I love running. Like a lot.

I woke up this morning, not really wanting to roll out of bed. I was so sleepy. I have to stop going over to the boys apartment to watch Sunday Night Football and then not getting home til ridiculously late.

So needless to say, I was particularly thrilled about going out for a run. But after dragging myself out of bed and lacing up the shoes, I was out the door (and down the elavator) and finally outside. And it was beautiful.

Temps in the high 60's or low 70's, a bit warm in the sun, but nothing unbearable and glorious in the shade.

I started running and every felt awesome. My mood instantly perked up and I felt like I was just cruising, as if my legs were on auto-pilot and I wasn't doing any work out all. It was amazing, and I live for runs like that.

And of course now that I'm back in my apartment, I'm wide awake. And I feel great. And I want to go back outside. I'm actually looking forward to the 25 minute walk allll the way across campus to go teach aerobics classes at the gym today. Usually I dread it because it's so far away. But not today.

Man, I am in such a stellar mood. I love running.

In other extremely happy news. It was a good weekend in sports. Notre Dame knocked off MSU in what will probably become a football classic. After being outplayed the first three quarters, ND finally got some footing and exploded in the fourth with a 19 point quarter. The weather was miserable, driving rains, 30 mile an hour winds. The game was a mess. Brady fumbled two snaps. MSU missed a PAT. Dumb stuff that wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been raining. I was pacing in front of my TV like a mad woman as the final few minutes wound down.

Also, Philly teams kicked booty this weekend too. The Phils took the lead in the NL wildcare, which is totally sweet and the Eagles beat the 49ers. Two Philly wins in one day. But being a Philly fan I know not to get my hopes up too high or else I'll have my heart ripped out and stepped on. Yea, the life of a Philly fan is rough.

Any way today is going to be a great day. So I'm off!

So today's run was my last "long" run before the big day. I'm officially in taper mode for the next two weeks. Today's run went pretty well, considering I'd been having all kinds of problems with shin splints, etc. in the days leading up to it. It was supposed to be a 20-miler, but I started feeling a slight tweaking in my knee and my legs were exhausted so I cut it short somewhere around 13 miles. I didn't think it was smart to push it this close to the race and risk getting hurt, especially since I'd been having problems. So my longest run to date was 18 miles. I still feel like I'll be ready for the marathon. It's three Saturday's from now, which gives me plenty of time to get in some quality shorter runs and taper and be ready to go on race day.

I'm also trying to find a sports massage therapist to make an appointment with for after the marathon because I noticed some tightness today and no matter how much I stretch nothing will get those deeper knots out like a good (albiet slightly painful) sports massage. Problem with being at school now, is that I don't know how shady any of the places in the phone book are. I don't want some creep-o touching my legs.

Things are starting to get into more of a flow with classes. I have my first exam coming up this Tuesday, but I don't think it will be that bad.

Notre Dame plays MSU tonight. 8 p.m. ABC. Justin (if I knew how to link to his blog I totally would) is in the MSU band, so we've had some all in good fun trash talking going on lately...so I guess we're going to see who gets bragging rights after tonight. (Although I'm pretty sure ND is beastly and has it locked down :O)

Alright I'm off to cram in some work before tailgating for my Terps! (yeaaa...where I actually go to school)

Today's run reminds me why I do it. I was a little worried about soreness in the leg area because I've been having major problems with shin splints and extrememly tight muscles lately so I went out really slowly. There was still a little bit of tightness there for the whole run, but nothing debilitating like Monday. I still ended up shortening my usual loop a bit and running the whole thing slower because I just wanted to take it easy, be sure everything was properly.

And it was beautiful at this morning. Accuweather told me it was a cool 60 degrees, but in the sun I'd say it was closer to 70. But it was still beautiful out there was just the slightest breeze and running in both the shade and the sun was enjoyable. It's so nice to see the temps starting to come down a little bit. I hope it stays nice and cool for a while now.

Marathon is officially in like three weeks. I'm nervous though because I kind of feel like all this lower leg pain is going to be a pretty big set back in training. I rescheduled the 20 miles I missed last week when I was in Texas for this weekend, and I'm so nervous about how that's going to go.

I can't believe after all this time training, the event is finally getting to be here. Only a few more weeks and this whole journey will be over. Not that I'll stop running. It will just be different because I won't have a specific race to be training for. (I won't miss losing a large chunk of my Saturdays to long runs though.) It's crazy to think I started training back in April and now it's almost October and time for the real deal.

It's good to be back to blogging. I missed it. Everything seems to be falling back into place after a few very strange out of whack weeks. I think I'm starting to find a sense of normalcy again. Thank goodness for that.

Hey everyone,
So it has been forever since I've written, and it's quite possible I've lost all of my readers, although I can't say I'd blame you. It's been a rough few weeks for me. My schedule has been insane and I haven't been able to get in the quality runs that I need. I've also been plagued with some nasty shin splints so even when I do get out to run, it usually doesn't go well.

That kind of has me freaked out with my marathon about four weeks away.

I lost a lot of running time when I was in Texas for a journalism conference last week. Everyday the conference started at like 8 in the morning and then there were things we needed to be at until late at night, which killed all time to run. In addition, I didn't have room in my suitcase to pack another pair of footwear, so even if I had time to run I didn't have sneakers. So I lost from Wed. to Sat. because of that.

I tried rebounding Monday with a run and got the worst shin splints ever about 10 minutes in. I pushed it for another 5 minutes but then was in too much pain to keep going and had to walk home and do some major stretching. It was so frustrating.

Also stregthen training and healthy eating have gone out the window in the past weeks. Everything has been so hectic. Although I'm trying to get back on track this week. After today, some of the craziness should calm down. I will have caught up on most of the work I missed and I'll be back to a semi-normal schedule, and hopefully my running and just general mood will improve. I have been stressssed out!

So again, sorry about my long absensce. I promise I'll try to catch up on everyone's blogs soon!

So the stupid hurricane put a major damper on my long run today. I got stuck doing it on a treadmill. Gross. It was supposed to be 18 miles, but I ran out of change to feed my parking meter at about 16. And the boredom of running that long on a treadmill really was starting to get to me. Plus there was a huge soccer game #1 MD Terps vs #10 (i think) UCLA, and I wasn't really planning on skipping that. (P.S. we totally won because we are amazing!) So yea, running for 3.5 hours on a treadmill = tedious and boring as hell.

But if I'm going to look for the positives in this run....I was able to run a lot longer because the impact when running on a treadmill never bothers me as much as the impact of runinng on concrete. Also I kept the treadmill on no incline today because I figured I wouldn't really be able to handle much of one, so that made things easier too.

I'm pretty sore now though. Granted that could have a lot to do with the fact that I did absolutely no stretching afterwards because I was in such a hurry to make it to the soccer game on time (thank god the women's game before hand went into double over time and I didn't miss anything even though I was late).

That's going to come back and bite me in the ass tomorrow, I'm sure. But really the important thing here is, I got in my run, well most of it. It might not have been the most glamourous run ever, but I got it in and I was glad. I only have one more reallllly long run before the marathon. That's a 20 miler in two weeks. Everything else is 10 or less.

The marathon's only 6 weeks away....that's nuts!