Miscellany

This week has been a real bummer - I've been completely stressed (money issues, ugh) and in an emotional funk. It took until today for it to lift - I hate that feeling of "going through the motions" like a zombie, but I guess I just needed a few days for my attitude adjustment to kick in. Anyhow, it's better now.

On the running front, this week has been STELLAR. The weather has been so so so perfect, it was a joy to be out there. I'm sure it helped me out of this crappy hole much quicker than I could have done it without running. LOVE!

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I got a bunch of new STUFF lately! It's been fun trying everything out.

- My RunID showed up, and I am feeling much better about my solo early morning runs with that on.
- I bought a running skirt from runningskirts.com - I got an athletic skirt with the compression shorts underneath and it has become my absolute favorite thing to run in. If I manage to lose a few more pounds, I will actually need a smaller size though (WOOT!) but I adore it and want more.
- And my cell phone was finally ready for an upgrade, and I entered the world of the smart phone. I got a Droid (for FREE!) and installed the Runstar App. I ran with it for the first time this morning, and it was fun to get some Garmin-like info about my run without actually owning a Garmin (I am a Nike+ girl - Garmins are not in my budget at the moment). The only bummer is that the phone is rather heavy...it kept making my capris fall down today, so if I want to continue to run with it (and I DO!) I will need to get some kind of belt to put it in.

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The best part of my runs lately is noticing that I am getting FASTER. Well, faster for me anyway...Today the schedule called for 4 miles, with the second half faster than the first. I'm finding that I can hold on to an 11 or 11:30 pace for a really long time...my "conversation pace" so to speak, but I can run (and sometimes my legs WANT to run) at a 10:30 pace for quite a while. At the end of today's run I kicked it at an 8:40 pace. HOLY CRAP. I don't know how you speedsters hold that for an entire half marathon. Seriously. That lasted for MAYBE a half a block. My splits from today went like this:

11:53
11:17
10:31
10:36

But I looked back to earlier this spring, and I was barely holding on to a 12 minute pace. So I'm enjoying seeing progress! Maybe in a year or 2 I'll be able to hang with the speedy chicks ;)

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We have a really nice, laid back weekend coming up. We'll be BBQing with some good friends, hanging out in the pool, I'm getting my hair done (YAY!) and I have 8 miles on deck. I hope you all have a fantastic holiday weekend!