Friday, June 29, 2012

Mini- Fundraising Friday Update

Running update J

Monday: I suppose it goes without saying that Monday was a lot cooler then today’s temperatures.  I should have ran 20 miles on Monday to carry over the rest of this week’s hot temperatures J  I did just want to change up my routine a little bit once I got running and decided a little hill workout might be interesting to throw in the mix.  I kinda wanted the sense to be sore and feel pain (weird I know)..but I just wanted to “feel” like I was pushing myself in the mix of things.  I went to a cemetery a little bit down the road from our house.  I ran about 15 minutes prior to going there…mind you it was a smaller hill (I don’t want to be stupid here)..and I chose to do 7 hill repeats… why not…it’s our lucky number and it sounded good J  So I did those while cooling down with the loop around.  I than ran about 15 minutes to cool down to make a total run of about 40 minutes.
Tuesday:  Ran about 5 1/2 miles, and yes my legs are sore J  I suppose I was successful in that venture. 
Wednesday:  Ran about 5 miles (same old same old) J  I wish I had thought to take my running stuff with me as I was in Charleston for a work event and a chance of scenery with a run along the river would have been so nice!

Thursday:  Mom came to visit J  We went out to dinner and enjoyed the evening.  Mom and I walked for about 3 miles on the road, so I suppose I’ll have to let this day slide for a running day. 

I OFFICIALLY got the registration number to sign up for the marathon…so its official….My name is on the roster for the NYC marathon!  (Yikes..I’m nervous)
We also heard from our Team Fox Coach this week….they have an 18 week training scheduled put together for us to help us with our training effort.  It officially starts July 2nd, so I’m really looking forward to someone now telling me what to do.  (can’t you tell I’m a coach’s kid?).  Hopefully I have built a little bit of “base mileage” and ready to feel like I can do this again and use the actual word TRAINING.  One of the first things too we are looking to do is get a “GOAL” for finish time for the marathon, I almost don’t even know how to approach it…so we’ll work on that. 

To keep with the “Fundraising Friday” theme I introduced awhile back ago…I did want to give a little update. 
Our Total on the Fundraising Page right now is:  $2829.84

I am currently in 4th place for the NYC marathon Team of Team Fox….so we are in the midst of getting some plans set!  I have more details to come…. But have completely ran out of time today, but wanted to check in with everyone! J

Check back on Monday for some more updates!  
I hope everyone has a great weekend….and get out there and do something….
(well…when it cools down) J 

Monday, June 25, 2012

Run/Train for Any Race Conditions :)

Ahhhh It’s Monday, and Monday’s ALWAYS arrive too quickly after a weekend.  I’m sure we all hear that every Monday, but it’s true J
I’ve realized I slacked a little bit towards the end of last week on the blog, so I have some catching up to do.  I have been on a running spell, so it’s been nice to feel like I’m getting somewhere with all this. 
Wednesday- I had this day off of work (Due to a state holiday in WV)..So I was excited to be able to run at a different time in the day to switch up my routine.  However, I got myself out the door around 9:30am and it was already HOT (I believe temperatures topped around almost 100 degrees this day)….  So a battle of the heat was on.  Mom said I was crazy when I was talking to her on the run, however when she told dad he didn’t pick a side of who was right (Me or Mom) about running at the time…he knows better by now to pick sides. J  I ran about 6 miles today just for the pure mental power of saying I ran 6 miles in heat of that sort.  (Yes I’m well aware some refer to that as stupid)
Thursday- I held off running till later this evening to beat the heat for 2 days in a row.  I didn’t add the extra “Loop” this evening so the run was probably only about 5 ½ miles.
Friday- I took this day off… honestly I have a knee issue that still tends to act up at times from a stress fracture in college…so I don’t want to flare it up this early on and it was really bothering me this morning, so a little ice pack it is.  (Oh the college injury excuse) J
Saturday-  Back at it…and ran about 6 miles and looped around to get the mail down the road a bit to add a little bit more to this run.  It was another little bit hotter of a day, I suppose it makes you feel like your accomplishing more with the extra challenge.
Sunday-  Brock road the bike with me today so I was hoping to get just a little bit more in today with the extra time we had.  It’s funny when I find myself talking to myself in my head about wanting to turn around and then making myself go “one more tree” up before turning around just to think I pushed myself a little further than I first thought.  I ran probably between 6 ½- 7 miles today.

I promised myself on the cold days I wouldn’t complain about the hot days…so I’m zipping my lips.  I suppose that’s one blessing of living in an area of season changes…with this journey taking time, I’ll be battling the best of all seasons.  I have to laugh…there are many moments I find myself in a “head game” with my own self.  I think I wanted to run during the not recommended times of the day sometimes just to prove to myself I did it even when it was a little hard.  Dad always said (and many other famous people/quotes) You never know what race conditions will be one day, so you have to train for all elements.  Now, me saying the word “race” scares me a little bit.  I’m trying to tell myself to complete this marathon, not race it…..as soon as it becomes real competitive I know I can obsessively get involved with it to want to be the best and for this, I’m just wanting to focus on the journey.  I guess I still feel a slight panic as if I won’t be ready…as if this race is coming up next week.  I even get nervous seeing the ticker on the blogger page and even though it says 131 days till the race, I feel like it’s coming up sooooo soon.  I feel like I should be running 15-20 miles each day already. 
I remember when we were in high school and a group of us decided to run the Parkersburg Half Marathon.  With cross country being in season many told us not to “race it”…just “get the run in”.  So we decided we’d pretty much run the race together…but we wanted to embrace the atmosphere as if we were “fast”.  We kept sneaking up further and further into the mile pace time at the start of the race to see if we could get close to the Kenyan’s who were the race winning contenders (and to try to make it on TV).   I think we goofed off part of the race just enjoying the miles.  At one water stop I remember us laughing about something and some lady being mad and saying if we had that much energy then we should pick up the pace and run faster.  (I think she was just hitting a wall at the time maybe) J  Most other runners whom we were running next to would strike up a conversation and ask where we were from and exchange a little conversation before moving along. 
I do have to say, I’ve always loved the “runners world”.  I’ve played my share of sports, and it is within the world of runners there is an unspoken level of respect.  We may be competing against one another, but to be at the stage of competing against one another we realize how hard we both had to work to get to that level.  I think when it was runners vs. runners I pretty much was friends with the groups who was usually in the packs with us (high school as well as college).  Now basketball…. Not so much J  In high school basketball was a bit of a rivalry a little bit and some players seemed to not like the others no matter what as much….but in college I think it’s safe to say my coach would tease and tell me to use my running ability to run the other way from a few rivalry’s between schools and player positions.
 It’s all in good humor, but running is what taught me the most self discipline.  I know if I didn’t log my miles, it would be myself that would suffer the most.  Getting up earlier in the morning on vacation to get your run in before the day activities got started (as well as the heat), morning runs, late night runs.  There were always sacrifices to be made, but you had to determine first what we wanted to achieve out of life and make the sacrifices according to that, otherwise maybe it isn’t worth it to you.  Dad had lots of those talks with me through high school.  There were many times there was something I thought I was really missing out on because I had a AAU tournament or game one weekend, but I realize everything always worked out and there was a good balance of goals and play.  I’d met some of my best friends through AAU basketball who had a lot of the same dreams I had and a group of girls that were going through the same sacrifices as me that helped me understand it is worth it.
So thank you dad, for helping me realize that my life wouldn’t end because I missed something at the time I thought was the biggest event ever J  Values change over time, but we keep learning things from each stepping stone.  I’ve realized so much through this that not every tiny thing has to be perfect….because in life…..things could always be worse, I just wish it didn’t take this battle you fight every day for me to realize it.  Some people never realize just how good they have it till they realize someone so close to them has it so much worse.  I think twice now before I complain about something to second guess if it’s really worth complaining about.
Dad with some of his high school football teamates at a reunion...Sherman High School
(Dad is the one on the far right 2nd row, blue t-shirt)
Dad went on to earn a scholarship to WVU to play football as well as later transferred to Glenville to play Football & Baseball on a scholarship.
Through high school dad made many sacrafices to get to practices etc so he could give himself the opportunity to attend college and play sports.