Kiwi

Haven't *you* ever taken a risk to achieve a dream? Have a great weekend. I'll see you when I get back from Savannah!

No point in beating around the bush

It's going to be a weird week because Thursday at 0500 we'll be in the car and driving out of the parking lot, embarking on a 10-hour drive to Savannah. Hopefully all this running will have paid off when I put on my fancy new dress.

Hence, I didn't bother making a running schedule for this week. Heck, since when have I adhered to my schedule anyway? Since I'll be in the car all day on Thursday AND Sunday -- both normal running days, and I don't know the area, so I don't know what kind of workout I'll get to do. But I hear Savannah is a great walking city, so maybe it will be a great running city too.

UPDATE (11:02 p.m.): Awesome workout tonight. It feels good to feel good after a run again.

Starting over

My first two weeks of marathon training have gone pretty well, except that I've skipped both of my long runs. For that reason, I'm starting over this week.

The first week, I skipped because of excessive soreness from being overly active during the week, and this past one I skipped because I didn't have time, and I mean that. I *really* truly did not have an hour to spare unless I skimped on sleep, and I figure my running won't be any better if I don't sleep enough. So I chose sleep.

No matter, I'm starting over, like I said, and that's that. No harm done. We're having company this weekend, but I might be able to wake up super-early on Sunday (if it's not raining!) to get out and run before anyone else wakes up. The weekend after that -- for the time being -- I'm FREE! I have NO plans! And the weekend after that I'll be in Savannah. And then my life will be back to normal. Rock on.

Catching up

Have you ever had those workouts where you work really hard and push yourself to finish even though it totally sucks and you do it and you should feel really good, but afterward you just want to go home and crochet a blanket for your mother-in-law?

I realize I've been really bad at blogging lately, for no other reason than that I'm busy, and it's a lame excuse. And I'm sorry. So today will be a comprehensive post of stuff I meant to write to you about.

Yesterday, I went to the gym and did a speed workout on the treadmill. It totally sucked. Then I did some strength training on my arms, because a strong upper body is supposed to make your body process oxygen more efficiently and therefore run better. As an added bonus, my arms, shoulders and back will be more shapely and less squishy when I wear my most beautiful new dress to Jen B's wedding at the end of this month.

This past weekend I went on a 7.5-mile hike with Jen A and Toby around St. Mary's Lake.

It was a good hike, but my body was completely exhausted from it (and last Thursday's run, gardening all day Friday, and doing standing lunges on Wednesday until I couldn't lift myself up anymore because I was talking to my mom and had lost count). That's why I didn't go on my long run Sunday. It was a good day for hiking, and apparently a good day for snakes to be out on the trail as well. We saw two: a little green snake which scared the living daylights out of Jen when she nearly stepped on it, and a bigger black snake which I thought at first, from a distance, was a bicycle tire (although Jen hadn't seen it at all until I pointed it out).

Then, on Wednesday, I went on a 4-mile walk with Mom because the weather was so nice. We saw a bunny who kindly let me take his picture.