Friday Fitness and Fun

Falling a bit behind on blogging this week because it has been spring break and my family was visiting from out of town while the kids were home from school. Also Mike got sick with a very bad cold and then *I* got sick with a very bad cold.

Stuffing 1000 race packets.

Briefly here is some news. On Monday night the good people from 1:17 stuffed a thousand race packets for Run 4 the Children. Yep, we are expecting 1000 runners and walkers. That means YOU if you are local. Register now, it's cheap and you get a great t-shirt, a great bag, a concert and lots of food and fun stuff for kids too. Plus the money goes to help families with big hearts for orphans to offset the enormous cost of adoption. Did you know adoption can cost between $25-50,000? The money from the race will also help us care for some orphans that aren't eligible for adoption.

Another positive piece of news regarding my training...on Wednesday evening my training group held a 5k time trial. That means running like you are in a race. When our coach yelled "Go!" I felt an enormous surge of adrenaline that sent me sprinting but made me feel kind of awful at the same time. I did not like that feeling, but at least now it won't seem so foreign on race day. I ran pretty fast for the first mile, figuring I could get a jump on my target pace and then slow up later. I did slow up a bit but was surprised to hear from my Runkeeper that I was still running a full minute ahead of my target pace of 12 min/mile. I felt comfortable so I just kept pushing. Believe it or not three miles now seems like not a big deal at all to me. I found myself breathing a little too hard after passing the two mile mark so I slowed to a walk for only maybe 30 seconds and then sped up again. I did really start dragging towards the end, but my average time remained well ahead of target so I was very encouraged and just kept pushing. Once I saw the finish line I kicked it up and sprinted, only to have my friend Deborah pass me at the very end. I was super thrilled with my finish time of 36:53, which is under 12 min/mile. That's a lot faster than I expected. I also felt like I had energy left in the tank when I was done so I think I could have done another mile at close to that pace.

The amount of pollen I sucked in during that run was unbelievable. I'm highly allergic to everything, you know. Towards the end I almost had to stop entirely because my throat was so full of phlegm I could not breathe. Let's hope the air quality improves some before race day.

Now I will leave you with some precious photos of my darling niece, the happiest baby alive. Even after she vomited all over my couch and floor and kitchen and everywhere. Poor kid.