Tiny Thunder Running

Happy Friday everyone!! I hope you have some nice fitness plans for the weekend. I am headed out of town and am unsure of what we will get into, but hopefully a hike or trail walk of some sort to enjoy the fall foliage. I titled this entry improvements because I just wanted to log these thoughts somewhere and just kind of give myself a pat on the back. Now a full year (and a half since I actually started to train) into my full fledged running experience, I am amazed at how far I have come. I used to tell everyone there was no way I'd ever run because my body just wasn't built for it. I am now living proof that this was the biggest, silliest lie I have ever told myself. I went from barely being able to run for 1 minute, to running 5ks and beyond. Not only that, but my "easy day" pace is now around a 9 min/mi which blows my mind. On my race last weekend I ran a mile in 8.08 again, MIND BLOWN. I think back to my middle and high school gym days were they made us run a mil

I just looked at the official results of the race I ran Saturday and oddly enough I recieved 1st place in my age group. Now I don't know how many others there were- but I am grinning from EAR TO EAR :) The 2nd placer was 28.31 to my 26.47 so that boosts my ego just a tad too. The age group was 20-29 so WAHOO. This was a nice surprise after my slow (9:02/mi) but hilly almost 2 miles. I will probaby take running a little easier the next few weeks to allow my body to adjust to the cooler air and just because I don't have any upcoming 5ks or anything like that. After pushing too hard over the summer- too many miles, too too fast- and some (terrible) knee pain, I want to work up my mileage the right way this time. I was too eager to get to 5 miles then 6 that I jumped too fast to it and I don't want to do that again. I think  I mentioned the other day (or, maybe not) that a coworker mentioned to me about this series of 5ks called "Frozen Feet" website here  but old i

Saturday started out at an absolutely freezing 30 degrees and yes, I ran my 5k. I finished at 26'47" and I am not sure where the credit is due- the pack I began with or the fact that I was cold and just want to be warm. Either way, my first mile was done in 8'08" which was really a little out of my league and I slowed from there but definitely smashed my goal of being under 29 minutes for the race. Below are two pictures my husband took of me coming into the finish line at the end. I was really pushing to finish since I felt like I was about ready to pass out. I think the next goal is to work on being consistent because my speed varied so much and I definitely started too fast. I am not going to minimize the fact that I was blown away at how good my time was, so I will move on from this. After the 5k, hubby and I headed to Lebanon Valley College for Homecoming and "5 year reunion" although not too many of our classmates seemed to be there. Eith

So some days running is more of a chore and others running is to run off emotions of some sort, while todays was more reflective. I am running a 5k Saturday morning and it is on a trail through town that has seen me through a lot more of the emotional running than anything, so this is something kind of new to me. I started to kind of think about goals and where I want to go with running and outside of running in the next year. I have recently decided to start a Mary Kay business and am already tossing around the idea of selling some of the crafts and things I have been making (which can be seen at my other blog- ohscrapthat.blogspot.com). As for the running part, I'd like to reach for a 10k in the spring, and maybe even a half marathon by next fall. I know there was a lot more buzzing through my head this morning, but now that it is 8 hours later, I think I have lost most of it. Darn. What do your reflective runs usually focus on?

Yesterday morning I was a little on the lazy side with all this rain we have been getting and even though the rain had stopped I felt like I really needed the extra hour and a half of sleep. I did redeem myself a little by packing clothes and went to the gym at work to hit the treadmill. So this leads me to my little relection on treadmill running and some things I learned/thought during the process: 1. Initial thought: I hate this 2. Trying to do a specific program on the treadmill was really iritating because I kept staring at the screen wondering when I was going to be done with the inclines for a minute. 3. I settled for a regular run with no incline after 1 mile on the calorie burner program and this helped me to be more comfortable with increasing my speed to where I should be. 4. I completed a 1.5 mile regular run at closer to my normal pace. The last .5 mile, I ran at an 8:34mile and although I was so tired and barely thought I'd finish, it felt SO good that I did. Mor