Managing to Get Back on Track

I'm up at 2 in the morning. I awoke around 1 am from a bad dream (dreamed that I was stuck with owning a haunted house that was haunted by a 5 year old girl and it was my first night sleeping in the house!).

I decided to log onto the net to kill some time until I felt sleepy again. Checked myspace. Checked email. Caught up with some running blogs. By the way, the theme of the moment for most bloggers is FOOD! Makes it all the difficult to keep my weight in check! haha And finally decided to change up my blog's header.

My husband put all of my old running photos on a different hard drive and I don't know how to access them so I decided to work with a photo of my current running shoes that I took when I was waiting for my hotel shuttle to pull up at Portland International last fall. It adds something "official" to my blog. :)

I also wanted to log that I had run on Sunday evening.

I put in a short 3.1 miles as I knew that if I churned out anymore miles, I'd likely be really sore the next day. This was my first run since the 10k last Sunday. A whole week! Not good. I've been trying to get my garmin to locate satellites but it's not faring successful indoors. I don't want to go outside right now for fear of waking up the hubby. Guess I'll post my exact times later tomorrow. I do remember my mile splits though.

1 mile - 11:08
2 mile - 11:28
3 mile - 11:23

3.1 miles = 35:03

I realized I ran the first mile a little too fast so I tried to slow it down for the following miles. Still got a ways to go to get back to a 30 minute 5k. *sigh* But I know slow and steady wins the race!

I wanted to run last night (Monday) but I fell asleep while reading a book. I've been refreshing on my environmental science knowledge. Over the weekend, I got my butt in gear about the dreaded graduate school application process. I'm applying this coming winter. For most of this coming year, I will be married to my GRE study books. At least I have running to keep my sanity in check!

I'm going to go for a walk in the morning when I get up to warm up my sore muscles and do some stretching. I hope this alleviates some of the soreness. Tonight, I have a tentative dinner date with my two relay runners. We're going to iron out some of the race day details. Should be fun!

Back Into the Swing of Things

Today is the day I pick myself back up from the ditches of non-runnerdom. I can safely say that my cold is partially non-existent but this was not the reason I was held back from running this week. On Wednesday, I was admitted to the ER at St. Joe's Hospital for an acute, intense side abdominal pain. This pain feels like I have bad cramping right beneath my left ribcage and a couple inches further below that point. Doctors think it's some kind of colon problem but of course, they're not entirely sure. I have to start seeing a primary care physician. This pain has attacked me on four other occasions since last October so I know it's not just a fluke.

I feel fine right now though. I was able to catch the encore presentation of "Spirit of the Marathon" with my friend, Redladee. The inspiration was exactly what I needed to fit my head around the thought of me running 26.2 miles. At times, I got a little emotional when a runner would share how much running has impacted a positive change in her life and helped her to get through the bad times. Running is such a powerful catalyst and I'm sure glad that I became more serious about running in 2004. That summer was the first time I had ever had a thought of participating in a 5k. I bought my first RW magazine with Suzy Favor-Hamilton on the cover and after reading the issue, I wondered if it were possible for me to run 26.2. It felt like 100 miles to me at that time.

I thought about the distance on the reservation between my hometown of Kayenta and the nearest community called Dennehotso (where my mom's family is from). It is about 25 miles. As a kid, I thought it took forever to go from Kayenta to Dennehotso just to visit family. I wasn't sure if I could actually run the whole distance! But now here I am. I like how running makes me feel about myself. I may not be the ideal-celebrity-type size 2 body but my body kicks ass at what it can do and in longer distances I can run faster than girls 50 pounds lighter than me. It's so kick ass! haha

This is approximately mile 15 between Kayenta and Dennehotso.

Thanks for all the comments on my 10k. It truly was a beautiful course.

My next race is in two weeks. I'm running two legs of a 1/2 marathon relay (Valley of the Sun). These two legs add up to 6.9 miles. In the process, I was able to get a co-worker who is now a good friend to run a leg of this relay with me. She ran cross country in high school but yesterday she indicated to me that this was her first official race of any kind. I was so excited for her. Now she's thinking of 1/2 marathons we could do next. It's great. If that's the case, I think we'll be putting San Jose on our list this fall.

Pictures from Lost Dutchman 10k

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I wanted to post a couple of pictures from the Lost Dutchman 10k that I ran in Apache Junction (Arizona) on Sunday. I was nervous to run because I was coming off the tail end of a cold and wasn't sure how I would hold up a mile or two into the run.

I forgot to charge the Garmin the night before so I only had enough juice in it for 1 mile and then it decided to kick the can. It was probably for the best because I was able to run at a very relaxed pace and wasn't worried about time...well, honestly, my goal was just to finish the 10k under 1:20:00 given that I was taking a bunch of walk breaks to cough and spit and blow my nose. I swear, I was probably the only 10ker using the lone bathroom because I had to restock up on my tissue. If you look at my picture crossing the finish line, you'll see that I have a tattered piece of tissue in my hand. haha

I met my time goal and came in at 1:16:05. This race did not use chips so I think I actually came in around 1:15: something because I was fiddling with my Garmin at the start and didn't take off until about a minute after the gun. But who's counting?

All in all, it was a very enjoyable run. I'll blog more later but for now, I have to go to bed.

Nice Finisher Medals! Worth my $30.

Finishing Strong at the End. Doesn't even look like me!

Realizing that my Garmin does not have enough juice as people are running by.

Hubby took this of me looking out at the scenery from the shuttle.

Shuttle Full of Runners and Spectators. Nicely organized operation.

More coughing.

When it comes to this blog, no news is apparently NOT good news.

I'm still nursing my cold. The coughing is a real drag. I hope I at least get a little better by Friday and into the weekend. I did do one good thing today though. I went by Performance Footwear and signed up for the Lost Dutchman 10k this Sunday.

It's official, yo!

At Least My Nose is Running...

No report from me recently. I caught a cold yesterday and since then all in my world has been miserable. I just got up from a 5-hour nap and I have blood shot eyes. My nasal passages are stinging, my nose running, and throat burning.

I have to remind myself to register for the Lost Dutchman 10k tomorrow. Registration can take place at Performance Footwear so this will give me a chance to look at their shoe selection. I'm in the market for new shoes.

tRIP

The best thing about my whole trip to Cali was stopping at the Charles M. Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, California. I'm a Peanuts nut and I <3 LINUS!!

Week 3: The Long Run

I'm pissed! I just wrote this somewhat lengthy blog entry and it's lost! F*@k&% Blogger!!!