Here I am (#290), crossing the finish line at the Riverwalk 5 mile run.

Running on my birthday

Today is my birthday!!! Today was also the Riverwalk 5 Miler I've been looking foward to. Yesterday was Andy's last day of school EVER! Needless to say, he was zonked, so I gave him a get out of jail free card (read: I let him sleep in). My mom, also pooped, volunteered to do her "motherly duty" and came with me (lured mostly by the promise of free stuff). Note to self: if you ever want to score free stuff, take someone without shame, aka Mom.

Mom would have had even more fun had it not been freezing (my coldest birthday ever!) and had she had some company in the form of Andy's muscles to drag around all that free stuff. We had a blast, though. It was probably my worst race ever, as well. We went to dinner at the Olive Garden last night and I didn't exactly fuel up properly. I was so tired, so cold, so unmotivated. This is such a HUGE race (I placed 6th in my age group last year), I knew I wasn't going to win anything. I just wanted to hang out and enjoy the music and goodies. To make matters worse, my chip kept coming loose as I ran, costing me precious seconds every time I had to stop to tighten it. Eventually the stupid thing fell off as I approached the finish line, and I didn't even bother with my finshing kick. My time didn't get recorded. I even went back to look for the darn thing. I found the plastic tie (never again!), but no chip. Alas, I'm sure I'll get a bill for 30 bucks.

The race was fun, and it was awesome having my mom there. We scored lots of goodies. I was probably a good 30 seconds slower than last year, and my photo finish time says 44:49. Blah. As I passed the first mile marker and it said 9:00, I knew it wasn't going to be a good race!

My birthday was good...didn't turn out exactly as planned (fondue). But Andy & I did have a very nice post-run outdoor lunch at a Japanese/Thai place on a lake and gorged on ice cream and cake instead of dinner. What more could a girl ask for? :)

My first race of 2006!!!!

Woo-hoo! I finally dragged myself to a race, my first in a looooooong long time. It was great. I love the Miramar 10k for so many reasons...it's close to home, I always have support with me, and it's a 10k! My goal this year was simply to finish. Not having run more than 2 miles continuously in a while and it being that time of the month, I didn't have much confidence in myself. But amazingly, I did ok, 12 seconds better than last year, actually! I'm sure it was all the weight training I've been doing. My quads didn't get tired until the last few minutes of the race.

Even though I told myself, I just want to finish, less than a mile into it I felt myself getting competitive again. I HAD to win something!!!! As soon as I finished and downed a bottle of water, I rushed to see the results....I came in third!!!!! (Again!) Not too shabby, but I wish I could finish in under 50 mins! Maybe next year.

My next race: next Sat, on my birthday...the Riverwalk 5 miler. This time, Andy's coming with me! :)

The "official" numbers:

Run time: 00:55:14

Distance: 6.2 miles (10k)

Avg. Pace: 08:54

Trying something new

In my effort to get motivated again and introduce some variety into my workouts (and most importantly, to burn that last bit of stubborn fat!), I've decided to try something new: more lifting and less running. That is, I'm going to try to lift weights 6 days this week, with short bursts of running every day. Ideally, I should run after lifting to burn more fat (see www.philkaplan.com), but today I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. After running for about 10 mins, my watch died and I decided to head back after my turnaround. I run this route every day, so I know I ran about 2.5 miles in about 25 minutes. Then I did my weights: 2 sets of 12-15 reps of 5 different shoulder exercises, with lunges and crunches in between. It felt great. Tomorrow, I'll do my weights first, maybe work on my back, and then do another short 20 minute run. We'll see what happens...

I almost didn't make it

Another sleepy morning. My motivation was down to an all-time low. Can't I just go back to sleep??? Even after I got dressed I was still yawning. We went to bed at 10 last night!!! Surely, I got enough sleep! In any case, I told myself I would at least do 30 minutes, which is the bare minimium in my mind...

As I turned the corner to leave our community, Andy pulled up alongside me on his way to work. A quick kiss was enough to keep me going. :) I ended up doing 5 miles. My goal (originally) was 7.

I took a long walk break after the 3rd mile, about when I stopped for some H2O. That killed my avg pace. Otherwise, it wasn't too shabby for being so tired.

We're going to B&G's this weekend, and it's supposed to be in the 40's overnight. I doubt I'll run (at least not in the a.m.)...but I'm taking my gear with me just in case! I'll be happy to get in another 3-miler.

Run time: 0:50:49

Distance: 5 miles

Avg. pace: 10:10 / mi

Best pace: 07:07 / mi

Wednesday's run

My goal today was 5 miles. It almost didn't happen. I was so sleepy...I managed to get out the door, and thought, maybe I should just do 30 minutes. That sounded easy enough. And it was. And I felt good enough to do another 20 for a total of 50 mins. I took a few more walking breaks, which increased my avg pace, but oh well. I like this walking thing.

On a much happier note, today is our 3-year anniversary!!! :)

Run Time: 53:04

Distance: 5.16 miles

Avg. Pace: 10:17 / mi (those darn walk breaks!)

Best pace: 6:34 / mi

Total so far this week: 9 1/2 miles

My goal for Friday's run is 7 miles...let's hope I can get out of bed early enough!