20 miles and a 5K!

Long time, no post!

Let's see...what have I been up to? Work has been stressful and crazy-has been a very rough start to the year but it's starting to even out. School is stressful but manageable. Will not be the case in the Spring. Pretty much dreading that courseload.

I'm still on track concerning running. 2 weeks ago we did a 20 mile course which was amazing!! I was really surprised how great it was. I held up strong for the first 11 miles and then miles 12-15 were pretty tiring. Once I hit 15, I got a burst of energy and felt great up to the finish! I was shocked. All the endorphins were released and we were all in the best mood and feeling great! What was interesting...I finally understand why some runners puke after they finish marathons. When we started on mile 19, it started hurting to walk or stop. 1:1's were not ideal after long mileage. It hurt to walk because your legs felt so stiff and it was painful. And when we had to stop for traffic, a huge wave of nausea came up from my feet and all the way up my body, and I felt as though I was gonna barf. THAT'S why they barf at the finish. After long distances, it hurts to stop.

I've been extremely frustrated as of late. First of all, it's the Fall and my motivation is always lacking in the Fall. In fact, I cannot remember ever an October that I've been focused...it's annoying! I'm eating fine, just cheating more than I should and taking in about 200 more calories a day than I should. I'm keeping up the running so it's evening out and I've been the same weight for a month now. Also, my body has gotten used to the good nutrition and long miles and it's gotten comfortable. I'm having a much harder time losing the weight now that I've gotten a big chunk off. And if I cheat at all, my body holds on to that for dear life. GRRR!!! So yeah, I'm going to have to work a lot harder now to get the rest of the weight off. I know what I need to do. I'm not 100% ready to do it just yet, but I'm still working at it.

Tonight I worked on speed. I'm constantly trying to get faster in an attempt to not be the one that crosses the marathon finish line when everyone has packed up and left. When I first started running, 40 lbs ago...I could only run an avg 17-18 minute mile. Right now I'm avging 14 minutes miles...15 and 16 on steep hills and long distances. It's still slow, but it's an improvement. Tonight I thought I'd try sprints to try to jolt my body into sweating. My body is comfortable running so it takes a lot more to get my heart rate up. And when I stop to think about it...this is a really good thing. I'm conditioned!! Anyway-moving on with my awesome story...I decided to do sprints to view my pace at my absolute fastest. This was actually fun! I was shocked at how fast you can go when you can let yourself. My avg sprint pace for my first time...9:30. That's still not lightning fast, but it's waaaaay faster than 14! I was pretty stoked about seeing that number. I have NEVER seen a pace that was a single digit. EVER!! Lindsey is awesome? I'm going to continue these sporadically in my workouts and see if my long distance pace increases.

I finished my first 5K with Jeana and Christina and that was really fun. It was the first race I'd done with friends. They held up very strong and I was very proud of us. I'm excited that I've finally done a 5K. I've done a 15K and Half Marathon, but never a 5K. I do things backwards :p

I have a 10 mile run this Saturday morning. Next week I'm going to have to rake up the miles because we're doing 23 miles next Saturday. OOOOHHHHH YEEEAAAHHHH!!!!!

So yeah, this is a long and frustrating journey...I'm not any thinner than I was a month ago and that upsets me....but when I stop to think about things, I ran a 9:30 pace tonight, and at the end of the day, that's something to be proud of.