Out of here.

Just posting to say...

Next time you hear from me, I'll be a marathoner!!!!!

Head games.

This morning was our last team run before the big day, EEK!! I can't believe in one week I will be running my very first marathon!

Here's a short review of the past week...
Well, let's just say that it basically sucked. Looking back on my last post "contented", everything was going so good.. then last week, a completely different story.

Last Saturday was my last 20 miler before the race, definitely didn't feel as strong as I'd hoped. Leg cramps, extreme hotness, tiredness... mentally, I just wasn't there.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... 4 miles, 2 miles, and 6.5 miles... all a struggle. I don't know what my deal was, I just couldn't get into my groove. I really think my motivation started dwindling when the San Diego group left for their marathon. I wanted to go too. I had been training as long as they had and I was ready. Yet, I had another 3 weeks of training.

Thursday...blah. Woke up, ankle hurt. Fabulous. I told myself that missing one day of running this late in the game due to a weird pain would not be a big deal, it would actually be smart. Of course, physically, I was right. Mentally, not a good idea. So on Friday, my normal day off, I woke up and wanted to run. I never run on Fridays because Saturday is our long run. Basically, I had a fight with myself about whether or not I should go run. I even ended up texting Hannah and asked her to tell me I was being a freak and to just take the day off and have a good strong run Saturday. Sure enough, she told me I was being a freak and gave me some words of encouragement to make me feel better. Knew I could count on her.

And now for today...thank goodness for today! 13 miles, turned out to be a great run. I actually had fun on this run... for the first time in over a week. Some of the Seattle ladies decided to buy these green sparkle spirts to rock out during the marathon. You know what they say... don't try anything new on the day of the race. So... we wore them to the training run this morning to test them out. Loved them!

Our totally awesome Seattle team... (missing Andy, Stacy, and Kevin)

Sparkle skirts!! Backview...

Frontview

Love them? Hate them? Indifferent? Either way... we had a blast wearing them and can't wait to rock them out again in Seattle!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Contented.

Yesterday, we had our travel meeting for our TNT Seattle group. Oh my goodness, let me tell ya... this got my emotions going crazy. I feel so overwhelmed (in a good way) with every happy emotion you could think of!

There are 12 (I think?) of us Wichitan's going to Seattle, which made for a pretty tight nit group. We are in the process of making plans to go to a Mariner's baseball game, go to dinner at Salty's (some fabulous Seafood restaurant, according to Stephanie), shop at the expo, go here, go there... it's just going to be an absolute blast! Stephanie grew up in Seattle, so she knows all the hot spots that we must go see.

Stephanie, Yvette, and I headed over to Hannah's house after the meeting to have lunch and hear all about her San Diego marathon experience and how she totally rocked it!! SO proud of her. Her race report will be up soon so stay tuned! I've said it before, but I'm going to say it again... I don't know how I got so lucky to have crossed paths with these ladies, but I did, and I am ever so thankful. They are not just running buddies anymore, they are friends for life.

Okay, probably sick of hearing my sappiness. In other news...

Yoga: Absolutely loving it. I've taken a few different classes now from a few different instructors and I have to say my favorite is probably the Hot Fusion class. From the Siva website..

HOT FUSION is a series of 26 poses focusing on breath and holding
poses for longer periods. Mixed with some flow. Detoxify, strengthen your
body, and lose weight.

Sound amazing? Yes, it is. And it's in a 90+ degree room.... love it. Unfortunately, I have class on the nights it's offered, so I will just have to wait until July to join back in!

Running: Still going strong. Last week, my weekly mileage totaled 27 miles. Not the greatest week for me mentally, every run seemed like a struggle. Luckily, things were back to normal this week and this week's mileage (after Saturday) will total 40. Saturday is my last long run until the marathon!! Last 20-miler and last 4am run for awhile! Woot! Oh and the Garmin, got it exchanged and it works like a charm! Love it.

Life: Life seemed fitting. I was going to put class, work, fun, other, but that all describes my life so there we go. Life is better than ever. I'm doing things I love with people I love and loving every minute of it.

Have a fabulous weekend!

The fab and the unfab.

Of course, it's been another week since I have posted, which means another week of fabulousness. (yeah, fabulousness is definitely a word now)

Actually, one thing that I am very sad to say has not been so fabulous is my Garmin. I am SO bummed about this. Let me explain.

Two Saturdays ago, I went on my first run with my Garmin (the rain prevented me from trying it out before this). After taking forever and a day to locate satellites, it took foreverrrrrr for the pace to update. At first, I thought I was just being impatient but after running a good 2 miles and the pace not dropping under 14 minutes/mile I started getting a little worried. I knew for sure I was not running that slow. Every once in awhile I would look down and see a 10:something mile, which is way more realistic than a 14! I pretty much spent my 14 miles checking my Garmin far too often to see if the pace had updated. Very aggravating.

I told Coach Scott and Hannah about the situation and they informed me that maybe that day I had a bad signal. I thought this could definitely explain the situation, so didn't get too worried about it. However, I ran with it again this last Saturday, along side Hannah, who has the exact same Garmin. While we were running right beside each other hers said we were running at a pace of 11:oo or so and mine said 13:30. Normal? I think not.

Hopefully all will soon be well, I called First Gear (the store it was purchased at) and he said to bring it in and he would just swap them out for me. Love that place. I plan to head there tomorrow, so hopefully next time I will have fun Garmin news!

Okay, enough of the unfabulous.

I think the greatest thing that's happened since my last post was my run this past Saturday. I had 20 miles on schedule and was worried about getting these miles in since I had plans to go to the lake on Saturday morning with a big group of friends, who were leaving town at 8:30am. I emailed Coach Scott for advice, and he basically responded with.... 4:00am Saturday, see you there.

I thought oh great, 4:00am, 20 miles, then the lake for the rest of the weekend? Impossible.

However, it ended up being amazing. It probably took us a good 4 hours and I loved every minute of it. Of course, my legs were hurting but there was never a point where I thought I couldn't do it. I absolutely loved it. I had my coach with me, my amazing friend and running buddy Hannah with me, tons of TNT teammates along the course cheering me on... how much better could it get?! This was definitely the confidence boost I needed going into these last three weeks of training.

What's 6.2 more miles? I can't wait!!!!