Okay. I know I haven't been updating regularly but craziness has ensued over here lately. I'm probably the least spontaneous person ever. I don't make quick decisions. I can't make a decision to save my life. But somehow I just bought a house 3 days after seeing it? What is going on? We went to an open house Sunday and signed the contract Tuesday. They called back an hour later to say our offer was accepted. It was crazy. So much to do. I'm sad to be leaving this house we are in now. I love it. It's so unique and cute. :( Why do I get so attached to things? Our new house will be great too. And its big - the reason for moving so we can start a family there. Home is wherever you are with the people you love, not the house you live in after all.
Anyhoo, obviously we haven't closed yet so lots could go wrong but fingers crossed everything works out for the best here.
That said, my workouts have been kinda blah and uninspired lately. I feel like I haven't been doing much even though I think I've run about every other day. An easy run yesterday (Wednesday), about 4 miles at a decent clip Monday, just not inspired. Today I just mowed the lawn. I missed speed night to meet with the realtor and should really get a long run in this weekend but I'm supposed to be on the road as well so we'll see. So busy, it seems like everyone wants a piece of us lately. And totally broke now as well :( My half-ironman dreams maybe over as I'm not sure how much money I'll have for a road bike after all this. Oh well. Pretty excited too. I'm trying to stay positive. Eating has been inconsistent too...I've been snacking entirely too much due to stress.

week recap

Okay, lets recap here...
Tuesday I skipped intervals since I was still pretty sore from the boot camp. I ran a little over 5 miles at a little over 8:10 pace. The last 3 miles were in the 7:50s...the first 2 I ran with a friend so we were chatting.

Yesterday I pretty much took off but went for a long walk at lunch - maybe 2 miles? And then a 1.5 mile walk after dinner with the boy.

Today I attempted speedwork again but we couldn't use the high school track - they had a game going on :) so we ran at Beaver Lake a nice county park nearby. It is a trail - not paved, they actually do x-country skiing in the winter and some areas are wooden planks over marshier areas. It is very pretty and there are a few different trail options. We did the biggest loop around the lake which was a little over 3 miles and then a shorter trail for a little over 5 miles total. We ran "pick-ups" where we picked up the pace for a minute and a half at a time. We only did 5 of the pick-ups and it was still tough. I think the soft ground was hard to get used to running on. It was a little hilly but not too bad. Tomorrow I might attempt longer intervals again. My left knee is hurting a little but other than that my body seems to be finally recovering.

I ate a lot today and I'm still hungry. Not cool. I'm trying to keep in good shape for summer and any upcoming races I want to do.
There is a lot going on that's sort of up in the air right now. I need to make some plans and book some things but I can't really do it until I see how things play out next week. Hopefully I'm stressing for no reason! Everything should be okay but you never know.

I wandered lonely as a cloud...

So, like I said we did some yardwork yesterday. Cut down all the old landscaping and made room for the flowers that are already starting to come up...daffodils!! Very pretty. Today G did some more yardwork but I felt the need to subject myself to some punishment for not running as planned yesterday and went to get my booty kicked at a boot camp workout. My cubemate at work has been telling me about this for a while, one of the personal trainers at his gym runs it on Sundays. It was tough, but actually, I held up pretty well...the squats and lunges were killer towards the end. It lasted about an hour and 35 mintues...maybe a bit longer so it was definitely a lengthy workout. And lots of pushups, I'm not sure I can do one push up with completely correct form but I do the best I can.

Some more daffodil pictures:

And then we made this pizza for dinner. Clearly I need to work on aligning my photos better. It was just a bought crust but we put, sauce +garlic + italian seasoning and then red pepper, onion, spinach, mushrooms, kalamata olives, mozzarella and a little bit of goat cheese - mostly on my side :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Great day!

It was a pretty good day today.

I feel a little bad for wussing out on my run this morning. I only did the 10 mile course and skipped the extra hill parts. I really don't like not running what I planned to run but on the bright side I still got up at 6:40 to run on a Saturday so...baby steps.

My legs were sore and still having weird pain in my calves. When I bend them, like sitting indian style for instance they just hurt really bad. Feels like something is squeezing them tight and cutting off circulation. Weird. Anyway, I got through it okay.

Went to lunch with the boy and had a great salad and some of his sandwich. Then some yardwork, watched some of the Masters and then tried a new place for dinner! I had a delicious filet and he had bbq salmon. It was a fun outing, felt like a "date" night. I'm actually going back to it now. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!

Finally Friday!!

Yesterday it was 85 degrees here and today it's snowing! Crazy. Just some flakes here and there but a huge temperature drop. Unfortunately it got really windy yesterday just as I was planning to run so I only made it a little over a mile before stopping, doing some dips and abs and calling it a day. I've still been having some weird pain in my left leg behind the knee and the top of the foot so I didn't see the point in pushing it when I have a pretty long run planned for tomorrow and would like to get out Sunday as well.

Tomorrow morning I am doing a training run for the mountain goat - even though it looks like I'm going to miss the race after all. The race is a hilly 10 miler but tomorrow we are actually planning to add some additional hill distance and run about 11 miles total. I did the same thing 2 weeks ago, and did the full course the week before that at the training runs so it should be okay. Just hope my leg pain issues clear up.

I was also looking at this race: http://www.active.com/running/lake-george-ny/prospect-mountain-road-race-2010

It says, "5.67 mile mountain run to the top of Prospect Mountain with 1,601 feet of elevation gain"...
would this be insane? I've been doing some hills on my mountain goat training runs but I think the elevation gain is closer to 565 feet, and I've only done a hill workout once. haha. Sounds like this is more like a climb.
Anyone have experince with running a climb like this? Since it's not exactly local (its near my Mom's and I'm anticipating being home for Mother's Day) I don't really have a way of running the route beforehand.

Egg-cellent!

<----- Check out that fine handiwork!

There is an artist in our family, although clearly it's not me. Actually my Mom is an artist and my sister Elizabeth is as well so I'm surrounded by talented people!

(note massive amounts of candy in background)

We did have a great time with the eggs though.

I'm taking a rest day - my left knee is bothering me. It feels hyper-extended or something. The pain is behind the knee, not the kneecap but behind my actual leg? Feels sort of like a cramp, I don't know what it is, I just hope it goes away tomorrow.

Yesterday was intervals. 4 miles total, 1 mile warm up then 6x400m intervals. The intervals were between 1:27 and 1:33. The first was 1:27 and the last was 1:28 though, so pretty consistent pace. I don't know that I was quite recovered from my race as they were all pretty painful.

I'm taking a rest day from cooking too and had thai takeout for dinner. Panang Curry. This isn't actually mine but it looked a lot like this. Only in styrofoam. haha.

Beautiful Weather!!

Hope everyone had a nice Easter!
We had a great weekend, beautiful weather and a lot of friend and family time. I got to see most of my family except for one of my sisters who had to work so that was a bit of a bummer but other than that it was really fun.

The Fort-to-Fort race Saturday morning went great. I was nervous about being recovered enough and ready to run but I was fine. It was a fast and flat course and great weather - sunny and almost 70! So warm for April here. Anyway, like I said it was a 10k and it was an out and back. Slightly downhill at the beginning so of course I went out fast...7:18 pace for the first mile. I didn't keep that pace up but I was able to hold on pretty well though - even after the turn around when there was a slight head wind on the way back. I barely noticed the incline at the end since I've been doing so many long hilly runs. I ended up with a time of 46:49 - about a 7:33 pace I think, well under my goal of finishing under 48 minutes!! I was so happy. I wasn't sure I was capable of running that fast/strong in a race. This was my first 10K and I really liked the distance. I had been trading places with another girl back and forth and she passed me right at the end to finish a second ahead of me. I finished 3rd overall for females and 1st in my age group!! Woo-hoo!! My first time with a first place win and first overall place finish ever. It's nice to see that the hard training/speed workouts I've been doing paid off. Also nice to see I can be this fast without running a million miles a week. haha, now to pick it up a little and be a little more consistent with the training.

I've been celebrating by eating way too much chocolate!! I should work on that!!

Race Day!!

I haven't been updating my blog. It's not that I'm too lazy really, it's more that I don't think anyone is reading it. If you have read it at all post a comment and I'll start updating more frequently again!! haha.

Now, onto more exciting news. I'm doing a race this morning!! That's why I'm wide awake on a Saturday at 6:30am.
I'm doing my first 10K. I've done longer, I've done shorter but never this distance. Fingers crossed it goes okay and I run well!
And Happy Easter everyone!!