End of the year

So here we are, the last hour of 2013 for central time people like me. I officially logged 370+ miles on my Nike running app. Super excited about that as I am also excited to see what the New year will bring. Finally revamped my 15 week half marathon training schedule. Getting a little excited to train even as I sit here with ice on my right shin..Lol..
Dedication, determination, or crazy..Lol don't know which. It actually has rest days put in the schedule three of them as I am no longer considered a novice runner. Yay. No elite runner by any means, but no longer qualify for novice. The novice training schedules start with low mileage of like 3 to 4 miles being the first long run of week one. I am definitely not back tracking to a 4 mile long run. So in revamping my schedule, instead of increasing my mileage by a mile a week, I did it in half mile increments to help prevent injury.
Well I learned a lot this year, and hope to continue to learn more this year.
I have one challenge still going, that of trying to log 75 miles in 30 days. I have until January 6th. We'll see. Lol Mona has already completed and then some.
The new challenge by Faithfully Fit Forward starts Jan 1st that I am doing. You are required to log 365 miles in 365 days, run, walk or crawl to log the miles. Looking forward to it.
So here it is, New Year, new miles. Happy running my friends. Keep your goals attainable, and yet reach outside your comfort zone or you may never find your maximum potential.

What I have learned.

So my first run back after a week off was Christmas day and it was a great one. I did 4.27 miles in 38 minutes. It was sunny and the perfect temp. Merry Christmas to me. It was a great day. My girls had fun. We enjoyed a lovely meal with the Konzelman family.
I went out again on the 26th and did a little 5 miler. I felt like I had lead legs. I wore my Newton Lady Issac S's. Last year at this time when I got them, I thought they were the most amazing shoes and they are still really great shock absorbers for those distant runs but dang if they didn't feel like they weighed over 2 tons.  I realize how much I like my Brooks Pure Connects. They are very light weight on my feet. I ran yesterday a little over 6 miles. It wasn't a fantastic run but I got out there and did it and was happy that I could.  I took today off as I am trying to listen to my body. Come first week of January starts my half marathon training. It's a four month training schedule. I am already ahead of the game this time. Last time this year I was struggling and just beginning to find my groove. This year I already have distance on my side. It's all going to be mental for me.
Looking forward to seeing how much I have improved from April 2013 to April 2014. I also am excited to see how I fair on the 10k I have coming up in Jan.  I ran it this last Jan in 1 hour 18 mins. I hope to by far surpass it this next year.
I also have the Feb 1st double bridge run coming up too. Excited as I only ran the 5k portion this last year. This time I am doing the whole 15k.
I can tell you what I have learned in the last few weeks.
1. listen to your body.
2. respect rest days for what the are meant to be.. (for those that are saying I told you so...hush, as some of us are more stubborn and want to go out side of our comfort zones and I am apparently one f them)
3. eating crap will make you feel like crap, shit, sluggish or however you want to word it, when you run.
4. Cyber running friends are the best. Thanks to Mona Dervin, Erica Montes, Dawn Pohlen and many more who encourage me to keep going and might I add, put up with my run challenges.
5. Nike + running app is a great way to log miles and to have that friendly competition to spur you on.
I am now 3.2 miles away from logging 365 miles for the year. I know I have done more as I switched apps from runtastic to Nike but it's nice to see it on my Nike app. I have 10days to log 35 miles for the 75 in 30 days challenge. Mona has already won but now I just want to get there. I can say I have already logged 67.3 miles for the month of December and I have a few days to go.
Thank you to all my motivating running partners, near and far.
so as the new year looms and you think of your goals, ask yourself, what is attainable? It makes you keep going if you set a goal that is attainable. If you surpass that goal, then you are on your way to being a 'rock star'
Happy Running my friends.

 my happy face on Christmas Day after my run.

Waiting

So I have not run in a week, come tomorrow. I have been down in the dumps over it. I didn't realize just how much of a mood elevator it was for me. I started having more intense shin splint pain, but knew it was worse than that as the pain kept me up at night, and I was not able to fully bear weight on my right leg. Dr ordered xrays, still waiting on the results. IF it's a stress fracture it may not show up on the xray unless it's in the healing phase, in that case she may be ordering an MRI. PRoblem I am having is, I had the damn xray last tuesday. They need to call me asap. I need to know if a weeks rest is good or am I out for 6-8 weeks. I have two runs in the next 6 weeks, one of which is the Pensacola Double Bridge Run 15k. I have been super excited to run that race this year. I will be extremely saddened if i can't run it. So praying for good news.
I am allowed to bike, so will be investing in a bike to continue to exercise.
I think part of why i hurt so bad this time was that I did what I had set out to do and that was picking up the pace. I have done some research and that can really aggravate and stir up problems.
I am thinking of my 2014 New Year's Resolutions. One keeps playing in my head. I want to run a marathon this year. I know it will require a lot of mental and physical energy but i am just as determined to accomplish this goal as i was the half marathon this year.
Christmas is a couple of days away. i hope you all are having some happy Holiday Running. Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

yep, reaffirmation that running hurts

So it's been a few days since my last blog. I have been running everyday in an effort to complete the December run challenge. I have run a few days of only one mile to preserve my shins. Sunday I started a new challenge. I must complete 75miles in 30 days and I have challenged Mona Dervin to run it with me. So far she is about four miles ahead of me as I have been battling shin splints and trying to complete this December run everyday challenge. Saturday my family and a couple of good running friends ran the Blizzard on the beach run with me. It was so cold but I was proud of my girls. They loved the tutus that my friend Sam made. We got complements on how well they looked. Hannah my oldest girl kept up with me for almost 3/4 of a mile then we stopped and waited for my husband and youngest girl Hayleigh to catch up then she ran with them. I tried to catch up with Melissa and Amanda. I pushed myself to catch up. I finally found Mel and slugged her arm as I ran past her. I finally seen Amanda. She was a little harder to catch. I said it before, she has a nice stride so was chucking along nicely.. She slowed down to fix her tutu and it gave me the opportunity to catch up. We ran together for quite a bit then I picked up the pace. I finished in a decent time and waited for the others. I can tell u all this.. I have self diagnosed myself with Raynauds disease. My fingers go stark white and numb in the cold. It has been happening since I was in high school and my dummy self just realized what it was. As a nurse I should have seen it long sgo.
Todays running extraordinary event brought forth some PR's for me. I ran my fastest 5k.ever..26:24 sec. Idk how it happened but it did. I was on a high after todays run.

Pain, oh the pain,

So day 4 I ran only one mile and did it in 9:08 seconds..  I was happy about that.  Today I was only going to do  2 miles but felt good until 2 miles in. the shin splints kicked in hard core. I tried to ignore the pain. I rain another half of a mile trying to ignore the pain, then I stopped and walked a bit, then picked back up and ran the rest of the way until I hit 3 miles. I was never so damn happy for m app to announce '3 miles".. I stopped the timer and walked the rest of the way home. MY poor shins had me in tears, literally.  I guess  I should be thankful, I didn' t have the shits plus shin splints..lol
anyhoo, day 5 challenge complete,   I pray I can finish this 31 day December run challenge.
happy running everyone

December Run Challenge

So December 1st was my first day back out there and let me tell you I was not pretty.  I was very weak but I managed to do 4 miles.  December 1st started the first day of our December run challenge. You must run every day for the month of December, minimum mileage per day is one mile. Today is day 3. I have completed on day one 4.0 miles, second day 4.1 and today I ran 9.15 miles.
Let me tell you about today. I was tired and fighting dehydration. I have been on antibiotics for 6 days and yesterday evening I started with diarrhea. I was upset, my stomach was aching.  I couldn't believe it. So I started pushing fluids as  I had already planned on running 9 miles the next day.  I was up all night running to the commode.  Talk about tired.
I stuffed some toilet paper in my capri pants and headed out.  I started feeling the cramps about 4 miles in but they went away. Believe it or not it was the heat that got to me. I should've gone earlier when I got up to get my youngest on the bus.  Thankfully their is a drinking fountain on the trail so I had that to look forward to. I am exhausted an my legs hurt. It's not from running but from doing a damn squat challenge this month too.  I must be crazy. lol 
anyway my 9.15 was completed in 1:39:54 sec.. my average pace 10:55.  my splits 1- 11:12, 2- 10:46, 3- 10:02, 4-10:25, 5-10:38, 6-11:02, 7-10:38, 8-11:55, 9- 11:08.  as you can see mile 8 was a killer.
Big shout out to all my friends doing the December run challenge with me :) Thanks for keeping me motivated.
I also have 4 days to complete the 60 mile challenge in 30 days. I have 4 days to get the remaining 7 miles done.. I believe I might actually do it this time
Happy Running my friends