run this amazing day

Let's take a look back... December Goals Finish the Jingle All The Way 10K under 1:05 (more on this later). Smashed it, with a new PR to boot. Stop living off of noodles, tomato sauce, and cheese.  Eat a vegetable, for crying out loud. Semi-success - lots more fruits, some more veggies. Keep planning the workout dates. (Anyone?) Looking back, I actually had lots of workout dates - mostly running.  Who wants to go lifting? Do some Christmasy things in DC I've never done before. Done! Work up to 20 mpw.  Don't stress about pace. Finishing the month at 18 mpw, 24-26 mpw including pool miles. Finish the swim in Key West without having a giant anxiety attack because of a fish. Finished solidly, albeit much slower than I'd hoped. Buy some new dress clothes and DON'T RETURN THEM. I have not yet returned the Target dress pants.  WIN. Maybe - MAYBE - try to not eat 45 cupcakes this month.  Maybe.  Maybe indeed. I think it's pretty fair to call December a month...

1. Butt.  Ow. 2. Stress. 3. Champagne.  Tomorrow.

What better to follow a year in photos than a year in races? I kicked off last year with the Fairfax 4 Miler - my first day of running in almost 8 months - on New Years Eve.  (Yes, I know New Years Eve was in 2009, hush, I make the rules).  We filled our water bottles with vodka (not a good idea, it makes you very slow) and headed out into the pouring sleet for a very definite personal worst. 12/31/2009 - Fairfax 4 Miler - 51:51 Next up was the rescheduled Love the Run You're With 5K.  I'd been very slowly returning to running and just wanted to break 35 minutes and not feel any lingering stress fracture pain in my foot.  It was also the poet's first race. 2/28/2010 - LTRYW 5K - 33:17 Excited by how good I felt in this race, I started to stack things up (this is called foreshadowing).  I ran my first-post-injury 6.5 mile run in Bloomington, IN, about a week before the 4 Courts 4 Miler.  I wasn't trying to race this one, just running for the free beer...

I have shamelessly stolen this idea from Liz , who shamelessly stole it from someone else, which, I think, is how bloggers survive in the wilderness. January A weekend in Vegas. February The big snow. March I go back to Bloomington. April Graham grew out of his puppy-ness. May We visited Albuquerque. June We think shaving Graham is a good idea (it's not). July One of many, many summer nights with friends. August Graham learns to swim. September I have surgery. October I am surprised. November The Eagles tear it up. December Molly comes home. Weekly wrap: Monday: 55 minutes lifting (legs), 40 minutes/2000 yard swim Tuesday: 55 minutes lifting (arms/chest/back), 40 minutes/4.25M run Wednesday: 65 minutes lifting (L), 70 minutes/7M pool run Thursday: 65 minutes lifting (a/c/b, then at PT), 20 minutes/2.25M elliptical, 20 minutes/2.2M run  Friday: 60 minutes lifting (L), 35 minutes/4.05M tempo run Saturday: Rest Sunday: 50 minutes lifting (a/c/b), 64 minutes/6.7...

I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing weekend! We spent Friday night first going to church for Christmas Eve services, and then off to P.F. Chang's to fulfill the poet's  Christmas wish - to eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve.  Ah well, it was delicious!  We also attempted to get everyone to sit still for just freaking two seconds to take a picture, but this is as close as we got.  Graham can barely breathe and Molly is about to make a lunge for freedom. Saturday morning we slept in pretty late (almost 8am!) and then got up for the big present-opening event.  Molly got a pink pig.   Graham got a moo cow. And then they spent the rest of the day fighting over each other's toys, in the spirit of family Christmas everywhere. The poet and I went easy on the gifts this year for a variety of reasons, but I did get him some warm running clothes so now he has no excuse not to suck it up & tough it out.  He surprised me by registering me for the...

Happy Holidays, blog friends!  May your holidays be filled with joy.

1. PEOPLE!   I will take a rest day !   2. Due to work schedules, new puppies, and a seriously low tolerance for traffic, we aren't traveling for the holidays this year. Which likely marks the first time in 12 years that I haven't spent a significant amount of time either in a car or an airport (or both) in order to celebrate Christmas.  I almost don't know what to do with myself.  We have big plans to stay in our pjs all day, cook a big dinner, and just generally relax and enjoy the holiday. 3. I've been thinking, this month, about how different my life was a year ago.  Every once in a while I get a glimpse back, and almost everything has changed - for the better.  And for that, I am thankful. Happy Holidays.  

Maybe the most amazing race shot ever. Caption contest time!  The most hilarious comment (it must make me spit hot tea on my desk) will get a running-related surprise in the mail!  I like things that make me laugh and you guys love free stuff.  Could be Gu, socks, chomps, bloks, who knows?  Ready, go!

So, amidst spluttering about my inability to read, I signed up for the National Half.  Over the weekend, I worked out a training plan, and after much input from my awesome running moms girls, I think it's final.  Final but very flexible. (click on it to make it much, much larger!) Many notes: You'll notice I've laid out mileage, but not pacing.  My only goal for this race is to get to the starting line healthy.  That's it.  I'll probably have rough time goals in my head as I get closer, but I am not setting any at the outset.  Mileage is what's important, not pacing.  I've also left a pretty big spread each week on milage, to give myself the ability to do a little more if I'm feeling good, or shut it down if I'm feeling rough.  As long as I hit somewhere in the weekly range I've targeted, I'll be happy.  I plan on doing track and tempo workouts "light" for much of the first month, because I know the increased intensity is going t...

I'm not sure what happened, or why I wasn't paying very close attention, but we are deep in winter.  What happened to fall?   I do love winter, though.  Christmas is my favorite holiday, and I did a lot of things this weekend that I only get to do near the holidays.  Friday evening I went to see the NSO put on "Messiah."  It was fantastic, and if baking 850lbs of baked goods last weekend and burning Christmas candles hadn't gotten me in the holiday spirit, this most definitely did.  Saturday brought swimming and napping and Christmas parties galore.  And Sunday morning brought one of my favorite things: running outside in the crisp cold morning (it truly is one of my favorite things, despite my bitching ).  The only thing missing was the  text-message-renegotiations on what time we were meeting, as I ran with CAR for the first time.  6 easy miles that felt harder than they should have, with the Egyptian-Magician-approved 2 minutes of w...

So.  The verdict of the Egyptian Magician is that I ramped up the intensity a tiny bit too much over the past two weeks, which has pissed off my piriformis (Latin for "pear-shaped" - thanks a lot).  Anyhow, a few elbow-to-the-butt beatings, some stretching, and some time riding the baseball should leave me good as new.   In thinking about it, I did ramp it up a bit too quickly.  My mileage did not increase, but I dropped out some of the walking.  The week before the 10K, I went from walk 2 run 8 to walk 2 run 20, and there was a 3-mile run and a 2-mile run without any walking at all.  That plus the all-out effort in the 10K has resulted in a pain in my ass.  So I'm going back to the walk/run for the next few weeks - which I had actually done anyhow.  This morning I did walk 2 run 10, and while my legs still feel heavy from the 10K, everything else felt decent.   I also finally got back in the pool this morning for some pool running with Am...

1. The ouchie butt pain I felt on Sunday, both pre- and post-race, is still around.  I think I might have bruised something when I ate sidewalk last week, but it feels like the top end of my IT band is yanking on my glute pretty hard.  It feels good to stretch and it's definitely a little better each day, but something is kinda sorta of not right.  I'm in to see the Egyptian Magician tomorrow, so hopefully it's just a tiny sore place that he can beat to death and it will then go away.   2. I keep telling myself that I know that I'm a badass, therefore, I don't need to go outside and run in the cold to prove it.  Dear Self, you are being a giant wimp.  GO OUTSIDE.  Two years ago I spent most of the winter shaming someone else into running outside ("It's not that cold!" "It's not snowing that hard!" "We'll only do eight  ten miles!").  Folks, bring on the shame.   3. I bought a mint chocolate candle yesterday.  It makes...

Someone had an accident in her crate yesterday.  Sigh.

We've now had Molly home for a week.  Life is pretty different.  All of our days are sponsored by the word, "NO," as we try and train her to NOT put everything she sees in her mouth.  She's 12 weeks old, which is much older than G was when we brought him home at 7 weeks.  Some things are easier - she's already been started on crate training, so she doesn't cry throughout the entire night.  She'll whimper for a few minutes, but then goes to sleep.  It also means that she can go a little longer without needing to go outside, so I'm not stressed about going to the gym and running to the store and her having an accident in her crate after being left in there for 2 hours.  She had a few accidents in the house the first couple of days, but now I think she's learned how to tell us that she needs to go out. However, she's totally different than Graham was.  Graham was pretty quiet and timid about exploring his new environment, and while he gets excite...

When I started running again on October 26th , I had no idea what my fall/winter was going to look like.  But I targeted the Jingle All The Way 10K as my "comeback" race.  At the time, I had no idea how my running would be going, so I simply hoped to be able to start and finish pain-free.  When I bought my first pair of post-surgery running shoes , I picked up a JATW10K postcard at Pacers, and it's been sitting on my bedside table ever since.  A daily reminder of what I was working towards. As I've built up over the past 7 weeks, various goals have come and gone.  As my running progressed, the soft time goals in my head kept dropping.  1:20.  1:10.   1:05 .  And finally, 56:59 , to solidly PR.  The universe laughs. I had probably one of the worst run-ups to a race I've ever had.  On Friday, I grudgingly headed out into the cold to run 2 little miles, just to shake things out.  My HR was high.  I was coughing.  Tir...