I have no explanation here!

Just got back in from a 2 mile run, and it was just like "old times". Much, much easier. Not really sure why that is. I ran it at 11:30 pace, 2 miles straight with no stopping. But it was just like when I was running a lot before, much easier. hmm... What the heck is going on? I was struggling so much last week, so why it is all the sudden not such a struggle?

Well, we'll see what develops the next couple of weeks. I still have never ran over 3 miles and yet I intend on doing a 4 1/2 miler in 4 weeks. I'm pretty nutty! :)

And the results are in!

Well, the rain managed to stay at bay long enough for the race last night. It started pouring right before the race and my racing buddy questioned me once again, "Are you sure we want to do this?" To which I answered, heck yah! And I'm so glad we did because it turned out to be a beautiful, cool, albeit wet night for a run.

Did pretty well except for the last mile I was feeling it pretty hard, and took a couple of walking "breaks". Overall, my time improved from a 11:33 mile in September to a 11:04 mile last night! Yippee! Which means I was hauling ass the first couple of miles!

So this was a 3 mile run, not 3.1 like the previous two 5K's I did. My finish time was 33:14 but when you adjust it for a 3.1 finish time, it would have been 34:29 as compared to 35:53 in September. Which means I shaved another minute and a half off my time. ROCK N ROLL!

Next Up: The Drumstick Dash on Thanksgiving morning. I can't believe I'm committing myself to this! It's 4.5 miles - UGH. So I've never run more than 3 miles, and I'm crazy enough to try this in 4 weeks!

Bring it on, baby, bring it on!

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

Man, oh man, running is hard! Why am i doing this again? I am still struggling a little bit and i have to remind myself that i did take 3 weeks off for my ankle so i've got to give it time to work back up to where i was before.

i am definitely faster and stronger, but just cardio wise, i guess, i am dying out there! Just did 2 miles but it was a toughy! It was really windy outside which makes it harder. I remember just before i took the ankle hiatus doing a 2 miler and thinking how "easy" it was getting. What happened to that girl?

A little cool out today with the wind and all, so I'm thinking about how "fun" (not!) it will be this winter. And speaking of weather, the forecast for Friday is rain, scattered showers. The race day. hmm... running in the rain, 50 degrees at 7 pm in the dark... so we'll see if i actually run Friday night.

My gosh, I'm whining a lot today. Get over yourself, girl! Suck it up! :)

6 days until the race!

Only 6 more days until the next race! I only have 2 runs scheduled between now & then. The running was a little tough this last week for some reason. So hopefully I can pull this off! I just keep telling myself that I've done this before, and I've run that distance before plenty of times when I was in worse shape than I am now.

Still going real easy on the ankle. It's reminding me that it's still sensitive, so definitely I have to be cautious. I have my sights on a 4.5 mile Thanksgiving run, so if all goes well on Friday, I'll be signing up for that as well.

Running Too Fast?

Okay, so am I running too fast? It seems like I am really running fast. Actually, I timed myself tonight and the first mile was 2 minutes per mile faster than my race pace (taken from the last 5K). I simply cannot maintain that pace for the entire 3 miles. In fact, I couldn't seem to do 2 miles tonight like I'd planned and wound up settling for 1.5 miles instead.

I really need to work at pacing myself and this has never been an issue before. hhmmm... I know when I was running on the treadmill a lot before, it seems to help me keep an even pace because it trained me to run at the same speed for the entire time. But my pace is even... it's just FAST! too fast? That's just crazy! Who'd have ever thunk it?

And they were never heard from again...

Well, our little trip to the park turned into quite an adventure. Thinking we'd take a nice easy hike, see the water fall, then hike out and have a nice lunch, all in about 2 hours, we set out happily into the park. The trail we chose started off nice enough with spectacular views along the edge of the extremely steep, extremely deep ravine. As we progressed, however, the trail became narrower, and began to slope to the left (toward the ravine) - yikes!

We eventually came to a fork and decided to take the path which led down to the riverbed. Now the trail became very steep - straight downward! And it was covered with all manner of acorns and dried leaves making it extremely slippery, with the edge of the canyon only inches away!

Despite the fears of sliding to the bottom, we did manage to make our way safely to the dried up river bed, only to find it was not the nice flat riverbeds I've hiked before, but rather laden with huge boulders, pebbles, medium sized rocks, and everything in between. Some of the rocks would move when you stepped on them, and there was water in parts making the rocks potentially slippery. So you can imagine this slowed our progress considerably. We plucked away along the riverbed for what seemed like an eternity, and we finally came across other "survivors" going the opposite direction who said the "other trail was WAAAAY back there". Which meant we would have eons further to travel. We had to make the decision of turning around or continuing on to meet up with another trail so we could get off the river bed. After much debate, we decided to continue on instead of turning back. (and they were never heard from again...)

Another eon later, we found a trail and got the heck off the river bed - none too soon! We immediately came upon another group that was seemingly lost, trying to figure out what to do as well. (side note: we came across several others after this and all seem to be frustrated by the map and the lack of good signs along the trails) We decided to follow them up, up, up and out of the canyon which was no easy feat either because we had to hike straight up a steep incline similar to what we had encountered on the way down (but thankfully no acorns). Then along another very narrow trail along the edge of the ravine to a set of unforgivingly long stairs, and finally to the road. Never been so glad to see asphalt in my life!

But the bad news? We were on the other side of the park from our car so we had to walk about 2 miles back. All told, a 4 hour hike. And the kicker? We drove to the other side of the park to the Inn which has a restaurant because at this point food was pretty much top priority. Well, they had stopped serving lunch 30 minutes ago. (*sigh*)

So basically, we took the trails marked "VERY RUGGED" (they weren't kidding) turning out to be the most challenging trails in the park.

I iced the ol' ankle after lunch for a good long time, and then again when we got home a couple hours later. And today? I ran 2 miles outside on the asphalt. So if my ankle can survive that crazy hiking trip and then run 2 miles the next day, I think I may be able to get past this injury after all! :) Happy Days!

Oh, and did I mention only 11 days until my next race? I will be SO ready!

Weekend Warrior

Update: Took 2 big bags of old fat clothes to Goodwill. It's like a weight (no pun intended) has been lifted!

So, I'm going out of town this weekend and I'm actually packing workout clothes because the hotel has a fitness center and I plan on running on Sunday. Now, that's hardcore! Also, I'm trying figure out how I can pack my "diet food" for the trip so I don't have to eat out every meal. I guess it's a test to see if I can continue on the right path fitness-wise when "life" gets in the way. I mean, seriously, I should be able to leave town for the weekend without totally falling off the wagon, right?