March...EEEK!

Thankfully February is OVER.  See ya later Feb.  What a month.  Seriously, filled with snowstorms, wind chills, and a lot of not running.  I'm glad to be out of it.  Now, onward to March.  Hopefully the weather warms up...a lot.  I'm particularly tired of trying to run outside and having to dodge snowbanks, ice patches, and winter in general.  Seeing grass and sidewalk again is an exciting prospect.
Along with the *hopefully* melting snow, we're also basically at the two month countdown to the big wedding day.  Tomorrow is officially two months, but who knows if I'll have time to update this then, so we'll just call it today.  The other elephant in the room right now is the Boston Marathon.  It's coming up next month and I STILL don't have an entry.  Believe me, I've been trying.  I attempted every charity who had spots open with no avail.  Adidas running has a free entry their giving away, all you have to do is tweet why you want to run.  You better believe I did that.  My problem there is that I can't possibly fit into 140 characters all the reasons I NEED to run Boston this year.  There's just too many.  In no particular order, here are a few.  1) Because of last year.  2) It's Boston, it's the dream. 3) BOTH of my running partners are running it and it's likely the only chance I'll ever have to run it with them.  4.) It would be the 3rd marathon in 6 months.  How amazing would it be to have that accomplishment in my life.  In short, there are 100s of reasons why I want to run Boston, if only I could have the chance!  Plus, anyone who reads this knows my love of Adidas running gear goes deep, it seems only fitting that I would be able to run under the Adidas spot.  Seriously, it's a match made in heaven.  If only Adidas knew that.
On another note, we went for a 10 mile run today, because yes, I'm still training for it, even if I'm not in it yet.  I'm trying to upload my Garmin info and it's taking forever.  What the heck is up Garmin?  I've had to download extensions, re-work all sorts of info, and I still can't get my watch to upload.  I miss the old site, where you plugged in your watch and it uploaded.  None of this Garmin Express nonsense.  In an effort to make this all easier, I connected it to my Google + account.   Turns out, it didn't make it any easier at all.  Seriously, these updates are taking forever.  I just wanted to see my splits!  Sure, they're going to be slower than usual, but that's because we run pregnancy pace now, to stay with Cynthia.  But I still want to see them.  Sheesh Garmin. Get it together.

Wicked awesome half

Today I ran the Wicked half-marathon through Salem and Marblehead.  It was a great day for a run, not too sunny, not too hot, even though the weather said 95% humidity.  Didn't feel like it though.  Plus, we ran down by the beach in Marblehead and got a great sea breeze.  The goal for today was to break a 2 hour half.  If you recall, the time of my last official half, the run to remember, was 2:01.  Just one minute OVER my goal.  Ugh, I know, lame right?  So, today I was really hoping for that 2:00 or under.  Now, we've been running this Marblehead route as part of our training runs, and there are a lot of rolling hills.  The scenery is nice but it doesn't offer enough distraction from the uphill battles.  So our first three miles started off great, under 9 minutes, and we even picked up Holly at mile 4.  She ran for a few with us, which was lovely.   But these hills are killer.  As it figured, we had to stay at a 9:10 or lower pace in order to come in under 2 hours.  Unfortunately on the hills, we hit a 9:22 for one mile.  Later, I hit a 9:11 and another over 9:10 pace, but I'm not sure exactly what it was.  Overall though, we managed to keep the pace right where it needed to be.  By mile 7 I wasn't really feeling it anymore.  Then I grabbed a double latte gu from one of the race volunteers.  At first I kind of thought it was gross, but halfway through sucking it down, I changed my mind.  It's actually an ok taste, sort of like super melted coffee ice cream, except a bit thicker.  Whatever the taste though, it definitely helped.  I got through those last 6.1 miles no problem.  Well, ok, maybe not NO problem, but I was able to make it.  According to the timing chip, when I crossed the finish line, my final time was 1:58:49.  YES! Almost 2 minutes under two hours, and 3 minutes off my previous best half.  Talk about a PR.  Needless to say, I'm feeling pretty great today.  Of course, I'm sure the boxing classes have something to do with my overall endurance, as well as the summer runs in Lynn Woods, but I'm pretty sure it's the longer runs that are making the 13 easier.  Suddenly 13.1 seems so do-able, when you know in just 5 weeks, you have to add on another whole 13.1 to that.  Here's a map of my run, just for fun and a picture too.  I'll try to get some more up later.  Keep an eye out for the porta-potty shot!

Oh btw, my Garmin was about .10 off from the race time/miles, which is why it says 1:59 at 13.1.  I'm going with the race time on this one though!

Rad Marathon Training

I've been so busy being RAD and doing summer activities that I've been slacking on the blog again.  When I say being RAD, I'm not being full of myself, I'm merely referencing the Color Me Rad run I did this past weekend.  Last year I did the Color Run, which was basically the same race.  The only difference, besides location, was the efficiency of the race.  Last year, the parking for the race was far enough away that people needed to be bused to and from the parking lot.  Unfortunately, there was a major accident on 495 that day, which ended up holding up traffic for hours.  A lot of people spent more time waiting for the bus than they did running the race, myself included.  So while the race was fun, I wasn't really interested in going back to that particular course again.  Color Me Rad was in Brockton and there were no parking or traffic issues.  We got in, we ran, had some fun, and left.  Since we ran as a team, and every team needs a theme, we decided to run as Jem and the Holograms.  I must say, we looked fantastic.  People were hating all over the place.  We started off nice and clean but by the end, we were hardly recognizable.  It was a good time though and I'd definitely do it again next year.
Marathon training is coming along.  I don't really know if it's going great, or terribly.  We did 13.1 last night, just over 2 hours, but I wasn't too happy by the end.  My entire lower body was sore.  I honestly had a moment of panic in wondering how I can possibly run another 13.1 after that, when I felt like I couldn't possibly take another step at the end.  Today, in an effort to get used to running on tired legs, I went out for a 6 mile run.  But I went at 1 pm, which was possibly the worst choice, as the weather was hot and humid, and the sun was out.  Nevertheless, I made it 5 before I decided it was best if I walked the final mile.  The 5 took me about 44 minutes.  Not bad I suppose. Next weekend our long run ups to 15, so I need to mentally prepare for that.  I think I also need to figure out a fuel for the middle of the run. The sports beans are good, but I feel like they're not cutting it for what I need.  Burning sugar and carbs isn't going to be enough.  I need to be able to sustain the muscle power for the other half. So any suggestions on that would be helpful.
The Wednesday night runs are still going strong.  We've taken to having a little party in the parking lot afterwards, usually margs and chips. Don't knock it til you try it, it's fun, cheap, and a nice way to see everyone for a little bit.  Ryan also bought me a Garmin Forerunner 10 GPS watch.  I'm pretty pumped about it, because I was getting sick of using my phone for everything.  I knew I'd need something for the marathon anyways, because I didn't want to use my phone and drain the battery.  I'd prefer to have the battery at least halfway charged, in case of emergency.  I love the watch and it's been great, but I did notice that I've already started a new habit that I need to break.  When I know I'm getting close to the last mile, I can't help but keep looking at the watch every few seconds and watching the time tick away.  That's going to make everything seem so much harder, so I really need to stop.  If you want to view my new routes, you can check me out on Garmin connect, awwie15.  Now you're all caught up, so here are some pics.  Enjoy.

Wednesday nigh parking lot party

Enjoying our parking lot party

Before. So clean

Porta-potty shot, a race pre-req.

After

I was caught mid-color bombing!