We ended up scoring some more free swag because we had left our North Face sweatshirts at our hotel and we didn’t have time to go get them – so they gave us new ones! Sweet.

This hike was honestly one of the best parts of the trip. It was breathtaking. I had a hard time keeping my eyes on the trail because I kept wanting to look up at the beautiful mountains we were hiking through.

We took a bus through Mont Blanc (11 km tunnel into Italy!) and then we were off! We hiked uphill for the first 2.5 hours or so, taking a break to watch the racers go by.

I spoke lots of French with our hike leader! She was from Reunion (a volcanic island)

One of the racers!

My brother with the mountains. He was a super-awesome companion for the trip – he never complained about all the hiking we were doing, or if he didn’t like the food (he had some bad beef, that he claimed had a barnacle on it), and he was fun to be around. My little brother is awesome!

We stopped at the Refuge Bertone for lunch. It was so delicious! Cheese and bread and polenta for me, italian meats and polenta for everyone else. We topped the meal off with a piece of delicious cake.

Then it was back down the mountain into the town of Courmayeur, where my brother has decided he will live when he grows up. He plans to teach English there. Awesome!

Here’s him again:

The next day we went up to the Aiguille du Midi, which is a peak reachable by really sketchy cable car. It’s right next to Mont Blanc, the highest peak in Europe, and it was probably the highlight of the trip for me!

After two cable car rides, we were at 3800meters above sea level. Whoa!

On the outside of the peak, there were staircases that you could climb to get higher. Unfortunately, the stairs were grates, so you could see through them… Scary to look down and see just a straight dropoff with craggy icy rocks.

EEK!

Couldn’t beat the views, though.

The rest of the day was spent shopping and watching the awards ceremony, and then a final French dinner.

Mmm profiteroles.

All in all, this was an awesome, active trip. I managed to get in a few runs, too! It was great to bond with my little brother. I was sad to leave Europe, but I was looking forward to getting back to school – I missed UVA!

Thanks so much to Vibram for this awesome experience!

It’s been a little over a week since I returned from the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB) and now that things have settled down a bit I can finally blog about the experience! If you missed this post, I won the Vibram Grip Your World giveaway and won a trip for two to Chamonix, France, to watch the UTMB and enjoy the VIP program at the race (complete with planned day trips, free meals and lodging, and front-row seats at the start and finish of the race!) I decided to take my awesome little brother, and from August 25th to August 30th we had a blast. This definitely ranks up there on my list of travel experiences.

We didn’t have very good internet access while we were in Chamonix, so I didn’t tweet as much as I would have liked to, but armed with three cameras (yes, three) I did manage to get some pretty good pictures.

We spent the first day in Geneva, where we checked into our hotel and then promptly headed out in search of food! We found a baguette, some cheese, and some fruit at a monster store named Manor – the basement was like Ikea, the first floor was a full-size grocery, next two floors were mens and womens clothing, then a Target-like store, then a restaurant. We were impressed.

We ended up walking along the Geneva waterfront for a few hours – we saw swans, got gelato, saw the parks, and went out on a little walkway to see the Geneva monument (the giant fountain). The cold water was refreshing on such a hot day! We dried off pretty quickly in the sun.

The next day I took a quick 6 miler in the rain and then hung out at a cafe for a few hours while my brother slept off the jet lag. Afterward it was time for a bus ride to Chamonix – the hour-long drive was gorgeous! When we got there we were greeted by Annalaura, our Vibram contact for the trip. She was from Milan and she took very good care of us on the trip! She showed us around town (I have never seen so many athletic-y stores in one place!) and introduced us to some great Vibram people. I had a great chat with one of the Tester Team people (I have no idea how to spell his name…) and we bonded over being shoe-nerds.

Then it was the start of the race! 2000 runners trek the 100 mile loop around Mont Blanc, battling snow, tired legs, and the insane elevation changes. I was really inspired watching them begin their journey.

Annalaura walked us back to our hotel and then told us to rest up for our busy night.

We found tons of free stuff in our hotel room!

We chose the “adventure” plan for Friday, so our night was a bus ride to Les Contamines, then a hike up to a cute little in at Nant Borrand where we had dinner. The food was amazing! We had great bread, then a salad with the traditional french “carrottes rapees”, the best scalloped potatoes I’ve had in my life (sorry mom), and a delicious apple tart. My brother also partook of the brisket and some sort of grated potato tartine type deal. No idea what it was. We had some nice conversation with the French couples around us (glad I took French for so long! I love speaking it!) and laughed as “les espagnoles,” the rowdy group of Spanish visitors, drank super-alcoholic “mountain liquor” with the owner of the inn. Later we found out that the plant they use to make the “mountain liquor” out of looks just like one that is poisonous. Glad I stuck with the wine…

During our meal we found out that, due to horrendous weather conditions, the UTMB had been stopped in St. Gervais and then that it had been cancelled altogether. We were sad to hear the news, but I think that stopping the race was probably the safest decision; there were mudslides :\

We hiked back down in the dark (yay free headlamp!) and promptly fell asleep. The question on our minds was “If there’s no race… what are we doing tomorrow?”

Check back on Friday for UTMB Part 2 to find out!

I was very disappointed this weekend to not be able to run in the Virginia Beach Rock and Roll Half Marathon – especially after the good people at Sony so generously sponsored my entry. I began to feel sick on Thursday, worsened Friday, and by the afternoon of Saturday I was in no shape to drive the 3 hours to Virginia Beach – or race.

Ultimately, not racing was the smart decision. I woke up race day (Sunday) feeling like I hadn’t slept in a week, and definitely not feeling like running 13.1 miles. Spending the day doing homework and laying in bed was way less fun than seeing my DailyMile friends and racing would have been, but I’m glad I played it safe.

A huge thank you again to Sony for their sponsorship (I was looking forward to wearing the super-cool Sony Blogger shirt they gave me for the race – it’s Nike Pro gear and it is sweet!) and for the Walkman – it was great to not have to worry about pulling my ipod off the treadmill ledge (as I’ve done a hundred times in the past.) Check out my review of the Walkman for more information – it’s a pretty great mp3 player for runners!

I’ve done my post-not-race grieving and I’m looking towards the future – I’m excited to be racing with my dad in his very first 5k! He’s got a training plan and everything – he was telling me today that even though he has meetings all day at work, then a business dinner, he was “definitely going get the run in – even if it’s at 10pm!” That’s dedication right there.

I’m also planning to race the Charlottesville Fall Classic 10k. I ran this race last year (2009 report) and can’t wait to give it another go. I’m putting the finishing touches on my training plan now!

Congrats to all who *did* race in VA Beach, and happy running, everyone!

My goals for this race are pretty simple – I want to stay injury-free! That means no time goals for this race. Staying healthy and having fun are all I need for this one! Coming back from the injury was pretty hard mentally, and I struggled a bit with being motivated to go out and run when it was slow and painful and tough. Training for the triathlon was a great break from that, and now that I’ve regained the fitness I lost being injured I’m ready for a new running challenge. This race on my calendar has definitely revamped my running training!

Right now I’m trying to plan out my next races. I just got the book “The Triathlete Training Bible” from my mom as a “way-to-go!” present for finishing my triathlon (Thanks mom!) and I think that will be a great tool for sketching out my training. When I’m done planning I’ll share it here!
Enjoy the beautiful weekend, guys! I’m off for a bike ride :)

The day started at 7:00am at a local outdoor pool with introductions, a bike check, and body marking. Then the 25 of us (mostly women, interestingly) broke up into two waves (WAVE ONE RULES!) and started in on the clinic. My group was first in the pool for a half-hour session on the open water swim. Coach Liz had set up buoys in the water for us to swim around, and we started by practicing sighting, first with our eyes open under water, then with our eyes closed. Closing our eyes simulated the murky water we will be facing on race day, and made the sighting practice more realistic. We were also taught how to “corkscrew” around the buoys, which sounds difficult but once you get the hang of it it’s easy to see how much faster it is! The idea is that when you reach a turn at a buoy, instead of continuing with a forward crawl, you do a corkscrew stroke (flipping onto your back for a stroke, then continuing the flip back onto your stomach). This helps to turn you around without slowing down!

Swimming in a big group all at once was a great experience to have before race day. Having never swum in a big group like that before, I was nervous about how things would go on race day, but now I know that I don’t have (much) to worry about! Coach Liz also gave us some tips on how to conserve energy for the bike and run (“The swim is a means to the bike, the bike is a means to the run, and the run is the race”), and how to be prepared for getting our goggles kicked off or having water get into them.

After the swim session, Wave 1 headed back to the field where our bikes and bags were and learned about transitions. Two veteran triathletes explained to us about what we would need at each transition, what to expect as far as set-up, and showed us how they did their transitions. After their demo, it was our turn! We set up our race areas, put on our caps and goggles, spun around a few times and did some pushups (to get our HRs up!), and jogged into “T1″, where we put on socks, bike shoes, and a helmet, and jogged our way over to the mount line with our bikes. After a few hundred feet of pedaling we reached the dismount line, and then it was back to the transition area for “T2″. After pulling on a pair of running shoes, putting on our race numbers (we got this really cool race number belt from the clinic people), and grabbing a handheld water bottle, we jogged a few yards and were done with the transition practice. What a great way to get us ready for race day!

After the two sessions it was around 9:30am and time for our mock race! After a “pre-race meeting” wave 1 got in the water, treaded water for 2 minutes, and then we were off! We did 6 loops of the buoys, a 12 mile bike ride (6x a 2m course), and a 2 mile run. I got kind of lost on the run course, and ended up cutting about 3/4ish of a mile off of it. Whoops! Other than that, it went great! The swim was really easy, I kicked butt on the bike (lapped a few people, even!) at about 17mph on a moderately hilly course. Transitions were no problem, although I kind of failed at remembering to put on sunscreen. Oops. At 10:30 am when it was time for the run and 90 degrees out (or at least it *felt* that hot), my legs were a little dead. The first mile of the run was rough, but it was starting to get easier as I kept going.

I think I’m ready for next weekend when I’ll be doing .3 mile swim, 16mi bike, and a 5k run. After the race clinic I feel confident! Thanks to Coach Liz for putting on this great clinic. It was *so* well organized, we got great goodie bags, and so much useful information. The price was very reasonable as well for the quality and amount of instruction that we received. Above all, it was fun! I’m hoping I’ll be able to go to more of her events this summer!

A representative from Sony had contacted me and asked if I was interested in trying out one of their new products, the Sony W Series Walkman MP3 player. Of course! The idea is really cool – instead of having a set of headphones attached by a wire to the mp3 player that you carry, Sony has slimmed things down by putting the mp3 player right on the earbuds, negating the need for a long, dangly cord. The two earbuds are connected by a flexible wire that curves around the back of your head.

I was interested to see how I’d like this new setup. I figured either it would be really good, or really bad. After a week of testing, I’ve decided that Sony did a really great job on designing a pair of dangly-cordless headphones. That said, I think that I’ll be sticking to my iphone for most of my runs.

Software

After unpacking the box and reading the directions, I tried to sync music to the player using their instructions. It doesn’t work with mac! You have to use their special software in order to do the syncing, and there is no mac version (that I know of). Luckily I have VMWare on my mac, so I had a “Windows Machine” that I could use. On the PC things were easy! You just drag and drop into folders and then you’re set to go. Some of my songs didn’t transfer properly, though, and I’m not sure why this was.

Controls

One thing I was very curious about was how the controls would work without (a) a visual display or (b) a hand-held controller. Sony’s solution was to put buttons on the bottoms of the earphones.

Sony W Series Controls

I don’t know about you all, but usually by mile 3 my brain is zoned out.  Zen, wandering thoughts with no clear direction are what fill my head. But give me a more complicated task — and I use complicated very loosely here — and things get hairy. My math fail from a few weeks ago is evidence of that!  So I was really afraid that using controls that I couldn’t see would be an issue.  The main controls – skip, play, pause – are very easy to learn and use without being able to see them. They’re on this little slider that is very intuitive, slide forward/backward to skip, hold forward to change playlist, and press in to play/pause. The volume was a little trickier, only because I would forget which direction was louder. Maybe having different shapes for the two of them would help? Sony tried this, there’s a little dot on the +, but it’s hard to feel, especially mid-stride.

Audio Quality

The audio quality on these was amazing! My songs sounded so much better than they do on the iPhone. Range of volume was good, too. I could make things quiet enough that I could hear what was going on around me on my runs, but they can also go really loud if you want them to.

Earbud fit

The headset came with 3 different sizes of earbuds. I started with the medium, but after a run in those where I had to keep shoving the buds back in my ear I switched to the larger buds, and that worked a lot better. They were snug and they didn’t bounce around. The buds are the “in-ear” kind, so if that bothers you then this headset is not for you. I found them pretty comfortable.

Looks/Construction

These are VERY well put-together. They feel solid and durable, and they didn’t skimp on materials. The battery life is GREAT – they really do last forever (the box says up to 11 hours, I’ve put about 7ish hours on them and they’re still playing) and you can get 90 minutes off a 3 minute charge (I tested this, I got a little over 90 minutes). The only thing about them is that because the MP3 player is part of the headphone set, the part of the headphone that houses the music player is pretty big. I looked pretty silly, I think — like I was trying to wear two giant bluetooth headsets at the same time.

Conclusion

This headset is awesome for what it is. If you hate having cords dangling, this is a great piece of electronics. The price isn’t bad at $50 dollars, and it holds 2GB of music, which is pretty good. For me, I think I’ll stick with my iPhone during my outside runs – I feel safer knowing I can call if I get hurt or lost. I like using this headset for treadmill runs, though, because I don’t have to worry about yanking my iPhone off the “dashboard” of the treadmill. One major advantage to the Sony W Series is that it allowed me to skip songs much easier than my iPhone did, because with the iPhone strapped to my arm I am basically stuck with whatever comes on. I liked having the freedom to skip songs.

Definitely recommend for those who hate cords! Thanks Sony!

Burn-out Mesh Back = Awesome

I recently bought this top from one of my absolute favorite running sites – RunningWarehouse - because it was on sale and I need more sleeved tops for summer (Gotta protect that skin from the sun!). The description said it had a “Burn-out Mesh Back” which I didn’t really understand until it came in the mail:

See all those holes? They wick sweat like none other! The shirt is a bit looser fitting than what I normally wear, but I think this helped keep me cool in the 80-90 degree weather we’ve been having.

I was worried that the piping along the sleeves and hemline would chafe or itch, but they ended up being fine! I think the piping helped to keep the shirt from riding up, too

All in all, this is an awesome shirt that I can’t wait to wear the heck out of this summer. For twenty dollars, I’m tempted to buy another!

There are still a few left at RunningWarehouse – Click here!

(By the way, RunTalkRadio is amazing. What a fun, informative, and hilarious site!)

So imagine my surprise when this week the challenge had my name on it! My running friend Stephanie (who went from 0 miles to running her first 50k in less than a year ) was the challenge honoree last week, and being the sweetheart that she is she recommended that this week’s challenge be about me! Check out the awesome artwork for the challenge:

The challenge is called the Kate M Haiku Challenge, and participants are tasked with running 5.75 miles and then writing a Haiku poem about their run. If you’ve blocked out your high school poetry unit as I have, Haiku are poems that have a set number of syllables per line, specifically 5 – 7 – 5 (get it? That’s why you run 5.75 miles!)

I am so excited to be part of this week’s RunTalkRadio challenge – thanks Stephanie and RTR! It’s been so fun to read everyone’s poems coming in. Here are some samples!

Plus we have some DMers who went above and beyond:

Seven miles today.
After yesterday’s repeats?
I must be stupid.

Promise of sunshine
Was a cruel, cruel lie
F*** you, weatherman.

– Jay P.

Another 8 miles
The same shit different day
Hamster on a wheel

Warmer than I thought
Shoulda worn just a tee shirt
Cooked in my own juice

More rain on the way
But today I did beat it
Dry shoes tomorrow

Shin still seems better
And so does my attitude
Better days ahead

A haiku challenge
But run five point seven five?
I like integers

– Chaz H.

My non-runner (but possible convert? I’m working on it) friend is crazy good at haiku and wrote me this one:

don’t run too much
but kate makes awesome baked goods
so here’s a haiku

I can’t claim my poetic contribution is quite as awesome as everyone else’s, but:

There once was a challenge to do
That asked for a poem impromptu
I sat down to do it
But once I got through it
Realized it should be haiku
– Kate M

Whoops :P

A huge thank you to everyone who has helped me stay motivated through my injury – it really helped!