The Most WOnderful tiiiiime of the Year!

It's Fall!  Today was the 1st day of Fall!  The leaves are starting to turn and you can smell fall in the air.  Temperatures are lovely for running!  I will spare you of my rant about how incredible football season is.  While also being the first day of fall, today was Friday!  Oh how I love my Fridays. 

I was dreading my long run today.  Truly.  It was raining off and on and I was not looking forward to the 10 miles of torture.  So I whipped out my handy dandy book by the Marathon CEO and ooooh, how I needed his thoughts today.  By the time I got through reading the next chapter mile, I was ready to run.  And I just wanted to have fun with my run today. 

And for the first four miles, I did just that.  I just had a good time.  i enjoyed the beauty of the trail, the fall weather, the leaves on the trail, the blessings in my life and I just smiled.  At mile 4 I checked my watch and realized I was running very slowly.  Like, realllll slow.  So I tried to conscious of my lolly-gagging and direct more attention to my running.  Yeah, that didn't work out very well.

About 6.5 miles in, I started feeling it.  My knees were a bit achey, my hamstrings were a little tight, but I still had a ways to go.  And I thought, "self, I really wouldn't mind if the clouds opened up and it started raining.  I am a bit thirsty after all."  .........  ............................................  Ohhhhh yeah, mile 7.  The clouds indeed opened up and let it fall.  It wasn't so bad.  It didn't really make me any less thirsty or ease the pain any, but it changed things up a bit. 

Do to my miscalculation (which if you know me and my numbers skills is no surprise), I had an extra half mile to get back to my starting point that I hadn't planned on.  I finally figured this out while trying to figure out why my watch said I was running crazy ridiculously slow, not just Really slow like I actually was. I was soooo looking forward to stopping at 10 miles even.  But then I tossed around the benefits and consequences of running an extra half mile or mile versus walking the same in the rain.  So I split the baby and ran 10.5 miles and walked half a mile to cool down.  It took me one hour and 53 minutes to run 10.5 miles.  Which is Crazy slow!  I blame it on the cookies.

I did it.  And at least part of it was fun.  But now I can't walk.  Eah, walking is overrated. 

A Me Night

Today was my rest day to gear up for my 10-mile run tomorrow (*dReAdInG*).  So I rested.  BUT, I did talk myself into doing YoGA!  And it was amazing.  I dimmed the lights, lit some candles, googled some mediation music and put on a yogajournal.com podcast.  And then I meditated for as long as I could.  My mind wanders.  I'm not a good meditator.  But it was so perfectly lovely!  And refreshing.  And calming.  Ahhhh.

And then I put in the girlie flick of the decade, Bridesmaids, and did this:

That's a tub of homemade chocolate chip cookies and an empty wine glass.  Now that's a good night.

The Biggest Loser

Last night was the first episode of the new season of The Biggest Loser.  Which, I sometimes watch out of boredom.  I do get really proud of those people.  To put themselves out there for the World to see and working hard to change their lives.  It really is impressive.  I don't even want to run 5Ks because I don't want anyone watching me run.  Actually, it's not so much of the people watching as it is that I don't want to be compared to other people.  Regardless, those fine people are brave. 

On last night's episode, the hostess lady (I forget her name), told the contestants that they will be running a *Full*Marathon!*  These people just got off of a bus in the middle of a desert, they are 100+ pounds overweight (I'm generalizing), just had to walk/run 1 mile of which none of them had done in Eeeons, if ever.  Upon hearing that these brave, out of shape, overweight souls would be running a marathon, I determined that I have No Room to whine about running a half marathon.  But we all know I will and you can remind me of this post at such later date. 

Today I ran 5 miles up and down hills.  Today, the hills hurt much worse than yesterday.  It was hot too.  But, there were very few gnats today!  Wahoooo!  Tomorrow will be my rest day since I have to do my long run on Friday this week.  I will rest tomorrow to hopefully avoid the torturous 9-mile run incident of a few weeks ago, when I didn't rest the day before my long run.  Lessons learned.

Gnat Nasty

***Please be advised that the following blog post includes graphic images that may be disturbing to some readers.***

Gnat Nasty!  The good news... I ran 6 miles today.  I ran 6 miles today over and down hills.  And I didn't want to slit my wrists when I was done.  (I don't mean to joke about such horrible things.)  However, while I successfully ran 6 miles up and down hills.... I ate, snorted, choked, was blinded by, smashed on my face, drowned in my own sweat, you name it..... gnats.  Gross, Gross, Gross.  Don't get me wrong, I can handle gnats.  I'm an outdoorsy girl.  I camp, I hike, I lay in hammocks...  Outside stuff and me, we're cool. 

Masses of Anything and me, not so cool.  Like masses of people, ants, birds... you get the picture.  Things alllll fine in reasonable numbers.  This evening, the gnats were out in *Forces!*  In forces so great that this is what I saw when I looked at my reflection in my car window after the run.....

That's my neck... and those are gnats.  You see.  Please imagine for a moment what my shirt looked like from wiping the gnats from my face throughout my run.  I tried to capture that photo for you as well, unfortunately, my blackberry camera wouldn't capture that lovely sight for you. 

My belly aches when I run.  :(  It ached some while I was running this evening but it Really ached when I sat down to chill for the night.  It felt throw-up bad.  I suppose it's something I ate?  :(  I'm recovering.  From the gnats and the belly aches.  Could be a cause and effect thing going on there....  I did literally almost gag during my run from one or multiple gnats that I caught in my mouth like a frog catching a fly.  Not really, I didn't want the gnats.  Soooo Gross.

The Terrible "M" Word

Shhhh!  DON'T say it!  That awful thing that comes after Sunday and before Tuesday.  The Dreaded horrible thing came back around today.  Eww, Ughh, Ick, Blah, WAAAAAHHHHhhhh!!  It happens every darn week.  Today as I drove home after that terrible "M" word at work, even everyone I passed in their cars, at the grocery store, gas station, Everyone looked like they had the terrible "M" word blues. 

Five o'clock came and my running game had the terrible "M" word blues too.  My eyes were heavy, my legs were heavier.  So, I took the terrible "M" word way-out and only ran 4 miles today.  Tomorrow I hope I can bounce back with 6 miles. 

I did enjoy some delicious pasta with roasted red peppers, broccoli, basil chicken and spicy red pepper sauce for dinner.  Followed by two rice krispie treats :) 

I need to get in bed early tonight.  I think that terrible "M" word was so rough today because I didn't get enough sleep last night.  I need my sleep!

Try Try Again

Hooray!  I ran 10 miles today and it went O.K.  It took me an hour and 39 minutes.  I was really really nervous to attempt the 10 mile run today after last week's disastrous 9-mile run.  I kept thinking how awful it was going to be and I wasn't going to make it and I would be miserable the entire time.  But... *Try*Try*Again* was today's lesson.  If things don't go right the first time, it can be scary to try again but you must.  And most often, it goes better than you ever would have expected.

I had a lot to distract me today from the thoughts of the fact that I was running for an hour and forty minutes.  This always helps.  And when my quads and knees started hurting around 6.5 miles, I kept running and told myself that there are plenty of people in the world in much more pain than I was in.  Run for those who cannot.  Run for those people fighting harder times than you are. 

I usually run pretty well when I'm angry.  I can pound my frustrations out on the pavement or trail.  And you Cannot cry while running.  This I know.  In 2006 I ran a half marathon in Montreal Canada with a girlfriend of mine.  The night before the race we each made a list of 13 things we were angry about and for each mile of the 13.1 race, we planned to run for a different angry reason.  We put these little pieces of paper with our lists in our running shorts.  Besides it pouring the rain and our lists getting soaking wet.... the course was marked in kilometers.  Our brilliant idea of having 13 things to run about for the 13.1 miles was shot.  I didn't even realize the course was marked in kilometers until I got to the first kilometer marker.  But nonetheless, my list must have worked.  I set a new PR for myself while also screwing up my left knee, which would debilitate my running for years.... stay tuned - I'm still not sure I'm in the clear.  Now *That* was a good use of some angry energy. 

You see, bad experiences can be put to good use.  This was my 10-miler reward after a good shower on a beautiful fall day getting ready for some Volunteer football. 

Cheers!

Members Only

Today I was supposed to cross train.  I intended to, kind of.  I wanted to run a hard 3 miles and do some weight lifting at a gym.  But silly me forgot to check with the gym that I had never been to before.  It's one of those lame members only gigs, and it's not even staffed.  The only way in is with a code you punch in.  Which I guess you have to call and give a credit card over the phone?  I don't know.  Whatever.  Bottom line, the gym didn't happen for me today.  So I ran a hard 3 miles instead (in 28 minutes) and did a handful of pushups. 

I feel like I should do workouts like that every Friday, which I usually call a rest day.  It was really nice today to do an easier workout than a 5-mile run or dumb Jillian's DVD.  I'm thinking about doing a 5K on Saturday, but then I'd still have to get in 7 more miles.  It likely depends on how tomorrow night goes as to whether I'll get up bright and early and run a race.  I haven't ran a race in Quite Some Time.  I don't like to be compared to a pile of other runners, most of who enjoy it and do it religiously.  I'd just assume compare myself to myself.  However, distance-wise, 5Ks are looking even more tempting than the 10Ks I said I should stick to earlier this week!