Feelin Good

Continuing on with my adventure to my first marathon in Croatia in 2011....Many training runs especially the long runs, I had to do on my own.  Emir was only training for the 10 mile race that coincided with my marathon and my sister Cindy was training for the broad street run which is also 10 miles.  Each of them did a few runs with me but never longer than 14-15 miles but I give them credit it was way more miles than they needed to do for their training and I appreciated the company. I do have to say that Emir, Cindy and my mom and dad were soooo incredibly supportive during my training.  Watching Niko, running with me (not mom and dad, hehe) and just being so encouraging even tho I'm sure they were wary if I could really do this or not.  Anyway early May was the Broad street run which all three of us were doing.  Cindy had done it several times and was trying to PR in it.  This was the first time for Emir and I.  This was actually the first race Emir had ever done longer than a 5K.  Secretly I was trying to beat Cindy but she had swam in college and had been running since.  Never anything longer than 10 miles but still running.  She also is about 4-5 inches taller than me and 4 years younger than me.  She definitely has more speed than I do.  The start of the race was ridiculous.  It was so packed you could barely move let alone run.  Cindy told me to follow her and we shot for the sidewalk.  Emir of course being the cautious runner he is, was so paranoid about going out too fast so he stayed behind.  Cindy and I were flying down the sidewalk to get by the huge pack.  Next thing I knew we were at mile 1.  I checked my ipod that I was using at the time with Nike+ and it said 7:30...I was like "HOLY CRAP!!"  It was very exciting yet very scary at the same time.  I had NEVER run anything faster than maybe a low 9 minute mile.  After a couple more miles I just settled into my own pace now that we were out of the crazy crowd and didnt' worry about keeping up with Cindy.  It was becoming too much for me.  Around mile 5 I was feeling beat.  I had definitely gone out WAY too fast.  I was feeling weak, had to pee and was wondering if I would even finish this race.  Somehow I gutted out the rest of the race.  I felt like I barely made it.  I ended up doing 1:27 which I was soooo proud of and I only finished 2 minutes behind Cindy.  I know I went out too fast but you know what I didn't really care.  I had run the reknown Broad Street race and exceeded my goal time by a lot.  The following week was my 23 mile training run with the annual Susan G Komen 5K for breast cancer the next day.  Like I said I'm not one for worrying if I'm doing every little thing right.  According to my coach (Emir), I shouldn't have all out raced Broad street so close to my longest training run not too mention my actual marathon and I shouldn't be doing a 5K race the day after my long training run, oh welllllll.  Susan G Komen is so important to my mom as a 25+ year breast cancer survivor and I didn't want to tell her no because I was training.  She would be like ok so you can run millions of miles every week but not do a 5K for breast cancer?  The other thing I want to point out is the reason I did a 23 miler instead of another 20 miler was for my mental health.  I knew I would feel a lot better about finishing 26.2 if I had completed a run that was only 3 miles shorter than one that was 6.  The 23 miler went pretty well.  Of course I was tired and sore but not too bad at all and I never once thought during the run about stopping.  The next day I was easily able to PR in the 5K with a time of 25 minutes.  I mean lets be honest I had only run maybe 2 5Ks and they were pretty early on when I first started running but still that was my fastest by a good 6 minutes in less than a year of running.  I was feeling good and pretty overall positive that I was going to do this thing.  A few weeks later Emir, Niko and I were boarding our plane to Bosnia!!!!

This week was a "rest" week for me.  So I only had to run 35 miles instead of the 40 I had done the previous couple of weeks.  I finally was feeling like I had more energy again and felt really good on my runs, my pace said so too ;-) Also I wore my Saucony Viratta's all week and I swear those shoes make me faster.  I just always feel and am actually going faster when I wear them.  I was a good girl this week and did all my runs on their scheduled days.  I'm pretty sure that helped especially on my weekend runs since I had my friday rest day.  We went down the shore friday afternoon for the weekend.  It was supposed to be spring like in the 60s however as usual the forecasters were wrong and it was a cool damp maybe 50, most likely high 40s.  Oh well it was nice to have a  change of scenery for my weekend runs.  I love running the Wildwood boardwalk, the sea wall through N. Wildwood and then I head over the bridges to Stone Harbor.  Especially this time of year, it's quiet, peaceful, just nice.  Sunday I took Niko with me who now was feeling much better so he did not sleep.  In fact he blabbed the entire 5 miles!!!  Oh well it takes my focus off of my run so much and I enjoy the time with my son.  He really seems to be enjoying the fact that I have been taking him lately.  He has been asking to go alot and he keeps talking about running races.  I'm glad that all this running has turned into something positive for our family rather than mommy and now daddy (he's training for the 50 K as well) just disappearing for hours on end.  Speaking of which this week I ordered my double BOB Ironman Jogging stroller!!!!  I have never been one to be big into baby/kid gear but I cannot wait to get this stroller!  We haven't been able to do any family runs in a long time since Una was too little to sit in the BOB for a while and then we just kept putting off getting the double because of the cost(we had some unexpected expenses the last few months).  But we got some gift cards for christmas to kohl's + the 20% off coupon came in the mail and I knew it was time!  It will definitely make getting some of my runs done easier and more enjoyable although maybe a little difficult pushing two kids, oh well!  Next week is an up week 45 miles and I have to work Saturday so that is always an added challenge.  And to top it all off Emir is leaving on a work trip to Europe on Sunday for 10 days, ugh.  Of course I will miss him but now if he isn't home the bigger issue is that I have to do everything myself!  It might sound weird coming from the mom but Emir does ALOT around here and is so helpful with the kids.  I mean who's going to do the wash, the dishes and put Niko to bed???  I'm thinking it will also end up being a bunch of treadmill runs on the days that I work while he is gone, I mean the kids can't watch themselves while I go out in the dark to run!!!  ;-)


My Buddy after our run together