How to run 20+ miles with a smile

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I prepared all week for Saturday's long run. 20 miles.
I hydrated, ate clean, fueled up with Ultra Fuel, and got good sleep.
The plan was to run 6 miles on my own starting at 5:30am and then meet Angie at her house at 6:30am.
We have a 14 mile out and back that we really like. It has a good combination of hills and straightaways. Before the run I drove a cooler with iced towels, gatorade, and water to the half way point. Best idea EVER!

The run started well, I left a little late, so I was only able to get 4 miles in before meeting Ang.

6:30AM: 80 degrees already.  I knew it was going to be a scorcher.

Mile 6.4: Garmin died. Not a problem. Ang had her Garmin.

Mile 7: Stopped at the cooler. Thank God for the iced towels and coooold water! I don't know why I haven't done that earlier!?

Mile 12: I pulled ahead of Angie. She still running strong, but without my Garmin I decide to just listen to my body.  I felt like I was running about a 9:30 pace. My goal pace for long runs is between 9:45-10:00, but even with my garmin it's hard for me to keep that pace.  I usually end up around 9:30per mile. 

Mile 17: Back at the cooler. It is HOT! Some of the rubber on the bottom of my shoes actually melted off.

Mile 20-21: Temperature 89. The last leg of the run is done in our neighborhood. I no longer had Garmin, so I just kept running.  I knew that I was going over 20, but I wanted to make sure that I didn't shortchange myself.   I drove the course later and it said 21 miles. 
I jogged back to Angie's house when I was done and she had an ice cold chocolate milk waiting for me. What a great friend!

I have to say this was one of the hottest, but BEST long runs I have ever done. The reason?  I stopped focusing on myself around mile 6 and started focusing on God. The majority of the run I focused on God's goodness, how He has blessed me, and the change He has made in my life.
When I would start feeling fatigue, or a sore muscle, I could think about how my life used to be...and smile because of where it is now. 

•I am blessed with a husband who is faithful, kind, and a man of integrity. 

•I am blessed to have kids who love the Lord and aren't ashamed to pray out loud. My three year old can pray heaven to earth!

•I am blessed to have a family of friends that build me up and encourage me.

•I am blessed to have a job that allows me to serve God. 

•I am blessed with new doors of opportunity everyday!

•I am blessed because I know God has a special plan for me and my family. A good plan! God's word says in Ephesians that God will do "exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think"

 Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

Now that is something to smile about!

Have you counted your blessings lately? If not, you should! Do you have enough blessings to get you through 20 miles?

Grace and peace,

READ MY STORY OF HOPE HERE

Just another manic Monday...

I had a great weekend! 

I felt great on my long run Saturday morning.  I pounded out 15 miles with a 9:30 min average pace and my legs felt fantastic the whole time. Then, since J and the two older boys were out deer hunting, me and my littlest prince went shopping.  I have been on the hunt for 6 dining room chairs for over a year now.  I had a picture of the perfect chair in my head and have not been able to find it...with in my price range anyway.    On a whim, I popped into a local antique store...and there they were....6 of the most beautiful chairs.  They were even better than the picture in my head...

 

Whats even better is that they were only $10.00 each! YAHTZEE!!  So, because I was already saving J so much money getting a bargain on these chairs, I bought a buffet too.  I don't have a picture of that yet because I had to wait for J to get home to load it up. It's beautiful though.  

I don't know if it was a high from the 15 miler or from the amazing purchases but when I got home I was in the mood for holiday baking. I'm NEVER in the mood to cook so it had to be happy endorphins.  I spent the rest of the evening making chocolate almond and chocolate cafe almond biscotti(J's favorite).

It was a great weekend.

Monday, Monday

This morning I woke up for my morning run at 4:15am.  I failed to prepare last night and have all of my running gear laid out, and I paid for it this morning.  The batteries in my running light were dead and I couldn't find any working batteries. I even tried the kids Wii remotes and they were ALL dead!  Then I couldn't find my water bottle, I'm pretty sure one of the boys took it with them when they went hunting. All of my dry wick running socks were dirty...I only have 4 pair(I never think to buy socks!) so I put on a pair of dirty socks. Don't judge.;) 

I had a 6 miler this morning and at mile 4.2 my Garmin battery died. Oops, must have forgot to charge it.  Wrong.  I hooked it up to the charger and synced it to my computer and then it died again.  Now, it won't respond at all.  Won't turn on, won't beep, nothing...sniff, sniff. It's dead.  I tried calling the Garmin help line and it was a 35 MINUTE wait!!! WHAT!? Who has time to wait that long?  So I shot them and e-mail and they said someone would be with me in the next 3 days!!! Those people must be doing some SERIOUS business!!!

So I'm going to have to run naked now.  I am already going through Garmin withdrawals and it's only been a few hours.  I have no clue what I am going to do Saturday when I have my longest training run ever! 24 miles with no Garmin.....oh Garmin...I miss you...

 Garmin come back, you can blame it all on me

I was wrong, and I just can't live without you

26 days until the marathon...dun, dun, dun....

Grace and peace,

I Want to be a Runner Like You.

 This week my little princes' are celebrating Read Across America week at school.  Today all the kids were supposed to dress up as what they want to be when they grow up.  When I asked the boys what they wanted to be Prince #1 said "I want to be a runner like you." LOL!!  My first thought was "this is going to be an easy costume, go throw on a pair of sweat pants." My second thought was "does he really think that I run for a living??"  How fantastic would that be to get paid to run! I'm not even going to correct him, I love hearing the from their teachers all the stories that my boys tell at school. I can hear it now "Tyler says your a professional runner.",  and I would reply, "why yes, yes I am."..LOL!!  When Prince # 1 was in Kindergarten I was at the parent/teacher conference and his (very proper, southern belle)teacher had a very concerned look on her face, I knew something big was coming, she said "Tyler tells me that sometimes you punch his daddy in the neck." HA! I almost fell over! I used to say that to hubby all the time in jest that I would punch him right in the neck if he forgot to take the garbage out, or if he was being crabby, it would always make me laugh(apparently I have a warped sense of humor). I would never actually do it! So I had to explain to this teacher that I don't actually abuse my hubby and that I just think it is something funny to say. She was not amused....I don't say it when the kids are around anymore. Though a few weeks ago hubby was picking at Prince #1 and he yelled "MOM! Come punch daddy in the neck!"....It's still funny to me!

Ok so I took a little tangent...so Prince #1 wanted to be a runner...what did Prince #2 want to be?
Our conversation went like this:

Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?
Prince 2: Boba Fett.
Me: You can't be Boba Fett.
Prince 2: Why?
Me: Because Boba Fett is not real.
Prince 2: Yes he is. What about Darth Vader?
Me: How about a fireman or a police officer?(we have those costumes so that would be easy)
Prince 2: No. How about I can be a pollen jock? (He loves the Bee movie)
Me: *sigh* you have to be something that is real, a pollen jock is a bumble bee. You are not a bumble bee.
Prince 2: I might be one day
Me: No you won't.(if it wasn't 6am, I would have been laughing but at this point I was done talking) You will be a police officer or you won't dress up.
Prince 2: Can I bring real handcuffs and my BB gun?
Me: We don't have real handcuffs and cops don't carry BB guns.
Prince 2: If I'm a fireman can I bring a water hose?
Me: No, now get dressed!

I wish I would have snapped some pics this morning because they were a sight! 

They will be running in the 1 Mile fun run this Saturday and they are both pretty determined to set PR's.
I, on the other hand did not run Tuesday or Wednesday due to a case of crazy schedule-itis I am really looking forward to a 6 miler at lunch today and then tomorrow morning I am going to do a nice easy run with my friend Angie who is running the 5k with me Saturday.  We will also be brainstorming to come up with a name for my Garmin.  She calls hers "Huzzy" because it beeps at her and tells her to speed up all the time!

Any ideas for names for my Garmin?

 If your new to my blog, welcome! If your not new, thanks for stopping by!
I love reading your comments and feedback!

Grace and peace, 

Got it! Got it! Got it!!! I finally got it!!

GARMIN

I didn't even know I wanted one until I started reading all these running blogs. To be honest it really didn't take that much convincing either.  I have been amazed at how easily everyone seemed to be keeping up with their mileage and pace. I thought I was doing an okay job at it with my little stop watch, pen, and paper. However, sometimes I would forget to write it down, or forget to start or stop my watch, and on the days I do long runs I really wasn't sure exactly how far I was running. I would just write down a guesstimate.

So, I told hubby that I wanted the Garmin Forerunner 305 for Christmas, how much it was, and where he could buy it. He's not the greatest at buying Christmas presents, so I have to give him ALL the details.

Fast forward two weeks later to this past Thursday, we were headed to Nashville for our family holiday weekend. Hubby takes what I thought was a wrong exit but quickly realized he was headed towards Best Buy....I knew what was about to happen.... I was getting a GARMIN!!! He had been calling all of the Best Buys with in 150 miles of us and this was the only store that had one left in stock! What a sweetie!!

Of course, this is my Christmas present so he told me it's not to be used until I open it on Christmas morning. Yeah Right! I had that sucker strapped to my wrist the next morning! Oh glorious Garmin! Are you kidding! I should have gotten you a year ago! I have a new lease on running!

The only problem that I can think of is I struggle a little with OCD and I can NOT stop checking my pace!!! Seriously I am constantly looking at it and would probably stare at it the whole run if I wouldn't look like a crazy lady running down the road with my arm up in the air!!

 I run everyday on my lunch break across the street at the park.  The sign says one lap is 1.5 miles. Normally, I run 3 laps. 4.5 miles right? WRONG!! According to GARMIN(who I still have to name) it is 4.97 miles.. I almost called Parks and Recreation yesterday to let them know how wrong they are! How many people have been running this park with misinformation?!? A tragedy!

Ok so not that big of a deal...today I ran a little further to make it a complete 5 miles!Yeah me!

Did you know that this thing tracks how many calories you have burned too!!! 619 calories burned today!! Woohoo!! I don't feel so bad now about the chocolate covered pretzels I noshed on last night.

The sweet man who got me a Garmin. :)

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Holiday

We had an amazing family holiday in Nashville. We saw "ICE" at Opryland which was amazing! The Christmas lights at Opryland are out of this world!  I have never seen anything like it!

The kiddos at ICE...

Maddox was so bundled up that he couldn't bend...like Randy from "A Christmas Story"

I am grateful for little getaways like this that create a deeper family unity.

We also visited with hubby's Aunt and Uncle.  His Uncle suffered a stroke and is in the hospital in Nashville. We were able to pray with them and spend some good time with them.  Uncle just loved to see the kids. Wish we lived a little closer so we could spend more time with them. I am thankful that God is doing a great work in their lives. God is so good and faithful!

Random

 This is what Maddox does when he sees a camera...

CHEESE!!! Hopefully one day he will smile normal again...but for now..this is it!!LOL!!

Upcoming Races:

This Saturday, Dec 19th- Rudolph 5k Run in Huntsville, AL. Boys are running the 1 mile fun run.

January 17th- P.F. Changs Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Phoenix, AZ