Ready For A Long Weekend!

This week has been pretty good for me but I am definitely looking forward to a nice long weekend. I work a compressed schedule so I'm off Friday and with the holiday on Monday, it will be like a mini vacation. Yay! :-)

Had a great lunch with Christa today--yummy Keifer's! Came home this afternoon and mowed the lawn, which I thought about using as my cross-training. But, I have done so good this week that I decided to suck it up and actually do some real cross-training. So, I headed to my workout room and rode the Life Cycle and lifted some weights. I must say, it felt pretty good.

I'm looking forward to Saturday--mainly because it's a "short" run. (I still can't believe we call 10 miles short.) Pam loaned me one of her finger lights so I'll definitely be using it on the trails. Hopefully the weather will stay nice for us!

I Stand Corrected...

OK. So I've been going through it in my head. Did I really run that much faster yesterday than during the 18-miler? It didn't really feel like I did. I mean, maybe a little for the first couple of miles, but then I thought I slowed down.

So, I double checked my Garmin stats. Apparently, I didn't look at it correctly this morning. (I was probably still asleep.) Anyway, it turns out that I DID run slower yesterday. By at least 1 to 1.5 minutes per mile on average!!! Now I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse about my run yesterday. :-/

So, what DID I do wrong yesterday? Maybe nothing, huh? Maybe I was just having a bad day. Maybe I'm beating myself up for nothing. Today is a new week and that's what I'm going to focus on.

And, on that note I'd better go do some cross-training... :-)

Yesterday's Run Was Better Than...

...absolutely NOTHING!! A few of you (Mandy, Kim, Carey, Micah) will get that "joke." I ran with them a little yesterday and I was trying to motivate us by naming things that didn't even compare to how good that running felt. You know, things like chocolate, a free trip to Hawaii, even sex. Well, I'm here to say that ALL of those things are much better than yesterday's run. :-)

I felt pretty good until about mile 12 or 13. I started feeling really tired but kept on going. At the 14.4 mark (according to my Garmin), at the Lakeshore water stop, I honestly considered stopping. I felt that it was more mental, though, than physical so I knew I had to perservere. I'm glad that I did, but those last 5 miles were TOUGH. My 4:1 intervals went out the door. They pretty much turned in to "run for as long as you can" intervals, which turned out to be 1 or 2 minutes at most. And, as I'm coming up Spillway, about to cross Old Fannin to head back to Lakeshore, I can't help but be disappointed in myself for having to walk so much. I should be finishing strong--like I did for the 18 miler. What went wrong?? I mean, the weather was cooler yesterday, I remembered my water bottle so I think I stayed hydrated better, my shins felt good. So what gives?

Well, thanks to my Garmin, I'm pretty sure I know what happened. I started out too fast. (I started fast on my 18-miler too but for some reason that was o.k.) Call me crazy but prior to the run, I was actually excited about running 20 miles. I had been looking at the chicagomarathon.com website last week and that really pumped me up. I guess a little too much. I just ran too fast, too early. So, even though I'm disappointed in my run yesterday, I think I learned a valuable lesson. Start slow. Force myself to start slow. Set my Garmin, if necessary, to beep at me if I go faster than a certain pace. Whatever it takes! I don't want to repeat yesterday's performance in Chicago!!

I'm proud of everyone out there yesterday--no matter how many miles you completed. It's definitely a mental battle from here til Chicago. But, we can do it!! Stick with our weekly training, keep hydrating during the week and take it slow on Saturdays. Those 3 things will be top priority for me until October 7.

Hope everyone has a good week. See you all next Saturday.

We Gotta Hang In There...

We are so close to reaching our goals. I know it's been hard lately (with the heat) to stay on track, but we can do it. I ran across these quotes and thought that now might be the perfect time to post them:

"It's not whether you get knocked down. It's whether you get up again."

"Don't let go of your dreams. If you have determination and belief in your dreams, you will succeed in spite of your desire to let go."

"Within each of us is a hidden store of determination. Determination to keep us in the race when all seems lost."

"Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough."

"All of us have our own fears but these fears have one thing in common; that they are meant to be overcome."

"The man who can drive himself farther once the effort gets painful is the man who will win."

So, bring it on Mother Nature. We can handle it because WE ARE MARATHONERS and we are AWESOME!!!

See you all Saturday!