So today I warmed up 15 minutes, ran 30 minutes hardish and cooled down for 40 minutes. I started out the 30 minutes at 6:53 pace and realized it was too fast 5 minutes in. Bummer. But I quickly reminded myself, you can’t jump right back to where you were. I took it down two notches to 7:03 and held that until the last 10 minutes where I sped up to 6:58 and then back to 6:53 for the last 5 minutes. It felt good. The effort was there but it wasn’t out of control. Lot’s of smiles, deep breaths, good music, some singing (hopefully just mouthing words) & a good book. If I was doing an interval workout, I wouldn’t read during my on sets, but this pace was controlled enough that I was able to read. I’m reading Rob Lowe’s book – Stories I only tell my friends, it’s pretty good. Don’t ask me why I’m reading it, picked it out to be a mindless entertaining read and it’s doing the job. Pretty interesting too- he was one driven kid trying to break into acting.

As I was running and throughly enjoying the endorphins the hard work was providing me, I thought a lot about being content where I am right now. Stop comparing things to where I was, where I want to be and to whatever everyone else is doing. I think this is something we need to wake up every morning and remind ourselves of depending on our circumstances. Back in December, I was running 10 mile days 4 days a week and was loving it. Now is not the time for it. One 10 mile day plus a long run with some shorties mixed in is where I’m at this week and that’s just fine.

I think I’ll run the Hoosier Half this weekend– I want to get 20 miles in on Saturday and I’ll sandwich the race in between the 20. I’ll push myself during the race, but I’m not sure what that will produce and honestly it doesn’t matter. I’m just going to be in the moment. Enjoy it for what it is, no thinking about what I could be doing or have the potential to do. I am where I am NOW. Working hard feels good no matter where your current shape is.

 So completely irrelevant to the running, I thought I throw in some of my favorite pics from this past week: 

Family pic at my parents house. I wanted to take a picture since we were wearing clothes that weren’t workout clothes. We had a major fail trying to get Marshall in the picture, so just let him do his thing and it turned out pretty good anyway:

Marshal and Cadence. Besties, or so Marshall thinks:

Twins and let’s just note that this kid ALWAYS has a ball in hand:

And this is one I love. The neighbor kids who I mentioned in my last post came over yesterday and played basketball in the front yard, while I enjoyed the sun & although they didn’t realize it, they were highly entertaining to Marshall and gave me a nice break. Gonna miss this house and neighborhood.

That’s all! 

What do you do to stay content right where you are? 

What’s your favorite part of a hard run? (My answer: Endorphins)

I’ve done some moderately hard tempo runs and some fast finish miles here and there but yesterday I decided to do mile repeats. I’ve been focusing on building distance and not speed. But I really wanted that “how I feel after I kill a speed workout feeling”. So naturally, I did the mile repeats. They always hurt and I’m always left with the feeling of, I just worked hard for that and I’m glad I did- now let me conquer the rest of this day.

If I was in the peak of my training, I would likely do 5 repeats and I honestly considered doing 5, but instead finished with a strong 4. As I was finished up the 4th, I let the thought enter my head again to perhaps do 5, but decided I was happy with the effort I put out and there was no need to prove that I could in fact do a 5th. Sometimes it is important to get the extra in and push through it, but sometimes it’s equally as important to end feeling strong knowing that you can keep pace and crush the last repeat.

I have done a good job listening to my body for the MOST part in this post surgery journey, minus 2-3 runs….. (remember this one… ouch… I do) when most of my body was ready but a few areas were not). Today, I knew 4 was enough, and I was perfectly content with it.

The workout went down like this:

15 minute warm up

4 X 1 Mile @ 6:25, 6:22, 6:22, 6:15 with quarter mile jogs between sets.

15 minute cool down

Building a high mileage base has helped with my confidence for a workout like this. If you think about running around 7-10 miles most days of the week, then 4 mile repeats, while the pace might be hard and taxing does not seem like that many miles. I can mentally wrap my head around less than 26 minutes of hard running.

I do believe I’ll be focusing more on the high miles rather than the speedy speedy stuff through the rest of my Boston training though. It’s what makes me happy right now and is much less stressful than the pressure of speed work.

I know I’ve said it a lot recently, and I’ll probably say it many more times; I really don’t know if there is a PR in April, but workouts like this and my 20 on Saturday are giving me confidence that it could be within reach. The 4 week recovery after next week won’t be nearly as intense as the 6 weeks I had back in October, not to mention this surgery won’t take as much out of my physically.

Regardless of all that talk, I’m starting to enjoy my running in a different way. Although I have been a mom for a year and a half now, my alone running time has become more and more valuable and helpful for my sanity as of late. I haven’t been seeing it as a task I need to get done as much as I used to, I’ve been seeing it more as a freedom.

I’ve always enjoyed what running brings me, but the freedom right now has been something I’ve needed more than ever recently. I love that I have chosen to stay home with Marshall and I by no means have it rough at all. (My sister does this with two kids and her husband is overseas for months at a time… I know I have it made) But man no matter how you slice it being in charge of another human being all day everyday can just wear you down sometimes and running has proven to be my saving grace time and time again. I honestly don’t know how people do it if they don’t workout. I would be crazier than I already am without it.

That being said, I’ll just say I feel like the luckiest lady alive that I get to be Marshall’s mom.  

Children’s Museuming…. what we do in between naps once a weekish to get out of the house! Pretty sweet to live so close to such an awesome place.

My dad was in Indy this week taking my mom to the airport & asked us to go to the RV show at the fairgrounds. Sure, why not? And these boys sure are cute with their popcorn. Also, I’m pretty sure Marshall mattered the word PEE while we were there.