A post that is not about running…amazing! Well maybe I’ll mention it a bit about running. This weekend was great. We didn’t have to drive anywhere and there were no races to run. It was a nice change. Friday night we did a speed workout (see I’m talking about running). It will probably be the last one outside for a while. We are getting hammered with snow today and they don’t clean the path. :(  Saturday I went out for a long run when Eric left for work. I did 6 miles and it felt good. I ran the first 5 miles without really walking and the last mile was into the wind so I walked a bit more. I dressed perfect for the run, except for the last mile...I was cold.

Bridal Shower

After the run Eric came home and I made a quick lunch and then got ready for my the bridal shower. I’m a horrible friend. I haven’t seen Angela in 3 years. It was so nice to see her and her mom again. DeAnn, another college friend and roommate was also there so it was nice to touch base with both of them. Angela is marrying a dairy farmer from La Crescent! It is crazy that after 14 years she is moving into the country from the big city. I’m happy for her. It was a good shower. I didn’t get out of there until 3 hours later.

DeAnn, Angela, Kim, Kim and Angela's cousin...I can't remember her name :(

After a quick dinner we headed off to church. We have been going to the country church lately because the 7pm Mass is a good time and I like the church. We got home from that and watch TV and relaxed the rest of the night.

Folding Clothes, My Nemesis

Sunday morning I woke up early and folded clothes for over an hour and watched to a couple weeks of Mollie B Polka Party. I hate folding clothes and because I hate it, the clothes collect on the spare bed until I'm desperate. I know it would be easier if I just folded them when they come out of the dryer but I don't. Every time I waste a weekend morning folding clothes, I swear I'm never going to let the clothes get out of hand again...but I don't follow through with it and here we are, weeks later and I'm wasting another weekend morning. ARGH!

Christmas Lights

Most of the day we watch TV and I did some things around the house. We tried to put up the Christmas lights but most of them were dead. So we ventured out to Lowe’s (twice) for some Christmas lights, garland and candy canes.  Of course we forgot things the first time so we had to go back. I’m so thankfully we live so close!

We got all the lights outside up, in the tree, the bushes, the entry way and around garage door. We are not very creative! We got some groceries and I made roll out sugar cookies…I’m not very good at rolling out cookies, I think I’ll stick to Monster Cookies. They tasted really good though but I decapitated almost all of the moose. :( After the 6th headless moose, I went with just round shapes. 

That was about it. A nice weekend with not much to do…I’m even bored reading about it. :)

Running!

OK I said no running but I'm happy to report that I'm only 7 miles away from 500 miles this year! That is crazy!  Last year I only did 158 miles for the whole year! I know I didn't start running in earnest until September but that to me is amazing!

The Start

It was a chilly morning…I know it is nothing compared to December-February but still it was around 40 degrees but a nasty wind made it cold. The race was in St. Paul again. I’ve had enough St. Paul races to last me a while. I’ve done three in a month. The start was downhill to Shepard road. I’m really getting used to running on Shepard Rd. I’ve done many races on Shepard road including last week’s Monster Dash. We ran down a ways, there were cars coming at us…say what?  Apparently they only closed the one side and we ran down both sides. The volunteers eventually got us all on the one side. But that just caused crowding and points were I just had to walk because I couldn’t get around the walkers. There were a lot of walkers! My first mile wasn’t bad, 11:15.

The Middle

So that hill I  had so much fun running down last weekend for Monster Dash…well I had to run up it this weekend. Ugh. I hate hills. I guess it is preparing me for the Omaha Race in a few weeks. I started to get momentum up the hill when we had our water stop and first chocolate stop. Really? I think this would have been better near the top of the hill but whatever. It was very crowded as people were taking pockets full of mint chocolate (yum!) and water so it was another bottleneck.  I learned from last week not to eat the chocolate while running. I don’t want to have a repeat of that horrible feeling. See I’m still learning. Mile 2 was very slow because of that, the pace was around 11:32. Not great but it was mostly up hill and had that water stop. Once we got to the top of the hill we hit the Wabasha Bridge across the Mississippi River. This was new for me. I’ve never crossed the Mississippi in St. Paul.  The bridge was downhill the whole way which was awesome

The Finish

At the bottom of the bridge we looped around on to Harriet Island. At the entrance was the Caramel Chocolate stop…I love caramel! I grabbed a bunch but kept going. I really struggled on the island. I’m not sure what my problem was. I was tired and my pace was bad. I had my front pouch full of chocolate, maybe that was weighing me down?  I was overheating because I dressed wrong. I know a lot of excuses but I was just not feeling it today. I walked a little but kept moving forward. I was very happy to see the finish. I didn’t even stop for the last chocolate stop, dark chocolate, I just wanted to finish and get it over with. The race was short, not quite a 5K so my time of 33:33 wasn’t really a PR but I’ll take it. (UPDATED: I mapped the route on Map My Run and it came out as 3.08 miles. So my watch must have lost connection under the bridge)

The Chocolate

There is such thing as too much chocolate. After we finished we headed inside the pavilion for our share of the chocolate fountain. It was so delicious. I dipped my bananas, Oreos, Nila wafers, animal crackers, pretzels….everything in it. I wasn’t feeling so hot on the walk back to the car…I really ate too much.

Maps, graphs and pictures:

  

Runs: 17

Miles: 53.4
Races: 3 (TC 5K - 35:13; Mankato 10K - 1:07:43; Monster Dash 5k- 34:56)

Outdoors: All!
Indoors: None

Longest: 6.1 miles
Average Pace: 12:04

October was great! I started out the month with the TC 5K. It was a cold windy morning but I tied my PR with 35:13. We took a weekend off and traveled to Rapid City where I did a 5 mile run with Eric. Many of the October training runs were with Eric. I’m very happy he joins me sometimes. That also explains the faster average pace for the month. I also started doing a speed workout once a week. These are great. I run 400 meters fast (about a 9:20 pace) and walk for about 80 meters and repeat. I do 5-6 of those at each speed workout. I think it really has made me faster. Look at my amazing times at the Mankato 10K and Monster Dash 5K!

Trophies for October