Here comes the sun, little darlings!

This morning was perfect for running. Not too hot- low 80's, slight breeze, a little on the humid side, but for August in AZ, I will take it! My workout today was 20 miles with the last 10 in under 70 minutes.  I was feeling so great and the workout went really well! Yay! I ended the 20 miles with a 6:06 mile, with a  few miles in the low 6: teens, and the rest around 6:30 pace. I had  only one mile above that at 6:52 when I stopped for the restroom and to refill my water bottle. SO happy this went so well. A great confidence booster!

I could not have done it without my early girlies Susan Loken and Tanaya Gallagher. Susan is going to get her Olympic Trials Qualification at Twin Cities on 10/3, I am trying for mine the following weekend 10/10 in Chicago, and Tanaya will be looking toward Long Beach Marathon the following weekend on 10/17! We are all coached by John and when we can all get together to run, there is nothing better! It is so motivating to run with these two lovely ladies. Susan is just a wealth of knowledge and encouragement. She is just such a strong runner and this will be her third time going to the Olympic Trials. I have also really been trying to emulate Tanaya as she is such a calm, low-stress runner. I need to get there!   The question now is... 3 OTQ's in a row? I predict yes.

Last week I got very off-track with my core-performance workouts and my regeneration. School is kicking my little behind. I have been so busy to make sure my kiddos have a fantastic year! I have been going in to work on the weekends, which is ok with me. I can work in my classroom in my comfies with my coffee,  jamming out to Tom Petty!  So, no complaints here. I just need to learn to delegate my time better. This week my goal is to get all of my gym workouts in (unless I am feeling super fatigued)

Cooler weather, football season, I am SO READY FOR YOU!!! (30th birthday, you can come too... I have a feeling it will be a great year!)

Runningly Yours,

There’s something good, waitin’ down this road!

Just returned from a lovely 4 days up in the mountains in Heber, Arizona. The weather was perfect, cloudy and cool (for us Arizonans, cool is 80 degrees.)  with some rain and thunder. Matt and I had such a wonderful time! I had a 20 miler on Sunday and it went so awesome. One of the better 20 milers I have ever had. I practiced my race day nutrition, AND negative split the run. (Second half faster than the first half) I just felt AWESOME. Matt was so wonderful and rode a bike with me everyday while I ran. It is so nice to run and not have to carry a waterbottle!

I have been having some great workouts lately and have been nailing my splits during track work. Everything is going so well! My mileage is heading upwards, I have 75 miles this week and 80 next. I have been feeling great! On Monday, I will start going  back to school to start setting up my classroom. This is always such an exciting time, but I need to make sure I am still hydrating, fueling, and resting. I tend to get so caught up in school stuff that I forget to do these things.

Happy running everyone! The summer heat is *almost* over!

Runningly Yours,

Learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings

coming down, is the hardest thing. (I think this may be my favorite song of all time, I say that a lot though, especially with Tom songs. That's right, we are on a first name basis.)

Wow, what a strange 2 weeks it has been.  Ever since my last 5k on 6/13, (which was AWESOME!) I have been having some rough runs. I was having a really hard time completing my speedwork on, and off the track. My legs just felt heavy. I don't know what was going on. I was still eating super healthy, but I was indulging in some wine on the weekends, which I believe caused me to gain a few lbs. So maybe that is where the heavy feeling was coming from.

It is also a gazillion, (yep, that's right, a gazillion) degrees outside, so that did not help matters. It is funny, in Wisconsin, where I am from, we spend all summer outdoors and we hibernate in winter. It is the opposite here in Arizona. If it is between the hours of 7am and 7pm, you just don't go outside. The car door handle is hot, patio furniture is hot, the pool water is hot. Ick. I think next summer I will need to beg and plead for my sister to let me live at her place in SAN DIEGO for 3 months. Think she'll go for it??

Back to running. Butterfly! As I was feeling pretty down about how my last 2 weeks of workouts were going, coach wanted to give me a confidence boosting workout before my first ever 10k next weekend. It should be hard but doable, anything too easy would not help!

So for today's run I had 4 miles warm-up, then 3 sets of 1 mile at 6:00 followed by one mile recovery at 7:00. After the sets, I had a 2 mile cool down. Here is how it went:

4 miles warm-up 7:55 average

Workout-

Mile 1- 5:43

Mile 2- 7:01

Mile 3- 5:47

Mile 4- 6:56

Mile 5- 5:30

Mile 6- 6:36

2 mile cool down at 7:20 pace.

Felt really good throughout the mile repeats and my confidence is *mostly* restored. I really needed this as I tried a 5 mile temp0 run at 6:07 last Thursday and couldn't get through it. Bomb. At track last week I had 3 x 2 mile @ 5:50 pace and I couldn't get through that. Bomb #2. SO needless to say, I am happy with how today went. I think any over-training/under-resting I had been doing is being remedied. Now it is time to ease up, let my legs rest. re: I am NOT killing my legs with hills or gym workouts this week!

Here is some video Matt shot at the track this morning. I was finished with my 12 miles at 6:30 am, that shows how early you have to start running here!

Runningly Yours,

Tales from the Trails

Matt and I headed up to Heber, AZ to his parents' cabin over the weekend. We love going up there and had such a great time with his Mom and Dad. Soooo relaxing! We also wanted to get some good altitude running in. Boy does that first run at altitude kick your behind! It is hard to get used too! Here is some video we took of our excursion. We ran 15 miles on Saturday and 10 on Sunday. We can't wait to get back up there, it was SO hard to leave today, we love the cabin!

Enjoy!