Where's the Beach?

Not sure what it was about this week, but it felt never-ending. Sort of like my runs have been feeling honestly. Summer has hit us fast and hard here. When you wake up and the "low" is hovering near 80 with dew points at 72 and above, you know your run is going to be bumpy at best. Rather than moan and complain about how hard marathon training is during the summer (what the heck was I thinking by the way) I thought it'd be fun to jump on the Runfessions train this Friday courtesy of Marcia at Marcia's Health Slice  (you must go read hers too). Runfessions for June For the past 2 weeks my runs have left me feeling defeated and I'm questioning my sanity for having signed up for a fall marathon. Well, a marathon period, but fall? What on earth was I thinking? I've been very remiss recently with stretching and rolling out after runs. Well, at all. Instead I just fall out in the floor in front of the fan wishing for winter. << Yes, I did just type t...

Who's happy it's Friday? Silly question right? I almost went with a more serious tone today. Lisa over at RunWiki did a post yesterday that really spoke to me "The Truth Is." I think it resonated with me so much right now because I have a lot of truths that I'm not confessing. Oh, nothing crazy serious, mostly around my mental state about the upcoming marathon. I thought I'd save that post for next week though and stick with something more light-hearted today. I mean, it is Fun for Friday after all. Marcia does these fun Runfession posts that I always enjoy reading and have borrowed the idea several times. Once again, I'm taking a cue from Marcia and doing my last Runfessions for 2014 . Final Runfessions of 2014 1. I'm not ready to back down on my miles and taper for my marathon next Saturday. I thought I would whole-heartedly embrace taper time, but I have actually enjoyed the training and the miles. 2. I'm afraid that after my maratho...

Marcia at Marcia's Healthy Slice frequently does Runfession Posts. They are always fun to read, and I often find myself nodding along in agreement. Now that I'm marathon training, I'm finding myself often scared. My thoughts often end up turning to the what-ifs, the self-doubts and sometimes just plain old being scared. I almost saved this for Fun for Friday, but it's sort of a Thursday Thoughts kind of post too. But mostly it's random thoughts that I need to confess. 1. Training plans scare me. Yes, I'm a certified running coach. Yes, I put together plans for other people. Personally? I hate plans because the finality, the perceived strictness of them scares me. Therefore, I'm doing a very lose, very un-written down kind of marathon training plan. 2. Not having a true plan scares me. Don't you just love it when one thing scares you but then not having it scares you too? So not having the plan written down in stone makes me scared that I'...

Marcia at Marcia's Healthy Slice periodically does Runfessions. As much as I do enjoy informative blog posts, sometimes I really enjoy something light-hearted too. Especially when it's a post that lets me learn more about the blogger behind the blog, behind the words. I live in the south. It's hot. It's humid. It can make for some miserable running conditions. But I'm a trooper (aka stubborn), so I keep plugging away through the tortures of the summer heat. There are mornings when the "low" is 80 degrees and the air so thick it's hard to breathe. However, this summer, we're sort of having a mild one (knocking on wood right now). We've had some typical summer conditions (77 degrees, 90% humidity, dew point at 73 all at 5:30 am), but then we've also had some very unusually cool days where it's been in the low 60s WITH low humidity to boot. That's fantastic and I've taken full advantage of those rare mornings. However, it ...

Marcia at Marcia's Healthy Slice did another Runfessions post for the Holidays. I "borrowed" her Runfessions idea once before , and am borrowing it again for Fun for Friday . I hope she doesn't mind ;-) I thought I would do a Runfessions - Race Day  edition since I finished another half marathon last week and it's still fresh on my mind, especially the mistakes I made that day. Funny how you can PR but also have a host of silly mistakes. But I have a few other confessions to make, so it's not all about mistakes. Though, I did make several no-no race day mistakes. I broke the golden rule of never doing anything new the day of a race. Not only did I break that one once, I broke it twice. So, here it goes... 1. I tried a new gel on race day. I had been coveting my Salted Caramel GU packets for weeks. I was practically salivating at the mere thought of trying them out. My special treat to myself for the race. Now, the error had nothing to do with the f...

Marcia (Marcia's Healthy Slice) did a fun post the other day - Runfessions . Her post definitely got me to thinking about my own running confessions. Rather than ramble on about nerves for tomorrow's Half Marathon, I thought it would be fun to share a few of my own Runfessions for Fun for Friday. Dumpster diving - I am always on the lookout for things I might be able to go back and get to take home and restore. Sunday it was a headboard. Sadly it was broken beyond repair when Jason and I went to pick it up. Wednesday I stopped long enough to try to peer into a dumpster in front of a house. It was too dark and I was too short to really check it out properly. I've gotten Jason and Amy both in on this one. Jason has brought home a chair and table on his own accord. The chair still needs painting and a cushion, the table has already been painted and is acting as my new office desk. No training plan  - nope, I didn't follow a training plan for this half, not in the...