It's Go Time.

No more messing around. It's time to get serious and focused about this 1/2 Marathon. I'm less than six weeks out, 40 more days until 13.1. It is now time to put up or shut up. I have to put the last few miserable weeks behind me and realize that I am strong enough to do this. Do my shins hurt and does my side constantly ache? Yes. But can I let that stop me now? No! Okay so here goes...Here is what this week looks like

Mon-5 miles
Tues-3 miles
Wed-5 miles
Thurs- XTrain
Friday-Off
Saturday- 8 Miles
Total: 21 miles....piece of cake :/

Who knew...

shoes could be the latest attacker on my morale. You may remember a few weeks ago I posted about how excited I was about my new Brooks Ghost 3's. I was really looking forward to running in them and couldn't wait to lace them up. Then I was hit with Bronchitis and sidelined for a bit. During my bout with bronchitis I did a couple very slow, controlled, treadmill runs and thought that my new shoes were great. After a few days off I took it out on the road and oh holy hell shin splints like no other. After about .5 mile I was in excrutiating pain to the point that I limped home crying to my husband. I thought it may have just been that I needed to break in the shoes so I took them out for a couple more painful runs. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and I went back to the running store that fitted me in those shoes. They were awesome and told me to try another version of Brooks with a little more support. After 45 minutes of awesomeness I walked out the door with my brand new shoes excited about using them on my 8 mile run Saturday. Disaster strikes again. As I'm out with my sister in law (who is running the 1/2 with me) she notices how flat footed I am running. (actually I sounded more like a fat out of shape horse "clomp, clomp, clomp") and I literally couldn't bend my foot upward. There was no "heel to toe" running motion coming from me. I told her to run ahead so she could get her mileage in for the day and I slowly somehow think I managed to get through 10K instead of the 14K we were supposed to run. After that I run I knew it had to be something with the Brooks line that just didn't work for my feet. Off to the running store I go again. This time however I find out that the new Brooks shoes I had been buying were less of a shoe than what I was used to running in (that would have been nice to know before!). So I here I am with a new pair of Nike Lunar Glides hoping that this is the end of my shin pain.

Unfortunately I'm now in a very bad place with running. The 1/2 is just over 6 weeks away and the longest mileage I've put up is 7 miles. I'm in no means trying to run a fast race at all but I just want to finish it and after the last few weeks of on again off again running I feel completely overwhelmed and under prepared.

Hills...

are the devil. Last night I had a nice short 2 mile run, except I decided to torture myself and run hills. We have this nice steep hill behind our house so I did a slow paced warm up jog and then did "pyramids" on the hill:

Up easy, Down easy
Up easy, Down Hard
Up Hard, Down Easy
Up Hard, Down Hard
Up Hard, Down Easy
Up Easy, Down Hard
Up Easy, Down Easy

It absolutely kicked my butt. I did at least have some comedy relief watching my dog get a kick out of running the hills with me. I took him off of his leash and he was perfect, running right next to me and patiently meeting me at the top and bottom of the hill each time.

6 miles in for the week and 12 more to go!

No Pain No Gain

7 miles down 6.1 to go! After missing two long runs thanks to bronchitis I dusted off the new running shoes (how sad is it that they already collected dust) and went out for a long run yesterday. Old Man Winter gave us a break yesterday and we had a great day for outside running. It was about 50 degrees, partly sunny, with a little bit of a sprinkle here and there. I had only planned on doing 5 but once I started running I knew I wanted to push myself and get back on track to where I should be right now. I was also excited because this longer run gave me the opportunity to start to test out some energy gels/chews. Those things really do work to give you a bit of an extra boost. I think I may need to take them every mile though ;) 6.2 mi to 7 miles was definitely tough and by the end I didn't think my legs could move anymore but I did it. I took a few very short (30 sec or less) walking breaks about 5 or 6 times and that definitely helped get me to the end. It feels great to sort of "jump" right back in after missing a couple of weeks. I'm really in need of a short run today though to loosen up these legs!

Happy Weekend!

Enough....

of you Old Man Winter! I'm done with you. I am sick and tired of cold, windy, snowy, sleety, nasty, rainy weather. I am ready for Spring. I've had enough of running with a cold wind blowing snow and ice chunks in my face. I'm ready to run in 50+ weather and not see snow again until next December.

I guess I should feel a little "lucky" today is going to be almost 50 degrees out but of course it's pouring down rain. Don't get me wrong I LOVE running in the rain....when it's 75 degrees out that is. Because of weekend plans I took 2 days of rest this week to hopefully run my LD of the week tonight. I need to put 6+miles in and I really don't want to do it in the chilly rain.

Okay, sorry for my rant.