Week 2

Today I began the Week 2 training plan from the book (even though it's actually been 1.5 weeks since I started training).  Week 2 prescribes walking the first 8 minutes, run/walk for the middle 14 minutes, and walking the last 8 minutes.  During the run/walk you start with 2 minute running intervals and work up to 4 minute run intervals.

Today I did 2:30 run intervals and felt pretty good.  I made it a total of 1.9 miles in 30:10.

One Week Down

Today was my last running workout of the week.  I managed to run 1 minute run intervals.  It was my second time running 1 minute intervals this week.  The first time I moved up to 1 minute was on the treadmill, so I decided to do it again outside.  Next week I will continue working on Week 1 training goals.  So far no knee pain!

I ran/walked 7.1 miles this week for a total of 2:02:06.  It felt good to be running again even if it has been a little hard.  I am not going to lose my base next year after the mini, because I don't want to make this struggle again!

Feels Like the First Time

Today I went for my first run in a LONG time.  The main goal this training cycle is to build up slowly so that I do not get injured.  I decided to start over completely and build up slowly, like a brand new runner.  I'm using the training plan in The Runner's World Complete Book of Women's Running.  Today was day one.

In six weeks the authors take you from sedentary, to running for 30 minutes straight.  Each workout is 30 minutes.  As prescribed in the book, I started with a 10 minute walk.  For the middle 10 minutes I alternated 30 seconds of running with walking until rested.  Then I walked the remaining 10 minutes.  I went 1.73 miles in 30 minutes, and only actually ran about 2 minutes of the 30.  It was humbling, because I actually felt like a newbie during my 30 second run intervals.  I don't know if I could have run more than that at one time!

The goal by the end of this training week (from the book) is to work up to an interval of 2 minutes of straight running.  In the interest of taking it slow and not getting injured, I have decided to listen to my body.  If I'm not ready at the end of week 1 to move up to the week 2 workouts, then I'll stay at week 1 for a while longer.  If it takes me longer than 6 weeks to get up to running 30 minutes at a time, that's okay.  I'll get there eventually, and hopefully pain free.

I Heart Star Wars

I only managed to run a couple times on the treadmill during my two weeks in BAMA. I did manage, however, to visit the Star Wars exhibit at the space museum. There was lots of cool exhibitage including C3PO who was nice enough to pose for a picture!

Dear Florida, I Miss You

We just got home from taking the kids on their first vacation to Florida.  We drove down and took our time, using 3 days to get there.  We drove a few hours a day and then spent the night at a hotel to give them a chance to stretch their legs and move around some.  They actually did much better than I thought they would.  Of course we kept them busy with lots of movies and music.  The only real struggle we had was frequent potty breaks, to be expected with a 2.5 and 5 year old I guess.

On the way down we stopped at the Atlanta Aquarium.  Very nice aquarium but very crowded.  We waited in line for lunch for almost an hour!!  The Aquarium itself was fine and worth a stop if you're nearby and dig the aquarium scene.

We had to stop at the visitors center when we crossed into Florida for some photo ops, since it was the girls' first time and all.

The big highlight of the trip was going to Magic Kingdom.  The girls loved going through Mickey and Minnie's houses.

All the rides were a hit, and T. even rode Space Mountain.  You sit by yourself on Space Mountain so I was freaking out the whole time, but she wasn't bothered in the least.  She had a blast.  All in all, our trip to Disney was a rousing success.  The worst part was standing in line for 2 hours to get the girls pictures with the Disney Princesses.  It was the longest, slowest line we stood in all day. 

And after all that waiting, A. sat for one picture and then freaked out.  She was too scared to get pictures with any of the other princesses!  Talk about a waste of a couple of hours.  Thankfully, T. posed for her pictures without incident.

At the end of the week we made a couple hour trip to go and visit with some of Dave's family.  They were excited to have us over and made us feel right at home.  We did some swimming and some eating and some visiting.  T. really took to her Uncle Gary, and of course Great Grandma fawned over both girls.  It was such a great day!

The whole week was fantastic, and I'm already looking forward to our next vacation.  Although I think next time we'll fly...

"This is it. Don't get scared now."

Have you ever seen Home Alone?  This is by far my favorite Christmas movie of all time.  I love it.  In it, there's a scene where Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) brings his sled inside the house, positions it at the top of the stairs, and proceeds to ride it down the stairs and out the front door into the snow.  It's a cute scene and you can relate because you probably thought about doing something similar when you were a kid. 

Today we took A.'s baby bed apart, and I walked onto this scene:

Priceless.

Mini 2010

The hubby and I ran the Mini this year. His first, my second. Now we've only been training hard and doing long runs for about 6 weeks. Me because of a knee injury, him because of a fear of the cold and a foolish belief that he is invincible.

I started the day in Corral D, he was in about P or so. Our gun time was 14 minutes apart, but our chip time was just 4 seconds apart. 4 seconds!! Can you tell we trained together?

Dave was quite pleased with his performance since he ran the whole thing and didn't die.

I was quite disappointed with my performance since my knee blew out (again. see reference to injury above) around mile 8. After that I did a walk/run/hobble combo for the next 5.1 miles. It hurt and I finished a full 30 minutes slower than last year. And my pride still hurts today.

Apparently I forgot to pull out the camera this weekend. Maybe because it was so, so cold. I have no pics of the event to share :(