Okay - I know I am old and slow - and coming off a semi-major injury...but when I did the 5 miler in under an hour I was very happy with that. I actually had just a little over 11 minute miles. It felt like my work had paid off. I was still way behind the pack - but for me it was a good run! And by the way - the outside temperature was 19 degrees F.... just to finish this cold booger was quite a feat! The really cool thing is when I crawled back on the treadmill yesterday I realized my base time is faster. When I started running on the treadmill I stayed at 4 mph on slow runs. I had been working on it all this time and shot for some 5 mph and 6mph  speeds. Yesterday I did almost my whole 2 miles at 4.5 mph. I know that it not much - but sometimes we need to celebrate the small progresses we make. Today - take some time to celebrate some type of progress you have made. Maybe you have stayed on an eating plan for a day or two - celebrate your accomplishment! Some may have added d...

So I have not run or hardly walked since I first hurt my knee. I do not wear the brace too much now when I am around the house, but if I am out and about I wear it for support. I also wear it to sleep in to keep from bending it. But the last two days I have walked through the park. (wearing the brace, of course)  It's almost exactly 1.2 miles from my door, through the Frisbee golf course with a nice walking trail and back to my door. The weather has turned cooler and I would love to be setting up some running and training schedules. But it's not happening yet! I have to start slow... I have to start somewhere. So I am trying to walk through the park every day for starters. I may try the treadmill next week and do that without the brace to see how my knee handles it.  It drives me nuts to be sidelined like this. But there has to be time for the injury to heal properly or I might not get to run again....ever! So I am trying to be very patient and walk it out slowly - every ...

It seems like I cannot get it all right all at the same time. I can get my diet down and eat properly to have energy and then it seems like my sleeping patterns get all messed up! It's just crazy. There must be a way to get them both in balance at the same time!  As I am realizing how quickly my next half marathon is approaching I feel like I am under the crunch to get my training back up going strong. But sometimes it seems that just about the time I feel the positive changes in my body it wipes out on me. And I feel like it's partly due to trying to find the right balance and combination of eating and resting. I hate to sleep - but I love to eat. That's the wrong formula for running success!  I think this parallels life in a few ways too. It seems like we can really concentrate on one area - you know, the temper, our language, our finances or outlook...and when we get one of these areas refined and are moving along smoothly it's like Bam! Another area that needs s...

Well I guess we'll see if this week can go off as planned! I'm looking at possibly getting in 20 miles this week. And I am looking at a time crunch because the half marathon is coming in September. I have only run 8 miles for my long run recently. I think I'll be okay though because I can bump that up to 1 pretty easily. The terrain here is kind of hilly and the race is in Chicago which is really flat. So I think that will work to my advantage at least.  I also signed up for a  night race this weekend. I haven't ever done that so it'll be nice. And it will be to commemorate my first 5K ever. It's the same Saturday that I ran my very first race two years ago. Boy I was so happy to run that 3.1 miles! And I was hooked on racing ever since. I never dreamed that about 3 miles would be my easy days! lol!  It's funny sometimes how when we are going through life and we know that our struggles are shaping us somehow, we still cannot always see how far we've ...