Ten Things Tuesday

Happy Tuesday Y'all, I am back from my little blog hiatus! It has been a super busy week so far, and it's only Tuesday!


1.  I  first want to thank everyone for all the congrats and kind words on my race this weekend, it was a really exciting weekend for me!

2.  For all runners out there, I just want to throw out my two-cents: Speedwork really works! Getting in 2 sessions a week (usually a tempo and a track workout) has made a HUGE difference in my race times! I am hoping the benefits will also emerge as we head into fall race season and all of my longer distance races.

3.  Now that this race series is behind me, it has finally hit how close it is getting to the marathon. At the end of this week, I will be half way through my training for Marathon #1, crazy! I feel like it all just started!

4.  Going into this week, with 10 weeks to go, I was on a major mission to focus on cleaning up my eating. I don't really eat bad, but have had more than my fair share of indulgences the last month or so, and it is certainly not conducive to helping me run and run faster, so operation stop eating crap started this week.

5. Ideally I would like to lose 6-8lbs by race day, that should (might) give me a couple extra minutes to work with too. And with all the mileage that is about to occur I see no reason why I can't do this, I feel like everyone is so carefree during the summer (myself included) its about time for it to be fall, and get back to my more disciplined self.

6. Onto Running, yesterday (Monday) I woke up sore, mostly from doing weights on Sunday, not the race. I was supposed to do 7M with 4 @8:30. BOOOOO! I did not want to get out of bed, so I slept in and decided to run after work. I scratched the tempo instantly, my body was no where near fresh enough to do it, and I figured I got in 2 tempo runs over the weekend so it would be ok. I decided to make it a progression run, I didn't do as nice as I would have liked with the whole negative splits this weekend so, time to get back to it.


7. Monday Night = 7 Miles- 1:03:48, 9:06 average pace.
Once I started with the progression I decided that I wanted the last 3 miles to be at my goal half marathon pace (9:05)
Mile 1-  9:40
Mile 2-  9:25
Mile 3-  9:18
Mile 4-  9:06
Mile 5-  9:01
Mile 6-  8:51
Mile 7-  8:29


8.  It took me until mile 4 to finally wake up and feel like I was in control rather than on auto-pilot. The last 3 miles felt great, and made sure to put in a little extra effort, and hit the last 2 well below my half marathon pace. I felt like the last few miles really took it from being an easy or average run to a more quality one, adn I was happy to get that in considering I didn't think I would.

9.  Today = 8 miles, to be done again after work, I am not sure how I want to break this one up yet, but do something at least moderately challenging and interesting, any ideas?

10.  For all you Cold Weather Runners out there: We are planning a trip this winter to somewhere very cold, and I will need to obtain some warmer running attire soon. The coldest I have ever run in is maybe 35*, we are looking at colder than that. What is your favorite cold-weather running garmet that I probably need to go buy????? And also where to buy because you know I can't find it down here in the State of the constant inferno!!!!!