Running Army Wife

I have been wanting a little Camelbak for a little while now for my long runs. Sometimes it's hard to plan out water stops, so I figured this little guy would be perfect.  Isn't he cute? When he's filled up with water, he weighs less than 5 pounds. Because my dad flew in on Saturday morning, I decided to move my long run to Friday instead. I thought hmm perfect time to try him out.  I joked with hubby that it's my baby ruck sack. So.. I realize that it was my longest long run that I've done in a while.. and it was also the first one I did by myself in a while.. but it was not fun . I ran almost a 10 min/mile pace versus a 9:20 pace that I did for my last long run. I thought I would barely notice the backpack but all I wanted to do was throw it away into the bushes the whole time.  I can tell you one thing.. I will definitely not be wearing it for any races.  The good news is that I got it done and now it's taper time for my race on the 27th.  ...

Well, it's been pretty busy. After a little over a week of the Army getting our hopes up that the deployment might be delayed and shortened, we found out that it wouldn't be. He won't be home for Christmas, and he'll most likely be gone 12 months. Dangit. At least I can say that training went well this week. (btw that 22 is a bike ride , not a run.. just fyi) My in-laws are in town and will be for the rest of the week. It's been pretty crazy and we've been doing lots of stuff with family (hubby's aunts and uncles are all local here near fort lewis). I love family, but I'm so glad that I signed up for this half marathon so I have an excuse to have a few minutes to myself in the morning. A little part of me wishes that I could just have my husband to myself these last couple weeks.. but I have to remind myself that it's their son, nephew, and grandson leaving for Afghanistan, not just my husband. I kind of feel like we're standing on a divi...

Happy Halloween! :)  Last week was good. I technically had two long runs in one week, since I had to postpone the long run in week 1. So I sort of combined my long run with what was supposed to be a 6-mile run.. but I should be back on track now. This week's mileage should hold steady and come out to be around 24 miles as well.  I decided to move around some things in my plan. I had my bike day on Monday before, but I decided that doesn't really make sense since Sunday is a day off. Bike day should be a rest/cross training day. So I switched the Monday column with the Friday column. I got my pace tat for the Seattle Half Marathon. Omygoodness I'm so excited. I'm going for 1:57:30. That's a 8:57 mile. I ran an average 9:06/mile at the Chicago Half Marathon. So basically I only need to run 9 seconds faster per mile.. but it's on a hilly course. And the Chicago Half Marathon was totally flat. Hmm. My wonderful hubby said that he might run with me...

Well, I would love to tell you that things are going smoothly, but it's been a little rough. Here are a few changes/notes about it so far: I totally forgot that we had the Zombie Dash 5k on Saturday. So I didn't do my long run. Zombies don't run long. They only run short, fast distances. I'm trying to keep Sundays totally free to relax with hubby and have a sort of Sabbath. Because of points 1 and 2, I did my long run on Monday (yesterday). It went well, except that I miscalculated on distance so I didn't get the full 8 miles in. My achilles has been acting up again. So I'm biking today instead of running 6 miles.. then getting back on schedule. Gah. Not really a good report of the first week. I'm running with a club at Fort Lewis on Saturday, which is their long run day. So I shouldn't have a problem getting that run in this week.

I was recently re-inspired to run in the morning by Runner's World "Rise & Run" article in the October issue. In college cross country, we had to get up a couple times a week and be at the track by 6am. Thankfully, I never had to run 400s around the track for being late, probably because my roommate was also on the team and didn't seem to have as much trouble getting up as me (thanks Bekah!). But I did love running in the morning once we started. The getting out of bed and the shivering bike ride on the way out to the track were not fun. But once I warmed up after the half mile or so, the morning runs were bliss. I still remember doing an out-and-back run with another girl from the team. We ran out in the dark, chattering along. When we turned around at the half-way point toward the sunrise, we both gasped at how beautiful it was. But holy cow, it's hard to wake up without that accountability. I told myself I would get up at 7:30 this morning to go running. Hu...

Today begins my last full week of work (hopefully) before I drive down to Georiga. I got my first florida phase letter from the hubby on Saturday. Well.. I was actually not home on Saturday so I didn't get it until Sunday night. He said that he is doing well and really liked my care package! I could tell that he was getting really excited that he's in the final stretch. The bad news is that more than half of his company in the previous class had to recycle Florida phase. Not good. They had previously heard that Florida was the "easiest" of the three, but it doesn't sound like that is the case. My father-in-law has actually been in the hospital with pneumonia for about a week now. So the question was.. should I write him about it? It's not life-threatening now, but pretty serious. Apparently it was pretty scary for my mother-in-law the first couple days. So now we're just over a week and a half away from graduation, so I'm worried about them making ...