Continual State of Becoming

Total Miles for the month: 61.0 Total Miles for 2014: 226.8 Longest run: 10 miles Fastest mile time:  Still the same from last month. Wow, I'm really starting to rack up the miles.  61 miles this month?  Pretty impressive, especially since I had a minor surgery and didn't think I'd do much running at all.  Fortunately there was no pain post surgery, so I didn't really miss that much of my running routine.  (Though I was surprised by how long the tiredness from the anesthesia lasted).  Which is a good thing because I didn't have too long to lie around doing nothing since I have that half marathon coming up... one month and a day from now.  Eek.  :)  Nothing too much to note overall with running this month.  Other than extending all of my runs just a tad bit (and intentionally running up more hills) I'm pretty much keeping to my routine since that worked out well for the last race. Push Ups: So the surgery did keep me from my push up...

I'm done with the 365 project.  It was getting to be too much of a time commitment for me.  Either that or I'd rush through it and not really like the pictures I was taking, which made me feel even worse about this whole project.  I'm glad I made it this far, I definitely see some improvement from where I was 6 months ago. But I feel like I really need to relax on the picture taking for a while.  I've hardly used my camera in the last 2 weeks and it's amazing how much more productive I've managed to be in the rest of my life.  I am still going to work on improving and having fun with photography.  But for now I'm going to go back to a more "natural" pace. Here's a little snapshot from earlier today.  Just playing with bubbles, sticks, balls, and anything else he could find on a beautiful spring day!

About 2 weeks ago I was at the bus stop waiting for Dylan to come home.  Usually he's the only kid who gets off at this stop, but occasionally there's another mom who picks up her daughter there as well.  So of course, she happened to be there that day... the day I just barely finished a 6 mile run on the treadmill and was still dripping sweat as I ran outside to make the drop off in time.  When she saw me she said "oh, are you a runner?" To which I said "no, I'm just training for a race."  Huh, isn't that a little contradictory then.  What a weird way to answer her.  But I just wasn't ready for that label... I mean, I've only been running for a little over a year, and I'm not fast... aren't runners supposed to be fast?  Isn't that what people would assume of me? So a week later I ran the Cherry Blossom 10 miler.  It was a great race.  I was really nervous when it was about a week away.  Mostly I just didn't want to trip and...

This was the month for me to really push things while running.  And I'm really proud of how well the month went.  I managed four easy 9 mile runs (as in, I let myself run easy, not that running 9 miles is easy), worked on speed, and worked on my ideal long run pace.  I don't know much about official training routines, but I think this has been working for me.  I did get REALLY tired toward the end of the month, and would have loved to take a week off to rest and recover a bit, but I'm so close to the 10 mile race that I made myself push through it.  Which was hard, but I managed.  Besides I'm having a small surgical procedure in 2 weeks which will require time off from exercising, so I will get my (well earned) rest soon enough :)  And then I'll start running again as soon as I get the okay... I've already got a few races in mind for late spring, so I really hope I can be ready in time. Total Miles for the month: 65.2 (wow, that's higher than I expec...