Well now, that wasn't so bad!

Another 10 miles today. Who knew I would ever say those words??? And I actually feel sort of all right, which is shocking in its own way.

Here's what I did today: in the past weeks, I have been walking for 8 minutes and then jogging for one minute. This was all good, until last week's 10 miles, after which I was in pain and having swollen knees all week long. This morning, (after a late start. Sorry team, if you were waiting around for me!) I walked for 8 minutes and then instead of jogging, I picked up the pace and did a fast walk for that one minute. Over the 10 miles, it only added 4 minutes to my total time, and I felt much, much better at the end of it. So I think that is the strategy I will pursue for the half marathon next Sunday.

Heck, I had enough energy to put on my daughter's 2nd birthday party this afternoon! Now after that, I am tired!

Ouch!

Hello!

Well, this morning was the 10-mile run, and I finished it! Yay! It sure felt good to get to that last mile. However, as I discovered once I got in the shower, I missed a spot with the Body Glide, and .... ouch! I will definitley remember that spot now! I managed an average mile time of 17:30, but if I figured it right, I think that mile 2 came in at 16:15, which would be my fastest mile ever. Yippeee!

I'm still kind of nervous about the race, but since I turned in a good performance today, I am more hopeful that I will be able to complete it well. I will have to keep in mind that my "official" time for my first half marathon is skewed, as we started about 20 minutes before the actual race start. We did that because the course was only supposed to be open for 3:30, and I was quite sure that I would not be able to finish in that time. I was right! But for the Cowtown, since they are doing a full marathon, the course will remain open for 7:30, so unless I get hurt or something, I will not have that particular worry. All of that to say, for this race, I will begin with everyone else at the start, and my official time will be a lot more accurate as a result :-)

Thanks for all the encouragement!

It's the Cowtown!

Hi all,

Well, we (my dear husband and I) have officially decided to do the Cowtown Half Marathon on October 7. Every time I think about how soon that is, my stomach churns. I walked/jogged 8 miles last weekend, which went pretty well (average mile time of 17:15, which for me is good). I was a little sore, but nothing a handful of motrin wouldn't fix. This weekend, we are slated to do 10 miles. And 12 the weekend after that. And then it's race day. Argh. Can't think about that just now!

I've been having a hard time with the idea that my dear husband wants to do this with me. He chose to do this rather late in the game (last weekend), and I felt like he was sort of trying to show me up, as if he could do with three weeks of training what takes me months to prepare for. Well, I'm mostly over it, and I hope that we are able to complete our run this weekend well. I had a minor crisis when I could not find my iPod shuffle last weekend (I listened to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on my Creative mp3 player instead, which was not so bad), but it turned up in a shirt pocket and all is right with the world. Harry Potter is great, but sometimes a person needs some music that will get you moving. I think I have the world's weirdest collection of music on my iPod (Metallica! No Doubt! Will Smith! Coolio! New Order! all right next to Grandmaster Flash, Blondie, Steven Curtis Chapman and Point of Grace!), but hey, if it helps me keep going, it's worth a little musical schizophrenia.

I just know I'm going to cry once I get to the finish line again. I already heard from one dear friend and training partner to tell me that she's going to be at the finish line to cheer me on! It means so much. I keep saying that, but it really does! Thanks...thanks...and again, thanks!

Hey! I Have Four Speeds!

Hi all,

Well, I was not able to do a proper timed mile on Tuesday at the track, but I did make the pleasant discovery that I now have FOUR speeds: walk, fast walk, jog and (slow) sprint! How fun is that!

It's those little things that make me happy. Well, actually, that's not so little, now is it? When I started this whole business in January, I most certainly did NOT have four speeds. It was more like two: go and stop. So that's progress, and a good way to see it.

I've got to figure out a way to convince my husband that we need to go to San Jose for the half marathon down there. Literally my whole training group is going to be in that one, and if I do the Cowtown, I will do it alone. Ick.

This weekend is a long run/walk (12 miles!), so hopefully I will be able to complete that well. It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to do. Two weekends back, a trio of us would walk for 8 minutes and then run for 1, which I was able to do consistently for the whole time. Now, mind you, "the whole time" was for 5 miles. But I still felt pretty good at the end, so I am going to try to do that again for this long workout.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Time to Clear the Cobwebs

Hi all,

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote anything! Sorry about that. Sooo....here is what's going on.

I am preparing, in a really sort of anemic way, to do a half marathon, which is supposed to be taking place in about a month. Yikes. So, what I think I need to do is decide for certain which event I am going to participate in, and get with it already. I was going to do the Cowtown Half, here in town, because it looked like fun and it's here in town. But, apparently I need to feel like part of a community or team, and most of my training folk are doing a half marathon in San Jose the following weekend. I think I would be more motivated to, well, train harder if I knew I was doing an event with my friends. So I'll ask 'em during strength work tomorrow night and see what the lay of the land is. I really treasure that whole team thing. It's good. And I think this lot will even wait for me to come in at the finish :-)

So, yeah, I've really been struggling with motivation. I keep thinking that it's not enough to just show up anymore, that I need to do more, be faster, or something. That there should be more happening in the results department. But I'm not faster, and then I just get depressed. I need to convince myself, again, over and over, that showing up and working out is, in fact, enough, and it's so much more than I was doing this time last year that it's hard to even put that in words. So I'm gonna show up at the track tomorrow night, folks. Slow, but I'll be there. Part of the problem is that I timed myself for what I thought was a mile and was super bummed about how slow I was. Then I discovered that I had actually gone about 1.3 miles....so I'll try the timed mile thing again this week and see what happens.

I am starting to really like swimming. I intend to keep swimming once a week...we will see how tough I really am when December comes around! But really. I'm getting better at it, it's not such a struggle all the time (who knew! Remember when I could barely get the hang of breathing?? And look at me now! I can do it!), and that gives me a smidgen of hope. I still hate the whole idea of weeds and grass in the lake water, but I can swim laps in the nice, clean, heated pool til the cows come home.

Please help me hang in there, folks. I need you all to keep me going, and you have no idea of the very huge difference you make to me. Thanks!