I live for the downhills!

Since I've been biking for several weeks, I decided I wanted to go with the local riding group. They bike every Wednesday and Sunday. My friend Katie recently got a bike as well. We have been talking about riding with the group for awhile but she had always backed out on me (love ya katie!).

Anyway, tonight was the night. We pulled up and realized we were pretty out of our league. Everyone was in real "bike" attire and we were not. Everyone had that serious biker look and we did not!

However, we did it and had a great time. We biked 24 miles through Boyle and Mercer County. The first half of the trip we stopped for a couple minutes every three miles or so. We stopped to get something to drink at a restuarant in Mercer Co half way. The rest of the way back we only stopped once. Unfortunately it was bc one of the bikers had a wreck. He flipped and landed on the pavement and it even threw his helmet off. One of the dr's wives was with us and her husband was going to look at him once he got back to town. Everyone of the group members was extremely nice!

It wasn't easy and as I"m sitting here, I am dreading what I'm going to feel like tomorrow. It wasn't easy, but it was very enjoyable! Can't wait to do it next week! :)

training book

my bro in law, Jordan, has ran 2 marathons within the past 6 months. if i think i'm crazy, i know he is!! ha! anyway, he received a book by Jeff Galloway about marathons and marathon training that he used and said really worked.

so i went to joseph beth this past weekend and got Jeff Galloways "Book on Running" where he gives training programs for a 5k, 10k, and a half marathon. he has several different programs on each one based on whether you just want to finish it or if you want to get a certain time on your race.

i've read and skimmed the book and so far it is a great book and seems very doable. i showed it to my friend marci and she decided she thought she could do it too. (she's also completed the couch to 5k program) so off we go! training has started!

goals

Swimming - check. Biking - check. Running - check. what's left? yep, you guessed it a triathlon!

There is a sprint marathon in September at McDowell that I am planning on doing. Not sure how it will go with doing all three things back to back, but I plan on giving it a go.

Another goal that I have is to do a half marathon. Jeremy has been doing long runs on saturdays and is already up to half marathon distance. he hasnt' done one yet only bc we haven't found one that worked in our schedule. so i started looking at ones for him to do this fall that are close to KY. low and behold there is one in Indy on MY birthday! well, i started thinking a few weeks back that I like running now and would like to do a half so i can put the sticker on my car! (i know silly reason, but a reason none the less) How awesome would it be if I did a half marathon ON my actual birthday?! pretty great in my opinion!

next week will be the beginning of my half marathon training!

up to now

I have done 4 races since starting the couch to 5k program.

Jennie Carol 5k - i was on week 4 of the program. had planned on doing my workout and then just try to run/walk for the rest of the 5k. about 1.5 miles in, i had stomach issues. :( my time was horrible but Jeremy had done the race with me and we had a good time just walking through downtown danville after my bathroom stop at speedway!

McDowell 1 mile run - went a best ever 1 mile time with a time of 11:57 and won my age group !

Brass Band 5k - i wanted to do this race bc it's part of the serres, but after the jennie carol 5k was leary of doing it without finishing the program and lack of bathrooms on the backside of the park! :) Anna my sis in law and I walked the whole course and had a fabulous time. our husbands, who are brothers, ran the race and both got personal best times! Jordan even won his age group!

Twinkie Run 10K/5K - this race is different than any other races for a couple reasons. 1) 2 people can do the 10k as a team and each do a 5k or one person can do the whole 10k. 2) no watches are allowed during the race. the person/team that wins is determined by how close your real time is to your predicted time and 3) they stagger the runners based on your predicted entry time. so they started the predicted slowest time first, say 92 min., then they send off the second slowest time next, say they predicted 89 min., they would be sent off 3 min. after the first person had left. The goal is that everyone would finish about the same time!

Jeremy and I were a team and were to each run a 5k. since i was on the last week of my couch to 5k program i figured i could do this! although i wish i could have gotten my time, i am proud because i was able to run all but about one tenth of the 3.1 miles. I stopped to walk for about half a tenth to drink some water and another half a tenth going up one of the numerous hills. Half way through the race I was asking myself "what am I doing?, am i crazy for doing this? why did i say i would start training for a half marathon? I must be nuts!" luckily those thoughts didn't last too long! This is by far my most successful race, running wise and I'm very glad that I can say i can run a 5k now!

biking

I bought a mtn bike from a friend 2 months ago. Jeremy and I rode at the park and i fell in love! I love biking! it's so much easier than running and you can go much faster! i had a bike when i was a kid but living out in the country never really "rode" a bike like most kids do

I liked it so much I even went out and bought a real road bike!

it's my new obsession. on my "off" running days, I bike. tonight my friend, Katie, and I are going to bike with a local riding group. we are both excited and nervous about it. i've only rode my bike on the road once and have never biked as far as this group will go at one time. so it should be interesting.. i'll let you know how it goes!

try, try again!

2010 started much the same way as 2009, jeremy and i decided to do the shamrock shuffle. i was supposed to walk with my sis in law, but we got separated before the start. jeremy refused to walk with me bc he wanted to run it and improve his time from last year. luckily i found a friend who also said she was going to walk it. ha! she wanted to do more running than I had planned, but none the less we ran and walked and had a good time.

sometime in the spring, I discovered the couch to 5k program and decided in april that's what i was going to do. i still had my goal of running a 5k without stopping and am unfortunately am too competitive to let it go. for anyone that is not a runner but wants to start running for whatever reason, couch to 5k is the way to go!

as of right now i only have 1 workout left in the program and will do it tomorrow morning! YAY!!

last years defeat

last summer my husband, Jeremy, and i started running to train for the Shamrock Shuffle 3k in Lexington. i had never ran before and hated running with a passion! he had run in hs and college, never for a team, but just to stay in shape. so i decided "hey, why not?" well, we both did that race and i thought well i'll keep running and set a goal of being able to run a 5k by the end of the summer without stopping.

i didnt know about any programs to use except for jeremy's own program which was try to run as long as you can and then each time you run try to go farther than before. well.....i did that or at least tried to do that. i ran inconsistantly through the summer and did several 5k's. i never was able to really get in to it or stick with it. i had several bad race experiences. one of which was my goal was to break 40 min.. on the race that i was doing well on and thought I was going to be able to do it, the machine that they record times on as you finish ran out of paper, so my offical time was NA! that was a real heartbreaker for me! all that work and no time at all!

i took a break from running after that, but decided to Mid Summer Nights run in Lex. I had walked it before a few years ago and had a good time. Plus a lot of my friends and family were doing it too! Another miserable race! It was 90 degrees at 8:30pm, extremely crowded and humid. I should have walked it with Anna, my sis in law, but didn't and thought I was going to run the majority of it. Due to the horrible conditions, i ended up quitting midrace and walking back to the finish line in time to see my husband cross. i was very discouraged and said I would never run again in another race.

well that lasted for about 2 months, when i decided i was going to do a race on the road i grew up on and that my parents still live on. jeremy said he would do it with me and so we did. it was a good race, didnt go a great time but I was able to run the first mile without stopping. so there was victory in that!

that was my last official race of 2009. i signed up for a race in stanford in dec. but woke up to snow so decided to skip it and take pictures instead. which leads me up to 2010 and starting to run all over again.

bits and pieces of me

ok, so a little about me. i am 30 years old and live in the big city of danville. we are hoping to move out into the county in the next year or so. i have a pug dog, Deuce, who is 8 years old and is my "baby". i am married to the best guy in the world! it took us a while to find each other (thanks marci and amber!), but we did and it has been wonderful ever since!

i am a swimmer by heart and love being around the pool. i have coached the boyle county high school swim team for the past 8 years and was an asst. coach at danville for 2 years before that. i love to teach swim lessons in the summer at bunny davis. my goal for every group and child is that by the time they leave they are not afraid to be in the pool, as in no kicking or screaming or digging their little fingers in my arms when it's time to get in!

i recently got hired at centre college's library as the evening circulation supervisor. although my undergrad was in education, my masters was in library science. it took awhile for God to work out the details, but he did and I love my new job and am so very BLESSED!

i also like to take pictures and when i'm not in a race, i'm usually there cheering on jeremy and my friends and taking some "action" shots!

also, i dont use frequently use capitals (as you can see), so dont expect too many in my blogs.