friday fun day

per training plan today was a rest day.
and per an ashley plan today was an eat everything in sight day.
I will pay for it tomorrow. although I have finished off my night with a little spaghetti.

we left for MT this morning. puppies and all.
I’m pretty sure it takes us longer to get to and from billings than the amount of time we spend there. hmm????

our 1 and only stop today was scheduled at cabela’s

I can remember the first time I set foot in the store. I didn’t know where to start. the store is huge and has so much stuff. Hubby could spend hours in the store. I on the other hand could not. I usually find myself spending 30 minutes at only one location in the store. do you remember what I said in my last post?

I the giant fish tank.
after all that’s what I went to school for…fisheries. I spent most of my college career staring at dead fish that had been stuck in a jar too small for them for way too long. so anytime I get to see a live fish, especially one I haven’t seen “live” before I get pretty excited.

I actually managed to finally spend the remainder of my gift card (on myself instead of the pup) that my parents got each one of us last year for our anniversary.

(sorry for the awful picture)
socks. not just any normal socks running socks. and they’re girlie so I don’t have to worry about Hubby stealing them, or do i?

billings is far larger than sheridan.
there were too many choices to choose from for lunch.
Hubby wanted Red Lobster. but I hate that place. I can’t eat fish. I love them too much.
he gave me the choice of olive garden or red lobster. olive garden it is!

bruschetta as an appetizer. no I didn’t eat all of it….at lunch. I had the rest for dinner and still have most of the bruschetta left. delicious!
chicken parmesan with spaghetti for entrée. I ate all the chicken and left the spaghetti. ate that for dinner too.

somehow I didn’t take any pictures of Hubby’s food. oh that’s right…more fish. poor things.

we had to make an errand out to visit slim. remember him?
 

just some of slim’s buddys. yes that is a donkey. ornery little thing.
just before I had managed to snag my camera out of my pocket the dog and horse were nose to nose. super cute!

oh…look what else is happening in our world?

if you can’t tell. you can see billings marked in the upper left corner. see the two white squares (ok…not perfect squares…but you know where I’m talking, I hope) below that? the bottom white square is sheridan county. sheridan sits smack dap in the middle. if you look to the right you see the color key. white=winter storm warning. in effect from tonight to tomorrow night. 6-8 inches total with 2 inches an hour at times. sounds like I might be digging myself out tomorrow. and may be forced to complete my schedule 5K in the gym on the treadmill. guess that gets Hubby off the hook to go with me.

half marathon, what?

today was a day of firsts.

once again I slept in way too late. I’ve got to get back in the habitat of getting up early. especially if I’m wanting to get my runs completed in the mornings when its coolest this summer.

I peeled myself out of bed finally about 0930.
I was wide awake at 0600 and thought seriously about just getting up, but after an hour of blog stalking I finally managed to fall back asleep.

I ate some oatmeal. decided to give it a little time to settle and was able to catch up on a few of my DVR’d shows that Hubby doesn’t watch (he stayed in bed until 1230).

finally I was off to the gym at 1200.
training plan called for an easy run.
chose to do 3.25 miles at a close to race pace.
I managed to complete the mileage in 30:07. need to go just a little faster to hit a 2:00 hour half marathon.

which brings me to first #1.

I have officially registered for my FIRST half marathon.
I found a few friends that have run the course in previous years. their advice. it can get muddy and soupy. great!
it’s a course run on county roads and two-tracks. sounds like fun! remember, I have 6 weeks from this Saturday.

I mentioned attempting my first 1/2 marathon to my dad, who runs the Moab 1/2 every year and he quickly asked me what he had to do to sign up. Really? My dad’s going to run with me? YAY!

Hubby and I had a pretty lazy day.
we went to a sweet, cute little café here in town with the intention of getting ice cream only, but neither one of us had had lunch so we got a little lunch too.

I opted for the chicken pesto panini. delicious!
I ate half the sandwich at the café and saved the other half for dinner. I had to save room for dessert.

Hubby got the chicken quesadilla. it was really good too.

DESSERT. didn’t make the trip home. it was gone too quickly.

we took the puppies to the park for a little play time.
if you’re wondering…the red head is Gannett (remember the puppy naming theme? Gannett Peak, tallest peak in Wyoming). she is my parents’ dog. my parents live in cody, which is just over the hill from sheridan. we watch Gannett while the parents are gone. she’s 9 years old, but still acts like a 1 year old. she could play all day if we let her.

we made it home to watch the NCAA basketball games.
my boys in red and black played tonight.

supporting all day long!

which brings me to first #2.
I am extremely passionate about “my teams.” I get mad. I yell at the tv. I feel the emotion they feel. I have high highs when they win and low lows when they don’t.
tonight my aztec boys fought hard for 40 minutes against UConn, but were unable to come away with the W. I cried. I have never cried after a loss of “my teams,” but tonight was different. I usually get really mad. don’t want to talk to anybody. not tonight. for the last 2 minutes of the game I stood 5 feet away from the tv. I couldn’t sit still. we were down by 3 with less than a minute. but we had to foul to get the ball back. UConn was in a 1 and 1 situation. and they made both free throws. down by 5. we drove the ball down and pulled up for a 3, but missed. UConn with the rebound. they made a quick outlet pass and slammed the ball to seal the W. I just felt so deflated. I felt tears running down my face. I sat down and just let the tears roll. writing this post, I have tears welling up in my eyes. I don’t know what makes this time any different. but it just is. the boys fought hard all season. they played tough. they only had 3 losses including the one that knocked them out of the tournament against UConn. they were co-champs of the mountain west conference. the were mountain west conference tournament champions. they won their first NCAA tournament game. they made it to the sweet sixteen. I’m proud to be an aztec fan! 

I will feel better tomorrow.
tomorrow is a scheduled rest day per my training plan.
we are headed to Montana for the day to do some shopping, or at least pick up some items my Hubby bought at Cabela’s. I go to Cabela’s only for the giant fish tank!

good night.
I still love you aztecs!

well well well…motivation there you are.

 

I wasn’t too tired.
I wasn’t too sore.
I felt great.
I just couldn’t find the motivation.

it does make me sad.
I hate it.
I’m thinking that it has something to do with “Aunt Flo’s” visits. (TMI? sorry)
I always hit a week (or a few days) a month when I don’t want to do anything. I refuse to go to the gym. I refuse to sweat. I sit around my house with NO motivation. and then eventually I get grouchy, and mad at myself.
everything sets me off. seriously. ask Hubby.
earlier this week (after my race on Saturday though) I freaked out (while folding laundry) about not having any cute clothes. all I do is wear jeans and tshirts.
after a few short minutes…I calmed down. walked away.

after 3 long un-motivated rest days I was determined to get to the gym.
old man winter wasn’t quite ready to go out, so I’m hoping he went out in style. like much of the country…we woke up to a nice little dusting of that white fluffy stuff called snow. damn! I was going to run outside. and I still could of. there wasn’t any on the road by the time I peeled myself out of bed, and the temps were hovering around 30 degrees. perfect weather. but I had gone to bed last night with a plan to do some intervals.
I finally changed into my gym clothes. and I felt the motivation increasing. I finally made it into the gym.

I started with a 1 mile warm-up at a 10:00 minute/mile pace. and the next 40 minutes looked something like this.
0-2: 6.5 mph
2-4: 7.0 mph
4-6: 7.5 mph
6-8: 8.0 mph
8-9: 8.5 mph
9-10: 3.5 mph
after I completed that cycle. I need there would be modifications occurring. for the next 3 sets.
10-12: 6.5 mph
12-14: 7.0 mph
14-16: 7.5 mph
16-18: 8.0 mph
18-19: 8.5 mph
19-20:30: 3.5 mph
20:30-22: 6.5 mph
22-24: 7.0 mph
24-26: 7.5 mph
26-27:30: 8.0 mph
27:30-28: 8.5 mph
28-30: 3.5 mph
30-32: 6.5 mph
32-34: 7.0 mph
34-36: 7.5 mph
36-37:30: 8.0 mph
37:30-38: 8.5 mph
38-41: 3.5 mph
I finished the last nine minutes with a cool-down at 6.5 mph. total mileage? 6.51 miles in 60 minutes. good enough for me.

when I got home from the gym after some stretching and foam rolling I searched for the next race that was in or near sheridan. and guess what I found?
A HALF MARATHON!
6.5 weeks out.
after some quick research…I whipped up a little training plan to keep me going for 6.5 weeks. I know I should have given myself 12 weeks, but I’ve been training for my 10K and stayed busy with runs…so hopefully I’ll be ok.

I’m excited and nervous all at the same time.
guess I just found my motivation to get me running or exercising everyday.

I got a little something special in the mail today too.

hopefully I’ll learn something. and I’m sure I will, because I don’t even know the basics about running.

I have to apologize for my absence. I know its awful. and I’m still getting new to the whole blogging thing. but now…with 6 weeks to my FIRST half…I’m sure I’ll have plenty to blog about….I hope.

my first REAL race

today was the day.
my first real race.
I went big and chose the 10K run.

the race didn’t start until 11am, but I had to be down there about 10ish to register.
I woke up at 8 to give myself plenty of time to find all my gear, get some food in my belly and get my nerves settled. I was fine until we started to walk out the door.

I don’t look to sure about this.

I got a shirt! and my number.

I was suited up and ready to do this. I ditched the vest and sweats right before the start. it was hovering right around 30ish degrees and I didn’t want to get cold before I started.

I made sure I knew exactly where I was going. I kept going over it in my head. even though there were cones and arrows everywhere marking the course. I wanted to make sure I knew where I was.

my cheering section!

there was a 1 mile run/walk, 5K run/walk, and a 10K run. there was probably a total of 40ish people. a smaller race. but that was a-ok with me.

yay! here we go!

Hubby had managed to find me at a few spots throughout the course and did his job…take lots of pictures

the finish! I made it.

as you can tell….the weather turned out great by finish time. I was plenty warm during the whole run. and there were a few times I felt like taking clothes off, but never did.

this may or may not have been a posed picture.

this most definitely was not a posed picture. I felt that tired.

Hubby: “honey! smile.” me: “this is me smiling.”

time for my first race. not too shabby. I was just hoping to finish under 60 minutes. turns out I can run a mean 10K. plus (!) I was the first female overall to finish the 10K. I had another female on my tail the whole way. she passed me once the whole race…near the end and this happened because I started walking because I got a side stitch from coming down a huge hill. but I managed to catch back up to her and pass her to hold off until the finish.

a luna bar and lunch or dinner for two from one of our favorite restaurants in town!

hello sunshine!

ok, now I’ll smile! I just completed me first 10K!

as a participant you got lunch to another restaurant in town. one we haven’t been too. so after an ice bath and a shower, we headed off to lunch.

the cute little “your food is ready” buzzers!

Hubby had a sandwich and I got a personal pan pizza. we’ll definitely be back.

I had a crap load of fun for my first race! I’m really proud of myself and can feel my confidence increased after today. and I’m happy I did the 10K.

thanks for all the encouragement! it meant the world to me.

we are resting right now. patiently waiting for my boys in red and black to play this afternoon.

Hubby’s had a couple poker nights with some friends and wives are invited and I think I better go tonight before they start to think I don’t exist. this should be a fun time!