Check, Monster Dash complete! I had a great day yesterday finishing in 2:30:58 with a pace of 11:25 per mile. To give you a perspective of this pace in August when I ran a 5K my pace was 11:39 and a heart rate of 177. So yesterday I was able to cut 14 seconds per mile off of my 5k time and took my heart rate average down from 177 to 163. Yesterday I also hit 10 miles at 1:54, which is 6 minutes faster then I did the TC10 mile a few weeks ago!

I'm also really excited because my mom came down from Brainerd to participate in the Monster Dash 5k. Her race started a couple of hours after mine so I was able to see her sprint to the finish line, it was pretty cool seeing her run out there. Running has been a great activity for us to plan our time together around. This summer we did the 5k together and now this race was our 2nd one together, now we're talking about doing the Turkey Trot before our thanksgiving meal! I'm really learning that the more the merrier with this type of thing…. I love being active with my family!

Why does Grandma's Marathon freak me out?

I said that I’d elaborate on why I’m nervous about Grandma’s Marathon so here I go:

1. It’s GRANDMA’S marathon, the one that I’ve trained for 2 other times and failed. In 2004 I went out for my 17 mile training run with Marty and found myself unable to finish because of foot pain that I couldn’t push through. It turned out to be a stress fracture and I couldn’t continue with my training. The next year I tried again and stopped training pretty early on because I got busy, fell off of my training schedule and got discouraged. I ended up doing the marathon, but it wasn’t pretty. No running for two months followed by a marathon= extreme pain and a 6 hour and 22 minute adventure that I vowed to NEVER repeat
2. The last time I did the marathon I stopped running for 5 years. After the marathon I felt like I deserved some “time off.” I wasn’t able to pick running back up again because I always felt anxiety over the time commitment.
3. Figuring out when to fit in my training runs. I’m scared to run in the dark by myself.

Enough with the excuses here are the reasons why I think I should forget everything above:
1. I love the feeling after a long run; it really is a “runners high.” Nothing beats the feeling of walking around on “runned” legs during the day.
2. I want to be a role model for our kids
3. I want to join Marty in an active lifestyle instead of always cheering him on (although, I do LOVE cheering for him).
4. I want to lose a few pounds and get back to ideal weight—running allows me a treat every once in a while that I wouldn’t get without the miles.
5. I love the feeling of being fit enough to go for a casual 10 mile run for stress relief.
6. I really like shopping for workout clothes (yes, Marty I really am listing this one). If I run I’ll need clothing so this is a good way to justify :)

What I’ve already learned about myself:
1. I love training schedules and they motivate me however I can’t use them as a crutch. This time around I need to accept that I can’t always follow the training schedule and I need to be flexible. In the past any deviation in my training schedule has discouraged me so much that I’ve stopped training. I’ve proven that I can do this without training, so any training during the last 2 months will be better than my 6:22 marathon.
2. I’m not used to the quiet time with myself. For the last 5 years I have been with someone all of the time: if I’m at home I’m with kids, in the car I call someone on the phone, at work I’m managing people. Basically I never take time to reflect and running gives me this outlet. It’s actually been a little scary; I don’t know what to talk to myself about….

I’m sure there’s more, but this has been the conversation in my head while running for the past week….

Why a Blog?

Frankly, I'm not sure. I hate to write and I can't keep up with our family blogspot (and I really only show pictures on that one), yet I feel like this is really important at this time in my (our) life. This is not meant to be a place where I brag about my latest long run, or seek admiration/compliments on how busy we are and how we cope. Well, maybe once in a while I'll solicit compliments, but that's not my goal :) Instead this is a place where I'm going to try and make sense of it all and motivate myself. I want this to be a long term commitment for me, and not another 1 year phase. My hope is that this blog is the first public step in that direction.

We do have a busy life, but everyone else does too. Yes, juggling 2 young children, a very challegning career, a ironman husband and trying to run myself isn't easy. But I've decided I can't hide from that anymore. It's not easy, but it's also not impossible. I can run at 5:30 AM and still have a life, I can miss 2 hours of family time on Saturday mornings and my husband and kids will still love me. I recently picked up the book "Run Like a Mother" it tackles many of these same issues-- I'm sure I'll be quoting this book from time to time.

How far I've come already: In July I couldn't run a mile, and when I tried my heart rate hit the mid-180's. Marty had the kids behind me in the stroller and it took every bone in my body to not cry because it was so hard. But I didn't want them to see me struggle so I continued on and completed my 2 miles. At the beginning of October I had lost 25 pound and completed the TC10 mile in 1:59:18. My first goal was to finish and my "pie in the sky" goal was to complete the race in under 2 hours. More importantly my heart rate averaged 159, this was much better than the 180's I experienced during my 1st run. I've now lost 32 pounds and this weekend I'll be attempting the monster dash 1/2 marathon.

One last thing to note: Yes, I signed up for Grandma's Marathon in June 2011. I've been hesitant to tell people for fear I won't be able to complete it and they'll know that I've failed. So again today I'm saying it out loud-- I've commited my $85 to doing it and now I'll also commit my time and my body to this challenge. I've got a lot of fears associated with this marathon, but I'll ellaborate on those in another post. For now, all I need to focus on is that I'm FULLY committed.