Short races make me want to vomit and soooo close to a sub one hour 10K

Full race recap to come once they post the official times and some pics. But for now a few things:

* My body feels so damn good after running 6.2 miles this morning! My legs have that wonderful soreness. And most importantly - my foot doesn't hurt!

* Oh, it stings so much to come this close to a sub one hour time. 1:00:13 (unofficially right now). I shouldn't have stopped to take off my jacket. Why did I drop my ipod and not notice it right away? Why didn't I push more? Hindsight thoughts that will plague me until the day I do run a sub one hour 10K.

* Immediately after crossing the finish line, I felt like I had to vomit. That one was new.

* Cross-training works! I haven't run in two weeks, and even then it was a measley two miles. But I maintained my cardio fitness with all kinds of crap - elliptical, bike, Insanity, HIIT workouts. I was scared I wouldn't be able to run even one full mile without stopping. But I did it! Thank you, elliptical machine, even though I hate you with all my heart.

Rest

I've been doing pretty good with my New Year's resolution in listening to my body and not running when I'm hurt. I haven't run since Saturday and plan on taking one more week off. However, I do need to listen to my body more, and today, and yesterday, too, although I didn't listen then, it's telling me to rest. I feel tired and beat up. I might even take another rest day tomorrow. Two rest days in a row? Gasp!

I've been doing a lot of strength training and Insanity again. The other day, I even did over an hour of cardio - 30 minutes on the stairmaster (Holy shit, this apparatus is scary!), 10 on the ellipitical (before I got bored to tears), and 25 on the bike. (This workout had me ravenous and eating like a horse all day!) I've been doing a lot of doubles, two workouts in one day. And my body is feeling it. I'm trying to keep my fitness in prep for a 10K coming up next week.

But today, and tomorrow maybe, I shall rest. I'm sure my body will thank me for it.

Hooray for short-cuts!

After my New Year's Eve Half that left me with a swollen foot and a limp for a week, I wasn't sure I'd be able to tackle the Tinkerbell Half injury free. But I did!

The next day, however, when I set out to do an easy 3 mile shake out run, my right foot arch started hurting, so I stopped running after only 2 miles and figured I'd take a few days break from running to give it a rest.

That was five days ago. My original plan this morning was to go for an easy ten miler. However, I woke up and figured I should take it easy on my body and just do six. I felt awesome for the first mile, picking it up and running fast whenever the chorus of a song came on. And then after two miles, I felt that pain in my arch again. (This was right after a huge guy pulled over and got out of his car and asked me, "Why you runnin'?" It scared the shit out of me until he then asked if I saw a cocker spaniel.)

I really, really wanted to do at least three miles and kept running for a bit, until I told myself I was being stupid and made myself stop and turn around and head back home. I jogged for a little bit, then just made myself walk. It was such an internal struggle to not run. The thought of walking 2.5 miles back home was just not appealing, but it beats hurting my foot more. And then I saw the short-cut path that would lead me back to my house in about 15 minutes that I had completely forgotten about. Yay! Thank God for short-cuts!

I've got a 10K with a friend coming up in a couple of weeks. I'm thinking I might just take a complete break from running until then. I wonder how that will turn out.

The Great Medal Debate

On a facebook page, I saw some people talking about a Tinkerbell Half race medal they found on ebay. Each poster said they would never give up their medal. They earned it, and it was quite important to them.

I went on over to ebay, did a search and found two Tinkerbell medals up for sale. One was at $76, the other at $167.50! The Tinkerbell medal is the nicest medal I have. It's huge, about 4 or 5 inches across and up and down, and has a Tinkerbell in the center that you can spin.

However, I have no attachment to it, or any of medals actually, except for maybe the first one I earned. I was actually planning on donating it and all my other half medals to Medals 4 Mettle, an organization that gives these medals to people with chronic or life-threatening illnesses.

(Okay, after typing that out, I feel like I should stick with my original plan and just donate it.)

Anyway, I thought, "Shoot, for 70 bucks, I'll sell it!" I figured I could recoup some of my expenses that way. So I sent Martin a text letting him know what the going price was for my Tinkerbell medal. He replied, "No. You earned that." Which I think is the sweetest thing ever.

Most of my medals are hanging on my closet door knob. Some are scattered around the house, because my kids like to play with them. I'm pretty sure some are lost. However, it doesn't really bother me. Sure it's nice to get a medal when you finish a race. However, my joy comes from the experience itself, the training, running the race, that sense of accomplishment once I'm done. The medal is just gravy.

CHICAGO!!!!!!!!!

After the Nike Women's Marathon, I swore I would never do a big race again. However, I did Tinkerbell, which was about half the runners of Nike, but was still big nonetheless at around 11,000 or 12,000. And if you couldn't tell from my last post, I loved running Tinkerbell.

I met an awesome friend at the Nike Women's Marathon - my good friend, Lisa. I love this woman! Anyway, she posted something vague on facebook, and I asked her about it. She said she signed up for Chicago. I was so happy for her. Marathons are a big fuckin deal, and I had always heard good things about Chicago. Since Martin was sitting right next to me, I casually asked him if we could go. He gave a nonchalant "okay."

And so I signed up this morning!!!

I am so excited! Not just to get to visit Chicago again or run another marathon. I am actually most excited to see Lisa again.

Squeeeeaaaaallllllll!!!!