4 more days!!!!!!!!!!!! Who's counting?

  Not sure what to say!  I already am having sleepless nights, not good!  I just can't stop thinking about what I will wear, will it be the right gear, what to eat, will I have to make a bathroom break, will I get lost in the crowd, will I trip and fall, will someone push me down at the start line, will I go too fast, will I go too slow, will I get a side ache, will it rain, will there be sunshine, will I be hot, will I be cold, will my friends do ok, will my husband find me, will I be able to walk, will I be able to run, will I forget somthing, should I wear my new shoes, wear the old ones, will I sleep in, will I get sleep, will I get over emotional, will I not care..............

  This list looks a little bit silly I know, but I am being super honest about what I am thinking at night.  I know the answer to most of these questions, but of course I still have been asking myself every night.... in the middle of the night.  I am for the most part, just ready to get out there and enjoy the experience.  But I do love support, so please send me any advise for a FIRST TIMER!!!

  I splurged last night and bought myself a gift for doing all of the training, and assuming I will finish the race on Saturday.  I bought plane tickets for the girls and I.  We are leaving Sunday, yes the day after the race!  Going to a itty bitty little town in Iowa to see my sister in law and her kids.  I am excited to leave the make-up bag behind, and go enjoy some heat, and let the girls play with their cousins.  Oh and for my recovery runs, they should be nice and flat.  I think I might do laps around the town she lives in ( yes it is that small) so that will be fun, I will be sure and take some pictures.

  Only 4 more days!!! SO weird, I think this is the first time I have worked this long towards somthing, I kind of will be sad when the day comes and goes!  Do you ever feel that way?  I am glad to have another race schedualed for 3 months away, so I don't stop.  Again advise people.... What kind of a training plan do I follow next???

  Alrighty me official goal time is 2hr 15 min.  I did my other 13.1 mile run in 2 hr 25 min.  I think this is reasonable, I am excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I roll a swagger wagon!

Bleh!  That is how I have been this week.  Almost not sure I am a runner.  I felt like I was getting sick yesterday, so I postponed my long run for the week.  I feel better today, maybe it was allergy's.....who knows.  I needed a little pick me up this week, just not sure what is wrong with me.  Not in the best moods, not the worst either.....just Bleh!  Just when I thought I might throw in the towel for the week, one of our friends reminded me we drive a swagger wagon.  This made my day!  Now that I have been reminded of the image I must up-hold, I plan on doing my long run tommorrow morning bright and early!  After all I can't be rolling in my swagger wagon and be in a funky mood! 

YOU have got to check this out!!!           http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDb88zEeHDI

Sound of Narrows Results

My husband says he could hear me coming as I approached the Finish!  Apparently no one else was yelling and screaming as they finished.  I might of been a little dramatic on this one, but I was excited and it felt good to let everyone know I was there!  Sound of Narrows, should probably be called somthing like.... Hills by the Narrows.  I am not gonna lie, this was a tough run.  I had no idea what the route was, I learned a little lesson about preperation there.  But for the most part It was GREAT!!!  I met my friend nice and early at the bus station so we wouldn't have to find parking.  We were both a little nervous, it was a first race for both of us.  I was kind of overwhelmed at the begining just with all of the people, and how hard it was to run at my own pace, because people were always in my way.  I was in great spirits that day.  I thought that people would be cheering each other on, but I am pretty sure I was the only one cheering.  Is that weird?  Every 5-10 minutes I would just shout out: Great Job everybody!  Keep it up!  Your doing great!  You Rock! I enjoyed it, it was encouraging for me to hear, and I hoped other people would appriciate it too!  I never heard anyone else say anything the whole race.  Is that weird?  I focused really hard when the big hills came, it was a warm morning, but I felt well prepared.  Plenty of Water! A great breakfast!  A good friend to share the experience with!  Looking forward to finishing my first race!  SO the excitment kept me going.  I am soo glad I did this before the big race!  Now I kind of know what to expect, and I hope that will cure some of my race day Jitters.  Oh and the passing thing... was not an issue!  I could care less if someone passed me, and when I passed someone, I would usually tell them how great they were doing.  When I finally got up that hill to the home stretch.  I started sprinting fast as I have ever run.  I probably flew past a good 15-20 people.  I checked my garmin at the end, I crossed the finish line with a 5:oo pace!  That is CRAZY!  I think I was super excited to cross the finish line!  My husband says he wished he would of video taped it, because the picture doesn't show everything, ie the screaming!  So I am glad, well trained, not sore at ALL, and Ready to ROCK n' ROLL!!!!!!!!

Official Stats

Sound of Narrows

12 K

1:17:01

Place 607/1256

Sound of Narrows 12K and I think my Garmin Broke!

You read that!  I have decided to get my race day jitters taken care of BEFORE my big race!  I have been thinking about it for a while now, and with just about 2 weeks left, this is my last chance to do it.  Since I have never been in a race before I am really nervous of running with a bunch of people!  I don't want my deep dark issues to come up, if you don't know I hate being passed, it kind of gets me down.  I really don't like running with people if they are running right in front of me, it flat out discourages me.  SO I am planning on this Saturdays race to be my first official race, to help with a little anxiety issue.  I know I can run the whole thing, so I think my goal will be to stick with a 10:30 pace or less.  I think this goal is acheivable, and I don't want to set myself up for anything that will get me down.  I also have never ran this route, which includes a lot of hills, and hills can slow me down.  Do you have any advice on how to overcome the fears that go with running slower than other people?  I am also just praying that I will SLEEP the night before.  This will be interesting and soooo helpful to know what to expect for the BIG race!

On a side note.... I went for a run this evening.  I did a run by my house that I am familiar with, but it includes a hill that I am kind of scared of, "two for one hill."   I thought about that darn hill just about the whole time, doesn't help!  I kept trying to think of other things that would distract me, but I wasn't full of energy and felt a little over worked on this run.  By the time I got to the hill I tried to slow down a little bit, and then my good friend and neighbor drove by!  That kind of helped distract me for a minute, and then before I knew it the first hill was done.  "Two for one hill" is 2 hills with a little flat stretch in between, and it is just about 1 mile in total length!  I named it "two for one hill" because if you can get up the first hill, then the second one just comes as a bonus, it is a little bit easier.  SO of course the second hill was pretty easy and I re-gained speed for the home stretch.  I got back, looked at my Garmin and am not sure what happened but I think it is BROKEN!  I can't believe the numbers I am seeing!  IT SAYS I RAN A 9:35 PACE!  BUT I RAN UP THAT BIG HILL!?!?!??!  So never the less I am sure somthing is wrong but I will say, I feel like a superstar right now, so I am not going to do anything about my garmin.  If it is broken, then I will just enjoy the numbers and thinking I really am getting faster! WOOT WOOT!

Stats:  3.5 miles
          33:31 min
          9:35 min pace!!!!

Alright I will let you all know how my test race goes on Saturday!  Please send any advise you have!  I love it!  Thanks to Jill as well for sending me some bloggy friends!  I love having friends!

                         

Great RUN and even better LUNCH!

  Today I set out for 7-8 miles, not sure how long it would be, all I knew is that I wanted to end my run at the bottom of NICE hill.  I ran an extra loop in my neighborhood before setting out for mile long hill.  I looked at my pace after the hill at about mile 3.5 at realized if I could recover quickly and set a faster pace I might set a goal pace of 10/min/miles for my run!  I think this run was the perfect distance in my training.... not TOO long for my pace, and not too easy either.  I realized a couple of things today, I am a RUNNER!!!!!  I have done this route before and had to walk, I no longer HAVE to walk.  This is sooo cool, especially when I face those lovely HILLS.  It was kind of warm out, but with a water in hand and some SHOT BLOCKS along the way, I didn't mind the heat!!  This is new for me... coping with a little bit of heat!  I have come a long way in that department.  One last thing to comment is that Running is soo mental for me, but more than anything it really has become a GREAT spiritual time for me.  God has shown me sooo much through my running and really it all comes down to this.... I NEED HIM ON MY RUNS!  I look back on most of my runs and realize that all of my GREAT runs are the ones that I include God in.  I think he is trying to prove a point, that if I look to him all the time, LIFE CAN BE GREAT too!

Stats of my run: 7.25 miles 1 hr 12 min, 10:03 pace
  After my run I decided to try a recipe from my new Runner World Magazine!

SO Salmon Burgers, and Watermelon and Feta Salad for LUNCH!  This was the perfect meal for after a run, not too heavy, but oh soo YUMMY!!!
We get those Wild Alaskan Salmon Burgers from Costco, so easy!
But here is the recipe for the salad, it was easy too!!!
Salad
2 lbs Watermelon Chopped up
1 cup Greek Feta cheese crumbled
1 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped
1 cup mixed baby greens
Dressing
1/4 t sea salt
1 T fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup EVOO

Toss the salad, drizzle the dressing and enjoy!

I loved the sweet and salty combo in the salad! 

GREAT RUN! GREAT LUNCH!!!! NOW ITS TIME TO ENJOY THE SUN!

Welcome to my Blog!

Hi everybody! I have finally put together a running blog! YAY! It has been somthing I have wanted to do for a while now, and while I went on my first 13.1 mile run yesterday I decided to tell you all I have DONE THE RUN!

A little history people..... I have been married over 8 years now and I have two sweet little girls, m-2 1/2 and g-1 1/2 (yes... only 11 mos apart). I had never been a runner, maybe attempted it a couple of times, but never set running goals and acheived them. I was overly inspired by my friend Jill and her incredible journey with running, that I decided I wanted it too! I might of gained a little bit of weight in my 2 pregnancies,( only like 60lbs....each!) and I needed to make a change for myself. So right at the beginning of 2010, I started to run... more like walk....walk... run...walk...run...walk...run.......runrunrunrunwalkrunrunrunrun... RUN! In month 2 I registered for my very first race, the Rock n Roll Half Marathon in Seattle! At this point I was still only maybe running 3 miles at a time. But I was able to now focus on a goal, and less on the weight, which is soooo great because those lbs tend to melt off the bod quicker than you think as the mileage gets up there. Oh and not to mention how great I feel about myself!

Training has gone fairly well thus far! I have had ups and downs the whole way. I haven't taken any huge breaks from running in the past 5 months, and when I do go 3 days without running, boy howdy do I feel the guilt set in. I remember just last week talking to Jill about my running and admiting to her how bad I felt going a whopping 4 days(the max) without running, and how weird that it because I went 30 years without running and never felt an ounce of guilt about it then! Can I just say how lucky I am to have such a close, special friend mentor me in this!?!?! SO LUCKY! Words cannot express all of the great things Jill has done for me! Thank you friend!

SO here it goes the first run I want to share with all of you! In my training I decided that I must do a 13 miler before the race, so mental for me. So you might not of heard about this race, because it was not open to the public, just intended for one special gal....ME!

May 31, 2010
Diana's Memorial Day Half Marathon

13.1 miles

2 hr 25min

NO WALKING

I took 1st place!