A Week In Review

This last week deserves its own post because so many things happened--good and horribly bad.  I guess we should start at the beginning...

We are in the process of moving back to my home state of Idaho and since last week was my husband's last vacation during residency, we had to take advantage and use it as a house hunting trip.  I have the Country Music Rock 'N Roll Half Marathon this coming weekend, so my last long run fell the day after traveling to Idaho.  I was pretty excited to get out for a run after being stuck on an airplane or in an airport for a good portion of the day.  Flying with a one year old just adds to the stress so I was desperately looking forward to some "me" time while my mom was looking forward to some "E" time.  I quickly remembered that the springs in Idaho are nothing like the springs in Nashville.  I had left the beautiful 80s for rainy, sometimes snowy, and ALWAYS windy low 50s.  I set out for my 12 miler in the wind and the rain with a pretty good back up plan in case the weather became too much.  Thank God!  While running out in farm and dairy land, the wind and the rain were so bad that I had to tilt my hat and lean into the wind.  I didn't realize how strong the wind was until I came to a fence that suddenly blocked the wind and I tumbled into a ditch.  That was at mile THREE!  I got up and finished the run back to my mom's house and ended up only clocking a little over six miles.

This was when I got back to Mom's.  I was wet and muddy from the fall.

I figured I would have plenty of time to run throughout the week so I wasn't too worried about my somewhat of a fail last long run.  Again, I was wrong.  Life happened and we were go, go, go pretty much the whole time.  Okay, let's be honest.  I didn't want to go back out in the wind and the cold.  I have a lot of sucking up to do by the time I move back.  Along with pretty much zero workout times during the week, I ate like CRAP!  I wanted to hit up all my favorite restaurants and when you're with family, it's super easy to eat out all the time.  This is bad to do anyway, but when you have some stomach problems like I do, it is HELL!  I can't quite figure out if I have a lactose intolerance, celiac disease, or I just deal with problems of stress.  If you have any of these problems, you know how miserable eating can be.  It doesn't help when you eat at restaurants all the time and have no will power like yours truly.  *sigh*

On Monday while we were with the real estate agent looking at the house that would become ours (that's a GREAT thing about the week), I got a news alert about the bombings at the Boston Marathon. 

(pause)

I will never understand people who do these things.  There is nothing that I believe in enough to make killing and hurting innocent people acceptable.  It makes me sad to think of the hatred that is in their heart that they had to live with.  It makes me even more sad that they acted out on their hatred.  It is hard when this sort of thing happens anywhere, but this particular location hit closer to home for me, being a runner.  It makes me curious as to what kind of measures will be taken at big events like races for security.  One thing I know, I REFUSE to live in fear.  Living in fear is not really living at all.  You get only one life, no matter how short or long, and you have got to live it to its fullest!  There will always be more good in this world than evil.  I'm confident in that.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures that were posted after the Boston bombings.

Unfortunately, I did not pack any race shirts but I'm making up for it this week. :)

If I didn't already love Charity Miles enough...

Enough of the sad stuff!  After eating terribly and not running or working out for A WEEK, I was really scared about the damage that I had done to my body as far a preparations go for the Half this weekend.  You know how you get out of a routine and it is pain and torture to get back into it?  Yeah, that was me trying to get out the door yesterday morning for a run.  I knew I needed to get my legs going again, no matter how bad.  After the Boston thing, I (along with every other runner) felt more encouraged to go running.  After all, we must RUN ON.  I was expecting a terrible run and got quite the opposite.  I ran under my goal race pace!  I am not a super fast runner and may never be, but I have my personal goals set and when I beat them, I'm elated!  My last two half marathons were PRs (personal record) for me.  I kind of have the PR itch again and after my fantastic run yesterday, I had to map out my game plan!

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While I was away on "vacation", I got my Hero t-shirt in the mail for being a Hero for Ellie's Run For Africa.  Woo hoo!  It matches perfectly with the sarong I borrowed from a friend to wear to this year's race.  I'm getting sick of my red one.  I guess that means I need to get my butt back to Kenya to buy more! ;)

For more information on Ellie's Run For Africa, click HERE!

To read about my African story and why I am a HERO, go to my Hero page at:

http://www.elliesrun.org/hero/ayla-birch

Who knows, you may even feel the urge to help me reach my goal of $722. Only $378 to go with less than a month to do it in.  I think I can, I think I can!  Who wants to help some kids in a slum in Nairobi, Kenya have a good education to help them OUT of the slums?