Three Things Thursday

1. I have half marathon #2 on Sunday. I'm keep oscillating between being extremely nervous and excited. I've managed to freak myself out a few times but ultimately I know it's going to be a great race. Not looking for a PR, just looking for a spinning medal. Yup, 13.1 Atlanta has a spinning medal.

2. I was looking at my calendar for October, and I am a busy girl. I have a few photo shoots, one of them being on Sunday in the late afternoon after the race in fact. I have races lined up for 3 weekends in October, I might drop the Run Like Hell 5K if it feels like it's just too much, although I am really looking forward to doing this race with my dear friend Brooke. We were planning on super awesome co-ordinating costumes, we both want to win the costume contest.

3. This group teaches another type of dance fitness, and when I grow up, I'd like to be able to move like them. 

Back In Business!

I'm no longer feeling like death...SCORE!!! You know what that means? I'm back in business, and back on track with training. Monday was the first longer run since I got sick, I had 8 miles on the schedule. I had K join me for this run. It was slow and it was tough but I was pretty jazzed about being out at it again.

Then Wednesday, I had 14 miles. I was so worried about this one because it had been so long since I had covered that kind of mileage. I'll be honest, it was TOUGH. As always, the first 4-5 miles are hard for me, I usually get into a good groove between miles 5-10 and this was the case with this run as well. Last long run, I resorted to some silly mind games to get through. The funny thing about this run was that there were some shirtless dudes running and little did they know, they pulled me along for a while. Is there anyway, these guys want to slow down their pace a little and come with me to my next races? Maybe I should ask. I got the miles done, and on the way home, I stopped at a gas station and picked up two bags of ice. Oh yeah, I took an ice bath, and I liked it. I've done this before and I might be a freak of nature but I like the ice baths, yes, you read that right. Getting in that tub is tough but those 10 minutes in the ice bath are sort of glorious.

As for Friday and Saturday's runs... they were a struggle. Friday, I was dragging after having taught my class. Saturday, I was just thinking about everything except the run and my head just wasn't in it. The funny thing about not having my head in the run is that, later that afternoon I went to pick up my race number for 13.1 Atlanta next Sunday. Yup, I'm back to racing too and October is going to be a busy race month for this girl. See, I'm back in business!!!

The Fun and Not So Fun Runs

It's been ages since I've updated the blog. First, I went out of the country, then I got sick, which I am almost positive is because of the flight. Of course, I couldn't just get a cold, nope, not me, I ended up with mild bronchitis. It's been trying both physically and mentally, and I had quite the epic pity party for myself. No worries, because now, I am very slowly but surely starting to feel better and no more pity parties. I even managed a little run yesterday, nothing too epic but it's better than nothing, the lungs were still not feeling 100% but at least I didn't feel like total death. Hoping to be feeling 100% ASAP.

I've got a picture laden post from the trip to Nicaragua that I will share with you all tomorrow. We all had a fabulous time and I am glad that we all got to go and everyone enjoyed the trip. I was so worried about B and Patrick because it was their first visit, but I had nothing to worry about at all. 

Here is the post I wrote and never posted before I left...

Fun and Not So Fun Runs

Monday August 29th was long run, and it was another mileage PR and it was also probably one of the most difficult runs I've every done both physically and mentally. 

Miles 1-5 - K joined me for the first 5. It was nice to have company to get things started, and to make it better, the weather could almost be classified as nice. 

Miles 5-10 (aka- The Rockstar Miles) - These five seemed to fly by. I took a completely different course than I am used to and it kept the run fun and interesting. The path I took, had me passing one of the golf courses in town and it all looked so serene it made me consider giving golf a shot again, then I realized that I had only ever tried golfing once before and it was a disaster. Hey, at least the view was very pretty. 

These rockstar miles happened to be some of the most entertaining. How, you ask? Well, I'll tell you, I was playing some down and dirty tricks. I added a Lucy spin to some of the tricks that are mentioned in Jeff Galloway's Mental Training book. One of them involves you pretending to sort of lasso the person in front of you with a rubber band and have them pull you. I had no one in front of me, so I got creative and pretended that there was someone in front of me. Now, I couldn't leave it at just that, I had to pretend that the person in front of me happened to be some sort of gorgeous male model, who loved to run, and happened to be shirtless. Don't judge, it's what helped me rock out those miles, and for the record, I was laughing to myself as I was imagining this scenario. I used some other tricks I'd read about but the rubber band lasso thing with the shirtless dude was by far the funniest. 

Miles 11-16 (aka the Anti Rockstar miles) - THEY SUCKED! Did you get that? I cried, I questioned myself about why I even wanted to do the marathon. I was hating everything and everyone. I was so glad when it was over but I was a total bitch the rest of the day. 

The next day, my dear friend Christina joined me for a recovery run. It started as a run, until my leg and knee started bothering me. So we ran the first mile, and walked the second but the company was so awesome that it didn't even matter. She's one of my dearest friends, so when I asked her to go to Starbucks afterwards, she obliged. That was the best part of the entire day!

Then there was redemption run, it was 7 miles and I did have my leg and knee bother me a little but it didn't stop me. SUCCESS! I had some good music going, a pace goal, and things to get done that kept me motivated and moving. Sadly, no shirtless guys to play mind tricks on myself, so I had to resort to focusing on all that other stuff. In all seriousness, it felt good to run and not feel defeated by the legs and knee pain.

Homeward Bound

I'm on a plane on my way home from a weekend trip to Nicaragua. I have a post about last week's training, and an another about my trip. I had fun but I am glad to be heading home.