My blog-iversary!

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of my foray into blogging!  Last summer I made a conscious effort to blog daily.  I knew it wouldn't last once school started, of course, but I did enjoy the daily writing.  I do love to write, and blogging is a great outlet for me. 

This summer, I've turned that energy into finding new ways to improve my running.  I do a lot of reading and researching.  I'm cross-training much more.  I've been working on fine-tuning my training program for my upcoming marathon.  And, of course, I have been trying to keep up with my hoodlums children.  Naps are mostly a thing of the past for the twins, so it's go-go-go from 7 AM till almost 9 PM every day.  We have been having fun at the pool and the parks around our city.  Otherwise, though, it's been a low-key summer.  We do have a week-long vacation up to a cottage on Lake Erie planned for the third week of July.  The kids are super-excited, and I am stoked to hopefully get some open-water swimming done, as coincidentally the trip is the week before my triathlon relay!

A brief update on my training... things are going swimmingly well ;)  Yes, that was an intended pun.  I've been swimming twice a week since the start of the month, and I really can feel that it's making me stronger, both in my arms (hi, triceps!) and in terms of cardiovascular fitness.  There is another former collegiate swimmer in the class, and we've had a great time motivating and pushing each other.  I know that I do need to get to Alum Creek soon so that I can get some open-water swimming in before my race, but for now the pool has served its purpose well.  It has actually worked out perfectly, as I run 5 miles at 5 AM on Tuesdays with a group (anywhere from 2-6 of us meet up at the community center), and then I go right inside for my swim class at 6 AM.  I usually just swim on Thursdays, but I ran and swam yesterday as well.  These little "bricks", as triathletes call them, have been really good for my confidence as a possible triathlete someday.  Now if I only had a bike...

 Very blurry selfie of one of our biggest 5@5 groups... up front are Tamara, 
Erin, me and Steph. In the back are Jon and Kimmie.

In other news pertaining to cross-training, I joined DK Fitness this month.  They have an awesome summer deal right now.  My running friend Erin introduced me to DK, as she's a spinning instructor there.  I've been to a few Body Pump classes now, as well as one of her spinning classes.  I loved it all, and I wish I could go more frequently!  Once a week is about all I can manage with kids, swimming and running, though.  I've been to a couple of the Sunday morning core fitness classes offered at Fleet Feet as well, and these are also lots of fun (mostly because my marathon pal Steph is there, and she keeps me laughing the entire time). I plan on keeping up with both of these at least through the end of August, and then when school starts I'll have to be a bit more choosy due to lack of time.

My running has been pretty amazing lately.  I have been able to incorporate some faster running with some easier running, and every.single.run for the past 7 weeks has been with one or more friends.  That's what I call awesome training!  I seriously love my running friends so much.  I finally got to run with Jen's super-speedy friend Andrea, and we had a great fast 10 miles together.  I'm excited to start to run more often with her as my marathon training begins.  I ran 5 miles yesterday with Tamara K. and was shocked to average sub-8:00/mile!  My final mile was actually almost a sub-7:00/mile, which just amazes me (even though it was mostly downhill LOL). I'm really pleased with how my speed has improved over the past year, and especially since my marathon.  It's giving me great confidence for my upcoming 5K, which is just one week away!  I did the same race last year, the Westerville Rotary 5K, and was super happy with the race and how I did at it. A PR by close to 3 minutes!

Last year's post-race selfie :)

I am so ready to smash my current PR there!  I have some lofty goals, but as usual I will go ahead and set my A, B and C goals.  

Goal C (the one I really should be able to easily make, based on my training): A PR time. My PR is 24:21 from my last 5K, which was almost a year ago.  I have no doubt I can accomplish this.  It's an average pace of 7:51, and my average pace yesterday on our training run was 7:52.  But a PR is a PR, so I'm always good with that.

Goal B (the one I know is a bit of a reach, but not too much): Anything in the 23-minute range.  That is a huge range, of course, from a 7:24 to a 7:43 per mile.  Again, I do feel like this is in my reach, based on my training runs.  In fact... my final 5K of yesterday's run was a 23:16.  Granted, it was downhill/flat for all but the first half-mile of that stretch, but still...

Okay and the big one... Goal A (the one that I know is a stretch but I really do feel I can do): A sub-23.  Based on (again) yesterday's run, this is totally do-able.  I just need to convince myself of that mentally!  I need to go out hard and strong, and not plan on huge negative splits like I do when I run distance races.  Fortunately, I won't be alone.  My three wonderful marathon friends, Elisa, Stephanie and Carolyn, will all be there--it will a reunion of awesomeness!  Their 5K's are all in the sub-23 range, so hopefully I can ride their coat-tails in for a super-fast race. 

Look for a race recap, and then it will be on to marathon training!