Catching up with HM training (w. HTC ghosting)

I was a bit down after last Wednesday's run. It really seems like I'm going backwards lately. Struggling to get run for more than 15 minutes at a time when I worked up to 4 miles. By Friday morning I had decided to go all out again. Not really a smart plan in retrospec.

 HTC

My Ghosting schedule was a 5.64 mile job at 10:30 am and 4.11 mile at 8:34 pm. Originally I had planned to do the morning run inside on the treadmill and the later outside, because of the distances and the heat. Well, not sure what got into me but I decided to outside for the first leg. BIG MISTAKE! I chose a route that I thought would be about half shaded. WRONGO! I think I ended up runnning only 1 mile. I only got in 2.44 in 35 minutes. You can see from the route pics below that I seemed to be lost! I was looking for shade. Needless to say, I called it quits early and went home feeling all yucky again.

But come 8 pm, I had decided to go back out and try it again, OUTSIDE. I had hoped to run the full distance but did not make that goal. I did run for a full 30 minutes which was the assigned time for the day for my half class so that was good. I did also do the full distance.

Leg 1

Leg 13

All in all it was a fun experience. I was following 2 groups of teams. The spark teams were on facebook and the Nuun teams on Twitter. I paid more attention to the spark team since I was kinda participating. The nuun team will blog later and that will be easier to follow. It just made the desire to do a relay that much stronger. Gotta find a team now!!!

Saturday's group run was a 40 minute run. I was determined to do better and slowed my pace as advised. Technically I did well. I ran what I thought was the route (forgot to actually study the map before hand) and ended up doing 2.43m in 26:50 @ 11:03 average pace. Not as slow as I had planned but ran the whole thing. Only to find out we messed up the route big time. One of the coaches took a couple of us back out to make sure we got in enough miles. We did 1.13m in 12:54 @ 11:27 avg pace. Roughly translated into me getting in my full 40 min run! Yay go me.

Monday's run was not so good again. Schedule 30 minute run, I managed 25 and walked the last 5. I have come to the conclusion that I hate running laps no matter how big the lap is. I have decided to no longer run any of my routes by the house. I'll blog about that later.

I have also decided to get more cross-training in, so I went for a 30 minute walk Tuesday morning. I'm hoping to get more miles in on my bike for this since I do want to do a duathlon later this year.

Wednesday run was another 30 minute group run. I just made it: 2.72m in 32 @ 11:47ap. I was actually quite excited. It was about 93F outside and there was lots of sun beating down on me. I hate running in the early evening.

I think learning how to slow my pace and control it is really paying off. After all, completing the half running the whole time is my actual goal. I can worry about my speed later on.

Hood to Coast Relay

Currently I am stalking following 4 teams that are participating in the HTC in just a few days. Two teams are from my diet website of choice (sparkpeople.com) and two are lucky lady bloggers that were chosen to run for my sports beverage of choice (nuun.com).

It's really very interesting to me how things have almost come full circle. My desire to run comes from my desire to compete. Well, compete is bit over kill. I want to race, at least I want to participate in races. Finishing will always be my first goal. 

Earlier this year I took my exercising to a new level. I went from walking to running to 5k training. Why? Because I had no desire to actually hit the 180 mark I was headed for. Knowing that it would be much easier to motivate myself if I actually had a goal (other than weight because that has never been enough somehow) I started researching races. Of course this started with local 5ks. They are doable for obvious reasons. 

It seems a big trend this year is the dirty obstacle course races. Luckily one of the bigger ones was coming close to me. I was not ready and did not do it. But it pushed me in the right direction to find other races. The most notable one being the HTC Relay. 

I had heard of marathons and ultra marathons before, but never a relay. I watched what videos I could find on youtube and just fell in love with the idea. It really seems like a damn good time. Shortly after, I found the Nuun contest for a lady blogger team. And as soon as the teams were announced, I started following the team mates. I figure that is as close as I could get. 

Then someone on SP put in a request for Ghost runners. A ghost runner is someone that is not participating in the actual race, but will run the same distance at the same time as one of the team members. It's a virtual team mate. WOW. This was so for me! 

So Friday morning at 10:30 my time, I will be running 5.64 miles with my Coastie team mate for Leg 1 and again at 8:30 that night for 4.18 leg 13!

Now I realize this is more of a semi-circle. But it feels like a step in the right direction to get me to complete my goal of one day being on a team for this race.

Good Luck to everyone running!

I'm a winner!

I'm very new to this blogging thing, and truth be told not very good at it. I have all kinds of wonderful thoughts while running, showering, driving, etc. but once I get in front of the computer I forget. But still I have started up this blog, I think it's my third attempt. And by far my most successful.

Interestingly enough, my success is more from those I follow. I chose to start this after I decided to stalk the ladies that were chosen for the Nuun Hood to Coast relay teams. I have actually gotten a few followers of my own now :D

One of my favorite things about the blogs I follow are the giveaways. Not because I'm a giveaway entering fool, cuz I'm not. I don't consider myself lucky so I truly rarely enter. Plus it didn't take long for me to hit "like" excess on facebook. But the reason I like them is for the product information. There just isn't enough time for me to find all the cool things offered and I am more than willing to let someone else do the hard work for me.

That being said, I won a giveaway! XL of Taking it On did a give away for a couple tubes of Nuun. She opened up herself to her followers to ask anything they wanted. There was some criteria to win. I am not shy. I did apologize in advance. I wanted the Nuun.

Here is her annocment: The Most Bizarre Question Award goes to S from footbeatswho wanted to know about my favorite feminine hygiene products (clearly she didn't read about my souvenirs from France) and related embarrassing race moments.

Go me!