Elizabeth Clor's Blog, page 5

5K at the Beach

Greg and I are in the Outer Banks of North Carolina this week on vacation. We often come here in the summer and I have been coming here since childhood. They have a race series that's held every week so naturally I take part! 

Most recently I ran this race in 2021. (We were in Africa last summer). One of my friends was coincidentally staying less than a mile from us so I persuaded her to sign up and run it with me. Greg also ran it in 2021. 

This year my friend is not at the beach and Greg is STIL...

I'm Training for the Marine Corps Marathon

I officially announced on my Instagram that I am training for the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) but I am not sure how formal of an announcement I made here. Even though I live 25 minutes from the start line and I love this marathon, I have only run it one time! Out of 33 marathons, only 1 of them was my hometown marathon.

Marine Corps Marathon 2006I ran the MCM back in 2006. It was my second marathon. I loved every moment of the race and finished in a time of 4:24:39, which was a PR by over 20 minu...

Call me "Coach"

I am now a certified running coach! I received my certification from McMillan Running in June by taking a course online and passing the exam.

I always thought I would eventually want to coach other runners, once I was less focused on my own running career. I saw it as my retirement job-- when I was retired from running and from my full-time job as a marketing executive. Coaching definitely wouldn't fit into my busy schedule of marathon training, producing my Instagram content, and working full-ti...

Firecracker 5K: More Fashion Than Fit

Fashion was the goal in yesterday's Firecracker 5K! I've run this race almost every year since it started in 2010.  The only years I have missed were 2012 (illness), 2013 (injury), and 2016 (illness). In 2020 I ran the "Virtual" race which was a much flatter course and had an earlier start time!

If it weren't for tradition, I would not have signed up for this event. I hadn't been doing much speed work and my mileage had been low. Even though I wasn't fit, I could still have two other F's: Fashion...

Spontaneous Fiesta 5K

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am taking an off season from racing this spring. Thus, my blogging frequency has declined. 

My reasons for taking an off season were to focus on strength training, to give myself a mental break, and to fully recover from Covid. I haven't taken an optional off season since I started racing in 2005!  It's been nice not having to adhere to a rigid schedule and feeling more free with my runs in terms of pace and distance. My goal has been to maintain a base of aro...

Marathon Survey: Super Shoes & Training Plans

About a month ago, I sent out a survey to runners asking them about their most recent marathon. 562 runners completed the 14-question survey. I have to admit that I did this mainly for my own curiosity, but I also wanted to share the results with my followers and blog readers. In this post, I will cover two areas of the survey: super shoes and training plans. 

For the purpose of this survey, I defined a "super shoe" as any shoe with a carbon fiber plate. Some runners responded that they didn't kn...

UCAN Edge Gel Review

UCAN Edge energy gels. When I last did a review of UCAN vs. Maurten, I did not include my thoughts on the UCAN Edge gel because it was so new. In this blog post, I will give my thoughts on UCAN Edge, what I like about it, what I don't like about it, and how I use it in my training.

UCAN Edge Energy GelBefore UCAN released this Edge gel, I used to make my own gels out of the UCAN Energy Powder. For years I would mix the powder with water in a bowl and scoop it into a disposable baby food squeeze p...

Spring Break

I have not updated my blog in over a month! That is a long time for me to go without blogging. That's because my running life has been pretty uneventful. I haven't run any races and I am not training for anything at the moment. I'm fully recovered from Covid and I am not injured; but I have decided it would be a good idea to take an "off" season. 

Even though I only ran one marathon, I trained for two marathons, starting in August of last year. This meant way more long runs than I ever want to do...

Post-Viral Fatigue Part 5

If you've been following my blog, you may remember that I decided not to run the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon last fall because of the warm forecast. I wasn't concerned about running a slow-for-me time. I was concerned about getting sick. Racing in the heat kills my immune system and I have a history of getting sick for extended periods of time following warm races.

So I played it safe and continued training for Houston. I stayed healthy and had a very strong training cycle. I even PR'ed my 5...

Houston Marathon: Smart and Steady

I ran the Houston Marathon yesterday! It was a huge event and I'm happy I was able to experience it. I had run the half marathon twice (2008, 2018) but never the full marathon. This was marathon #32 for me. Wow- I have run so many marathons!

Background
I registered for this race exactly one year ago while I was sick with Covid. I was inspired by seeing so many fast times! Granted, the weather last year was perfect and I knew that Houston weather could be hit-or-miss, but I decided to pull the trig...