Feb 11th was my first 16 mile run. It just happened that we had our friend's 2 year old birthday party to go to that day in Nixa which is about an hour and half drive from our house and started at 11am. The night before my parents (my running buddies) and I were talking about what we wanted to do. Our original plan was to run around the lake like we had the weekend before but the weather man was calling for record lows of 10 degrees with negative temp wind chills.. yuck! Dad and I had been battling colds so we decided to run on our treadmills. This also got mom and dad out of waking up early because they didn't have plans that Saturday. So I picked out a couple movies, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Baby Mama, got all my bottles of Gatorade and water set up on a table right by my treadmill and was ready to go. It actually went really well! Channing Tatum really helped keep me motivated during the first couple hours.
Oh my, he must be a runner haha. I would run 1.75 miles then walk .25 for the first 8 miles. The second half I ran 1 mile and walked for .25. It ended up taking me 3hours and 7 minutes. The walk breaks really helped my hip and body not start hurting near as early as usual.
The next weekend was a 10 mile run. The weather was perfect so mom and dad met me at the lake. Since I walked so much the week before I wanted to try really hard to walk less this time around. I tried to keep my dad in my sights for awhile and then after that I just tried to make sure I didn't see him coming up from behind me :). My mom was riding the bike and it was fun to see her whiz by. I felt great on this run and kept up a good for me pace.
This past weekend was another 16 miler. My husband Zack's grandma got diagnosed with cancer this past week so we wanted to go visit her in the hospital Saturday so I woke up at 5am ready to hit the pavement for my 16 miler when I looked outside and realized it was dark. Call me a chicken if you want but I wasn't about to go roaming the roads by myself in the dark. I googled "What time does the sun rise in Protem, MO" and sadly saw the answer was 6:50a.m.! At first I thought about just going back to bed and waking up later to do my run but I was already too awake for that and had eaten my pre-run breakfast (toast with peanut butter) so I decided to do 6 miles on the treadmill and then go outside once the sun was up. I really enjoyed myself once I got outside. The weather couldn't have been more beautiful and I got to run all the way to the lake which ended up being exactly 5 miles from my front door. Here I am at the lake getting ready to run back to the house. Not the prettiest I've ever looked but I had just ran 11 miles.
The marathon is only 9 weeks away!
I know the sight of this will make David Murphy and Jon Wilson laugh. They are the presidents of the Idiots Running Club I belong to and they run ultra marathons and their training plan looks something like this: Run, drink some water, do some other stuff.
I am hoping for a really good run this weekend since this past run was a little tough. I just want to thank everyone for being so encouraging through all of this. Anytime I voice any concerns everyone quickly says how proud they are of me and that I can do it.
I also want to thank everyone for the donations. I got to visit with my cousin Cara a couple weekends ago before she was headed off to Memphis for more chemo treatments. She was in really good spirits and is one of the strongest people I know. I keep telling myself the minor discomfort I get from running several miles is nothing like what she is having to go through. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayer because they are working! She was supposed to be at St. Judes in Memphis for 3 weeks but took the treatment so well they let her go home after one week. What a blessing!
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