Quick Recap

It's been quite a couple of weeks since my last post! Work has kept me extremely busy and I've had a pretty tough time fitting my runs in. Anyway, here's a quick recap in pictures.*

Brr....32 degree run. I never got warm! Gloves and headband stayed on during the entire run.

Breaking in my new shoes! They are totally awesome (like how they magically match my shirt? It's amazing how I managed that at 5:30am!)

Last run before Houston! I was rockin it at the Memorial track.

Houston is tomorrow! So excited to run this for the 3rd time - it will be my 5th half marathon!

*And don't worry, I had more runs than this in two weeks, I just didn't take pictures of all of them.

Here I come!

Look what I got in the mail today! I'm so excited! I know it'll be my 3rd time running the race, but I'm still just as excited as the first time. I poured over the packet like I'd never seen it before even though not much has changed since last year (except maybe the finish line). This race kicks off my 2011 racing season and I am ready!

(Wow, there were a lot of exclamation marks in there! I just can't seem to help myself!)

The Weekend slipped away

I had every intention of getting to bed early Friday night and waking early Saturday morning for my long run. Intentions are not always met. I ended up watching two movies and baking 3 dozen chocolate chip cookies. I didn't turn off the lights until after 1am. Oops. So, needless to say I decided to sleep in on Saturday. There's always Sunday for a long run, right?

Wrong. It rained on Sunday. I decided to brave it (since my gym is closed on Sundays there was no such thing as a treadmill for backup). I made it a mile from the house to Starbucks at the end of the trail. As I turned around to head back, the wind picked up tremendously and the rain got harder. By the time I hit 2 miles and was back around the house, I was cold, soaked and miserable. I decided to call it quits.

So instead of running my weekend consisted of this:

And lots of this:

But Monday came, and there was plenty of this:

(there was a whole mile before that but I forgot to send an email at work, so I ran downstairs to the office to handle it. Guess it pays to have your gym in your office building)

Hilly Tuesday?

It's sitting at about 40 degrees here in Houston which means it's WAY too cold for this weeny to go outside and run. That and I didn't get up early this morning either. So what's that mean? Treadmill lunch run! Yay!

I tried to pump myself up for it all morning. Had a bagel and yogurt and plenty of water. My stomach was still turning in knots though because we just hate the treadmill. I put on my speedy South African soccer shirt and hopped on. I figured I'd test myself and actually try out a hill workout.

Wow that was hard! I took a pic of afterwards, but it only shows the cool down, not all the spikes from the jumps in incline.

That's my excited-for-finishing face. Look who forgot to take off their makeup before they started. Lovely raccoon eyes. I took a long cold shower after this, but I couldn't get the rid outta my face. Gotta love having to go back to work with a cherry red face. :)

Long Run Saturday

It's been a pretty tough week for me. Work has been really busy (which I expect) and I've been trying hard to keep up with my workouts. I feel like I'm exerting myself in my bootcamp and my running that sleep should coume easily, but it's not. For 3 nights in a row I laid in bed staring at the ceiling, wanting sleep but it just wouldn't come. On Friday, I text one of my running buddies to insure she was going to be at the 6am Saturday run. She promised she'd be there and so I vowed to go - sleep or no sleep. I probably got about 5 hours of sleep that night and did not really want to make the run, but a promise is a promise. However, after I crawl my sleepy butt out of bed, my friend does not make it. Neither do the other 3 of my friends that are in the running club. I end up having to run alone since I had dropped down a pace group to run with my friends. I'm too fast for the group I'm in and the faster pace group left several minutes ago. I'm kind of stuck in between and I don't really want to slow down because I want the run to be over with. I managed to make it, but at about 9 miles my body wanted to shut down. It took all the energy I had to keep my form and put one foot in front of the other. I just kept telling myself it was good training if I ever don't sleep on race night.

12.6 miles down. I feel like I need to take revenge on this training run.

Look who finally leaned how to use the self timer on her camera! Even Lilly snuck in there. Check out the medal I'm wearing. The head coach of the running club was awarding everyone with "Winners" medals as they crossed the "finish line" today. I remember it being really cool when I trained for my first half, but this run I could have cared less. I just wanted to go home. So I did.

Don't worry. I think I took a 3 hour nap that afternoon. It was definately needed!

Starting the New Year Right

Well, my new year is off to a great start! I finally banished that stomach bug just in time for the neighbors' new year's party. I had every intention of getting in my first run on January 1st, but I decided to reorganize the house (which I'm still in the process of) and go shopping. Instead, I postponed my run till Sunday night and went out right before dark.

It was amazing! The time just flew by and my feet just led me where they wanted to go. I paid no attention to my watch, just ran and enjoyed the night. I felt like I could run forever. When I finally got home, I checked my watch and I had run 7.25 miles! This is definately the kind of runner I want to be. One that runs for the fun of it and enjoys every second of it.

Last night, N came over and we were supposed to do a 10 mile long run. We set out while it was drizzling rain and lightning off in the distance. Probably not a good idea, but it was the only day she could run and we needed to do something even if it wasn't 10 miles. We made it 3 miles from the house and the lightning was still holding off and even the rain had stopped. It was a nice cool night for a run. We turned around to go closer to home though. Good thing we did because about a mile from the house the lightning started occurring very frequently and really close. I encouraged N to pick up the speed so we could get home to the safety of the house. Hubby even came driving by checking on us to make sure we weren't being dummies and hanging out in the weather. So sweet of him! We managed to get into the house just at the rain started pouring down. Our run was cut short to 6.5 miles, but it was better than nothing.

All in all, a great start to the first week of the year. I even managed some speed work yesterday! I don't think I'm going to make any new year's goals this year except for racing once a month. I want to run for the fun of it. Yes, I'm still secretly hoping to run 1,000 miles total this year. But as long as I have fun with it, I'm not going to mind if I fall short.

Happy Running!