Peace Out Morning + Yoga Update

Dear Morning Running,

I hear by give my official resignation. The heat is gone, and quite frankly my bed is now much more enticing than you are. It was a good run (punny!). I'm sure I'll see you again next summer.


xoxo,
Jerbear


As you may recall, back when I attempted and became a morning runner, I did it primarily to keep from melting into a puddle during after work runs/getting abducted running late-late at night. Now that it's in the 40's when 5:30-6 am rolls around, I figure I can throw in the towel. Plus, after work time will always be my favorite time to work out. I think 6 years of post-school practice will do that to a gal. I love running off my work day stress. And it's a great time to people watch.


In an update on the yoga challenge, I have yoga'd every day except for 3. I've found that the most enjoyable days are the ones that I set aside a good chunk of time rather than cramming in a short 15 minute session to "get it over with." Shocker, I know.



Last night was no different. After blogging, I went home to eat a couple of lemon poppy seed muffins that I baked post-run. Um YUM! And had plenty of time until Taylor would be back from softball. I found a new series that I haven't tried because it's 35 minutes long, and I usually don't have that long to work with. I did a YogAmazing Summer Flow series. It kicked my butt. Whoa! BUT, I did finally succeed in being able to do Crow Pose (aka Crane Pose). Seriously, after 3+ years of doing yoga (off and on, of course) I've never been able to do this pose.

Of course, Taylor walked in while I was doing the final stretching and meditative portion (savasana). Side note: Since this is the only part he ever sees me do, he's convinced that that's all yoga is. When I commented that my arms and shoulders are getting more defined, and I think yoga is the cause, he actually asked me how stretching was causing me to get buff. Turd.

Anyway, after I was done, I wanted to show off the new sweet pose that I could do, so I showed him a couple of times and CLEARLY he was impressed. Competitive beast that he also is, he decided to give it a try. First time he fell, second time I gave him some pointers and, shocker, he got up. Granted he was only up for a few seconds, but still. Hmph. I also showed him some harder parts of the series that I did/struggled with, and I think he finally has a grasp on how difficult yoga can be. Hopefully he's intrigued enough to try it with me sometime. :)

I've been searching for a yoga studio in town, and have a couple of promising prospects. There's a studio downtown that offers free classes this Friday, so I might check one out after work. It is considered an Intermediate class though, so I might call and see what Intermediate consists of, because embarrassing the heck out of myself will probably cause me to NEVER go back. Also, our new health insurance at work has a couple of gyms with deals of $20 off monthly membership if you attend 4x/month. One of them is an AMAZING gym, with pool, basketball courts, tons of fitness classes, etc. etc., which would be about $45/month. They offer 3 free trials for potential members, so I figure I can try some classes out there too.

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Also, I'm getting my hairs did tonight! Whoo. I'm pretty excited. I went more blonde this summer, and it's starting to look trash-tastic all grown out and such, so I'm going back to dark and beautiful. :) Perhaps I'll have some pics to share with you manana. More likely, I will forget to take any, and then will be forced to take some post-6 miles in the morning. Sweaty=sexy. :)

August in Review + Fall in August?

After checking the weather report before going to bed last night, I was kicking myself for not bringing running tights.  44 degrees at 6am?!?!  Um, that's cold.  It is still August, no?  When the alarm went off at 4:30am I felt like I hadn't even slept yet (damn you iced latte I drank at 2pm!!!)  I decided that I would attempt to get some shut eye, and would fore go Tay's softball awesomeness for the week and run after work.

What a beautiful day!  I may complain about the hot/humid of the summer and the cold/icey/snowy/windy of the winter, but I love me some fall!  And it definitely felt like fall.  The air had that crisp feel to it, and it was a perfect 69 degrees after work.  My legs definitely felt like I ran a half marathon on Saturday so I took it NICE and easy.  The first mile was a bit fast at 9:30, so I slowed it down, with miles 2-4 in the 9:45 range.  As always, the legs get restless, so the last 2 miles were around 9:30 again.  I ended with a pace of 9:36-9:38 (I looked at Garmin, but forgot exactly what it is, plus I forget to bring it with me to blog, wah wah).  

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August in Review

Total Mileage: 136.6 an increase from 130.4 last month. It probably would've been closer to 150+ but I skipped a few runs. Whoopsies.

Time spent:  21:09:52 Whoa, I almost spent a day running this month.  That's pretty cool.

Number of runs: 20.  2 Less than last month.  Eh.

Average run distance: 6.83

Highest weekly mileage: 35.8 this past week.

Favorite run: Mock half marathon. The run felt good, I finally broke the elusive 2 hour mark, and it got me way excited about the real thing in 13 days (but who's counting?)

Most Hardcore run(s): Three way tie between the 3 legs of the WWR. #1, #2, & #3. Altitude, hills (aka mountains), and in some cases wind. Uff da.

Favorite race: Wild West Relay. Duh! Not quite a race, but the closest thing to it this month.

[Mock] Half Marathon Report

Saturday morning I embarked on my longest training run to date:  13.1.  I decided to use it as a dress rehearsal/mock race so I know I have everything ready to go for the race in two weeks.  My goal for the race is to average at or below 9:00 mile pace.  For the training run, I was going to shoot for around 9:10 pace (2 hour HM).  I wanted to use the strategy I want to use for the race by breaking out the race into 4 sections running over pace, at pace, and slightly under pace.

I had wanted to start the run at 7:30am, as that's race start time, but my stomach had other ideas.  I honestly went to the bathroom around 10 times before leaving my apartment.  Mental note:  Fettucine alfredo is NOT a good dinner the night before long runs.  Even if you take lactase pills, your body will still be pissssssed.

When I got to the start, I realized it was way too cold to wear a tank and shorts.  For this race in the past, I've wore a light weight jacket with sleeves and tossed it to my mother around 4 miles.  I know the tank works for long runs (I've wore it on 11 miles and many shorter runs) so just decided to stick with the sleeves for the run.  So much for the dress rehearsal, eh?  I guess this is the point that I should've been serious about making Taylor practice cheering so I could shed the sleeves after the first few miles.

Ready, set, GO!  [Pretend shot gun!]  And I was off!  Within about 2 minutes of starting I realized I needed to use the bathroom, again.  And somewhat soon.  :(  The good thing about that "discomfort" is that it helped me from going out too fast.  Let me tell you, I've never scoped out the area so diligently for bright blue port-a-potties in my life!  I knew I would have an opportunity to use a rest room at about 5 miles in, but didn't know if I could wait that long.  LUCKILY (or somewhat unluckily) there was a port-a-potty next to a construction site around 2.5 miles.  First of all, eeew.  But second of all, thank GOD.  After departing the bano, I felt like I had an extra pep in my step and was on my way.  I took my first GU at the 3 mile point.

1. 9:26 

2. 9:27 

3. 9:29

The next couple of miles are my favorite of the race. I love our downtown area, and it is so beautiful when there are no cars, no people, just beautiful older buildings. I really wish I would've had my camera to attempt my hand at photography. While running, I saw 3 people waiting outside a repair shop, I said my typical, good morning.... and they started cheering and clapping for me! One of the guys was in a wheelchair, and he held out his hand for me to slap and told me to "go get em!" It was such a pick up, it was great. I think I smiled for the next couple miles after that exchange. Then after downtown it's on to Falls Park, which our city is named for. Here's a pic snapped later in the afternoon for your viewing pleasure.

I took my next GU right around the halfway point of 6.6 or 6.7???  The first time I spotted a water fountain, so I also snagged a couple of sips.  I was a little thirsty at this point.

4. 9:15 

5. 9:12 

6. 8:55

Once the time for Mile #6 popped up, I was a little shocked, I still thought I was running a 9:10-ish pace. I attempted to slow up just a little bit to keep some gas in the tank. At the halfway point my time was 1:01:30. I knew I only had to run 3 minutes faster the second half to get a 2 hour finish (which has been my goal for the last 4 HM that I've run). I also couldn't believe how quickly I had gotten to the halfway point. It definitely helped that the first 5 miles were on a different path then what I've been used to doing. Once I hit a little ways into mile 7 I was back on the familiar trail that I run for 90% of my runs. I took my last GU around 9.5 miles.

7. 8:45 

8. 8:56 

9. 8:44

I had passed a girl around mile 8 who was walking, so while I was snagging a sip of water at 9.5 with my GU she ran by the fountain. She was running at a quicker pace than me, so it was fun to have someone push me a little bit. I finally caught up to her and then she stopped to walk. Boring. :p I decided to make sure to keep her behind me, even if she did start up again. Normally during the last section of the run, I pick up the pace to BTTW, but I knew it wouldn't be smart to do that in a training run at this distance, so I tried to maintain the paces I had been running previously, as they were considerably under 9 minute pace. There 

was a red haired chica around mile 11 who just HAD be running a ways in front of me, so of course I had to catch her. Stinkin competitive brain. :p At Mile 12 I looked at my watch and it said 1:49, and I started 

tearing up, knowing that I would complete the last 1.1 miles in less than 11 minutes, and that I would FINALLY break the 2 hour mark that had been so far out of my reach in the past. :) It was around this point that I started noticing signs on the trail. Little did I know, there was a Healthy Heart walk that started and finished where I was planning on finishing my run (also the finish to the HM). It was a little congested, and I definitely got some looks for running amongst all the walkers. WHOOPSIES. :)  

10. 8:47 

11. 8:49 

12. 8:41 

13. 8:15 

.1 :47 (7:37 pace)

At 13.1 my watch read 1:57:33 for a pace of 8:58. :D I was probably the happiest girl at that point. The best part was that I still had gas in the tank. I could've ran probably another 2-3 miles at the same pace. OR I could've picked up the pace during the last 4 miles of the race. Also, since this was my race goal, it gave me something else to shoot for. By the way, unofficial PR by 10 minutes. :p Hope to make the ACTUAL PR even greater. :)

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After ice bathing and showering, Taylor and I grabbed some Subway sandwiches and then headed to Falls Park. It was such a beautiful day, although it felt way too much like fall already. I got some great pics of the Falls and the lover boy, so please enjoy. :)

my goodness he's cute, no?  :)

Easy (Read: Boring) Run + Crappy Television + Foto Friday

Oh my goodness. I was bragging up a storm all summer because I stopped watching a ton of the crappy shows that I used to watch. Then, wtf? All the other good ones started to come back on, and before I knew it, I had a "television program schedule" to adhere to. I know it's only going to get worse as more of the fall lineup starts up, but I'm already overwhelmed! Top Chef makes me an alcoholic (I like to have a glass of vino while watching it), Project Runway makes me think I'm way craftier than I really am, and I have a list of artsy projects as long as my arm to start doing. Entourage makes me mad that none of my friends are hotty celebs that let me live off their mad moolah and Weeds makes me want to start selling drugs and have a Mexican drug cartels baby.... wait. what?!? Scratch that.

I've already picked my top 3 for Top Chef, and once I watch last night's episode of Project Runway (currently chilling on the DVR) I'll probably be able to narrow down the winner to two people. I'm just THAT. GOOD. at reality television, people. It's a gift.

Ok, on to things that won't rot your brain. :) I got up and did a tedious 5 miles today. It was nothing to write home about. There was this really beautiful/eerie fog off in the distance on the trail that I was running in. Also, the river had a layer of fog rolling off of it, which I've never seen before. Otherwise it was bor-ing. I kept it slow to save the legs for manana. I did 5.05 miles in 48:46 for a pace of 9:40.

**Last night I did about 10 minutes of yoga to keep the streak (minus a day of failure) going.**

Tonight I'm mentally preparing myself for my mock half marathon tomorrow morning. WHOO!! I'm so excited. I kind of wish that the real half was tomorrow (note to self: 12 weeks is TOO LONG for a half training schedule). I'm going to wake up early to eat, and then start the run at 7:30am. I'm also using this as a dress rehearsal, although it's highly unnecessary. I'm wearing the sweet outfit in the above picture. [sidenote: do you love my new header? total props to Amanda at Run to Finish for snapping the way cool pic on our WWR adventure] It's probably my favorite running outfit ever, probably doesn't hurt that the top is my fave color ever. I'm going to practice GU-ing (totally a verb, no? or would that be adverb? I used to be so good at this stuff....) and will conveniently end up one block away from my apartment. At which point I will walk the block to cool down, hop in the ice bath, then wake up sleeping beauty to take me to my car (roughly 13.1 miles away). :)

In honor of all the calories I'll be burning tomorrow, we're going to hit up Olive Garden tonight. Never-ending pasta bowl? Don't mind if I DO! Then, I think we're going to head to the cheap theater for a movie. $3 you can't go wrong, I kind of want to do a double feature. Quick, what would be your choice: Funny People (love me some Seth Rogan), (500) Days of Summer (seriously want to make Zooey my GF), UP, Star Trek, or Bruno? I would see all 5, especially for $3. Holy crap?!?! I just realized we're having a real life date night tonight. Go us! :p

For Foto Friday, please enjoy some pics from last weekends BFFF extravaganza.

Me and the BF. Ready to Riverboat Days it up!
Me and my BFFF.
One of these days we WILL do a race together...she has the running bug, I can tell....

Insert Fail Whale Here

Oh hey....well that actually worked. To say that I was nervous about this morning's workout would be an understatement. It's probably the workout that seemed the most "scary" out of all of them when I clicked print back in June. Speedwork: 8 miles (WTF?!?!?!? For serious???) 4 x 1600 @ 7:37, with 800 m recovery and 1 mile warm up, 1 mile cool down.

In my world, 8 miles and speed work do NOT go together. Last night I had am A-MA-ZING meal for fuel for the run. Speaking of, after I was having my glass of Pinot Noir for dessert, I remembered that I had promised pics of my sweet dinner. Whoopsies. Have no fear, I managed to spill most of the glass of wine on the floor after this realization. No use crying over spilled wine!!! Umm...unless it's the last of your wine...and your carpet is white. Then cry. I ate grilled salmon, with a ginormo salad with 1/4 of an avocado and some mango pieces on a huge bed of lettuce. Unfortunately, SOMEONE removed the lid from the dressing, so I ended up with waaaaaaaaaaay too much dressing on my delicious little salad, so I just added more lettuce to even it out. :p

I woke up this morning at 7:45am to get psyched for my run. I twittered, facebooked, checked my email, checked the weather (60 degrees, cool, fabulous) until I finally kicked my butt out the door.

My warm up mile was great! Haha. I felt like I was going much slower than my split showed, but legs felt fairly good, minus some quads pain/tenderness that was still lingering from Tuesday's Speedy Seven. My first "fast" mile was good. Every time I looked at my pace, it was showing slightly over 7 minute miles. I actually thought I was going to come in under my goal pace (I gave myself 7:37-7:47). This is definitely a pace that I don't practice much (or haven't lately) as this is around my 5k pace, and even when I was doing 5k training I was either running much faster than this (400 repeats) or slowerfor long runs/easy runs. Somehow my body must've felt the pace, because I came in right at 7:37. Well look at that. :)

The 1/2 mile recovery jog in between HURT. My quads were sooooooo tight. I got started on Mile repeat #2. It was definitely more difficult to maintain the pace that felt pretty strong the repeat before, but I still managed to come in under time, 7:44. During the last quarter mile of this, I vowed to myself that if I could finish this mile in the goal time, I would be done doing my mile repeats, and I was true to my word.

I decided to switch and do 4 x 800 with 400 jog in between them. I did one and almost died. :( I did the 800 at a 7:53 pace and I hurt. The whole time I was running this 800 I had convinced myself I was going to injure myself by continuing. I pulled my right quad the first indoor track meet of the year in high school my junior year and was out for 8 weeks, basically the whole season. I really freaked myself out and decided just to finish the rest of the 8 miles so I could be on track for my monthly mileage goal (> last months: 130).

I felt like I was crawling, but was still running at a decent clip (????). I guess that will happen when you're running that fast of repeats, but still. I ended up doing another 1.3 mile cooldown (??) before calling it quits, vowing to run my Tuesday easy 6 on Monday to get my miles in. :)

I ended up doing 5.6 miles in 48:28 for a pace of 8:40.

1. Warmup 9:22
2. Interval #1 7:37
.50 Recovery 4:50 (9:50 pace)
3.5 Interval #2 7:44
.28 Recovery (meant to do .25 but forgot to look @ the clock) 2:43 (9:43 pace)
.50 Interval #2 1/2 3:57 (7:54 pace)
4.29-5.6 Cooldown 1 mile--9:22, .31--2:50 (9:09 pace)

Sooo that was confusing to type, so good luck if you're actually trying to understand it.

I think this training run gives me some valuable information to consider when I'm trying to figure out my December 1/2 marathon training plan. If a training session sounds TOO HARD, I will psych myself out of doing it. It should be just challenging enough to get me to fight to conquer it, not cower in the corner and quit. Also, 4 x 1600 speed repeats? Nada. I'm not even sure how this sort of a training run would be relevant for my race. I think 1600 m repeats are good, but 4 is a bit daunting. I think it would've been better if I set out to do 2 x 1600 and 2 x 800. Maybe thrown in some 400 for variety.

I'm also slightly concerned because my mileage had been increasing by about 10% each week, but since I've missed/cut short almost one run a week since the WWR, I'm currently running just shy of 30 miles/week. This week has 38 (now only 35.6 b/c of Quitter McGee). Should I adjust my mileage on some easy runs in the next two weeks so I'm not increasing by that much? If I get hurt in the final two weeks I'm going to be maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. :p

Mock half marathon on Saturday! Super pumped, as I've never ran farther than 12 miles as a training run, and I'm going to run the race route (a race I've ran 4 other times, so I'm fairly familiar with). I might even make Taylor come out to do some mock-cheering practice.

Oh ya, go here http://chicrunner.com/ to get info. on how to win a sweet iFitness belt. Also, if I don't win, this would be an excellent gift for Xmas/Birthday for me. (is anyone else noticing how this blog is becoming a gift wishlist for me? hmmm... :p)

12 miles in 12 hours. Not too shabby.

And just like that, I'm back on track. Moments after clicking "publish" last night, I hit the yoga mat for some quick downdogs, plank poses, child's (children's?) poses, and needle poses. It was a flow series that I did a zillion times and had committed to memory. Then, I was snoozing.

When the alarm went off this morning, I didn't even have the desire to hit snooze. Who am I? I practically popped out of bed and was ready to go. I think I'm learning throughout this training that the more variety in the schedule, the better. If I have to do another 6 mile easy run, I'll probably go insanity bananas. But 7 miles at a quicker clip, followed up with 5 easy miles? That sounds like fun!

I was out the door around 5:45am and you would've thought it was the middle of the night. The sky was lit up with stars, and it was beautiful. Since I live in the city, I usually don't get the pleasure of seeing the stars, so it was great. I picked out the big dipper, and pretty much kept my eyes on the sky until they started to disappear.

I almost got mowed down by a biker (S.O.B.) who was biking on the left side of the trail under a bridge. He yelled out "whoa!" before veering away from me, as if it was somehow my fault. Yes, I understand that it's early morning (at this point the sun had come up enough to see fairly well), but I'm wearing a bright WHITE shirt, and if you were biking on YOUR SIDE of the trail, we wouldn't even have a problem. So whoa, yourself.

Next up, I ran by Spencer Pratt this morning. Not sure why he was on the bike trails in SoDak, but he appeared to be struggling. No Heidi in tow, which is surprising, because I thought they were Siamese twins...hmm.. No, but seriously. There is a kid that went to the nearby college who played on the tennis team. I dated a tennis player from my school, and was best friends with him still after we weren't dating, so I attended many a tennis match in my day. When the Hills came on tv, I literally yelled at the tv, "Holy crap!! Isn't that ____ _____ who plays tennis for ______?" Turns out it wasn't (Shocker) but a lot of people think they could be twinsies.

Shortly after passing one half of Speidi, I noticed a guy running about 200-300 meters ahead of me on the trail. Being the competitive gal that I am, I decided we were going to race (no sense telling him about the contest, that would take away the fun!) At this point I had about 2 miles left of my run, and there are a couple places for him to turn off on the trail during this 2 miles, not to mention that he could turn around at any given point. It became a game: Catch up to him, but keep a steady pace in the process. You must beat him before he stops/turns off the trail/turns around, but you mustn't speed up your pace in the process.

Did I win? Of course I did. :) And guess who it was. None other than Mullet Man! He was rocking the same biker short under short gym short look, mullet flying in the breeze, with a SWEET "Science Rules" t-shirt on. I sort of wanted to quiz him on some science information as I ran by, but I decided not to. Within 30 feet of me passing him, he left the trail. Just think, if I would've been 30 feet slower, I would started the day with an L. Phew. Close one. Thanks for the race Mullet Man. Until we meet again.....

The run ended up pretty great (and obviously entertaining). I did 5 miles in 46:44 for a pace of 9:21 (goal pace 9:35).
1. 9:37
2. 9:23
3. 9:24
4. 9:15 (Mullet Man race mile)
5. 9:03

Post-run I stretched and did some Stress Management yoga. I reasoned that I might be more apt to do situps and pushups tonight if I didn't have 20-30 minutes of yoga looming over my head. I also have a delicious dinner swarming in my head, so perhaps I'll treat you to some photos on my post tomorrow instead of tedious text. Oh alliteration, I heart you.

Food Poisoning Renders You Incapable of Running; Lesson Learned

For those of you that were concerned that I was dead after a weekend of debauchery, rest assured, I'm still alive and kicking.  I've taken the longest running hiatus since starting up running again in January with Saturday through Monday without a single run done.  When I woke up to a horrible thunder/lightning storm this morning, I thought it was going to be another day chalked up to my slackertude.

But let me back up.  Do you remember the "raging" birthday party I was to attend on Friday night?  The one that I moved my long run for to attend and celebrate?  Um...ya.  Definitely a bit more lowkey than we anticipated.  Most people had 1-2 bevs, and we played board games.  Now I love me some board games (another area of my life where I'm uber competitive, imagine that) but not exactly the kind of evening you would need to move a long run for.  At 10pm, everyone started trickling off to their bedrooms for "sleepy time."  I'm sorry, what!?!?!?  Taylor and I soldiered on, drinking some delish beer and watching Harry Potter 5.  Sidenote:  Any night with HP and delish beer is ALWAYS a night well spent.

Friday night marked night #1 without any sleep.  Taylor's sis has a newborn, and the poor thing didn't feel well.  I think I maybe got 2 hours of sleep on and off.  Let me say this now:  best.  birth.  control.  ever.

Saturday we got up bright and early and got ready to head to Yankton.  For some reason, I totally for about doing my daily yoga.  :(  Fail #1 for the weekend.  I thought about doing some down dogs post-bar, but figured that wouldn't be in my best interest.  We went to Riverboat Days (Yankton's summer time festival) and meet up with my best friend, her boyfriend, and one of Tay's best friends was going to meet us there also.  We spent some of the afternoon wandering around the arts and crafts, and eyeing the deliciousy greasy food.

For dinner, we decided to hit the vendors, HARD.  For starters, I had some cheese curds.  I love me some cheese curds, so I figured they would be worth the impending digestive issues.  Next round was a couple bites of Taylor's gyros.  (Fail #2 of the weekend, as you'll see later.)  Sheana and I decided to split a deep-fried Snickers, my first, but have been craving one (Can you crave something you've never had?) since Glenn mentioned having one not too far back.  It was ok.  I was slightly disappointed though.  The batter it was fried in wasn't that great, so I ended up eating a melted Snickers.  Ha.  Then the boys bought some funnel cakes.  One bite lead to half of a funnel cake.  Whoopsies.  Sheans and I took the annual rbd-funnel-cake-powdered-sugar-mustache photos.  Almost as good as the inaugural year.

RBD 09.

RBD 04.

I had a few drinks throughout the day/evening, but not too terribly many, keeping in mind that I had a speed workout to do Sunday night.  I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst stomach cramps of my life.  I felt like I could've been throwing up while I was going to the bathroom.  (TMI?)  It was horrible.  Usually when I eat dairy and get sick in a somewhat similar fashion, I feel better as soon as the dairy is out of my system.  I still felt horrible after, and ended up make 2 more trips to the bathroom throughout the night.  I was struggling.

Sunday we swung through my hometown to see my pops as it was his 60th birthday.  Whoot whoot!  Happy birthday Papa!!  This is one of my favorite pics of me and my dad from when I was 6?  That's also my favorite dog ever, Buck.  He was my best friend.  Awww.

I had planned on doing my run Sunday night, but my stomach never felt quite right.  Plus, I didn't realize how early it's getting dark-dark out.  9pm it was pitch black out.  Summer come back!!!  Luckily I did manage to do some yoga on Sunday to get back on track for my streak.  I did a heart opening series that left my shoulders/neck SORE.  I must not be doing the poses properly.  A lot of you have asked what I've been doing for my yoga.  I've been downloading YogAmazing podcasts from iTunes.  They're 20-30 minutes long and 9/10 I like them a lot.

Monday was a rest day from running so I did some yoga for neck/shoulders to loosen them up from Sunday.  Taylor started his fall league for softball, so yet another day went by without running.

This morning as the alarm went off, I noticed a huge bolt of lightning outside my window.  That's all I needed to reset my alarm for 6:45am.  This girl does NOT like lightning.  She does, however, like sleep.  After hitting snooze for about 25 minutes I finally crawled out of bed and got ready for work.  Skipping morning yoga.  (Is anyone else seeing a trend here?  Lazy butt!)

As soon as I got to work I told myself that I was running after work, no matter what.  Luckily it looked like the weather was going to cooperate.  I had 6 easy to do today and tomorrow, and knew that would bore me, so I did 7 today and will do 5 tomorrow.  I don't know why I hate the 6 mile distance, but I do.

I started off running and thought I was going at my usual "easy" pace.  When the first mile beeped in, I realized that was not the case.  Who knew?  The legs needed a 3 day hiatus to feel fresh as a daisy.  I decided to run as quick as the legs wanted to without feeling like I was pushing the pace.  I was pretty happy about the results.  Mile 6 my quads started burning, but other than that, I felt great.  I'm guessing I was running with better form (hence the faster time) and actually lifting my legs, causing the quads to be more tired.  Craziness.

I did the 7 miles in 1:01:46 for a pace of 8:49.

1. 9:07 
2. 8:49 
3. 8:57 
4. 8:47 
5. 8:45 
6. 8:50 
7. 8:28 

Now I'm back on track, and have the motivation I need to stop skipping runs:  I have to do all my runs through the end of the month to have more miles than last month.  Can't be a loser for August!

Whoa, sorry for the marathon of a catch up post.