TexasLindsey

Ran 5 miles with Ashley and Tim at 6:30pm.  WEather= 50 degrees, dark.  Average pace=9:07/m.   

 My plantar fasciitis is still bugging me in my left foot even after all this time off.  I must have really torn it.   Can't figure out if I should just stop running and let it completely heal.   I'm really out of shape anyways, what is another month.  9:00 pace felt like 8:00.  I don't know what to do.

 Still, it was fun running with my friends again.  They have been training hard!  Tim ran 100 miles last week.  Ashley ran 60.   I got to hear about everything I've missed out on this last month... all the running group gossip.  One girl we run with has a stress fracture of her SPINE!@   OMG!   She's having to go to physical therapy for 1 hour each day.   One girl from the running store was fired.  Interesting...

NYC Marathon registration just opened...  wooo hoo!   I'm signing up!   

9.6 miles with my running group at 6:30am.  Weather=45F.  Average pace=8:15/m.

Great run today!  Ashley called me last night and convinced me to go.  I've been really struggling with motivation lately.  Getting hurt and ditching my 3:25 marathon plans that I'd been training for since July was a big blow... Then I had a hectic Christmas season and I've been dealing with the decision of whether or not to return to work (after much, much consideration we decided that I'll stay home with the boys another year).  So when my alarm went off this morning, I almost opted to sleep in instead.   

I'm glad I got up.  I thought it'd be smart if I ran with the 9:00 pace group... but I'm not smart.  That's why I got hurt in the first place.  But at least I didn't run with my normal group who were going 7:45ish... actually, I couldn't have even if I wanted to.  I ended up running with a couple guys named Clint and Ramon and we were pretty consistently 8:10-8:20 the whole way.  They are pretty funny so it was really entertaining.  Ramon just found out that his fiancé is pregnant with their first child.  Clint and I were the first people he told!  Pretty cool!  

I would say that the effort felt like 7:45 pace did to me in October.  I could still talk but it wasn't easy... however, I didn't think I was going to die so it was still good.   It seems I'm 30-45 seconds off what I used to be... which is actually a hell of a lot better than I thought I'd be.  I'm really surprised I did almost 10 miles at this speed considering I haven't run more than 6 miles since November.  

Best part was that I didn't have any issues or pain.  Woo Hoo!  It's so nice to run without pain!  Afterwards, of course, I feel like I ran about 15 miles instead of 10.  My chest is really tight and I bet my legs will be sore tomorrow.  

I'm feeling much more motivated to keep this up.  I love running with my group on Saturdays!  

Oh, and I signed up for NYC Marathon last night!   

 On a side note, I'd like to thank all my friends on this blog who have been so encouraging to me these last several weeks while I've been in a funk!   I love this blog!!! 

4pm - 1 mile around the neighborhood pushing both boys in the double running stroller and racing 5 neighborhood children on their bikes and motorized scooters.  It was fun and challenging.  I also walked backwards up a hill pulling a bike and a toddler taxi because my 4 year old started crying about the hill being hard.  It was a good workout!  

Then Ashley and Tim came by around 6pm and we went for a run together.  A cold front was blowing in so it was gusting up to 20-25 mph.  50F and dark.  

Good run!  We went a hilly route.  I am in horrible shape.  I kept up for the most part but I did have to stop a couple times to catch my breath after long hills.  

 mile 1- 8:16

mile 2- 8:14

mile 3- 8:33

mile 4- 8:27

mile 5- 8:28

mile 6- 8:01

mile 7- 8:02

 Interesting that the final two miles were the fastest.  When we had 1.5 miles to go, it was pretty much all uphill.  I told Ash I was going to just put in my iPod earphones and concentrate because I was really tired.  I'm pretty impressed with myself that I was able to speed up like that.  

Since I got injured, I have gotten out of the habit of going to bed early and waking up early.  Before I was going to bed by 9pm and getting up at 4:15am and meeting Tim and Ashley at 4:45am.  Then my boys would wake up around 7am.  It seemed like the days were so LOOOONG waiting for my husband to get home from work!  Nowadays, we've all been staying up later and the boys and I sleep until like 8:30 or 9am.  The days seem to go by faster.    I like this part of it, but I'm realizing how much harder it is to run in the evenings than it is to run in the mornings.  I have to stay motivated all day long to run.   

 Tim has really been running a lot lately  The last three weeks he did 100, 92, and 75 mile weeks.  He did a 20 miler on Saturday at 7:28 average pace and then a 20 miler on Sunday at 7:15.  Ashley's been doing 60 mile weeks.  They are running the Galveston Mardi Gras marathon on Feb 2nd.  I am so jealous!  The original idea for this marathon was conceived at my house when they came over for dinner one night.  We were all going to do it together.  It was going to be a couples weekend of fun partying after we ran.   Now I can't which really pisses me off.  Errr... well, I might be able to if I ran a 9:00 pace.... but let's just face it, I'm not disciplined enough and I'd just go out faster than I'm capable of sustaining and I'd re-injure myself.   

5.5 miles at 2pm by myself around the neighborhood.  Weather=50ish, sunny.  Average pace=9:30/m. 

5 miles at 7pm.  45F, dark.  Average pace=8:35/m.

Ashley called me up at 5:30 and convinced me to go with her and Tim.  It was a really fun run.  I went ahead and scheduled runs with them for the rest of the week... that's my new strategy to get back on track.   We'll see if it works.  

6 miles at 5:45pm at Trinity River park.  Weather=50ish, got dark mid-run.  Average pace=8:25/m (8:09, 8:26, 8:19, 8:48, 8:22, 8:27)

 Ran with Ashley and Wendy at the park.  Plan was to do 8 miles on an out and back.  I started having stomach issues which is weird because I never, ever have this problem.  I had to turn around at 3 and run back by myself.  I thought I'd slow down after I left them but it was black dark and the park was scary.  I've been watching too many crime dramas...  

10 miles with my running group at 6:30am.  Weather=38F, 12mph wind, dark then sunny.  Average pace=8:19/m.

mile 1- 8:18

mile 2- 8:20

mile 3- 8:34

mile 4- 8:39

mile 5- 8:21

mile 6- 8:18

mile 7- 7:56

mile 8- 8:04

mile 9- 8:12

mile 10- 8:11

I started off with the fastest group and we did the first two miles at 8:15ish pace.  I thought I was going to die.  I didn't feel so good.  I've been having some kind of stomach bug these last 3 days.  At the 2 mile water stop I told them I was going to hang back today.  They were all going to be speeding up after that and most of them were doing 20 miles today.   I was kinda disappointed that two guys, Ross and Chris, said they would slow down with me.  I said I was also only going 10 miles and they both said they wanted to do the same.  I was worried that I would be locked into a pace even if I started feeling bad and wanted to slow down.  

We said we'd do 8:30ish but we got faster.  I was feeling pretty awful until mile 6.  I was running on sheer will power.  I was going much faster than I felt comfortable going.   This was partly the stomach sickness and partly the fact that I'm out of shape.  I didn't tell them I was dying though.  At the mile 5 turn around I told them I was going to put in both ear buds and concentrate.  

I sped up in mile 6 and the guys kept up.  I just couldn't wait to get to the mile 6 water stop so I could take a break so I just kept getting faster.  Before I knew it, something clicked and I had a second wind.  I felt great!  It was like I woke up finally.  

In mile 8 Ross looked at me and motioned to his watch.  I looked down and saw average pace 7:57!  I was kinda surprised.   I told him it was my techno music getting me in a trance.  He laughed.  After that though, the momentum was kinda ruined.  

Ross continued running sub-8:00's but Chris and I ran the final two miles at 8:15ish.  It was a sufferfest for me.  Those final two miles felt like the end of a half marathon.  

My stomach issues have only gotten worse ever since.  I wonder what the deal is.  I would say food poisoning but I have been cooking all my own meals ... and I don't eat meat.   The rest of my family is ok.   I guess just some bug.  

8 miles at 1pm.  Weather=60ish, 12mph wind gusting to 20mph, cloudy.  Average pace=9:28/m.

 My four year old went to my sister's house today.  I took my 2 year old with me to the Trinity Trails and pushed him in the running stroller.  He is so good!  He just sits in the seat and enjoys the ride.  My four year old has always been harder in the stroller.  He gets bored and wants to get out after awhile.   LOL

I was only going to do 6 but I was feeling good, Ryan was acting great and it was a great day so I went out 4 miles before I turned around to head back to the car.

After I turned around I realized why it was such an easy run the first four miles... the wind was at my back the whole time.  Once I started going back to the car, I had to push the stroller against the wind all the way back.  Actually, it only sucked for the first mile until I got used to it.   I maintained a constant pace even against the wind.  Good workout!  Legs felt great!  My plantar fasciitis only bugs me after I stop running.  

Ran with Ashley and Wendy at Trinity River at 11:00am.  Weather=50, sunny, perfect!  Some wind on the way out but easy sailing all the way home.  

Average pace on way out was 8:15/m for 5 miles.  Average pace on way back was 8:00/m for 5 miles.  Ended up with 8:08/m for all 10.  

I talked to the girls for the first 4 miles but the effort started feeling difficult so I told them I just had to put both iPod earbuds in and concentrate.  

 I'm just not running that often right now.  I guess I have a lot of other things on my mind. My husband has been given the opportunity to take a job in Italy.  Job is in Novara, Italy which is in the northern region about 30 minutes outside of Milan.  We have to decide whether we want to go or not.  

It's a big decision.  It'd be a no-brainer that we'd for sure go if we didn't have young kids.  As it is now though, my parents and my husband's parents would freak out if we moved their grandchildren overseas for several years.  We wouldn't be able to come for visits very often.  

We have about a month or so to make up our minds.  If we go, we have about 9 months before we leave.  We would have to sell just about everything we own.  It is a tremendous hassle getting there and finding a house, furniture and setting up our lives there... with two pre-schoolers and with none of us speaking italian.  The company hires a service which is supposed to help us find a place and do everything we need to do for re-location though.   We're leaning toward doing it because we feel like we'd regret it if we didn't.... but the unknown is just so scary.  

It seems they have some running groups there.  They have marathons and other races too.  The weather seems nice too.  It ranges between 30F and 80F year round.  

On the plus side, if anyone ever wants to run a marathon in Italy with me.... you'd have a place to stay for free!   

5.2 miles at 3pm pushing Ryan in the running stroller on the hilly route in my neighborhood.  Perfect running weather=50ish with 10-12 mph wind, cloudy.  Average pace=9:35/m.

Ryan slept the whole way.  Fun, fun!   Stupid plantar fasciitis still bugging me on my left foot.  I guess I just am supposed to live with this forever.  I have taken all this time off and I still can't get rid of it.  Too bad...  I can't take anymore time off.  

The married couple that I run with all the time around my neighborhood, Tim and Ashley, just ran a marathon in Galveston, TX on Sunday.  They had to deal with 20-30 mph wind.  Ashley pulled a 3:33 with her last mile being 7:45 pace. She was first in her age group. Tim did 3:06 and got first place masters.  Also,last week a girl from my running group named Emily who I used to run with until she got extremely, extremely fast... she ran a 1:22 half marathon!! 

My friends are PR-ing all over the place and I'm just sitting on my butt.  I've got to get myself back in shape or I'm going to go crazy.  Plus, I'm gaining weight.  I think I need to start getting up and running in the morning again.  It's the only way I've ever been consistent.  I'll just have to deal with 30 degree weather in the dark and alone.  Ashley and Tim don't want to run in the morning until it gets warmer.  They are running in the evening hours when I can't because I have kids.

4 miles at 6pm.  Weather=45F, 8mph wind, cloudy with sun at start but dark at end.  Average pace=8:27/m.

A quick little loop around the neighborhood with a couple of pretty good hills.  Felt good!  

 What a weird winter we have had in Texas... and by weird, I mean hotter than normal.  Today's high was 48 which was just about the coldest it's been all year.  We've been having 60's and 70's for highs most of the time.  T-shirts and shorts during the day.  Mornings are 30's-40's though.   We haven't even had freezing weather at all this year.  The grass is greener now than it was in July.  Normally, it seems we have at least one snow per season... and normally we have at least one month where the highs are in the 20's to 30's most of the month.   I guess coming off the summer we just had with 60+ days in a row of 100+ temps I shouldn't be surprised.   I wonder what this means though for the summer of 2012.  I'm worried it'll be hotter than 2011.

6.5 miles at 3pm at the Trinity trails pushing the double running stroller.  Weather=45ish, partly cloudy.  Average pace=10:40/m

 I haven't run with the double stroller in a while.  It is much more difficult than the single stroller.  Jake is about 40 pounds and he bounced his feet the whole time and Ryan is about 30 pounds and he leaned forward for most of it.   I had to hold it with both hands the whole time to keep it going straight.  There were many twists and turns and short little hills along the river.  At first I was pretty frustrated with running like that but then I decided to not think of it as running.  Instead think of it as an arm/cardio workout.   It was an arm workout for sure!  My arm muscles were on fire!   Eventually, I got into a good rhythm and it was fun.  Boys did very well.  

9.25 miles around my neighborhood at 4pm.  Weather=40ish, 10mph wind gusting to 20mph, cloudy.  Average pace=9:17/m. 

3 miles on the treadmill.  Average pace=9:00/m.  Then 6 miles around the neighborhood.  Weather=49F, 12mph wind, cloudy. Average pace=8:48/m.

My husband has the flu so he was home from work today.  Hopefully no one else in the family will get it!!   When my two year old went down for a nap and my four year old was watching a video, I got dressed to go run.  I stepped outside and the misty cold and said, "uh...I don't think so."   I came back inside and ran on the treadmill instead.  However, three miles into it, I was burning up! I decided I could run outside afterall.  I even wore a t-shirt and felt fine. 

4.6 miles at 1pm around the neighborhood pushing Ryan in the running stroller.  Average pace= 9:55/m.   Came home and dropped him off and went immediately back out for another 4.6 miles (same route) by myself.  Average pace=8:48/m.   Weather was perfect!  55-60F, 10mph wind, sunny.  

 Great day!  My husband is still home sick again so I got to run during the day.  Now Jake is coming down with it.  I hope I don't get the flu too.  I'm just starting to get more consistent with my running again.  Ryan and I so far are not sick yet.  Fingers crossed!!!

6.4 miles at 6:15pm.  Weather=60F, 8mph wind, dark.  Average pace=8:25/m.

Met up with Ashley and Tim.  It was a challenging run for me because we talked non-stop and there were a few hills.  The 8:25 pace felt like 8:00 or 7:50 did a few months ago. I'm still trying to get back the fitness that I lost after taking so much time off.  It was fun though!  I love my running partners!  Tim and I got our official notifications for NYC Marathon!  Woo Hoo!   

No worries.  I'll get there.  My feet are all banged up though.  The bottoms of them feel bruised!  I guess I'll be building back up all my caluses. 

12 miles at 11am.  Weather=49F, 8mph wind, cloudy.  Average pace=8:17/m.

mile 1- 8:20

mile 2- 8:16

mile 3- 8:10

mile 4- 8:09

mile 5- 8:06

mile 6- 8:04

mile 7- 8:04

mile 8- 8:12

mile 9- 7:49

mile 10- 8:57

mile 11- 8:41

mile 12- 8:46

Well, I ended up catching the sickness that my husband and four year old had.  It hit me Thursday night. Turns out it was strep throat.  I started taking antibiotics and I was feeling better by Sunday when Ashley called and invited to run 12 miles with her and Wendy. 

The first couple miles were hard on me.  I felt like I couldn't catch my breath, but that might have had something to do with me just getting over this sickness.  I was having a hard time talking and running.  I told the girls that the only way I was going to make it was if I put in my ipod earbuds and concentrated.  Once I did that I started thinking of the run as a tempo run.  I kinda got ahead of the girls slightly.  They were just talking the whole way.  It was just an easy run for them.  They are in much better fitness than I am right now.  

Mile 9 was fast because I was really thirsty and there was a water fountain at the end of that mile.  After this water stop though, I was wiped.  I decided to just run it easy the final 3 miles.  Ashley and Wendy passed me by and I told them I'd see them at the running store.  My left IT band started acting up during this time.  I ran through the pain but it wasn't easy. 

It was kinda funny when we finished Ashley noticed that my shoe was all bloody.  It turns out one of my toenails had cut the skin on the toe next to it.  It looked alot worse than it felt.  I didn't even notice it that much.   I've also got a big toenail that is about to come off and a black toenail and a blister the size of a quarter.  When I take time off from running, my feet really pay the price when I start back up again!   

4.75 miles at 6pm.  Weather=73F, 34% humidity, 18 mph wind gusting to 24mph, sunset.  Average pace=8:56/m (8:33, 9:03, 9:09, 9:04, 8:51)

 The wind made it tough.  I kinda had a stitch in my side the last part.  I think it was because my breathing never got into a good rhythm because I was fighting that wind.  Oh well, at least I ran.  It was 80 degrees today!  All the trees and flowers think it's spring already and are blooming.  

3.7 miles at 3pm.  Weather=78F, 15mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=10:00/m.

 Pushing the double stroller with Jake and Ryan around my neighborhood.  A few big hills.  Major arm workout!  I'm loving this weather!!!

9.8 miles at 2pm.  Weather=60F, 12 mph wind, mostly sunny.  Average pace=9:05/m.

 Pushed Ryan in running stroller at Trinity River Trails.   Great run!  Ryan is my running buddy... he is sooooo good.  He sleeps or he just observes.   My arms are a little sore now from two days in a row of running strollers.   

5 miles around the neighborhood.  Didn't even wear watch.  

6 miles at Trinity River at 6:30pm with Ashley and Wendy.  Average pace=8:12/m.  Fastest mile = 7:45

I missed 2 weeks of running due to several things that happened all at once.  First, we had a death in my husband's family... The funeral was out of town.  

Second, I had to clean house and cook for our entire family to come to our house for my son's 2 year birthday party.  (It sounded like a good idea 6 weeks ago... HA!)  During this weekend, my in-laws stayed two nights with us.  I didn't get any babysitting to help me prepare for any of that so I was very busy getting my house ready.  

Third, we finally found out about the Italy job my husband was being offered... If we take the job, it will be a pay cut!  We decided that we are not willing to do that... so much for changing my name to ItalyLindsey...  oh well.  

And finally, and ironically, forth, the day after we found out we will not be moving to Italy a friend that I used to work with called me to inform me that my old manager was hiring and he wanted me to apply.  (I worked in procurement on the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin).  I have been a stay-at-home mother for 4 years.  Money is getting really tight here because inflation is going up faster than my husband's salary.  My husband just told me that I couldn't buy new running shoes for a couple weeks because bills were tight.  Ok... now, wait a sec...  I am willing to cut back on many things so that I can stay home with my kids but, I draw line at "can't afford running shoes"...  So I sent my resume in.  I had a phone interview and it's looking like I've got the job.  Possibly I'll start in 3-4 weeks (bureaucracy...).  So I'm preparing to get my kids into daycare for the first time in their lives.  Next week they are going to 3 days a week to get them acclimated before I go back to work full time.  

 So huge life change is coming.  It was a hard decision but I think it is the right time for us.  We just can't afford for me to stay home any longer.   This is going to be doubling our income almost instantly.  This evaporates so much stress in our lives.  We're also going to be able to do fun things like go on vacations.  I can afford to run more races.  We can afford to do fun things with the kids on the weekends.  

Now I've got to figure out how to balance running, working and kids.  I'm sure I can do it.  Lots of other people do.  I'm actually looking forward to the challenge!

I've got a 10k this weekend.  Considering the lack of fitness that I'm in right now, I'm just going to be happy with a 8:00 pace.  It's a hilly course.  I think I'll sign up for a bunch of 10k's and 5k's and just work on improving at that for a while.    

5.2 miles at 6:00pm around my neighborhood.  Weather= 59F, 46% humidity, 38 dew point, 9 mph wind, cloudy.  

I took Jake out in the running stroller for 2.5 miles.  Average pace=9:30/m.    It looked like it was about to rain so I brought him home.  Then I went back out for more.  I figured if it started raining, I'd just come straight home.  The rain clouds just seemed to circle our little neighborhood but not rain on us.   I ran another loop which ended up being 2.7 miles.  Average pace=8:50/m.  Last .2 mile was 7:18 pace.  

 I hate these Nike Pegasus...  it might not entirely be the shoes fault as much as the runner store person who told me I needed to get a bigger size than usual because these shoes run small.  She was wrong. They look like clown shoes on me and they have no arch support, possibly because they are too big.  

I was supposed to do Joe's Run today.   I didn't because I had some kind of throwing up virus the day before.  The morning of the race I felt weak and light headed because I was so dehydrated.  Decided to skip it.  Very disappointing.  

10 miles at 1 pm at the Trinity River.  Weather=78F, 80% humidity, cloudy.  Average pace=9:13/m.

My kids started daycare today.  We're getting them acclimated to it part-time before they have to start full time when I go back to work.  Today I dropped them off at 9am and picked them up at 3pm.  My 4 year old had a great time and made lots of friends.  My 2 year old refused to eat or participate with the group activities.  It's going to take some time.  

I decided to get a nice run in while I had babysitting.  It was very peaceful out on the trails but the heat and humidity were uncomfortable.  I decided to just go slow.  I noticed that my hips were feeling rather tight around mile 5.  Then I started having some trouble with my left knee on the outside (IT band) at 8.5 miles.  I ran through the pain and it somewhat lessened by the time I finished.  I read that IT band issues can be caused by weak hip muscles... based on my experience today, I'd believe they are related.  Also, I forgot to stretch before I ran.  

8 miles at 2pm at Trinity River.  Weather=82F, 68% humidity, 7mph wind, 65 dew point, cloudy for first half of run and sunny second half.  Average pace=9:11/m.

I ate a big lunch and then went to run immediately after.  As a result, I felt very sluggish.  I decided to just go slow and not worry about it.  We'll just call this week of slow running a week of working on my slow twitch muscle fibers.  

It was really hot especially when the sun came out.  I had to stop at water fountains and splash water on my face.   It wasn't so bad.   I like sweating... It makes me feel so refreshed afterwards, like toxins are leaving my body.   

I stretched really well today and I didn't have any IT band issues.  Legs felt great!  So nice to run without pain.   

8 miles at the river again.  9am.  Weather=65F, 88% humidity, 15mph wind, cloudy.  Average pace=9:09/m.

Just going slow, building my base back up.  I have found that if I go any faster than 9 pace then I start having aches and pains.  So today was perfect.  Cardio-wise I'm still pretty good.  I could have run 15 miles today as far as that was concerned.  It's my legs and feet that are out of shape.  I took so much time off I figure I just need to start over and slowly build my milage before I start working on speed.  After a few weeks of this, then I'm going to start doing some faster miles in my runs and maybe some short tempo runs.   

5 miles at 8am around my neighborhood.  Weather= 58F, not sure about humidity,  8mph wind, partly cloudy.  Average pace=9:07/m.  

 My kids went to daycare today again.  It's getting easier.  Jake said he loves school. Ryan is eating all his food now.  I ran a 5 miler after I dropped them off.  It felt rather hard considering I was only going an easy pace.  It wasn't that much fun during but I did feel extremely happy after the run...  reminded me why I love running.  Still, I long for those days where I'm having a good run during the actual run.  Gotta run more often for that to happen.  I just am going through this difficult transition phase while I begin the process of returning to work.  I have to figure out a new routine that works for my new life.  I'm still in a period where it changes daily so it's not easy.

4.2 miles at 8:30am.  Weather=60F, 10mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=8:58/m.

9.5 miles at 7am with my running group at Trinity River.  Weather= 63F, 71% humidity, 53 dew point, 7mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=8:10/m.  (8:19, 8:01, 8:00, 8:06, 8:06, 8:02, 8:10, 8:05, 8:23, 8:47)

 Decided to meet the group today.  I haven't done a Saturday morning run with them since December.  At first when I got there there weren't any of the people I normally run with standing around.  I walked up to a group of ultra runners I'm friendly with who run like 20 miles on Saturdays at like 11:00 pace.   I talked to them a little while and they said, "oh, you can't be here, you're too fast."  I never know what to say when people say this to me.  I said, oh I'm not fast... I've actually gotten really slow from a winter of not running much.  Then they started asking me what I thought was slow and what I thought not running much was.  Now, I know from experience that there is just no good way to answer this without it being awkward ... I said, "well, I suppose speed is relative.  I'm not concentrating on speed right now though."   I get the feeling that some of them were thinking I was snobby or something.   I should have told them that I admire them for running ultras...  

 Eventually, Tim showed up.  He said Ashley was still injured and went to 24 fitness for spin class instead.  A guy named Ross that I run with sometimes also showed up.  We agreed to do 10 today.  After the first 2 miles I put my iPod on full blast and made it a tempo run.   I got ahead of the guys for much of miles 2-8 but they weren't too far behind.  After mile 8 though, I bonked.  I ran the final two miles on fumes.  Ross went ahead at mile 8.  Then Tim went ahead at 9.  

My foot had blood blisters at the end of it.  I think I need new socks.  I'm pretty happy though because the blisters were the only problem I had.  My legs felt really good all day!  The 8:00 pace felt like what 7:15 did a few months ago but I'll take it.  I'll get back up to speed eventually.  I love running!

6 miles around my neighborhood at 3pm.  Weather=70F, 71% humidity, 61 dew point, 5mph wind, sunny.  Garmin wasn't charged so no pace info.

 I start my new job on April 30th.  They gave me the salary I asked for so I'm super happy.  Things are really working out well at the moment.  I have no running injuries.  The weather is great.  My kids went to daycare today and I cleaned entire house, did several loads of laundry and organized my entire office.... unbelievable the things I can get done when I have some babysitting all day.   Now I'm going to go pick them up!   This has been a great day!

6 miles around my neighborhood at 6pm. Weather=78F, 52% humidity, 59 dew point, 5mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=8:59/m.

 Nice sweaty run.  Legs felt great!   

6.2 miles at the river at 1pm.  Weather=77F, 69% humidity, 66 dew point, 20mph wind gusting to 25mph, sunny.  Average pace=8:55/m.

I've got a sinus infection.  This is like the 5th illness I've had in about 3 months.  My kids keep getting sick and passing it back and forth and to my husband and I.   It is so frustrating.  

My sinuses are pretty clogged today but I decided to run a really slow and easy 6 miler to test a theory that running helps illnesses like this.  I figure the increased body temp might help kill off bacteria... heck, isn't that the whole purpose of a fever?  So an exercise induced fever might work just as well...  Also, I figure the increased blood flow increases the flow of white blood cells to the infected sinuses.   I'm not a doctor though so all this could be BS.   

6 miles at 5:30pm around my neighborhood.  Weather=80F, 33% humidity, 46 dew point, 8mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=8:50/m.

 Easy run around the neighborhood.  It was hot!  My legs felt great though.  It's so nice to run without injury!  I know I say that on every post nowadays but I guess I am just so happy because it seemed that I always had some pain here or there going on in the past.  I guess that's the benefit of not running many miles the last few months... 

 So on Friday I tested the theory that running helps a sinus infection.  Jury is still out on that one.  I actually got worse but I don't know if that was inevitable or if the running made it worse.  I ended up going to the doctor and getting medicine.  My entire family got sick.  Both my kids had ear infections and eye infections... I guess these things are going to happen more and more now that they are going to daycare.   

6.75 miles at 10am around my neighborhood.  Weather=69F, 60% humidity, 55 dew point, 15mph wind (according to weather.com but I think it was more than that!), sunny, birds chirping, bluebonnets blooming, butterflies everywhere.  Average pace=9:22/m.

I love this new route I have been running lately.  It's out and back but depending on which street I take out of my neighborhood, it's either 6 miles or 6.75 miles.  The first mile out is relatively flat.  Then the next 1.2 miles is net downhill about 2-3% grade.  Then the next 1.6 miles is uphill about 3% grade.  Then the turn around.  So it's 1.6 miles downhill, 1.2 miles uphill, 1 mile relatively flat.   It's just a nice up and down workout that is split into sections of easy and hard.  

My kids are in daycare today.  After the whole family being sick for a 2 weeks, this house is a mess!  I've got so much to do that I don't know where to start.  I seem to keep coming up with other things to do other than laundry and dishes.   I thought maybe running this morning would get me motivated.  Um, now that I'm back... no, that didn't work.  I'm thinking now about going grocery shopping and then going for another 3 mile run.  I thought maybe doing doubles might be a good way to jump start my running again.  Or maybe that's just my subconscious trying to get out of doing the dishes?  

5 miles at 6:30pm around my neighborhood.  Weather= 76F, 43% humidity, 52 dew point, 19mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=8:38/m.   

Race at Fort Worth Zoo this morning at 7:00am.  Weather=50F, 65% humidity, 8mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=7:43/m.

mile 1- 7:56

mile 2- 7:55

mile 3- 7:51

mile 4- 7:52

mile 5- 7:49

mile 6- 7:09

final .26- 6:36 pace

This was a huge race.  There were thousands of people.  They said a thousand more than last year.  I was told it took 10 minutes to get everyone across the starting line in the 10k and even longer in the 5k.  

I started this race with a bang.  Within the first 15 seconds of crossing the starting line a teenage boy plowed through the crowd elbowing people out of his way.  My friends Ashley and Wendy were behind me and he pushed them and they yelled at him.  Then he came up on me and elbowed me.  I lost my balance and skidded into the street.  I skinned my right knee, left hip, both hands.  My hands were especially bad.  It hurt.  I was kinda confused but I got up and kept running.  Ashley and Wendy saw it happen and were trying to help me but I told them to go ahead, don't let it ruin their race.  

 For the first mile I was really shook up and my hands hurt.  I felt like crying for a minute or two.  I got behind Wendy and Ashley and I started loosing sight of them through the twists and turns in the zoo.  I realized that thinking negative was going to make this race suck.  I need to buck up and quit complaining.  This fall was going to make me that much more proud for finishing this race.  So I decided to block the pain and focus.  

I caught up to Ashley at 1.5 miles but I never saw Wendy again.  I fell in behind this girl that I recognized from another race.  She was extremely muscular.  I've never seen any girl with bigger calf muscles.  I just followed her because she was going a pace that felt comfortable to me at the time.  There was another girl running along side her in pink.  Another girl kept surging past us and then falling behind us.  

The course is very hilly in the first 5 miles.  The 6th mile was mostly downhill.  The final .25 mile was flat.  I coasted along those 5 miles.   I noticed that I started picking people off in the 5th mile.  There were several people who were getting tired from the hills I guess.  I knew that downhill was coming though so I just hung on until then.  As soon as my watch clicked mile 5, I opened it up.  

I caught muscular calf girl, pink girl, about 4 guys, surge girl, and then I closed in on two girls ahead of me with less than a hundred yards left.  They sensed me coming up on them and speeded up.  I almost gave up but found another gear at the last minute.  I passed one but was about 1 second behind the other one when we crossed the finish.  My running store was announcing the race and I could hear my friend James on the microphone saying, "Great kick, Lindsey!"  

Wendy ended up finishing 2 minutes ahead of me.  Ashley was about 1 minute behind me.  There were several people from the running group standing around.  Everyone was laughing at me for falling.  I fall more than anyone else -by far!  I don't know if it's bad luck or clumsiness. 

So I guess I'm mostly happy with the race.  It's bittersweet.  I never got really in the zone in this race.  I never felt really confident.  I was just going through the motions of what I know works for me.  I don't know if this was because I'm out of shape or because of the fall at the beginning.  Last year I ran this race in 45 minutes (7:16/m) and this year it was 48 minutes (7:43/m).  I guess that's not too far off.  I'm happy with my final kick at the end.  

On a side note:  we watched the 5k finish and there was a guy that crossed at 14:55.  He looked so fast!  It was exciting to watch!   The final people had just crossed the start line and he was finishing already.  

5.8 miles at 2pm around my neighborhood.  Weather=74F, 25% humidity, 4mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=9:19/m.

I am sore from the race on Saturday.  My arms and my glutes are the most sore.  I guess because I haven't raced in months.  Also, my hip hurts from where I fell.  Just running easy today.

3.5 miles at the river at 10:30am.  Average pace=8:56/m.  Then 3.5 miles around my neighborhood at 11:20am.  Average pace=9:28/m.  Weather=79F, 56% humidity, 63 dew point, 28mph wind, sunny. 

I went to Trinity river to run today and I discovered that the park area is closed because they are getting ready for Mayfest.  The parking lot by my running store was unusually empty because of it.  I went ahead and parked and started out on the trail in the opposite direction as the park which was still open.  I immediately noticed that there were way fewer people out today than usual.  There was also an abnormally high number of homeless people today.  I started feeling a little uneasy about going this direction all by myself.  This direction goes off into secluded trails.  Normally there are so many people out, I don't feel strange about it.  The plan was to do 10 today but I decided to cut it short.  I only ended up with 3.5 miles.  

So I drove back to my house to run some more.  This is just not my day though.  I started out running and a gust of wind blew me off the sidewalk.  There was a 3 inch drop to the grass below on this section so as I came off the sidewalk I started feeling my ankle roll.  In order to prevent breaking my ankle, I just fell to the ground instead.  I landed on my hands and knees exactly where I still have scabs from my fall at the race on Saturday. Uh, ouch!  I was like are you serious?!  Again! In less than a week?!  Now my hands are bleeding again...  Great. 

I was near my house so I considered going home and forgetting about running more today but decided to press on. I had intended to run 6.5 around the neighborhood to make my 10 for the day.  Once again I ended up cutting the run short because I was dying of thirst and getting a headache.  Running against 30mph wind up hills was starting to wear on my nerves. 

At one point I was running up a hill and a squirrel that was startled by me coming toward it started running into the street just as two cars were coming down the hill FAST.  I stopped and pointed to the squirrel so the cars would see it.  I just knew that squirrel was going to get run over!  The squirrel ran about 2/3 across the street and got spoked by the car and started to run back.  The car literally went over the squirrel but the tires missed running him over by like 1/2 an inch!  Then the squirrel is coming back across the street right in front of the second car.  The second car put on the brakes and once again missed the squirrel by about maybe an inch.  The squirrel ran back on the sidewalk past me and up a tree.  Whew!  

I know it was a squirrel but it freaked me out.  I would have felt so bad had it gotten run over.  I had all this adreline but not in a good way.  I started running again up that stupid hill against the 30mph wind with the sun beating down.  Yeah, by this point I was just ready to be done today.  This was just not my day. 

4 miles at 6pm pushing Jake in the running stroller.  Weather=85F, 44% humidity, 23mph wind, sunny. 

This was a tough workout because I was going up the biggest hills against the wind and the running stroller is like a sail that catches the wind.  You can't pump your arms because you're pushing the stroller.  It's hard work! 

I ran into Ashley and Tim while I was running.  They were in a car driving by and stopped to talk.  Tim said they were ready to start doing the 5 am running again.  I agreed to meet them tomorrow morning at that time.  It's going to suck waking up at 4:30!  I'm glad though because the only time I've really been consistent with running 40+ miles a week was when I was running in the morning.  With me starting work soon, it's a good time to start. 

Oh, my running watch wasn't charged so I don't have pace.  I thought the charger or the watch was going out because even though it sits on the cradle sometimes it's not charged.  Well, I figured it out!  I noticed there was a black smudge on one of the metal charger thingys on the back of the watch.  I cleaned it with some alcohol and presto it's good as new... the charger is working better than it has in months!  I feel so proud!

6.4 miles at 5am around my neighborhood.  Weather=71F, 78% humidity, 63 dew point, 15mph wind, dark.  Average pace=9:09/m.  (9:25, 8:57, 8:40, 8:47, 9:32, 8:48, 9:45)

Met Ashley and Tim at the corner.  It felt like a tough run but looking at the pace now I see that it was not as fast as I thought.  I think the humidity and the talking made it feel more tough.  I think that 9:32 mile might be a mistake though.  I must have not stopped my watch when we stopped to drink at the top of a hill.   

It was fun though!  I miss running with Ash and Tim.  I've been running by myself for the majority of these last few months.  We're going to start meeting at 5 on two or three weekday mornings.   It's so hard waking up at 4:30 am but it's so worth it!  I always have a great day when I run in the morning.  :)  

Legs are feeling GREAT!  I'll never take for granted NOT having injuries again!

6.25 miles around my neighborhood at 5am.  Weather= 71F, 76% humidity, 63 dew point, 20mph wind gusting to 30mph, dark.  Average pace=8:44/m.  

9:26 

8:42

8:32

8:22

8:04

8:10 (pace for final .4 mile that I ran with Ashley and Tim)

9:46 (pace for .85 mile run by myself on the way home)

Met Ashley and Tim at the corner.  Good workout today.   I didn't look at my watch until I got home.  I thought I was having a hard time breathing this morning but assumed it was the humidity.  Now I see that we were actually going faster than I thought.  The 8:04 mile was uphill against the wind.  We took a brief break once we got to the top.  I was out of breath.  I kept thinking my form was totally sloppy today but I think it was the wind.  I HATE the wind.  I think it's the worst of every kind of weather element.  I would rather run in 95 degrees than with 30mph wind.  

8 miles at 10:30am around my neighborhood.  Weather= 80F, 60% humidity, 63 dew point, 14mph wind gusting to 23mph, cloudy.  Average pace= 9:25/m.

Ok, so I'm running along in my 4th mile going up this gradual hill on a residential street when all of a sudden I notice two dogs in the front yard up ahead at this house on my left.  They are not with a human and they are not on lease.  They start running toward me.  The bigger one is a yellow dog about the size of a german shepherd.  The other one is black and brown medium sized.  I don't know what breed they are, maybe mutts.  Anyways, the bigger one runs right up to me and jumps on me.  When he does this, his head is at the level of my head.  He bites my arm.  My entire life flashes before my eyes.  Thankfully, he didn't bite hard... it was more like a playful bite.  BUT STILL... his mouth covered my entire forearm.  If he wanted to, this dog could really hurt me!  I don't know how to handle this.  I stopped running and tried to start talking sweet to him so he doesn't get mad.  He keeps jumping on me and "play" biting me.  At one point he had both paws on my shoulders and he's leaning in toward my neck.  I do an about face and avoid it.  I am freaking out.  I'm calling out for help but there is no one outside.  

I couldn't figure out if I should walk or run.  I was worried if I ran, he might try to tackle me.  My mind kept playing back this this video I saw a few months ago from a news helicopter of a police chase.  Suddenly, the car they were chasing stopped and a man jumped out.  He started running into this field.  The police let the dogs out.  Those dogs were so much faster than the man... they chased him down and tackled him easily.  The man tried to get back up and keep running but the dogs tackled him again and held him there until the police got there.  I was just imagining that happening to me!  

I walked for about 3 minutes.  The dogs would run off and come back jumping on me.  Finally, I started jogging really slow.  The dogs jogged beside me and I sped up.  They followed me for 2 miles!!  Actually, I started kinda enjoying their presence but I was worried that they'd follow me onto a busy street.  Eventually, I lead them into another neighborhood and they stopped at a sprinkler and I guess decided to stay there and not follow me anymore.  

I have encountered big dogs before on my run but I have never been jumped on and "play bitten" by one.  It was pretty frightening.  

Now, I'm wondering if I should get in my car and try to find them... maybe call animal control.  I don't want them to get run over.   

7 miles at 5am around the neighborhood.  Weather=72F, 76% humidity, 64 dew point, 10mph wind, dark.  

mile 1- 10:00

mile 2- 8:55

mile 3- 8:25

mile 4- 8:39

mile 5- 8:31

mile 6- 8:30

mile 7- 10:00

 Met up with Ashley and Tim.  We did this hilly loop twice and charged the hills.  I was averaging about 8:00 pace or faster for the hill portion and slowed down significantly for the downhills.  My legs were jello by the end of it.   

This was actually a race but I didn't run it as a race so I'm not counting it as a race report.  It was the Mayfest 10k.  There wasn't chip timing and there was at least 1,000 people... lots of little kids.  The race was on a sidewalk up and down the Trinity River.  At times running was single file... other times we had to weave through walkers.  It was very hot and sunny.  I was actually pretty miserable the entire race.  My time was like 50:02 when I crossed the finish line.  I think it was like 8:15/m.  I decided to not really race the thing once I realized how bad the conditions were... I didn't want to worry about running fast through that many people.  I did sprint the end and catch a bunch of people. 

4.2 miles at 6am.  Weather= cool, nice, sun just coming up.  Pace about 9:00/m.

I didn't run last week because I started work at my new job.  Everyone in the family got a throwing up virus, including me.  I couldn't call in sick to work though because it was my first week!  It sucked!  I was sick for 3 days.  Didn't get much sleep because my whole body hurt.  This weekend I slept alot trying to catch up.  

This is going to be a difficult transition.  So much less time. 

6.3 miles at 5am with Ashley and Tim.  Weather=70's, dark.  Average pace =9:00/m. 

We actually did a progressive run where we got faster mile by mile.  Fastest mile was 8:00/m. 

6.3 miles at 5am with Ashley and Tim.  WEather=70's, dark.  Average pace=9:09/m. Fastest mile 8:00 pace. 

4.5 miles at 5:15am with Ashley and Tim.  Weather=70's, dark.  Average pace=9:11/m.  Fastest mile was 8:08. 

Interesting week... been running in the morning then going home getting myself and kids ready for school/work.  I was worried that it would be hard to work and run... but it's actually been working out really well.  Actually, the most difficult morning this week was the day I decided to skip a run.  It seems that the days I run, I am much faster getting ready!

10 miles at 6:30am.  Weather=73F, 75% humidity, 63 dew point, 14mph wind, sunny. 

mile 1- 9:15

mile 2- 8:54

mile 3- 8:32

mile 4- 8:24

mile 5- 8:29

mile 6- 8:03

mile 7- 8:01

mile 8- 8:02

mile 9- 7:52

mile 10-8:02

Ran at Trinity River with Ashley, Tim and Clint.  It was humid today.  I'm not really complaining though, I'll take heat and humidity over cold and/or windy.  I was feeling fairly good today.  The effort was medium-hardish.  I could still talk.  Still, I can tell that I am pretty far off the fitness level that I was at this time last year...  oh well, at least I'm injury free!!  That ain't nothing!

I worked a full week this week and managed to run really consistently.  31 miles for the week.  If I keep this up and just add miles gradually, I might be back up to my prime speed by the fall in time the NYC marathon.  

3.6 miles at 6am around the neighborhood.  Weather=75F, sun coming up.  Average pace=9:15/m. 

Ashley and Tim couldn't meet me today so I didn't get out the door until 6am... only had time for a short run. 

Ok.  I'm back.  I stopped running for a month because #1 I twisted my ankle playing with my children and it was as big as a grapefruit for 2 weeks.  #2 I got one sickness after another from my children who just started daycare. #3 I had to go on a weeklong business trip to Florida. 

Everything is all worked out now.  It's just been such a transition going back to work for the first time. 

Met Ashley and Tim at the corner to run 6 miles.  It was a progressive run.  1st mile was 10:00 pace, 2nd was 9:30, 3 and 4 were around 8:45, 5 was 8:30, mile 6 was 9:00.  I couldn't keep up with Ash and Tim on mile 5.  They were more like 8:15 and I fell behind.  That's what I get for taking a month off.  Next day my calf muscles were really sore. 

I booked my hotel for NYC Marathon.  It's going to be awesome!  My husband and I are staying in the same hotel as Ashley and Tim.  Tim and I are running the race.  Ashley and my husband are going to spectate.  This means I have to get serious about training.  Have alot of work to do over the next 4 months in order to get myself back in shape.

It was hot... like 90 degree, humid and way too sunny to be out running.  I was about 10:10/m.

3 miles in sunny heat. 9:53/m.  90 degrees, humid. 

7 miles at 6:30 am with running group.  85 degrees, humid. 

mile 1- 8:30

mile 2 -8:50

mile 3 -8:30

mile 4- 8:50

mile 5- 8:30

mile 6- 8:50

mile 7- 9:15 

3 miles pushing Ryan at 7pm.  Pleasant 10:00/m pace. 

3 miles pushing Jake.  90ish, humid, cloudy.  10:30/m.  Not an easy run.  Hills. Jake talked the entire way asking questions about how concrete is made and bugs.  He also scared me a couple of times with freak-out observations. 

3 miles by myself.  95ish, humid, very sunny.  The sun was a beatdown.  9:45/m.

Didn't wake up until 6 am.  Only had time for 3 miles.  80ish, humid.  9:45/m.  I am so slow. 

6 miles at 5 am with Ashley and Tim.  Weather=75F, 60% humidity, 10mph wind, dark.

mile 1- 9:44 pace by myself on way to meet them at the corner. 

mile 2- 9:01 pace felt ok

mile 3- 8:22 oh boy.  Ashley and Tim have been running 18 milers on weekends and are in so much better shape than me.  I'm hanging on for dear life, here.

mile 4- 8:15 ok.  I'm just going to imagine this is a race.  headphones in.

mile 5- 8:25 uphill, but actually, starting to feel like I'm getting into a rhythm with this pace.  Ash made me sprint the final steep uphill.

At the top of the hill I had to walk for a bit to catch my breath.  Ashley and Tim went on to run two more miles.  I told them I was really proud of them but I'm going home. 

mile 6- 9:30 chugged it home.  Whew!  

Meeting them tomorrow same time.  I'm so happy to have friends that push me.  Today I got my confidence back... For the first time since I started running again I felt like my old self if only briefly in mile 5.  If I keep upping the milage, I'll be back in top form in 2-3 months.   

Weather= 75F, 70% humidity, 12 mph wind, 70 dew point, dark.

mile 1- 10:21

mile 2- 8:31

mile 3- 8:15

mile 4- 8:22

mile 5- 8:29

mile 6- 8:35

mile 7- 9:06

mile 8- 9:45

Met Ashley and Tim again.  1st mile by myself running to the corner to meet them.  2nd mile Ashley started pushing the pace immediately.  I held on pretty well.  I think cardio speaking I've improved greatly in 1 week's time.  My legs felt a little like jello at the end of the big hill on mile 5.  I was going to run home and do 6 for the day but Tim talked me into doing an extra 2 with them.  I said only if they slow down.  So 6 and 7 were us slowing down.  8 was me by myself running home.  My legs got a huge workout today. 

It was so humid today.  We were all drenched!  Looked like we jumped in a pool!

8 pathetic miles at 6:30am with my running group.  Weather=80F, 85% humidity, sunny.

So none of my normal running group was there this morning. Most of them met at 6am so they could do 18.  The rest of them didn't run this morning b/c they are running El Scorcho 15 or 30 mile race that starts at midnight tonight.  

 So the fastest group at the store was the 9:30 group.  I ran with them for about 1/4 mile but I just didn't want to do 9:30... I am never going to get back in shape if I don't push it. 

I sped up but running by myself was less than motivating.  I did 8:45 average miles 1-3.  Mile 4 I picked it up to 8:30.  Then my friend, Wendy, caught up to me.  She was late to the store.   She must have been running 8:00 or better to catch me.  I started running with her.  We did 8:20 mile 5.  8:36 mile 6.  Wendy is in amazing shape... she runs 50 miles a week and lifts weights and does bootcamp.  (no kids!)   So she's just talking away cuz 8:30 is soooo slow which is ok because she's doing El Scorcho tonight.  She's asking me all these questions and it starts getting really hard for me to answer them and run this pace.

I tell her at the water stop at mile 6 that I can either stop talking, put in my iPod, and go 8:00-8:20 back to the store (2 miles to go)... or I can keep talking but I'd have to slow down cuz I'm out of shape and talking and 8:30 is hard for me.  

Wendy said, "let's talk".  So mile 7 and 8 were 9:00/m.  I felt like a failure when another girl passed us.  I'm so slow!  My stomach and upper legs are soft too.  I only gained 5 pounds these last 2 months of not running but my body lost so much muscle that is replaced with "softness" ... Still look skinny, but I am NOT tone.  Grrr...  I'm mad that I let this happen.

 My friend Melissa came running up when I was at the store.  She just finished a 12 miler with her brother.  They said they ran "slow" for the first half but then sped up for the last 7 miles to half marathon race pace...which averaged to be 7:30/m, 7:20 the last mile.  Now I'm really jealous!  I ran with them last year...  that sounded like something I could have done last year....  

 I'm so determined to get back in shape!  I've got plans to run tonight and tomorrow morning.  I guess I should at least be glad I am injury free.  Gotta stay that way and be patient with my pace as I build milage back up.  

 ---------------------------- 

 7pm run 5.5 miles pushing Ryan in the running stroller.  Went to Trinity Park to run a couple of El Scorcho laps with my friend Mario who was starting at 7pm and going to run until 7am.  The real race doesn't start until mid-night.  Most people finish the 50K (30 miles) by sun up.   Mario is crazy!  He had a good plan though.  He was keeping his pace at 11:00/m until 1-2 am, at which point he said he might get faster.  He's got people delivering him food at certain times too. People camp out and spectate all night.  It's kind of like a party atmosphere in the park.  I hear it's a lot of fun.  I can't go because of my kids.   Maybe another year.   So I ran 2 miles at 9:30 pace by myself trying to figure out where in the park they were camped out and 3.5 miles with Mario at 11:00 pace.  We had to leave because Ryan was getting tired.  That 11:00 pace did feel nice though...  I swear I could have done it all night. 

4.5 miles pushing Jake in the running stroller at 7:30am.  Weather= 80F, 71% humidity, 70 dew point, 9 mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=10:50/m.

I was going to get up early and run 10 before my kids woke up but I was so tired I snoozed alarm until 7am.  By that time, Jake woke up.  He said he wanted to go with me.  

So I figure I'll just go the hilliest route I can while pushing the stroller and call this a strength training workout.  It was a tough workout.  I was drenched in sweat when I got home.  It was also tough because Jake talks non-stop and repeats questions until I answer them.  I was going to do 6 miles but he started repeating "I want to go home" so I cut it short.  We also had to stop twice so he could get bugs.  

 My two year old is much easier in the stroller.  He just relaxes.  I can easily do 10 miles at 9:15 -9:30 pace with him.  

It's going to be fun when they get old enough to run with me!   

8 miles at 5am.  Weather=81F, 85% humidity, 72 dew point, 12 mph wind, dark.  Average pace=9:30/m.

Met Ashley and Tim.  Ashley actually had to leave after only two miles because her plantar faciitis was killing her.  I hope she didn't tear it like I did last year... that really sucks! 

Tim and I ran the remaining miles.  We went super easy.  It felt really hard to breathe today.  I didn't know if it was me or the weather.  Now I see the humidity and dew point were pretty high.  Who knows. 

8 miles at 5am.  Weather=80F, 50% humidity, dark.  Average pace=9:30/m.

Met Tim.  Ran really slow.  It was nice to go slow.  Felt like I could have gone another 4 miles easily. 

6 miles at 5am.  Weather 80F, 70% humidity, dark. 

mile 1- 10:32

mile 2- 9:43

mile 3- 8:53

mile 4- 8:48

mile 5- 8:30 (up hill got down to 7:30 pace)

mile 6- 10:32 back home

Ran with Tim.  Went a little faster.  I only had time for 6 miles today because I had to get to work early. 

3.5 miles at 8am.  Weather=84F, 65% humidity, 16mph wind, Very SUNNY.  Average pace=10:00/m.

 I went slow because the sun was really hot.  Also, tomorrow I'm running 12 with my running group.  Could be some fast miles in there.  I'm hoping for at least 8:30/m for the whole run.  

 Downloaded all new music to my iPod!!!  First time in almost a year I've changed the songs!  I'm sooooo excited!  I hope this will make tomorrow's run AWESOME!  I'm ready for a really good day.  The last two Saturday runs have been disappointing because I've been so out of shape... but I've been working hard this week and I think I might get my groove back tomorrow! 

15 miles at 6am with my running group at the Trinity Trails.  Weather=85F, 60% humidity, SUNNY!

 Met up with my friends.  There was a good turn out today.  I ran with these guys Clint and Brian for the first 5 miles.  I started to feel really good... felt like I had a ton of energy.  The guys wanted to turn around at 5 mile and go slower back to the store because the heat was getting to them.  I decided to go another mile out before I turned around.  I had to speed up in mile 6 to catch up to Ashley and the other girls.  I talked to them at the 6 mile mark and everyone was wanting to do different things.  Ashley's foot was hurting and Wendy was sore so the two of them were going to go back to the store at 9:00 pace.  This new girl, Brit, who happens to be really fast (she also qualified for NYC and is going this year) and my friend from this blog, Jodi, were wanting to do 16 and14.  I decided on 12 for the day but to tempo it back to the store to see how fast I could go by myself.  

The sun was a beat down.  It was directly in my face for miles 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.  I was doing really well but the sun did start getting to me by mile 11.  With a little more than a mile left, I turned into the shady path that went to the store through the woods.  I slowed way down.  It was kinda like I hit the wall.  Oh well, I did much better today than I have in months!  I'd say miles 7-10 were a good little 4 mile tempo.  I'm happy with that, especially in the heat. 

I hung out at the store for about 20 minutes and then Wendy came back and asked me to do another 3 mile loop with her.  So that's what I did.  Talked to Jodi and Brit afterward and they said they ended up doing 8:15ish on their 8 miles back to the store... with some 7:45's in there.  I can't wait until I get in shape enough to keep up with that! 

mile 1- 9:04

mile 2- 8:35

mile 3- 8:40

mile 4- 8:46

mile 5- 8:41

mile 6- 8:28

mile 7- 8:06

mile 8- 8:17

mile 9- 8:16

mile 10- 8:09

mile 11- 8:56

mile 12- 8:48

 Average for miles 1-12: 8:33/m. 

mile 13- 8:44

mile 14- 8:57

mile 15- 8:30

8 miles at 5am. Weather=80F, 80% humidity, 6mph wind, 73 dew point, dark. 

Met Tim today.  Very humid today.  Ashley's got severe plantar faciitis so she's having to take off for a week.  We went really slow.  Most miles were in the 9:15-9:25 range.  The final mile was by myself on the way home.  I actually speeded up to 8:30 pace for that mile.  I am starting to feel strong again! 

6.5 miles today at 5am.  Weather=75F, 79% humidity, dark.  (11:10, 9:25, 7:50, 8:30, 8:09, 7:26 pace for 1/2 mile, 10:10) 

Had a hard time waking up this morning at 4:30am.  Felt dehydrated and run down.  I skipped my cafeine and decided to take it slow today.  Mile 1 to meet Tim was 11:10.  Tim was slightly late.  He looked tired too.  He said he was at the Ranger game until midnight and he had some beers while at the game. 

At this point I suggested that we do a hilly route 6 miles today.  Not meet tomorrow so I can get some extra sleep (Tim doesn't take days off so he'll probably still run) and meet at 4:45am on Thursday for a 10 miler. 

So we started out on the run and the first mile together was mostly downhill - 9:25.  Then we turn to this street that is 7/10th of a mile long and is all uphill, the steepest part being the last 200 yards or so.  7:50 for that mile.  My legs are jello now.  Also, I left my water at the corner and we're not going back that way... darn.

Next mile has a big uphill and some rolling ups and downs.  Tim wants to run fast and I am slowing him down.  He's having to take wide turns to let me catch up.  What happened to all that being tired talk this morning?!  Ha!   8:30 for that mile.  I think I'm dying and ask to take a little break to catch breath at the end of this one street.  Then we start on the 5th mile and it's mostly uphill for the first half and downhill on the second half.  8:09 for that one.  Only 1/2 mile to go to the corner where my water is... all downhill... 7:26 pace. 

I'm wiped.  Ran 10:10 pace on the way home.  Good workout!   

10 miles at 4:45am.  Weather=79F, 80% humidity, dark.

 So I'm running to the corner to meet Tim and I'm looking down when this flash lights up the sky.  I look up at the sky and it's clear.  No clouds.  Did a street light burn out?  Running along, another flash in my peripheral vision.  Ok.  Maybe I'm seeing things.  I'm loosing it.  When I get to the corner, I can see further in the distance and I see there are lots of clouds to the north.  Whew... not crazy.

 The entire run was a light show.  It started getting scary when the clouds moved over us.  It seemed like the lightening was not hitting the ground very often.  It was mostly staying up high.  

mile 1- 10:40 

mile 2- 8:12

mile 3- 8:30

mile 4- 8:32

mile 5- 8:23

mile 6- 8:42

mile 7- 8:50

mile 8- 8:45

mile 9- 9:32

mile 10- 9:13

3.5 miles at 5am.  Weather=79F, 70% humidity, dark.  Average pace=8:45/m.

Ran with Ash and Tim.  I was sooooo tired.  Waking up at 4:15 or 4:30 am is killing me.  I tell them I'm going to only do the short loop.  They run with me all the way to my house and then they were running another 3.  

All I want to do is sleep.   : (   Now I have to go to work.   

13.5 miles at 6am.  Weather= 80F rising to 90F, 60-70% humidity, little wind, dark then sunny.  Average pace=8:33/m.

Meet my friends at the running store.  We didn't run the route with the store because they were starting at 6:30 and my friends wanted to start at 6.  Mile 1 was 9:00 pace.  Mile 2 was 8:30.  Mile 3 thru 6 were ranged beteen 8:15 and 8:25.   I was kinda running by myself ahead of everyone else for these miles.  My intention was to do a medium/hard effort 12 mile run.  In the heat, 8:15 felt like 1/2 marathon pace to me.  I was just trying to focus on my breathing and form trying to get my heartrate into a rythm at 8:15.  I was doing pretty good but my quads were burning, an indication that I still have more strength training milage build-up before I get back to where I was. 

At mile 6 we stopped at this hot water fountain.  It was not refreshing.  We stopped for awhile.  Everyone in the group wanted to do different milage for the day and go different routes.  Finally we decided to get off the trail and go into this neighborhood (Tanglewood) because it had shade. 

When I started running again, mile 7 was 8:25 but it felt much harder.  The rythm I had going was totally lost.  Then when we crossed the river and started on the other trail, I landed on this rock and somehow a blister or something ripped open.  I could tell I was bleeding.  Great.  Mile 8 was 8:41 because I starting to loose focus.  There were some turns and I'd never been that way before so I didn't know where we were going. 

At this point we split up.  Some of the girls were doing 16-17 miles and some of us wanted to do less.  Miles 9-11 were average 8:30.  It was nice being in the shade but we were running on streets and the angle of the street was starting to make my feet hurt worse.  My shoes were soaking wet with sweat.  Mile 11 we made it back to the river trail and the guy we were running with, Matt, stopped at this restaraunt telling his sister just to pick him up on her way home.  Ha, ha!  It was really hot.  At this point probably 90 degrees. 

I kept going with Melissa.  I had a final gust of energy at mile 12 and I did 8:30, which at this point felt like 7:30.  Then I crashed.  I was expecting water at the end of 12 and I didn't see it.  My legs hurt.  I was hot.  My feet were in very bad shape and one was bleeding.  Mentally, I just didn't care anymore.  I told Melissa I was going straight to the store.  I didn't care if I was short to the intended 15 she and I said we were going to do.  Melissa wanted to still do 15.  She went one way and I went another.  I did 9:15 pace the 13th mile and 8:45 the last 1/2. 

It was a good workout.  My legs were sore afterwards.  Blisters and a cut on my foot were my only major issue.  I'm just in the milage buildup period so I'm pretty happy with what I did.  I'll do 14-15 next week's long run.  Then 16-17 the following week.   Just ramp it up gradually.

6 miles at 5am.  Weather=85F, 40% humidity, dark.

My garmin may be dead.  I did hard and soft re-set... nothing.  Nothing happens on the charger.  Ugh!  

Ran with Tim.  He ran two miles before I saw him.  The first two miles we ran together were really slow.  He started pushing the pace in the 3rd mile.  At the 4 mile turn around point I asked him what our pace was (since I didn't have a watch).  He said we were 8:15 on the last mile and 7:10 on the last 1/2 mile.  We started running again up a hill.  I pushed it.  Another 8:15ish pace for that one (I'm guessing).   I was tired.  Quads were burning.  I told him I was only doing 6 today.  He went out for another 2.  The guys a machine.  He's trying to run between 80-100 miles a week. 

If he keeps wanting to go this pace, I think 6 miles may be the max I can do in the mornings.  If he slows down a bit, I'll do 8.  I really don't care.  Life is so busy for me right now.  I'm just going through the motions trying to fit in running and working and taking care of children and my house. 

6 miles at 5am.

Baby sick all night.  Had to cancel my run this morning.

Again up all night with baby.  Missed my narrow window of opportunity to run this morning.  The rest of the day it was 108 degrees outside. 

12 miles at 6 am.  Weather=80F, 70% humidity, sunny.

 This run was one of the worst runs ever.  My feet felt like I was running on a bed of nails the whole time.  Also I didn't know how to work my new watch so I fiddled with that and was frustrated all day.  I wore the new HR monitor.  Hadn't worn one of those in 4 years.  It was awful.  I couldn't breath.  At mile 6 I took the thing off and then I had to carry it all the way home and it was annoying.

Seriously, my feet felt numb and in pain more than any run I've ever had.  At first I thought it was my new shoes... but then I realized that I wore super high heels at work yesterday and I had to walk all over the planet.  I didn't even get to go home right after work so I ended up wearing them for 12 hours straight.  I guess running on the balls of my feet after that experience just caused it more pain.  It think the balls of my feet are bruised.  They hurt to the touch.  

When I got back to the store, I stood around talking to people but I could hear myself complaining and I decided I should leave because I didn't want my bad mood to spoil anyone's else's day.   

I think I was going about a 9 pace.  I got passed 4 times.  I was so pissed but the pain was so acute if I went any faster I couldn't stand it.  I was pleasantly surprised that my HR was around 130 BPM for the first 6 miles. 

7.3 miles at 5am.  Weather=80ish, 65% humidity, dark.

Did something different today.  Ashley, Tim and I met Jodi to run some hills around the TCU area.  It was about a 15 minute drive for all of us.  It was fun to do something a little different.  The hills were a good workout. 

I am still trying to understand my new Timex watch.  I am so confused by it.  I only recorded 4.5 miles with average pace 8:15/m, but everyone else had 7.3 miles... so apparently I did something wrong with starting and stopping it.  The information is now useless because I don't know what it was recording and when.  Not even sure if that 8:15 number is accurate.  During the run the watch was showing me weird things like 39.19 MI. What the heck does that mean?  I only saw the 8:15 average pace after I go home because it certainly didn't display that while I was running.  I know, I'm technologically challenged.  It also doesn't display START and STOP when I hit the buttons so I can't verify that I'm doing it correctly.  I can't figure out how to get it to do auto-splits for each mile.  I am beyond frustrated and really regretting that I didn't buy another Garmin 305 off the internet. 

So we ran about a mile to the end (guess cuz I am basically watchless), then we did a hilly 2.2 mile loop two times, then we did 5 hill repeats and then back to the cars.   I kept up on the first 2.2 loop but fell WAY behind on the second.  I think Tim and Jodi got about 1/2 mile ahead of me.  Ashley was at least 1/4 mile ahead.  I have no idea the pace they were going or I was going... Did I mention how frustrated I was by this watch.  My legs were burning.  I am just not in as good of shape as everyone else.  It made me really motivated to ramp up my milage. 

6 miles at 5am.  Weather= 80F, humid, dark.

Starting to figure out my new watch a little bit better.  It does altitude too. 

mile 1- 11:00 (Altitude 880 ft)

mile 2- 9:03 (Altitude -27 ft) 

mile 3- 8:33 (altitude -2 ft)

mile 4- 8:31 (altitude -37 ft)

mile 5- 8:14 (altitude 104 ft)

mile 6- 9:36 (altitude -32 ft)

I'm tired.  It's hard waking up at 4:30.  Tomorrow a group of people are meeting at the store at 4:40 am.  I said I'd go too but that would mean I'd have to wake up at 4:00 am.  I hope I get to bed early tonight!

Ran in the new Nimbus shoes again.  Numb feet again.  When I got home, I realized that the shoes are Narrow.  I don't need Narrow shoes!  I've stuffed them with socks to try to stretch them out. 

9 miles at 4:40am.  Weather=80F, 70% humidity, dark.  (mile 1-8:55, mile 2- 8:24, mile 3- 8:22, mile 4- 8:28, mile 5- 8:37, mile 6- 8:38, mile 7- 8:10, mile 8- 7:57, mile 9- 7:40)

I agreed to meet Ashley, Tim, Wendy and Tom at 4:40am by TCU.  It's a 15 minute drive so I had my alarm at 4am.  When it went off, I laid there for about 10 minutes trying to figure out if I wanted to send a text saying that I wasn't coming.  I finally decided that I would feel guilty if I didn't run and I told myself that if I had a good run today, I would let myself sleep in on Friday.  Up and at 'em.

I finally am starting to get the hang of my new watch, which really made the run more enjoyable.  We started out rather slow.  Tim led us down a trail that went off the road and into this woodsy area.  The moonlight was the only light.  It was kinda neat looking, but I was worried I would fall.  Ashley did fall.  She got road burn on her leg.  We stopped in mile 2 to let Ashley recover and to change the plans from running on the path to instead run on the streets. 

We ran all streets from that point on.  The road was slanted so we were trying to stay in the center and move to the sides when cars came.  I do not know what it was about this morning but I started feeling awesome.  I haven't had such a good run in a long time.  I guess this is my reward for getting up at 4am.  I felt like I could have run 8-8:30 pace all day long!  Miles 5-6 had some hills but the rest of the miles were relatively flat.  The last couple miles back to the cars I just opened it up because I felt so good.  It was great! 

16 miles at 5:30am.  Weather= 73F, 40% humidity, dark then sunny.  

Met Ashley, Jody, Wendy and Britt at the store.  I was feeling great today.  I don't know what happened, but it's like this week I just "woke up" and suddenly now I am back to my old self fitness speaking.  I felt so strong.   

We were going to do this 8 mile loop twice to make 16 for the day, but it turned out that the loop was only 7.  At the end of mile 11, the store had ice cold water and nuun out.   From this point we could go two different ways.   The running store had water out today on the loop that we had been running but it was shorter than what we wanted.  The girls wanted to go out further on the trail in the opposite direction to get more milage.  They have been running 18-20 every Saturday.  I was iffy about this plan because there wasn't cold water in that direction.  I didn't carry water with me, it was getting hotter and I was starting to feel tired.  I ran with them another mile further up the trail and then I said I was heading back to the store. So miles 12-16 were by myself.  I slowed down after I left them.  

 This was the longest run I've had in several months.  I need to continue to improve my endurance by adding milage every week.  When it starts getting cooler I want to start doing some tempos in the evening.   

mile 1- 8:40

mile 2- 8:10

mile 3- 8:00

mile 4- 7:52

mile 5- 7:50

mile 6- 7:48

mile 7- 7:54

mile 8- 7:47

mile 9- 7:36

mile 10- 7:39

mile 11- 7:34

mile 12- 8:15

mile 13- 8:48

mile 14- 8:23

mile 15- 8:31

mile 16- 7:55

7 miles at 5am with Jody, Wendy and Robert.  Hot and humid and dark.

 Met everyone at TCU area.  Ashley couldn't come because she's injured her foot and is now in a boot instructed not to run for 4-6 weeks.  1 mile warm-up then we did this 2.2 mile loop twice that has a long gradual hill and lots of mini ones.  We call this the hill workout. 

I was so pathetic compared to Jody and Wendy.  First loop I lost sight of them and I averaged 8:06/m.  It was a tough leg workout out running that pace on the hills, but those girls were hauling.  Second loop was even tougher.  I ran about 8:35/m on that loop because my calf muscles were feeling really tight and I didn't want to risk injury so I slowed down.  

The girls did another few repeats on a hill and I ran 1 mile back to the car.  Robert was already there.  I ran another 1/2 mile around the parking lot just to make it an even 7.  Average pace for the run was 8:15. 

was gunna run 10 with Tim but it was storming, which is always a nice thing in summer in Texas so I didn't mind canceling.

10 miles by myself around my neighborhood.   Started at 7:30.  It was REALLY HOT AND HUMID... but at least the sun was patchy.   I was a sweating beast.  Average pace = 9:15/m.  Nice to go slow for a change.  I think I need to do more runs by myself... but I can't hardly motivate myself without the prospect of meeting someone else. 

14 miles at 5:50am.  Weather=hot and very humid, dark then sunny.

 Ran with Tim and Britt today.   As we were starting out on the run I realized I might be in trouble because my best half is 1:35 / best marathon is 3:35 and none of the people in my finish time showed up today.  Britt is 1:29 half/ 3:19 marathon and Tim is like 1:22 half/ 3:04 marathon.  

 The first four miles were slow and in the dark.  Couple funny things happened.  We had been laughing at Tim because last week he ran by himself ahead of us and saw a totally nude woman walking on the trail in the dark.  He thought he was hallucinating.   So then today we were running with him and he goes "What the heck is that?!"  Up ahead there are all these swarming lights on the trail.  It was completely dark except for my headlamp and those lights.  Britt said, "Those are cyclists!  Good thing we were here to tell you or otherwise the story this week was that you saw a UFO on the trail and you thought you were hallucinating!"   

So then a ways later -still complete darkness- we're running through this portion that borders an old cemetery.  We're making fun of Tim again saying maybe that nude woman he saw last week was a ghost from the cemetery... when suddenly from behind me there's this wooshing noise and leaves moving... and it's coming up fast on my left side... this white object passing within one foot from my head... making all this noise...  the adrenaline starts rushing and I start freaking, scream LOUD.  Britt screams too.  Tim made some kind of "awww" noise.  And it turns out to be a startled bird of some kind that was sitting on the side of the trail and flew past us flapping right in front of our faces.  In the dark, we just had no idea at first.   Ha, ah! 

 Ok.  Fun and games are over.  Sun is up.  Miles 4-8.  We decide to go a route off the trail that Britt knows.  It goes through some neighborhoods and we can get water on the golf course.  She sped up to 7:30's.  I barely am keeping up.  There are also really long steady hills throughout this route.  It's worse for me because I don't know how long these hills are or where the water is.  I start getting discouraged at the end of mile 8 and the two of them are speeding up even faster.  I fall behind... and suddenly they stop.  They were speeding up because the water was right there.  Heck, if I had known that I would have been speeding up too!  It sucks to not know the route!  I couldn't focus like I normally can when I know where I'm going.  If you know the route, you know exactly how much energy you can expend at each phase.   Not knowing reminds me of track workouts in HS.  The coach says run 1 mile as fast as you can but you're trying to figure out what they are going to make you do next because that determines how fast you really should go on this first mile. 

So then we decide to go back down to the trail via the infamous "Hidden Road".  This is .7 mile long road that is 8% grade.  I don't know how the two of them could go that fast down this thing.  I fell about 100 yards behind by the time we reached the trail.   You know you've been watching alot of olympics when you see this gap and you think "Runner Lindsey has alot of "work" to do to catch up to the leaders"....  So I did the work and caught up.  Now we're in my stomping ground here on the trail.  We ran miles 10, 11 and 12 at about 7:45ish.  I actually got ahead of the two of them for a portion because I knew there was cold water and I couldn't wait... like a horse to stables, man.  

Then we started going back into the neighborhoods up this long hill that's about 4-5% grade and 1 mile long.  I had my music in.  I knew the route.  I'm hanging on by a thread but I'm in a zone working it.  Suddenly, Tim, who is running next to me, screams really loud at this car that he thinks is driving too fast past us.  It was shocking and kinda scared me.  I lost my focus.  It was a delicate thing to begin with so it wasn't his fault.  My focus was a house of cards!  So anyways, I made it up the hill at 7:45 pace but at the end of mile 12 I bonked.  I fell behind again.  I got to this water stop and started walking.  A car was speeding and I couldn't even muster up the momentum to speed walk to get out of the way.  The car had to slow down.  It was at that point I said to Tim and Britt, "You guys go right on without me.  I'm going to chug it in straight to the store and call the final two miles a cool down".   They asked if I was going to do another 4 around the park to make it 18 like we had planned.  Um, no.  I'm not.  

 I proceeded on mile 13 by myself to do an incredibly difficult 9:18 pace.  Tim and Britt disappeared in the distance ahead of me.  Then I see this other group ahead.  It's the 9:00/m pace group lead by my friend, Matt.  They started at 6:30 today and were doing 11.   Only 1 mile to go to the store.  I think I'll run it with them... I hope I can keep up!  

Yeah, right!  I get up there and they say hello.  Matt asks, "what's wrong, Linds?"  I say, as I fiddle with my iPod, "I'm trying to DJ myself so I have enough energy to make it back to the store."  Matt says, "Hey I'll take you to the store."  "Thank you, Matt!  I'll follow."  I actually got a little bit encouraged because I thought he'll go maybe 8:00 pace and I'll finish on a much better note than bonking all the way home.  It'll be tough, but I can do 8:00."  I'm really pep talking myself about 8:00.   HA!   The dude gets down to 7:00 pace and he's yelling at me to keep up.  1 mile home.  Seriously, Matt?  I couldn't even find a good enough song for this crap.  7:00 pace when I'm bonking and all I've gone on my ipod is Kelly Clarkson singing, "What doesn't kill makes you stronger... "  I wanted to slap her and tell her to shut the hell up!  Final mile = 7:20.  

What a day!  I actually feel great now though.  My legs are sore like I was lifting 300 pound weights but no injuries to speak of.  Oh, and my big toenail is gone.  Another story...  but GONE!

----

Corrected the milage to 15 miles after talking to Tim.  I forgot to push start on my watch at one point and I was off on the milage.

8 miles at 5am. Weather=70F, 40% humidity, dark.  Average pace = 10:38/m.

Met Tim this morning at the corner.  He ended up running 22 on Saturday and 20 on Sunday.  He's been doing back to back 20 milers for several weekends now.  He said he was tired and he thought he was getting some shin splints so he wanted to run slow.  We started out at a 12:00 pace!!!  We did that for the first two miles!   It felt sooooo slow.  We eventually speed up to 10:00 for the last 6.   I started liking the 10 pace.  It was a nice change.  I didn't even feel like I was running.  I bet my HR was super low.  I told Tim maybe we should mix it up more often and do some really slow, medium long runs during the week. 

The only problem is that it of course takes a longer time to run this slow.  I was 15 minutes later than normal and I got to work late today. 

8 miles at 6am.  Weather=72F, 50% humidity, dark then sunny.  Average pace= guessing around 8:30-9:00/m ... my watch wasn't charged.

9 miles at 5am.  Weather=73F, humid, dark.  Average pace=10:03/m.

Ran with Tim.  He is peaking this week in his training for Saint George.  He's on track to do 130 miles!  Been doing doubles every day.  This morning he wanted to run really slow.  He's trying to break 3:00 marathon.  He's been trying for this goal every year I've known him and each year he's been barely missed it.  He's had some unlucky weather for many of the attempts though.  Like last year's Galveston Marathon, he did 3:04 competing with a 20-30 mph wind!  Ugh! 

So he's been trying something different with training this year. He's trying to run lots of miles 80-130 a week, but most of them be slow.  Then he does MP miles at the end of 20-24 milers and he does track workouts. I hope it works for him!  He's really working hard.

My training plan is less structured.  Every day is a new day and a new challenge.  I am just trying the best I can.  Sometimes running works out and sometimes life gets in the way.  I'm not putting too much pressure on myself because I've got alot going on with having young kids and working full time.  It's still fun though.  I'm actually surprised I'm running relatively fast on the weekends and I'm still not injured in at all. Knock on wood!  I am hoping to do 3:30 marathon at NYC, but if I don't do it, I'm not going to be heartbroken.   When my life is less chaos, I might try to step it up and see how low I can get my PR. 

Hoo ya!  I did it!  I really actually ran more than 17 miles without getting injured!

Weather was crummy.  It was 82F, almost 20mph wind at first before the rain hit, humid at first and raining at the end.  Average pace was 8:22/m.  ‎

I felt great the first 12 mile loop that we did.  First mile was 8:45.  The next 11 were 8:00/m average with only miles 8 and 9 being faster (7:50 and 7:43).   I was the one driving the pace mostly.  I can't seem to help myself.  Britt (who has much faster PR's than me) was reminding me to slow down if I'm going to make it 20 miles today.  Tim also told me that on marathon training I have to be patient.  Maybe that is my problem here.  I do not have patience (or time) to train for a full marathon at this point in my life. 

Then we stopped at the running store before embarking on the next loop of 8 miles.  The next four miles were getting harder and slower (about 8:20's), but I was still holding on although I fell behind Britt and Tim.  They were holding steady at the 8:00/m pace.  There were still some other people behind me from our group though.

By the 15-mile water stop, the rest of the group decided to go further up the trail before turning around so their total would be an even 20.   I just wanted this experience to be over as quickly as possible... I resisted peer pressure from Tim to tough it out and I turned around early to head straight to my car. 

 "THE WALL": Last 4 miles were of the 9:00/m variety by myself in the rain and were excruciating to the point that I found it impossible to run without making a really scrunched up mean face. I was laughing (on the inside while still making scrunched up mean face) about what passing cars might have been thinking.  Yeah, you know, I guess I might have gone too fast in the beginning when I was feeling "great"! Ha, ha! Marathon training is tricky! I'm not sure I have the patience for it. I much prefer half-marathons, for which there are no 20 mile training runs!

Reality check: I'm going to need to run 8:00/m for 26.2 if I'm going to reach my goal at NYC. I couldn't imagine doing that today. Hopefully, the next two months of training and cooler, less humid weather will get me there.

One great thing is that my legs were great the whole way.  No injuries.  Not even a blister.  Of course it was hard to move them in the final miles, but that's different than injury, plus they are fine now after I have stopped running.  I am very happy about that.   This is the farthest I've run in a long, long time.    Because of this fact, I am considering this run a success.

 I'm just trying to figure out when my next training run should be.  The running store owner, James, suggested that I try to force myself to run 9:00 pace in the first miles of the next 20 miler just as an experiment...  I know what he is saying is right.  It's so hard for me to hold myself back when I'm running with faster people because I guess I have this mental thing where I want to be in the lead pack.  However, if I run by myself, it's hard for me to force myself to speed up if I started out at a 9:00 pace.  Tricky, tricky.  What to do, what to do.

Was in Toronto for business.  Thought I'd get opportunity to run in the perfect 70 degree weather.  Only had time for eliptical.  It said I went 3 miles. 

7  miles around the neighborhood at 9:00/m.  Felt difficult.  DIdn't run all week because of business trip.  Strange how hard this felt.  

8 miles at 6:30am with group.  Felt hard but I did have some hard miles.  8:15, 7:30, 7:49, 7:39, 7:20, 7:35, 8:45, 9:09

Starting at this time, the sun was out more and it was beating down.  Final miles I slowed down and let the guy I was running with go on without me. 

Time: 7:30am.  Weather=83-85F, 60% humidity, sunny.

This race was tough for me.  Not sure why.  It felt really hot.  We started much later in the day then I've been running all summer so the sun was a beat down.  Maybe I was also dehydrated.  Couldn't muster a sub-8 to save my life.   Average pace =8:19/m, but that's probably sckewed because I walked through every water stop.  Everytime I looked at my watch it was 8:06 pace... it was like the magic number of the day.

It's highly disappointing.  I plugged this time into race predictor and it said I can expect to do a 4:00 marathon at a 9:09/m pace.  Wow!   Is that really the time I should be shooting for at NYC now?  

I don't know how to react to this.  It's been really hard marathon training and being a working mom.  Last week's business trip really messed me up.  I'm feeling down.  Perhaps I should just suspend all running ambition for now and just run to "finish" the marathon.  I feel stretched thin right now.

Stomach virus hits my house... both my kids and I got it.  Horrible....

10:00/m.  

6am.  Cold front came in and the weather was awesome!  70F for the entire run.

I hadn't run much the last couple weeks because of work and illness.  I was feeling really down.  Finally, I just decided that I am ok with running NYC slow.  I'm ok if I don't PR.  My life is so busy and stressful right now, I am proud of myself for just not giving up on running and doing a marathon with all the other things that are on my plate right now.  Once I said that, I suddenly was re-inspired. 

Most of my friends were running a race at my running store.  This new girl, Maureen, I recently met said she was going to run 17 miles at 9:20 pace.  I decided that sounded perfect.  It was just her and I.  We talked non-stop.  We didn't stop much so it was really good practice for the marathon.  9:20 pace was great!   My legs started hurting by mile 14 though.  I think I was dehydrated because I had a stomach bug for three days this week and on the run I wasn't drinking much from the water fountains along the trail ... er, well, I drink more when my running store has cups and water jugs out. 

When we had about a mile to go, I told her I had to put in my ipod to focus because it hurt.  We sped up to 8:30 for that mile.  I realized that my legs felt much better when I changed pace.  I think that's going to be key to remember in a marathon... sometimes when your legs feel dead, you need to switch up the pace.  

When I finished, I felt great!  

6 miles... starting to get sinus infection

I have had major bronchitis and haven't been running much.  I ran 7.5 on this day but coughed entire way

6 miles...  Finally feeling better after a month of dealing with bronchitis.  NYC marathon is only 1 month away now.  Geez...

ran slow at 9:33/m 

Great run!  Average pace =8:44/m.  Two miles were sub-8.  It was 50 degrees outside!  wonderful!  So glad I can run again without coughing.

5 miles at 6pm.  It was rather hot at 85F.  I don't like running this late because I find that it makes it harder for me to fall asleep later.

NYC is Nov 4th... not much time left.  I am so pissed I got bronchitis and missed all this training.

Plan is to run 12 tomorrow.  I am going into work at 6am so I can get off at 3pm and do this 12 miler at Trinity park in the daylight.  Then I will be done in enough time to pick my kids up from daycare at the usual time.

I'm going to aim for 17-18 on Saturday... then on Oct 21st I'm doing a 20 mile race.  I'll be going slow using it as a training run.

12 miles at 3:45pm.  Went into work at 6am so I could get off at 3pm and do a long run in the daylight before I picked my kids up.  Averaged 9:04/m, really even splits. 

The time off of running caused me to loose all my calluses on my feet.  The pads of my feet feel bruised now.  Other than that, I was feeling pretty good. 

I'm going to do 16 on Saturday and 20 the following Saturday... only have time for 2 week taper.   Nothing like cramming for a marathon.  This is scarey!

Just around the neighborhood.

18 miles at Trinity River by myself.  I was a little worried if I would be able to go this far so I wanted to run by myself so I could go slow.  It was average 9:45/m.  I felt great except for major, major blisters.  I'm starting to feel like NYC is doable now.  The weather was muggy.  70F and 90% humidity.

Ran a little harder today.  Averaged 8:45/m.  One mile was 8:20.  Nothing spectacular.  There were some hills.  

I got off work, picked the boys up, dropped them off at my mom's and then ran 5 miles at the park by her house.  A nice little experiment that sounded easier than it was.  Didn't get the boys home until 8:30pm.  I didn't eat dinner until 9pm.  

20 miles at 8:57/m.  Ran with Mo and Meghan.  We took it easy.  My legs felt great.  It didn't feel hard at all.  Actually, I was amazed that at the end I picked it up to 8:30/m the final two and it felt like I was finishing maybe 10 miles.  I even got blister protectors today so I didn't suffer with my feet as bad... they still hurt a little, but I could definitely handle that over last week's sufferfest.   

 Now I just wonder what pace I'll be capable of for 26.2.  I've never done my long miles at such a slow pace before.  I am the least injured I've ever been after running 20+ miles.  Hmmm... there could be a correlation there.   Anyways, normally I would run these long runs at 8:00/m which is around what my goal race pace would be.  Now I'm not confident enough to do that.  I'm thinking maybe I could manage 8:45/m at NYC... possibly 8:30...  I'm thinking about spending the next couple weeks running 8:30's for 6-10 milers to see how that feels.   #1 goal at NYC is just to have fun though.  I don't want to over-stress this race.  I got sick in the middle of training so I didn't train very well.  

8 miles at 5am with Tim and Ashley.  First and last mile was 8:45ish.  The middle miles were 8:30ish.  My legs got a workout.  It's nice to run with my friends again!  I am inspired to get myself back into PR shape.  It won't happen for NYC but maybe I can run Dallas in December and try to qualify for Boston.  I think I just need a goal to inspire me.  I feel so lucky to have so many running friends to train with who like to set goals like this too. 

This was a great morning all around.  Tomorrow I've agreed to meet them and some others at Trinity River at 4:45am... which means I have to leave my house at 4:30am.... which means I have to wake up by 4am.  I'm excited.  After weeks of dealing with bronchitis, maybe the #1 thing that I got out of it is to appreciate being well enough to run. 

Met Ash, Tim and Wendy for 10 at 4:45am. Avg 9:00/m . Final miles I thought I sped up to 8/m because that's what it felt like... But home and saw it was only 8:45/m. Haven't been getting a lot of sleep this week. Busy at work. Hope that's why. Heard storm Frankenstein is coming to NYC marathon! This is going to be a memorable day!

10.5 miles at 8:31/m average pace

16 miles running laps around Central Park in NYC.  Average pace was 9:07/m.  There tremendous hills.  Each lap was 6.25 mile long.  It was an amazing experience.  I was supposed to run the NYC marathon this day but it was cancelled after I arrived.  Instead, we opted to run laps.  Many, many people out there.  People wearing singlets for almost every country you could think of.  There was even a bunch of people cheering for us.  It was an odd experience running through the finishing shoot.  

10 miles at 8:59/m.

7 miles at 9:30/m

9.5 miles at 9:30/m

6 miles at 9:06/m

6 miles at 8:59/m

6 miles at 9:18/m

5 miles at 8:54/m