Here we go again!

OK, I'm gonna switch gears a little on this blog for now. For the last few months I've been writing a little about my half marathon training. I could not have run that race a better time in my life. I trained hard. But now, it seems I won't be running anywhere for the next 7 months or so. Only two weeks after running the race, guess what I found out??

I'm P R E G N A N T !

Let me tell you, I am very excited. Now that the shock of it all has worn off. Mike and I had decided after the birth of our second son, Ryan, that we are done having kids. Our family is complete. Deep down, I always wanted to have more, but was also more than content with my two beautiful boys.

So, needless to say, this pregnancy was very unplanned! In fact, I was even on the pill. How's that for meant to be? At the moment, and presumably for the next 7 months or so, I've got pregnancy on the brain. Which is to say that Nathan and Ryan are going to be big brothers and I'm about 12 weeks pregnant and I can't stand not talking about it anymore!

Morning sickness (all day sickness, really) is in full effect. I'm hoping it's at its peak and will start to subside soon. It's still relatively early in the pregnancy, I know. But I feel so blessed, I can't NOT share. And if anything, God forbid, did go wrong with this pregnancy, I'd want to talk about that too.

So here we go again!

Stay tuned.

I have some news that I've been dying to tell! Maybe in a few more weeks. :)

Race Recap

Whoa! Has it really been MONTHS since I made a post on here? Sheesh, I'm sorry. Well you might be wondering how the Las Vegas Half Marathon went. It went awesome.

The training definitley paid off. I stuck to my training plan, for the most part. Of course I had to work around the kids' schedule and run when I could. Mostly, I would run in the morning on Monday's and Wednesday's after dropping Nathan off at school. I would put Ryan in the jogger and do 2 - 4 miles. Then on the weekend I'd do my long run, usually 6 - 10 miles.


I had to mentally train myself for this, too. It was a total mind game. As soon as my body started feeling weak, I literally had to tell myself to put one foot in front of the other. Never quit. Oh man, I remember the first time I ran 7 miles, I wanted to DIE. But the following week I ran 8 and only wanted to pass out. A couple of weeks later I ran 10 miles and I actually felt pretty good.


So on December 4th we flew to Las Vegas. It was a Friday, which meant there were two whole days before the race that I would be let loose to some of the most amazing restaurants ever. I managed to contain myself and refrained from dessert and alcohol for two days. But, man was I planning on letting loose after the run! Went to bed early on Saturday night.

The morning of the race could not have gone better if I tried. I woke up at 4:30 am feeling suprisingly rested. I felt calm, not nervous. I started getting dressed, nibbled on a banana and a granola bar. Almost time to head downstairs where about 27,000 other runners would be getting ready to run 13.1 or 26.2 miles. It was freezing. Literally. When we stepped outside I could feel my lungs freezing. It was 32 degrees at 6:00 am. I was too pumped to be cold.

At about 6:30 am the first runners crossed the start line. It was probably about 25 minutes before I even got there, remember, 27 THOUSAND runners. The sun was just coming up and Las Vegas looked so peaceful. Finally, my turn to cross the start line. Off I went.

Gosh, all that training paid off. I felt great. No shin splints, no side cramps. The commeraderie was inspiring. I went seven miles straight before I started to walk. Man, my knees were killing me. From that point I would run about a mile, then walk for a few minutes, run a mile, walk a few minutes. At mile 11 I wanted to die, but I could see the Mandalay Bay in the distance. That was were the finish line was waiting for me.

Mile 13, only .1 more miles to go. I crossed the finish line. I did it. Me, who couldn't run 2 laps around the track on my first day of training. I hate to toot my horn, but I was extremely proud of myself. I am proof that you can do anything to put your mind to.

I'm super proud of my husband, too. He did his second full marathon that day. I could not and would not have done this race if it wasn't for him.

We spent two more days in Vegas after the race and enjoyed the way Vegas was meant to be enjoyed!

Wake Up Call.

Only a little over 5 weeks until race day. Last weekend I ran 8 miles for the first time in my life. It hurt. Overall I'd say that the training is going well. And then...

Today I ran a short three miles, cause this weekend I'm going to attempt 10 (it hurts just thinking about it). While I was beginning mile two I came across about 5 other runners. I was ahead of them. I could hear their footsteps behind me so I picked it up a little. The first runner passed me. No big deal, she was going pretty fast. Then the second passed me. I can't run any faster than this, I'll DIE. Two more passed me. Finally, I stopped trying to run any faster. The fifth runner passed me. Dang.

You know what it felt like? My first day on my college swim team. Here I am, fresh off the high school swim team, all confident. I've trained by butt off for four years to get here. But once I get in the water I'm pratically choking on the wake of these upper classmen. It's a whole other league.

Ya, I've only been running for what, 8 weeks or so? But up until this point I have felt pretty confident in my training. Being passed up by all those runners today made me realize that I just need to train harder. I don't want to finish the half marathon in record time, I just want to finish. But I want to finish strong.

Time to kick it up a notch!

I Run Like A Girl!

I've been meaning to keep better track of my training, but frankly, between the kids, the business, the training and LIFE I haven't had much time. Sooo...

I'm tweeting about it instead. Follow me www.twitter.com/iRunLikaGrl . I'll still blog when I can, but as you can see my last post was back in August.

Update: I ran 6 miles yesterday. YES! I'm getting closer to 13.1 every week.

Suck It Up.

Ok, this might be TMI but, I started my period yesterday and have cramps from H E double hockey sticks! A perfect reason for not doing my run today. I even told myself, "OK, this is your off day". But then I was thinking, what if race day falls on a day like today. I can't make it my off day, I'm just going to have to suck it up. So.... that is what I did. I put on my shoes and dragged my hormonal @$$ to the gym and ran 2 miles. It was somewhat uncomfortable, but I did it. You know what? I actually feel better now than I did before the run.

Note to self: Starting my period... not a good enough reason to skip a workout. Dang.

Today's Workout: 3 miles on treadmill; .25 mile warm-up, 2 mile run, .75 cool-down.

Carbolicious.

You know, I read somewhere that someone who is training for a marathon (or half marathon, in my case) should make carbs about 65% of their daily diet??? Ya. Running burns carbs. Carbs are fuel for the body. Therefore I must eat carbs to fuel my body for running. Yes! So you know what I had for lunch today? This...

Now, I know, I know, not all carbs are created equal. I should probably be sticking to whole grain breads and pastas. But, this was all I had in the house today. So there.