1.New, New: In last weeks Monday Meanderings I talked about wanting to get over my group exercise class phobia AND make new friends in the Austin area. Well... .I totally failed on the first objective. I didn't make it to a class, so I will make that my goal again for this week.
BUT, I did manage to meet some new people last week. Janna from Happiness Is A Journey For Janna,invited me to an Austin blogger meet up last week. It was hosted by Jenna from Eat,Live,Run.
(L to R: Cara,Jenna's BF,Jenna,Janna,Me)
Unfortunately I wasn't familiar with any of the other bloggers (oops), but it was still fun to get out and meet new people. After the happy hour even we headed out for some delicious sushi. Yum!
2.Roughing it: We went camping this weekend with my sister and her family. The weather was lovely and mild (90 degrees is almost considered "cold" here... ) which was a good thing because we had our long run planned for Sunday morning. It was 65 degrees when we set out at 6am. Brrrr... .
Of course camping meant roasting hot dogs over the campfire (which I DON'T eat FYI) and making S'mores. (the mere promise of s'mores is usually enough to get me to agree to go camping)
2. Long Run: We had 13 miles on the training plan for yesterday, but I really wanted to bust through the mental barrier of the half marathon distance so we went 13.2. (don't ask me why we didn't run 13.5 or 14 or something else, 13.2 just sounded good)
We had planned on getting up at 5:50am. Well, like usual, I woke up before the alarm so I got out of bed and got dressed to go. As I was sitting outside (we were camping) looking at the moon I heard some rustling in the bushes and four deer just about ran across my feet. Crazy. I grabbed my phone to take a quick picture (didn't get it in time) and I happened to glance down and notice the time.
It wasn't 5-something like I had thought. It was 4:40am. NICE. Apparently my mental alarm clock is still on east coast time. So while I was ready to run, my husband was still sleeping. I sat outside for an hour listening to nature and playing around on Twitter. :)
FINALLY my husband came stumbling out, grumbling about how early it was (6am). HA! We soon hit the road, in the dark. It took a few miles for me to get in a rhythm, but I was soon cruising along and enjoying myself. Once again we picked a pretty hilly route so it was a challenging course, but I prefer hills over all flat. At several points we had deer run right across our path. In fact, there was one time where I even asked my husband "They won't run INTO us, right?!?!"
At six and a half miles we looped back by the camp site and grabbed a drink and a GU and headed back out. For some reason miles 8-10 were difficult for me. The sun was up and the hills were kicking my butt. My right ankle was giving me problems. I've been having some pain right where my laces tie. I've tried losening them and wearing socks with padding there, but I still ended up bruised across the top of my foot/bottom of ankle.
At mile 10 I was kicking myself for not running with fluids, we passed a fountain and I barely resisted the urge to jump in. At 10.2 I did a complete reset.
I took the Garmin off and passed it to my husband. I told him, "I'm starting over. I'm heading out for a nice 3 mile run. I can run 3 miles in my sleep."
We wrapped up the 13.2 miles slower than I would have liked, but I'm giving myself allowances for it being hilly, nature filled and occasionally off road course. *Or, maybe I'm just slow and I need to accept that*
When we got back to the campsite the most AMAZING thing awaited me. My sister and brother-in-law had very kindly filled the kiddie pool with cold water for us. We soaked our feet in cold water and enjoyed some cool pieces of watermelon. It was the PERFECT end to a long run.
That run brought week 8 of marathon training to a close.
4. GIVEAWAY: I'm giving away a huge GU variety pack. Low entries so far mean you have a great chance of winning. Enter HERE.
Have you had any blogger meet ups?
What did you do for the holiday weekend?
Brag about your long run this weekend, I'd love to hear all about it!