Motivation

"It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit."
George Sheehan

1/2 Marathon Training

Since I started running, I have had a huge desire to run a half marathon.  A marathon has always seemed completely overwhelming to me being a mom of 3 and back in school.  I feel I just do not have the time to be able to commit to the training, but a half marathon would be doable.  I still have never found enough motivation to sign up for one until I heard my sister wanted to do one.  So now I am training for a half marathon in San Antonio in October.  I am in my third week of training and it has been great so far.  I have an easy run on Tuesdays, a tempo or hill run on Thursdays, and a long run on Saturdays.  This morning I did a 4 mile tempo run and it was rough!  The most I have ever run in one day is 5 miles, so doing 4 miles at a tempo pace was not easy.  I thought I wasn't going to last the last 10 minutes of the run, but somehow I made my legs keep moving.  I feel stronger than I have ever felt as a runner and I am really looking forward to running with my sister! 

Back in the Game

I am finally starting to find my groove in running again!  I basically had to start all over again with running after my injury but I finally ran 4 miles last Saturday and then Tuesday and Thursday of this week I ran about 3 3/4 of a mile.  My pace is much slower now as well.  Before my injury I was averaging about a 10 minute mile and even faster during races.  Now I am averaging an 11 minute mile and I feel like I am pushing myself to get that done.  I know that it is just going to take a little time before I get back to were I was and I am just praying I can go a while without any injuries.  I have incorporated a dynamic stretch program before I run and I make sure to do a lot of long and slow stretches when I get done.  Another difference in my running is that I have had to adapt to running in the evening.  Dave has had to go into work super early the last couple of weeks and I would need to run at 3 am if I wanted to run in the morning.  The winter was nice because it didn't really matter what time of day I ran because there was no beating sun to worry about.  I have tried running at 10 in the morning and it was already too hot.  I have also tried 5 pm and that was still too hot as well.  So now I try and go at around 7 or 8 pm and it has usually cooled down enough to not be completely miserable.  I don't mind sweating and the heat, but the sun beating down on you while you run is just a feeling I cannot overcome. 
I am not sure when I will run another 5k but I have been invited to participate in 2 different marathons towards the end of the year.  I am not sure if I am going to do them because I just don't know if I will have that much time to devote to running.  I would love to try, but we shall see!

April Race

I did not run in a 5K for April.  I am kind of disappointed that I had to break my goal but I was just not ready to run.  I guess now I will have to run 2 races in 1 month!

Slow start

Since my injury, I have had a hard time getting back into running.  I was supposed to take 4 weeks off from running but I had to do more than that due to pain.  Running the Warrior Dash was great but very risky.  Fortunately I didn't hurt myself any worse, but I still was not able to jump back into running.  I started going out for a mile and a half run once a week for 2 weeks.  Then I increased to 2 miles for 2 weeks.  A couple of weeks ago, I started forcing myself to run 2 or 3 times a week and 2 nights ago, I was able to go 3.1 miles.  It felt so good to be able to run that far.  Some of my runs are good and pain free.  Others are miserable and painful the whole time.  I can tell my leg is getting better but it still hurts.  I have devoted a lot of time to stretching before and after my runs.  I know that helps a ton.  Running makes me feel so good and I wish my injuries would stop slowing me down!

No Sodas for a year!

As of the end of March, I completed my goal of not drinking sodas for a year!  About a month into the year, I stopped having cravings for soda.  The only times I was tempted to give in were when we would take trips to San Antonio and stop at Bucc-ee's.  They have Dr. Pepper slushies and I would crave them so bad!  Other than that, I had no problems.  When we would go out to eat, I would just order tea instead of soda.  Now that my year is up, I have not been interested in drinking soda.  Every time I get one, I can only drink a few sips of it.  Plus, I run better when I don't drink sodas!

March Race

I did it!  I survived the Warrior Dash.  The week before the race, I had made up my mind not to do the run because I was still having pain.  Saturday afternoon I talked to some people who had finished the race that morning and they had a lot of fun and thought I should do it.  Dave ran Saturday evening and after hearing about his race, I decided I would go and just take it slow and have fun.  I ran with a friend from high school and having her next to me for the beginning of the race help to push me through the initial soreness in my leg.  I was going very slow and yet still passing people, so that was encouraging to me.  My goal was to finish in under an hour and my time was 47 minutes.  I lost count of the amount of obstacles on the course but the highlights included climbing a steep mud mountain and then sliding down the opposite side, jumping over fire, climbing through a pitch black tunnel, crawling through a mud pond which had barbed wire in it, swimming in a lake and having to jump over floating logs.  At the end I was completely muddy and exhausted but I am so glad I did the race!  If you want to see pictures, go here and enter in my bib #- 31464.  Dave's bib # is 31463.