Summer Running

It's summer! And it's hot and muggy outside. I started week 2 of marathon training yesterday with a rest day.  I've decided that Mondays are total rest days since my long runs are on Sundays. 

Yesterday, my right knee decided it wants to be noticed and began hurting. It continued to hurt this morning, so I did some foam rolling to see if it would help.  (I should mention that between figure skating and taekwondo in my youth, I destroyed both of my knees. The right knee landed a single axel in the concrete puddle during skating, and the left knee was injured during a taekwondo board break trial.)

I would get to meet my team for Team In Training this week, but I am journeying home for one of my best friend's shower. I guess I will meet them in a week or two.  I am so excited to be a part of this program, and can't wait to run my first marathon with Team! If you'd like to donate and help me reach my goal, there's a link on the right hand of this page. I'm trying to reach $1000 dollars, so every little bit helps.

Another Half bites the dust...

June 7th, 2014-race day! I ran the Indy Women's Half Marathon. It was a pretty nice day for a race; the sun was shining, birds singing, and on the cooler side (we've been in the upper 80s for the better part of two weeks). I lined up with the 2:15 pace group, since that was my goal. I was hoping to be close to that or a little faster, but little did I know that my iPod and sensor combo had been acting goofy during my training. 

Anyway, we started a few minutes late, and I had kept up with the pacer for the first six-ish miles. That's about when the bigger climbs started. By mile marker six, my iPod had me at mile 7.5...there is something up with it for sure at this point. 

Miles 7-12 were difficult to say the least.  Very little shade, lots of up hills, and cranky motorists made for an interesting experience.  The course was partially open to traffic, but people still honked and were annoyed by streets being closed downtown.  I started to feel the heat and had difficulties breathing (mostly because I forgot to take my allergy meds before racing...oops). I also had some doubts about running the full marathon in November.  It was very tiring during the second half of the race, and it didn't help that my iPod had added 3 miles to my distance.

Overall, I was happy with this race. It was great to run a women only race, and I started talking to a lady from Evansville during the last few miles. Oh, and I ended up with a mighty large PR! 2:23:58 which beat my Princess Half time by roughly 21 minutes! I am super excited to know that I improved and beat my best!