Running Behind

I'm so behind on blogging about running it's ridiculous. I don't even remember where I left off, what week or any of that.
Here's the run down on running the past few weeks :)

Training has definitely changed for me since summer ended. I don't have near as much time as I did this summer and have been running mostly 3 days a week. Sometimes I get lucky and get the 4th day but Ive had several weeks of just 3 runs. I try to keep on schedule, but unlike the beginning of training I kind of just run what I think I need to run during the week and make sure to do the long runs on the weekends-unfortunately it's not always the same day.

Two weeks ago, my long run was 12 miles. Ok, let me just back it up and say this.  I made my training schedule from a combination of training schedules that I liked and just tweaked them to work for me.  I had back to back weeks of running 12 miles. Josh was out of town the first week, so my sweet friend Cassie agreed to watch Major for me. Long story short. I didn't do it. I ran 6. It seems weird to say 6 miles was a disappointing run but it was. I could spell out a list of excuses but the bottom line was I didn't do it. I was disappointed but gave myself some grace. I knew the following week (which was this past Friday) that I had to get it done.

So Friday comes and I did it. It took me 2 hours and 3 minutes which was decent I think. I felt like run over dog crap when I got back home though. I am kinda stupid because I run without water or anything. I just run. Well at mile 10, I reeeeeaaaaaallllllyyyyyy needed some water. I stopped at the market at the edge of town and asked for some water and they were too sweet and gave it to me (Josh went back and paid later). Note to self, run with water or run back home mid way and get water.

So when I got home, I drank a bathtub full of water and laid down in the floor. I really didn't feel good. My toes were hurting, my legs were hurting, my back was hurting. Basically everything from my bellybutton down was in pain. Luckily this lasted only a few hours then I felt totally fine. It still blows my mind that I am running those distances. I mean 10 weeks ago, I dreamed of running a half. I wanted to be that girl. I wanted to mark that off of my list of things to do and here I am in the thick of it, doing it and accomplishing it.

It's not easy, it's really hard somedays. Some runs totally suck and some runs are awesome. My comfortable runs are 6  miles or less and I generally hit a wall around mile 9. Josh told me this once; "the more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle". I like that and when it gets hard, I say that over and over and over. I'm gonna have him write that down for me so I can have it on race day.

Another perk to just sucking it up and running through, especially the hard days are days like today.  I got to go shopping today because Ive lost a few pounds. I bought size 2's and xs shirts. HOLLA! I haven't been those sizes since high school. I'm not looking especially forward to my 9 mile run in the morning but thinking about those jeans and how nice that felt to buy a smaller size will be going through my head the whole time!

So this week looks like this: 9 miles tomorrow then I will have 2 evening runs (Wednesday and Thursday) bc of Josh's work schedule this week. That sucks but those will probably be 4 or 5 miles each. Then Saturday will be 13 miles!!!!! Holy Bananas! 13 miles! YIKES! I'm gonna do it and hopefully not feel like I'm gonna die at the end. Hopefully.

:)