Believe to Achieve

8 miles on the TM before going into work for 90 minutes for a coworker. Courtney leaves tmr and I feel worried.  But know she can adjust and do great in England.  66 minutes.  8:15 avg pace. Started at 8:34.

Ok so I thought I better get it in gear.  Haven't run since Monday and I could have.  I didn't work so the excuses of that is not there.  Courtney left on her mission to England for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Tuesday morning.  I knew I would not run then.  I will miss her. And I can't wait to hear from her again (only one gmail saying she made it there) then only once a week emails from her, no phone calls except mom's day and Christmas.  So next tuesday I will hear from her.  I turned 49 on Wednesday.  Did absolutely nothing except at 6 pm went out to Costa Vida where Brooke works while she was working and ate with Troy and Amber.  It was good because I like Costa Vida and we had my free birthday Tres Leche which was YUMMY, I shared of course.  Really could have run Wednesday too.  Then Thursday I have no idea I just didn't exercise when I know it would help.   I am dealing with lots of headaches.  So they do get worse with hard running but mostly with strength training.  So today, Friday I finally got out there at noon in the warm weather (50s).  I improvised the work out on my BM training schedule.  But let's get real I haven't even been following it. AT ALL.  Two times a week running is Lame.  My back got jacked up from Yoga really from the fall I took a month before that so I am just an almost 40 year old mess.  Ha Ha.  Well this coming week I am not going to falter.  We leave for Phoenix to a soccer tournament.  I should be able to run Friday and Saturday easily as games are 4:30 pm Friday--Amber.  1:45 pm Saturay Brooke.  8:30 pm Saturday Amber.  830am Sunday Brooke.  1145 am Sunday Amber.  8:45 pm Sunday.   Then on Monday are the final games and times are based on how we did the first three games.  So hoping for the 8am time slot for Amber and the 1130am slot for Brooke rather than later in the day.  The early slots are for the top two in their brackets. So here's hoping because we have to drive back to utah.  10 hour drive which includes a 45 minute stop.  so 9 hours 15 minutes in a van full of girls :D.  We rented a 15 passenger van.  Last year was so much fun in our now extinct Ford Expedition with five extra players we raised the bar to 9 extra players besides my two daughers. Okay so I did run so here it is:  

2 mile warm up.  5 x 0.25 mile hill/pace work at 10K pace which again I did too fast and did them at 7:13, 7:18, 7:35 (that's better) 7:22 and 7:14.  With 5 x 0.25 mile run down (MP which I ran too fast and avg 7:30.  Then ran 2 miles back.  I really per schedule was supposed to do 10 but since I have a 10 k that I only have run three other times in two weeks and twice a week the month before that I felt it best not to push too hard or  I will croak at 10 k.

Ran the SLC Winter Series 10 K at the Saltair.  Never have run this series and it has been around for 40 years THIS YEAR!! LOL doing it my most out of shape since early 1995 is hilarious.  Ran a warm up of 1.88 miles out and back on the paved trail that the race is on.  It is basically flat and only one small curve so straight and no scenery except in the distance right along the highway.  It was windy and cold. But not dreadful.  To others the wind bugged them a lot.  It cooled me off from my extra layers.  I got there at 9:35 am (race starts at 10am).  Fiddled around for a bit texting my cousin in Massachusetts telling her how I better get it in gear to run Boston.  Didn't tell her until I got back that I was running a 10k. Used the Bathroom in the Saltair. This race is festive.  Music, food, fun, a plank contest (didn't have time for it had to go warm up).  At 9:44  I ran my warm up and got back with 30 seconds to spare (cut it way too close, I wanted to stretch) and the gun went off.  Warm up pace was 8:24 avg.  I was like "oh my they are about to start the race and I am on the course!"  so I picked it up the last 0.2.  Ran 24:17 out (timing mat)  And my overall time was 48:46.  So double the 24:17 that is 48:34.  So way back I was 12 seconds slower.  Mile four was my downfall.  Right before hitting the turnaround I was wanting to quit.  I didn't feel bad physically just mentally.  I am having a hard time of finding a reward with running (within my brain) so I just emotionally quit.  So as I turned I tried hard to not think of quitting just to quit when clearly I could run the last three miles.  I just ran 12 on the fly last saturday.  Yah it was windy but come on it is the home stretch.  So I kept playing the same song over and over to just get my brain to care a little.  This battle was until mile 4 then I was like okay really Julie?? two miles thats it.  Get to 4.2 miles and you just have two miles.  Mile splits:  7:39, 7:42, 7:52, 7:56, 7:51, 7:50 and 7:29 for last 0.26.  Not sure why my garmin had it long.  I wonder if they went off the second timing matt at the start a ways away.  That would make sense as it would shorten my 0.26 by .03 miles x 2 (out and back).  We don't even get the general medals for the race until we do the last race which is in two weeks. The 15 K.  This time I am going to get going and try to keep the pace at the same as the 10k.   So it is 9.3 miles (4.5 miles out and back).  I got first in my age bracket today!!! YaY!!  I was two minutes ahead of second place so I didn't need to run scared.  I didn't look back once after turn around.   I was first in the 5K two weeks ago as well.  I can do this.  Okay just for KICKS here is mileage for the last five weeks: Jan1:  4   Jan8: 11.2  Jan. 15:  22.6   Jan. 22nd:  9.4   Jan 29: 21.1   Feb5: 23.06  (current week with this race) OBVIOUSLY A LOT OF ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT!!!