Oops!

I just checked my menu and realized that I should have been taking pictures all last week to post with recipes. For some reason I thought I had already posted the meals that we have been eating because most of them are our standard meals. Sorry! I'll work on posting the recipes and then take pictures next time I make them to add it to the post later.

Yes, I am going to run the Country Music 1/2 Marathon in April. Saturday I had a great run. The weather was perfect, I felt good and I just ran. My hubby and I planned to run 7 miles (we are a little behind in our training) and he left before me. I waited about an hour and a half and then headed out myself. As I passed my hubby coming home he smiled and yelled across the street, "I got 9 miles in!" I'm thinking, you've got to be kidding me! That's not what we agreed on. We are pretty competitive with each other so of course I had to reset my mental thinking to run farther.

Here's the thing, before Saturday the farthest I had run was 4.5 miles. I knew that I was not ready to jump up to 9 miles. I actually thought 7 might be pushing it, but I decided to do the 7 and maybe do 8. I hit the turn around for 7 and felt really good so I went another half miles down the trail before turning around. Going home is almost all uphill to some varying degree of steepness. I huffed and puffed home and stared in disbelief at my watch.

I had run 8 miles (actually 7.9) in 1:23:35! That is a new personal record and I feel way fast! (for me anyway). And I still felt pretty good. I was tired but after 20 minutes of stretching I didn't hurt or anything. I showered and waited for the crash of pushing myself so hard. It never came.

Maybe I will do better than I thought at this next 1/2 marathon. I'm getting really excited for it. One more month, only 4 more long run days. I'll do 8 again this Saturday, then 9, 10 and 8 again the week before the race. I'm doing 4-5 miles twice during the week to keep me on track. I feel so much better than I have in months!