Happy Thanksgiving!

Not sure if I'll have time over the holidays to get on here and update or not, so I want to take the time right now to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! And if you are traveling to be with family or friends, safe travels to you.

Busy Times

Wednesday I was able to get in a 3 mile run while my daughter was at Bible Study. Thursday I got in a 4 mile run. I really like to get in a 4-5 mile run at least 3 times during the week and then a long run on the weekend, so I'm still not getting in exactly what I want, but it's better than nothing.

Friday night I had the Nike team over for a picture party/reunion. I had gotten pictures from several of the participants and put them all in a slideshow. We watched that, ate food and reminisced about event weekend. It was lots of fun, but made my bedtime much later than normal! I didn't get into bed until almost 1:00 am this morning and then got up again at 5:30 so I could go be there at the start of the run for the winter team. I didn't run with them today because my daughter had a meeting she had to attend at 9:00, so I missed my long run today. There was no time to squeeze it in because we left her meeting at 11:30 and headed straight to my son's first soccer game, which started at 11:30. We got there just after half time. After that game, we grabbed lunch and headed for game #2. Luckily his indoor game got cancelled, so we hit Dairy Queen for an ice cream cake and headed home to get ready for my daughter's birthday party. Her real birthday is on the 25th, but since it usually falls over Thanksgiving weekend, we celebrate early. Right now, my daughter, her two cousins, a friend from church and a friend from school are upstairs watching Transformers. They've already opened gifts, ate pizza and had the ice cream cake! It's hard to believe she will be 12. (And my brother and sister-in-law traded kids with me and took my son to a monster truck show. I can't wait to hear about that. He was very excited about it!)

Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in some kind of run tomorrow. I doubt it will be as long as I need it to be, but I need to run. This week is going to be crazy and the holidays are always stressful for everyone. Running keeps me sane.

I also want to mention that I came across a site last week that I marked in my favorites. The man lost his wife to cancer and is starting a new site for people to share their stories on. The new site will be www.bloggersagainstcancer.blogspot.com. It's just getting started , but check it out. It use to be a rare occurance to actually know someone with cancer. Now it's a rare occurence not to. We need to find a cure - for ALL types of cancer.

Fast Food Scavenger Hunt

Well folks, if you saw the comment under my last journal entry, you know that my group didn't win the fast food scavenger hunt this time. In fact, we came in dead last. Wahoo!!!

The way it works is that kids are assigned to ride in a car or the church van with an adult (or two in the van). Each "team" is given $10. The teams have to go to as many fast food places as they can, buy an item of food and eat it. Everyone in the car must consume something. The goal is to spend as much of that $10 as you can without going over, visit as many places as you can, and come back as quick as you can (without breaking any laws).

So, when you hear the word "go", you run for the car and head for the first place. In the beginning, most people go for the cheapest thing on the menu so that you can go to more places (the more places you go, the higher your score). For instance, we ordered a roll at Golden Chick. It's so funny to hear the workers ask "is that all?" with a quizical tone in their voice. By the time you get to the last place, the workers know because other groups have been there.

We were doing well and were at our 7th place. They were taking way too long, so I sent two of the girls in to get the rest of the money so we could go to the place next door. What we didn't realize is that the money was in the car and the girl buying the food had to borrow money from another patron. That put us over the $10 and we didn't take that money out before buying food from the next place, so we spent more than $10. You have to take your change and your receipt back with you and this IS a church group, so no cheating. I admitted defeat and we headed back.

There was a team that spent exactly $10 after bribing Subway to sell them a side of cheese for something like 14 cents. But the team that won was Cortney's team (cortneyaggie.blogspot.com). I think they only had 1 penny left, but they visited the most places, so they won! I'm either first or last - there is no in between for me.

Monday night I was able to get in 4 miles on the treadmill. Tonight I am missing yoga due to a board meeting I need to attend. Sigh. I really miss yoga when I can't go.

Spoke Too Fast

The play Thursday night was really good. I was impressed that middle school students could do so well with only a couple of months to prepare. There are some talented students at that school!

And the cooler weather that was here Wednesday night was gone by Friday. After work, I went home to change and headed out to the lake to meet my mom and my friend to get our long run in. When I got there, I think the temperature was in the low 80s. But we did it. The lake has a 3 mile loop around it. Since my mom is a walker, she had gotten there early and had already started. We called her to see which way she started out and then we went the other way so that we would run into her. When we got to her, my friend turned around and started walking with my mom. I kept going. I did the first loop in 29:36; the second loop in 30:18; and the third loop in 32:05. That gave me 9 miles. It was starting to get dark and there are no lights out there. Since I didn't want to be by myself in the dark, I kept running until I met up with mom and Brandi. By that point I had run over 10 miles. I decided I could just walk with them for the remaining miles. We did one more loop which gave me 14.75 miles total. A successful night!

My husband had a meeting Saturday morning so I didn't get to go run with my TNT group. Instead, I took the opportunity and slept in (well, slept in for me - I was awake by 7:00). My son had a soccer game in the afternoon and then we spent the evening cleaning and watching college football.

This morning was youth Sunday at church. They did an AWESOME job!!! Right after church we had to leave to go to my son's first indoor soccer game. He will be playing indoor soccer over the winter months until regular soccer starts back up in the spring. Indoor soccer is interesting. Very fast paced, but it forces the boys to work on foot skills and passing, so it should be great practice.

Tonight at youth group we are doing a fast food scavenger hunt. These are fun to do. The kids always make fun of me and want to be in my car because I'm so competitive. We'll see what happens tonight!

I Love Cooler Weather

The weather has finally started to cool off here and it's wonderful for working out (although it gets dark so early it's hard to fit everything in). Tuesday night for yoga I actually worn long pants and a long sleeve top over my normal top. I ended up taking the long sleeve top off during class, but it's definitely feeling like fall around here. And boy was I glad to get back to yoga. My hamstrings have been tight, and I can only inflict so much pain on myself when I roll on my foam roller. Yoga really helps stretch the muscles out.

Wednesday I was resigned to run on the treadmill while my daughter was at Bible study, but I heard my husband say to my son that they would go up to the "fields" later and do hills. Hmmm. Where are you going? They were going to go to the elementary school close by our house, so I convinced them to go - NOW - so that I could go with them. I knew we would be cutting it close. And maybe it was that or the weather, or maybe my Garmin was off, but I ran my "warmup" mile in 8:04. That's not very "warmup" for me. That's fast for me. The I raced my son in a short sprint and then we started hills. The hills were VERY short and not really that steep, but I figured if I got a lot in that would be ok. My son did six and I did twelve. Then I headed back to the very short track and ran until I hit 3 miles on my garmin. It showed 27 minutes and change. That's about the time I did the 5K in on Sunday. Must be the weather. Then I walked fast for another mile and off we went to get my daughter.

Tonight my daughter, my mom and I are going to go see the play that my daughter tried out for earlier in the year but didn't make. Then tomorrow night, I'll be doing my long run while my mom does her long walk. My mom and dad are signed up and training for the Disney Full Marathon in January, so I'm helping them along the way since I'll be there, too. We have 14 miles on the schedule. Guess I better go to Academy at lunch and get a light to wear.

Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure 5K

Well, on Halloween night I never got that run in. We got a few more trick-or-treaters, but not too many. Thursday night I ran 3 miles on the treadmill and then Friday night I did 8 miles on the treadmill. Saturday morning I was the aid station for our TNT group so I didn't run. That worked out well, because Sunday I did the Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure.

The Race for the Cure is a race I do every year. I heard on the TV this year that it was the 10th anniversary of the race in our city. I was curious because I've done it for a long time so I went and looked at all my past shirts. It appears that I only missed two years and this year was my 8th year running.

Back in 1999, the first year I did the Race for the Cure, I wasn't really much of a runner. My husband and I were walking through the mall and saw some tables with registration forms. We had recently lost a friend and fellow church member to breast cancer and I decided to do the race in her memory. So I signed up. I went to that first race all by myself. I'd never done any other races and really didn't know what I was doing. But the next thing I knew I was running. I thought I was doing so well and then I was gasping for air and had to stop and walk. I don't think I even made it a mile running that first year. Each year, however, I have strived to increase the time running and decrease my time. I don't even remember now which year was the first year I finally ran the whole thing. And now I run for time. They changed the route just slightly this year and I'm using that as the excuse for a slower time. Last year I ran it in 26:01. This year was 27:25. Still a decent time for me, but one of these days I'm going to get below 25:00 for a 5k. It was a great day for a race.

After the race I headed out to my son's soccer tournament. He had played 2 games on Saturday and had 2 more on Sunday. They won one, lost one, and tied two. Not the best showing they've had, but they were in the toughest bracket and had no subs. I think they did well.

Tonight I did and easy 3 mile run on the treadmill. Then I cooked dinner, paid the bills, etc. etc. Now it's time to take it easy.

Back To It - Sort of

If you missed the Nike Women's Marathon Race Report, see the post below.

After the Nike Women's Marathon, I took the week off. I always do after a marathon. I'm not sure my body liked that, though. I get too lazy when I'm not running and I seemed extra tired last week. So Monday it was time to get back to training. I hopped on the treadmill for a nice easy 3 mile run to ease back into things. And it felt good. I slept better Monday night than I did last week, too.

So now it's time to get back in groove. The only problem was that yoga was cancelled Tuesday night due to a Family Festival at my son's elementary school (my yoga teacher's kids go there, too). I didn't want to run and get sweaty before going to that and when I got home I reverted to my lazy ways. I layed on the couch and watched a special I had recorded on PBS about inactive people training for the Boston marathon. It was an hour long special that was actually pretty interesting and reminded me of the way I felt when training for my first marathon. I was probably a little more fit than most of them when I started, but had some of the same doubts and concerns. I didn't feel so bad about taking today off as it is usually a "yoga only" day when I'm not training for a triathlon.

Today should be another run day. However, as most of you know, today is HALLOWEEN. And that means it's a day to do what the kids want. Our town has "Halloween on Main Street" and we usually go to that every year. Local businesses hand out candy and I know it is safe to eat. The bad thing about this year is that daylight savings doesn't kick in until this coming weekend. Halloween on Main Street is from 6-7. We've already been. And it sure didn't feel like Halloween when it's daylight outside. And especially since it is still 80 degrees outside. The past few years have been dark and cold. That's the way Halloween should be. We're back home now and have had two trick-or-treaters. Hopefully things will pick up when it gets dark or I may have to run a lot more than planned to run off the candy I'll be consuming! My parents are coming by to see the kids' costumes and then my husband will take them around to a few houses in the neighborhood - once it gets dark. Maybe after that I'll decide I really should run on the treadmill - or maybe not. After all, it is Halloween.