hills, hills, hills

I did hills this morning, and they didn't kill me. [Insert pat on the back here.] In no way do I feel completely prepared for the Wild West Relay that's in....oh..17 days...but man I feel a heckuva lot better. This morning I had 5 miles of hills to do, so I set out on the route that I did two weeks ago except with an extra .5 mile added on (to up it to 5 miles total). I felt like a machine. Each time I would get to the bottom of the hill, I would look up, sigh internally, and before I knew it, I was at the top. It was the craziest thing. Perhaps I was still half asleep, but even so, I'll take it.

Close to the turnaround point was the high school track that I've been eyeing to do speedwork at (it's only a mile or so from my place, I ran from Tay's this morning). I decided to veer off course to check to see if I could get in. That place is locked up tighter than Fort Knox! I did spy an area of the fence that is a good foot off the ground, so I could crawl under if I REALLY wanted to, but I'm such a wuss when it comes to getting yelled at, I'm sure I won't. Plus, it's a Catholic school, so I'm fairly certain that intruding on their property would subject me to eternal damnation, and I'm just not sure if it's worth it. :)

On the way back through the hills, my iPod died (of course) and realized that despite how good I felt, I was breathing HARD. Of course hearing myself made me convince myself (slightly) that I was actually tired, even though I wasn't. Does anyone else like listening to their iPod to drown out their breathing? Because I definitely do. Yowsers.

I did the 5 miles in 47:08 for a pace of 9:26.
1. 9:33
2. 9:13 (!!)
3. 9:35 (part was spent running somewhat aimlessly around the track looking for an entrance)
4. 9:36
5. 9:09

I have an intern in my department that I've been training for the last month or so who is also a runner, training for his first marathon this fall. So of course, we spend the first chunk of our morning talking about our runs. When I told him what hills I ran, he didn't believe me! He was thoroughly impressed, and I, again, patted myself on the back. Hah.

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One of my personal goals for running is to do a race in every state. I know some of you crazy people are already on your way to becoming maniacs, but I just don't ever see myself getting that nutty about marathons (we'll see after I finally do one, I guess). But I'd love to do some half marathons in some cool locations that I've never visited, or randomly do a little 5k or 10k while in a different state for whatever reason. Part of this goal is being accomplished this fall/winter. In August, I'm doing the Wild West Relay, knocking Colorado off the list. And in December I'm doing the Dallas White Rock half marathon, crossing Texas off my list.

While looking at the leg maps for the WWR last night, I was reading the directions when I saw "Enter into Laramie county." Wait. Isn't Laramie in Wyoming? By George it is! I get to run from Colorado to Wyoming on my second leg of the race. Too cool. PLUS, that totally counts as a "race" in WY in my book. Two birds in one stone, I'd say. :)

In other news, I finally got back on the strength training boat last night with some push ups (35, holla!) next to the muscle machine aka the boyfriend, and some intense ab work. Both arms and abs sufficiently hurt today, so I'd say it was a success. I need to keep doing this, especially the ab work, because it seems to keep the ab pain away. A strong ab is a happy ab. I should totally make a shirt with a smiling ab muscle. My God I'm random....

Also, I had the MOST AMAZING dinner ever last night. Again I should've taken a photo but it just looked toooooooooo good to wait. All day I was craving avocado, so I basically planned the meal around getting me a healthy amount of avocado in my tummy. I ended up making a grilled wrap with smoked turkey breast, pepper jack cheese, a teeny tiny amount of ranch, tomatoes, and AVOCADOS all rolled up and pressed in my sweet panini machine. (Thanks Ma for giving this to me 4 Xmas' ago, I finally found it still in the box and use it all the time now!) Oh. My. God. This was amazing. Something about p-jack cheese and avocado together hits the spot EVERY time. The wrap was followed up by some super juicy watermelon. Pretty much the greatest dinner time experience of my life. I was probably patting myself on the back between bites. And by probably I mean, most definitely.

Oh hey. I just noticed that my run for today put me over my total mileage for June. And it's only the 21st. Hey-o. :)