This is the most special community and event I go to all year and it will be my 6th year partnering with the Donna Foundation and Visit Jacksonville for this amazing weekend.

The course is flat and FUN! It starts and finishes on the beautiful Jacksonville Beach (no sand running though!!). My favorite part is one of the streets around mile 10 or 11 of the half marathon where there are tons of flamingos and pink paper mache hanging with great music. You are so close to the finish and it’s just so uplifting. 

This race is the National Marathon to finish Breast Cancer and funds go to support those walking through a diagnosis as well as helping fund groundbreaking research as they partner with the Mayo Clinic. 

Come run with me!! February is the perfect time to get down to FL and run a race. It’s great timing if you are training for a spring marathon as well if you need to tune up and just see where you are fitness wise. 

The official race hotel is at the Courtyard Jacksonville Beach Oceanfront. (Hello oceanfront rooms!!) and we will be having a really fun post race party on Sunday so make sure you book through Monday!

Visit Breastcancermarathon.com and use the code “lindsey10” for 10% off your registration for any of the races that weekend.

Who’s in?? Can’t wait to see you if so!

PS – YES I will also be at the Olympic Marathon Trials that weekend in Orlando…. the good news is Jacksonville is only 2 hours from Orlando so I’ll be driving over at the trials in the later afternoon!

Gonna be a weekend to remember!!!

I try really hard to overcome it. But, when I have a 15 + mile run on tap, I let it sit in the back of my mind constantly… until it’s complete.

This weekend for instance, I plan to run 20 miles. Glenn is running long at 7am on Saturday, so the plan is to go right when he gets home. That will put me at a 9:30ish start time. In my brain though, I’m thinking- maybe I could get someone to watch Marshall Friday morning and just get it over with. OR maybe I’ll do is Sunday. If I don’t go right at 7:30 or 8:00 when I like, maybe it’s not a good idea to do it that day. Read: Excuse. Want to either 1. Get it over with on Friday or 2. Push it off till Sunday.

We are going out to dinner for our anniversary tomorrow night and I’m already thinking about how I’ll be thinking about the damn 20 miles that await me on Saturday morning and won’t fully enjoy the night out. Glenn thinks I”m a head case, because when he has a hard or long workout, he doesn’t think about it much, he just does his thing and when it’s time- he goes. Tell me I’m not alone though?!

What I need to remember is, last week when I ran 17- I enjoyed a lot of the run and yesterday when I did some intense speedwork, although it hurt A LOT at times, I really enjoyed a lot of it. Seriously I was smiling at the effort I was putting out. I was loving running. It’s not always like that, but I need to remember that.

The mind problems happen in the morning…. when I wake up and my body feels tired and I wonder how I can possibly run as far or as fast as my intentions are for the day, it’s as though I don’t think I enjoy running as much as I do. But then I get started and I get the first few miles in and remember how much I like and kick myself for “dreading” or letting a long run “hang over my head”.

When the dread affect starts happening, I need to think about this beautiful alone time I have to just be me and not worry about what anyone else is doing for just 2.5 hours. Just BE in the moment. Sure my legs get tired, but that’s not so tragic is it? What am I really worried about? Worried that I won’t hit the paces I want to hit? And would that really be the end of the world?

All I really need to remember is how amazingly strong and powerful I feel when the long run is done. How it makes me feel like I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. Every long run isn’t some amazing, incredible experience where I feel like I can conquer the world, but nine times out of ten, I finish feeling a lot more like I can than if I didn’t run long.

So my mission right now is to ENJOY what’s happening right now and not dread something I know will actually make me happy. What’s up with this love/hate thing and why are we so addicted to it?