The Turn Around-Better Than Me

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. 

Try to be better than yourself.

~William Faulkner

Wednesday Hump Day sounds funny, but like an out and back run it marks the turn around to the work week. I am really riding a super wave of confidence. I am feeling thinner, prettier and wait for it...faster than I have ever felt. Yes, you heard me right, I am feeling fast. I am very on track this week with my marathon training and that has completely boosted my confidence and sense of pride in myself. To top it off, I am consistently running 10 minute or less miles. Now while that may not really be considered fast to you, it is tremendously fast for me and has me pretty excited about how much I have improved and how much I can continue to improve. Tonight I did my 3 miles and was probably running closer to 9 minute miles. I have learned to embrace the run/walk and tonight I had what I though was the misfortune of standing around at stop lights on my route. However, that little bit of rest helped the times I was running to be much faster than if I were to have continued without stopping. I am getting tired of my estimates and am ready to break down and get either a Garmin or some other form of mile time, distance, pace tracking etc...Tonight they were pitching the whole Nike wrist band thing which is a pretty affordable at $60 compared to a few hundred for the Garmin. Thoughts?


NIKE Women's Marathon
My former trainer is running the Nike women's marathon too and held a meeting at our local Fleet Feet shoe store so that others in our community who plan to run October 17th could meet. The purpose was get a routine of group runs going. So far there are about 10 of us and we have agreed to run Sunday mornings and do speed work together on Wednesday nights. I am so excited to have a group to keep me motivated and I am especially excited about the speed work because I would like to eventually be able to say with certainty that I am a sub 10 minute runner. I can't tell you how hard it is to harness this enthusiasm so I just won't, I am so proud of myself tonight that I can't stop smiling!


The weekend
Tomorrow is my last work day of the week and I am super excited. The kids will go to their respective day cares on Friday and I will be getting a pedicure, hopefully a facial or massage too, we'll see what the salon has available. My husband and I were supposed to go on a serious 3-day backpacking trip, but he is pretty beat up from his backpacking trip last weekend. Instead I get the best of both worlds. Great hiking all day, and a nice cozy hotel bed at night (Sat-Sun). Lake Tahoe is going to be great! Beautiful hikes, then yummy dinner, cozy bed and then a fabulous breakfast before we are off on more hiking adventures. I am so excited to spend some time with my husband. I am a little disappointed that I will be in Lake Tahoe during the Thin Air Distance Festival and not running any of it though. It is a 4-day event with events totaling 26.2 miles for the weekend. My hubby did promise me an attempt at running/fast packing one of our two days so we'll see how that goes. Either way, I am thrilled about spending sometime in the woods. I am sure once we get to the lakes we are hiking to Super Hubby, will fly fish and I will read a book, and I am perfectly fine with that, actually it is perfectly ideal.


Thankful Three

1. For 33% off at Fleet Feet and the skimpy running skirt/short combo I got and am going to confidently trot around in on my next run
2. For the most delicious nectarine I have had this season
3. For the additional 3 pounds I have dropped and the fact that I only have 2 pounds to go to my goal weight, which by the way I thought was way too lofty....time to re-evaluate because I am not even close to how fit I thought my goal weight would look on me. I am going to think long and hard about adding 5-10 more pounds and creating a new goal weight. For now, I will just relish my success.