Sometimes it's about building muscle through strength training. Sometimes it's about walking because your muscles are sore from all the strength training you did. And sometimes, it's about taking a little break because you know you have 2 races and a training run to get through over the next 4 days. Yowza.
Know what feels really good to me? After a long, hard, trying, stressful, tearful, generally terrible day, all I want to do is go for a run. Seriously. That concept still sounds so foreign to me, but it's true. It's all I could think about this afternoon when my patience was hanging by a thread and the knot in the pit of my stomach wouldn't go away. Must. Get. Out. And. Run. When you pound the pavement and blast your music and breathe in the air and feel your muscles working and your heart pumping, and when your mind, spirit and body become one - cheesy as that sounds - it feels SO FREAKING GOOD. Even if it hurts a little.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Rainy days and Mondays don't get this scrappy chick down!
I did my 3 miler in the rain this morning. Decided it was best to go ahead and get it over with before the storms hit. It felt sooooo good. 70 degrees, rain just heavy enough to keep me cool but not so much that I couldn't see, and hardly anybody else on the trail/sidewalk/road. Awesomeness.
Zooma and its partner, Satya Jewelry, have created weekly mantra cards for all the runners to guide us on our training journey. This week's mantra is:
When I first read it, I thought "wouldn't that have been a better mantra to save for later on in our training, when the going gets tough?" But now, after making myself go out and run in the rain on a holiday, I realize that maybe this is the perfect mantra for week 1. It takes diligence in the beginning before we can ever make it to the middle or the end of our training journey. We must stay focused, stay committed, and stay on track with our plan, no matter what life or Mother Nature throws at us. Plus, it feels pretty darn good to get up and log those miles before most people have even finished their morning cup o' joe.
Zooma and its partner, Satya Jewelry, have created weekly mantra cards for all the runners to guide us on our training journey. This week's mantra is:
When I first read it, I thought "wouldn't that have been a better mantra to save for later on in our training, when the going gets tough?" But now, after making myself go out and run in the rain on a holiday, I realize that maybe this is the perfect mantra for week 1. It takes diligence in the beginning before we can ever make it to the middle or the end of our training journey. We must stay focused, stay committed, and stay on track with our plan, no matter what life or Mother Nature throws at us. Plus, it feels pretty darn good to get up and log those miles before most people have even finished their morning cup o' joe.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
5 Women Who Rock - er, Run
This weekend has been AWESOME. Besides the fact that it's Labor Day weekend, and 2 of my best friends are in town, and I've been able to spend some fun, quality time with the husband and child, and I scored a super cute new swimsuit on clearance...oops, I digress. Mostly this weekend has rocked because of the 4 women I spent Friday evening and Saturday morning with (1 being someone I know pretty well - my sister.) This weekend I met the other 3 ladies who are fellow Zooma Atlanta ambassadors. We had a fabulous dinner at La Fonda on Friday night, and a great kickoff meeting yesterday morning at Big Peach in Brookhaven, followed by a fun 3 mile run with others who are also training for the race. It's always a bit daunting, signing up for something with people you don't know, but honestly I don't think I could've hand picked a better group of women. These ladies ROCK! I am so excited to get to know them, learn from them and run with them every Saturday. We decided that our Saturday morning group runs should be FUN - not that running alone isn't fun - but we're going to pick a different place each time and reward ourselves after with coffee or something yummy. And, of course, good conversation, probably some commiseration from time to time and definitely lots of laughs. I love running for the solitude, but I think I'm really gonna love it in the company of other awesome women, too.
Speaking of awesome women, just a side note, I had the pleasure of running my 3 miles yesterday with the lovely local celebrity Jovita Moore from WSB-TV! She is planning to train with us and her goal is to run the 5K, but I think we'll talk her into doing the half. : ) Thanks, Kristy, for the pic!
I also bought a new toy yesterday. I'm beginning to think it's physically impossible to walk into Big Peach and not buy SOMETHING. I bought the Nike + Sportband, which I'm beside myself excited about. I've wanted a GPS watch for so long but just can't bring myself to fork out the dough for it, and Kristy, one of my fellow ambassadors, recommended this little number from Nike that tracks your distance, pace, time and calories burned, at a fraction of the price of fancier GPS enabled models. So, I bought it. And it's really cute, and functional, and I can't wait to use it. Oh, and this pic also shows you the new running top I bought (on clearance) and my sweet new Brooks kicks, thanks to Big Peach Marietta. LOVE those shoes.
This afternoon I sat down while the child was napping and modified my training schedule. We were all given a training plan (just another perk of this race!) but I needed to change it up a bit to jive with my own schedule, so it'll be doable. It's pretty intense. Check it out. Thank you, Mari, for your help with it!
Yes, this is what I'm committed to for the next 12 weeks. If you want to see me before Thanksgiving, let's go ahead and pencil in a time now. No joke. I'm actually really looking forward to checking off each step in this plan, day by day. I'm also looking forward to seeing how my body transforms over the next 12 weeks. Should be interesting (read: good.)
Speaking of awesome women, just a side note, I had the pleasure of running my 3 miles yesterday with the lovely local celebrity Jovita Moore from WSB-TV! She is planning to train with us and her goal is to run the 5K, but I think we'll talk her into doing the half. : ) Thanks, Kristy, for the pic!
I also bought a new toy yesterday. I'm beginning to think it's physically impossible to walk into Big Peach and not buy SOMETHING. I bought the Nike + Sportband, which I'm beside myself excited about. I've wanted a GPS watch for so long but just can't bring myself to fork out the dough for it, and Kristy, one of my fellow ambassadors, recommended this little number from Nike that tracks your distance, pace, time and calories burned, at a fraction of the price of fancier GPS enabled models. So, I bought it. And it's really cute, and functional, and I can't wait to use it. Oh, and this pic also shows you the new running top I bought (on clearance) and my sweet new Brooks kicks, thanks to Big Peach Marietta. LOVE those shoes.
This afternoon I sat down while the child was napping and modified my training schedule. We were all given a training plan (just another perk of this race!) but I needed to change it up a bit to jive with my own schedule, so it'll be doable. It's pretty intense. Check it out. Thank you, Mari, for your help with it!
Yes, this is what I'm committed to for the next 12 weeks. If you want to see me before Thanksgiving, let's go ahead and pencil in a time now. No joke. I'm actually really looking forward to checking off each step in this plan, day by day. I'm also looking forward to seeing how my body transforms over the next 12 weeks. Should be interesting (read: good.)
Sunday, August 21, 2011
So, what's the deal?
As if I need one more commitment in my life, well, here it is. A blog. A blog that probably nobody will read except maybe my family (because they're obligated), but a blog that I'm not really writing for anyone except myself. Yeah, this isn't for you, it's for me. I've always wanted to be a writer, and I've always wanted to be a runner. The former comes a bit easy to me, but the latter - well, that's taken a LOT of work. So I want to write about it.
Most of you know (wait, are there even any "you's"?) that I signed up and trained for a half marathon back in April, but got injured less than a week before the race and couldn't run it. Talk about disappointment. It took me a full month before I could even begin to think about running again...heck, it took me a couple of weeks before I could even walk. Anyway, my sister stumbled upon a race over Thanksgiving weekend called the Zooma Women's Race Series, and it's held at Chateau Elan. It's a race for women (although men can run too), and at the end there are apparently massages, wine, shopping, etc. SOLD! Done and done. So I signed up. And my sister signed up. And somehow we were both chosen to be ambassadors, which means we get to spread the word about the race throughout Atlanta and encourage folks to sign up. We get to organize and lead weekly training runs. And, I hear we might get a spa day post-race. Sweet.
Anyway, this blog is all about my training for this race, and probably a lot about my life over the coming 3 months as I train. Read it if you will, but again, I'm not writing it for you...I'm writing it for me. Because writing helps me process things. And feel better about things. Like running 13.1 miles. BRING IT!!!
Most of you know (wait, are there even any "you's"?) that I signed up and trained for a half marathon back in April, but got injured less than a week before the race and couldn't run it. Talk about disappointment. It took me a full month before I could even begin to think about running again...heck, it took me a couple of weeks before I could even walk. Anyway, my sister stumbled upon a race over Thanksgiving weekend called the Zooma Women's Race Series, and it's held at Chateau Elan. It's a race for women (although men can run too), and at the end there are apparently massages, wine, shopping, etc. SOLD! Done and done. So I signed up. And my sister signed up. And somehow we were both chosen to be ambassadors, which means we get to spread the word about the race throughout Atlanta and encourage folks to sign up. We get to organize and lead weekly training runs. And, I hear we might get a spa day post-race. Sweet.
Anyway, this blog is all about my training for this race, and probably a lot about my life over the coming 3 months as I train. Read it if you will, but again, I'm not writing it for you...I'm writing it for me. Because writing helps me process things. And feel better about things. Like running 13.1 miles. BRING IT!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)