half-marathon eve

My ankle is still hurting a little bit today. I thought I had an ankle brace in my arsenal of joint supports left over from my dancing days, but I couldn't find it. I did find an ACE bandage sans the clips to hold it on, so I used some safety pins to secure it. It immediately felt better with a little bit of support. I'm getting ready to make a Starbucks run and I think I'm going to run in Target and check out the ankle braces. I need something more streamlined to wear with my tennis shoes.

In other news, the weather forecast is holding steady. We're still looking at clouds in the morning and temperatures around 60. I can deal with that :) Storms are expected in the afternoon, but that should be well after we finish because we're so fast!

weather update!

The F-cast has changed a little bit since yesterday. In a good way. I may even start to think of the "F" in F-cast as Fun instead of F*&$.......... Now we're looking at a high of 74, a low of 62, and only a 40% chance of precipitation! Woot! Even better news is that the hourly forecast is now available and the outlook for 8am on Saturday is cloudy and 56 - that sounds like nice running weather to me!

In preparation for the possibility of rain, I've been doing a little bit of shopping. I am currently the owner of 2 rain jackets - neither of which I really like. Mostly because I'm cheap and I bought one at TJMaxx and the other at Marshalls. Don't get me wrong, these are 2 of my favorite stores, but you don't always get exactly what you're looking for. You don't pay 3-4 times as much either :) Anyway, one jacket is an Adidas wind jacket, which is a little too small and possibly not water resistant. The other is a Marker (some ski co.) rain jacket, which is a little too big, but it's made for the rain. I'm going to check out the TJMaxx and Ross stores near my work at lunch today and see what else I can find. Hopefully I won't need any rain gear at all on Saturday (please, please) and I can take them all back!

I realized that I haven't posted my pace lately and I don't know why because it's been damn good. In an effort to be nicer and congratulatory to myself - my pace for the past 2 weeks has been under a 9:00/mile in every run, culminating with last night's 8:26/mile :)

F-cast

Forecast for Saturday, March 28, 2009: Rain/Thunder. High 73. Low 59. Precipitation chance 70%.

Dammit.

i'm so excited!

Does the title of my post make anyone else think of the episode of Saved by the Bell when Jessi Spano gets addicted to caffeine pills? I'm too stupid to figure out how to put a video in my post, so if you want to see it go here.

Anyway, that's not why I'm excited, although that is a powerful piece of film. I'm excited because I am signing up to take riding lessons again! It's something that I've wanted to do for a while, but I hadn't found the right barn yet. Now I think I have and I'd like to start taking lessons in April - after the half-marathon of course. I'm not going to quit running for the sake of riding, don't worry. Maybe this will just turn into a running/reading/riding blog.

Speaking of running, I had a decent 3 mile run last night. It was the last day of good (aka warm) weather that we are supposed to have for a while. Meh to that. This weekend is supposed to be rain, rain, rain, rain. I'm not happy about that, but at least the temps are supposed to be in the 50's and not the 40's. Fingers crossed that we'll have good weather for the half - in just over 2 weeks!!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat my lunch. At 11am. Apparently my appetite has returned.

spring fever

It's been a really nice weekend. The weather has been wonderful - 80's and sunny both yesterday and today. D and I spent yesterday working on things around the house. He changed the oil in the cars and rotated the tires. Yay for no more roaring noise from the tires! I cleaned the house and put new bedding on the bed in the guest room. I snagged a deal at Target on a complete bed set - comforter, shams, sheets, and dust ruffle - originally $80, marked down to $20!

It was so nice to have all of the doors open and the ceiling fans on (and the dogs outside!) to air the house out. D went to a friend's house last night to play pool while I stayed home to rest up for my run this morning.

The run this morning went great! Even though I felt like my legs were going to fall out from under me a couple of times. We did a couple of BIG hills and they took a lot out of me. In spite of that, we clocked about a 9:15 pace. Most of that was thanks to A for dragging us along. She rocks! I'm lucky to have found such a good group of girls to run with and I'm looking forward to the carbfest at J's before the half!

I thought that I would be too tired when I got home to do much this afternoon, but the nice weather kept me from sitting still for too long. D and I went out to our local disc golf course. D played a round while Bodie and I cheered him on. Afterwards we went to Sonic - how is it that no one has clued me in on how great Sonic is???? We had a nice snack of tater tots (yum!) and ice cream. Well, D got a Reese's cup blast (similar to a blizzard) and I got a stupid Strawberry smoothie. The lure of the non-fat frozen yogurt that is used to make it was too hard to resist. Yes, I know that sounds crazy, but fattie here is always looking for the healthiest (read: least likely to make me fatter) option. I knew in my head that I should get what I wanted to eat instead of worrying about what had the least calories, but I couldn't stop myself. I ended up being unsatisfied and eating half of D's ice cream. I'm going to call it a lesson learned and try to do better next time. At least I'm not beating myself up over it, which is definitely progress.

Anyway, now we're home taking a quick break after getting a lasagna assembled and in the crock pot for tomorrow night. Tonight we'll be dining on salmon burgers, asparagus, and baked potatoes.

In a few minutes, we're going to go out and do a little bit of yard work before enjoying some much deserved Coronas. Hell, we may enjoy the Coronas and yard work simultaneously....

the other stuff

You may or may not have noticed that I changed the title of my blog after the half-marathon. I wanted to keep blogging, but not solely about running. Ha! That idea went well - I took a little hiatus and blogged about nothing at all. But now I'm back, with an entry about.......drumroll please.............running!

I ran a 10K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. Let's just say that staying out drinking until 2:00am the night before a race is not a great idea. Especially when said race is comprised almost entirely of HILLS. Gah. The race sucked, it really did. It was cold out, I was possibly a *little* hungover, and did I mention the hills? The only thing that kept me going was the promise of a trip to Starbucks after the race. Mmmmm.........crack in a cup. Oh yeah, you're probably wondering about my finishing time. Couldn't be great, right? Um, 58:22 - take that uphill race!

Unfortunately, pulling out that time took a lot out of me. I started feeling under the weather on Saturday and was unable to run for about 2.5 weeks. I was worried about how a break that long would affect me. It was hard to get the motivation to get back out there, but I finally did this past Sunday. I did 2 miles that day, 3 miles Monday, and then 3.3 miles last night. The weather has been really mild this week which has made it SO much easier to go outside and do it. I hope I can keep this momentum going once it gets cold again.

I'll do my best to update again soon, but if it takes me a while let me go ahead and say Merry Christmas!

gearing up

Since I ran such a blistering fast pace on Wednesday night, I decided that I would take my five mile run easy tonight. It was C-O-L-D out there, but I suppose that is good practice for the half-marathon. Tonight I ran wearing what I will most likely wear at the race. Capri length running pants (tights?), sleeveless shirt made of wicking fabric under a long sleeved shirt of the same material (with built in mittens!), and a down-alternative vest. I felt pretty comfortable, but still a little bit chilly. This weekend I plan to look for a warm ear wrap headband thingie (that's the technical term) and also a neck wrap thingie - like this. What can I say, I like to be warm.

I am guessing that the temperature on race day will be............OH CRAP..............I don't have to GUESS the temperature. The race is next weekend. Which means the weather forecast is available! Oh my gosh, I can't believe it's that close. OK, so I just checked the weather forecast and so far it looks good. The high the day before is 65 and the low the night before is only 51 - that is freaking awesome! Back when I was guessing, I thought we would be running in the 30's to 40's, so the idea of the 50's is absolutely fab!! So it looks like I might not need the ear and neck warmer thingies. I'll probably buy them anyway "just in case." Plus, I just like to buy stuff. That is how I ended up with a brand new pair of running shoes in my car - oh wait, make that TWO new pairs of running shoes - that I'm not even wearing. Gah. That is a story for another day.

My next run (and last long run before the race) is a ten-miler on Sunday. It's a group run (yay!) and afterwards we are going out for second breakfast! I think the thought of pancakes will be an inspiration for us all!

i learned something today....er....yesterday

Yeah........I had good intentions of updating my blog on the actual day that I run, but that doesn't seem to be happening. I am just too tired after running and showering and eating dinner (and having some wine) to get on the computer and try to be clever. Oh well, it's my blog and I make the rules - so there!

Anyway, I did my 3 mile run last night and the weather was SO NICE! I still waited until about 8:15 to go out and it was in the 70's with low humidity - perfect running weather. I felt really good about my run, but I was disappointed with my pace - 10:34. I really felt like I was going faster than that. This weekend I am planning to recalibrate my nike+ to see if that makes a difference.

Speaking of nike+ipod, have I said how much I love that thing? I love that it keeps track of my distance and my pace and that I can check how far along I am in my run at any time. I especially love coming in after a run and downloading my data so that I can see my progress. It is a really cool gadget, I must say! And for those of you that are wondering, you don't have to have the special Nike shoes to use it. You can simply buy a shoe pouch and attach it to your favorite shoes.

Oh, here's what I learned yesterday - deer are really pretty, but they can make really loud noises and scare the crap out of you. Also, when you are planning to run later in the evening, maybe you shouldn't pick blackberries, groom 2 horses, and brush 1 dog before you head out. It will make you tired.