Am I Really a Runner?

Commitment...

2011-04-02T13:20:00.001-05:00

From Merriam Webster's Learner's dictionary:

1: a promise to do or give something 2: a promise to be loyal to someone or something 3: the attitude of someone who works very hard to do or support something

Despite the fact that every man I date wants to make a big commitment to me for some strange reason (perhaps because they need me to support them but that's a different story for another day), I have a big problem with it.

Big

Huge

Take, for instance, the fact that I signed up for 2 marathons this Spring (one which takes place next weekend). Big commitment, right?

It should have been, yes.

The problem: I didn't do the training. Same as when I signed up for Chicago last October, no training. (The difference is that I will NOT be running a marathon next weekend with no training.)

So, even though I paid the money and signed up (commitment), I refused to do what was needed to keep up my side of the bargain. I made no commitment to my goal. In fact, I probably did LESS running than I would have done if I hadn't imposed a big deadline on myself. It was like I had a monkey on my back, but I couldn't force myself to do something about it.

The weekend following Marathon #1, I have committed to run a relay. Ugh. (I will be running the relay, I can't let my team down)

So, here's my plan for the next month or so:

1- I will go to Marathon #1, I will support my friends and cheer for them (and possibly switch to the Half Marathon, if that is allowed).
I will run the relay, it's only ~10 miles per person, broken up into 3 sections, I can do that. I will enjoy the day with 7 of my friends.
I will play Marathon #2 by ear...

Beyond that, I plan to stop making these commitments until I can get a handle on my schedule and start running for myself without a looming deadline.

Getting the Hang

2011-02-16T21:31:00.005-06:00

Yeesh! What kind of blogger am I? An absent one, I suppose...

As usual, I'm on the road this week. Unless something comes up at the last minute, I'll be home all week next week. I'm actually starting to get the hang of this. I honestly don't mind traveling a couple of days every week. I don't have to go to the same office every day and meet with the same people week after week.

This week, I'm south. I know it's warmer everywhere, but I didn't even need a jacket today, for crying out loud! I'm planning a run tomorrow morning in shorts and short sleeves, my Garmin is charging away as I type.

The bad, terrible, horrible news that I'm trying not to focus on until I get home... my dog is missing.

Yes, this guy. Long story short, he got away from my daughter on Monday night. I've got pictures hanging up all over town, contacted all the local vets and groomers, and nobody has seen him. This is a 14 year old dog, hard of hearing, poor vision, but as energetic as a puppy. I just can't imagine somebody would pick him up and not turn him in. I can't believe he's gone. I don't know what else to say about it. I feel like I'm missing a member of my family right now, a runaway. I'm hopeful that he'll come home, but realistically I know that's probably not gonna happen.

Three Things Thursday

2011-01-20T13:23:00.004-06:00

1- When traveling for work with a group of men, and vendors are taking you to the best places to eat, it is not always the best idea to get the most food and drinks possible out of the free meal.

Moo.

That said, I ate at a couple of great places in Minneapolis (here and here) and one pretty great place in Grand Rapids. I did pretty good at eating healthy in Grand Rapids (here), but I was out of control in Minneapolis.

2 - I haven't been running. Combined with #1 above, I feel terrible right about now. I want to hibernate and wake up when I've lost about 20 lbs. The problem with hibernating is that it won't get me marathon-ready in less than 3 months. Guess I'll have to suck it up.

3 - Work is kicking my butt. I need to figure out how to get more rest when I'm traveling. I chose the job that includes all the travel, now I have to figure out how to make it work in my life. When I'm on the road, I tend to work all day at the facility I'm visiting, then go to my hotel and do the work I would have done if I was in the office.

Woe, Woe

2011-01-10T15:11:00.002-06:00

I had a 2 1/2 day long pity party over the weekend.

Am I depressed? Maybe.

Am I just lazy? Most definitely.

I tend to need activities planned in order to keep myself motivated over the weekend. Otherwise, I lay around in my pajamas the entire time and read. It all ended last night with the ordering of pizza so that I wouldn't have to do any more dishes.

I'm ok with it because I hit the ground running at work today and have had a pretty productive day. I'm pretty stoked about work these days because I have quite a few pretty big projects coming up. The big projects that affect a lot of change are always my favorites. :)

Anyhow, I took advantage of the beginning of the year sales this year and ordered a treadmill and an elliptical machine. I've had several treadmills in the past, but this time I went all out and ordered quality instead of taking the cheap route. Since my daughter doesn't like to run, I also ordered an elliptical machine for her to use (and I'll take advantage of it, too).

I expect zero excuses from me from here on out.

It's too cold. (hit the treadmill)
It's too hot. (hit the treadmill)
I overslept. (treadmill before bed)
I don't feel up to it. (hit the treadmill or elliptical and stop if you feel worse)

It's worked for me in the past, no reason it shouldn't work this time around.

One more day in the office this week, barring a huge snowfall, and I'll be off to Grand Rapids later in the week. Maybe I can explore GR on foot one of the mornings I'm there...

It's a Good Thing

2011-01-05T14:35:00.002-06:00

That I didn't make any "real" resolutions for 2011. I got my days and nights all mixed up over the long weekend, and I've been having a hard time getting any sleep so far.

No sleep = No running for me.

I have, however, cooked healthy meals at home every day since January 1. That's HUGE for me! I can't remember the last time I cooked dinner every day for 4 days in a row, and I have plans for what I'm cooking tonight. I may actually make it a full week of healthy, home-cooked meals. It's a miracle!

Unfortunately, my streak will have to come to an end when my travel schedule starts to ramp up for this year. I'll be spending part of every week from next week through mid-February in Madison, WI, Grand Rapids, MI, or Minneapolis, MN. Why couldn't I have gotten assigned to Florida and California for the winter?? Why?

Anyhow, I had a fantastic New Year's. I spent it at one of my new neighbor's house. They probably had 20 or so families over from the neighborhood. It was great to get a chance to know some of the neighbors a little better, and I'm SO glad I moved into this particular neighborhood. I've never lived in a place where people tried to be friends with their neighbors. I like it.
I don't like it so much when my doorbell rings a couple of times a week for one reason or another and I'm wearing my pajamas. But, ah well, such is life. I'm sure I'm not the only one that changes immediately into sweats or pajamas as soon as I get home from work.

Right?

Now, to find somebody to pawn off these butter braids that the neighbor's daughters were selling for the band. It's bad for me to have something that sweet and fattening in the house...

Clean Slate

2010-12-30T22:37:00.002-06:00

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day."

~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Every year, I debate whether or not to make "resolutions". As much as I hate them, I just can't help but feel like the new year is my chance at a clean slate. As 2010 comes to a close, I have spent a lot of time beating myself up over my failures of the year. I haven't lost any weight, in fact I've probably gained. I haven't been doing much running at all. I've probably ran the least miles I have ever run in a year.

On the other hand, I have made a lot of changes this year, and some accomplishments. I may not have run many miles overall, but I ran
5 Half Marathons,
1 Full Marathon,
1 8-man/80-mile relay,
and various races of shorter distances.

I also moved myself and my 2 kids 300+ miles from the area we've lived for the past 15+ years (and 300 miles away from all the help from my parents). I've started in a new position at work where I travel about 50% of the time (which I love, by the way, the job and the travel).

So, what does 2011 hold for me? Well, clearly, I get to start a fresh new chapter. I can't wait for that.
I'm not going to set any arbitrary goals for myself (although I have already committed to at least 2 marathons for the year and various other races).
Instead of saying I will lose xx pounds or run yyyy miles, I'm going to take it as it comes. Of course, it's crazy to say that I don't have some hope in mind for what I think I want to accomplish. I'm going to make it my #1 new year's resolution to forgive myself if I don't meet all my expectations.

I also have some goals in mind for work and for my personal life. I can pretty much boil it down to this: Focus. I have so many things that need to get accomplished, that it's impossible to think I can get it all done when I would like for it to get done, at work and at home. My second resolution is to focus on the task at hand and cross things off my to-do list one at a time without getting overwhelmed.

That's it. I feel good about giving myself a break. Hopefully, I'll follow through with it and have a more positive outlook in 2011 than I've had in 2010.

Training Plan, Weeks 1 and 2

2010-12-20T16:20:00.003-06:00

So, here we are, Day 2 of marathon training for St Louis.

I purposely scheduled no running yesterday. The way I had it planned, I would have 0 runs on days I have to be in the office for the first 2 weeks of my plan. This way, I can be miserable in peace while I try to get back some level of fitness.

Week 1, 12/20-12/26

Tuesday, 12/21: 6 miles (work from home)

Thursday, 12/23: 5 miles, include 3 miles tempo run (vacation day)

Sunday, 12/26: 10 miles

Week 2, 12/27 - 1/2

Tuesday, 12/28: 5 miles (vacation day)

Friday, 12/31: 5 miles, include 2x1600 (holiday)

Sunday, 1/2: 12 miles

As it turns out, today I wound up shoveling snow during the time I would have normally been running.

Soooo, for week 1, I will either run later this afternoon (unlikely), or change to Thursday and Friday running, with the long run remaining on Sunday. Honestly, I really could have ran this morning and shoveled during my lunchtime, but I elected to sleep in instead.

Was it worth it?

Absolutely not. :/

Maybe I'll remember that the next time I hit the snooze button...

T Minus 6 Days

2010-12-14T10:48:00.002-06:00

Until Marathon training starts! So, I haven't really been running lately, but I will be running at least one marathon in the Spring. And, I will be posting my weekly goals and results here on a regular basis as well.

I'm already looking at the plan that I printed out last week and deciding what changes I will make so that it will fit my schedule. I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to work from home a day or two every week (when I'm not traveling). I will be planning my longer mid-week runs on work from home days when I don't have to worry about getting dressed for work afterwards. :)
Also, my long run for the first week falls on Christmas. One thing I learned from Thanksgiving, I won't do my long run on a holiday when I'm staying at my parents' house.

I will be posting my Week One plan on Sunday. Let's see if I can go from Couch to Marathon in 16 weeks. (I know I can, let's hope I can do it gracefully)

Comeback #6,921

2010-11-17T20:18:00.006-06:00

On August 3, 2007, I decided to start blogging.

Everyone was doing it, and I had plenty to say.

At the time, I had been running for about 7 years but never really considered myself a "runner". Even at my fastest, I was the slowpoke of my running friends. (Yes, I run with some speedy people.) So, here I am, 3+ years later feeling like less of a runner than ever.

So, what has happened to me? That, I am trying to figure out.

Three years ago, I was in fine shape, running pretty regularly.

Today, I'm running intermittently (that's an understatement) and I'm 60 pounds heavier. Heavier than I've ever been. This isn't because I sit around and eat cheetos and bon bons all day. I eat pretty healthy 85-90% of the time. The problem is, the other 10-15% of the time, I am completely out of control.

Here's one my my favorite running photos, taken in February 2006 at the Fly with the Eagles Half Marathon. It was 20 degrees and windy that day, but I felt strong and looked strong. I have to get that back.

So, what's my point?

I'm trying to think of one. :)

Seriously, I've been considering whether or not I should continue blogging or just give it up altogether. Today, as I was running (yay!), I was thinking about what I've been doing to myself. I have signed up for the Go! St Louis Marathon next April, and I'll be doing the River to River Relay with friends again this year the week after the marathon. I'm also considering another marathon in May (Madison, WI?).

There is no doubt in my mind that I can not accomplish these races back-to-back without losing at least 20 lbs (preferably 30) and DOING THE TRAINING. That's a biggie for me. I've never really been big on following the training for any race 100%, but I've never been 60 lbs overweight, either.

So, my plan is to be accountable here. I'm not going to be one of those people that complains about being fat all the time but does nothing about it. I'm sick of feeling the way I do, I'm tired of being exhausted all the time, and I'm ready to DO something about it. At the beginning of this month, I plunked down the money and my daughter and I started going to Weight Watchers meetings. I have to lose the weight, I can't afford to keep paying Weight Watchers indefinitely (and I won't give up).

I've got a 10 mile race coming up the Saturday after Thanksgiving, then there will be 3 weeks before marathon training for St Louis will "officially" begin on December 20. I'll be checking in with my training plan for each week and results. Feel free to cheer when I follow the plan and heckle when I don't. Or if you really want to make me uncomfortable, ask me whether sleeping in was worth missing a necessary training run and why I did it. That will really make me squirm.

Is it November Yet??

2010-10-24T17:05:00.005-05:00

October has been the month from hell for me.

First, my kids both have birthdays in the same pay month. For that reason, I generally try to keep spending to a minimum in this month. This October, nothing has gone right.

My daughter, when backing out of the garage one morning early this month, broke the rear view mirror off her car. I decided to pay for the repair out of my pocket. It was only a couple hundred dollars, and I didn't want to turn it into the insurance company. Little did I know, that was just the beginning.

Later the same week, my refrigerator quit and the drains in my upstairs bathroom became clogged to the point where we couldn't take a shower up there. Both had to get taken care of the same week. Ugh.

Back in February, I committed to running the Chicago Marathon with some friends. There was no backing out, even though I did absolutely zero training for the race. SO, the day before the marathon, my friends came up and picked me up and we went to the Expo.

After the Expo, we were checking into the hotel and getting ready to go to dinner. I noticed that G had brought his shoes in the same Columbus Marathon bag that I had packed my shoes into. Problem, there was only one Columbus Marathon bag in the room. A quick call to my kids confirmed it, I had left my shoes at home. After dinner, we were off to Sports Authority to buy a new pair of shoes. $100 when I normally buy them online for $80. Later, when I checked the receipt almost a week later (I didn't look at it before, just shoved it in my bag), I found that they had actually charged my card $140 for the shoes.

So, I ran the Chicago Marathon in the 80+ degree heat, with zero training and a new pair of shoes. Suffice it to say it was ugly. I finished an hour and 45 minutes later than my normal marathon time, but I finished. I was glad to be done with it, and too stubborn to stop until I finished. The beer at the finish line never tasted so good.

Later that evening, we all got cleaned up and went out to celebrate:

All of that pain was worth it, we had a great time.

When I got back from the Marathon, I found that my son's computer has a bad hard drive. One. More. Thing.

One more week until November, it can't get here soon enough...

Again

2010-09-21T10:07:00.002-05:00

Once again, I can't believe it's been a month since I've posted here! Yeesh!

Since the last time, I've moved into my house, traveled for business 3 out of 4 weeks, and ran the Chicago Half Marathon.

Yes, the Chicago Half Marathon, great course, well organized, and I did much better than I expected. I was pleased with my performance that day.

As for training runs, well, I won't even talk about it. Even I get tired of hearing my own excuses. I will be running the Chicago Marathon in under 3 weeks, but it is going to be rough.

Home Stretch

2010-08-17T13:20:00.002-05:00

I will finally be closing on my house this Friday. I can not wait. I've only been staying at a hotel since August 2, but it seems like forever.

Now, since my training has been hit and miss for the past 8 weeks, I must piece together 8 good weeks of training leading up to the Chicago Marathon. I'm committed to this race.

Also, back-to-school clothes shopping has sent my daughter back to the gym. We have been hitting the hotel fitness center the past couple of weeks, and I'm back to tracking my food. Look at my ticker! I'm down another 3 lbs! 8 lbs down, 59 to go. Ugh. That's actually my ultimate goal, though. I'd be pretty happy with losing 40.

Silence

2010-08-11T17:15:00.002-05:00

Ahhh... Do you hear that?

My kids drove back down to our old house today, so I'm living alone in the hotel again. :)
It's only Wednesday, but this week has been very long already. This is the first night that I haven't spent the entire evening shopping for school clothes until the stores close.

Last night, my daughter and I did venture down to the hotel fitness center around 9:30 or 10pm. I was on the dreadmill, she was on the elliptical. We have both gotten pretty bad out of shape (I've been a poor example the past couple of years). Next week, I plan to drag her down there at least 2-3 times. OK, so I didn't drag her down there, I told her where I was going and she wanted to go.

Next week, we should be able to get enrolled in school and my son can join the football practices. Maybe between that and the hotel fitness center, I can keep the kids tired enough that they won't want to run me ragged the entire week!

Vagabond

2010-08-10T14:19:00.002-05:00

I'm back. I have no home right now, but I have officially started working at my new job as of last week.

My new address is at the Embassy Suites.
Living in a hotel week 1: Not so bad, I did a lot of reading and enjoyed the free breakfast and happy hour.
Living in a hotel week 2: I brought my kids. Yeah, not so much fun.

We still have to live in a hotel for one more week next week, the closing for the house is supposed to take place on August 20. Let me just say it here, as I've said it everywhere else, I will never never never attempt to buy another house that is a short sale. This has been nothing but pain and a whole lot of waiting. I pray that it actually happens on the 20th. If not, I'm in big trouble.

Meanwhile, do you think I've been running?
If you said yes, you would be dead wrong. On the weekends, I'm driving 5 hours each way to go home, do laundry, visit my pets, etc. I am not doing my long runs.

So, in less than 9 weeks, I will be running the Chicago Marathon with pretty much 0 training. If I start training today, maybe I can minimize the pain, but it ain't gonna be pretty.

Stay tuned, I'm actually starting to feel settled already. I'm loving working up here, I'm excited to actually get moved into my house and feel like I really live here. I think this is going to be a great change for me!

Back on Schedule

2010-07-26T10:28:00.002-05:00

After 2 weeks of zero running, I decided this past weekend that I need to do a long run. My training schedule called for 12 miles. Luckily, the weekend that I skipped was a cutback week, so I hadn't missed a long run in my schedule.

Unfortunately, running 9 miles on a Sunday, then skipping 2 full weeks of running does not allow you to maintain the same fitness level as you had. Now, add to that temperatures that are just shy of 100 degrees and bright sunshine.

Saturday's long run was no fun. Brutal is an understatement. I went out on Saturday morning at 7am and completed 13.4 miles. Notice, I didn't say that I "ran" 13.4 miles. I "ran" about 10 miles, walked about 1 mile and trudged home the last 2.

I even attempted to call my kids to come and pick me up after about mile 11. My phone was wet (I was dripping sweat), so I could only manage to place the two phone calls. Neither of my kids answered, so I had to get home on foot. Ugh!

I contemplated crawling up under a tree and resting for a spell a couple of different times, but I suffered it out. I made it home. I got the miles. Now, I feel like I can continue on my marathon training where I left off. Next weekend, my schedule calls for 14 miles. Unless it cools down by 20 degrees or so, I'll be out the door by 5am for that one. Lesson learned.

Living in Limbo

2010-07-20T14:48:00.007-05:00

I'm one more step closer to finally finally purchasing this.
*cross your fingers that my current house sells soon*

This whole process is even more frustrating because I first made the decision to move to the Chicago area in December of last year. After much waiting and nagging within my company, I got the green light in June. Now, I'm waiting for a bank to tell me that it's OK for me to close on this house before school starts. That will teach me to try and buy a short sale house. Aargh!

Anyway, since we only have a few more weeks of living in the St Louis area, the kids and I are cramming in "one more" of a lot of things. Sunday afternoon, it was "one more" Cardinals game (OK, to be honest, we'll travel back for Cardinals games).

We were on the ground level about 20 rows back from home plate. And, we were in the shade. Awesome seats. I drank too many $8 beers.

I start at my new job on August 2. At this point, I'll be living in a hotel until I can get the house situation figured out. I feel like I'm in limbo, I just want to be moved already! I'm hopeful that once I get settled, life will get back to normal. I haven't felt normal for quite a while now, a couple of years really.

Howdy!

2010-07-13T10:48:00.005-05:00

Nope, I'm not abandoning my blog. Once again, I've gotten all caught up in my life. Even though I have plenty of time to watch TV (I think watching the New Jersey Housewives is actually making me dumber), I obviously haven't had time to work out like I should or blog.

So, once again, here I am getting serious again.

*sigh*

I have been running, although I've been averaging maybe 2 days a week. I have been eating right, for an average of about 4-5 days a week.

One week ago, I made the decision to get serious about it all again. Again.

Since then, I started tracking every bite. Then, over the weekend, I started alternating running with the Turbofire workouts. Today is my first glorious Day of Rest. Whew! But, as of this morning, I am down 5 lbs. Woohoo! Maybe I should even post one of those little weight loss tickers on my blog? Hm, maybe.

Meanwhile, here is a "Before" picture from my son's recent grade school graduation.

He dressed up real nice, didn't he? Gah! Oh well, his hair looks halfway normal for a change and he had the cap and gown for the entire ceremony anyway. The gown is what is draped over my shoulder in the picture, I am not wearing green with red.

Change of Plans

2010-06-04T10:09:00.002-05:00

So, Diana, you will be happy to hear that I'm running the 15K.
:-P

Somebody check my temperature.

My friend Ang texted me last night and said that she was going to go and run the 15K. She hasn't been to a race since the Fly with the Eagles Half in February. She claims that she isn't running much, so we can finish last together. However, I know her too well. She will say that and then run off and leave me.

Oh well, bring on that pity applause at the finish line because I'm ready to come in last.
Ah, well, I'll probably still win first in my age group.

Rain Rain Go Away!

2010-06-03T11:22:00.001-05:00

The past 2 days, I've had the best intentions of getting up for an early morning run, but there have been thunderstorms between 5-6am both days. Ugh!

The rest of the day: sunny, with no clouds in sight.

Run in the evening? Ha!
Once I get off work, I go straight into couch potato mode. Running later in the evening does not appeal to me at all. Maybe if I had a training partner, but certainly not alone.

It seems I have a choice to make for Saturday. I usually run the Crossroads Dash 15K every year. Last year, I finished dead last at this race with a pace of 11:36/mile. I don't foresee running the race any faster this year than last year. There is also a 5k distance that I could run, but I wouldn't get my planned distance that way. Time for a good old pro-con list for my 3 available options.

Option 1: Run 15K race:

Pros:
Get 9 mile distance for the day.
Run faster than I would at home
Likely to win an age group award, since most people run the shorter race
Spend time with friends

Cons:
Likely to be last finisher, which I HATE
Pay $20 to finish last

Option 2: Run 5K race:

Pros:
Run faster than I would at home, speedwork
Spend time with friends

Cons:
Don't get very many miles for the week.
Pay $20 to run a shorter distance and probably not win anything

Option 3: Run 9-10 miles at home:

Pros:
Get 9 mile distance for the day.
No embarassment of finishing last.
No need to wait until 8am to start running.
FREE

Cons:
Will run slower
Won't get to see my friends at the race, although we could always get together later

I'm leaning toward Option #3, even though I may have led some of my friends to believe I was going to run the 5K. I really can't get myself motivated to think that it's a good idea to go to this race this year, especially when I start thinking about the killer hills near the end.

No. Thank. You.

Two Race Weekend

2010-06-02T11:44:00.002-05:00

Memorial Day Weekend I wound up with 4 days off. Our building was closed on Friday, so I was left with a freebie day off. :)

On Friday, I went and saw Sex and the City 2, in the afternoon, when there were only a handful of others there. OK, so I had to take my 16 year old daughter, since my friends were all at work, but it was worth it.

Saturday morning, I ran the Odin Sesquicentennial 5K race. At 8am. In the heat and humidity. My only goal for this race was to NOT run my slowest 5K ever.

Result: Pass! I ran a 32:18, which is very close, but not quite my slowest ever. The course was ok, just the right amount of sun and shade, but the weather was so hot and so humid that I was just glad that it was over.

Saturday afternoon, I spent at my BFF's house for a girls day in. Ang, Barb and I spent the day drinking margaritas and eating chips and salsa. Yum!

One more race- Herrin has their Herrinfesta Italiana over Memorial Day weekend. The race takes place on Memorial Day and is a 10K. I knew what to expect, as I have done this race many times before. As usual, I had talked myself out of how bad it was. I'm good at that selective memory when it comes to race courses. My goal for the race was once again to NOT run my slowest 10K ever.

Result: FAIL! I ran a 1:14. My slowest 10K prior to Monday was 1:05. The race is one giant loop, most of it taking place in the hot hot sun. And, let me tell you, it was HOT on Monday. I think it was in the mid to upper 70s at the race start, and humid. I was miserable and just didn't care that it was a race. I just wanted to get it over with. And, finally, I did. :)
So, even though I failed at my goal, I was not disappointed with my time. I really didn't care.

My friend C had her grandson there and wanted me to come out and run the 1 mile race back with him. I've run with him before, he hasn't quite learned to pace himself yet so there is a lot of walking involved. I agreed to help, and wound up getting in another 2 miles- one out to the 1 mile start and then the mile back.

After the race, we went to G's house and took showers and got ready to go out for lunch. Who would have thought that every place we decided to eat would be closed for Memorial Day? We were on a wild goose chase! We tried 3 different restaurants- all closed. Then, there were signs up all over talking about a wine and arts festival that was taking place Memorial Day weekend. When we found the park where the festival was to be held, we saw one last truck packing up one last display. Ugh! Seriously, isn't Memorial Day a part of Memorial Day weekend?

We were all craving pulled pork, so we finally settled on a little hole in the wall place that was actually open. So disappointing. The barbecue was dry and not very good. The side dishes all tasted like they were served directly from a can. Yuck!

Later, we went to a Southern IL winery. That made up for the race fail and the lunch fail.
It wound up being a fantastic day, I'm glad we stuck it out.

I... Was... Running!

2010-05-26T09:15:00.005-05:00

Forrest Gump: "Now you wouldn't believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows.

From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running."

Last night, I was at my son's 8th grade graduation.

When I got home, I watched my must-see TV on my DVR ~ American Idol, Biggest Loser, and my favorite... glee!!

I wound up going to bed around 11pm, with plans to wake up at 5am and run. When I was still tossing and turning around 12:30am, I was doubting my plan.

Then, when I woke up at 1:30am and again at 3am, I was almost certain that I wouldn't run this morning. I haven't gotten up at 5am to run in ages, I've been using insomnia as an excuse even on nights when I've slept well.

This morning, when my 5am alarm went off, I was up and out the door.

I. Was. Running! :)

Change is Coming

2010-05-21T15:18:00.003-05:00

In more ways than one.

This summer, I will be making a move. The kids and I will be moving to the city. Well, probably more like the suburbs, of Chicago.

I'm ready for change, and the opportunities in the new location will be much more plentiful than they are here.

Stay tuned for the relocation saga.

The other upcoming change is the always present weight loss dilemma. I sound like a broken record, I know.

I recently met up with some old friends for lunch.

Problem #1: I hate the way my hair looks. That will be easy to fix, and will be fixed very soon.

Problem #2: I am twice as big as everybody else in the picture. Granted, I am 5 inches taller than they are, so I will never be as small. I do want to be confident in the way I look, however. Right now, I am not.

Over the weekend, I decluttered my house, including my closet. I found more clothes than one person could ever want or need. The only problem is that these clothes are in 5 different sizes, and I have the least amount of clothes in the largest sizes, the sizes I wear now.

My regularly scheduled races will have to be changed.
This makes me sad.

I'll miss the Tunnel Hill Trail Run, all of the tiny little 5Ks, the Turkey Trot 15K that is 3 loops of the same 5K course, and many others. I may travel down here for some of them, but not all.
I do have two races on the schedule in Chicago for this Summer/Fall already ~ the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon on August 1, and the Chicago Marathon on 10/10/10.

I'm considering a local 10K on Memorial Day in the meantime, and possibly one of those small 5Ks this Saturday the 29th...

Laptop!! Plus, let's talk about my last couple of races...

2010-05-07T19:36:00.006-05:00

So, once again, it's been a while since I last posted. My laptop has been sooooo slow, I haven't even wanted to fire it up long enough to do anything from home. I took it to the shop this week for some TLC, and it's like a new computer now. We all have computers that are right as rain at Casa de Tammy now!

My 2 most recent races were the River to River Relay (8 runners - 80 hilly miles) and the Flying Pig Half Marathon.

The Relay was on April 17. The relay team that we put together was the bestest relay team ever. I've run this relay 5 times, and I've never had such a good time. Every single person made the day that much better. We couldn't find 8 runners that were fast enough and uninjured, so we wound up running the race with 7 runners (2 of the runners split up the 8th leg).

Here's Mustang Sally and the Tipsy Rousers at the finish:

We finished the entire 80 miles in 11:03. That's an average of 8:17/mile. And, I was a slowpoke. Our goal was 12 hours, and we smashed it! Mustang Sally and the Tipsy Rousers rock!

A couple of weeks later, four of us went to Cincinnati to run the Flying Pig Marathon. I hadn't done the training, and I've been continuously gaining weight, so I decided to run the Half instead of the Full.

It was POURING the morning of the race, and a part of me was hoping that they would cancel it. It had been storming just prior to the race, but the lightning and thunder managed to move on just before the race start. Yay. :(

So, we all started the race soaking wet. On top of that, I had some stomach issue going on and wound up in the port-a-potties along the race course 5 times. Yes, 5 times in the port a potty with soaking wet clothes. One of those times, I had to wait in a line for 15-20 minutes. My goal became to beat my friend G to the finish line. He was planning to run a 3:10 full marathon. Ugh.

It was miserable.

It is over. Hallelujah.

I must drop some weight and get back in running shape this spring and summer. I'm registered for the Chicago Marathon on 10/10/10, and I intend to have a good race there.

128.8

2010-02-16T17:34:00.001-06:00

At 47 days into 2010, that's how many miles I should have run after the end of today in order to reach my 1,000 mile goal for the year.

So far this year, I have run 49.1 miles. I'm considerably short of my goal at this point. I will need to make up almost 80 miles throughout the rest of the year.

I know that I can achieve this.

There are 318 days remaining, and I have 950.9 miles left to run. That averages out to just a hair under 3 miles per day, or 21 miles per week.

(I'm a math geek, I can't help it).

21 miles per week, I can do. I have two marathons planned for the year, I have no excuse for not running an average of 21 miles per week. Never mind that I did it last year. If I can do that much training, my speed will have no choice but to improve, and as promised I'm not even going to mention my weight.

This weekend, I'm headed to Florida to run the A1A Half Marathon in Ft Lauderdale. I'm looking forward to it, hopefully the short vacation will re-energize me.

Do You Know?

2010-02-14T18:54:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, I ran the Fly with the Eagles Half Marathon at the Crab Orchard wildlife refuge. I've been running this race every year for several years now.

I woke up yesterday morning after approximately 3 hours of sleep. I could not sleep Friday night and didn't bother to try. I drank my coffee and forgot to eat breakfast, so I ate a banana in the car with the girls on the way down. The temperature was 30 degrees and sunny. Knowing all of this, along with the minimal amount of training that I've been doing, I estimated my finish time at 2:32.

When you go to a race, do you know what your finish time will be?
I almost always know within a minute or two what my finish time will be for any given race.

On the way down, the girls were talking about how slow they would be, but they had NO idea what to expect. This absolutely boggles my mind.

Several miles of the race are inside the sanctuary on a trail that was "soft". My shoes were covered in mud after this race. Yuck! I hate getting dirty. I'm such a girl about mud. I hate it. Several runners reported seeing eagles while we were in there, but I never saw them. :-(

I felt good the entire run, but I was being careful not to run too hard, since I do have another half marathon next weekend. At Ft Lauderdale!

Given the muddy conditions, I wasn't as close as I thought to my prediction, but I still ran a 2:34. I was happy with this finish time, even though I finished LAST in my age group and was very close to being the very last finisher. Yup, these small-town races have their benefits and their drawbacks.

Benefit: It's very easy to win an age group award
Drawback: Run slower than a 9-10 minute mile and you risk finishing last.

So, the question, do you know how you will finish a race, or am I alone in this? Does predicting my time this way become a self-fulfilling prophecy and keep me from running faster?

My Old Ways, and my Last Whiny Rant

2010-02-11T22:45:00.001-06:00

I admit it. I've reverted to the Weekend Warrior.

No running Monday - Friday, long run on the weekend.

I wish that I could find a magic cure for this problem. I don't like running after work, but I can't force myself out of bed before work. OK, Clearly I CAN force myself out of bed before work, or I CAN run after work. The fact is, it's not happening. After a long day of work, I want to snuggle into my warm clothes and rest. And, the mornings? It's dark at 5am. And, I'm lazy.

Obviously, if I'm not running, I've gotten away from strength training too. For quite some time now. I come back to it occasionally, but I slack off almost immediately.

Unfortunately, over the past 2 years, I've gained 40 lbs. I wonder if the non-running and the gain in weight are related? Hm. Seriously, I'm tired of hearing myself complain about it, as I'm sure all of those around me are tired of it as well. It's time to put up or shut up. Yes, you heard it here. I'm no longer whining and complaining about being fat. If I'm not willing to DO something about it, I'm not going to waste my time whining about it.

Half Marathon this Saturday.
Then, I travel to Florida next weekend and run the Half Marathon at Ft Lauderdale.
Hopefully, I can manage a couple of runs in between the two.

Now, does anybody have that magic cure for sleeping in?

Back in the Swing

2010-01-24T18:55:00.002-06:00

This weekend, the weather was somewhat warm, 45-50 degrees, but the sun was in hiding. I took the opportunity to get some running in. I ran 10 miles on Saturday morning and 5 miles on Sunday. My pace is snail-like, but I know that if I keep at it, that will improve. I'm still planning to keep to my marathon training plan, in case we decide to run the Flying Pig again this year.

I'm also trying to get back into my weightlifting routine, slowly. I'm getting a late start, but I intend to make 2010 my year.

She Lives!

2010-01-17T20:03:00.004-06:00

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I have a blog.

I'm not going to try and catch up on everything that has happened since the last time I posted. I did run another marathon in Memphis.

That was a lot of fun. Even more fun than running 26.2 miles was going out with friends on Beale Street afterward, though. The marathon was December 5. From December 6-December 23, I ran 0, nothing, nada. Then, I ran 4 miles on Christmas Eve with the best of intentions to get moving again.

I went to a concert earlier this month. Lady Gaga was amazing!

Nope, still no running.

So, the week after I ran Memphis, I signed up to run another marathon - Ft Lauderdale on February 21 - with a friend. Um, nope, not gonna happen. I'm now officially running the Half Marathon in Ft Lauderdale. What a relief!

A Spring marathon is still not completely out of the picture, I'm going to start training and see where it goes. OK, so actually I'm going to decide whether or not to run a spring marathon based on what the rest of the gang decides to do.

Happy Late New Year, by the way. No resolutions for me this year. Those never end well.

One challenge I have taken on for the year is Tall Mom on the Run's challenge to run 1,000+ miles in 2010.

I also will strive in 2010 to stop running so many races undertrained. To give some perspective, in 2009, I ran ~700 miles. This included:

10 - 5K races

3 - 10K races

1 - 15K race

2 - 10 mile races

4 - Half Marathons

2 - Full Marathons

That's 183.7 miles in races alone. I love running the races, so I will probably run just as many races in 2010, but I do not want to go into them with so little training. This morning I ran 7 miles. I have 2 Half Marathons scheduled in February, I have some training to do in the next few weeks. You can expect to see more of me around here in 2010.

Weekend Warrior, 3rd Time's the Charm

2009-09-07T15:48:00.002-05:00

Once again, I missed all of my shorter runs during the week and ran my long run on Saturday.

Gah!

My 5K time this morning at the Kinmundy Lions Club Run showed it, too. My official race time was 30:22, a pace of 9:47 / mile. I'm happy that my pace was faster than 10 min/mile, but I am capable of so much better than that.

This is the Last. Time.

Alarm is set.

Weekend Warrior, Week 2

2009-08-31T10:32:00.004-05:00

Once again, I went last week without running during the week.

I went up and walked the new 5K course for the Labor Day run with B and A on Saturday. The old course was an out and back on a flat, desolate stretch of road. Booooring. This year will be the 12th year for the race, and B decided she would try to change it up. If the course works out well, she'll get it certified for next year. Saturday morning, we walked the course with 4 Garmins between us. Two of them read "3.11" at the end, two read "3.12". I think that's pretty good. The new course will run through the Pioneer Log Cabin Village. It is very shady and interesting with all of the cabins.

After the run, B made some stuffed mushrooms and chicken fajitas, which we paired with a bottle of wine from Blue Sky. Yum!

The pedicure/manicure that we had planned will have to wait until next weekend. I'll include my daughter on that.

Sunday morning, A came to my house and we ran my 9 mile loop. It wasn't the 12 that was on my training schedule, but I don't know if I could have done another 3 miles on my leaden legs. As usual, we were followed to my house by a random dog. This time, it was a Golden Retriever. I've seen this dog a zillion times, and it has NEVER followed me. Clearly, there is something about A and I together that is just irresistible to dogs.

When we got back to my house, I decided to take Tito for a walk. You remember Tito, little puffball?

Yeah, I opened the door to let Tito come out for a walk, and he took off after that Golden Retriever like he was going to rip him up. I never realized what a badass Tito is!

Take 3: I'm going to attempt to get my weekday runs this week!

Weekend Warrior

2009-08-23T18:35:00.002-05:00

Marathon training for Memphis officially began for me as of Monday, 8/17.

I did not run all week. Marathon training was NOT off to a good start.

This weekend, I was a good little weekend warrior; I feel like I'm all caught up for now.

Saturday:

I ran the Kirchenfest Strassenlauf 5K. This is always a good race, and I managed to finish in just over 30 minutes. The weather was perfect, low 60's with just a hint of the sun. I'm not sure of my "official" time. The race had a turnout of 640, the highest ever for this race. As a result, they were NOT prepared for it at the finish chute. When I finished, I stood in line outside the finish chute waiting to "finish" the race. My friend C said that the volunteers were dropping the tags when she finished, so we were not surprised when they had a problem with the results.

After the 5K, there was a 2K race that was mostly kids. I ran it with C and her grandson, it was a nice cooldown.

The awards ceremony was supposed to begin at 10am. It did not begin until after 11am. Since our friend S won the race, we stuck around and waited. NOT what any of us wanted to do with our Saturday morning. They weren't even playing music to keep us entertained! There was free beer until 11am, so I must hold my complaints to a minimum. They do need to use chip timing, though. I'll be watching for it next year.

Saturday night, my son played his second football game of the season. Of course, our boys ran all over the other team! We won 34 - 8. We were actually skunking them until the end of the 4th quarter. The weather at the ball game was football weather, for sure. I was wearing a jacket and still cold! The low temp on Saturday night was in the low 50's. Very strange for August in Southern IL.

Sunday:

This morning, I met my friend C at some bike trails near a local community college and we ran 13.1 miles. My marathon schedule called for 10 miles, but I went the extra 3 with her because she is still doing the "one half marathon a month" plan. The long run is just what I needed! Once again, the weather could not have been more ideal. I sure hope we don't have an unseasonably hot September to make up for this!

Now that I have my marathon training back on track, I just need to keep up with it. I have a couple of other longer races planned for the next couple of months, so I'll just have to work in the 18 and 20 mile runs in between.

Orchard View Winery 5K Report

2009-08-04T23:45:00.003-05:00

Saturday morning, I did NOT run a 5K. I went to the high school to pick up my son's game uniform for the Junior football league. Afterwards, the kids and I headed south for a little bit of shopping. We didn't have a lot of luck, although C found a good deal on Rock Band for XBox (we had to have it before the new version with Green Day songs came out) and A got Wii Fit. The purpose of the excursion, clothes for school, not so successful.

Anyhow, we grabbed a bite to eat and came back home to play video games. OK, they played video games, I started trying to come up with an excuse to skip the race. With no good excuse, it was off to Orchard View Winery for the 5pm race start.

What can I say? It was hot. It was humid. I managed to run anyhow.
I finished in a slow, agonizing, 30:43, according to Garmin.
Luckily, it was a small town race, and that was enough to snag first place in my age group. The prize for 1st in each age group over 25.... a bottle of wine! Yay! Finally a prize I can enjoy instead of throwing in a box in the attic.

The rest of the evening, we ate bbq and listened to the band that was there. It was a nice, relaxing evening.

Sunday, I had planned a 13 mile run, but Carol backed out, so I didn't run at all.

I've been off work the first part of this week. Monday, I took the kids and a friend to the Warped Tour where we were able to see a lot of screaming bands (and screaming teenagers). We actually got right next to the stage during Aiden's set, but then we followed a crying lady out of there after A's friend almost got squished by the crowd surfers.

Getting right next to the stage: Fun
Having people kick you in the head: Not so much.

Today has been spent doing a whole lotta nothing. A registered for school today (less than 2 weeks now), and C had football practice, but I didn't even have to drive.

It's back to the real world tomorrow... Much as I hate to admit it, I do miss the normalcy of going to work, although I would be forced to give it up if I were somehow made independently wealthy.

Are You Ready for Some Football??

2009-07-30T17:30:00.001-05:00

I've been a bit MIA lately. Things are starting to get busy around here.

This week marks the beginning of my son's football season. That means practice every night from 7-9pm, changing to 6-8pm when school starts (August 17). It also means that beginning with August 8 (first game), a large part of my Saturdays will be tied up with football through October 3.

The practices will get monotonous, I'm sure - they always do. There are some good benefits of taking him to practice every evening:

My daughter gets more driving experience, meaning
I don't have to drive.
My daughter and I can go to the gym and work out or to the park and walk during practice (this has happened 1 / 3 days so far).
I'm not sitting around the house snacking all evening.

There are also a few negative points to this:

It's going to be tough to get my homework done.
Tito (my dog) is feeling very neglected. He wants to come with us, which would be fine if we knew were going to spend the entire time at the park.

In running news, I'm running a 5K this Saturday. The bad news, it's at 5pm. It was 92 degrees at 5pm yesterday. The good news, it's at a winery and the age group awards will be bottles of wine (for those participants over 21). I'm hoping for a very small turnout.

Unfortunately, I'll have to keep the wine consumption to a minimum (even though I have a designated driver). I've made plans to run 13 miles on Sunday morning with C.

~~~~

As many other bloggers have, I also recently came into a case of POM Wonderful. As much as my daughter loves the stuff, I had actually never tried any of it. I was very pleasantly surprised by how delicious it is. You know, it's healthy, there is no way it could taste good, right? Go on over to their website to see some of the many health benefits of this stuff, if you haven't heard it before.

Run for the Bagel 10K

2009-07-20T20:30:00.002-05:00

On Saturday, I went to the Run for the Bagel again.

The race started at 7:30am, meaning I had to leave at O'Dark thirty to get there.

I left my house at 5:20am and met up at Barbie's house. We picked up Shanna and her mom and were off to the race with plenty of time to spare. Once we got there, we were piddling around beforehand and wound up, once again, running to the start. I got to the starting line at 7:29am. Ugh.

It was a cool 65 degrees, which made the race that much more bearable. I've run this race several times, but as usual I was able to forget all about the course until the morning of the race. The course for the 10K is basically two laps of the 5K course. That's all well and good until you hit the second lap. The second lap is boring.

I was actually passing people during the second lap and feeling pretty good even though Garmin was being a brat. My Garmin didn't find the satellites until about the 2 mile mark, and I hadn't reset the laps since the last time I ran. So, I was basically running blind.
Barbie came out and ran in with me when I had about a half mile left. It was with her pacing that I was able to pass the couple that was pushing a baby stroller (he was pushing the stroller, she was turning around to see how far behind her I was). Yay!

I finished in 1:02:42. Not bad. I have no Garmin stats, bleh!
Shanna was the first overall woman in 39:40. Yay Shanna!
Barbie won her age division in 49:59. Yay Barbie!
I won nothing. :(

Joker's Wild Half Marathon Race Report

2009-07-13T06:04:00.000-05:00

Do you know how some people dread a race so much and then get started and think "hmmm, this isn't so bad after all"?

Yeah, I am the opposite. I can convince myself that a race that I have run before that is HILLY and miserable wasn't so bad. The Joker's Wild half marathon is HILLY. It is two laps of a hilly 6 mile loop.

Let me back up to the day before the race, though.

I decided that we would venture over toward St Louis in the afternoon. Time kept getting away from me, and we didn't wind up leaving the house until 3pm. My daughter drove. The plan was for her to drive most of the way there and switch before we got to St Louis. She only has her permit, and she has only had it for just over a month. She was NOT comfortable driving in St Louis. As we got closer and closer, she just kept on driving and wound up driving all the way to the hotel. She actually did a fine job, especially if I didn't watch the road. :-P

We checked into the hotel and ventured over to Westport Plaza to start looking for something for dinner (I drove). Instead of dinner, we wound up at Coldstone Creamery. Just like last year, we were sitting outside eating our ice cream when we saw my friend Carol and her hubby. Deja vu.

We chatted for a bit, and they went on to eat dinner. I needed to find something for breakfast the next morning, so we found a Target and did a little shopping. $320 later, we got out of Target. How do they do that to me every single time?

After that, we ventured over to the Galeria and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. Yeah, I know, such healthy choices, right? The kids had never been to a Cheesecake Factory, so I took them.

The next morning, I drug myself out of bed at 5:45am and got to the race start at about 6:40am (race start time was 6:45am).

Pre-race:

The first lap, I was feeling pretty good. I even ran up the hills. I started to remember how hilly the course was once we hit the first of the hills. Carol was struggling during the first lap, but she kept up and we ran the entire time together. Here we are running up one of the smaller hills.

We managed to get through the first loop, but I knew there was NO WAY I was going to run up all of those hills again. We walked several times during the second loop. A couple of the water stops of each loop were handing out ice cold sponges. SUCH a great idea. I probably looked like I jumped in a pool at the end of the race because I kept soaking myself with the water every time.

After suffering through the second lap of the race (the second lap was miserable), we finally came around the bend just before the finish line:

And finished!

Garmin said the race was 13.3 miles and we ran it in 2:34. Last year, I ran this race in 2:17. Ah, well, I'm about 15 lbs heavier. This is just one more thing to motivate me to stop being so lazy and to lay off the tortilla chips.

And, on the way home, my daughter got to drive in the rain. It poured on us all the way home. I'm glad I didn't have to drive in it! But, don't be so hard on me, she is required to drive at least 10 hours in inclement weather before she can get her driver's license. I didn't make her drive in the rain just to be mean.

Race Weekend Coming Up

2009-07-09T20:41:00.002-05:00

Saturday Morning: Hofbraufest 5K
Sunday Morning: Joker's Wild Half Marathon

Last run: Almost 2 weeks ago.

This should be fun.

Advice, por favor

2009-06-25T06:50:00.000-05:00

Does anybody have the answer to how to make yourself get out of bed in the morning?

I know, I know, it has to be motivation that comes from within. I just need to find an alarm clock that will play an unbearably loud noise, followed by turning on the light and TV in my bedroom. Is there an app for that?

I have had the best of intentions this week to get out of bed by 5am and run in the mornings.

Alas, it hasn't happened.

Starting next week, I will have to get my daughter to Driver's Ed by 7am every morning to drive. How will I ever do that and run too?

Happy Father's Day

2009-06-21T21:29:00.002-05:00

This morning, I met my friend C at Rend Lake to run 10 miles. When I left my house at around 6:30am, the temperature was 78 degrees, with the humidity at 94%. The air was heavy.

When we started running, we were both struggling to catch our breath. That humidity was taking its toll. Luckily, when C and I run together, her hubby runs support. He met us several times throughout the run with fresh water and Gatorade. I think I was dehydrated after the first time we stopped, I couldn't get enough to drink. About 4.5 miles in, C asked me if I was up for stretching it to 12 miles. I was undecided. At that point, I was starting to feel a bit better than I had at the beginning of the run. When we reached 5 miles, we went ahead for the extra mile before turning around to head back.

At the 10 mile point, I was thinking that we had made a big mistake. Ai yi yi.
We decided that the last 2 miles were bonus miles and walked more than we had in the first 10.
Finally, we reached 12 miles. Hallelujah!

I'm glad that we ran the miles because my parents had a cookout for Father's Day, and I indulged in burgers, dogs, and the works.

After running a 5K on Saturday and 12 miles today, I think I shall take a day of rest for Monday!

Sandoval Sesquicentennial 5K Race Report

2009-06-20T13:12:00.002-05:00

This morning, I ran the Sandoval Sesquicentennial 5K. This was a one-time only race, they won't be having another. The course was out and back, very flat.

I arrived at around 7:45am and registered, hit the port-a-potty, and waited for the 8am race start. It was hot. It was humid. Yuck. Looking around, people were already sweating.

When the race started, I felt great, I ran the first mile in 9:13. I thought I could get a PR for 2009 anyway. The second mile was a bit tougher. After the turnaround, the sun was shining right in my face, and no air was moving. Mile 2 was 9:55.

After the mile 2 marker, I was ready to walk it in. I kept going, though, and mile 3 was 10:09. I wound up running the race in 30:33 (Garmin time). There was a decent turnout, so I didn't win anything, but I didn't mind that too much.

Here are the stats, from Garmin:

Distance: 3.13

Time: 30:33

Pace: 9:45/mile

Average HR: 177 (yikes, that's high!)

July Half Marathon

2009-06-17T21:49:00.002-05:00

All right, so my friend who I ran the non-official "Half" with on Sunday asked me to run the Joker's Wild Half Marathon again this year. I use the term "asked" loosely, since she has now asked me approximately 10 times.

Last year, I saw C the night before the race at Westport Plaza (the race begins and ends in the Westport area of St Louis). She was looking forward to the race. She wound up getting sick that night and was a no-show for the Half.

Today, I was thinking about how I tend to cultivate a few of my friendships and don't think twice about blowing off others. On the heels of that realization, I decided to go ahead and sign up for the race. So, it's official. I'll be running the Hoyleton Hofbraufest 5K on July 11, then the Joker's Wild Half Marathon on July 12. I'm looking at the bright side... with the weather in the 90's this week, maybe I can swap and have June-like weather for these races.

This Saturday: Sandoval Sesquicentennial 5K. This is the start of races pretty much every weekend for the rest of the summer, just like last year.

June Half Marathon

2009-06-14T20:40:00.002-05:00

My friend C has given herself a goal of running one half marathon per month in 2009. She has been right on track until June. Her hubby had a surgery, and she missed her scheduled half marathon last weekend. She decided to go ahead and run the miles and call it a Half.

We met at 7am and drove down to the Tunnel Hill trail. We ran the portion from Vienna to the Wetlands Center. This was 13.25 miles, according to Garmin.

It was warm but overcast. When I left my house, it was 72 degrees. Ugh. Luckily, almost all of the trail was in the shade.

So, we ran the distance. It wasn't as fast as it would have been in a race, but we ran the miles. That's all I was really worried about anyway. About 10 miles in, I started feeling good. At 12 miles, I felt like I could run forever. Yeah, I'm a distance runner fo sho.

Crossroads Dash 15K Race Report

2009-06-07T14:55:00.002-05:00

One thing about me that you may or may not have figured out is that I tend to be all-or-nothing.

It's only fitting then, that after 3+ weeks of no running, I would run a 15K race my first week back.

I was undecided up until about 10pm Friday night whether or not to run the race at all. A couple of my friends decided to go on Friday night, so I agreed to go along. There is a 5K as well as a 15K, so I figured I'd just run the 5K. On the way there, I decided to go for it and run the 15K. I know that this is a hilly race, having run it several times, but I convinced myself that it couldn't be THAT bad, and certainly there would be somebody there slower than me.

Ummm, it IS that bad, and all of the slower people ran the 5K.

Yes, I accomplished two firsts at this race. It was my slowest ever 15K, over 16 minutes slower than my time at this race last year. AND, I managed to finish dead last. In my defense, I would guess that there were less than 20 people who went for the 15K distance, and only 6 women. Yup, I finished dead last, but won first place in my age group.

Here are the stats from Garmin:

Distance: 9.41 miles

Time: 1:49:12

Pace: 11:36/mile

Average HR: 170 bpm

Coming Back...

2009-06-04T21:31:00.003-05:00

Wow, has it really been a month since I've posted?

Well, I could bore you with all the details of what's been happening, but I won't.

Remember this?:

Yeah, well, my running has been very sparse ever since. And, as a result of minimal running, my weight loss has stalled. But, I'm not going to write yet another "poor me, I'm so fat" blog. If I am fat, it's my own fault, and I will take care of it.

I think I've found my mojo finally. I'm running again, for real. I went out for 7 miles today in the most beautiful weather. I think everybody in the county was outside, too. And, you know I can never stop to walk when somebody is outside to see me.

My average pace was 11:33/mile. Not great, but not bad for not running for almost a month!

I really don't have a lot to say, but I'll be back here soon and often!

Love Thy Neighbor 5K mini-report

2009-05-03T22:01:00.002-05:00

I didn't run all week.

I have no excuse aside from laziness.

Barbie and I decided to go and run the Love Thy Neighbor 5K, we had both forgotten about it before last week. It was the first year for this race, and it took place in a fairground.

I woke up Saturday morning to a cool 60 degrees. Cool only because it had been so warm the past few days. There was a chance of rain, again. At the race, it was cool but very humid. Luckily, the sun stayed behind some clouds until we were finished running, and no rain. The course was great, ran through the fairgrounds with a couple of rolling hills. Unfortunately, I was struggling far more than I should. On top of my lack of running, my eating was a tad out of control last week. According to the scale, I was carrying around an extra 10 pounds... an extra 10 pounds in one week, crazy, right?

Anyway, I got to about the 2.25 mile point when my friend Tim came back and ran the rest of the way with me. Oh how great it is when a friend comes back and runs in with me. It's really a great boost for me. About a half mile later, Barbie ran out and joined us as well.

Tim had a 5K PR, yay! He ran a 21:06.
Barbie won 1st place overall for women.
I got nothin'. According to Garmin, I ran a 30:52.

This race had a good turnout, there were probably upwards of 75-100 people there (yes, this is a good turnout for these small-town local races). There weren't very many people from our local run club, we actually talked to quite a few first-time 5K runners after the race.

I'll definitely run this race again. It's like Tim said, I now have a PR on that race course.
And, I know I can beat it by next year.

Waited Too Long...

2009-05-01T14:32:00.004-05:00

It's the story of my life.

I'm a procrastinator (in case you didn't know that already).

For the past few weeks, I've been toying with the idea of running the Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Chicago on August 2. The kids haven't been to Chicago in a couple of years, so I thought we would go up during the summer when it's actually warm. I found out yesterday that the project I am working on that had a launch date of August 3 was going to be postponed to mid-August. This makes it much easier for me to get away for that weekend. So, today, I went to the website to check it out. Registration for the Half was $70 through April 30. It's now $85. There isn't another increase before the Expo, so I'll probably just hold off now until I'm absolutely 100% sure that I'm going to go.

Another example of me, procrastinating... I'm just now getting around to uploading the pictures from our mini-trip over Spring Break (week of April 6). Here are a couple of them from the wax museum. The wax museum was a lot of fun, but taking the pictures was the best part!

I got to "meet" Johnny Depp!

They call her Bond, Alex Bond...

Don't ask him about his business...

I was far too entertained by the Wax museum. We actually took more pictures there than anywhere else on our trip!

This weekend, I've planned a 5K at the last minute. It's tomorrow.

I'll be continuing the P90X. The soreness is mostly gone, now, but I admit I haven't done the Legs and Back workout yet.

I'm hoping to get ahead of the homework situation for the class I'm taking. My final project is already due next week! The accelerated program seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it's more like a runaway train...

Not Meeting the Plan

2009-04-28T12:45:00.002-05:00

On Sunday, I started the P90X program. From my last post, my schedule for Sunday-Tuesday was going to be:

Sunday AM: Chest and Back
Sunday PM: Ab Ripper X

I completed these workouts back-to-back, since I put it off until late afternoon. The Chest and Back workout was about 50 minutes of pull-ups followed by push ups followed by pull-ups, and on and on. I used a chair to assist me for the pull ups and was on my knees for the push ups. This workout was tough, but I figured that gives me something to work toward.

The Ab Ripper X was different. I have tried so many ab workouts on dvd that you would be shocked. While some of them are tougher than others, I have NEVER before P90X come across one where I couldn't complete all of the reps. This 16 minutes was beyond tough. I love it! It gives me a goal to work toward.

Monday AM: Run (yeah, that didn't happen. I was sore and tired)
Monday PM: Plyometrics

The Plyometrics workout was an hour of jumping. Jumping lunges, jumping squats, bounding, etc etc. I thoroughly enjoyed this dvd although it was go go go from beginning to end.

Tuesday AM: Shoulders and Arms
Tuesday PM: Ab Ripper X

Are you kidding me? I couldn't even straighten my arms all the way when I first woke up, they are so sore, and now I have to do another arm workout?? Yeah, I didn't get up and do it this morning. I will do the workouts tonight, back to back.

For tomorrow, I need to get up and run in the morning, and I have Yoga X scheduled for the evening. I'm hoping and praying that the yoga is relaxing, since it's 90 minutes long! I have to run at least a couple of times this week, since I'm now planning a 5K race on Saturday morning.

Please, somebody tell me this will get easier? Oh, yeah, I know it will. I just can't believe that I've let myself get so far out of shape that a little weightlifting has made me this sore. Just wait, 90 days from now, I'm gonna have my body back.

Reality setting in

2009-04-24T11:46:00.008-05:00

It's quite fitting that Carly posted about Time Management today. I have been seriously thinking about this for the past couple of days.

Based on hearing about it from another blogger, Kelly and watching the infomercial 2 or 3 times, I bought the P90X program back in January. It has been collecting dust ever since as I was marathon training. Now, my marathon is behind me, and my workplace is in the midst of a "Health and Wellness challenge" based on lowering body fat % and waist measurement that my colleague and I are in to win. This seems like the perfect time to break out the P90X dvds.

OK, so now that I have planned to start it, I should check out the schedule for it and figure out how to work it into my running plan. Oh, and don't forget that my daughter will still want to go to the gym on occasion, completely in addition to P90x and running. And, (yes, I'm starting a sentence with "and") I've started on my MBA program, so I have homework every week that also takes a large chunk of time. Am I going to give this up until my schedule can get easier? Um, no way. I'm going to suffer through it. That's what I do. It will get easier, I'm just gonna have to cut most television from my life.

So, this is going to require an hour each morning, and anywhere from 16 minutes to an hour in the evenings. My first week will look something like this:

Sunday AM: Chest and Back

Sunday PM: Ab Ripper X (16 min)

Monday AM: Run

Monday PM: Plyometrics

Tuesday AM: Shoulders and Arms

Tuesday PM: Ab Ripper X

Wednesday AM: Run

Wednesday PM: Yoga X

Thursday AM: Legs and Back

Thursday PM: Ab Ripper X

Friday AM: Run

Friday PM: Kenpo X

Saturday AM: Run

Saturday PM: Rest or X Stretch

After the first week, I will either feel great and continue or I will turn into a puddle of jello and give up.

I have just a few pictures of the crew from our trip to Boston:

Barbie and me on the tram to the airport in STL

Me just before the BAA 5K

5K Finisher:

Barbie and Me, and Shanna is sitting on the statue's lap:

Shanna and me waiting for the subway

And, here we are with a couple of others from our running club

Boston Recap

2009-04-22T14:30:00.002-05:00

Here are a few of the stories from my recent trip to Boston, pictures coming soon!

Pre- Marathon trip bullet points:

Saturday afternoon- left STL, ate Chili's at the airport. Note: Chili's at the airport is NOT Chili's.
Saturday evening- Arrived at hotel around 9pm, saw two members of our local running club. Small world. We tried to go to the hot tub, but we waited too late. The hot tub closed at 11pm.
Sunday morning- 5K Race Day. We slept a little later than planned, but we managed to make it to the race start in plenty of time. I went into the tent where they were handing out the packets and picked everything up. Barbie held all of our stuff while Shanna and I ran the race (Shanna ran as a bandit, she just wanted to stretch her legs a bit). It was 45 degrees and sunny- great weather for a 5K. I finished in 29:16. My biggest problem was that I didn't line up until the last minute and just started in the back. I was weaving around people the entire race and ran part of the time on the sidewalk. The scenery was amazing, and it was an unbelievable feeling finishing at the Marathon finish line. Barbie, meanwhile had gotten to see Joan Benoit Samuelson speak before the race started and snapped some photos. All of the 5K finishers received a medal (score!) and some pretty nice goodies afterward.
Sunday afternoon - Boston Marathon Expo. What can I say? There was SO MUCH to see. We walked the expo, picking up freebies and shopping ALL DAY. We had pasta with roasted veggies for lunch at the expo. We caught up with a few of the members of the local running club for a picture for the newsletter in the afternoon.
Sunday evening- went to the hotel restaurant and found that they didn't really have any pasta. The hostess suggested a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in East Boston, near the airport since we didn't want to travel far. We ate dinner there and it was DELICIOUS. We had a very hearty pasta dinner. We had a hell of a time getting there, since the cab driver had no clue how to get there. $17 later, he got NO TIP!
Back to the hotel and Shanna went down to the gym and lifted weights. Yes at 9pm, the night before the marathon. Ah well!

Marathon Race Day!

Woke up at O'dark thirty for the girls to get ready to catch the shuttle to the start in Hopkinton. No family or friends were allowed on the shuttle, so I didn't even get out of my pajamas. I helped them get everything together and get out the door, then I caught a couple more hours of shut-eye and had a leisurely morning.
Race start was 10:30am for the 2nd wave. I watched the start on tv, then I started riding the subway. I caught up with Barbie at the 17 mile point (Shanna was too fast, I missed her!).
I caught Shanna at the 25 mile mark and snapped a picture. She looked very determined.
Shanna finished in 3:34. She BQ'ed again, at Boston!
I talked to Shanna on the phone as I started trying to make my way through the crowd to the finish line. Let me just take a moment to say how incredible the crowds were for this race. Barbie said later that the roar of the crowd was overwhelming for the last 8-10 miles of the race, and she got choked up several times on the course thinking about it all.
Before I could get to Shanna, I got a call from the medical tent- she was a little dehydrated but OK.
Barbie finished in 3:55. She BQ'ed again, at Boston too! Awesome!
I got in touch with Barbie and we met up near the buses where the runners picked up their bags from before the race.
Barbie and I then asked a police officer how to get to the medical tent. The streets of Boston make NO SENSE! We got turned around a couple of times and found the medical tent about 2 miles later. Oh, great news, she's OK but she's in Medical Tent "B", this is Medical Tent "A". UGH! About another mile later, we finally found her! At that point, we just wanted to get back to the hotel.

Monday Evening:

HOT TUB!! Don't even say it. I just read an article on the plane on the way to Boston that said that ice baths were not necessary for anybody except elite runners. I used a hot tub after my marathon, and I was feeling fine by the next day.
We ate dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. We ran into yet another runner from our local running club. What a small world!

Tuesday:

Due to a snafu on our first night (the hotel put us in a room with a king sized bed instead of 2 doubles, so the three of us became veeerrrry well acquainted), we got a free breakfast that we used on Tuesday. They had a huge spread, and we all ate our fill.
We went into Boston and did some sight seeing. I wish we had another day, one day wasn't nearly enough!
We ate lunch at the Union Oyster House, the oldest restaurant in the country. Yum!
Our flight was delayed, due to the weather, so we would have had some extra time anyhow. With the extra time, Barbie and I drank a couple of $8 glasses of wine in the airport bar.
I got home at midnight. My Tito dog sure missed me! The kids are already texting me today to make sure I buy the concert tickets they are wanting. Yeah, I guess they missed me too. They missed my credit cards anyway.

Boston Bound

2009-04-17T21:24:00.002-05:00

OK, so we're not really leaving until tomorrow afternoon... but I have homework to finish, laundry to do, packing to do (yuck!), and I haven't eaten dinner yet. I don't imagine I'll be around tomorrow to post!

My two friends Barbie and Shanna will be running the marathon. We are hoping for cool weather, no rain or wind!

Alas, I am a slowpoke, but I'll be running the BAA 5k on Sunday morning, with the same finish line as the marathon! One day, I will run the Boston Marathon. It may have to wait until I'm 45 and the cutoff is 4 hours. If I lost the extra weight and did the speedwork, I could run a 4 hour marathon, but I can't see me running a 3:45!

I'll post all of the details when we get back on Wednesday.

My goal- nada. I'll probably run tomorrow morning for a bit and then just take it easy and enjoy the sights on the 5k.

Barbie's goal- another sub-4 hour marathon.

Shanna's goal- 3:15. Her track coach believes this is what she can achieve, so she is setting her sights high. She recently ran a 39 minute 10K, and she has been running crazy miles so there is no telling what this girl can do!

Illinois Marathon Pictures

2009-04-14T11:29:00.003-05:00

I was able to get some pictures that Barbie took while we were in Champaign for the Marathon...

Here is a picture of the three of us with Bart Yasso at the Expo. This one was taken with a cell phone, so it's a little fuzzy.

Here is one of Barbie and me getting ready to leave our hotel room.

Here I am entering the stadium. Feeling great!

Here I am coming around the bend. I'm the little bright blue speck to the left of the goal post, with my arms in the air... they had just announced my name. Look how far I got ahead of the runner behind me!

And, finally, some pictures with the girls after my finish! Notice how I can't seem to wipe the smile off my face. I felt so fantastic!

Illinois Marathon Finisher

2009-04-12T20:17:00.004-05:00

I have finished my third marathon. Maybe I won't wait another 3 years to finish my fourth.

The weekend was a lot of fun. We left for Champaign around noon on Friday. This was the Inaugural Year for the Illinois Marathon, so we weren't sure what to expect. When we got into town, we went straight to the University to pick up our race packets. There wasn't much of a goodie bag, but the race shirts were very nice. They were a long sleeve, technical fabric shirt. The full marathon shirts were half-zip. The only problem was that I ordered a Large, I tend to order Large because I have long arms. The shirts were clearly in Mens sizing because my shirt is like a tent on me. They wouldn't exchange it until all of the runners had picked up their packets. I didn't bother checking back, since the expo was going to be going until 9pm.

The expo was pretty small, in comparison to others, but it was spread out so you weren't all crowded in like at most race expos. Bart Yasso and Dick Beardsley were at the Expo. Since the race was small, they were pretty much available for chatting, which we did. We got a picture with Bart Yasso. I won't get the pictures until Monday when Barbie can e-mail them to me. I'll post pictures later.

We went back to the Hotel and ate dinner there. We split some potato skins, and I had a giant plate of fettucine alfredo. Yum! We then went to our room and started checking the weather. I had planned to wear shorts and long sleeves, expecting it to be around 40-50 degrees. Wrong! It was windy and colder. I didn't pack my cold-weather running gear, but I had bought an Illinois Marathon jacket and was wearing some comfy nylon lounge pants on Friday. I had NO plans to run in those, as I had never run in them before. We decided to put our chips on our shoes and found that there were NO zip-ties in the envelope. UGH! So, we rigged them onto our shoes with safety pins, fully expecting the volunteers to have a struggle with them the next day.

Race day morning, turn the TV back on to check the weather. It is 34 degrees and WINDY. Oh no!! After much debate, I decided to run in the lounge pants and my new jacket. We left the hotel in just barely enough time to park, make one last trip to the restroom (indoor restrooms at the start, yay!), and get lined up. The race started and we were off! My first mile was too fast (9:42/mile). I decided I needed to slow it down! My goal for this race was just to finish under 5 hours and not to set a Personal Worst (my first marathon in 2003 was 4:58:42).

As the race wore on, I kept a pretty steady pace and felt great throughout. I was glad for the jacket several times throughout the race, as there were several areas where the wind picked up. I feel like the extra long runs were very helpful for me (I ran 20 miles 3 times during my training). There was never a point in the race where I felt like I couldn't or didn't want to go on. In fact, I picked up the pace during some of my last miles. I only wish that I had been able to lose more of the weight that I've been carrying around for the past few months. Next time.

My official finish time was 4:57:05, exactly what I expected (11:20/mile pace).

The race course was extremely flat, just as they advertised. The support on the course was fantastic for an inaugural marathon. There was even an Elvis. My only complaint about the support was the wastefulness. Many of the water stops were handing out full bottles of water, the 20 oz size. We would take a bottle, take a few sips, then toss it down. It was a real waste of all that plastic.

And, the chips weren't an issue. The timing chips were commemorative for the first year, so we got to keep them. So, I was the one who had to deal with unhooking that thing from my laces.

Barbie ran the Half, she took it easy since she is running Boston next Monday. She ran it in 1:52:44. She had planned a 2 hour race on the way up. I predicted 1:52. Am I a good race predictor or what?
Angie signed up late, so the 5K was the only race available for her. She ran it in 29:03.

I'm feeling great today, a little sore but much better than after my previous marathons. I think I will be ready to run by Tuesday or Wednesday. My next race is in Boston next Sunday morning, the inaugural B.A.A. 5K.

I'm already plotting my next marathon. I'm hoping I can take off at least 20 pounds this spring and summer and post a PR at Memphis in December.

On the Road Again...

2009-04-09T23:20:00.003-05:00

I do have some awesome photos of me and the kids with various movie stars, but I don't want to get my camera out right now so they will have to wait. We happened upon a wax museum whilst in the Ozarks over Spring Break and hilarity ensued. Of course, the pictures don't do any of it justice but all the same...

I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Champaign-Urbana for the Illinois Marathon. The race is on Saturday morning! Less than 2 days away! I have been having a lot of crazy marathon dreams. My last marathon was in 2006, so I guess I'm a bit more nervous than I thought I would be. Here are some of my random dreams:

- My friends and I oversleep, I show up at the race start in my flip-flops and pajamas. I don't have time to go back for my running shoes.

- I can not get any pasta the night before and wind up sharing a Lean Cuisine with another friend (who is not even going to be there, by the way).

- I show up at the race ready to run, and everybody else is all decked out in dresses and full make-up.

- My friends and I oversleep and show up for the race on time but can't seem to get to the starting line. By the time we get to the starting line, the race has already started and we are about an hour late. Oh, by the way, this dream takes place in St Louis for some strange reason- I guess because I'm more familiar with St Louis.

Hopefully, there will be no drama and we will arrive at the race without a hitch. I'm glad all of my crazy dreams have to do with getting to the race on time and not the race itself. The last thing I need to be doing right now is second guessing my training.

I probably won't post again until after the race, so wish me luck!

Here are some pictures from last weekend's 10K race...

3rd place in age group!

We're all winners:

Southern IL 10K

2009-04-05T14:16:00.002-05:00

Just a quick recap of yesterday's 10K race... I'm getting ready to head down to the Ozarks for a couple of days, the kids are on Spring Break so I'm off work all week.

I dreaded this run for some reason. It was 48 degrees at the start and sunny with a slight breeze off the lake- perfect weather for a run. I was going to take it slow and run with Angie. When the race started, I was feeling pretty good, so Angie told me to go on just before the one mile mark. I caught up with Carol quickly and ran alongside her for the next 3 miles or so. I kept feeling myself pulling back to stay with her.

At around the 4 mile mark, I noticed that I kept trying to carry on a conversation and Carol kept giving me one syllable responses. I realized that she was struggling, so I went on ahead at that point. I was feeling really good. I hoped that I could break the one hour mark. At the 5 mile mark, I realized that it was going to be close. My 6th mile was a 9:09 min/mile according to Garmin. Clearly, I could have easily run harder the first few miles. I finished in 1:00:13. Fourteen seconds short! Bleh!

I won third place in my age group. Yay!
Of course, Barbie took pictures as usual... I'll post them later this week.

Is it Still Winter?

2009-03-29T21:38:00.003-05:00

So, my very last post was about running in the perfect, spring-like weather.

This weekend, I had a 13 mile run on tap. I planned to do it first thing Saturday morning. I knew that it was going to get colder over the weekend, but it was pouring rain ALL DAY Saturday. I skipped my run.

Sunday around midnight, the rain was supposed to turn to snow briefly and end by 7am Sunday morning. After that, it was supposed to warm up and get in the 50's again. I decided to run Sunday after the cold was over. What really happened: It snowed until around 8am. Then, it continued to be extremely windy and cold all day Sunday.

I almost decided to forgo the run again, but somehow I talked myself into getting out the door. I ran at 11:30am, and it was 34 degrees and windy. Ugh!

My first 6.5 - 7 miles were into the wind. Absolute torture. At about mile 1, I picked up this chic:

Just call me dog lady. She followed me until around mile 5 when she was chased off by a couple of Irish Setters. Yes, I run way way out in the country, where people tend to let their dogs roam free. At around mile 6, I run past my parents' house and my mom came out on the porch and waved at me! :-)

I was then able to check out their new gazebo from afar as I ran past. Oh, how I wish I could have just ran up their driveway and checked it out and hitched a ride home. But, there was no turning back, I had to run these miles... only 2 weeks until the Illinois Marathon.

I did finish my miles. The second half of the run was uneventful. I got warm when the wind was at my back and had to take off my gloves. The stats:

Total Miles: 13.3
Total Time: 2:34
Average HR: 154

Illinois Marathon, here I come! Next Saturday, my schedule calls for an 8 mile run. I have a 10K race scheduled instead. I may or may not run the extra 2 miles.

Lovely Day

2009-03-26T21:40:00.002-05:00

This week has been another lazy week, for the most part. I have gotten outside and walked a couple of times, but nothing worth talking about. I also talked my daughter OUT of going to the gym on two consecutive days. NOT my most shining moment...

Then, this afternoon, I had a vendor coming in to show me the latest in packaging (exciting stuff, let me tell ya), so I got to come out of the dungeon that is my office and up to where there are actually windows. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, it was a gorgeous day!

I decided then and there that I was going to run after work. After my 20 miles on Sunday, I took 2 days off on purpose. Then, Wednesday morning, I was tired (lazy) and decided not to get up and run. This morning, more of the same.

I talked my daughter out of going to the gym, again. Once we got home, I tried to guilt her into taking the dog for a walk or going for a bike ride. I changed into shorts and was on the road for 7 miles. I felt great! It was about 60 degrees, with a slight breeze- perfect!

Total Miles: 7.0

Total Time: 1:11

Average HR: 154

Oh, and my daughter did go on that bike ride.

Legs for Life 5K + 20 miles for kicks

2009-03-23T10:42:00.004-05:00

Over the past week, I was reminded of a local 5K to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I knew I had a 20 mile long run on my schedule for the weekend, so I was toying with the idea of skipping it.

Eh, I couldn't in good conscience skip it... so I planned to run it on Saturday and do my 20 mile run on Sunday. Let me just say I HATE running on Sunday, so this race had a lot to live up to.

The last race I went to in this town, using this course, was very poorly run and only had ~35-40 runners. In fact, the last time I signed up, it was cancelled at the very last possible moment. The Legs for Life race had a different race director, and a different cause, so I decided to go ahead and give them another chance...

They did great! The run was well organized and had probably over 200 runners. For this town, that is HUGE! There were a lot of the regular runners from the area, and of course Barbie and Angie were there... I ran the entire race with Angie, and finished in 29:24 - good enough for 3rd place in my age group, believe it or not!

I threw on the sweatshirt after I ran. I didn't run in that thing! It was warm when we were running, but I was freezing afterwards and glad I had an old sweatshirt laying around in my back seat.

Barbie won 1st in her age group, and Angie won 2nd in hers. So, we were all winners! :-)

For some reason, this race WORE ME OUT! I slept like a log all night, and didn't get out to run until 10am Sunday morning. Yes, I'm a heathen, no church for me yesterday...

Angie came down and ran the first 11 miles with me. I decided to run out and back for the first 11 on a route that I normally won't do by myself (it runs past the Interstate on-ramp). Yeah, that was a big mistake! Those were the hilliest 11 miles that I have run in a LONG time.

About 4 miles into the run, I HAD to go. So, Angie stood watch and I trotted out to the woods. After I was done, and pulling up my shorts, I found that I was too close to a vine with thorns in it, and they got pulled up in my shorts. Ouch! Got that straightened out and we went on.

About 7 miles in, this guy started following us:

Clearly, I don't know how to make a dog stop following. I could NOT get him to go home. About 8 miles in, I was shuffling my feet, and hit a pothole just right and went down. Yup, scraped my knee. Luckily, that was all. I wasn't hurt for real. In all the years I've been running, I have NEVER fallen down. And, now, I have to have THAT happen when somebody else is with me. UGH!

After we finished the first 11 miles, I was tempted, very very tempted, to call it quits and not finish the 20 miles. Then, I started thinking... I have told everybody that I was going to be running my last long run. People are going to be asking me about this. I can not wimp out! So, I stopped in the house for a potty break and grabbed a bottle of water to carry. By this time, the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds and it was starting to get hot. All right, just get out there and finish it! So, off we went (me and my friend the black Lab). He followed me for the entire 9 mile loop! Grrr... Much as I tried to tell him to go home, he was enjoying the beautiful day, chasing squirrels and running through random creeks and ponds. I would like to forget everything else about those last 9 miles. Luckily, they were uneventful- no falls, no thorns, no dog fights.

When I got home, I had my daughter give my friend a dish of cold water and went inside to change. I was going to come back out and try to take him back home where he first started following, but he had left. I'll bet he slept well last night! I sure did.

It's ON!

2009-03-17T16:38:00.002-05:00

I have had a very hectic couple of days.

Work is crazy busy lately, and my hours have been long.

So, my weekend... Yes, I ran my 20 miler on Saturday morning. I had planned to take off around 7am, but I was piddling on Saturday morning and didn't get out the door until around 8:30am. The temperature was in the 40's by that time, and near 50 by the time I finished, 4. Hours. Later. UGH!!

I really can't complain about anything except for my slowness. The weather was perfect, and I felt great.

After the run, I went to my BFF's house and we had various appetizers and green martini-type concoctions. It was a fun time. Later, I came home and went shopping with another friend and got a new pair of sandals. Yay for shoes!

Sunday afternoon, I went to the movies with a girlfriend to see "Last Chance Harvey". I enjoyed this movie, but the best part is that it was a chic flick with characters that are not young and stick-thin. After the movie, we went out for Mexican and drinks (of course). I took it upon myself to try and drink all of the chardonnay in the restaurant, I think. Ugh! Too much wine on a school night.

So, I've got some good things going on this week.

1- This coming weekend will be my last long run before I begin to taper for my marathon.

2- My colleague is in town, and we're going to wrap up some outstanding work from my long, long, long list.

3- My friends from work and I have "officially" started our weight loss competition. I did it up right, as I pigged out last night before our first "official" weigh-in. I'm sure I was packing on a few extra pounds this morning that will easily come off for next week.

4- I've somewhat signed up for online classes toward my MBA. This is something that I've always wanted to do, but I was always waiting until the kids were older. I say somewhat because I reserve the right to bail... not sure about the online thing.

Now, I just have to get back into workouts. My daughter and I haven't made it to the gym since Thursday. I haven't ran since Saturday's long run. I plan to get back on the road and in the gym immediately.

Weigh In Day

2009-03-13T13:23:00.003-05:00

What a difference a break makes.

I stepped on the scale this morning, after taking a few weeks break from it. I did step on it last Friday when I joined Weight Watchers online, but I have been off of it since then (even though it's been killing me!). I stepped on the scale this morning and was down 6 lbs! Woot!!

But, then Weight Watchers reminded me that I was still +6 lbs from my "starting weight". Remember my starting weight in 2006? Whenever I got SO FAT that I just couldn't take it any more and joined Weight Watchers to lose that pesky 20 lbs? I had pigged out for a WEEK before that original starting weight and probably was up 5-10 lbs from the "I-can't-stand-it-anymore" weight that prompted me to join WW in the first place. Yeah, I'm still 6 lbs over THAT weight. Thanks for pointing it out, Weight Watchers!

*eye roll*

Regardless, I'm pretty pleased with the loss. Maybe I can get back to my "starting weight" before the Illinois Marathon next month.

As for my marathon training, I missed one training run this week. Ugh!
But, I have a 20-miler on tap for tomorrow. No worries. I'm already visualizing that stop sign where I get to turn around at the 10 mile mark...

Paying Member

2009-03-09T09:26:00.002-05:00

After an out of control episode (major binge) on Thursday, I decided on Friday to join Weight Watchers (online only). I had been tracking my food before, but I was just trying to keep below a certain number of daily calories. The thing about Weight Watchers is that it gives you an extra weekly allowance. I know that I could keep track of this on my own, but somehow just having it tracked for me with all the bells and whistles seems to make it easier. The only other time I've had to lose more than 5 or 10 pounds was right after I started dating my last ex. We were going out a lot, and I put on 20 pounds or so. I joined Weight Watchers back then and dropped 30 pounds in less than 4 months (I also realized that the drink I had been favoring was a whopping 400+ calories each). It worked so well for me back then, I decided to give it another whirl. I'm hoping I can get back to my "goal weight" in time for a Fall Marathon. If I run Memphis, that will give me until December.

I ran my 16 miler yesterday morning. I need to remember how difficult it was this week when my alarm goes off for a morning run and I want to hit snooze for the third (or tenth) time. Going for a long run after skipping all of my weekly runs? NOT fun.

I woke up Saturday morning late and looked at the temp. It was 65 degrees and rising.

"Oh, I'm not used to this warm weather, I had better wait and run earlier on Sunday morning."

Sunday morning, it looked overcast and windy. Hmmmm... better check the weather.
Oh no! The local news won't be on until 8am. Guess I had better wait. At 8am, the weather lady told me that there were severe thunderstorms headed our way, but they weren't expected to hit until around noon.

All right, all right. I had better get out the door and get this run over with, then.

So, that's what I did. I managed to get my run finished about 30 minutes before the storm hit.

On tap for this week: A total of 10 or 12 miles during the week with a 20 miler on Saturday morning.

Friday is Here!!

2009-03-06T13:29:00.002-06:00

This has been an endless week for me. I woke up on Tuesday thinking it was Wednesday, and it's been all downhill from there.

Luckily, Friday is really here this time. I swear somehow an extra day got stuck in this week somehow, but I can't prove it.

It's going to be a beautiful weekend! I'm so excited that the temperatures are going to be so mild that I'll actually WANT to spend time outside this weekend. Woot!
I have a 16 mile run on tap for the weekend. With all the skipped runs the past week or so, I may run tonight after work and do the long run on Sunday. It's all up to my daughter and whether or not she pushes me to go to the gym tonight after work. We are planning to start a new lifting workout that I've put together for us twice a week, instead of going to the gym and winging it on lifting days. She's anxious to start.

In other news, I signed up for the B.A.A. 5K for the day before the Boston Marathon (one week post-marathon for me).

So I got an e-mail today that included a link to an article about iPhone apps for runners. Now, I don't own an iPhone, but reading through the descriptions of some of the free apps makes me want one! I've always heard that the service for one of these phones is outrageous, but jeez! if all of this stuff works the way it describes, it would be worth it! I know that some of you peeps have iPhones... is it really the greatest thing since sliced bread, or should I just stick with a regular old phone this year when I'm due for my upgrade?

Guess I'll need to do some actual research before I make a decision one way or the other.

Hump Day - Cardio Boxing

2009-03-04T10:32:00.002-06:00

Aargh! It has now been several days since I ran.

I'm having one of my off weeks. Every night, I go to bed earlier and earlier. Every morning, I wake up completely exhausted. Then, I spend the day in a groggy haze.

Luckily, I haven't been letting this keep me from the gym after work. At least I am not a complete slug. Wednesday evening, my gym has a Cardio Boxing class. Last week, my daughter and I tried this class for the first time. It was a LOT of fun, but I was certainly sore the next day. We are planning to go again tonight. I just have to decide who I will imagine beating the crap out of tonight whilst pummeling the bag. That should be an easy decision.

This week, they announced a 5K that will take place the day before the Boston Marathon. The 5K finish will be the same finish line as the marathon. We will definitely be in town that day, but we won't be there in time the night before to pick up my race number if I decide to participate. I do have some colleagues in Boston, so I could probably get past that. I'm undecided about whether or not I will sign up for the 5K. It will be about a week after my marathon, so I know I'll be able to run it, but I'm not sure if I want to deal with one more thing that weekend.

Our next marathon (yes, already looking ahead) will probably be the St Jude's Marathon in Memphis. I have never ran that one before, but I love all things Memphis. Who doesn't love Elvis, Beale Street, and singin' the blues?
A fall marathon would give me time to take off a few more pounds and actually complete the training like I should (including the dreaded speedwork that I'm skipping this time around).

I KNEW IT!

2009-03-02T14:08:00.002-06:00

Well, I'm late to the party on this one...

I was just checking out some other blogs and found that the Biggest Loser contestant Dane DID NOT finish a marathon in 3:53. He did not finish a marathon at all. He and his wife hitched a ride for 3 miles so that they could get the dramatic finish line shot in time, at a clock time of 5:53.

WHEW!

I knew there had to be something screwy going on with that story.
So, now I feel just a little better about my marathon times. For this April, I'm not expecting to PR what with the extra weight and all, but I do hope that I don't run slower than my first marathon. I think my first one was 4:58 and change. I know it was just barely under the 5-hour mark.

Other than that, I got nothing. I had a very un-productive weekend, unless you call sitting in a recliner and alternating reading and watching TV whilst eating peanut butter cookies productive. No? All righty then.

Now, I have to un-do the damage before my 4 weeks is up.

Happy Friday!

2009-02-27T09:16:00.002-06:00

Today, it has been one full week that I've been off the scale.

I got up this morning and put on a pair of my least favorite pants, thinking they were going to be just falling off of me. Hoping they would be falling off of me, so I could pack them away and get out some of my smaller pants.
Ummm, nope not yet. If I reallly try, I can convince myself that they are looser. But, it may just be in my head. I feel great, and that's the most important thing. I'm not beating myself up on a daily basis over the number on the scale.

Last week, when I was on the scale, it was upsetting me so much that I was skipping a lot of workouts. I felt like the workouts weren't really getting me what I wanted so why bother. This week, I have been at the gym every. single. night, in addition to running 3 days in the morning. Maybe the number on the scale is good, maybe it's not. But, in 3 more weeks I think the scale will catch up with the workouts and show me some good news.

This weekend is a cutback weekend for my marathon training. I only have to run 8 miles on Saturday morning. I'm actually looking forward to tomorrows "long" run.
That being said, do any of you watch the Biggest Loser? I was BLOWN AWAY that the guy who was eliminated this week ran a marathon in 3:53. A couple of weeks ago, I watched "Marathon Love" where the guy pushed his wife in a HOSPITAL WHEELCHAIR through the Chicago Marathon in 3:15.
I guess the question at hand here is, WHY am I so SLOW?? Am I holding myself back because I don't "think" I can run any faster? Or, are those guys just that gifted? I really want to BQ, and my friends all think that I am capable if I am consistent in my diet and running. I would have to run a 3:45 marathon. I am planning a fall marathon this year, maybe going to Boston with my friends will inspire me to do the work for this fall's marathon.

Other than the easy 8 miles, this weekend will be a kid-hauling weekend. My DD wants to see "Friday the 13th". Joy. So, I'll be taking her and her friends to that after the gym tonight. Tomorrow night, she wants to go to a local teen hangout where they are having a band that she likes. I'll be hauling her and her friends to that tomorrow. Maybe Sunday, I can talk her into going with me to see a chic flick.

Hey, Tam, Don't you also have a son? Why don't we ever hear anything about him?
Why, yes, yes I do have a son. He's 14 years old. He is in his room.

Unencumbered...

2009-02-25T10:43:00.002-06:00

Jeez, it seems like these days all I have to post about is running. It's almost as if my life revolves around it or something.

Ummm, OK. I admit it. It sorta does.

This week, I've been struggling with that silly alarm clock again. Today is the first day that I managed to get out of bed and go for a run since my long run on Saturday. I have, however, gone to a couple of classes at the gym. I went to step aerobics on Monday night and boot camp on Tuesday night.

Regarding the boot camp, it was my first time doing that particular torture. Let me just say "Ouch!" The lower body stuff, squats, jumping, etc was EASY. The upper body stuff, situps, pushups... not so much. My upper body is WEAK! I need to work on that.

Anyhow, I got up this morning after trying to talk myself out of it and got dressed for a run. It's been warming up again this week, so it was 40 degrees when I got up. I got dressed in long sleeves and NO jacket! Yay! Then, I went to turn on my Garmin. Low battery. WHAT? I just charged this thing after my 20 miles and haven't ran since. How could the battery be low?
Ah, well. I'll just run without it. So, I took off out the door, feeling naked without all the electronic gadgetry and got about a half mile when I realized that I forgot my ipod, too! UGH!

How did I get this way? I didn't start running with an ipod until 2 or 3 years ago, which means that I ran for 6 or 7 years without music. I suppose the bigger question is, how did I ever run without it?

I was faster then... I wonder how fast I would have been if I had used music back then? The world may never know...

I thought of a lot of these conundrums during my run, without the music to keep my mind diverted. Don't let me run without that thing again. UGH!

TGI... M??

2009-02-23T08:44:00.003-06:00

Marathon training continues...

I ran my first 20 miler of the year on Saturday morning. I knew when I woke up that it wasn't going to be the carefree, meandering, sunny 20 miles that I had dreamed. Nope, it was grey and gloomy when I woke up Saturday morning, with temperatures in the mid-30's and a strong wind. I kept getting text messages from a friend telling me to get out the door and run.

So, I got dressed and ready to go. Then I went to turn on my fully charged Garmin. Nothing. I started freaking out. I finally realized that it probably just needed to be reset. Duh!
I reset Garmin and headed out the door.

By that time, the snow had started. Snow and heavy wind out of the northwest. My first 10 miles were north and west. There were so many times that I considered just turning around and cutting my run short. It was SO miserable. The best thing I can say about my first 10 miles is that they are over.

I begged and pleaded, PLEASE snow OR wind, one or the other.

I got my wish. It stopped snowing. It started sleeting.

NOT what I had in mind.

About 8 miles into my run, the sleet stopped. I had another 2 miles into the wind, then I got to turn around and run the 10 miles home with the wind at my back.

When my run was over, I drove up to Barbie's to drink some wine and relax for a bit.
Later, I took my daughter and her friend to see "Coraline". Very cute movie, good for young girls.

Sunday was housework day. I feel like I was on my feet all day.
I never thought I'd be so thankful for Monday.

Oh, and I still haven't stepped on the scale. I have 25 more days in my 4 week hiatus from the scale. The not knowing is driving me crazy. But, I will not step on that thing.

Out with the Scale!!

2009-02-19T09:17:00.002-06:00

I've been trying to keep as much whining about my weight out of my blog as possible, but this is the last straw. Let's recap, shall we?

I'll start from when I began this journey of becoming a runner.

1999-2002: Best shape of my life, running is a breeze.
Nov 2002: Laid off from my job, promptly gained 20 lbs, running is keeping me sane.
Aug 2003: Started my current job, lost 10 lbs- running is fun again.
Oct 2006: Decided to buckle down and lose the last 10, back in the best shape of my life.
2008: Gained 40 lbs. Ugh! 15 of them were in December.

OK, this seems like a minor setback, right? Right?

Wrong.

I have been busting my hump since New Year's and still haven't lost the 15 lbs that I gained in December! Ugh!

After my 18 mile run on Saturday, I got on the scale the next day, hopeful. I had eaten healthy all day Saturday, and burned over 2500 calories.

I was up 4 lbs.

This fact caused me to spiral out of control all week. It just put me into a funk that I have not been able to shake. I say out of control, but it's more my mood. My eating has been different, but not completely out of control. This morning, back on the scale again.

No Change. Still up 4 lbs.

I think that the best thing I can do at this point is just stay away from that thing. I'm considering just throwing my current scale out and weighing myself later on down the road when my clothes start fitting me again. Back in the days when I was in my best shape, I wasn't obsessing about every morsel of food the way I have been this past 2 months.

OK, OK... /whining over. I'm going to start focusing on the positive again.

On tap for this weekend, my first 20 miler of the year.
I'll be glad to get that run under my belt, and get the monkey off my back.

Fly with the Eagles Half / Long Run

2009-02-16T16:53:00.003-06:00

I had the best 18 mile run ever on Saturday. It had been 3 years since I've run 18 miles, but I've committed to the Illinois Marathon, so I had to get out there. Barbie and I had registered for the Fly with the Eagles Half Marathon on Saturday, with the understanding that we would each get our extra miles beforehand.

In order to make this easier, we stayed over at her son's house on Friday evening, which was closer to the start of the Half. There, we got the long run preparations underway early:

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!! We wound up drinking one bottle of wine and then a martini after dinner, not too bad.

The next morning, we got to the race an hour and a half early, no small feat for us. We're usually the ones who come squealing in 10 minutes before the start. The race started at a visitor center for the wildlife refuge. The door was still locked when we got there. Registration was supposed to start at 7am. So, there we were, waiting for somebody to come and unlock the door (we desperately needed a restroom before starting to run). Luckily, the race director got our race numbers and sweatshirts (very nice sweatshirts for this race) out of his trunk so we wouldn't have to deal with that later.

We wound up driving up the road to a gas station to use the restroom, then came back and started running. I had to get 5 miles prior to the race, and Barbie had to run 7. I think they waited for Barbie to start the race, since we got such a late start. We didn't start running until 50-55 minutes before the scheduled start of the race.

Here we are between our pre-race miles and the start of the race, along with a couple of other friends:

My early miles went great, I had a hard time keeping it slow enough. I have developed a blister on my big toe (this is a first), so Carol helped me get it sorted out before the start of the Half Marathon. My Half Marathon went surprisingly well also. I felt fantastic the entire time. I even picked off some runners in my last mile! Mile 17 of my long run, and I'm passing people. Amazing.

I did slow down for 2-3 miles. I met a runner before the race who was fairly new to running and was talking about my training run that day. As I was passing her around mile 7, she asked me to stay with her for a while and chat. I gladly slowed my pace to do that. There were only about 100-150 runners in this race, so it wasn't like there were people around the entire time. We had just come out of the wildlife sanctuary, which for some reason was BRUTAL for this race, it's usually my favorite part.

Eventually, she needed to slow down, and I wanted to get going, so I broke away from her around the 10 mile mark.

My overall pace for the 18 miles was 11:25. I think I could have kept it under 11 min/mile if I would have pushed a bit more. The run was extremely easy for me. My Half Marathon time was 2:31.

I felt so great the next day, I think I could have ran. I didn't, but I did go shopping with the kids all Sunday afternoon. My plan was to run this morning, but I woke up with some stomach issues. I haven't been able to keep anything in my stomach all day. UGH! Hopefully, I feel better by morning, I need to get running!

Glorious DOR

2009-02-13T11:03:00.004-06:00

It seems that the happening thing to do on Fridays is to post pictures. I have one that I absolutely must share. This is my dog, sleeping in the cat bed. Obviously, cats never sleep in these things. He probably thinks he is supposed to sleep there!

"I Is A Cute Cat"

Let me just rejoice in the fact that today is my DOR. I went from almost NO activity in December to two-a-day workouts most days this week.

Tomorrow is long run day, and I have a doozie planned. I'm going down tonight with some friends to spend the night at my BFF's son's place. Tomorrow morning, we are running a Half Marathon. I will be running 5 miles prior to the race start, then running the race, to get in my needed 18 mile long run.

UGH! Keep your fingers crossed that my legs and feet survive. It's been a long time since I've ran 18 miles. And to throw a race into the mix makes it oh so much more interesting...

Get in Shape or Die Trying

2009-02-10T09:57:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, I mentioned that I had gone to the gym and done an upper body workout Sunday evening following my 16 mile long run that morning.

Ouch.

Last night, I left work and went to a step aerobics class. My first step aerobics since I stopped instructing step back in 2003. My daughter's very first step aerobics class.
It was a pretty good size class (for small town), 16 people. The instructor did a good job of cueing, I only got off once or twice. My daughter had a tough time keeping up, but she really enjoyed it. We're planning to do step again on Thursday evening. The time of the class is perfect for me to leave work, pick her up at the library and go straight to the gym.

This morning, I was up and out at 5am for a 4.5 mile run. It was 54 degrees and breezy, so I got a little warm. The run was tough. My legs are still just a little tight from Sunday. I am so glad I got out there and did it, though. I feel fantastic today!

Tonight, my daughter and I are planning to go to Chen Tai Chi. I'm not really sure what to expect, but it was that or boot camp. I really didn't want to brave the boot camp tonight.

Now, if only the scale would catch up with my workouts. As of this morning, it was moving in the wrong direction again... I have to stop stepping on that thing every day.

Easy Peasy 16 Miles

2009-02-09T11:08:00.002-06:00

My plan this weekend was to get up Saturday morning and get my 16 mile long run out of the way. I had a loop near my house in mind that I was going to run, but I wasn’t sure of the distance. The last marathon I ran was in 2006, just before I got my Garmin. I figured if it was 15 miles, I was going to be happy with that- especially since I skipped my long run last weekend.
Saturday morning, I woke up around 7:15am. I did NOT feel like running, so I figured I would give myself a couple of hours and then head out...

Then I took the dog out. The wind was crazy. I. Hate. Wind. Knowing that the forecast for Sunday was a little cooler, with no wind, I managed to talk myself into waiting until Sunday for my long run.

My BFF did her 18 miles Saturday morning, then called me and told me how horrible it was running in that wind. This reinforced my decision to wait and run on Sunday. I then went out for Mexican with her, and a couple of glasses of wine. Saturday night, I went with my daughter and a couple of her friends to see "Uninvited".

Before the movie, I was piddling around on Facebook and checking movie times when my friend Carol called. She said, "Did you get your long run this morning?"

Ummmm, nope.

She had actually hoped that I was going to say that, and we planned to meet up on Sunday morning to run. She was only planning 8-9 miles, but agreed to be support for the rest of the run (bringing water, etc). We started out around 9am on some local biking trails. The weather was fantastic (around 40 degrees with only a light breeze off the lake), and it’s always great running with a friend. The chit chat keeps you going- I didn’t even use my ipod. Carol actually wound up running the entire 16 miles with me. Her hubby came along and supplied the water. He would park at intermittent spots near the trail, then walk up onto the trail and bring the water and Gatorade. That made the entire run that much easier.

It was tough finishing up the run. I was dragging by the end of it. But, we walked about a quarter of a mile afterward, then I drove home. Once I got home, I got cleaned up and my daughter and I went shopping a bit, where she asked me if we could go to the gym later. Ugh! But, two things I will never say "No" to when it comes to the kids- books and working out. So, I went to the gym around 7pm with her and worked my upper body and abs.

My legs feel pretty good today, no soreness at all. But, my daughter has another trip to the gym planned tonight. Ugh! I’m thinking I’ll probably go to the step aerobic class and take it easy.

On tap for this week-
Tuesday- 4-6 miles
Thursday – 4-6 miles
Saturday – 18 mile long run consisting of 5 miles + the Fly With the Eagles Half Marathon

Plus, the gym as many times as my daughter wants to go. Heaven help me.

Heat Wave!

2009-02-06T10:01:00.002-06:00

Yesterday morning, when I woke up it was 7 degrees.

Today, the high temperature is expected to be in the mid-50's. It will stay this way all of next week. I am SO glad that I don't have to do my 16 miles tomorrow morning in single-digit temperatures! I couldn't imagine running 16 miles on a dreadmill.

My daughter and I joined the gym last night. My son is also a member, but he refuses to go... yet. I'm so excited that I just have to share this. My daughter told me last night that she was thinking of walking and working up to running! Woot!

She tried this a few years ago, in the 5th grade. She was in Cross Country that year. Cross Country is one sport that has no "try-outs" in our schools. If you want to run, you can run. She was one of the last finishers at every cross country meet. I told her back then that it isn't about winning, it's about beating yourself. But, that's a difficult lesson for a 11 year old. Since then, she has become more health-conscious. She became a vegetarian a 2 or 3 years ago, and has stuck with it (which really shocks me). She is interested in fitness, now. I hope she sticks with it, too. I know that it really would have helped me at her age (15), but I didn't get serious about fitness until 10 years later.

I've got no plans for the weekend. It feels strange to have so many weeks in a row with no races planned. Luckily, the Fly with the Eagles Half Marathon is next week on Valentine's Day.

Joining Up?

2009-02-04T14:44:00.002-06:00

I didn't have to worry about Day 2 getting up early today, since my work hours are out of whack this week. I'm working evening shift tonight for testing at the end of the shift, then back to normal tomorrow. It sure is nice to have the morning off, but tomorrow is going to be rough getting up early again.

It was 7 degrees when I woke up this morning. I got a text from my BFF at 5:30am saying that she was packing it up and heading to the gym for her 7 miles this morning. I decided not to brave the weather, either. I did some strength training instead, at home.

Yesterday, I received a card in the mail, an advertisement for the newest gym in the town where I work. OK, it's not really new, they just relocated. The new location is more convenient for me. The gym is small, but it is a 24 hour location, also convenient for somebody who aspires to working out at 5am. The "special" rate that they are advertising is $12.50 per month. $12.50 PER MONTH! There are family packages available, but I don't know any details about the cost for that.

I'm torn about this. I have a friend at work who is already a member. Somewhat motivational, but I think I would be more of a motivation for HER than the other way around. She is not very dedicated to fitness at this point. I have everything I need to work out at home- free weights, treadmill, countless dvd workouts. But, I do miss the gym. And, you sure can't beat a price of $12.50 per month.

I have an appointment at 6pm tomorrow evening for a "tour" / sales pitch. I'll probably take the kids (or at least my daughter) along and check it out. We can decide from there.

My plan is to get up tomorrow morning and run again. It's supposed to be 7 degrees again tonight, so it's gonna be tough. The forecast has changed again. It's going to be near 60 degrees by Saturday. I am so ready for spring to get here and stay.

21 Day Habit - Day One

2009-02-03T11:33:00.002-06:00

If it takes 21 days to make something a habit, I suppose I'm on Day 1.

I managed to drag my sorry arse out of bed this morning for a run. I didn't get up a lot earlier than normal- I didn't get out the door until around 5:45am. In order for me to get a 4-5 mile run done and still make it to work on time (7am), I would have to be out the door by 5:15am at the latest. Luckily, I'm working late tonight, so I was able to come in a bit later this morning.

Also, luckily for me, I did NOT turn on the weather forecast last night or hear the wind howling this morning before heading out. If I had known how cold and windy it was, I surely would have talked myself out of running.

I ran 4.5 miles, and only 2.25 miles of it was into the wind. It wouldn't have been nearly so bad if it hadn't been approximately 9 degrees. When my alarm went off the first time, my thermometer said 19 degrees. By the time I got home from my run, it was 9 and dropping.

It's going to be in the 50's by Friday.
Gotta love Southern Illinois.

It's Official!!

2009-02-02T13:54:00.003-06:00

Three steps forward and two steps back.

That’s how I’m feeling today. I had lost 9 pounds as of one week ago. Then came last week. Last week was rough. I was struggling with so many cravings, I wound up gaining 2 lbs throughout the week. Not so bad, I can recover from 2 lbs. Then came the weekend. I gained another 2 lbs on Saturday. I decided to watch it on Sunday and try to recover. Well, I didn’t really eat that much on Sunday. I was within my target calorie range. It was obviously sodium-packed calories, since this morning’s weigh-in was up another 3 lbs. That’s a 7 lb gain since last week! What is going on with me?

As of today, I am back. I think that a large majority of those pounds are water, due to the mass sodium that I consumed yesterday. I also was not on the ball with running or working out at all last week. It was pitiful. If I’m going to make this work, I’m going to have to get back on the ball.

As if I needed another reason to kick it in gear… As of Friday afternoon, I’m officially registered:

The Cravings

2009-01-29T13:07:00.000-06:00

I’ve been well on my way to losing the weight that I gained last year. As of Monday morning, I was down a total of 9 lbs so far out of the 40 that I have to lose.

So, here I am, in my 4th week of eating healthy when, BAM! The cravings have hit. I NEED some good old comfort food (or so I’ve convinced myself). It’s cold, I need to snuggle up in my fleece jammies and not worry about getting out there for that workout. (yeah, right). Plus, I’m HUNGRY! On top of all that, we got hit with about a foot of snow yesterday, on top of the couple of inches from Tuesday. We’re not used to that much snow down here!

And, my treadmill is acting wonky. My repairman (my dad) is snowed in, living in the middle of nowhere like they do. Well, they can probably get out today, but I hate to ask them to come out and work on my treadmill when they are getting ready for a vacay. What to do? What to do?

All right! Enough of this! Yesterday, I did eat a lot of junk that I shouldn’t have (non-whole wheat pasta, buttery popcorn, and too much of both). I have fired pasta and buttery popcorn from my everyday life, they tend to cause me to crave other things, so I’ve banished them.

I’ve also skipped my runs this week. The snow is no excuse, I know others are out there running in it. I’ve run in it in the past. There’s no reason to skip a run just because of a treadmill problem. I’m just lazy, and enjoying those fleece jammies when the alarm goes off. Plus, with the kids out of school, I’ve been staying up and hanging out with them later than usual.

This morning, I was studying my marathon training plan and talking to my BFF. Being the athlete of the year and all, I figured I’d ask her for advice. I’m going to forgive myself for missing my run this week. According to the training plan I have, this week should be a cutback week, long run of 6 miles. I’m going to go ahead and run tomorrow morning, then do another run Saturday morning and get back on the schedule next week. That would mean a 16 mile long run next weekend, and 18 miles the weekend of the Fly With the Eagles Half. She will be running 20 miles that day, so we will go to the Half about an hour early and run the extra 5 and 7 miles prior to the race.

Disaster averted. Now, to get these cravings under control…

Awards Banquet Photos

2009-01-27T08:58:00.003-06:00

Enjoying the evening:

Runner of the Year, Female Athlete of the Year, Male Athlete of the Year:

Yay, Barbie!

No Turning Back

2009-01-25T20:33:00.002-06:00

Last night was the Awards banquet for our local run club.

The banquet was held an hour away from me, so my friend picked me up and we made a day of it. I have been a member of the club for 8+ years now, and this is the first awards banquet I've attended.

To start the day off right, I had a long run planned, 12 or 13 miles. When I woke up at 6am, it was 14 degrees, with a breeze. Ugh! I know I've run in colder weather, but I just couldn't get myself psyched for it. At around 7am, I got a text from Barbie saying that she was headed out for her run, and dreading it.

I decided that I didn't want to go outside, but I HAD to run. I have a perfectly good treadmill and can run on it. I talked myself into breaking the distance into 3 sections of 4 miles each. I got on the treadmill and was watching some of my Tivo'ed shows from last week. The first four miles were OK, so I went for 5 in the first segment. I took a quick break, opened the sliding glass door next to the treadmill (I got hot quick in the house), changed my shorts (at what point did I start getting chub rub? Must. Lose. Weight.) and back for another 4 miles. I took a second quick break and finished up with 3 more miles. I ran 12 miles on the treadmill! Woohoo!

After the run, I got ready to head out for the banquet. We left just after noon, as Barbie's son lives in the same area as the race, and we had plans to do a bit of shopping beforehand.

First, we went to the liquor store. Who ever heard of a dinner where it was BYOB? Ah, well, we got our wine. We had a late lunch (Mexican, of course), since none of us had really eaten much yet. Next, we had to shop for black pants. Yup, we came so prepared. Anyhow, we found some nice ones in the mall. At that point, it was already after 5pm! Social hour was 5-6pm, and we still had to change clothes and get to the banquet hall that was about 20 minutes away! We rushed back to the apartment, threw on our dressy clothes, and we were off. Very. Late.

We wound up getting there just in time to sit down for dinner. Whew!
Barbie received the Female Athlete of the Year award! It was very unexpected. I knew about it, but she did not. Let me tell you, it was TOUGH to keep my mouth shut about it! She had an excellent running year in 2008 and has been running better than ever.

I do have pictures from the banquet, but I'll have to post them later. I can't believe the dang cable for my camera is at work! Ugh!

During the course of the day and night yesterday, I told several people about my plans to run the inaugural Illinois Marathon. I also told some people at work last week. One colleague that was in town from Chicago even marked it on his calendar (he's a runner, too). This means that, come hell or high water, I have GOT to do the training for this marathon. I can't back out now, lest I have to explain to everybody I know that I'm a lazyarse. THAT is NOT going to happen!

January Blues

2009-01-23T14:52:00.000-06:00

I have got to start dragging myself out of bed in the mornings for my running.
Last night, I left work a bit early (after 3 late nights in a row) and went out for a 7 mile run. A very difficult, terrible 7 mile run. The best thing I can say about this run is that it is over.

So, here’s my week so far:

Monday: Yoga and Core
Tuesday: Nada
Wednesday: Nada
Thursday: Crappy 7 mile run
Friday: Planning some strength training later
Saturday: Planning 13 miles
Sunday: Planning DOR

Notice anything? Yeah, I was basically a slug until THURSDAY! Then, I decided that I was going to have to do SOMEthing after work. Any brilliant ideas for how to drag yourself out of bed at 4:45am?

These have been tried, with no success:

1- Move the alarm clock to the opposite side of the room – Yeah, I’ll pretty much get up and reset it for later, or get up and hit snooze 14 times and get back in bed every time.

2- Turn on a light – I purchased an alarm clock that slowly lights up the room. Yup, it wakes me up. Nope, I don’t stay up.

3- Have your significant other drag you kicking and screaming out of the bed. Ummm, no significant other and no plans to go there.

4- Anything else??

OK, I realize that it’s all in my head and I have to just MAKE it happen. I’ll get there. But, at least I’m getting my workouts in later, far more frequently than I had been. My colleague that used to call me in the mornings is going to give it another try, so maybe her calls will be what I need this time.

Tomorrow evening, my BFF and I are going to our running club’s annual awards banquet. She will be receiving the award for Runner of the Year. It’s very exciting, and she has no idea that she is getting this award. We have never even been to the ceremony before. We decided to go this year a few weeks ago, on a whim. It was later that I found out about the award that she will be getting.

Finally did it

2009-01-18T22:44:00.002-06:00

This entire weekend was about me putting off my long run.

Saturday morning, I woke up to warmer weather (upper 20's/lower 30's) and howling wind. I decided to hold off and hope that the wind would let up.

Later that afternoon, when I hadn't done my long run and the kids and I had gone shopping, I regretted putting it off. It was a beautiful day, and 46 degrees.

Aargh! Instead of running, I wound up doing yoga at 10pm. At least I didn't waste the entire day.

Sunday morning, I woke up to 32 degrees, and a little bit of snow on the ground. I decided to wait until it thawed a bit to go out and run.

FINALLY, at 2:15pm, I dragged myself out the door. I ran into the wind and snow for the first 4.5 miles, but I managed to finish a 9 mile run. Barbie was coming by later on and came out and met me and kept me company for the last 2.5 miles. It was tough, but I managed to finish the 9 miles strong. I'm so happy that I did it!

Tomorrow is weigh-in day for me. I'm hoping for the best, but I had pizza twice this weekend. Ugh!

Back on Track, Quickly

2009-01-16T09:21:00.002-06:00

After a great first week back last week, I had been slacking the first half of this week.
Slacking on my diet, slacking on the exercise and running.

Last night I ran 5 miles on the dreadmill.

This is an accomplishment. Last year was all about great starts, and quickly slacking off.
This year is about keeping it up, getting right back into it when I begin to fall out of the habit.

I can NOT continue on the same path as I was on last year.

I will say, that much as I hate the treadmill, I've sure been glad to have one at my house this week! Brrrr...

To Skip or Not To Skip?

2009-01-14T13:22:00.003-06:00

This week is a local grade school basketball tournament, so I don't have as much time after work to fit in my workouts.

I started out the week with my workouts all planned out, around the basketball. Here is how it was supposed to look:

Monday AM: Run 4-5 miles

Monday PM: Son's ball game

Tuesday AM: Strength training

Tuesday PM: Son's ball game

Wednesday AM or PM: Run 4-5 miles

Thursday AM: Run 4-5 miles

Thursday PM: later ball game

Friday AM or PM: Strength training / core

Saturday: Long Run

Sunday: DOR

This is what has happened so far:

Monday AM: Oversleep, no run (note to self: don't stay up so late on Sunday night)

Monday PM: Son's ball game (WIN!)

Tuesday AM: Up early, do laundry instead of run, plan run for after ball game

Tuesday PM: Son's ball game (WIN!) + Talk self out of running, plan to run in the morning.

Wednesday AM: Oversleep, no run (no excuse here)

So, tonight I will do one of three things

1- Run

2- Strength train, plan to run Thursday and Friday, push long run to Sunday

3- Run AND strength train, plan to run again before tomorrow night's later ball game.

Looking at the weather forecast, I'm tempted to run on the treadmill tomorrow with a long run on Saturday and an extra few miles on Sunday outside. It's going to be FRIGID the next couple of days, with a little bit of a warmup over the weekend (20s and 30s instead of single digits).

I was in the best shape of my life when I absolutely NEVER skipped a workout, I can remember 11pm workouts back then. I really need to train myself to do it in the mornings, though. Morning workouts will be the key to long-term success for me. This has always worked best in the past, less temptation to put it off until later (like 11pm) if I have it done already.

On Monday I promised pictures from the weekend. We were attempting to get a picture of the three dogs together. Buffy would not cooperate at all! She ran under the bed every time.

Here is a picture of me with Chloe and Tito. I'm sitting funny because Chloe is in "HER" spot. She also bites, so I was a little afraid of moving her.

Of course, my boy Tito was the bestest behaved dog of the bunch!

Recap of the Week

2009-01-12T10:46:00.003-06:00

Aargh! I really meant to blog last week, but obviously I fell short.

Here's a quick recap:

Monday pm: Jillian's 30 Day Shred
Tuesday pm: Jillian's 30 Day Shred
Wednesday: DOR (side note: OUCH!)
Thursday pm: Ran 4 miles on the treadmill
Friday: DOR
Saturday: Ran 2 miles + upper body workout
Sunday: Ran/Walked 7 miles

After taking almost an entire month off with NO exercise, let me just say that I was EXHAUSTED last week. Getting back into the groove is tough. I have to remember that when I start to get lazy again. I'm taking another day off today, since I have to go to my son's basketball game right after work. I didn't get up early enough for a run this morning, after working on laundry until after 11pm last night.

I ate healthy all week. The only day I strayed was Saturday. Two of my friends and I got together and had a play date for our dogs. OK, it was more an excuse to hang out, eat appetizers (YUM!) and experiment with drink recipes. I still stayed within my allotted calories (I think), but I drank approximately half of them. As a result, yesterday's 7 mile "run" became more of a hungover "walk" with a few spurts of running. My stomach wasn't up to eating much yesterday, so I ate too few calories yesterday, according to the Daily Plate. I should have some pictures from Saturday later this week, I have to wait for Barbie to send them to me.

With all of that, I still managed to lose 6 lbs last week. For those who are counting, that's 6 lbs down - 34 lbs to go.

I'm seriously toying with the idea of running the inaugural Illinois Marathon in Champaign. It will be on April 11, so it would be very soon. I'll probably make a decision on it in the next few weeks. It would be nice to have my own spring marathon under my belt just before accompanying my friends to Boston the following weekend.

Snowman Shuffle 5K

2009-01-05T10:35:00.002-06:00

On Saturday, I ran my first race of the shiny new year.

It was the Snowman Shuffle. This is the third time I've run this race. And the slowest, but I'm not focusing on that. Starting this year, I'm going to stop being so hard on myself.

The race started at 9:30am. Barbie, Shanna, Barbie's nephew Jordan and I rode down together. When I woke up, I considered calling Barbie and telling her that I was sick. That is how much I was dreading this race. We left my house at 8am. That is the latest start for a race in a looong time, and I needed it. Having so many days off work the last couple of weeks has caused me to turn my days and nights around more than I should.

I hadn't ran at all since the Jingle Bell Run on Dec 6, so I was just content to be getting out there and running.

Despite sitting on the charger all night, my Garmin told me that the battery was low before the race. I did the only thing I could at that point. I grounded it for being a bad boy and left it in the car. I enjoyed running the race without staring (obsessing) at the numbers. There was a runner just ahead of me who was obviously coaching a first-time runner (his wife?). At about the one mile mark, he turned around and started cheering for me as well. It really does help to have support. When they stopped for water, I went past them and didn't see them again until the end. The second mile was ENDLESS. At that point, I knew that my friends were probably already finished. As I got closer, I started seeing people I knew jogging back out. It really did help to have them shouting my name and cheering for me. I finished in 33:13. I'm not going to say anything about that time. I finished, and I'm happy for it.

Last year, I won first place in my age group, but I've turned 35 now and moved up to a tougher group. There were about 150 runners in the race, so I was certain that I hadn't placed. My friends had, so we stuck around for the results.

Shanna won overall for women in 20:31
Jordan won his age group in 18:36
Barbie won 2nd in her age group in 23:47
AND, I won 3rd in my age group!!
AND, there were more than 3 people in my age group. :)

Since we had the young'uns with us, there was no wine. We let them pick our lunch destination, so it was pasta for lunch instead of Mexican. Ah, well. When it was all said and done, I was glad I went. Maybe 2009 really is my year.

Happy Belated New Year 2009

2009-01-02T23:37:00.003-06:00

Farewell 2008.
A year I am glad that I will never have to re-live.

At the beginning of the year, another divorce. Funny how I've been divorced more than once, but I've been married less than 5 years total. I just can't seem to pick the right one. The worst part is that I knew both were destined to fail before I said I do. Once when I was 19 and again at 33.

To celebrate, I took the kids to the Virgin Islands for Spring Break. That was one week of 2008 that I would gladly re-live.

My work schedule was hectic, to say the least with two of my biggest projects since I started taking place in the same year.

I ran 5 Half Marathons, 2- 10 mile races, with some 5, 10 and 15K's sprinkled in as well. I ran 20 races in 2008. Two of my best friends qualified for the Boston Marathon, and one other ran her first Half Marathon. And I was there for all of it (as I will be in Boston when my friends run).

I think the worst part of 2008 (and one reason I'm glad I don't have to re-live it) has been the insomnia. I've suffered with minor bouts of insomnia from time to time over the years, but 2008 has been THE WORST. Not only do I have trouble falling asleep, I can't stay asleep. And, it's relentless. On top of that, I have regular occurrences of what can only be described as hot flashes. But, I'm only 35. (By the way, I'm planning yet another trip to the dr next week)

I start 2009 at an all-time high weight (Why am I so obsessed by this?) and an all-time low fitness level (I know why I'm obsessed by this).

I am wishing for myself in 2009...

BALANCE

That is all. No lofty resolutions that I will forget in a month or two.
No grand plan for how I will be thinner, fitter, richer, and a better person by the end of the year.
Just a goal for Balance. In Mind, In Body, In Spirit.

I reserve the right to set goals as the year progresses.

One Step at a Time

2008-12-30T14:21:00.002-06:00

I know you are all on the edge of your seats with my progress...

I have definitely gotten my eating back under control this week, Hallelujah!
I'm feeling much better.

The insomnia has returned, however. I was up until midnight last night, then bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 3:30am this morning. So, I laid in bed cursing the clock instead of getting up and going for a run.

Tomorrow morning is my Friday (I took Friday off work, and Thursday is a holiday). I've decided that I will just get up and run tomorrow morning, come hell or high water. I'll only have to suffer through one day of complete exhaustion at work.

A friend at work loaned me a couple of "Core Rhythms" dvd's to get my opinion of them, so I will HAVE to do those over the next few days, also. She just got them- got suckered in by the infomercial. I love to dance, but I'm not the smoothest dancer so this should be interesting...

I'm planning a long (ish) run on Thursday as a positive start to my New Year.
Then, my first race of the year on Saturday.
My plan at this point: Faking it.
I really feel like curling up and not doing much of anything, but I have to get in gear.

I'm still mulling over my 2009 Goals, I'll have something posted later this week.

Perspective...

2008-12-29T14:29:00.002-06:00

I was talking to the Maintenance Manager at work today. He and I work very closely together on several projects. I was talking about my lack of give-a-damn lately, and how my weight has ballooned out of control. (Obsessed, am I?)

He told me it sounded like I have a bad case of cabin fever and that I need to get out and DO something about it. Yup, he's right.

It's really tough when you've gotten to this place to drag yourself out of it. At least, for me it is.

I should be able to sleep well tonight, since I didn't sleep at all last night. Hopefully that will spur me on to "DO something about it".

It's not a great idea getting your days and nights turned around when you're off work and don't have to be anywhere at any particular time. It makes it that much tougher on Day 1 back to work.

Reformed Gym Rat No More

2008-12-28T19:55:00.001-06:00

I’ve been somewhat MIA lately.

Nope, I haven’t been running. Not since the Jingle Bell Run.

I haven’t been working out much to speak of either.

First, the good. We had a fantastic Christmas. As always, I spent far too much on the kids, but they each got exactly what they wanted. My daughter got a touch-screen computer (and I inherited her year old laptop), Rock Band for Wii (the whole set), and some other various games, clothes, and a book from the fam and money from my parents.

My son got a new guitar and amp, a digital camcorder, a subscription to Xbox Live and the wireless adaptor for his Xbox to allow him to go online (we only have wireless internet at home), plus lots of band t-shirts from my fam and money from my parents.

I got some cool stuff, too from my fam. Some Pampered Chef stuff from my sis, Coca-Cola memorabilia from my bro and fam, a blender, talking Hoops and Yoyo calendar, and money from my parents (which bought me a Tomtom that I really wanted!).

Next the bad. I had an entire week off work and did absolutely nothing constructive with it. My big plan was to get my sleeping back on track and get back into the groove with running and lifting. I wound up staying up until 2 or 3 am every night, sleeping until 9 or 10am, then lounging around in sweats (or shorts) all day. The worst part, there were 3 days where the weather was so warm that I had the windows open in the house (65-70 degrees). Did I take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather? NOPE! I spent my time lounging about the house and eating junk food. Christmas was the worst. It was like I couldn’t stop myself.

And the ugly. I stepped on the scale on Christmas morning (I couldn’t help myself). It was bad. I stepped on the scale on Dec 26. It was 6 lbs higher. The day after Christmas, I weighed the same as I weighed the day that I brought my son home from the hospital 14+ years ago. I was mortified back then to be that huge. Bear in mind that I gained 50 lbs with each of my kids, they are only 12.5 months apart, so I didn’t lose all of the weight from #1 before getting pg with #2. I have never weighed this much before or since then… until now.

What to do about it? There’s not a lot I can do quickly at this point. I have gotten beyond the point where a few weeks is going to get me back to my fighting weight. This is going to take some serious work. And, the fact that I’m embarassed to go out in public makes it that much harder. I have a 5K scheduled for Sat, Jan 3 that I suppose I will run. I don’t want to, but that fact tells me that I definitely need to. I am going to work on putting together some short term and long term goals this week that will help me to get back to normal. I’m usually not much of a New Year’s Resolution type of person, but 2009 may be the year that I make some.

I have been doing a lot of reading this week, and one thing I read was in one of Jillian Michaels’ books. It said: “As you envision the changes in your future, you must begin to let go of your past… Forget about fat periods or skinny periods in your life.” A lot of my problems this year stem from the fact that I have never had a “real” problem with my weight. Before this year, I have never been “technically” overweight. I think I have let that fact affect me more than it should. I am so obsessed by it. I find myself talking about the “good old days” far too often. You know, the days when I spent half my free time at the gym, and had the body to show for it. That is not the case any more, and I need to get a handle on the present, and start looking toward the future.

OK. Enough about all that. Stay tuned, my goals for 2009 will be coming soon, and whatever goals I wind up with will be tracked through shorter-term goals.

Jingle Bell Run 5K - December 6

2008-12-08T11:09:00.002-06:00

The Jingle Bell Run was scheduled to begin at 9am, or 8:45am, depending on which side of the race form you were looking at.

We hadn't agreed on a time to leave for the race prior to Saturday morning. Knowing that the race is about 30 minutes or so from my house, I got ready around 7-7:30am. Barbie called when she left her house. She said the roads were pretty bad, but she was on her way. Our first snow of the year came on Friday night.

We made it to the race at 8:30 ish and found that the race was going to have an even later start than planned. The race director was unable to be there, and the people who were taking over for her were out digging the mile markers out of the snow. It was only a couple of inches, it wasn't like it was a blizzard or something! Ah, well, that gave us more time to dread the race and try to talk each other out of running it.

Not wanting to stand around and wait, we went back to the car and started getting ready. You know, second-guessing what to wear for the weather, making sure Garmin has acquired the satellites, getting the ipod headphones untangled and ready to go. We figured we would see everybody come out of the building where the packet pick-up was taking place and meet up with them at the starting line.

BAD PLAN! The starting line was actually BEHIND the building, and everybody went out the back door when the race was getting ready to begin. All of a sudden, we looked up and saw a bunch of walkers moseying past the front of the car. What?? That CAN'T be the walkers for the RACE, can it?

Ummmm, yes, yes it can. We bolted out of the car and over to the race start. Luckily, this is a small town race, and we know the people taking care of timing. OK, so they will be taking 2:29 off our finish time. Off we go!

Let me just say, it's kind of fun to start a race late and chase everybody down. I was passing EVERYBODY! OK, so maybe most of them were walkers, but I'll take it! The course wasn't quite the same as last year. I thought there must be some shortcut at the end. Nope.
There was apparently some confusion over where the last turn should be.

Actual distance: 3.85 miles
My time (Garmin): 37:09 (9:39 pace)

We left before the race results, as we were not going to make a big deal about asking them to update our times. It was our own stupid fault that we missed the start! Barbie would have won the overall race if the times were adjusted. There was only one girl ahead of her, and not by 2 minutes. When the results are published, I'll know if the times were adjusted, but I'm happy to have gotten out there anyhow.

I didn't run all last week, as I was attempting to keep from getting a full-blown cold... my first in 3 YEARS!! UGH!!
I was out of commission for the most part on Sunday with the cold, but I'm feeling great today.

After the race, we went out for Mexican and wine (of course) and then headed home.

Later, I took the kids shopping again, and I've ALMOST finished my Christmas shopping. Of course, when the kids each want $500-$1,000 gifts, it doesn't take long to finish. One item for each kid and I'm DONE! Christmas morning isn't gonna be much of a surprise, but at least they'll have surprise gifts at my parents'.

Great River Road Race Report - or Happy Birthday to ME!!

2008-12-01T11:53:00.004-06:00

Holy long title, Batman!

After totally blowing it on Thanksgiving, even though I had a plan to keep my eating in check... I proceeded to shop away the day AFTER Thanksgiving, getting a late start (thus avoiding the worst of the crowds) and getting a big chunk of my Christmas shopping done.

Saturday, 11/29 was my 35th birthday and the day of the Great River Road 10 mile race. The race was an out-and-back, right along the Mississippi River. I had signed up on Wednesday, along with a couple of friends. They tried (a little) to talk me out of it, but I figured I could at least have a healthy START to my day.

When Saturday arrived, I did NOT want to run 10 miles. Ugh! What was I thinking?? I tried to talk THEM out of it after we had already arrived at the race. But, alas, it was too late. We were doomed to run it.

I am SO glad that we did! At the start, it was about 40 degrees. This would normally be shorts weather for me. But, the race was right along the RIVER for crying out loud. And, I was COLD! So, I wore pants and a lightweight long sleeve shirt.

On the way out, it was SO HOT! I thought I had overdressed. I enjoyed the out-and-back, because we could see the frontrunners on their way back. Angie and I ran together, with Barbie taking off and beating us by almost 30 minutes. Gah!

At the turnaround, I was glad to be "overdressed". We ran the last 5 miles into a headwind. I wasn't there to "race". I hadn't ran since 11/16 (are you surprised?). Before that, I ran on 11/8 and 11/1. I was just there to run 10 miles. Or walk. Angie drug me through the last couple of miles, and we wound up running it in an 'official' time of 1:47:15. Not great, but I was fine with it.

Here are a couple of shots of Angie and I at the finish:

Afterward, we went out for Mexican (of course) and a couple of glasses of wine (of course).

4th Folder Tag

2008-11-21T14:03:00.006-06:00

Since it seems that I have nothing to talk about lately, I'm copying some others and tagging myself...
Here's how it works:

1. Pick the 4th folder on your computer
2. Pick the 4th Picture
3. Explain the picture
4. Tag 4 more peeps. -- I'm not tagging anybody. Do it if you want!

I didn't pick the 4th of the 4th... I'm at work, you people do not want to stare at pictures of conveyor or rack! I picked the 4th folder of personal pics, 4th picture in that folder...

This is Barbie and I at a winery, after the Band on the Run race. Typical. I have no idea why I am sitting ramrod straight. I think I was trying to make my gut look flatter.

I do know that I got completely wasted that day. Angie accidentally deleted ALL of the pictures off Barbie's camera and was about to cry. I then took it upon myself to try and cheer her up by doing some sort of crazy, wacked-out dancing.

I then started drunk-dialing random friends and inviting them to drive Angie and I around to wineries later after Barbie went home. We had one friend take us up on the offer. She quickly realized how drunk we were and took us out to eat to try and sober us up.

We're all entitled to act crazy once in a while, right?

This weekend, I will have to skip the Turkey Trot on Saturday. My son's basketball team is playing in a tournament. They won on Tuesday, which puts their next game on Saturday morning instead of Friday night like I had thought. Ah well, there's always another race right around the corner.

Diet, Check!

2008-11-13T13:03:00.002-06:00

Well, the good news is, I have my diet under control.

I've been eating very healthy this past two weeks. Lots of whole foods, very little junk food. I gave in to my candy corn craving the other day, but I was able to limit it and get the rest of the candy corn out of the house.

Great, right?

Well, almost.

Why is it that I can have one, or the other? I am not doing much running or anything else really. It's like I can eat right OR exercise. I can't seem to do both at the same time. Once I get that figured out, LOOK OUT! There will be no stopping me!

I went to bed last night early with the best intentions of getting up early this morning for a run. But then, the dog kept tossing and turning. Yes, I'm blaming my oversleeping this morning on the dog.
(But, he knows I can't stay mad at him).

I'm right on the cusp here. I swear, one of these days, you will come over to my blog expecting to read more excuses of why I didn't run today... and you will see me all fit and in the midst of my comeback.

Update...

2008-11-10T11:22:00.002-06:00

I had a very good week last week. It all started with the return of my best friend.

Then, I went out for beer and burgers on Thursday night with a girlfriend. It was a date set-up gone awry. Why is it that people think when you are single that you should be set up with anybody else who happens to be single?

I have standards!

Saturday morning, I got up and ran 9 miles. It was a very exhilarating day for a run. It was cool, but not cold (40 degrees). The trees are beautiful with the changing leaves, and there was a slight breeze.

I got back from my run and went later to my company's Christmas party for the managers. Yes, we already had our Christmas party. The party was a lot of fun. Dinner, karaoke, and then 2 comedians had been hired as our entertainment. I hadn't laughed so hard in so long! They were fantastic. Even the people who weren't drinking thought so!

After that we dispersed and started the gambling. The party took place at the Casino Aztar hotel, adjacent to the casino boat. Not being much of a gambler (ever since my ex gambled away so many thousands), I gave away the $5 that we were given for gambling and went home.

Sunday, I took my daughter to get the other side of her lip pierced. I can't believe my daughter is one of *those* freaks who has 2 lip piercings. It really doesn't look so bad. I'll have to post a picture later. I figure, she gets good grades, she doesn't get in any trouble, she is very well behaved and always has been... if she wants to have a couple of piercings, I'm not going to make a big deal of it. She knows that when she gets older and wants to get a "real" job, she will want to let them grow back.

So, I'm back at it now. Of the 30 lbs that I had gained, I've now lost 6 of them. I may have dropped out of Viv's challenge, but I'm back stronger than ever now...

Tito is here!!

2008-11-05T20:45:00.004-06:00

I managed to drag out of bed this morning at 5am and get in a quick 4.5 mile run.
Even more exciting than that... Tito is back!

One of my very good friends has had this dog for several years. Somewhere between 2001-2003, she lived in an apartment for a year that did not allow dogs. During that year, Tito lived with me. He is the absolute best dog ever, and I hated giving him back. But, I knew from the beginning that he was her dog, and I was also happy for him to see him go back home.

This year, my friend got married to a guy who has 2 large dogs and 2 cats. Tito and the other animals were not getting along, so she decided to do what was best for the dog, even though I'm sure it must be killing her.

I can barely contain myself, I'm so thrilled to have him back!

Tunnel Hill Run - My latest PW (personal worst)

2008-11-03T11:01:00.003-06:00

On Saturday, I ran the Tunnel Hill 10 Mile Trail Run. The Tunnel Hill trail is located in Southern IL and is part of the federal Rails-to-Trails development program. The trail was created when an old railroad was removed from the area, thus the Tunnel and the various trestles that are a part of the trail. The entire trail is 43.1 miles long and is beautiful this time of the year with the changing leaves. This picture of the tunnel is from the Spring.

The race starts at Tunnel Hill and runs on the trail all the way to Vienna. Due to the logistics of running on the trail, the field is limited to 200 runners. I have run this race 7 times, every year except for one since I started running. It's one of my favorites; I look forward to it every year.

My best time on this run was 1:21. Not too shabby, but I probably could have run it better that year. I was young and just enjoying the day.

My worst time up until now, was last year at 1:34.
This year, I did enjoy the run in many ways - the weather was beautiful, the fall colors were beautiful. I hadn't run since Columbus, so it felt great to just get out there and run. About 1/4 mile into the race, we run through the tunnel. The tunnel is pretty long, and it gets DARK in there. All you can see is the shoes of the person in front of you. It's always neat to get in the tunnel with people who have never been there before. There were a lot of first timers around me this year.

As the race went on, my body started to say, HEY! You needed to train! Miles 5-8 were especially tough for me. At about the 8 mile mark, the song 'Teenagers' by My Chemical Romance came on my ipod and gave me the boost I needed to kick it back in gear. By that time, I had let too much time slip past me, so I was happy to just run out the last two miles and finish strong.

That is what I did. My official time was 1:44:15.
I was the only one in our group that rode down together to not get at least an age group award. I've only won one age group award there in all the years I've run it. And, that was not the year I PR'ed. I got lucky one year when nobody else my age ran.

Shanna won first place overall for Women in 1:09.
Garrett won third place for his age in 1:12
Barbie won 2nd place for her age in 1:20
Tim won third place for his age in 1:13.

Here are some after pictures. The first is me, Shanna and Barbie:

And, another one of me, Shanna and Garrett.

I will say that I enjoyed the day very much. It was great to get to a race and back in the groove of things. My least favorite part of the day was the Chub Rub. Ye-OUCH! I have never had this so bad before. It must be time to start working my thighs.

Bill and Trav's Bogus Journey

2008-10-31T10:27:00.015-05:00

This is where I was last night. I took my daughter and two of her friends. One of her friends was in loooove with William. Bill is the lead singer for "The Academy Is" and Trav is the red-headed lead for "We the Kings". They were touring with two little-known bands, "Hey Monday" and "Carolina Liar".

"Hey Monday" opened it up and was very entertaining. The sound was reminiscent of "Paramore", with the female lead singer. You know you haven't made it big yet when the band members have to help out with the tear down and set up of their equipment, as the first two bands did.

But, then came "Carolina Liar". I LOVED this band. They were a little quirky in their performance and sounded much different from the others. Very 80's new wave type sound. I even bought their CD after the show.

The headline bands were great, of course. I even knew some of their music. Well, we also listened to some of it on the way over, so I cheated a little bit.

I didn't get home until around midnight, and managed to make it to work this morning. There was no school yesterday or today, so don't worry about the kids falling asleep at school!

Am I a cool mom or what?

Tomorrow- Tunnel Hill 10 Mile trail run. This should be interesting... I still haven't ran all week. I have decided that if I'm not feeling a bit more normal after the time change, I'm going to break down and go to the doctor.

Here we go Again...

2008-10-28T12:18:00.002-05:00

I haven't ran since Columbus.

There it is.

Do I have a good reason? It depends on who you ask. If you ask me... No, not really.

I haven't slept more than a couple of hours a night in several days. One day last week, I slept for about 5 hours and woke up at 3:30am. That was the best. Last night was the worst. Could I really have gotten up at 5am this morning and ran? Yes. I would have been miserable and tired all day long, but I'm miserable and tired anyway.

I called in sick yesterday and slept sporadically throughout the day. That was nice, but not practical for every day. I'm hoping that I make up for some of it tonight with a solid night's sleep - drug induced sleep. Hopefully, I won't be feeling too foggy tomorrow morning to get up and run.

Thursday night, I'm taking my daughter and two of her friends to see 'The Academy Is' at Pops. I also plan to work on Friday. Since it's an All Ages concert, I'm hoping it doesn't go on too late. It should be pretty fun, even though I don't know very much of their music. I'm still planning to somehow run two days this week before the Tunnel Hill race on Saturday...

I'll definitely keep you posted if that happens!

7 of 9...

2008-10-23T13:37:00.013-05:00

Or, where does your motivation come from?

If you've been following along for very long, you've seen my weight creep up over the past year to what amounts to the largest that I have ever been. Normally, I can see the big picture- In the grand scheme of things, I'm not that big. I can still run, and run well when I do the training. (Although, if I were doing the training, the weight wouldn't be an issue).

The real problem I have is getting my lazy butt out of bed to do my running in the mornings. After work isn't really an option for me, as I have found over the years. I can workout in the evenings for the short term, but this can't be a long term solution for me.

Now, to find some helpful motivation...

I've watched some Star Trek in my day, but it has certainly been a lot of years, and I never really got into the Voyager series much at all.

About a year ago, one of the maintenance techs at work told me that he thought I looked like "7 of 9" from the Voyager series of Star Trek. Yeah, right, whatever... But, I don't really know who this is.

He asked me a few times after that if I had a chance to google and find "7 of 9", so I knew exactly what he was telling me. Let me interject: this guy is known to not be a creep.

Last night, a conversation with a friend made me think of this and I got on Google and found this "7 of 9" character. She is played by the actress Jeri Ryan, and is on many websites as one of the "hottest women on Star Trek".

Hot women on Star Trek? Who knew?

Anyhow, here's the photos, her and me:

Twins, no?

OK. I'm blonde and I have full lips. I'll give him that. But, I don't see me wearing that skin tight jumpsuit. Nope, not right now.

Believe it or not, this has helped me with my motivation.
I think,
"Wow! Somebody thinks I'm hot!"
"Wow! I could BE that hot!"

Let's hope it sticks this time. So far, in spite of an initially reported loss, I've gained it back and I'm at 0 pounds lost for Viv's Independence Day Weight Loss Challenge.

But, I'll get back there. My plan is not to post a gain for the next official WI.

Columbus Half Marathon Weekend

2008-10-21T12:18:00.004-05:00

Ahhhh, where to begin...

We had a great weekend. I started off from my house at 6:30am Saturday morning and picked up the other 3 chics that were running.

It was Angie's first Half Marathon and Shanna was attempting her BQ. At 21 years old, she had to run a 3:40.

I had gotten the primo hotel at the Hilton, for only $100. Yup, I'm an expert at sniffing out the deal. We ate at the restaurant in the hotel. The food was yum, and there was no 2 hour wait like there normally is before a marathon in many cities. Afterwards, we all four sat in the hot tub on Saturday night in extra running clothes that we happened to bring along. Nobody brought a swimsuit.

Sunday morning, Angie was up and about at 3:30am and took a bath and put on her full make-up. It seems she couldn't sleep. *snort*

The rest of us got up between 4 and 4:30. We ate breakfast and dealt with getting dressed while trying to find a weather forecast on the local tv stations. No luck on the weather. We had to wing it from the weather forecast the night before. It was COLD! We left our hotel at 6:30am for the 7:30 start. Had no trouble parking the car and getting to the starting area, but then stood in line for the port-a-pots for 40 minutes or so. By the time we got out of there, there was no finding the pace team for Shanna. She had to run ahead and try to find them after the race started. She caught them by mile 6 (!!)

On to my race experience. It was so cold, I was glad to get started so I could warm up. At the start, it was in the mid-30's. I had worn my race ready shorts so I could stash my camera in the back pocket. Then, I proceeded to run the entire race without taking a single picture. Ugh!

When the race started, Garmin could not find the satellites. I didn't turn him on until I came out of the port a pottty, so it's partially my fault. The satellites weren't located until about 0.8 miles into the race. I did start the timer when I started and hit the lap button at the 1 mile mark, so I have all my split times, but I don't have the entire distance. Ah, well.

Angie and I had planned to run together, as long as she could get by without pain. We were together until around the 2 mile mark, then she told me to go on. At the next water stop, I caught up to her. She had somehow passed me! I went on ahead again, and caught her at the next water stop, again. So, I told her that we may as well just run together. She stopped at each water stop as she was still having pain and was trying to run through it. We were together at the 10K mark, and that was when her pain got to be too much. She walked in the rest of the race, and I went on ahead and finished.

I felt great the entire time. I think the cool weather was a big contributor to that. I wound up finishing in 2:16 and change. Not my best Half, not my worst. Considering the minimal training I'd done leading up to the race, I was very pleased with this time.

I waited nearby for Angie to finish. She wound up finishing in 2:48 and change. An automatic PR, since it was her first! We then sat in the sun for a bit before going to watch for the other two. Shanna finished the marathon in 3:40:48, a BQ!!! Barbie came in next in 3:52 and change, also a BQ for her, that's her second this year!

I used my camera to get a couple of "after" shots...

Here's me and Angie after our Half

And, Barbie and Shanna, the 2 BQ'ers!

Tag! I'm it!

2008-10-17T11:41:00.003-05:00

I was tagged by Carly, which is good because otherwise I have NOTHING to talk about here. I have not gone for a run ALL WEEK.

My last run was the pitifully cut short 11 miler from Sunday. That's OK. One run a week is plenty, right? Ah well...

I'm running the Half in Columbus this Sunday, and I'm hoping I'll get it back in gear after that.

Six Random Facts about Me:

1- I am a musician. I LOVE music of all kinds. I started playing the flute when I was 9, and played all the way through school, including the marching band. I also was in the chorus throughout my school years and took piano lessons. I'm now a mediochre piano player, an excellent floutist, and a horrible singer.

2- I am a farmer's daughter. I was so embarassed about that when I was in high school. I don't know why- It's something I'm very proud of now. I always wanted to move to the city when I grew up. I haven't.

3- I enjoy silence. Maybe it's because I never actually get to be in silence. Maybe this will change after my kids are grown. I love music, and I indulge in some talk radio during long trips when I'm alone. But, sometimes, I'll just turn the radio off and listen to the silence. I did this during my last trip home from Chicago (a 4 hour drive).

4- I had my first boyfriend in Kindergarten. His name was Tony and we used to hide behind the seats on the school bus and kiss. I was devastated when my family moved at the end of my 1st grade year. My next boyfriend wasn't until I was in high school.

5- I am a freaky optimist. I almost always have a smile on my face. Only my close friends know that I'm not always blissfully happy. When I was laid off from my job in 2002, I took exactly one day to cry and feel sorry for myself. From then on, I knew that there was a reason for it. I was only mildly worried throughout the 9 jobless months that followed. And now, I recently celebrated my 5th anniversary at the best job ever. I was right!

6- I have my bellybutton pierced. I got it done when I was in my 20's and hawt, still after I had my kids. When I got mine done, it was not the norm around here like it is these days. I was cutting edge! I've often thought that a 34 year old woman with 2 teenagers at home shouldn't have her bellybutton pierced, but when I take it out my belly just looks plain. So, I've kept it. One day, when I get rid of this extra fat, it will actually look cute again.

Wow. I really had a hard time coming up with 6 things. I'm a dull person, huh? Who'da thunk it? I seem to entertain myself just fine!

Now, I tag all you peeps that seem to have abandoned your blogs recently: Kelly Donut, Ames, Jen-Elph, Delane, and DoriAnn.

I'm a Blog Slacker!

2008-10-13T09:26:00.003-05:00

And a running slacker.

I didn't have any running to post about last week because, well, I didn't run enough to talk about it.

So, Angie and I made plans to run on Sunday- 11 miles.

Tomorrow is my son's birthday- he'll be 14. Saturday, we had the required cake and ice cream for the party. Then, I proceeded to pig out on chips, cookies and candy most of the evening whilst watching movies. I'm not really sleeping at night, so this seemed like a pretty good plan.

When the time came to get up for the 11 miler, I was laying there trying to think of ways to get out of it. I didn't come up with anything convincing.
Angie showed up at my house at 6:30am and we were off for our run. I felt pretty good, amazingly. We ran at a really good pace for the first 4-5 miles, like under 10:30/mile average. And, we walked a few times, mostly because Angie was having some minor pains.

After about the 5th mile, her knee really started hurting her. She asked me what she should do... run through it, walk, give up and let me go get my car and pick her up?
Fortunately, I've never been injured, so I had NO advice for her. I offered to go get my car and come back for her, and she said no- she wanted to get the miles.
At about mile 7.5, we gave up on running and walked the rest of the way back to my house. She felt great besides the leg, and was extremely frustrated.

Angie is planning to run her first Half Marathon with us next Sunday in Columbus, and now is getting understandably concerned. I told her that her best bet is to rest this week and see if she is up to the run on Sunday. I don't think she is going to listen. She is one of these crazy people and thinks she HAS to run if it says to run on the schedule.

Barbie's foot is bothering her pretty bad for the past couple of weeks.
Angie is having pain in her leg.
Shanna is planning to qualify for Boston, but just told us this week that she probably won't go to Boston even if she does qualify.

UGH! Why are we doing this, exactly??