The running bug

The weather has sure been odd lately! Here in SA, we've been experiencing higher than usual averages, on Thanksgiving it was almost (if not) 80 degrees!! But fastward to today, this morning when I started getting ready for work (at the ungodly hour of 5am) it was still 72 degrees, but by the time I was getting ready to leave for work, the lovely morning news crew informed me it was already down into the 40's and that we had already hit our high for the day. Basically it's all downhill from now on, we going to be in the 30's by lunch time! I usually don't mind this kind of weather, I mean I did grow up near the Colorado border, but my ass has been in South Texas far too long, because I'm freezing out here!! I'm scheduled to head back home to NM for Christmas and I just know I'm going to freeze my ass off there, I just heard they got snow yesterday and the high there for most of the week is going to be not even freezing!! But I digress....

In my last post I had just finished my first half marathon and from then on, I've been bitten by the running bug. I have a 10 mile race this Sunday even though the temp will only be in the 30's I'm still going to do it. I'm really hoping to get my 9 minute miles to around 8 minutes miles so my next half marathon time will be around 1:45:??. So at the gym I've been hitting the speed hard and keeping it there for the duration of my runs even my long runs so here's hoping to Sunday. The bf also wants to run the race, but it's been like pulling teeth to get that boy to the gym. He's been cramming his "training" into this past week and he still plans to do it, so go him! But you know I'll be pissed if he did all his training in one week AND he beats me to the finish line! He says his goal is only to keep up with me, but also notes that if his competitve side hits him, he'll try to beat me. I'll definately let you guys know the outcome!

With the run bug and whatnot I've been addicted to new blogs lately, more of the running, triatholon type of blogs and it just amazes me at what some people do, but yes I am stalking a LOT of blogs, so dont' fear if you have a million hits from San Antonio, TX! :)

I did it!!!

well I did it, on Sunday I completed my very first half marathon. The run started in downtown San Antonio right in front of the Alamo at 7am sharp. As luck would have it, San Antonio had great weather the week prior to the run, but of course race day we experienced a "cold front" so the temp was about 43 degrees, (hey, that's cold for San Antonio!) LOL I really didn't know what to wear so I just wore a long sleeve running shirt as well as a short sleeved top. I also had on a sweatshirt, but after getting to the start line and warming up I decided against wearing the shirt shirt as well. Once as the start line I noticed the mass amout of people, there were so many people in different shapes and sizes. Seeing some of these other runners is so
motivating, I want to look like that hopefully one of these days! LOL

Anyway the gun went off and away we went. I did fine running, before I knew it I was at the 5K mark, I looked at my watch and realized I was at 24 minutes, I little too fast, but I hadn't done any math prior to the race to really track where I should be at certain points, so I kept on running. About an hour into the race, I ran into the bf on the sidelines and he had a hammer gel pack ready so I took that and even though I really didn't feel the immediate effects, it may have aided in my running. Not long after that I reached the 9 mile turn around and knew I only had 4 miles to go. My lungs at this point were fine, i was breathing easily, it was just my legs that were starting to fade, so a little after mile 10 I slowed to a walk for about 30 seconds, when I started up again, I felt the tension in my legs and told myself I wasn't going to walk again but into mile 12 I walked for another 30 seconds but saw the alamo dome and knew I was almost done, so I started to pick up the pace in my run. When I turned the corner and saw the finish line a 1:5 something on the clock I turned it into a full out sprint and eventually finished in 1:58:13 under my 2 hour hopes!!!

So now that I've completed the half marathon, it's only strengthed my love for running and made me realize there's so much more I want to complete!! So here goes to more running!!

Finished!!!


Stretching before the start of the race....