Half Marathon, Full Marathon and Small Change News

Hi everyone,

I'm posting and eating lunch.  Killing two birds with one stone!  It's not always the best thing to do but it's the only time I have right now and afterwards, I'm going to take a walk in the nice 90+ degree heat!!  :)   I love the hot weather!  We get so much cold weather that I'm not going to complain.

I had a half marathon near my Aunt and Uncle's house over the weekend.  It was VERY small.  There were only a max number of about 50 people there!  I'm used to the big Chicago runs where there are thousands of people.  This was in a small Western town called Plano.

The temperature was about 60 degrees but very humid.  After about mile 1, my garmin wasn't charged and died on me!  It was charged a week before so it shouldn't have needed charging but I didn't check.  My fault.  So I couldn't use the garmin for pace or mileage or anything.  Then my headphones when out on me about half way through.  Note to self:  Charge all electronic devices prior to 13 mile runs!!

This run was HARD!  I didn't anticipate beating my best time since I didn't have my garmin.  Also, there were hills.  LARGE hills!!  About mile 10, I stopped dead where I was, looked around, said "Oh F--K!!"  Then I realized I had nothing to do but finish.  Since there were only 50 people and this was a long run, we were so spread out.  At mile 10, no one was around me.  But I kept going.  My only goal was not to come in last.  I think I was about 10-15 people from the end.

I did finish.  When I checked my time...I was only off of my personal best by 38 seconds!!  Really!?!  If I would have known that!!!!!  My best is 2:14:09 and this half time was 2:14:47!  Wow.  I was pretty impressed with this time.  Normally, I would get mad not beating my old time and coming so close, but with the hills on this one, this was harder than any other half I did!  So, I'm a winner!  lol

I also went to a running clinic for the half over the weekend.  They gave advice on hydration and fuel, shoes, stretching, etc.  It was long but good information was provided.  I also got a free book by a Chicago Marathon runner that has run over 100 marathons.  It has to do with training for a marathon.  Seems pretty good so far.

My marathon training starts this week.  Since I ran the half on Sunday, I'm skipping my first 3 mile run today.  Then I will run 3 miles tomorrow, 3 miles on Thursday and 6 miles on Saturday for the long run.  I will be running the long runs at 6:50 am on Saturday's to run with a training group!  I do not want to get up that early but running a marathon takes discipline!!

For the Small Change Challenge that Tami at Nutmeg Notebook has going for the month of June, I'm still keeping my "no pop" this week that was my goal last week, but I'm adding food for this week.  I'm going to "think", really think about it before I grab something to eat or snack on.  I tend to do mindless eating so this week, I will be mindful.  If I'm hungry, I'll eat it.  If not, I won't.  Seems easy enough!  :)

I hope you are all have a nice summer!  So sorry, I've been slacking on blog reading!!  I'll pick it back up one day!