Feet Move Forward

Recent runs:  Monday , 3.06 miles, 32:19, 10:33 avp (easy, easy run to shake out after Sunday) Tuesday , 5.1 miles, 41:38, 8:10 avp (slightly faster to remind my legs that I own them) ______________________________________ If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you pretty much know how this all went down. If you don't, settle in because I'm starting with The Day Before the Marathon. Saturday The Day Before the Marathon kicked off with coffee and friends at Ann 's! runners make better friends (and really good gluten-free pumpkin bread!) julia 's dog. i almost put her in my purse  From Ann's I went to the expo to pick up my packet and peruse the expo. I practiced restraint and only bought one shirt, mostly because it had Minnesota on it.  run for it, twin cities '12 Saturday night is where things get crazy. I went to The Bachelor Farmer for dinner and decided to carb load with their gimlet (which is seriously the best I've found...

just in time It was an amazing day. Full recap (with photos) to come whenever I feel like writing it. Thank you all for your cheers and support, both on the course and from afar.

STALK ME The Twin Cities Marathon is on Sunday and for those of you that are supremely interested in my progress (or lack thereof) you can track me via text messages on your phone. Neat-o, right? You have to register to track me by tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m., so procrastinate on something else and go sign up now! RACE PLAN I was quite vague about my dad and my race plan but we seriously hadn't discussed anything beyond run until we feel like stopping while staying in front of the sweep bus . Since then, though, we've come up with a plan of a 12 minute pace. That's roughly a 5:15 marathon (and 4 minutes slower per mile than my PR ). The course time limit is 6 hours. He has a history of starting too fast and burning out so my goal is to keep him slow through mile 18 and then we can pick it up from there. RACE DAY The weather on race day should be phenomenal, albeit cold at race start. Throw-away sweats are being sourced.  If you're spectating, please leave ...

The short version: I ran a 5K yesterday in 21:59, was somehow the first female (small towns ARE good for something!) and my splits were 6:46, 7:15, 7:20 and 7:03 for the last .1. Additionally, I think I have the stomach flu. The long version: Yesterday I ran my slowest 5K in three years. Like I mentioned , I wanted to use this race as a basis for my training paces in the upcoming months.  pre-race I decided to stay at my apartment on Friday night instead of driving down to stay at my mom's, mostly so I could run to Yogurt Lab for my typical pre-race bribe . Yes, run . I told myself that if I wanted the sweet deliciousness that is frozen yogurt, I'd have to get there on foot, which is roughly .8 miles away from my apartment. I jogged there, paid an ungodly amount of money for what was approximately a pound of sugar, and then walked (while eating it) home.   proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. The next morning I woke up with my stomach in kno...

Saturday was the first time I've pinned on a race number since Ragnar Relay last August. I ran the the Trail Mix race at Hyland and I found three other poor souls to do the 50K relay with me. Relay is misleading because it's not a relay at all, rather a team event where everyone runs the 7.75 mile loop together and then all our times are added up. Because I haven't been running much lately, I wanted to run this just for fun and stayed with my brother the whole time. We both crossed the finish line at 1:13:29, roughly a 9:27 pace. Since we had speedy dudes on our team, we ended up finishing 22nd overall (out of 95 teams) and 5th in our division of uneven mixed. Not too shabby.  Team "Three Men and a Lady" It was actually a great day for the race weather-wise but by the time I got home, my sweat had cooled me down significantly and I was freezing! I spent a good twenty minutes just trying to warm up in the shower before jetting off to see my two lit...

Settle in, friends, this could be a long one. I had started this post on Thursday night when I got home from work. It was originally titled "a running update" and this is as far as I got before I left to go to Julie's house for a little baby QT: This week is my third full week of following a training schedule and already I'm running into setbacks. For starters, I'm 99% sure I have pleurisy again, which is some weirdo Little House on the Prairie disease. It's probably because I'm from Le Sueur (kidding, hicks). Imagine a knife stabbing you under your clavicle and in your back when you take a deep breath.  It's painful. I started to feel it big time after yoga on Monday night, ignored it on my run on Tuesday and yet again last night as I pounded out a "quick" four miles on treadmill. Today, though, there's no ignoring it. Every laugh, every cough, every deep breath hurts. I could go to the doctor but truthfully there isn't anyth...