October 20th thru Oct 28th – 17.25 Miles Total

The continued prayer is, “Lord keep me focused. Keep my mind stayed on You. Help me to bring You praise. I know You believe in me. Please help me in my unbelief. Amen.”

These last workouts have been very different from my usual workouts. For one thing, I’ve had a partner! For another, they have been at ungodly, early morning hours. Argh!

For a while I had been half-heartedly praying for the discipline to wake up early and get my run in before I go to work. It’s amazing to me really. I have no problem getting up at the crack of dawn to make it to a Start Line but waking up early everyday has never been my thing. Really, I’d rather have a pap-smear or do my taxes or fall-in in an outhouse and drown. I am *not* a morning person!!!

However, Jordan met a friend at the BGC and wanted to do a play date. I did the normal exchange of business cards with the little boy’s mom and waited for the call. When Jordan requests a play date, I always offer the parent my card and let them make the first move.

I love Jordan to pieces, but he can be a bit of a handful and I never assume that other parents are all that excited about having the crazy kid over. So I don’t push it.

However, Lorenza, the mother of Jordan’s friend, did contact me right away….. But not to set up a play date with the boys.

When we spoke briefly, we immediately started talking about health and fitness. I guess it’s just a normal part of my walk and conversation now and I just bring it up to complete strangers whether they want to hear it or not!

Apparently, she did want to hear it because she was all for getting together to run. She’d started a pretty aggressive diet and exercise program to drop weight and was eager to work running into her workout….. But she gets up at 5am every morning to work out.

Here is the conundrum: How do you turn down a gift from God, even if you don’t really want it?!

The fact is, you don’t . It’s that age old adage that your mom always told you, “Be careful what you pray for!”

So for last 5 workouts, I’ve been up at 5am or earlier to strap on my high-visibility gear and power walk her toward a 5k.

We’ve covered the distance every time and she’s getting more and more comfortable with it. Soon…. Very soon, we will start working on a little more speed.

I’ve already charged her with the Stinky Feet 5k in December. She’s ready. She’ll do great.

The Run
October 20th, 2011 – 3.26 Miles
October 22nd, 2011 – 3.76 Miles
October 24th, 2011 – 3.64 Miles
October 26th, 2011 – 3.22 Miles
October 28th, 2011 – 3.37 Miles

October 17th, 2011 – 3.58 Mile Run

The continued prayer is, “Lord keep me focused. Keep my mind stayed on You. Help me to bring You praise. I know You believe in me. Please help me in my unbelief. Amen.”

This was a good run. Just a maintenance run to get the miles in. It had been over a week since my last run. I kept letting life get in the way.

I added a little distance to my regular route. Just took a slightly different way and it really showed. I had gotten so used to my regular route that the first mile didn’t even faze me. With this slightly different route, the first mile was HORRIBLE!!!! Like it was when I first started running.

However, I did notice that I was able to transition in Zen running a *lot* sooner. You know that glorious phase, where your body …. Goes? It’s almost thoughtless because your brain leaves everything else behind and there is just the here and and the now and the run and nothing exists after your last footstep until you take another one. It's just breathing and heartbeats and breathing and heartbeats...

You would think that the regular route would do that because it’s so similar that you should be able to disengage from outside distractions because you know what’s coming but this was a great reminder that it is always good to mix it up a bit.

I thoroughly enjoyed this run.

When I got back home, Jayda immediately told me that she had fallen down. I asked her if she was OK. She said she was. So I asked her if she wanted a frozen sponge. She said she did, so we iced down together on the dog’s filthy rug.

Running’s awesome. Family is awesome.

Cheers!

October 1st Thru 9th – 12.39 Miles Total

The continued prayer is, “Lord keep me focused. Keep my mind stayed on You. Help me to bring You praise. I know You believe in me. Please help me in my unbelief. Amen.”

October 1st, 2011 – RAD 10k in Agoura Hills
This was an amazing race for me. I’m not even sure why. I didn’t get to PR, but I felt so great during the entire course! It was advertized as being a downhill race, but I didn’t find it to be so. I felt like I was climbing a lot of the time.

After I had a look at my elevation map on RunKeeper, it really did seem to be relatively downhill.

Ah well, I worked hard and I am very happy with this one! Here I am at the finish with a snack and a smile. Great race!


October 6th, 2011 – 3.09 Mile Run

This was just an easy run on my normal route. I wanted to get the miles in and work on my form. Trying to imagine that I’m leading the race and the cameras are on me.

Fabulous.

October 9th, 2011 – SOAR 5k – Run Through the Orchard



This was a great race but only because Chris and the kids were there with me. Chris and Jayda did the 3k. Jordan and I did the 5k.

This race series is extra special to me because it is the very first organized race I ever did. I ran it 4 years ago. It’s a 5k trail run through (and around) a working farm. It’s a smaller event and not very competitive.

The first time I ran it, it took me 45 minutes to finish and I was determined to finish it in under 35.

But then Chris hinted that he would do it too because there was a shorter 3k option. Well, I jumped right on toppa that! Jordan said he would run the 5k with me so all aspirations of clocking a better time were out the window.

I would just be happy if we all finished! But this was how it starts!!!

Visions of family outings danced (or ran) around my head. We would be that awesome family who trained together, took home first place medals, planned vacations around racing events and crewed for each other during Badwater Ultras!

I was *so* excited!!!

But alas…

Turned out I had to drag Jordan through the entire course. We finished in 49 mins. Jayda got tired almost immediately and Chris had to carry her so he dropped out before he finished the course. And Chris only agreed to do it to get out of going to church!



So I made my entire family miserable for no reason.

*sigh*

Ah, well….. Guess I’ll be belly up to the Start Lines all by myself for quite a while. Still it was nice to have them there.