My running partner is cuter than your running partner.

It happened. Taylor ran with me. :) Ok, he's run with me once before, but it's been almost 2 years now, so I had assumed it was never going to happen again.

The scene: My bedroom.

The time 9pm (I had to work til 8pm, he had class until 8:30pm).

Jeri: I'll just go run once you fall asleep (he works at 5:30am) so we can hang out and then it'll be cooler out, unless you want to come with me. Hah hah hah.

Taylor: I was thinking I would....
Jeri: [jaw drops, immediately put on running shoes before he can change his mind]

He wanted to run about a mile, even though I tried to convince him to do two (he consistently runs about 2 miles on the treadmill, but hasn't run outside, well since our run together 2 years ago). It was a great run, and he did awesome. Apparently he thought I was going to tell him when .5 miles was up, but I didn't, sneaky me. I knew he could go 1.5-2 miles, so we stopped at one of my favorite bridges on my running route (.8 miles in) he stopped to stretch, and I continued on to the one mile mark, and came back, where I picked him up and we ran home together. He had a really strong kick the last .4-.5, so I decided to go along with him pace, and run a harder 2nd mile, and then have a "cool down"/easy mile my 3rd mile by myself. Overall the 3 miler was 26:29 for a pace of 8:50. The first mile was about 9 min. miles, the second around 8:30, and the third around 9. Because we stopped to stretch at the bridge my Garmin went weird and counted that as my first lap, so the laps were all weird.

I was really happy he came to run with me, and hope this won't be the last time. We even went through his schedule and determined the nights he could come running with me, and there's definitely a couple that would work, especially on the weekends. It would be really nice to have him meet me for the last couple of miles on a looooooong run when I'm tired and want to quit.

I did my sit up routine (still hoping to achieve Jessica Alba abs) pre-run, and followed up the run with push ups. I did 2 (then stopped b/c I was being critiqued, ugh), then 15, then 10. Then I spent the rest of the night asking Tay if he had tickets to the gun show. Ya I'm super cool. :)

Oh. And I swallowed approximately 5 gnats, and snorted one up my nose. Not included in the gnat death count are the 3-4 that were sent to their death by drowning on my face in my sweat. I love summer.

For Foto Friday, I'll leave you with one of my favorite pictures in. the. world. It's at a friend's bachelorette party 2 years ago, at the skeezy bar in town (one of the only with a dance floor of course), that plays a mix of country music and booty shaking music, randomness, where I have only been hit on by old cowboys my dad's age. ANYWHO. Here my old roomie and I are enjoying a slow jam together. I think I may be serenading her. 2rue 4ever. :)

New Running Buddy? I wish. :)

I forgot to mention two things that should've been highlights to my previous post.


Highlight 1: When I got home from running Thursday night, I walked in on a shirtless Taylor doing push ups. AGAIN. Yay me. But that's not the highlight (ok, partial highlight for sure). I decided I would do some push ups also. I did 10 in a row without a break. Whoo! After I got done, he said that they looked so strong that I could do more. So when he started his next set, I did 15 without stopping. I've NEVER done 15 push ups in a row, especially after 10. I was super proud of me.


Highlight 2: I had asked Taylor to join me for a couple of miles on my 8 mile run on Monday, but he didn't want to. When I got home he was mowing and called me as soon as he was done. He was bummed that I was done running. He was planning on surprising me on the bike trail to run the last bit of my run with me. Unfortunately he underestimated my speediness. Hopefully the mood strikes him again in the near future, because a cute running buddy is just what I need. :)


On to the current. Yesterday I had an easy 3 mile run to do. Usually I have a rest/yoga/abs/push ups day after my long runs, but because I didn't get my lazy butt to run until Monday, I already expended my rest day. My legs were tired, to say the least. I just took the run slow, my hamstrings were REALLY tight after the first mile, so I slowed up a lot and just enjoyed the run. Total time 28:47 for a pace of 9:36. For the first time, ever, I think. I posted all positive splits. Go me. :)


1. 9:28
2. 9:33
3. 9:45




Tonight I had a 35 minute tempo run to do. Since I now know what paces I should be shooting for to do my tempo runs in, I was kind of excited for this one. Plus I had the extra incentive to run fast so I could get to Tay's softball games. I had planned to do 1 mile warm up 9:30-10 mm and then 3 tempo miles from 8:20-8:30.


1. 9:51 warm-up
2. 8:45 whoops. I wasn't dying after this, and it actually felt like a pretty comfortable pace. Double whoops.
3. 8:22 Ran a lot harder on this one. 4. 8:14 Felt like I was flying on this one, especially the last 1/2 mile.



What I learned from this run: I really suck at consistent pacing. That will be my goal as I move in to half marathon training.


The softball games were fun, they won their first one just minutes after I arrived, and the second one they lost.

The T-Bagz star pitcher.

5 day post hiatus and 3 day run hiatus, cured.

Apparently I've been lazy.  Eh.  Oh well.  Wednesday and Thursday were both easy 3 mile runs, with nothing to write home about.  Except the AMAZING weather on Thursday, 59 degrees, no wind, no humidity.  Per.  Fec.  Tion.  I could've ran forever if I wasn't starving and wanting to rush home to hang out with Tay.  :)  Tuesday's run was done in 26:18 for an avg. pace of 8:46 and Wednesday's was actually 3.06 in 27:50 for an avg. pace of 9:06.

Edited to include this addition:  So one funny/interesting/noteworthy thing happened my easy run day 2.  On glorious cool weather day, there was a person in a lawn chair, on a street corner with their hood up over their head using their laptop.  If he/she really tracked down the wi-fi signal to the street corner, color me impressed.

Friday night we had planned to have a date night to the drive in, but the rain put the kabosh on that idea.  Instead we went out to Chevy's for drinks and dinner and then to the indoor theatre to see Angels and Demons.  It was...meh.  I've read all of Dan Brown's books, and Angels & Demons was by far my favorite.  And I really enjoyed the Da Vinci Code movie.  But I didn't think this movie was that great.  Good and glad I went, just not meeting my expectations.  I did, however, get extremely giddy over the New Moon and Harry Potter 7 movie posters.  :)

Saturday I skipped my 4 mile run.  Lame.  But I had a good reason, kind of.  I lost my contacts.  Ya.  We've tore apart my apartment, on the bf's apartment and they're nowhere.  I am blind without my spectacles/contacts but can't run with glasses b/c I'm SO SWEATY.  So I didn't run.  Sunday I skipped my long 6 mile run, but that was only due to laziness and wanting to sleep in.  And wanting to enjoy some Sunday Funday long weekend festivities.  I had it in  my head that maybe I would run Sunday night, but 5 beers later I thought otherwise.

As punishment, and so my monthly mileage wouldn't completely suffer, I decided to do an 8 mile long run today.  I haven't ran 8 miles since September (my current 5k training plans not going over 7 for a long run) so I thought it would be fun.  Um.  It wasn't, really.  I went out at 11:30am because that's the earliest I could drag myself out of bed, and it was already too warm, and I didn't eat anything before, because I'm dumb.  I'm starting to be concerned about this early morning running business since I typically opt to not eat instead of getting an upset stomach, and then just run out of steam.

There were strong winds from the south, so I had planned to run the first two miles with the wind, the middle 4 against, and last 2 with.  The wind blew.  HA.  But seriously.  It sucked.  And I was melting.  And I got sunburned.  I haven't even THOUGHT of wearing sunscreen on a run this year.  I guess it is summer now, crazy.  Some miles were good, some were sucktastic.  

1. 9:25 
2.1 ? My garmin was not restarted after an ab stretch break, so I estimated my overall time based on the pace it did record for .88 of the mile.
3. 9:35 
4. 9:47 
5. 9:52 
6. 10:04 
7. 9:32 
8. 9:02 

Total time of 1:17:42 for 9:36/mile.

One annoyance that I've noticed for my Garmin, is that it's mile splits aren't actually right.  There's been a couple of times that I'll look down at the 1.0 or 2.0 mile mark, noted the time, and one the mile timer pops up on the screen it's 2-3 seconds slower than what it actually was.  If this is consistent, it obviously evens itself out through the rest of the miles, but it's annoying.  End rant.

Speed workout, long time no see. I missed you.

Last night was supposed to be an easy 3 miles. When I got off work it was 92 degrees with 25 mph winds. I was sweating in my car driving home from work. UGH. Apparently we were 2 measly degrees from breaking the temp record yesterday. Darn. Anyway, because of the elements, I decided to head to my gym, and switch out my quarter mile repeat workout. My love. :) If you've been following along at home, I stopped doing sprint workouts after the Washington Pavilion 5k because my stupid strained ab was still, well, strained, and I knew the speed work, specifically the sprinting part of the speed work, was causing it to not heal. That means the last sprint/speed workout I did was April 15th! I looked at my running log and decided I would run them at the same pace I did then, and scale back/stop if the ab started to hurt.

IT. WAS. AWESOME. I felt like I was flying (especially since I was on the treadmill). I did 6 x .25 at roughly mile pace, with a .1 walk break in between. I warmed up with .5 and cooled down with a .5. The best news was, I didn't hurt. At all. :)

.5 warm up 4:30/9:00 pace
.25 1:43/6:52 pace (2 at this pace)
.25 1:42/6:48 pace (2 at this pace)
.25 1:41/6:44 pace
.25 1:30/6:35 pace
.5 cool down 4:30/9:00 pace

Avg. pace for sprints 6:46, warm up/cool down 9:00.

I'm also excited because these felt (dare I say it) easy. Granted the last couple had me huffing and puffing, but I remember being much more labored on these a couple of months ago. Assuming the pain doesn't come back, I think I'll be bumping up the speed a bit. YAY!

This also makes me think that I could do another race before June 27th (the next one I have on my list). There is a 5k on May 30th put on by the Canaries/Roller Dollz, and another 5k on June 6th for SIDS research. 5 more weeks is a looooong time to wait to race, so we'll see. Luckily these are races that you can sign up the night before and still get the low low rate.

Today's weather is pretty similar to yesterday's, except more wind. Ya, seriously. It might be another gym day because somehow easy does not equal sweating my behind off while fighting hurricane like winds (or so I'm guessing since we don't have hurricanes here, obv). Then I get to watch the bf's team kick some softball booty. Go T-bagz. (Um..ya.)

morning runner?

I don't know how many times I've said, "Gosh, I should really get up in the morning and run." Yet I don't. The rare times I have (mostly on weekend long runs because I have something going on that evening) have sucked. But now, more and more the morning run seems to entice me. What do I do when I need to make a LIFE ALTERING (ha) decision? Pros and cons list, duh.

Pro Morning Running

• Taylor works at 5:30am, so he has to get up at 4:30-4:45am. Because I'm a light sleeper, I'm also up until he leaves at 5am-ish.
  
• I could go to bed at the same time as him and get up and go when he does. Genius.
  
• It could make me more successful in races because races are in the morning, therefore training in the morning should make me a machine. :)
  
• It's going to get hot. I've gotten in the habit of running after work 5-6pm during the weeks, and that is not going to fly. Today's forecast is 90 degrees at 5pm. Holy meltage.
  
• By running in the morning, I would have more time after work to hang with friends/boyfriend.

Con Morning Running

• Ugh. 4:30am is EARLY.
  
• Going to bed at 9:30pm is LAME. (sorry Tay).
  
• Past morning runs have suuuuuuuuuuuuuucked.
  
• I'm starving in the morning, but can't eat more than an hour or so before my run or my stomach is upset. Therefore, I starve on the run or have intense side crampage.
  
• Part of the reason I eat so healthy all day long is knowing that what I put in is fueling my body for my run in the evening. Running in the morning would throw this out the window.
  
• I've always been an evening worker-outer. In high school, we had practice right after school, or games in the evening. In college, I had intramurals after supper and went to the gym after that.
  
• I'd have to shower at Taylor's most mornings (EEEEW). He's not eew, but he has a roommate, and I know how often that shower has been cleaned=zero.

With this being said, I think I need to give morning running a try. Most of the cons are whiney Jeri. And the pros are pretty legit. For the first two weeks of June (Drumroll please) I will become a morning runner (said with a thunderous clap in the background). Is anyone else imagining a super hero version of myself, hands on hips, with a cape billowing behind me with an old school alarm clock and sunrise? No? Only me...ok then.

Either way I'm going to have to switch up my routine, by running later 9ish, or butt @$$ crack of dawn. If two weeks is horrendous, I'll quit and go back to the evening runs. Although I do know from past experience, I am a lot more likely to "skip" runs in the evening. Oh who am I kidding, last falls half marathon training I was likely to skip all runs. Eek.

Are you a morning runner? Were you ever as anti-morning runner as me? Any awesome motivating factors?

This daisy is going on 2 weeks and is just the prettiest thing in my apartment right now. :)

Wonderful Weekend

I love me a good weekend.  :)  Friday I had planned on spending a quiet relaxing night in, since Tay had day 1 of a 2-day bachelor party to attend.  Lucky for me, day 1 ended up falling through, so I got to have some fun instead.  We went out, met up with some other friends, and ended up having a boy slumber party at the bf's house.  Haha.  I think some serious nachos were inhaled post-bar.  Yikes.

Saturday...sucked.  Since I had originally planned on having a lowkey evening, I had planned on getting up EARLY to go run.  Um.  That didn't happen.  Instead we laid in bed.  After Tay and I parted ways, my BFF came to town and we had a completely girly day.  I haven't had a girly girl day in a long, long time, so it was awesome.  We went to lunch, shopped, and got pedicures.  It doesn't get much girlier than that.  :)  Apparently I'm a failure as a chica because this was only my second pedi.  And my first was a gift for Xmas last year.  Hah.  Oh well.  My tootsies are CUTE.

After my bff left, I had to get my run in.  3 miles, fast.  I decided to run it and let my legs determine what felt fast.  25:42 for a pace of 8:34.  That's at the tail end of my tempo pace, so I guess we'll file that under the "fast" column.

1.  8:48

2.  8:43

3:  8:09

After my run I made an amazing sandwich:  grilled pepper jack cheese with turkey and avocado.  OMG.  I could eat this sandwich every day for the rest of my life.  Saturday night I snuggled up in my bed to watch Twilight, again.  Because I'm twelve and in love with a vampire.  HA, speaking of, I had a dream the other night that Taylor got bit by a vampire and my first thought was, "awesome, vampires are sexy!"  Weirdo.

Sunday morning roughly 10 hours after my previous run, I was doing it again.  I never do night time runs, except Thursday nights (Fridays are rest days).  It was rough.  Yikes.  My calves were tight.  My quads were heavy.  And it was windy.  I had 5 miles to do, and kind of just slugged my way through them.  5 miles in 46:38 for a pace of 9:20.  Blah.

1.  9:26

2.  9:48

3.  9:37

4.  9:22

5.  8:22

Sunday was spent lounging with Taylor as he was recovering from the bachelor party he went to all day before.  I love a good lounge day, and it's a great way to end a great weekend.

easy run+foto Friday+marathon training program suggestions

Phew that was a mouthful of a title. At least there will be no element of surprise in this post.

Starting with the run. A nice easy lil 3 miler. I'm really trying to abide by specific "pace recommendations" for this round of 5k training, so I wanted to run it 9-9:30 mm. But I also determined that if it's my Thursday easy run and I want to pick up the last mile, I will, because I have Friday off, and why the heck not?
1. 9:21

2. 9:26

3. 8:43

For dinner we had an AMAZING shrimp stir fry that we added extra red and green peppers to. I'm eating the leftovers for dinner, so maybe if I finally exchange my batteries for my camera, I will share it with you. Probably not though, I'm lazy.

There seems to be a trend for the photos today, and I'm not one to buck the trend, so here are some pictures from my senior prom 2002 and also a guy pal's prom that I accompanied him to halfway across the state. Yes I am all of 95 pounds. YIKES. I wanted to have a photo from each year of prom (you can go as a Freshman if asked by someone older), but apparently I don't have any saved. I know they're somewhere though. :(

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY...marathon training plans. If you haven't been following along for too long (since I've only been blogging for a few months, that would include all of you), I'm embarking on my first full marathon. In one year. :) Ha. I've ran a local 1/2 marathon every September, this year will be my 5th, and usually I just stop running after completing it until spring rolls around. But not this year. This year I will continue to train after the 1/2 for another half Dallas White Rock in December. Since my bro, sis in law, and adorable nephew live down there, it will be a double whammy of a good time. Also, since I will have such a GREAT base going (which never has happened before) I have decided to embark on a full: Cellcom Green Bay Marathon.

I'm a ginormo Packers fan have always wanted GB to be my "first." I have my training plans set for the Sept. 1/2 and the Dec. 1/2 and have just started looking for my full plan. I've been pretty religious to Higdon's plans, and would like to do one for my first marathon also. I would like to finish in the range of 4:20-4:45, so no break neck speed, by any means, I just don't want to die on the course. I'm toying around with his Novice 2 program, which includes 1 20 mile run, a 19, 18, & 17, with top weekly mileage at 40. And his Intermediate 1 program, which has 2 20 mile runs, an 18, 17, top weekly mileage at 44. I know some of you guys do 3 20 mile runs during your trainings, but you're also ridiculously BA, and I am just a lowly newbie. :)

I would really like to hear your suggestions, both in comparing these two and offering up great first training programs that you used, or even ones you stumbled on after your first and wish you would've used. Although I would like to be faithful to Higdon, I am willing to move on to greener pastures if the opportunity arises.

And if you think it's ridiculous that I'm worrying about this 7 months before I even START the training program, then poo on you. :)

....But I WILL do 35-45 mph wind GUSTS.

That's right, after being too big of a wussy to run an easy run in 25 mph winds, I sacked up last night and did my tough tempo run in a wind advisory. I had a 30 minute tempo run to do, and figured I'd do a nice easy 1 mile warm up, do two miles at tempo pace, and cool down until I hit 30 minutes.

I also did some research on tempo runs to see exactly how fast my paces should be for these puppies. Since FAST is the only pace I have stuck in my head for speed workouts, I figured I should learn exactly what FAST equated to. Apparently these are supposed to be done 30-40 seconds slower than your race pace. My most recent 5k was 7:50 pace, so voila I'm shooting for 8:20-8:30. I knew the wind was going to effect things pretty significantly, especially that second tempo mile since it would be all into the wind, so I was shooting for 8:25-8:40.

1. 9:40 Nice leisurely warm up (with the wind at my back, so this pace literally felt effortless).

2. 8:24 The first .75 of this was with the wind so it was a pretty easy pace, I turned around at .75 and tried to haul @$$ into the wind.

3. 8:34 This one SUCKED. There were parts that I felt like I was running my hardest and not moving. Yikes. I determined that this run would also count as a strength workout because of the intense resistance the wind provided. I just tried to run strong, especially during the points where the wind wasn't bowling me over (unfortunately these points were very VERY brief and not very often). I was still super impressed with myself in coming in *close* to my pace even against the wind, and actually coming in under my wind-restricted self prescribed pace.

.5 4:42 (9:24 pace) My time was actually up prior to .5 mile but I wasn't back to my apartment yet, and kind of hating ending on a random .456092, so I kept going. Look at me going above and beyond! :)

3.5 miles in 31:21 for a pace of 8:58. Warm up/cool down pace: 9:34, tempo pace: 8:29. BOOM! Successful tempo run. *patting myself on the back*

After the run it was off to Taylor's softball games. Surely it would be easier to watch a softball game in this wind than it would be to run in it, right? WRONG. I missed his first game, and had to sit and wait through a middle game before his next one started. His whole team and I were huddled up next to the concession stand trying to keep warm and out of the wind. I thought about leaving 1000 times, but was mad at myself for missing the first game, and thought it would be a waste of gas to have come all the way to the other side of town for his games, not to see him play. I managed to last 2 innings of spectating before I had to go home. Yikes. They were down (by quite a bit) when I left. Of course they managed to win 25-24 with a HUGE come back. Oh well, I was warm in my bed. :)

I also had a protein smoothie after my run, which was...different. I've been reading about everyone's delish breakfast smoothies, and thought I would give one a try for a post-run meal (part of meal). I made a strawberry one, with frozen strawberries, vanilla yogurt, ice, and vanilla protein powder (since I don't get nearly enough protein in my diet). It was ok. Not great. I think the vanilla yogurt is way to sweet, so my next one I'll try with soy milk instead. I'd also like to be brave and throw some spinach in there, but after my all-spinach lunch yesterday, I was feeling a lil green in the gills. Bahahaha. :p

I don't DO 25+ mph winds....

And thusly (not a real word I don't think) should not live in the Midwest.  Right now it sounds like a scene from the Wizard of Oz (one of my FAVORITE movies) outside.  Tomorrow we're under a "wind advisory" from 3pm to 10pm, where the winds will be 35 to 45 mph.  Poor Tay has two softball games that he's pitching.  It might be a rough night to be throwing strikes.

I had a easy peasy 3 miler on the docket today and could not bring myself to fight the good fight against the wind, turning it into something much more difficult than easy peasy.  So I hauled myself to the gym for my first treadmill run in 4-6 weeks.  It actually wasn't too bad.  Ok, it wasn't great.  It was muggy in the gym, and I hate running next to people who are constantly checking out your treadmill screen.  Ugh.  AND I kept staring at my screen which caused the miles to slooooooowly tick by.

I wanted to keep the pace right around 9 minute miles, as my goal for this training plan is to actually run my easy runs at an easy pace.  Crazy concept, I know.  That way I can run bttw on my speed workouts, which is really so much more fun.  :)  I ran 3 miles in 26:30 for 8:50 pace.

1.  9:05

2.  8:47

3.  8:38

I meant to do situps and pushups during the Biggest Loser, but somehow was just too lazy.  Whoopsies.  I've really been slacking on that though, so maybe I'll do them before I head to bed.  Speaking of BL, what'd you think of the show!?!?!?  Oh and the bet pre-show was that I would tear up 7 times.  I'm proud to report that I WON the bet with only 2 tear ups.  Take that.

We had the most amazing dinner tonight!  Taylor grilled some salmon and we topped it with this spicy mango salsa.  YUM!  And then I cooked up some sweet potato fries seasoned with a little sea salt and pepper baked in the oven.  Seriously, this may take the place of taco pizza night as my favorite new meal.  I swear I could eat salmon for every meal and not get sick of it.  I really wanted to take a picture to share with you, but my camera batteries are dead, and stupid me, I bought the wrong rechargeable batteries for my charger, so I need to return them to get the correct ones.  :(

And I packed my lunch up for tomorrow:  spinach wrap with spinach (apparently I'm going for the Popeye resemblance manana) turkey, muenster cheese, and red peppers, along with a kiwi and the last caramel brownie of the batch.  :(  I also through in a yogurt for a 3pm-oh-my-god-I'm-starving snack.

In keeping with the Tuesday night of reality television, I also watched the Part 1 of the season finale of Real Housewives of New York (because 3 hours of biggest loser..ok not really, I dvr'd it so probably closer to 2 hours minus commercials....wasn't enough).  I pretty much want to punch Ramona in the face and think that Bethenney is the cat's meow.  Heck I'll birth her babies in 3 years if she wants me to.  Please tell me you also indulge in this horrible reality crap??

Fingers crossed that the winds aren't nearly as ferocious as they're predicted to be, otherwise my tempo run may consist of me jumping in the air and landing a mile away at breakneck speed.  Wait.  That actually sounds like a good idea.  :)

Why do the weekends fly by?

This weekend seemed to just zip on by.  After the race, we came back to take a well-deserved nap.  Unfortunately I was on a ridiculous runners high and almost went and ran another 3 miles to tire myself out.  Instead I cleaned a little bit, and then the exhaustion hit me like a wall (I had about 4 hours of sleep, and it was very restless sleep at that).  When we finally woke up I had a delicious post-race celebrtaion meal of shrimp fajitas from Chevy's.....YUM.  I thought about a margarita, but realized it would probably zonk me out again.

Saturday night, Taylor played in an alumni basketball game to raise money for a family with some serious medical bills.  It was fun seeing him in his HS jersey, yes I am a jersey chaser at heart.  Ha.  After the game, we went out for a drink and then back to town with a couple of his high school friends.  It ended up being a fun night and I managed to get the two worst pick up lines ever AND in the same night.  SCORE.  Taylor just thinks it's funny when guys hit on me, and rarely steps in to save me.  Sweet life love.

Sunday we went to Taylor's mom's for an amazing brunch and lounging around.  Then we came back to his place to lounge somewhere.  The theme of Sunday was truly lounge and I loved it.  However, my quads were sore.  Not tired/tight, but downright sore.  A couple of minutes after the race ended on Saturday my right quad seized up on me, and apparently this was the remnants.  I decided to go for a 4-6 mile recovery run, depending on how horrible the legs felt.  The first mile was pretty rough, but picked up pretty well after that.  I ended up doing 5 mostly because I was STARVING and looking forward to the leftover shrimp fajitas.  :)

1.  9:25

2.  9:30

3.  9:20

4.  9:17

5.  8:50

We tried to watch a couple of movies post run/shower, but man I was just exhausted.  10pm I was out like a light.  There really isn't a better way to spend a Sunday then a lazy day with the one you love.  Wait.  Scratch that.  I'd rather spend a Sunday at the water park on the lazy river with the lover boy.  Summer cannot come soon enough!!!

Oh.  And I'm bummed, I don't think there were photos for the race on Saturday.  And stupid me, forgot to charge my batteries, so the camera was dead.  We're 0-2 on race photos.  Time #1 with exploding gu on camera and time #2 dead batteries.  Sad day.  :(

P.S.  Special thanks to Kristin at ChasRunner for helping me fix my race photos on the side of my blog.  I've spent waaay too much time redoing it incorrectly, so I'm glad she shared some of her blogger smarts with me.  :)

Race Report: Avera Race Against Breast Cancer 5k

Will she or won't she meet her goal of 25 flat?  :)  If you read the previous post there are a few things going against me achieving my goal:

• horrible allergy cold/not being able to breathe properly out of my mouth or nose
• not doing any speed work for the last two weeks
• strained ab that's apparently still strained

Friday night we went to Taylor's hometown for a friend's college graduation party.  Of course I was the only one not enjoying any spirits, but I made up for it by the delicious pizza I consumed.  Luckily, we came home pretty early and were in bed around 11pm.  Unfortunately I was really nervous and couldn't sleep.  I updated my playlist on my iPod.  Double and triple checked that my clothes were laid out, and checked my alarm yet again.  Setting mine for 6:10am and Tay's for 6:25am.  I woke up at 6:25am and freaked out because neither alarm had gone off.  Of course I panicked, because I only wake up that early so I can eat breakfast, and be ready to run at 8am.  After getting myself severely worked up, I realized it was only 2:25am.  Gah.  I'll let you guess how peaceful my slumber was after that.

When I finally did wake up, I was excited because there were no thunder storms (as there had been all day before).  I ate some food, got dressed, and resumed being nervous, but still not sure why.  We got to the race and I saw a bunch of people that I knew were running the race, which is cool and unlike most others races where I know maybe one other person.  We had to take a "team" picture since I was running for my gym, and then we stretched our freezing cold muscles.

A girl from my high school who was actually on my 1600 m relay and 800 m relay school record teams, was running her first 5k, so she was my partner in crime.  Because it's such a big race (I've heard between 800 and 1200 for the 5k plus the 10k started with us also) I squirmed my way to the front of the line.  I must've been right where I needed to be, because there were only a few people I had a to zoom past at the beginning.

I started off feeling great.  :)  Legs and lungs felt great.  I knew that the primary downhills of the race were at the beginning and middle of mile two, and hoped that I could get through those without the ab flaring up.  

Mile 1:  I started off strong knowing I needed 8:05 pace to get my 25:00 goal.

7:48.  

Holy buckets!  I was now kind of concerned about dying the rest of the race because I went out so fast.

Mile 2:  I slowed up a bit because of my crazy fast first mile, and also slowed down on the downhills to try to prevent stupid ab from rearing its head.

8:06

At the turn around, I noticed not many women were ahead of me, so I was super excited and motivated to keep going strong.  Halfway point was 12:25, so I also thought I would achieve my goal, but knew it depended on if my stomach started hurting or not.

Mile 3:  The first part of the mile was upset, so I pushed hard telling myself I was STRONG up those darn hills.  I don't have these strong (read:  LARGE) thighs for looks they're for speed and strength!  Ha.  Once the hills were over, it was pretty much flat to the finish, and of course, the ab pain I had been dreading started to creep up.  But according to Marvin I only had .5 miles left to go.  In my head I figuring ~4 minutes of pain.  Totally do able.  I ran as hard as I could, having to grab my side and just squeeze hard to alleviate some pain at one point and set my sights on some dude I thought I could beat.  Out of nowhere comes this chickadee who looks like she's doing a 200m not a 5k, and he speeds up to keep from getting beat by her.

7:55

.1:  .26

Once I stopped and looked at my watch, and the timer, I was ecstatic!  24:16 unofficially.  Not only did I meet my goal, I SHATTERED IT.  But my standards anyway.  :)  Officially 24:18.  A 1:09 PR from 2 weeks ago.  I found Taylor and he was super excited for me, saying he didn't expect me to come in so soon as he knew I was shooting for 25 flat-ish and did NOT sound very confident about that prior to the race.  I even asked him if he would still love me if I did not PR, his answer was yes.  Thank goodness.  :)

I was really excited to see how I placed in my division, as I had been placing top 10 in the last two races, but had so much of a better time this time around.  Stupid them, they only had M overall and W overall for their division.  I got 31 out of 629 women!  Whoo, and I MAY have counted for my unofficial "age group" place:  9 out of 114.

It was a GREAT GREAT GREAT day.  I think I'll plan on doing one more before I start training for my half to give my ab a little more time to heal, and then will shoot to come in below 24.  Why not?  Right?  :)  I also realized that I push myself harder in larger races.  It probably helps that I knew so many people there also and did NOT want to run slow in front of them.  I think I had a smile plastered on my face from 8:30am to 3am when I went to bed.  :)

You go rain. Wash away that Pollen!

My race is tomorrow. Yay. It seems like I've been doing a race every other weekend, which is true, but only for the last 4 weeks. Anyway, the race I'm doing tomorrow is HUGE (for SoDak standards that is). I checked the registered list for the 5k last night and there are over 1200 people registered. To give you a good comparison the last one I did had less than 300. There are a TON of people I know who are running it which is awesome, but unforunately because I secretly want to beat all of them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the strained ab is healed and the legs are super speedy. :)

I was super excited when I saw the forecast for tomorrow: high of 60, overcast, little wind. Stupid me, that's the HIGH. Not the temp at 8am. No no, that's 45 degrees, with windchill is closer to 38. I'm so sick of race photos in my running tights, agh. I want to bust out the new running shorts!

Tonight should be a good time, one of our friends is having a grad party, so I volunteered to be Tay's DD, mostly because if left to his own devices, he would sleep through my race tomorrow, and then I would be forced to take time out of my post-race high to kick his booty. That just sounds like too much work. :) Unfortunately, it will mean very little sleep for me tonight.

Wow, this post is lame. Sorry for putting you all through this. Keep your fingers crossed for a looooooooow 25 time for tomorrow!

Awesome Allergies + April in Review

Let's talk about my great state of South Dakota.  All that red there, ya that's the pollen index.  Oy vay!  It's warm out at night, but not warm enough to turn on the AC, however, sleeping with the windows turns me in to a mess.  I feel like one of those little kids who has snot bubbles billowing out of their nose.  Ugh.  The amount of boogers I'm housing is out of control.  Since I'm not able to breathe out of my nose at night, I've had to revert to mouth breathing, which means that I wake up in a puddle of drool.  Ick.  Of course the running is NOT helping in any way.  Taylor had two softball games tonight....so now we're both just struggling at life.  Apparently we have the same seasonal allergies, how precious..... :)  

Speaking of my awesome bf and softball.... he hit two homers tonight.  :)  One over the fence, get out of here, I'm a big deal home run, and another tink, hit the fence, hauled ass around the bases, in the park homer.  I love him.  I told him he needs to join me on some of my speed work days so those become a constant instead of a rarity.  I think he'd rather just hit em over the fence.  Then he doesn't have to run the bases.  Ha.

Moving on.  April past 6 days ago, so it's probably time to review the month in running.  Yay.

Miles Ran:  71 miles (5 more than last month, which is kind of weak sauce.  but one of the runs I missed due to sickness was a long run.   next month will knock this month out of the park!)

Best (only) Race:  Washington Pavilion 5k.  New PR by 21 seconds and the first race the lover boy has been at for almost a year.  Whoo.

Highest mileage in a week:  20.6 for 2 weeks

Best new running purchase:  GARMIN.

Ok, this review was also lame sauce.

Tonight I did my last run before my 5k race on Saturday.  I have mixed feelings about this race.  I've PR-ed in the last 2 races I've done, and by significant amounts....48 seconds the first race, 21 seconds the second race.  But there was also significant time for improvement between each race.  8 weeks of training for the first race, 6 weeks of training for the second.  And two weeks before this one.  AND I haven't done any speed work since I'm trying to heal the ab.  I'm hoping to PR even if it's only by like 1 or 2 seconds.  Ha.

Tonight's run was an easy peasy 2 miles.  There was a chica in front of me on the sidewalk so I was trying to keep pace with her.  First miles clocked in at 8:36 and I was pooped.  Second mile I turned around and was hit by 20 mph winds.  Kill.  Me.  Now.  I can run against the wind with the best of them.  But why should I?  So I decided to take the last mile easy and clocked in at 9:11.  Total time 17:50 for a pace of 8:55.

the key to an "easy" run pace.....

....is biking for 11 miles the day before a run when you haven't biked for over 2 months.  Oh well, at least it got my legs to slow down.  My mind still thinks that any run 3 miles or less should be done FAST because it's a short run, and I like to go FAST.  Well the heavy heavy legs were not allowing that.  Seriously my quads seemed to weigh a hundred pounds and have no strength or energy to propel my body forward.  I did an easy 3 miles in 27:09 at 9:03 pace.  My Garmin is in my bag, so I'm going to try to recall my splits from memory, please don't add them in case they don't add up (I've had 2 Dos Equis [AHHHH Dos - Dos Equis....ooooh too funny]) in celebration of Cinco de Mayo and do not feel like doing simple mental math.  :)

1. 9:11
2. 8:57
3. 9:00

Did anyone watch Biggest Loser tonight? Ok I'm sure everyone did.  Did anyone else cry when every finalist crossed the finish line?  Because I sure did.  :)  Oooh, so excited for next week's episode.  In other exciting news, I remembered watching the season that Ali had one and being bummed that she weighed 20 lbs. less than me.  Well now we're the same (or I'm the same weight she was when she won the show) yay for no more squishy-Jeri.  :)

In other exciting, I-look-like-a-12-year-old-news, tonight the bf and I went to Chevy's to get some chips and queso to go along with our Dos Equis.  Taylor has to work super early, 5:30am, so going out was out of the question.  After my run I threw on sweats and went over to his place, because I didn't feel like messing with my bangs, I threw on one of his hats.  They had a police officer carding people to get into the "bar" side, which is where we needed to go to place our order, and he almost didn't let me in to the bar.  Argh.  I turn 26 this year...come on dude.  He even made the comment, "hmm kind of looks like you're trying to hide under that hat..."  To which I replied, ya it's because I look like poop.  And "don't worry we're just getting chips and cheese, and I KNOW I look old enough to do that."  Probably a good thing I didn't get arrested.  :p  jk.

I REALLY should stay up a little longer to upload a new playlist on my iPod but I'm just too darn tired, or the beer just made me tired, so I guess tomorrow's run will be day 12310239805098 of listening to Pink's Funhouse and Kelly Clarkson's All I Ever Wanted mix.  AHHHHH!  I may have ruined these CD's for my listening pleasure.  :(  Stupid lazy me.  :(

brats=great pre-run fuel

I had a great weekend and even greater training runs.  Friday night we went over to a friend's house to hang out before we hit up the bars, and the vino was flowing like wine.  YIKES.  But it was delicious and much needed after a ridiculously stressful work week.  We went out to a new bar in town where I begged and begged my boyfriend to dance with me and then threw a pout-fest when he wouldn't.  In his defense, no one was dancing.  And... I probably wasn't in any condition to dance.  Hah.

Saturday was spent lying around complaining about my horrible horrible headache.  I did manage to finally suck it up and go for my 4 mile run around 5pm, but only because Taylor was threatening to leave me at home for the night if I wasn't ready to go out at 7pm.  It was hot.  And sunny.  And windy.  And I had eaten 1/2 a qdoba burrito 6 or so hours before.  It was a part of the trail that I've never run on, so that did make it better.  It was supposed to be a "fast" 4 miles, but didn't really end up as such.  4 miles in 35:05 for a 8:47 pace.

1. 8:58
2. 8:52
3. 8:40
4. 8:33

Saturday night we went out and I stuck to small quantities of delicious Midori Sours (very little alcohol) and liters of water, knowing I had a long run to complete on Sunday.  Also knowing my liver could not handle wino night number two.  :)  We ended up leaving the bar early and coming home to watch Seven Pounds, which was awesome.

Sunday we woke up to the most beautiful spring day.  It was sunny, but breezy and coolish.  We decided to grill some brats for lunch.  I'm now convinced that this should be my pre-run meal.  Ha. Ok maybe not, but I had expected to have some serious digestive issues with that, and didn't at all.  My seven mile run was amazing.  I waited until 6pm to run, so it was probably in the upper 50's and overcast, but still warm/cool.  I honestly felt like I could run forever at the pace I was going out.  Which is great, because it's my 1/2 goal pace.  :)  I finished in 1:01:57 at 8:51 pace.

1. 9:19
2. 8:58
3. 8:49
4. 8:59
5. 8:51
6. 8:38
7. 8:21

It was a great strong run.  Followed by my favorite:  taco pizza night.  I also took a picture of our amazing pizzas to show you guys, but I was too too hungry to pause and find my camera.  We make it at least once a month though, so I'll make sure to snap it next month.  :)  All in all it was a great weekend of food and training runs, and I even managed to get a bit of a tan.  WHOO!

tempo run FAIL

There were a thousand reasons why my run sucked last night. To highlight a few:

• I ate a Milky Way for sustenance yesterday and that was all, my poor stomach still hates me from the dairy eaten on Wednesday. And no the Milky Way didn't help. MILKY way. I'm an idiot.
• It was cold, and 10pm, and dark, and I got scared running for the first time ever, it was weird.
• I ran a new/weird route that ended up being by a lot of bars and was constantly on the look out/slowdown, stop and wait for drivers who were leaving the bars and not paying attention to me.
• I accidentally turned my Garmin off for at least 3 minutes of one of my tempo-ed miles. UGH.
• The route I ran was ridiculously under lit (hense contributing to the scaredy cat-ness) and I couldn't check my pace on my watch without touching it to light up, which caused me to slow down or just not run fast all together, based on my splits.
• It was windy. No matter what direction I ran. Seriously. That's lame.
• AND I cut the run short because I SWORE there were people robbing my apartment. (there weren't).
  
  

Phew. With that off my chest, I can move on. I ended up running 3.62 miles (including my estimation when I was running HARD without being timed/distanced). In 33:05 (also slightly estimated). I tried to run the first mile slooooow at 10:08 and then wanted to do 2 miles around 8:20 pace. Nope. 8:40 & 8:40, cheers for consistency. Then wrapped up the remaining cool down .62 in 5:37 (because I thought I was being robbed.)

I think I'll just flip flop Wednesday and Thursday's runs because my times for Wednesday sure seemed a lot more tempo-ed. I like the word tempo-ed. Ha.

I'm ready for the weekend in a ridiculous way. Tonight is a rest day, so rest I shall. With a delicious glass of pinot noir.

To brighten up this already CHEERY post, I will include some photos for Foto Friday.

Taylor and I at my first 'Skers game last fall.

The whole crew tailgating.

And the cutest picture we've ever taken.

P.S. Our faces are sooo much skinnier now than in these pictures. Go us for getting back in shape!