It seems like forever ago since I updated last, but I guess it wasn't really that long ago. Training has been going pretty well. The humiditiy broke a little bit and the temps are much cooler and I'm hoping it will stay that way until Saturday when I have a beastly 18 mile run. I'm going to drive around and try to find a course tomorrow. Hopefully I'll find something not too shady because I haven't really had any luck recruiting people to go with me.

I joined our running club at school too. I figured it'd be fun to have people to run with on my shorter runs and it'd be a good way to get to know some of the trails around campus (which are awesome to run on with people. Not the best idea to run them alone). Yesterday was the first practice and basically the club meets at five breaks into distance and pace groups and then runs. You go when you can. Some people can't make certain days because of class or other commitments. But it was cool getting to meet people and I think it will be fun.

I am a crazy crazy person and woke up at 5:30 this morning to strength train before my 8 am class. I've become addicted to working out in the morning before class and so I guess that's how I managed to drag my tired butt out of bed. But seriously working out in the morning might be the best thing ever because it just leaves me feeling like I've accomplished something, even if I get ntohing done the rest of the day.

So far my classes are eh. Well that's not true. Most of them sound pretty interesting/not that hard. There's one that I'm really nervous about and kind of stressed about. I feel a bit underqualified for the class. Everyone else in it has experience in that area and I just don't, so I feel like I'm starting off farther behind everyone. Maybe as a way to get past that I'll just keep thinking pshhh I'm training to run a marathon....what have you done with your life? LOL. That wouldn't be very nice though.

With classes and everything picking up I'm going to be pretty busy, but I'll try to stay on top of posting and keeping up with everyone else's posts.

We really need some type of vicious storm to knock out this humidity. Lately, my times have been crappy and being outside (especially running) has just been painful. There hasn't been one enjoyable thing about any of my recent runs, which kind of bums me out.

But whatever, the humidity will break at some point.

In other exciting news....today's my birthday! YAY! I'm finally 20. Not like I feel any older or anything. My friends and I are going out to Olive Garden tonight for dinner. Should be a good time all around. (I think it's one of the places where they sing to you....oh dear lord that's embarrassing.)

Sorry for such a short and crappy post. I have to be at training for my job (I teach fitnesses classes at the gym on campus) in a bit.

Oh man Maryland's humidity is oppressive. I didn't think it would be that much worse than at home, but oh man it was unreal this morning. And stupid me didn't take a bottle of water to run with (I have good reasons: At home I never needed to carry water when I was only going six miles, and I just hate carry anything in my hands when I run.)

So to say the least, today's run was not all that enjoyable.

It's also weird to be running in a different area than I have been for the past three months. The hills are in all different places and it's playing goofy games with my head. Like at home, I would mentally know a hill was coming and could attempt to prep myself for it. Here I don't see the hills til I'm at the bottom of them....which doesn't leave much time for mental preparation.

All in all though, I guess it's good to mix it up. It's not like I'm going to know the race course. I mean I can look at the map and read the elevations, but it's not the same as getting out and running the course or at least parts of it before the race. And I'm just not going to have to a chance to do that. So perhaps running without the mental prep during some of my training will overall be a good thing for the marathon.

Fun new apartment side note: I cooked dinner for six people last night! Tilapia (it's a kind of fish) with steamed broccli and a friend brought a salad. And I didn't poison one of them or burn down the house and I actually got compliments on the food. Sweet! (For the record, that dinner was only the third time I'd cooked ever....heating leftovers/TV dinners in the microwave totally doesn't count.) So I'm actually starting to like cooking, which I thought would be the most annoying chore that goes along with moving into an apartment.

My last roommate moves in tonight! I'm so excited!!!!

The past few runs have gone pretty well. I've run twice at school since I've been back and I've found a solid 3 mile loop that I feel safe running. So for tomorrow's six miles I'm just going to run it twice. Next week though I'm not sure where I'm going to find an 18 mile loop that I feel safe to run. Maybe I'll be able to find a six mile loop or something to do three times. WHy does my school have to be in the most sketchacular place ever. It's way not safe for a girl to run by herself around here.

I had to tweak my schedule a bit this week because Wed. night I was out late. Way too late at a party. Hit the sack at about 3:oo a.m. decided I'd bump the run back until 9:00 instead of at 6:30. The alarm when off at 9:00 I thought screw it and turned it off. So when I woke up at noon, I cross trained and moved my run to this morning.

Tomorrow I've got the six miler and my third day of strength training this week. As far as the strength training goal goes, I've been pretty much dead on and haven't had any problems.

I've been eating way healthier too since I've been back to school and making my own food and stuff.

Here's the Wed. and Thurs. food stuff:
Wed:
Breakfast: Special K and a peach
Lunch: Yogurt and grapes
Dinner: Italian Chicken and Veggies

Thurs:
Breakfast (at 3:30 in the afternoon): Special K and a peach
Dinner: Mexican Chicken with veggies

In other exciting news, I finished decorating my room in the apartment today. I have a couple of framed Monet prints that I hung up. I've got one Picasso and one by Jack his last name starts with a V but I can't remember it. He paints the waltzers on the beach under umbrellas, eating dinner on the beach. I'm sure you've all seen one.

It's so nice to be back. I'm not looking forward to classes starting at all though.
First home soccer game is on Sunday! I'm stoked!

Oh man this past couple of days have been crazy let me tell you. I've done so much packing and unpacking in the last three days its not even funny. But now I'm finally back at school and pretty much settled into my apartment. One of my roommates is here, but the other two aren't getting here until the weekend.

Somehow though, despite all the craziness I managed to get all my runs in. I had an 8 miler on Saturday which I finished with pretty much no problem and wasn't even sore after. (It's so weird looking back to the beginning of training when 26 miles seemed impossible because my legs hurt so much after 8 miles runs that I couldn't walk the rest of the day. Now 8 mile runs come naturally. :o)

Monday was my last run at home so I made sure it was a solid 45 minutes. I was impressed with myself too because I ran faster than I normally do. Not that I had intentionally planned to do it, but I was hitting my mile markers faster than usual. I also through in a strength workout Monday morning, because I knew I wasn't going to have a chance to workout Tuesday what with moving in and everything.

Yesterday was completely taken over by move in. My parents and I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to drive to school. Got here about nine-ish and then they didn't leave until like 2:00. And after that left I still had boxes upon boxes to unpack. It took forever to organize the kitchen an then living room and then my bedroom. But somehow it happened.

Went to see Snakes on a Plane last night. Wayyyy more gory than I was expecting. But there were some totally hilarious parts too.

This morning's run was a little bit tough. I went 40 minutes, but it didn't feel as easy as it usually does, and my left arch was killing me by the end. I'll be sure to massage out the arch and stuff. And as far as the run not being easy, it's quite possible that it will just take me a little while to adapt to a new running environment and iron out some solid routes.

I'll get back to posting my healthy food tomorrow. With packing and moving, I've been eating at really strange times and bizzarre meals (yesterday lunch was a handful of grapes....sooo yea).

Hope everyone's having awesome runs!

Well today's run was slightly better than yesterdays, but it was still painful and I still had some wicked pain. And I had strecthed for 30 minutes last night before I went to bed.

But I think I may have found the source of my problem. I really noticed the jarring today when I was running. And I think it's time to get some new shoes. I'm pretty sure the padding in mine is shot. I've been running in the same shoes since....the beginning of April. So that means I've run with them through all of April, May, June, July and about half of August. So it might be time to retire them and get a new pair.

I'm actually a little bit excited about this because I love the local running store. They analyze your old shoes for the way you pronate and based on that pick out other shoes for you and then they let you put them on and test them outside. So I'll probably try to hit that up tomorrow after work. I've got to go soon because I'm leaving to head back to school on Tuesday (oh so excited for that!)

After my annoyingly painful 30 minute run this morning, I squeezed in a quick strength workout. So that's two down for the week with only one more to go. I'll probably do it Saturday after my run.

Eating better foods has been going pretty well too so far. Granted today is only day three of this lol.

Anyway here's yesterdays list food:
Breakfast: bowl of Special K
Lunch: Hummus with pita from the restaurant by work
Snack: Three finger licks of choc. pudding from a co-worker (no lie she gave me some and I ate three licks off my finger lol...ohh the manners)
Dinner: Chicken in BBQ sauce with sauteed summer veggies (peppers, onions, mushrooms, and zuccini....delicious)

Oh man today's run was awful. I'm not sure if you could actually even call it a run. More like a step or two followed by shooting pain in the front of one shin and in the back of the other followed by walking to attempt to make the pain go away. It was horrible.

I started out same pace as always and I was a little sore, but I chalked it up to the early morning stiffness that usually goes away after about five minutes. Wellll my friends, this pain did not go away and right around minute 13 I gave in to the pain and started walking. More like hobbling.

I found a telephone pole on the side of the road that I was hoping to stretch out on, but I was too tight to even stretch, so I gave up and just kept walking (at this point it was shorter to keep going the way I was going than to turn around and walk the rest of the way back home). All I wanted to do was get back. It hurt so much.

What a waste of a run. I was so pissed off. It was supposed to be a 45 minute run. With all my slow walking and hobbling it took me 45 minutes to get back from my 13 minute run out. Honestly I am so pissed off about this wasted run.

So I came home and did a strength training workout. At least the day wasn't a complete waste. Ugh how frustrating.

As promised here's yesterday's list of food. I did pretty good on day one of clean up the crap I eat!
Breakfast: Bowl of Special K (my favorite cereal ever lol)
Lunch: Raspberry yogurt and a cup of dry cereal (we were out of apple cinnamon rice cakes :o(
Dinner: Tuna salad on a whole wheat pita with lettuce onions and a little bit of Miracle Whip.

I have a short run scheduled for tomorrow....either 30 or 35 minutes and I'll probably do another strength workout. Hopefully tomorrow's run doens't suck as much as today's did. When I get home from work I'm going to majorly stretch out, which will hopefully help!

Sadly my wonderful weekend at the beach is over. I had a great time and even managed to squeeze in a quality run on the boardwalk. The weather was gorgeous and it was nice to just lounge around in a beach chair and worry about nthing all day.

Now on to the exciting news. My 14 mile run was......GREAT! It only took me five minutes longer than my 13.1 two weeks ago. Not because I ran a ridiculously speedy, but more because I was able to run a lot more and walk a lot less. I ran straight through the first 8 miles, walked for a short bit of the 9th and then ran a decent amount of the rest. I did have to walk some of killer hills toward the end. My poor legs were just exhausted.

Besides general soreness I felt great afterward. I wish I could emulate this run over and over again, because it went perfectly. It took me two hours 54 minutes and 58 seconds. The worst part of the whole thing was the 5:20 wake up call.

As far as my other two goals go, the strength training is on track. I even did my routine one morning in the hotel at the beach. I was going to wake up early to do it again before work today, but I was too wiped out, so I've got it scheduled for after work.

The beach killed my first few days of cleaning up my eating. Eating out every night with dessert on the boardwalk doesn't exactly make for the best food fuel. So I'm starting over on that today. And so far so good. Today's complete food list will be up tomorrow.

Getting my haircut tonight!!! :o)

Oh I'm am totally loving this weather. It's so much nicer than last week. I actually felt a bit chilly when I left my house this morning! Alleluia! Anyway today's run was a quickie. 30 minutes out and back. My legs were feeling a little sluggish in the beginning though, but I think it's just because it was early in the morning. Overall the run went well. My mom was out for a walk and we crossed paths toward the end of my run.

I threw in some lifting this morning too. I'm trying really hard to stick with three days of lifting each week. I used to be so good about it. I'd do it religiously without fail (and at one point I even used to like weight training more than cardio....yeah not sure what I was thinking there) But I've majorly slacked off any weight training at all and it's I've really started to notice lately.

So I sort of have two new training goals: One is to stick with the weight training three days a week and the other is to majorly clean up my eating habits. I've sort of let them slack off as summer went on. (come on it's summer who doesn't love the occasional...or rather frequent....ice cream?) But it's been killing my training. Ice cream doesn't really fuel the body that well. So I'm hoping to clean that up too. Stick with foods that actually give me energy to get through work outs. I might start keeping one of those food journal thingies because half the time I don't think I realize I'm eating all the crap that I do. I don't know we'll see.

But anyway I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on how that goes. I somehow think the weight training goal is going to be much easier for me to stick with than the better eating (I'm a sucker for all things sweet).

In other fun news, I'm leaving for a long weekend at the beach tomorrow! WHOOOO HOOOO! I'm excited. But that also means I have to bump my long run up a day. Normally my long run day is Saturday, but I know myself well enough to know that there is absolutely no way I will get up early for a 14-mile run when I'm at the beach. It's just not going to happen.

So I'm going to go tomorrow before I leave. That way I get it in and it's all taken care of, and the only run I'll absolutely have to do at the beach is a much more vacation-friendly 3.5 miles.

I'm a little nervous about the 14 mile beast tomorrow morning. I'm going to have to get up way early because I have a doc. appointment at 10:15 before I leave and I'll need to finish the run before that. So yea....5:00 in the morning wake up call....I'm sure that will be really enjoyable.

I'm going to be sure I stock up on PowerBars and Gatorade before I head to work today so that everything is all set and for tomorrow. (Yea I'm one of those people who lays out their clothes the night before their long runs so that I don't have to think about anything first thing in the morning)

Big note to self: Charge iPod. I keep forgetting and I haven't been able to run with it the past two days as a result. There's no way I'm getting through 14 miles without some tunes.

Anyway, that's all my ramblings for now. I have a feeling this day at work is going to be never-ending because I'm so excited for the beach tomorrow. Yay for the sun and the sand and the ocean!!!

I'll be sure to update on the 14-miler sometime when I get back!

Everything about today's run was awesome. The weather was beautiful at 5:30 on in the morning. Not too sunny with a slight breeze. It was actually a little bit chilly when I started, which was definitely a welcome change from the awful heat and humidity that's been going on the past couple days.

From there everything was perfect. I had six miles scheduled and I cruised through them with no problem at all. I could have gone farther. I felt like I could have kept running for ever. Nothing was hurting and I didn't feel overly exhasuted. It was the perfect run.

I did stop at six miles though. I don't want to risk injury. With everything going so well in today's run there was no way I wanted to risk messing that up. So I called it quits after six miles and then did some strengthen training, which I've started again after a long long time away from it.

But it was the perfect run and everything just felt right. I didn't even listen to music for the first 2.5 miles. I had my iPod with me, but I hadn't turned it on.

This might be the best run I've ever been on.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

WARNING: I'm about to bitch and moan about the weather for a bit, so if you're sick of reading about that, skip to the next paragraph. Holy Mother of Pearl it is hot outside. I was out running by 6:40 this morning and it was already like 86 degrees, sunny and extremely humid. It's going to get into the triple digits here today. Shoot me now. That's like impossible weather to run in. It feels like there's no oxygen in the air....just a whole lot of water! Unreal!

Okay, done with my bitching and moaning. Overall, today's run went so-so. I ran more than half, which was good, but my legs crapped out somewhere around 30 minutes. So I ended up walking the last ten. (I'm going to blame it on the weather conditions...sorry not trying to bitch and moan).

It feels good getting up and running before work. I'm not sure why I stopped doing that for so long. I mean I know I got busy with work or everything, but lately I've felt like I've been a complete marathon training slacker. And it feels good to be back on track.

Nothing like running first thing in the morning to get your day started off on the right foot. Granted it may be hard as all hell dragging my tired butt out of bed (like it was this morning. I actually re-set my alarm for an hour later with plans to go back to sleep and skip today's run....not sure what motivated me to get out of bed, but something did.)

Seriously though, running in the morning gives me such a sense of accomplishment. It's a great feeling walking into work thinking, well even if I don't get through whatever I need to today, I got my run in so I accomplished something good today.

Anyway that's all my rambling for now. Hope you're all surviving this horrible heat wave!