Busy!

Between coaching(middle school football and some XC) and working, my energy has been lacking lately. Lately I have just been coming home and not wanting to do anything. I feel bad about that because I really want to keep this blog updated and current. Here is a brief summary of my last two training weeks.

Weeks 13

The last two weeks have been kind of interesting. Being busy forces you to find time times to fit your runs in. I sometimes stress about it, but I need to remember I will be fine as long as I actually get the runs in.

Week 13 went very well. It made me a little nervous because it featured a long run of 19 miles. Since I run at odd times, I knew I would be running the whole thing by myself. However, I am getting ahead of myself. I got in three great five mile runs during and it got me pumped up about the long run. My best run happened on September 5, 2013. I have no idea why I ran so hard and so fast, but I pushed myself really hard during the run and felt great. Due the busy week, I had a dilemma; get up early on Saturday before work and run 19 or do my long before the first Bears game!

I decided against running on 19 on Saturday and decided to do a short five mile run (it went great!). Now that I had gotten my run and worked, I rushed down to Lincoln Park to meet a few friends for Cultivate Fest.

My concert buddies, Vicki and Molly.

Walk the Moon!

The Mowgli's, Dale Earnardt Jr. Jr., Youngblood Hawke and Best Friends also played. I had a great time and will definitely come back next year if I can. My allergies sent me home early Saturday night and I took that as a sign that I would need to do my long run on Sunday.

Unfortunately, I did not wake up feeling too much better on Sunday. I wanted to get up early and do my run before the Bears game at noon. The allergies or head cold caused me to get going around 11:30 or so. I decided it would be ok to miss part of the Bears game to go for a run; this is how I know I have become a crazy runner.

Minus the humidity, I have no complaints about the run.

View from Medal of Honor Park

Despite how tired my legs felt at certain points toward the latter half of the run, I pushed hard and finished my last mile at a 7:40 pace. The run ended up taking me between 2:38:11 and and 2:38:20 ( I stopped the two gps apps I used at different times). It turned out to be a great Sunday. I got my run, watched football and the Bears won.

Week 14

Probably the weirdest training week out of all them so far. It is weird because, I only kept track of one run. I normally am pretty obsessed with keeping track, but I either forget or just did not bring my phone with me. Here is how the week went:

9/9/13- Did a short loop with the XC kids. We think it ended up being around three miles, but none of us were really sure. That three mile felt pretty hard in the 93 degree temps we had last Monday.

9/10/13-Way too hot do any kind of physical activity. I could have gotten a run in, but decided against it.

9/11/13-Hardest workout of the week by far! The top XC kids and I did a 1.7 mile warm-up and then did 6x800s! The top kid on the team ended up doing somewhere around 3:08's the whole time, while the rest us did somewhere between 3:10 and 3:13. So hard during the run, but I felt great afterwards and thanked the kids for pushing me to keep working hard.

9/12/13- My shin splints re-appeared (but on my left shin this time) and I did not run. I iced and worked a football game late that night.

9/13/13-Rest day. The started off well because I won Sublime With Rome Tickets at Concord Music Theatre;really nice venue

Sublime With Rome

9/14/13-My birthday! I went for a nice 12 miler at a park near my place.  My dad took me out for my birthday and I got this sundae at iHop. They sang to me when they brought it out and I felt pretty embarrassed. That is all I have today. The big 20 miler is this weekend! I will be sure to let people know how it goes.