the road goes on forever...

mile intervals with the track club. 6:52, 6:52, 6:45. way too easy, but sometimes you need those days :)

Ran about 5 miles today at San Luis park as a hill workout.

Took a nasty fall during my final lap, luckily it was in the dirt. So I slid on my side for a few feet and got really dirty down the entire side of my body, some scratches and bruises, but nothing too bad. Still don't know what I tripped over! Probably a root or something.

Running a 5k Saturday- Red Cross Hurricane Run, which as a hurricane researcher I am pretty excited about! Don't know if I will just run with my friends or really race it.

Oh yeah, and I snuck up on a fox. It was kinda neat.

What a great day! Being a meteorologist I was excited to run this race, and I am very glad I did! I ran my best 5k EVER, even faster than my college times. The only problem is that my goal for the longest time has been to go under 20 in a 5k... I saw the clock and that I would be close so I gave it my all and just missed it. Maybe next time :(  I was first female and received a trophy with a cool hurricane logo on it. This is a great self-esteem boost for my half marathon coming up in 5 weeks.

Sore! I probably should have cooled down yesterday...

Jason, the boyfriend, was here and came to watch intervals. What was good is he actually took splits for each lap I ran... what was bad is he actually took splits for each lap I ran.

1200- 1:35, 3:13, 4:55

1200- 1:35, 3:18, 4:59

800- 1:36, 3:18

800- 1:36, 3:17

400- 1:20

400- 1:18

hills at San Luis

about 16 miles around Tallahassee, ran for time rather than distance, so i turned around at 1:12 to finish around 2:24 which would make sure i ran at least 16 miles if i averaged 9 minutes or faster. i think i ended up getting home at around 2:18, which means i dropped 6 minutes on the way back! not bad!

i think at this point in my training for my last marathon i was crying during my long runs, haha, so i think i have come a long way. i was a litte tired, but still uninjured (knock on wood) and definitely not teary eyed!

Red Shoes- 60 miles

I'm an aunt! My brother- well his wife :) - had little baby Isabella this morning at around 3:45 am!!! Now I just have to wait about 4 weeks til I go home for the Baltimore half marathon so I can see her.

Intervals with GWTC:

1 x 1600 (I think it was like 6:45)

8 x 400 (all beteween around 86 and 93, hard to tell bc we ran them as relays)

I think my blue shoes need to be retired. I have to order another pair and start working them in with the red ones.

Hills at San Luis (distance is an estimate)

I really didn't want to go today but I texted Jason and told him i didn't want to get out of bed to go running, and he responded "go now." It worked!

Red Shoes- 66 miles

Did a sort of tempo run. Once again I really didn't feel like going, but did anyway, and it was absolutely gorgeous.  Then when I was about done I saw a woman ahead of me down the road, and I could tell she was on a long run. So I caught up to her and asked her how long she was going and she said 18. I ended up doing a little longer of a cool down just to keep her company, and turns out she is a pretty impressive runner, and ran a 3:15 Marathon PR, has done every Disney Marathon, and Boston like 5 times. Pretty cool! Helped motivate me for my 18-miler on Wednesday.   When I turned around to go back home she yelled to me "You better qualify!" Hopefully me talking to her helped her long run as well!

 Red shoes- 73 miles

Just an easy 4 miler before my long run wednesday.

18 miles down!!! (more or less)  I think my time was around 2:28.  Felt pretty good. Part of my run was along a course our track club holds a 5 miler/10 miler, so I timed one of my miles (mile 11) and I ran it in 7:53! Of course I made sure I ran that one hard though because I was timing it :) I kept that pace for probably the next 4 or 5 miles, then felt myself slow down a little but towards the end, but that is expected I guess.

More importantly, I couldn't find any gu this week so I was stuck eating those "sports beans." I knew I hated chewing while I was running, but I needed something so I was stuck with them. The chewing wasn't quite as bad as expected, but it was still a pain to keep putting my fingers in the bag to grab a couple more, and repeating that, rather than just sucking down some gu! I ate them once around mile 9 and then again at mile 15. At mile 15 I felt like I was gagging them up (gross I know, imagine how I felt!) so I only ate half a bag.  I think they may have been giving me heartburn too, but maybe that was the lemon-lime flavoring. Anyway, the energy they gave was fairly similar to gu (I think a little less), but I will be ordering a box of gu online to keep this from ever happening again.

Also, my new pre-long run food is a peanut butter and jelly Uncrustable (they are soooo good I eat them for lunch all the time). 210 calories and 25 grams of carbs (not to mention the protein) stuffed into this little sandwich makes it perfect to eat an hour or so before. So yes, I was eating PB&J at 6am this morning :) Runners are so weird.

Off to Chicago for a wedding. I'm going to try to run once or twice while I'm there, but we'll see what happens!

Hello from Aurora, Illinois :) I wasn't sure how I would be able to run while I was here, since I didn't know where I could go and I forgot my watch. So I started off at the hotel gym and ran a mile on the treadmill and it was horrible. So I decided to just go out with nothing but my room key and just run for a while, and checked the clock before I left. I found this flat, windy bike trail along the Fox River and loved it, I could have tun on that trail for hours. When I got back i was about 55 minutes later, and I had run at a really fast clip, which I thought to be maybe 7:30 pace give or take. So I'd estimate about 7.5 miles outside.  So I ran a total of 8 to 8.5 miles on a day I thought I'd be lucky to get in 3! What's great is this almost served as a race pace workout for my half in two weeks. Now I can thoroughly enjoy myself (and the cake) at the wedding tonight.

 Monday morning I'll be in downtown Chicago... not sure if I am going to try to get a run in there or not. I'm kind of scared I'll get lost :) 

4 x 1200 and it hurt bad! Although I did my long run a week ago, I can see now why they say it takes 3 weeks to really recover because my legs felt dead. I am going to enjoy my little taper until my half next weekend.