Feet Move Forward

Went to see The Back-up Plan... Heed the reviews it's been getting and save yourself. I thought it would be a sorta cute romantic comedy. Um, no. That's 90 minutes of my life that I will never get back. I did, however, manage to eat an entire box of Sour Patch Kids. I'm calling it early carbo loading for my 17 miler on Sunday. But the highlight of the night had to be this: After one of my mocking comments during the movie, my friend Emily punched my thigh and promptly said, "Holy shit, your legs are hard !" I love running. Images found here and here .

These past few days have been crazy! It began on Thursday with baking nearly 400 cupcakes (more on that later) and my weekend activities included my first trail race, frosting and decorating the aforementioned cupcakes, a baby shower and the beginning pains of plantar fasciitis. Now on to the race details. For the Trail Mix race series in Bloomington, I was part of an all women's team for the 50k team event. We all start together and run a 12.5k (7.75 miles) loop. Our individual times are added together for our final score. A friend of my mom's, Cheryl, asked me to run with her and her sister, Laurie, and her friend Melanie. I had never run a trail race before and the website didn't show a course map or elevation chart. Because I didn't really know what to expect- and started to have pain in my heel- I set a tentative goal of an 8:20 pace. Here we are pre-race: Cheryl, me, Melanie, Laurie We arrived up there around 8:30, an hour before the race started. It was per

It's gorgeous out today so it's fitting that I am completely unmotivated to do anything except laundry and watch "reality" tv (hello, E!). I've been running pretty hard all week- actually, for the past few weeks- and I think my body is starting to rebel. My shins are suspiciously sore and I know they are secretly planning a rebellion against this weekend's runs (8 Saturday, 10 Sunday). Perhaps ice will placate them. I'm Hannah, by the way, and I've been running for as long as I can remember. There is a picture of me running on the beach in California when I was five while on vacation with my family. In elementary school I took pride in beating the boys on Track & Field Day and in Jr. High I ran with the Varsity track team. Once in high school, I found other distractions and running became something I did just during the spring track season and I was content with my "never first, never last" placement in races. College brought what college