It's on!

Okay, I'm still sick but I did manage to get in my 10 miler yesterday morning. I'm going to try and link to the garmin data - check out the hills: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/76949805

I've been having some trouble with my garmin finding satellites - I think I ran about .6 miles before my garmin connected - it does not like getting up early! I actually think the buildings "downtown" at the beginning of the run got in the way when I first turned it on. So, I think my run was just about 10 miles even though the Garmin has 9.32. Time was 1:18:34 (8:26 pace). The run felt hard although I didn't really feel like I was going that fast - so I was pleasantly surprised with my time being as good as it was. Like I said - my goal for the race would be sub-80 but I'm sick and certainly was having problems pushing it, and I was chatting for part of the run and stopped at a water stop so I still think that is a reasonable goal.

How do you guys deal with water stops? I typically do NOT like stopping completely but got trapped behind people yesterday and had to.

Also notable, I did not use my ipod at all. I tend to depend on my ipod for runs but this one seemed fine without it, I had it with me and just never ended up using it! I know I should get used to running without it but sometimes I need that extra push. Do you run with music?

So - based on my performance yesterday, I think I'm going to try and do that half next weekend. I just need to focus on sub 1:50 and not try and go out too hard. I feel like I should be able to do this, I think I could have done another 3 or so miles yesterday at the same pace if they were flat miles. Hopefully I'm not completely off base there!

In other news, the Yankees ( I love AJ Burnett and am ready for him to have another great year) AND UConn both won yesterday. An amazing sports day for me! I'm a Syracuse fan but since they are out I am cheering on the Big East all the way! I also really admire Kemba Walker and would love to see lead the Huskies to a championship! We had friends over yesterday for the game and it was really fun. We're trying to entertain more - and I think we also need more "couple" friends to hang out with. We all really clicked yesterday and it was a fun vibe. We did chili and pulled pork so no stress about dinner cause everything could just stay in the crockpot and be ready whenever. Lots of food and good times :) Now I'm just trying to take it easy today - maybe work a little and get over this cold. I'm planning on a speed workout Tuesday and maybe 2 other runs, somewhat easy this week and then the race is next Sunday!

Better short than nothing.

We ended up going to one of our couple friend's for dinner yesterday and it turned into a very late night! It's basically my husband's best friend since he has known since they were kids and his wife that I just adore and get along great with. They just had a baby last year so I got to play with him before his bedtime. We brought a bottle of wine and they served up some delicious shrimp scampi (I justified this as carbo-loading for my long run today - that didn't actually happen afterall but I'll get to that later). A couple more bottles of wine and a mini cream puff and eclair later it was well after 1am by the time we left. It was fun times even if it was hard getting up this morning.
So I put off running as long as I could and I was having trouble deciding what route to run all week. I originally was going to do a step back and just do a 6-7 miler but then I was all but settled on doing 10. In the end, a dying ipod battery and the need to practice hills won out and I ended up doing about a 6 mile loop with some hills thrown in there.

It worked out well though since essentially it was a 5 mile tempo run (7:53 overall pace) with about a .5 mile warmup and cool down.
Mile splits were 8:14, 7:39, 7:34, 7:42, 8:13.

So the first mile was slow, even after the warmup which I'm slighly concerned about. The 3 fastest miles were the ones with the hills but I think the downhill counteracts the uphill on the course I ran so my overall pace ends up faster. It was HARD going back up the hill but I got through it. The course for the race I'll be running in a couple weeks has more gradual hills so that's good but I think it has a lot less downhills which is bad for me.
Overall I'm very happy with this run. It's nice to see the 3 miles sub-8, I really wasn't motivated on my way out the door, it was nice and sunny out and although only in the 20s it felt really comfortable to run in. So, overall very positive!