1 mile race

Summer 2025 running: A mud run, a mile PR, and more marathon training!

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Does anyone even still read running blogs anymore? I have to wonder, ha! I started this blog in 2017 (which was probably way past peak blogger era anyway) when I was trying to qualify for Boston for the first time. 

Here we are 8 years, 12 BQs, and 5 Boston Marathons later. I’m still blogging, just much less often, though I am very active over on Instagram. 

I figured it was time to give a brief update on what I’ve been up to since I ran Boston in April! 

I Did a Mud Run

To be honest, I’ve never had any interest in doing anything like a Tough Mudder or a Spartan race. The risk of injury always seemed far too great. But when my friend Staci asked me last Christmas if I wanted to run the Mud Girl women’s race in the Poconos at the end of May, I said why not. They let kids as young as 7 participate, and the obstacles didn’t look too scary (plus, you could skip any you weren’t comfortable with.) It’s not a timed event, so it was purely for fun. 

And we did have a lot of fun, despite dealing with some pretty awful weather. Even though it was the last day of May, the weather didn’t get above 50 degrees and there was a steady cold rain for most of the run, which took place at the Pocono Raceway. But honestly, that kind of added to the experience. There were 17 total obstacles where we did things like carry weighted bags through mud, climb up mud piles, and swim through muddy pools of water underneath netting. I don’t love being in cold water at all, so that was a challenge for me, but both Staci and I got through. Total distance was about 5K, but we mostly ran/walked it, so it wasn’t like a 5K race. We both laughed a lot throughout the race and said afterwards that we would do it again!

I PR’d My Mile Time at the John Wall Memorial Mile

I’ve said it before, the mile scares the shit out of me. I am a long distance girlie for life. But the Annapolis Striders host a track mile race every summer, and I have always been intrigued by it. However, I am usually on vacation when it happens. Not this year, though– so I decided to really push myself and sign up, with the goal of finishing in under 6 minutes and hopefully even breaking my previous mile PR of 5:56. 

I trained for the race for about 6 weeks, doing mile-specific workouts on the track once a week. And oh my GOD, they were hard! Think 10 x 400 at goal mile pace with brief recoveries in between. Made me long for marathon training. I also participated in an informal track meet held by the Striders earlier in June, racing in the 800 meter (finishing in 2:49) and the 400 meter (76 seconds). 

The race was held at Severna Park High School and I was way more nervous and scared beforehand than I ever am before a marathon! I had a lot of friends there, some who were running and some who just came to watch, so that helped take the edge off. 

We were segmented into heats, with the last heat for anyone who was going to try to run 6 minutes or faster. I ran in that heat and was honestly just hoping I wasn’t the last one to finish. The whole thing was kind of a blur, as racing the mile is. The first lap felt hard, the second lap felt harder, I felt like I wanted to die during the third lap and then just tried to hang on for dear life for lap 4. When I turned the final corner on lap 4, I saw 5:3x on the clock up ahead and I knew I had sub 6. My official time was 5:51 and I was so happy with that! I was the top female Master and second female overall. Maybe I’m a miler after all! (I still prefer marathons, haha!)

I’m Running a Marathon in September…..

I said after Boston that I was going to take the fall off from marathons and focus once again on running a fast half, like I did in 2023. But what do I do? Sign up for the Jack and Jill Poconos Marathon on September 13. 

Why? A few reasons. One, well…. I like marathons. Two, the race is in Jim Thorpe, one of my favorite small towns in PA, and it’s 15 minutes away from Staci’s house. Three, it’s a downhill marathon, dropping 800 feet from start to finish. I know downhill marathons are controversial, but I’ve always wanted to try one and there are very few on the East Coast. This isn’t even that downhill and still falls within the Boston Athletic Association’s new standards for downhill races. Who knows how much of an advantage I will even have. But I am excited to run it! I am actually working with a coach for the first time ever. I got a very part-time job (like 5 hours a week) at my favorite local running store, and with that comes some cool perks– like half off coaching. So I decided to take advantage. So far it is going great, but this summer humidity is kicking my butt. Is it just me, or is it worse than usual lately? 

I’m shooting for around a 3:25 finish. A year ago, I had my heart set on a 3:15, and maybe I can get there, but– I am getting older and the amount of training I would have to do to beat my 3:18 PR from three years ago is daunting. If I can still keep qualifying for Boston with a comfortable cushion, that may be good enough for me.   

…..And Maybe One in October?

I am signed up for the Atlantic City Half on October 19, and now I am thinking of bumping up to the full marathon there, too! I ran the Chicago and Philly marathons, which are 6 weeks apart, in 2022 and both races went awesome (Chicago holds my PR.) Jack and Jill and AC are 5 weeks apart; maybe I can make magic happen again?  

Regardless of what distance I ultimately choose, BibRave is kindly sponsoring me, so I have a comped entry, plus a discount code to share: 15% off your registration with the code BIBRAVE25! Price goes up the first of August, so don’t hesitate to sign up! https://www.acraceseries.com/

How is your summer running going? Any big races you are training for?

Breaking 6 minutes in the Mt. Airy Mile!

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I am a long distance girlie for life. 10 milers and up are my jam. Shorter distances are just not it for me. I like the slow burn of a marathon instead of, say, the all out pain of a 5K when you just feel like your lungs are on fire for 3.1 miles. 

So why on earth did I sign up for the Mt. Airy Mile? 

I guess I am a glutton for punishment. But for real, I was honestly curious about how fast I could race a mile. 

I’ve only run one official mile race before, the Market Street Mile in Frederick, in 2019. I ran a 6:11 then. During COVID, I ran an unofficial mile around my neighborhood in 5:56, which was my first ever sub-6. And then during the Bay Bridge 10K in 2021, I somehow pulled out a 5:54 mile (though it was downhill, to be fair.) I felt like I had the fitness to break 6 minutes– it was just a matter of how much I was willing to make myself hurt. 

All that being said, I’ve never been so nervous on a start line before. I was literally shaking and my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. Compare that to the start of a marathon, when I usually show up feeling like I am ready to party.  

The Mt. Airy Mile takes you through historic downtown Mt. Airy, about an hour or so away from where I live. The race was scheduled to start at 9, so I got there early with plenty of time to warm up on the course. During my warm up, I noticed the first half of the race was all uphill. Yuck! But the second half was downhill! Yay! I thought that made for a fun, but fair, course. 

The actual race was a blur. The race announcer blew the horn and we were off and I just went balls to the wall off the line. I was not looking at my watch, but I was feeling the burn within the first tenth of a mile. I was the first female for probably three tenths of a mile and then the woman who ended up finishing first passed me. Spoiler alert, I never caught up to her. I basically just concentrated on running as fast and as hard as I could and once we got to the top of the hill at the midway point, I knew it was all downhill from there and I just needed to hold on for hopefully only another 3 minutes? I could do anything for 3 minutes! 

So I continued running like a bat out of hell down the hill and before I knew it, I could see the timing clock at the end. It said 5:49 and I knew I was going to have to HUSTLE to squeak in under 6. There was a tiny, tiny little incline at the end, then a left turn and the finish line. I stopped my watch and it read 5:58!! I guess I stopped my watch a second too early, because my official time was 5:59. Sub-6 by the skin of my teeth! 

Afterwards, I chatted with some other runners, including the winning female who ran a blazing fast 5:40 (and she was also a masters runner!) And I grabbed a complimentary beer from Liquidity Aleworks, which was right at the finish line. Let’s be honest, that’s probably the real reason I wanted to race this mile. All races should end at a brewery! 

I ended up finishing second female and winning a gift card to a running store in Westminster, Maryland called Run Moore. 

Am I eager to race another mile again? Eh, probably not anytime soon, but I am glad I ran this! The race also took place two days before the official start of my Ocean City Marathon training, so that was perfect timing, too. 

Have you ever run a mile race? Which would you rather race – a mile or a marathon?

The Frederick Market Street Mile: It hurt so good

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Racing the mile has been on my running bucket list for a while. The thing is, there aren’t too many 1-mile races in my area.

So last year, when I saw that the Frederick Steeplechasers host the Market Street Mile every year, I excitedly signed up for it. But then I realized that the 2018 race fell on the same weekend as the Bottle and Cork 10 Miler, and I bailed.

But this year’s race was scheduled for the weekend after Bottle and Cork, so I again registered for it and had been looking forward to it for months.

I knew it would be hard. As I’ve said many times before, short distances aren’t really my thing. I don’t excel at making myself hurt and going hard and fast the way you have to in a 5K or even a 10K. So I really had no idea what to expect for the mile. I’ve run a 6:34 mile in a 5K before (which, by the way, was way too fast since it was the first mile of the race!) but haven’t actually been timed in the distance for years. I think I ran a timed mile in kickboxing back in 2015, and clocked a 6:56. I figured I could do better now, and was hoping for a sub-6:30.

My official time at the Market Street Mile on Saturday? 6:11!!!

I still can’t believe it.

Again, I went into this race mentally prepared for it to hurt. I joked to my coworkers the day before that I planned to run until I felt like I was going to die, then keep running. And if I puked at the finish, well, whatever. (Seriously. But I didn’t puke, so yay!) The name of the game, I kept telling myself, was to just feel the burn and know it would be over soon.

The race, now in its 38th year, was organized into five different heats — the women’s race, the youth race, the men’s race, the coed master’s race (for runners 40 and over — if I do this next year, I’ll have the option of running as a master or just running in the women’s open in the 40-49 year old group) and the family fun run. My heat was scheduled for 9 am, so Micah and I got to Frederick around 7:30 am for me to have ample time to get my packet, warm up and obviously, use the bathroom five thousand times (OK, just twice that morning!)

After I got my packet, I started chatting with an older man about the race. He was probably in his late 50s and said he had run it last year. I asked him what his time was. “5:10,” he said casually. Holy hell, I thought. So there are some serious runners here. We talked for a bit more and he said he had actually run as a pro in his 20s and tried to get to the Olympic Trials. I don’t usually feel intimidated by other runners at races, but I sort of did after talking to him, even though he was very nice!

I’m glad I had ample chance to warm up beforehand. I hardly ever do that, and maybe I should start doing it at least before 5Ks. I didn’t turn on my Garmin for the warmup, so I’m not exactly sure how fast or far I went, but I’d guess around two miles and it was at a very easy pace. I got back to the start line just as the announcer was telling the women to line up. I got in place right up front — confident? Cocky? The race website did say to start up front if you were going to be running a pace around six to seven minutes, and I did plan on breaking seven minutes at the very least.

image1

Go on. Look as awkward as possible.

The mile starts at the Frederick YMCA and ends right in the middle of the historic downtown area. I loved the fact that it was a point to point course — mentally, I think that was so much better for me than running four laps around a track. But of course, once the gun went off, the whole thing was kind of a blur and I barely registered my surroundings.

There were people calling out our times at each quarter of a mile mark. I hit the first quarter mile in 1:25, which is roughly a 5:45 pace. I honestly can’t tell you much about the race after that. I do know that when I hit the half-mile mark, a man called out “2:59!” and I was excited because I’ve never broken three minutes in the half-mile. (We do run a timed half mile in kickboxing quite a bit, and my PR is 3:09. So this felt like a big deal!)

It would have been awesome if I could have held onto that pace, but it was not to be. I positive split the hell out of the race. Still, the effort was there, so I can’t complain. I have no idea what my time was at the three-quarters mark — I’m sure someone told me, but I was in the pain cave and totally oblivious! Micah was stationed at the end, at around the 0.9 mark, and he called out, “One more block to go!” As I crossed the finish line, I saw the clock said 6:10, but when I stopped my watch, it said 6:13. My official result, as I mentioned earlier, was 6:11. I came in eighth out of 33 in my age group and 14th out of 74 women. It was a really competitive group! The winner finished in 5:01.

FrederickMarketStreetMile

This hurts.

I grabbed a cup (actually three) of water and walked around a bit to cool down. Micah joined me shortly thereafter and we settled in to watch the other heats. The men were sooooo fast. The top 15 men were all under five minutes. I can’t even fathom running that fast!

The race kicked off Frederick’s In The Streets festival, so afterwards we walked around downtown, checking out some of the local stores and browsing at the booths. We ate an early lunch at La Paz, a Mexican restaurant where I’ve eaten before with friends. Drank a Bloody Mary with tequila, which sounds weird, but I think it was an excellent way to recover from a short, hard, fast race!

I would love to do this race again. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t keep thinking about the fact that I was 12 seconds away from breaking six minutes. I know 12 seconds is a lot of time in a mile, but I think I might be able to do it if I really trained strategically for the distance. That’s the thing — do I want to actually train to run my fastest mile ever, or would I rather focus on the longer distances? I guess I have to decide that.

If you’re a runner who’s looking to test yourself at the mile, I highly recommend this race. Learn more at FrederickMarketStreetMile.com.