight direct from Dulles to Copenhagen, arriving at 7:15am local time. Crammed in the back of economy class, neither Greg nor I were able to really sleep, and we estimate that we each got maybe a...

The No-Dread Tread(mill)

Treadmills and I go way back. To 2001, to be precise. I ran on a treadmill long before I even knew what a 5K race was or fully understood the concept of a marathon. Now, 18 years later, I am finally the proud owner of a treadmill for the first time.

This comes with a mixed bag of emotions, and more intense than I had expected. When I stepped on my very own treadmill for the first time on Friday after work, it felt surreal. This was mine. I had my Using a treadmill while on vacation, 2016own tr...

Firecracker 5K: Hot, Humid, Hilly. . . but Healthy!

Yesterday morning, I ran my 7th Firecracker 5K. For me, the biggest accomplishment at this race is getting to the start line healthy. I had mono in 2012, 2016, and 2018, and I had a stress reaction in my shin in 2013. I would love for this race to be a tradition, but my health issues have prevented me from running it multiple times in past years.

Staying Healthy
This year, I made a concerted effort to not get sick. That included seeing a "diagnostic specialist" doctor to get to the root cause o...

High-tech Running

It's been a really long time since I've posted a blog! My running life hasn't been that exciting lately, given that it's summer and I'm not training seriously for anything yet. I've been doing mostly easy runs, with speed work once per week. We were blessed with an actual spring here in the DC Metro area, so it didn't get consistently warm and humid until around mid-June.

I wanted to share my adventures in getting a new GPS watch! Last year, I wrote a post about what I don't want in a GPS watc...

The Sugarloaf Marathon: Wet and Wild!

Oh wow. That was a crazy experience.

Start lineI ran the Sugarloaf Marathon this morning in Maine with Greg and our friend Chad. We had registered for this race back in October, at which point I was targeting it as my spring goal marathon. But then, my plans changed (because I thought Sugarloaf might be too warm), and I decided to optimize my training for Shamrock instead, with Sugarloaf being "just for fun." But about three weeks out from Sugarloaf, I decided I wanted to actually race it, so...

Life changes

I got a new job.

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you will remember that I DNF'ed (did not finish) the Shamrock Marathon due to "life stress" occurring in the week leading up to the race. That life stress was actually GOOD stress, but it definitely demanded quite a bit of mental energy. I was exploring two opportunities at the same time (one early stage, one late stage), and there were a lot of unknowns. On top of all that, I was still performing at my current job. So when race day...

A Race Done Right: Semper Fi 5K

As the title of this post indicates, I had a good morning at my 4th consecutive Semper Fi 5K. Unfortunately, this race will not be put on in future years, so it was also my last. Here's some history:

2016: 21:05 (Heavy rain, 55 degrees)
2017: 20:17 (Cloudy, 60 degrees)
2018: 20:40 (Very humid, 68 degrees)

I didn't have a lot of confidence going into this race. Even though I have been running well on cool, non-humid days, the humidity has been killing me on other days. I ran 19 miles last Saturday...

Pike's Peek 10K Race Report

This morning I ran the Pike's Peek 10K in Maryland. This is one of the larger and more competitive 10Ks in the Washington DC Metro area, but I had never run it. Approximately 2,500 runners
competed this morning.

I had always been turned off by the fact that this race was net downhill, and didn't think it was a "fair" course. Most people who had run Pike's Peek set PRs there due to the downhill profile. However, in recent years they changed the course so that it now starts uphill and the final...

PVTC Easter Classic 5K: Hopping Along

I haven't blogged about my racing plans for the rest of the spring, but I do have them! With only 4-6 weeks of potentially cool mornings left, my coach and I decided I should sign up for some shorter races. Today, April 20, had the potential to be cool given that it's still early spring. So I had registered for a 5K. But alas, it was 67 degrees and humid as hell.

A few weeks ago, I registered for the BEST Kids 5K-- a race that two of my friends were running. This is a small race that I have wo...