5 days

That's not long.... at all.

Yikes.

Lots of thoughts are running (ha, no pun intended) through my head right now.  More emotions than I'm used to having all at once.  Life at school lately has been overwhelming too, so my brain is currently freaking out.

That's about all I can process at the moment.  Prayers would be appreciated :)

I did get to have dinner with Beth tonight (the one who talked me into running the half marathon).  She ended up getting plantars faciitis a few weeks ago and can't come this weekend because she can't run :(  BIG bummer.  But she was able to give me some inside scoop of race day and LOTS of encouragement.  I'm very thankful for her!

Here's a picture of us at a wedding a few weeks ago

More updates to come as the week progresses!

Running with 22,999 other people will be interesting!  Maybe "running with the crowd" is a good motto to go with this weekend :)

Just Keep Swimming

....Just keep swimming... Just keep swimming...

Gotta love Finding Nemo.

Today my foot is feeling a little bit better.  I don't feel pain in every step, so we're making progress.

Decided to swim tonight to do some cardio.  Ended up swimming a mile.  Note: It took me FOUR times as long to swim a mile than it does to run one, but it is much more difficult!  Considering I haven't swam in quite some time, it is pretty impressive I made it that far.  I will contribute it to my running legs and cardio endurance ;)  My arms were dying though.  It's funny because when I swam in college, I got most of my power from my arms vs. my legs... and now the opposite is true.  Dee claims I'm truly a runner now because of that fact!

Today I was reminded why Swimming > Running.
1)  You can't tell you're sweating.
2) You don't smell like sweat when you finish.  (You just smell like chlorine which is much more pleasant).
3)  You get to float and glide through the water.
4)  I felt more "cleansed" after swimming.  No, not because I was in a big pool of water, but I feel like my veins got cleansed from lots of blood circulation because swimming uses all of your muscles.  Kind of hard to explain.
5)  Brought back lots of Greensboro College swim team memories!

So, once again, I will be VERY excited when these next 2 weeks are over and I can do exercises other than running!

Yesterday at church, I ran into a friend who is in PT school right now.  She was in town for the weekend and I hadn't seen her in a while.  She asked me about how my foot was doing, and I gave her the scoop and explained what was going on.  After church, she looked at my foot and gave me some exercises/stretches/etc for me to do between now and the race.  God is good!  She said that reality is it will come back during the race, but at that point to push through it.  Until then, I'm not supposed to over-do it.  Hence, why I swam today.  I might try and run again on Thursday... we'll see.  I'm signed up to run a 5k on Sunday... we'll see what happens between now and then because I don't want to make it worse again.

Friends who have done similar races keep reminding me that since I've done 10 miles, I should be fine for the half marathon.  I am trying to keep reminding myself of that!

I will leave you with some pictures from the Greensboro College Swim Team days....

Stuart and Mom at one of my swim meets.

Jo!  Rockin the wet curly hair.

At the championship swim meet - with Alex.

That's me swimming the butterfly.

And again... I clearly remember this race because I came from behind and beat our rival team in the lane beside me!

Sharon and Mica

Yay some of the team! Go GC Pride!

No long run this weekend

:(

My foot still hurts, even when I am just walking around.  Being a teacher doesn't help this situation, in that I'm on my feet all day long!  I did wear my tennis shoes to work this week, and that did make a difference.

I talked to a family friend, Alex, who has done multiple marathons, and he said that the best thing to do is rest and ice it.  Running this weekend would just get it inflamed again and we'd be back at square one.  He said glitches like this are expected during training.

It's pretty frustrating because we are so close to the race.  I know it will go away by then, but I was looking forward to being able to run this weekend.  Oooh well!  I might try and go swim today to release all this energy I have built up since I haven't been running.  We'll see.

Alex said that once it healed, I would just pick up where my training plan says I should be that day, and not to try and make up for the miles I didn't do.  Good to know.  He also said that since I've hit 10 miles, that I should be fine in terms of being able to do the race.  That did make me feel better (especially coming from him!).

Well, one perk that came out of all of this is that I got to sleep in this morning and have a lazy Saturday morning.  Can't tell you the last time that happened because for the past couple months I've been running each Saturday  morning!

Time to go drink a cup of coffee :)

Stumbling Block #2

#1 was shin splints a few weeks ago.  Thankfully icing those each night has made a HUGE difference and I haven't had any problems since.

#2 occurred after this weekend's 10 mile run.  I did something to the muscle that goes from my big toe under the ball of my foot... therefore, every step hurts.  It didn't start hurting until Sunday.

Here's what it is.....
http://www.foot.com/info/cond_sesamoiditis.jsp



and yes.... that BRIGHT red area is a good indication of the pain it creates :(  From the list of things that says causes it, I'm going to go with the increased activity (aka the 10 miles).  And I might have overstretched it afterwards.

I looked this up today and found out what it was... wish I would have looked it up sooner.  I made the decision to try and run yesterday... only made it 3 miles because it hurt a lot towards the end.  Yeah, definitely shouldn't have done that.  My theory in going was that maybe running would toughen it up. Also, I tend to lose my running momentum if I don't run every day, so I was afraid going more than 3 days without running would throw me off.  Ummm yeah, should have ignored that.

So I'm currently icing and don't plan to try and run again until Saturday.  The plan is 12 miles, and I was all excited to do it because it's our last long run until the race.  We'll see.

I'm just bummed because we are SOOOO incredibly close to the race (relatively speaking) and I've been doing so well.  Grrrr.

Praying the icing helps and the pain goes away ASAP.

Cartoon

Given to me today by one of my co-workers, hahah.

10 miles!!!

Successfully ran 10 MILES today!! Eeeek!  How crazy is that?!

Went to a new trail today with Patty.  Here's a pic (even though it doesn't do it justice!  The leaves were so pretty!):

Patty joined me for the first 6 miles, and then she had to leave because she had other plans today.  But I definitely enjoyed her company :)  Patty has lots of stories, so she distracted me from thinking about how far we were running!

Miles 5/6/7 were difficult to get through.  So I walked a few minutes, had a snack, drank some Gatorade, and regrouped.  That was a good move because it got me through the second half of the run.

This trail is a paved trail that is covered in dirt, so it's a soft impact when you run.  Bicycles, runners, walkers,  and HORSES are allowed on the trail.  I passed a total of 5 horses in the course of my 2 hour run.  They were beautiful!  But that also meant there were big piles of horse poop, so I had to be careful ;)

This trail is in the middle of nowhere, but I came across this sign...

Ummmmmmmmmmm....................?!?!?

Come to find out there is a driving range that backs up to the trail.  Thankfully I didn't encounter any flying golf balls!

Well, we are exactly 3 weeks away from the race.  After finishing today's run, I thought to myself, I could do 3 more miles after this!  Today's run made me feel better about being able to accomplish the half marathon.  And I've been pretty consistent with my average mile pace, so if I stick to that, I should do pretty well with my overall time (although my ONLY goal is to finish!).

As I was walking to my car after the run, I could just feel my leg muscles tightening like WOAH.  I did a lot of stretching, but I have a feeling I'm going to be pretty sore tomorrow!

Total Mileage

I looked back over my blog and added up how many miles I've run since July 1.

135 miles!!!

WOAH BUDDY!

That's just ridiculous.

22 more days!

Things that occurred during today's run...

1)...Ran through a swarm of mosquitoes/gnats... inhaled one in my nose AND got one in my eye.... simultaneously.
2)...Passed a man riding a UNICYCLE!  Yep.  He was going so fast I wasn't able to get out my phone to take a picture fast enough.  It was quite a sight.

Planned to run 6 miles today.  I had some things to do after school, so I left later than anticipated... meaning a later start to running.... meaning it got dark before my run was over :(  So I only ended up doing 4.5 miles.  I'm kind of bummed because I was on a roll and definitely could have kept going that last little bit, but I made the "smart adult decision" to stop ;)

And now it's bedtime.  I'm not gonna lie... I will be THRILLED when this training is over because hopefully I won't be as tired (all the time) like I am now!  And it's a big time commitment, so I will be happy to have 2 more free nights each week :)

Pumpkin

So this has NOTHING to do with running.

But it's fall, and so pumpkins are in style.....

So here I am rocking the pumpkin look back when I was about 3 :)



That's all.

Yep.

New Gear

Rockin' the water belt! Now I really do look like a hardcore runner ;)

Don't lie... I know you're jealous and you want one.

Ran five miles today with the belt. It took me the first two miles to figure out the best way to wear it (there are a couple options)! But it's nice and handy-  holds my water, keys, phone, etc.  And you don't even notice it's there after a while.

So, I usually run on Tuesdays, but apparently it's supposed to rain a lot tomorrow, so I went today.  Now I remember why I wait till Tuesday to run- I'm still recovering from the looooong run on Saturday. My legs felt SO heavy today! But we made it :)

8 MILES

Katie and I ran EIGHT MILES this morning!!!

EIGHT MILES!

EIGHT MILES!

Can you tell I'm excited?! ;)

I'm still in shock we did that many!! We decided this was quite an accomplishment :) It boosted my confidence in that the half would only be five more miles. So doing OVER half of the race distance made me feel better about this whole crazy idea I had of running a half marathon.

My shins didn't bother me much at all until the end of the run. I iced them the past two days (and after my run today) and it made a huge difference :) So hopefully if I continue that, it will all be good!

And since Katie and I were so proud of ourselves, I said we had to document the moment :) Oh, and we matched pink shirts- unplanned!

We. Are. Awesome.
:)

Problem

I'm starting to get shin splints :(  My brother has had them, so he gave me some exercises to do, and then my exercise sports science friends told me to do ice cup massages.  Hopefully this will help.

They started over the past week or so and they'd only hurt every now and then, and going up/down stairs.  Now it's slowly starting to creep into my running more. Not good.  I did run 4 miles today, and it was a little painful.

I just have to make it through ONE MORE MONTH of training.  Thank goodness.  I've been running regularly since July, and to be honest, I'm just about tired of running during the week. It's more of the forcing myself to go run during the week nights so I can make it through my weekend long run.  Stuff at work is picking up and it's getting dark earlier... so a perfect scenario to not go run.  But I'm a person that if I don't go run, I will feel guilty, and I know I will have to pay for it the next time I run because it will be harder.  Ughhhhh.  I was warned that this feeling would surface about this time... Gotta find a way to plug through it.

Plan is to run 8 miles on Saturday with Katie and Patty.  I do know that going with them will give me some motivation.

Time to go ice the shins!

Gnat Attack

5 miles yesterday!

Two things I learned yesterday:

1)  A really bad day can result in a really good run.

2) If you see you're about to run through a swam of gnats, close your eyes and your mouth.

• I got a gnat in my eye.
• I'm pretty sure I swallowed one.
• Gnats stick to sweat.  

Yep.  It's gross.  But it's reality.

I Survived the 10k!

(That's 6 miles, in case you were wondering!)

Wahooooooooo!!! 

The race was to raise money for the Wake Med Children's Hospital in Raleigh, NC.  So the picture above is me after the race with the hospital mascot!  It's kind of cool that this is the race I ended up doing because my brother, Stuart, was at Wake Med for 2 weeks in ICU his senior year of high school after he had a heat stroke.  Everyone who worked at the hospital was awesome and all of the doctors and nurses took good care of him, and now he is back to himself 100% with no internal damage :)  God is good!

Oh, and my brother and I were both born at that hospital :)

I ran the race today with Patty (right) and Katie (middle):

This is before the race - We were glowing!

They are both running the half marathon with me, and this is the first race I had done with them.  They were such a big help because with it being my first race, they helped me with all the pre-race stuff and giving me the scoop!  We decided to run the race on intervals of 3 run, 1 walk - which is what I was used to.  Katie is like me, and is planning to run the half in intervals.  Patty is one who just likes to go :)  Patty gets EXTRA friend points today because she ran the intervals with us (and she is not a fan of intervals).   So we all crossed the finish line together :) 

Running the race wasn't too bad.  The first mile is always hard, but after that, we were on a roll.  The race was downtown and we ran around a big loop twice.  We had nice convos as we went on our way and had a good time!

And might I add..... we ran by the Krispy Kreme with the HOT sign on... not once.... but TWICE!  Ooooooooooooh the temptation was SO mean.  Smelling them, but couldn't eat them.  Not fair.

We successfully finished the race, and there were a lot of post-race activities and booths set up by various groups.  We got some water and delicious muffins (sponsored Sweet Tomatoes - yum!), and then as we were wandering around the block we found these...................

CUPCAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And they were delcious :)

We weren't excited at all....

Maybe if we would have known there were cupcakes at the end, we might have run a little faster ;)

I'll end this post with the picture of us with the most famous person there today:

SCOOBY DOO!  We found you!

5.2

This past Thursday I ended up running a little over five miles (5.2 to be exact).  I was at a teacher conference all week, and on our way home we stopped at a southern cooking restaurant and I ate chicken tenders, mac and cheese, green beans, and a biscuit... or two.  MMM comfort food.  I think I'm going to blame that for my run not going as well as I wanted.

As I made my way around, I was not being consistent about my intervals. I walked more than normal and ran less, haha.  I just wasn't feeling it.  I was going to stop after 4 miles, but then I get a text from my friend Patty, who is doing the race with me.  The text was about running, so it gave me the little extra push to go one more mile, which I knew I needed to do (especially with the 10k this weekend).

And then it got dark and it was time to go home :)