New Goal: Marathon Maniacs

Well hello there....I've been slacking on posting lately. Oops. I haven't had much exciting news to share lately, but this weekend a few things did come up.

Friday after work I decided to re-join Weight Watchers. I signed up in November but only did 1 month because the meetings were interfering with my long runs so I promptly cancelled thinking, "what is the point of doing WW if I can't run?!?!" So I re-joined to give it a fair shot this time around- and chose a different meeting time. Working out is NOT my problem, but nutrition is. I love to eat. I love to eat everything. I love to eat all the time. I know what to do to make the weight come off but haven't been following through so I'm hoping weighing in weekly and being accountable to a program (with witnesses) will re-spark my desire to dedicate my actions to hitting 100 lbs weight lost! I also think counting points is a lot easier than couting calories. I'll let you know how things turn out week by week of course.

After I weighed in at WW I headed home to pick up James and the girls so we could head to my Ragnar team meeting. If you haven't heard of Ragnar either google it or just wait until July when I will have a plethora or stories and pictures to share with you ;) I ran it last year and it was such a fun experience. I

started putting a team together back in November to ensure I could fill all 12 slots. At the time I didn't know I had so many friends that ran, but we filled up right away. So Friday was our third meeting and we decided to do a night time 3-miler. Well I didn't plan it perfectly- we didn't run out of daylight when we expected but I still wore my reflective vest.


Stole the pic from Diana :) I'm rocking my marathon tank again!


Saturday I went for my first long run since the marathon. Ouch, this was a toughie for me. I had a mental break down complete with tears, complaints, and a car ride to the "finish line." I met up with LaRee, Diana, Melanie and Dorothy (not pictured) at 7 am. We were all doing different distances, LaRee and Melanie knocking down 23, Diana and I were planning on 13 and Dorothy had 8 miles in her plan. The first 6 miles were fine, not great, but fine. Some runs I have a high the entire time and some I just get through- this was more of the latter. Around mile 6.5 my legs just suddenly turned to lead and I felt like I couldn't do it anymore. Diana kind of hung back with me as LaRee and Melanie continued (I don't blame them- they still had hours of running to do) and I started crying. Not bawling but there were tears. Two weeks before after just finishing a marthon I felt on top of the world and now 6 miles was kicking my butt. Diana kept reminding me that we all have bad runs and maybe my legs needed more rest but it was frusterating as all heck to feel like I was disappointing myself AND holding her back. I waved her on but she kept circling back to check on me and we finally just called her husband so I could catch a ride. We were running a point to point route so the plan was for him to pick us up and drive us back to our cars anyway but now he was having to come get me early :( We were at the 9.5 mile mark when he found us on the road. Ironically he found us literally right as our route started downhill, bummer I missed the "easy" part of the run.



Again, stole from Diana. I only ran the first 9.5 miles- look at that HILL!

 Diana finished her 3.5 miles and I stretched at the Poulsbo Waterfront Park. The sun had started to peak out from behind the clouds (even though it was super muggy when we started), so I just sat on a bench soaking it in. This is only my second ever totally miserable run - read about the first here- so I guess I have to take things in perspective. I've been running for years, had MANY good experiences, ran a freaking marathon.....my legs are allowed to be tired now and then! I need to be thankful that I can run at all and that I still burned a lot of calories because I needed that defecit to partake in BBQ and Mothers Day feasts all weekend :)

So that brings me to the title of this blog post: Marathon Maniacs. I ran Eugene 4/28, am signed up for RNR Seattle 6/22 so I fit 1 more marathon in there I qualify to Marathon Maniacs based on the 3 marathons in 90 days criteria! I signed up for Green River Marathon on 6/1 and will be running this soley as a training run (no racing!). It'll be my long run between Eugene and RNR since last week ended up with 9.5 being my longest, and this weekend I am running a 1 mile "race" with my 4 year old on Saturday. I wanted to try and talk my brother/dad/husband to alternate running a few miles with me Sunday to add up to a grand total of 15 pour moi, but I just realized, as I'm typing this, that my brothers actual birthday is Sunday. We are celebrating with a dinner that night but the fun "you're finally 21 celebration" will take place Friday night at a comedy club, pending finding a babysitter for my girls.

I find myself rotating between really wanting to keep running marathons and then thinking that these 3 might just be it for me. Marathon training takes a ton of time and I'm able to full engage in other activities I like such as spin, insanity, heavy ST, because I'm trying to keep my legs fresh for long weekend runs. Have any of you found the secret to doing "it all"? Let me know !