Chug-along-chica!

5 Miles at 9:52 pace on average.  (There was a 3 hour break between miles 3 and 4, though.)   I'm off to North Carolina for the week!  Not sure how much I'll be able to blog, but I hope hope hope I will still get in all my miles this week.  I am a little impatient to move to running 5 1/2 or 6 miles a day.  I am having delusions of grandeur about the Moab half in March.  :)  Happy Thanksgiving!  I am grateful for you guys!!!

I ran with my much faster hubby James today in North Carolina.  The whole route was rolling hills.  I feel humbled!  I am so used to training on mostly or completely flat surfaces.  My breathing was still fine but my legs were spent after...oh jeez, couldn't have been more thas a mile.  (But there were a lot of really steep hills in that mile!)  So James started letting me hang onto his shirt on the uphills.  Then he would do a fartlek up to the top--dragging me behind him like a short blonde caboose.   It was classic.

Even though I really enjoy hanging (sometimes literally) with James on runs, it is a little depressing, because he has a very effortless stride, and I always feel a little pathetic running next to him.  But isn't he a sweetie to drag me along?

Run in North Carolina surrounded by trees in splendid color.  The hills here are REALLY steep and plentiful.

1st-14:26 with my little boy

2nd-11:46  I am feeling wimpy over the hills

3rd-11:32  Trying not to die

4th-10:09  I finally get in a groove and it's all over

I was going to run another mile later with my other son, but we didn't geta chance.    My shins were pretty sore from clomping my way down all these steep hills.

5 Miles in NC untimed.  Beautiful landscape.  Happy Thanksgiving!

James took 1st in his age division at his race today.  GOOO JAMES!

5 miler in the morning.  11:02 ave. pace.  That's at least a min. per mile slower than a typical run for me. These hills are really kicking my hiny!  Now I realize that I am a definite flat-lander.  What am I going to do?  The Moab half is rolling!  Dread.  I'm going to have to find a freeway ramp and run up and down it a million times once a week or something.

We got home from NC last night at 1:30 am(!)  Good to be back, and nice to have some down time with the fam. before jumping back into our normal routine.  Here are some quick stats about our North Carolina trip:

No. of days I ran-5 (100%)

No. of hills that kicked my butt while we were there: 1,826,927 (estimate)

No. of pounds gained: 3 (blush!)

No. of falling leaves I caught in my hand while running-1

Ave. pace slow down due to very steep rolling hills-1 min. a mile

How many times more beautiful the Autumn leaves are in NC compared to Arizona-8 (at least)

Number of HUMONGOUS falling tree limbs that almost squashed me during a nature walk-1

Well, I had a GREAT run today!!!  I wanted to duplicate that great runner's high I got last Sat., so I did the same basic stats--5 miles slow and then a tempo mile.  All without any kind of refueling or rest stops.

Mile splits: 10:08 (headwind), 9:54, 9:38 (tailwind), 9:32 (tailwind), 10:09, and (here is the mile I am really proud of) 7:51.  That's 29 seconds faster than my tempo mile last week!  Yipee!  I think I could have cranked out at least one more sub 9:00 mile.  I feel fine right now.  I'm super stoked that I still had gas in the tank after 5 miles.  5 used to completely wipe me out.  Progress feels good.   As an added bonus, I had a perfect mileage week at 30 during a trip.  Take that, Ashman!  How could you doubt? :)

I'm going to get a foul for excessive celebration one of these days...

P.S.  BYU RULES!