Windy Airport Trail Run

With a little less than a month until my next race, getting to run outside is not only a luxury, its a necessity. My parents were gracious enough today to let me bring the boys to their house to hang out while I got in a long run outside! By sheer luck, however, a college friend who lives near my parents saw something I posted about running there and texted to ask me if I wanted company. Of course! It was wonderful to not only run with company but to do so on a trail I have never run before. It may have been windy and a bit cold but it was worth every step! And that crockpot mock lasagna that cooked while I ran helped warm me right back up. Happy tummy, happy parents, happy boys, and happy runner girl!

XOXO - Jenn

Heart Pounding Inspiration

This evening I was perusing my February copy of Runner's World magazine and read a brief article about three heart transplant patients that got my own heart pounding with inspiration :) When I sat down to write this post I intended to post a link to the article but it isn't one that they are including in their online magazine so you will have to just settle for my summary. The article discussed three heart transplant patients who were on-again, off-again runners before their transplants but had never run a race after their transplants until they decided to run the Carlsbad Half marathon together. Their cardiologist even ran tests to determine how hard they could push themselves during the race AND he ran WITH them! The three men not only ran Carlsbad, but La Jolla and America's Finest City for the "Triple Crown" series. They talked about knowing the amazing thing their donors (and their families) had done and feeling the presence of their donor on every step of the course. These men had to be even more mindful in their training as heart transplant patients have a higher resting heartrate and have to be aware of their strain their heart can take more than those of us who are not heart recipients.

As I read this article, my own heart sped up a bit. Organ donation is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. A very close family member (whose permission was not secured ahead of this post to include their name) is a living donor....and my hero. When I hop on the treadmill on Saturday for my long run, every beat of my heart will be dedicated to all donors, their families and the people they saved. Words cannot describe how inspiring you are and how lucky I feel to be able to push myself as a runner to be better with every step.

Organ Donors of the World - This run's for you!

XOXO - Jenn

So far so good

Well I have been sticking to my training plan for two weeks now (only missing 2 runs in that time). Its actually been going pretty well. After the first few runs I thought I was in for a world of hurt and a long climb back to the kinds of paces I was logging 7 months ago when I was really keeping up with my training. Much to my own surprise, the training runs I have been doing the last two weeks have gotten easier every run and my pace times are fairly near where I was when I was really training hard. It makes me SO sure I can acutally set a PR in March when I run my next half marathon. So....I am going to keep sticking to my training plan...logging the miles...and pushing myself to increase my speed/decrease my pace. On top of feeling better and better about my running...I am also sleeping better. Gotta love that! I am considering a 5K in early February. Will keep you posted on whether that happens and how I do.

XOXO - Jenn

Welcome to 2013 - My Own Personal "Do-Over"

There have been many a day when I have tried to dust myself off from failure and start over. And I have had many many many a false start in the past year. So here I am again...that moment when I am picking myself up to do it again. What makes this time different from the others? Well not necessarily much. I have believed before that I could really do it this time. As I do now. And I have felt good about starting to run again. As I do now. But I haven't had a real distance race on the books since the last time I was motivated. That is definitely motivating. AND I didn't have one really good piece of advice that I have now. I was listening a segment on one of those morning tv talk shows (had it on the background) and because it was getting to be New Years they were, of course, discussing how to keep a resolution. SIDEBAR: I have already decided that I am not resolving anything this year (but rather making a list of 13 things I want to this year - a bucket list for the year if you will) but was listening anyway. Most of the things the nice "expert" was saying were the same things you hear every year. But one of them hit me...and I could not believe how simple it was and how I had not considered it before!! She said to identify and remove the roadblocks that are keeping you from achieving your resolution. SO Simple!!! Almost immediately I started writing down a list of things that get in my way where training is concerned. And then took to the hard work of figuring out how to remove them from the list. Every item on the sheet was related to time. The first one (that has been an issue in the past) is getting to the gym (or home to hit the road) at a specified time. That has been hard for me in the past due to traffic and my home/work schedule. But since I moved...that has fallen into place. I don't spend nearly as much time in traffic and can now reasonably keep those appointments. The second items was the bigger one for me. My sons and their school work/after school schedules. So I crafted a training plan that takes that time into account. And I believe it is realistic. So here I go again....another start. But not a false one this time :) And as a part of that start....I am once again going to try to "catch up" and do some archive blogging because there are some entries in the last year that I wanted to write but I let excuses get in the way. Sorry to those of you who might have my blog on RSS as you will be getting "old" stories but I use this blog to some extent as a history of my running and I want to be able to reflect back on those later. Wish me luck! XOXO - Jenn