'Twas the Night Before....

I promised myself I'd be in bed by 8:30 this evening, and here I am blogging away.

'Twas the night before my first 1/2  - many thoughts on my mind...

'If I can make it to the starting line, I'm sure I'll be fine!"

The table is covered with all of my gear

Clothes, shoes, water, watch; I forgot something, I fear.

It's time to bed down, a good rest is calling my name.

Fresh legs, a fresh mind - all part of the game.

5:00 am will come mighty quick,

we'll jump in the car and head out to the sticks.

The gun will go off, and we'll set out on the trail-

The pair of Amys enjoying the details..

I'm sure the time will fly and before I know we'll be done

Crossing the line of 13.1!

Here's my list for the day:

A little motivation!

Jeremy made me my own Garmin watch and a big water jug Amy and I can share........

I was laughing so hard, Jeremy couldn't get a good picture of me using my new 'gear!'

Next up: RACE REPORT!

Seriously?

Dear Mother Nature,

April Fool's is over.

Is this seriously what you have for the race on Saturday?

I'm putting in a special request (pretty, pretty please) for your reconsideration.

Sincerely,

A 1st time (hopeful)1/2 Marathoner hoping for decent weather.

I am always saying that no run is ever easy for me, whether it's 1 mile or many miles. But I just want to post this for the record - I had a fairly easy run today. Granted, it was only 2 miles, but I can tell you of quite a few times when even 2 miles seemed killer.

What was the difference this time?

What made this run different than others?

IDK (I don't know), but I'll take it :) and hope for more.

1 more 2-mile run scheduled for tomorrow and then these legs won't get a run until Saturday (for the big one)!

Kicking off Race Week with a......Race!

Hello, I'm Amy, have we met?

Seems I've been M.I.A., so I have lots to tell, but will spare all the details and give you the slimmed down version:

*I was all prepared to run the Cook Forest 1/2 marathon - 12 weeks of training (long runs, and tempos, and cross training, and tapering) and then......

I woke up the day before the race with a special gift from the stomach bug........

Ugh! Another year that 12 weeks of training went in the books with no 1/2 to show for it.

*My friend Amy, who trained the same 12 weeks and was all set to run with me went to the race, kicked its butt, and then calls me and says, "Find another 1/2; I don't care where it is, I'll come run with you." Now that's friendship.

*I found another race - a trail race- April 21 - that's Saturday!

*Yesterday officially began taper week (again), but I kicked it off with a 5k.

The Saint Francis U Relay for Life 5k - not an easy course, not at all. It's actually 3.25 miles with 4 significant hills. This is the fastest I've ever run this course. It felt good to run fast and although speed wasn't my plan, that's what happened.

Today is a 'rest' day (nice hike in the woods with the family). I'll run tomorrow and Wednesday and then let the legs rest until Saturday morning.
Thanks for following.

1-0

Picture it: Sunday, March 20, 2011

OK?

That was the last time I had a double-digit mile run.

That is until yesterday!

10 miles in the books! I'm so excited.

I went out with the Foxtrot running group. This is a group of some pretty cool people. They're training for the Pittsburgh Marathon in May but anyone can show up for their weekend group runs. Since my friend, Sandy, and I are training for the Cook Forest 1/2, we're usually not prepared for the distance they have set to run. No biggie, we just adjust our mileage as needed.

So they had 14 miles on the agenda. I knew this was not possible for me. Sandy was thinking 10 miles and, although my schedule had a 9-miler on schedule, I was OK to try to 10.

So we met, took off and once we established our running grove, I found myself just a few steps ahead of Sandy (who was running with a gal, Kyra). When I hit the 5-mile mark, I turned around. Sandy felt good and wanted to continue, but Kyra was ready to turn around (to this point, 6 miles was her longest run). Sandy continued with the group and Kyra and I turned around and headed back to the start/finish.

For several miles we chatted and came to realize how similar our lives are - we chatted about our boys (she has 2 boys, ages 6 and 8) and their adventures in school and soccer, what we love about parochial schools, etc. Kyra started to slow and told me to push ahead and we'd meet at the end. So that's what we did.

I finished the 10.17 miles in 1:40 on the nose - setting my pace @ 9:50, which is the perfect pace for a long run!

10 miles - it's been a long time since I hit that mileage.

I'm feeling it a bit today, especially in the knees. I'm going to take it easy today and tomorrow and then hit the road again on Tuesday.

This is the group (before we took off). I'm in the pink top with the blue hat!



Training Season - it's ON!

It's February.

Already.

I haven't posted since 1/7/12.

That's unacceptable.

Since my last post, I started the official 12-week training program for the Cook Forest 1/2 Marathon.

Yes! That's the one I (over)trained for last year and then was unable to run it.

Fast-forward to today - I may not be a year faster, but I am a year smarter and have promised to train smarter and stick with the plan.

I am also thrilled to have 3 friends running the 1/2 this year - that makes for a lot of motivation.

First, there's Amy. She's an amazing runner, a wonderful person, and I'm so thrilled to be running with her. We have been training 'together' at a distance, as we live 4 hours apart. We do our training and then email each other our updates on Saturday (although she is always the one who initiates the exchange - thanks Aim!)

Next, there are Sandy and Mary. 2 truly amazing people. I work with Sandy and we're similar in that we both started running not too long ago. Mary has been running for a bit longer - she is just amazing. I've learned so much about running just by watching her at races (she's always ahead of me, I just try and keep up).

This is Mary and I at the Turkey Trot in November.

 Here comes Sandy in from her 12-miler yesterday.

So, the training has been going well  - I track it all on Mapmyrun.

Don't want to bore with details, but the basic plan is

Sunday - rest or cross-train (I've been keeping it a rest day)

Monday - cross train (usually circuit training class at work)

Tuesday - 3 - 4 mile run

Wednesday - 3-4 mile run

Thursday 3-4 mile run

Friday - rest

Saturday- long run (yesterday was my longest - 8.87 miles with the Altoona runner's group)

Running Humor

I've seen this video floating around the running blogs lately. I thought that maybe I was the only one who thought it was funny, but Jeremy and the boys watched it and they catch the humor in it too.

If you know my boys, you can easily guess what their favorite part of the video is.....

"Don't poop your pants, don't poop your pants!"

or

"Don't pants your poop, don't pants your poop!"

Love it!

I'm hoping to get out for a run today - it's beautiful here today - 49 degrees and sunny (What? In January? In the mountains of Pennsylvania? Yep :)