Last long run...

yes, I really do have tiny feet!

Next Sunday is my half marathon in Portland!  I had 10 miles to do and I was determined to get them done at some point this weekend.

Friday night looked like this with an interesting grocery cart assortment.  I was just excited that the grocery store has Cliff Shots!

I woke up Saturday morning and my right knee {my better bad knee} was aching badly.  I learned my lesson running with Motrin in my stomach a few weeks ago so rather than subject my knee to 10 miles, I opted for the elliptical which was still a good workout.

So that left Sunday, Mother's Day, to get my 10 miles done.  It was a little tough getting up early on a weekend day but it was nice to be back home before Chaney even woke up and of course the feeling of accomplishment so early in the day was nice too. :)  I took some Motrin the night before, drank a lot of water and set my alarm.  I was out the door by 6:40 am.  I didn't eat; I just had Cliff Shot and a glass of water before I left.  I'm really starting to think I run best on a pretty much empty stomach.

I've mentioned before that we live in a great neighborhood for running.  I headed to the trail first because it's my favorite.  A .25 mile from where the trail ends are the hills.  Big hills.  I decided that I would tackle the hills and then make a loop back to the trail as my reward for making it through the hills.  That loop is almost 5 miles which works out perfectly for 10 miles.

I'm always tempted to run on the cart paths but I always resist...

I carried my Nathan water bottle {which I love, BTW} and one more Cliff Shot.  It's only a 10 oz bottle but one of the bonuses for running around a golf course are the ice cold coolers at each hole.  I'm sure the golfers didn't mind me re-filling once.

The other bonus... the bathrooms on the golf course. :)

I didn't see many people out running which was a little unusual.  I did see a few people walking their dogs who had no intention of poop scooping until the saw me coming.  Not. Cool. 

And a first, I got nipped at by a dog.  A lady was walking two small dogs on long retractable leashes.  I moved into the grass because she wasn't reeling them in.  As I ran by one of them lunged and had I not picked up my heel high and to the side, it would have gotten me.  I love dogs and I'm not scared of them.  But if there are any that I'm leery of, it's small dogs because I'm pretty sure I've read that they are the most likely to bite. 

This was one of my best runs yet which leaves me feeling pretty good about the half next weekend.  I'm still nervous and even dreamed about it all night but I guess that's pretty normal.

And because it was Mother's Day, I came home to an omelet bar, fresh fruit, hashbrowns and mimosas.  We had my husband's family over for brunch and it was wonderful.  Steve is a great cook... I would run 10 miles every Sunday to come home to that but he already told me not to get spoiled!

I hope all you moms had a wonderful Mother's Day!  I know I did. :) 

Good Distractions

So yesterday I left work a little early with the plan to let Steve pick Chaney up while I went home to change quick and go for a run.  Confession: I felt completely selfish doing this.

I was supposed to run intervals yesterday and I do that at the jr. high track.  It's a little over a mile away so I get my mile warm up running there and then I'm ready to go with the intervals.  The mile back home... not as much fun.

But then I got distracted with this beautiful trail.  I love where we live; this trail runs throughout our neighborhood.  However, I rarely run on it because there is no way in hell I'm running this in the dark.  Have you watched the Walking Dead?  There might be walkers in those trees... ;)

I'm so glad I was a little spontaneous.  I felt great when I got home and with all the structured training I've been following for my upcoming half, it was a nice break.

And besides, don't my feet look happy?? 

Today it was back to reality x-training on the elliptical and then tomorrow I have 10 miles; my last long run before the half!

To all you moms, have a wonderful Mother's Day this weekend!

It's been awhile!

New shoes to break in after Portland!

Have I stopped running?!?  No way. :)

I got a job promotion so between traveling and training for that, just about all I've had time to do is hang out with my family, work, and train for my half marathon.

I know the health benefits for running are vast but the stress relief alone has made running completely worth it to me these past several months!

Curiosity finally got the best of me and I stepped on a scale.  I'm down 30 lbs since I started running. :)  It's still just a number to me but it's measurable and it does make me smile.  I knew I had lost weight when I had to replace my work wardrobe but I honestly didn't think it would have been that much. 

Good night/morning, moon...

I've gotten over my fear of running in the dark so I'm running in the mornings now and I absolutely love it.  Running under the stars with no music while watching the sun come up is pretty much the best way to start my day.  Plus my workout is done and I feel like I can accomplish anything that comes my way the rest of the day.

After my Cowtown 10k debacle... the race I ran with what turned out to be walking pneumonia... I decided I needed a do-over at the 10k distance before my half.  I can be a bit of a headcase and so much of running is mental so a do-over was in order. :)  I beat my previous time by almost 25 minutes so that gave me a lot of confidence going into my last few weeks of training for Portland.

My hair really isn't that red.  But Steve's is.... ;)

I'm still a slow runner but I keep reminding myself that I've barely been back to running 6 months and 3 months of that was working (walking/running) up to running a solid 60 minutes straight.  So when I look at it in those terms, I've come a long way... especially for someone who had reconstructive foot surgery and was told that running might never be possible again.

Now I'm not gonna lie, being slow still frustrates me so to combat that, I've come up with a plan.  I'm a planner by nature so it's no surprise that I am finding encouragement in having a training plan that will lead to more improvements and finishing more races.  Here goes...

San Antonio Rock & Roll half  - November 17, 2013

and....

The Cowtown Marathon - February 23rd, 2014

Yes, a full marathon.  After my last one 10 years ago I was pretty sure I'd never do another one but after training injury-free for the Portland half, I've come to realize that I can listen to my body, not over-train, and actually succeed in preparing for a race.

So that's what I've been up to...  I'll try to be better about updating things around here now that my life seems to have slowed down a little bit. :)

What I Didn't Do

You know the times when you are the most stressed and you don't want to do anything, let alone run, but that's also probably the time you need to run the most?

Yeah, that's where I'm at.  I hate depression but it's a part of my life.  Sometimes it's a gradual slipping and a slow crawl towards that dark hole.  Other times, it hits me like a ton of bricks and leaves me wondering what I did wrong to end up in that hole.

Stress is most often what causes the type of depression that crushes me overnight.  It's probably the most confusing not only to me but also to those around me.  I can look fine, go to bed fine, and wake up the next morning wondering what the point is to waking up.

I wrote a little about my lack of self esteem earlier this week and I'm at one of those lows right now.  I know it's never a good idea to count on others to build my self esteem but at the same time, it would be a lot more helpful to hear a few more positives and a few less negative opinions about how I do things.

I know I'm not perfect... never have been and I never will be.  But it's tough when the things I do wrong are quickly pointed out while other things that I bust my ass to do rarely mentioned.

It's never anything major but the little things seem to add up to the general feeling that I just suck...

• You left some lights on in the house this morning... yeah, I was trying to make it out the door, get Chaney to school on time and on my 7:40am conference call right on time.
• You didn't load and unload the dishwasher??... yeah, I made dinner and then I had to argue (help) with Chaney about her homework, have her argue with me about taking a shower, and listen to her grumble and make excuses about practicing her violin.
• You forgot to do _______... yes, I did.  Between inhaling my lunch and running errands for our family, I forgot or ran out of time to do one thing.
• You didn't run today?... no, not yet.  If I can get everyone to leave me alone that might be a possibility.
• You don't take care of yourself... Because I'm taking care of everything else that I didn't do.
• You never take time for yourself... see above.

I know that I'm probably coming across as whiny but I've got to say all this somewhere.  It's hard finding a balance where everyone is relatively happy.  Problem is, when I finally strike that balance I find that I'm absolutely miserable. 

And then I find more things that I didn't do and it makes me wonder why I try so hard in the first place.  I know it's a common thing with women but I feel like I'm losing myself.  My identity is the daily grind of home, work, and life.  Anything above and beyond that and I either feel selfish or inadequate.

And I'm exhausted.

Maybe I'll find the time to run today.  I sure hope so because I need it.

Time vs. Distance

 

I have loved my 10K Runner plan.  It was smart, balanced and I'm convinced it helped to keep me injury free. 

But...

Now that I'm moving on to training for my half marathon, running for time isn't doing it for me.  I'm finding that I run faster when I have a training distance I need to accomplish versus running for a certain number of minutes.  Mentally it's hard for me to run hard for 60 minutes because I'm afraid I'll run out of gas.  It also gives me a bit of permission to slack off because 60 minutes is 60 minutes no matter how fast or hard you push.

But running for miles... for whatever reason it's easier for me to tell how much farther I have to go and I can pace myself accordingly.  And pace is becoming more and more important as I am training for a race that doesn't give you a medal for running for 120 minutes.  It gives you a medal for crossing the finish line after 13.1 miles.

And really, if I'm feeling good after completing my alloted mileage, I can always run another few miles.  I know this is a completely mental game but hey, whatever works because, like I learned during my 10K, running is just as much mental as it is physical.

Confidence

As I was running my 10K the other day, I realized that I had some things to work on.  It wasn't a good race for me and I knew it was going to be tough after two down weeks of being sick.  But reflecting on it, my biggest area for improvement is in the emotional/mental aspect of my running.

I've never been known for having a great self esteem.  Those who know me well enough probably think that I'm pretty secure in myself but those who really know me know that my self esteem is crap.  So as I was running... fighting through the race... I started paying attention to how I talk to myself and it's pretty sad.

I would never talk to Chaney, Steve, or really anyone the way that I was talking to myself that day.  Ouch.

But there I was being all kinds of negative towards myself and that, I'm not so sure how to fix.  Where is that confidence supposed to come from?  Because more often than not I find myself being negative and holding back... just in case.

And then I get mad at myself for holding back and then the really negative stuff starts running through my head.  It's a tough thing to conquer; this self confidence thing.  I keep searching for the smallest of things that could give me a stepping stone towards confidence and even when I find it, I almost always end up holding back.

As I ran this morning I started thinking about the last time I fully embraced running.  That was 10 years ago when I trained for my marathon.  And while I'm in a completely different place in life now, I still have scars from that experience.  Less than a month after completing a destination marathon combined with a wonderful vacation my then husband began having an affair. 

Do I fear that happening now?  No, not at all.  But I'm being stretched and old scars hurt as they are stretched.  With each pop of the scar tissue those nagging, hurtful words from my past are released.  I didn't have good support the last time I ran and I actually had quite the opposite.  But I kept going, finished my marathon, and had lots of little successes along the way.

Problem was that those small victories, my growing self confidence, even my healthy life changes were not celebrated but instead thrown in my face as a reason, an excuse for my ex-husbands affairs.  That's a tough pill to swallow after coming as far as I had because somehow it was my fault.

So even after 10 years of healing, there's still that lingering scar tissue that at times makes me feel defeated and scared.  The key, I suppose, is finding away to turn those scars and the fear into fuel and motivation.

But that's the hard part.  The easier part is taking what I have been able to learn and that is that the words we say matter.  They stick with people long after we have said them and think that they have been forgotten. 

Our words are powerful, including the ones we speak to ourselves.

Cowtown 10K

I finished!  To more advanced runners that might not be super impressive but I'm happy with it... this time anyways.

I'm super competitive so it was tough to go into the race knowing that I wasn't physically 100%.  But I made the best of it and tried to find the positives.

It was supposed to be warmer but a cold front came thru on Friday so at 7am on Saturday it was in the mid 30's.  My lungs were not great after back to back upper respiratory/sinus infections and the cold air did not make things better.  By mile two I couldn't get a decent breath and I started coughing.  I tried to breathe through my nose by my sinuses were still super congested.  Ugh.

By mile 2.5 I was having to walk/run.  I hated doing this but when I coughed I ended up with a metallic taste in my mouth and I knew better than to push it.  I don't need to add pneumonia to the list of illnesses.

The last 3.2 miles were basically an exercise in distracting myself with random observations to avoid crying out of sheer frustration.  My legs felt great but my lungs were just not cooperating!

A few observations...

• Port-o-potties on the course should have a warning sign on them:  BAD THINGS HAVE HAPPENED IN HERE.  I ran past one and the door happened to be open... people pee before a race.  If you are stopping during the race then you probably have other issues going on.  Like I said, warning sign needed.
• Headband/ear warmers are not a good look if you have short hair like I do.  I discovered this in the mirror at home before we left.  You look like a running mushroom.  Or worse.
• Picking a person ahead of you and working on trying to pass them really does work.  I felt kinda bad about doing this until I realized someone was doing it to me too. Game on ;)
• Big races are a lot of fun.  If you're middle of the pack like me, you don't run alone.
• A big hill to start the race and {what felt like} an even bigger one to finish is hard.  And elevation charts lie... things seem much easier when you're just looking at a squiggly line on paper.
• Texting, Instagramming, Facebooking, etc while running... really??  I left my phone in the car and it felt good not being tethered to the thing.  But that's just me, well until you stop right in front of me to take a picture, then I'm kinda annoyed.  I can see carrying a phone on a longer race but not for a 5K or 10K.

All in all I had fun.  Like I said, my legs felt great and that's encouraging.  The race was well organized, especially for there being 11,000 people there between the 10K, 5K, and kid's 5K.  I'll definitely run this event again.

After I finished we raced back to pick up Chaney.  She had a birthday party at 10:30 and another one at 4:30.  I crashed on the couch between the two parties with Gus a.k.a Quiltdog.

Steve had also bought Dallas Stars tickets about a month ago so we had that to go to Saturday night.  I wasn't super thrilled about walking around downtown Dallas and up and down arena steps but it was a great game and a fun date night which made it totally worth it!

Friends and family also helped make Saturday less stressful and more enjoyable by helping out with Chaney.  I'm super thankful for them because it would have been tough waking her up at 4:30am and then worrying about her standing around in the cold while I ran.  And of course there's Steve.  He never complained about the early start or the cold.  He really is my biggest fan and it's wonderful having him with me at these races.  Love that guy!