Boom, crash!

Y'all, it has finally happened. After over 10 years of running, I was hit this morning by a car on my run.

Now, don't worry, I'm fine. Nothing broken.

But it was a shock! It lifted me off the ground and everything, it was wild.

The day was fine, I just took it easy, since my leg was hurting a bit after the hit. So of course, gotta ice that to keep the swelling down!

I'm glad it wasn't too bad of a hit, and that I survived with no issues. If I could get an actual good picture of the bruising I would share it, but as of now, there's not much to show. Maybe tomorrow, after the bruising has set and is all the way here ha ha.

Be careful out there everyone!

SoJo Half 2017

A few weeks ago, I ran the SoJo Half Marathon. I sure haven't run a half marathon since 2014, but I wanted to give it a go. My SIL was going to run it, and I was like, let's do this thing! I trained a bit for it, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to die. My finish time goal was about 2:10, I didn't have hopes of doing anything spectacular. But I ended up finishing in 1:56! I couldn't believe it! I was so jazzed. 

 Here I am, so excited for my medal. When I finished the race, I still had a bit to wait for my SIL to finish the race. In that time, tiny nephew Darth wanted to try a rock climbing wall that was there. But when we got him up there, he was NOT having it.

My SIL came across the line and we had a small celebration, her first half marathon! It was a great experience. 

 Here's to another great race over! Glad to be done.

Running Bib-Palooza

I have many running bibs from over the years. Since I started racing in 2009, I have done around 7 races a year. Some years more, some less. I originally had then on a cork board, but I have since outgrown two of those, and needed to find a new way to display them. Luckily, I found an idea on the internet.

It involves getting a wire and clips from IKEA, and then I had to have Husband help me. This is where it took a long time. Because I needed his help, it took me an ENTIRE YEAR to get this up. Yeah, I'm serious. But finally, we got it up, and then this is what it looked like:

It looks so good! I really like how it turned out. I also redid my medals, but I forgot to take a pic of those, and I am just too lazy to go do that right now. Maybe I'll save that for a later blog post, that's good enough. But I am just so happy about how it turned out, and I have so much room for new bibs!

Miscellaneous Monday

Today, I went shopping with my youngest sister-in-law, Bonanza. She has recently joined the cross country team, and she needed some compression shorts. We went to Sports Authority, and she tried on a few shorts. As she’s trying them on, she’s trying on the smalls or extra smalls, and she’s like, shoot, is there anything smaller than this? I’m thinking ‘anything smaller than an extra small? No, that’s as small as you can get.” We finally did find her a couple of pairs of shorts, and off we went. Her goal is to run 1-2 miles by the middle of the summer, and I wish her luck with it. I’ve told her that once she can run three, we’ll do a race together.

This past Saturday, I accidentally ran for 7 miles, and walked for 3, finishing with a grand total of 10. Let me explain. That morning, I did not feel very well, but I went anyway. When we got to our place of running, we started walking, just because that’s a good way for me to get motivated usually. After we’d walked a mile, we realized we should probably get going. We ran three miles up the trail, and when we got up there, we were like, oh I totally bet we could keep going. So, we ran another mile, for a grand total of 4 up there. As soon as we turned around, my body was like, oh I’m done. My legs were tired, my stomach wasn’t doing well, and my brain had decided to give up as well. So I struggled through running another 3 miles, making it to 7, before I just had to stop. So we ended up walking the last 2 miles. At least I ran most of it!

I was rehired into the world of visiting teaching lately. My RS pres caught me one day in church, right before it started, and asked if I wanted to start up again. I said, sure, whatever, and she partnered me up with a new friend I’ve met in the ward. Now she sets up the meetings, and I just show up and smile and thrown in my two cents once in a while, and things are all well and good. I’ve gone teaching twice now! I’m proud of my “growth” and maybe I can get better at it. Maybe one day I can even plan the lesson! Don’t hold your breath though.

Miscellaneous Monday

This past week, Chelle and I were down in the breakroom, grabbing a drink, reading the local paper, and getting some candy. It’s possible we figured out that you didn’t have to put a quarter in one of the machines to get some candy, so we kept turning the dial, and kept getting candy. I plan on putting quarters in at some point to make up for the ones we got for freesies. This is how many I squirreled away.

Yesterday, I was getting ready to do my morning run, and my finger hurt, so I looked down at it. I don’t even know how it happened, but all of a sudden, I had a cut on my finger about a half an inch long, and it was bleeding. For the life of me, I honestly can’t remember at all where it came from. I’m not sure where it even COULD have happened, but that’s ok, I’ll just keep it covered until it heals, and try to figure out where the heck I cut myself, to avoid it for the future.

Now that it’s time for summer, its race season time. I was looking over my upcoming race schedule, and I have like, 2 races per month until September. In case you were dying to know what races I’ll be doing this year, in case you wanted to do one: Memorial Day 10k, Art City 5k, Summerfest 5k, Roundup 10k, Freedom Festival 10k, Lindon Days 5k, Hobble Creek half-marathon, Color Run 5k, Swiss Days 10k, South Jordan half-marathon, and the Turkey Trot. So in the upcoming 7 months, I’ll at least be running 67.4 miles, or 106K. I look forward to the challenge…but not all the money I’ll be paying to run these.

Adventures in Running

A pre-warning: this post might not be for the faint of heart. Consider yourself warned,
This morning, I had a hard time getting up and going. For some reason, some Saturdays are like that. I wake up and I just don’t want to get out of bed. So I lazed about, I ate some breakfast, and lazed about some more. Then my phone died, so I decided it was a good a time as any to get going. So I started my run at about 11:45 this morning. I think that might be one of the latest times I have ever started running. I chose to go up Provo Canyon, and off I went.
I was about 20 minutes into my run when I did the not-at-all-classy snot rocket. I don’t know if you’ve heard the phrase, but its simple to explain. I’m really sorry for the grossness that I’m about to bring here. A snot rocket is when you have to blow your nose while running, and instead of having a tissue to take care of it, you just press on one side of your nose while you blow really hard through the other nostril, aiming towards the ground and/or just away from others. So, I did this while running, on both nostrils. And I felt a little wetness on one side after I’d finished, so I just used my long sleeve to wipe it off. (THIS IS THE GROSSEST STORY I’VE EVER TOLD HERE AND I AM SORRY) After I did this, I took a look at my sleeve and noticed the blood. Yeesh! So then, after I saw that, the blood started POURING out of my nose. I stopped running and just stood there, by the side of the trail, my nose like a faucet. After a few minutes of me trying to stop it, it wasn’t really doing anything, but my hands were covered in blood, and it was running down my arms. Normally, I might have used my shirt to try and stop the bleeding, but of course today I’m wearing my really expensive WHITE Under Armour shirt, and I didn’t want to ruin it, even though it had blood on it already.
So after a little longer, I remembered a drinking fountain I had seen about 5 minutes back. So I turn around, and make my way to the fountain, still bleeding, and then, finally, a small group of people walk past. They don’t say anything, until they’re pretty far from me, and then they turn around and yelled to ask if I was ok. Since I had one bloody hand on my face, trying to stop the blood, I just gave them a bloody thumbs up with the other. Then I looked down, and I notice one of my legs has blood on it too, from splatter, and it’s on my shorts and sleeves. I felt like I had either been attacked, or that I was a serial killer that wasn’t very good at my job. I finally get to the drinking fountain, where a fellow runner was hanging out. She took a look at me, said “That sucks, I’ve been there man” and then I used the FREEZING cold water to wash the blood off my hands, legs, and face. I was really cold when I was done, but better than looking crazy. At first, I had a thought to try and hold off washing them, so I could take a pic to show, but then I didn’t want to travel all the way back with creepy bloody hands and face.
After I cleaned up, my nose had stopped bleeding, so I thought. After I’d run for about 3 minutes, I had a quick spurt of blood come out for about 30 seconds, then I was done completely. I finished my run, and came home to clean up completely. Luckily, all the blood came out of my shirt and shorts when I washed them. There’s still some on my shoes, but its just a small amount, so hopefully it’ll come off should I ever run in the rain. And there it is. My adventure of today, trying to keep my blood in my body, which was a hard thing to do today. I don’t know how I’d avoid this sort of thing in the future, but I’m going to at least try.

Today, I am thankful that the Provo canyon has a drinking fountain there, in case you have emergencies.

A Medal, A Medal

Well kids, today was the Lindon City Days Dash yet again. This was my third year of running it. I love this race, because it’s so small that it’s not crazy, there aren’t a billion people here, and generally, the atmosphere seems so chill. PJ & I showed up at the right time (take that, Freedom Run!) and just hung out until the race started.

It started, and I won’t lie, I struggled. I thought I could do this with  no problems, but apparently, by body just wanted to quit. I did the first mile ok, but then, I seemed to start to shut down. I tried to keep my pace, and run, but people kept passing me. As people (Ok, the women) were passing me, I tried to gauge their age as they were by me. I’ve won first place in my age group (25-29) for the last two years that I’ve run this race, and I wanted to keep it going. So, the few women that passed me, I judged that they were older than I. I kept going, and then, when I was about a half a mile from the end, another passed me. As she did so, I looked over and I thought, for sure, that she was my age. I then tried my hardest to stay with her, and I did pretty good. As we rounded the last corner before the finish line, I tried to surge ahead. Which worked for about, oh, 1 minute, before my body was like, ‘yeah, nice try’ and then I slowed down a touch. She super passed me, and ended up beating me by about 20 seconds. So I finish, turn in my tag, and wait around, for PJ, then we stretch, etc.

As we were doing a cool down walk-around the parking lot, we see the race organizers putting all the race tags onto pieces of paper. I scootched closer, and see that the “Womens 25-29” is still empty – they hadn’t filled it yet! So, I just sort of…hung out until they put a tag on there. I would walk around, sneak a peek, and continue walking, until I saw them put a tag on there, then I leeeeeaned in to get a look at it, and…IT WAS ME! I screamed a little and did a dance of joy as I walked away from the table so that they wouldn’t know I had seen. (I don’t know if it was legal for me to peek!) Then, they were giving away the awards, and ta-daaa I got a medal! Here’s me, putting it on:

And here’s me holding my prize. Addition to the medal, I got 2 day passes to Lindon City Pool! I have since lost these. I remember myself putting them in to my car, but now I can’t find them. I’m still looking.

 

Oh! Also, PJ was the second fastest in our age group! I thought that was pretty cool, we are champs. I wish she had gotten a medal too. Anyway, after we waited for the rest of the “ceremony”, we left, and took this picture on the way to the car.

What a fun day, and a fun race, even though my body was rejecting the very notion of running.

Stories of Running

Earlier this week, I blogged about running in the Summerfest 5k, and the results were pretty good in my favor. They finally posted the standings on the website, and indeed, I did place third in my age group, yay! Yesterday, I had yet another dentist appointment. Turns out, the experimental procedure that I had done on my tooth failed completely. So we had to hurry up and pull the tooth. So I had that done yesterday, during the afternoon. Afterwards, I went home to rest up, and Husband went to the Orem Safety Building and picked up my medal! Here it is, in all its glory:

And then, of course, last night, I went to the RSL game, after my tooth pulling, and after taking a Loratab, I felt AMAZING. Sadly, we lost, but alas, can’t win them all.

Today is the summer party for my work. It kicks off with a fun run (I like that phrase, even though everyone else says it’s an oxymoron.) which I usually do pretty well on. Usually, I’m pretty quick, and I’m the first female to cross the finish line. Sadly, this year, that wasn’t the case for me. I was the first in my age group (by seconds, only!) and was about the 3rd female to finish – a couple of teenage girls beat me out. I’m ok with that, though, because they’re younger and in better shape, they should be faster than me. But I’m psyched I got at least 1st in my age, and I’m looking forward to my prize money. I wish I got a medal for it too, but cash is a dang good prize!

There are Better Ways to Spend the Game...

I used to never get headaches. Up until a few months ago, when I got a headache, it was super rare, and they only lasted for a few minutes, before they’d either go away by themselves, or I’d take some pills and they’d go away after a bit, no problem. But for the past few months, I usually get a headache on Monday, in the afternoon. I assume it’s because I don’t really look at a computer all weekend, then I come back on Monday, and look at one all day, so my head needs to get used to it. (Which is weird, because this never happened before) So now, every Monday, I just take a little extra precaution to see if I can prevent it. Make sure my eyes don’t get dry, drink lots of water, just in case, that sort of thing.

This past Saturday, I had a good 7-mile run. It was awesome – and my last long run before my half marathon this Saturday. So I came home, drank a little water, and got ready for the day. Throughout the day, I didn’t really pay attention to drinking anything else. During the week, at work, I have my water bottle right next to me, so I drink from it continuously because I can see it. On the weekends, when I’m pretty busy, I just never realize that I’m not drinking. Such was it this day. So onto the game I go, and when we’re leaving Joanna’s, where we ate dinner, I was getting a little bit of a dehydration headache, and that’s when I realized I hadn’t been drinking to compensate for all the running. We get to the stadium, I get myself some water, and settled in for some cheering.

There was a lot of screaming going on, of course, like every game. About halfway through the first half, my head started to hurt more with every scream/cheer that I did. By about the 40th minute, my little headache had grown into a full-blown migraine – complete with a little nausea, and an aversion to the sounds of the stadium. But this was the last game of the season! I wasn’t going to give up! So right at halftime, RSL scored, and we all went crazy. Husband picked me up, and hoisted me above everyone (like he usually does) but this time, the headache, combined with the movement and the screaming of 20,000 people, this was a goal celebration that I wished I hadn’t done.

The rest of the game was pretty boring, for me. I no longer screamed, nor cheered, I just clapped when anything happened. When things got too noisy, either Husband or PJ would cover my ears with their hands so that I could clap, and they could cheer. It was a sad arrangement, but I stayed the whole game. Afterwards, as soon as I got to the car, I took a bunch of Tylenols and ibuprofens – a doctor recommended dosage, don’t worry – and drank almost another whole bottle of water. At the usual post-game ice cream (from Baskin Robbins) I also got a Mtn Dew – to see if caffeine helped. By the time we got home, the migraine had calmed down a little to just be a headache. My lesson here is that I really need to drink more during the weekends, especially if I had a long run that morning. But at least I got to see my team play their last regular season game – and good news, playoffs start this upcoming Saturday!

This picture is of the Portland fans – who were sitting across from us. At some point of the game, they all set off a billion smoke bombs, and a lot of flares, so all we could see of their section was smoke and fire. It looked a little like they had just set themselves on fire. Why would they do this? I’m not really sure.

National Running Day

Today, kids, the 1st of June, 2011, is National Running day. I love these national (fill in the blank) days, because they’re not a real holiday or anything, and by the time you find out about it, you can’t really do anything about it. Except for today – I found out in time to do something about it. And my something? To blog about it.

As everyone who reads this (all 3 of you, what up?!) knows, I heart running. I almost made it another full year of running every single day (which would have been Monday) but then I missed a few days when I got that weirdo flu thing. I missed 2 days – 2 days of running, and it ruined my whole average. But, I soldiered on. And I’ve started a new one, on Monday, the original day it would have been, might as well keep the same date, I thought.

I know a bunch of people think I’m a crazy for running so much, all the time. But I love it. I like getting out of the house, and just letting go of everything, and the only things I have to think about is avoiding cars and what route I should take. Or, on the flip side, if I need to work something out, I go running, and think the whole time and get a solution to whatever it is that’s on my mind.

I’m proud of my running. It took me a long time to get to where I am, to be able to run as fast as I do. I’m not as fast as I’d like to be, and there will always be someone faster than I am, but for me, I’m glad with where I’m at. I’ll always work on getting faster, and I have a race this Saturday that I’m hoping to finish in the top 3 of. The Art City Days 5K is one of my favorite races. The race is fun, and over so quickly, and the prize drawings afterward is always awesome. I’m hoping to have my number called for an awesome prize this year!

I have a great idea

All right, I did it again. I went running and left my watch at home. I know, I can't believe I'm this dumb either, but these things happen. I didn't even realize it until I got all the way to my running park, and by then I certainly wasn't going to go all the way home and get it. So I looked at the clock in my car, hoping that I would sorta remember it, and hoped I could at least get a feel for how long my run would be.

As I was running, I had a brilliant idea. Now, stay with me on this, I know it's unorthodox. (Cue infomerical music and images) Have you ever been stuck somewhere where you don't have the time? By some miracle of craziness, you don't have a watch, or a cell phone, you're nowhere near a bank for their clock? What'll you do?! Well kids, luckily you have me and my great ideas, because I've thought of a doozy. Wouldn't it be great if we had the time displayed above us, in the clouds or something? Wouldn't that be awesome! I know it's not feasible, and I haven't even worked out all the kinks, so I don't know how this would even work, but I think it'd be so great. I'd never have to remember a watch! Alls I'd have to do is just look up, and see the time displayed there for all to see.

There are definitely downsides to this. You can never say you didn't know what time it was when you were late, because it's always there for everyone to look at. I still can't quite figure out how to get it going, but I guess that's what I'll hire the smart people to figure out, I'll just take credit for it. I know the easiest solution to my problem is just to remember a freaking watch, maybe put it by my keys or running shoes or something so that I'll always have it, but come on, that's clearly not an option that'll work for me. So in the interest of helping everone out, you heard it here first: The SkyClock. Ah, that just rolls of the tongue. Lets see what we can do to make this happen.

Motivation Required

I have racked my brain all day to think of what I could write today, and today just didn’t have anything that I could think of to write that would be good enough to justify a blog entry.

When I was getting up to run this morning, I had to motivate the heck out of myself, I just wasn’t in the mood. I had to start with telling myself, listen, if we run for 10 minutes, we can call it good. Then I got started, and I kept bumping up the time, 15 minutes, 20…you get the idea. Then I saw this shirt on the internets, and it described my run perfectly. Sometimes…you just need a little help.

365!

Ok, this is almost a week late in getting on here, but I have been busy! Things always take longer than I think they will, hence, this is only just getting on here. As we all know, I love to run. I do disparage it from time to time, but if I don't run, I just don't feel right. So as of Sunday, the 30th of May, 2010, I have run every single day for one year. I don't know how I did this, I'm not even sure of the why, alls I know is I did it. It is a victory all my own. On Sunday, when I was leaving for my run, I imagined an easy-ish run, full of fun. I actually got one that was quite different.
I have this new run that I like it take, but I have to drive to get there. If I don't drive, it's like, two miles away, so as soon as I would run there, I would run for like, a mile or two more, then just run home, and that seems like a waste. So I drive down there on Sunday, put my car keys into my special thing that I leave in my car, get out, lock the door, and shut it. As soon as I shut it, I realized what I did, and I wanted to smack myself in the face. I know, I know, I couldn't believe it either, but holy crap. So instead of my run being my river run, nice and cool and relatively flat, my run actually consisted of me running back to my house (up this giant hill), getting a spare key, and running back down to get into my car. When I finally got back to my car, I was like, man I'm done. So I got into my car then, and left. I congratulated myself on my 365th run, and went on with my day.
Later that afternoon, I was driving to church, when I looked over at my passenger door and realized...IT HAD BEEN UNLOCKED ALL FREAKING DAY! I had wasted my run for nothing! I didn't even try any of my other doors when I got locked out, because I just had assumed that they all were locked too! Man, was my face red. I just couldn't believe it.
But...all's well that ends well. I got my run, I finished the year, and here I go, running just as I did. Right now, I'm just running to see how much longer I can make it without missing a run. If I make it two years-awesome! If I don't...well, at least I made it one. And that's all I can ask for.

Result!

Ok, I know it's been a really long time since I've posted, but things have been so busy. There are many a thing I need to blog about, but I'll just go from the last thing I've posted about. I did indeed run the SLC 1/2 marathon. 13.1 miles of running, sprinting for some of it, and by the end, I was pretty dead. For those of you who haven't heard of my results yet, here they are: I finished the marathon in 2 hours even. Ok, to be perfectly precise, 2 hours, 0 minutes, and 42 seconds. Not bad for my first one, I think. My placing was 1504 out of 4139. Top half! I was a little proud of myself for that. A bit of trivia, I was 171th place out of 557 in my age group. I'm not sure why I'd need to know that, but I do. Nice.
Some stories from the race...I got to the starting line after the race had actually started. I took Trax up from my hotel to the start line, and it ended up taking forever to get up there. We (when I say we, I mean myself and the other random people who happened to be on Trax with me) ran from the station to the start line, then started the race. I had a really good pace for the first few miles, I finished the first 4 miles in 32 minutes, which, for me, is a super good pace. I kept going at that for the next few miles, then started to get a little tired and my pace slowed a little. It wasn't until mile 10 that I started to wear down, and then, mile 11, we started to go uphill. It wasn't a slight hill, like I'd been told, it was a big one, and I slowed waaay down going up it. When I reached the top, though, I was so happy. I picked up the pace a little at the top, and after another mile (so now, we're at mile 12) I noticed how close I was to the end. A really fast-paced song started on my iPod, (the best kind!) and I ran along with it, which put me at sprinting. There were people all along the sides of the streets, cheering for everyone coming in. This pumped me up also, so I sprinted the last mile in as fast as I could. My lungs were burning, I felt like my legs were going to die, but I did it, I finished!
The people that met me at the finish line (my fam and PJ) all told me how angry I looked coming into the finish line, and having seen the pictures now, yeah, I look totally pissed off. Unfortunately, you guys can't see the pictures, because I can't figure out how to get them to save here. I think I have to buy them before I do that, and I don't think I want to buy them. But at least I finished, and I hit my goal of finishing in 2 hours, so I was happy. I got some really good looking blisters on my toes, one of them a blood blister, which actually finally popped today. Gross. It took me a few days to recover, and now, I'm finally doing some good runs again. I will do anothe 1/2 marathon-in September. At Disneyland!

I've got nerves of steel...

Right now, I actually don't feel like I have nerves of steel. I'm nervous. There, I said it. I'll admit it. I know it's dumb to be nervous now, but I am. Tomorrow, Saturday, I will be running in my first ever (and maybe my last, let's see) half marathon. I am both excited and totally completely dreading it. I think I can do it. I have done the distance once before, so I know it's been done, but I feel like tomorrow my body will freeze up, or after a few miles, just give out. But in my logical brain (the one that rarely comes out) I know that probably will not happen. I'm going to think positively now, and know that I can do it.
I pretty much just have one goal. Well, two. My first is to finish, and my second is to beat the other people that I know that are running the race. I think I might be able to do that, and that's what will push me over the finish line. I don't care if I have to crawl over it, I will finish this. I love being competitive, I'm glad that I found something in this race to compete with someone about, even if they don't necessarily know about that.
Well, wish me luck, everyone. I'm sure things will go well, and I'll post the results at some point tomorrow (if I find them out myself) so you can see that I've at least finished the race. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

The difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank

Spring is (sorta) here! Along with the warmer weather and the soccer season starting, it's also the start of racing season. I had my first race of the year yesterday, the Provo City Half-Marathon & 5K. For this race, I chose to do the 5K. PJ was originally going to race with me, but due to an injury, she was forced to sit this one out.
We showed up to the race Saturday morning, bright and early, since the race started at 8:10. PJ came with me for moral support, to cheer me along, which was awesome of her. The half-marathoners race started at 8:00, so as soon as they took off, we all lined up in the chute. The starting gun (or maybe it was a cannon? I'm still not sure) went off, and off we went. I started off with a really good pace, and was doing pretty good. I decided to follow the pace of this guy in front of me, but when we went up a hill, I passed him, so that ended up not being the smartest move. I kept going and kept passing a bunch of people, which was a new thing for me.
I finished with a time of 27 minutes 26 seconds, which is my fastest 5K to date. I was 88th overall and 29th in the women's overall, which I consider to be pretty awesome. I was glad to have gotten this out of the way, so that I'll be all ready for my next race, which is in 2 weeks, which I'll write more about later. And today, I'm just dealing with being sore-which I am just a little, so I'll just rest up.

Hardware: the parts of a computer that can be kicked

I haven't written lately because really, there's not a lot going on in the life of Vieve. A few small things happen, but none big enough to actually write about, so I just never think to do so. I'll just update you on a few things.
On Sunday, I was changing the music on my iPod from one playlist to the other. I had opened my iTunes, deleted everything on the iPod, and then proceeded to make my new list. Of course, a few minutes into selecting my songs, my computer just shut down. When I got it up and running again, my iTunes had become corrupted or something, so I had to reinstall that, and get all my music on it again. After I got everything downloaded and fixed, my computer yet again just shut down! No warning, it just stops. After getting back on, and taking a look at some things, I gave up. The next day, I took things slowly and finally got things going and finally put some stuff on the ol' iPod to listen to. And since then (2 whole days!) I've not had any problems. Keep your fingers crossed that I will not run into any.
On Saturday, I decided to try my run of running from my house (here in SF) to my sister's house (in Orem). I Mapquested it, and the way they had me running was 16 miles. I was sure I could do this, so I made the arrangements, and did it. Ok, I'll admit, I cheated a little. I didn't start in SF like I planned, I started in Springville, but hey, it's still a trek! I made it though! I went through Springville, then Provo, worked my way into Orem and found her house. There were hills to deal with, drivers who didn't pay attention, and loads of traffic. I wish there were better sidewalks on some of those back roads, or even sidewalks at all, but that's ok, at least I made it through ok. It took me just under two hours to complete it all, and needless to say, by the end, I was feeling it. My legs were killing me, and my back was sore, but I was so proud of myself for making it. Making my own way instead of doing the Mapquest way was only 11 miles, so not quite what I was hoping for, but thats ok. I'm only two miles away from my goal right now, and I'm pretty sure I can do it. The next day, I wasn't sore at all like I thought I'd be, I was doing good!
Things have been a little boring lately, but starting soon, I think they'll start to pick up. I'm having races start in a few weeks, plus the Real season starts at about the same time! It's the best time of year when all this starts!

A run begins the moment you forget you are running.

It's almost spring! This excites me for so many reasons. One, the warm weather. It's already starting now! We have the ability to walk around outside in just a jacket. No need to have on your winter coat and scarf and gloves. Also, now I can run outside without freezing my buns off or running in snow! I finally ran outside on Saturday, and it was awesome.
I totally love running, and running on the treadmill is ok, I like doing it, but it's just totally a different experience outside, as everyone knows. There are things to dodge, and cars to look out for. And the scenery changes, so you can just crank up your music and just clear your mind and run until you get tired. I love to go outside and just...run. I try not to focus on any pain I might be feeling, or how long I've been going. I've been doing better lately, I'm not getting tired or hurting like I used to. I'm sure it's all mental, since like, 85 percent of running is mental (it's true!) and I'm psyched that I'm done with whatever was blocking me from doing well before.
I ran downhill for probably about a mile yesterday, and today, I'm feeling it. It hurts to go up and down stairs, and even standing up and sitting down hurts my quads. I love it though! It actually makes me feel like I'm working myself, which is an awesome feeling. I'm excited to get all the outdoor running started now, so that when I start racing (in like a month!) I'm ready, and my muscles are ready for any kind of terrain that will be brought to me.

Less than twelve hours....

Tomorrow, tomorrow! The big race is tomorrow! Ok, technically, it's not like a giant race, but its the first one I've done in a long time. I am hoping so much that I'll do ok, but my running lately has been off, so at this point, I'm just hoping to finish. I run this much pretty much all the time, but doing it in a race makes me think weird. I keep thinking that I have to do awesome, so then I start off running quicker than I should (or usually do) so then I'm tired more quickly. I'm going to try to think it out this time-I need to race smart.
I'll let everyone know tomorrow how I did (if I even finished...) and how awesome it was, running in the freezing cold. I prepared for it today, by eating my pre-race meal of pasta. No need to carb-load with such a short race, but I always eat it before a race, to get into the spirit of things. Wish me luck, ya'all!

Get going. Get up and walk if you have to, but finish the damned race

I went on an afternoon run today, while the weather was the most warm. I laced up my shoes, cranked the iPod up to 11, and set out. I'm trying to run outside right now, to prepare. I'm doing another race! I haven't done one in a long time-and I don't think the time between has been kind. In the beginning of the year, when we were doing races, I was good, I did them with no problem. But then came the summer, and things were just way too busy to run every day, and my fitness dropped a little. PJ told me about this race about a week ago, and we just knew we had to do it. It's on Thanksgiving day, and it's a 4-miler. I'm totally looking forward to this.
Running is my drug. Sometimes I bitch about it before I have to do it, but I love it. I know some people like to drink or do drugs, or whatever, to forget a problem, or try to think it out, but not me. My drink is running. I love that if I need to think something out, I can just run. I just have to put on my shoes, and after the initial 5 minutes where I'm getting used to the breathing, I'm in. I just let my mind go, and I can think about nothing, or I can think everything out. I don't have to hear other people jabbering about anything, and I don't have to get a group together to do my thing. It's just me. I love it.
I can't wait for this race, and seeing how it's in 11 days, I better start getting prepared. Of course, this means I now give up my favorite foods. We did this for the last race, and it totally helped, so here I go. Wish me luck in not eating my delicious chocolates and similar foods for the next two weeks. Of course, that night is Thanksgiving, so I'll be eating it all then and more, so it'll be ok, at least I have an end goal in sight. And good news, if I finish in the top 5 (of women) I get a free turkey! Wish me luck!