I need NORMAL!!

Last week my excuse for not running or biking was moving and unpacking. which we are still doing by the way.  :( unpacking takes forever! its becoming my least favorite chore EVER!!  I just want to snap my fingers and for everything to be in the right spot!

This week my excuse for not exercising (even though i said I would start this week) has been the spring book fair.  My position at the middle school is only .2 which equals about an hour and a half a day. However with the book fair going on i need to be there more than that. so i've worked an extra 10.5 hours on top of the 7.5 that i usually work in a week, on top of my regular 40 hour job! today was the last day of the fair so i can get some sleep now, hopefully!!!

this weekend jeremy is running in the ky derby half marathon! the one I was late registering for ..... :(  anyway, we have a hotel in downtown louisville and are within walking distance of the start line.  However with all the rain, tornado watches/warnings, and floods we have had the past couple weeks we have heard some roads downtown might be closed.  i looked in the louisville paper and it said all is well, but i'm going to call the hotel to make sure everything is still ok.  i would hate to get up there and not be able to get to our hotel! 

i am looking forward to going to the expo on friday and cheering on j during the race!! i should be able to go to different spots on the course and see him.  but what i'm really excited about is there is going to be a hot air balloon glow friday night as part of the derby festivities! I LOVE HOT AIR BALLOONS! it was on my bucket list to ride in one.  a few years ago, during a festival one landed in the neighborhood i was in to watch them.  the guy was so nice and let kids go up in the balloon for free. he was still tethered to the ground but they went up 50 feet or so!  when all the kids had gone up, he asked if there was anyone else - so i raised my hand and jumped in!  that opened the floodgates for all the adults to go up. 

The balloon glow starts at 9 so it will be a little late for J since he is running the next morning, but i figure we can take a nap in between dinner and the glow and he should be good to go! if not, he can stay at the hotel bc i dont want to to miss the balloons....did i mention i love hot air balloons??? 

I'm a little worried about his race, due to moving and his brother and sister in law being in town (they live far away and we dont see them that often) his running has taken a back seat the past two weeks as well.  he ran today and ran twice last week.  so in reality he only skipped two runs total, so it's not too bad.  i think it's one of those mental things though where you think you aren't prepared even though you know you are.  

hope everyone has a good weekend! i'll have some pictures of the expo, J running, and of course of the hot air balloons up soon!

Introducing.....

my first nephew - Andrew Harrison Ellis!!

Andrew - just a few minutes old






  Needless to say the Jellybean 5k virtual race did not happen :(  Between unpacking, torrential downpours, tornado warnings the past two nights at 3am, waiting on Andrew to come at the hospital, and Easter it just didnt happen.  However,  I want to start anew with running this week.  Hoping to get back on track and schedule!

time to decorate

This week we have been busy moving in to our new house.  We have everything moved in, now it's just a matter of UNPACKING!!!  I thought having to move completely out in a short time period was bad, but unpacking and putting stuff where it goes is so much worse!!  We get started in one room and end up doing 10 different things in other rooms. 

Today the game plan was to start going room by room and getting them done so we dont get side tracked in other rooms.  This worked really well and we now have our bedroom liveable, minus clean sheets!  But that is being taken care of by mom (Thanks mom!!)  I think she's going to be sad to see us leave.  Jeremy is already betting that she'll cry when we move out.    Many people have asked how it's been moving back in with the parents but it hasn't been bad at all! I think we have all enjoyed it actually!

So now that we are putting stuff together it's time to start thinking about decorating!!!  I dont want to use my bathroom decor from the old house in our master bathroom, so it's going to the other full bathroom upstairs.  so that means I need new decor in the master bathroom.  The walls are a light beige color and the curtain that was left is a deep red.  We want to hang pictures that I took in Hawaii or that we have bought on vacation in the bathroom.  I was looking online and found the shower curtain and decor that I want to get!  It matches the red and is a Hawaiian theme as well!!!  What do you think? 

we wont buy all this, just the trashcan, toothbrush holder
and lotion dispenser which we would put soap in

 While I was looking at the bathroom stuff, I also happened to look at the wall art. We are going to need something to hang in our living room.  I found this great painting!!!  It combines two of my favorite things: polka dots and pugs!!  Jeremy unfortunately doesnt like it and says it's not coming into our house.  I think it might just find it's way there though....maybe not in the living room, but somewhere!!





Isn't it great?!

Running again has taken a back seat while the move and unpacking of the bazillion boxes occurs.  I signed up for the Jellybean 5k virtual race, so I am hoping to get out on saturday and get a run in.  

quarter miles

Last Friday I went out for a "long" run.  Long runs to me are not the same as long runs to others, considering i did a total of 4 miles.  the plan was to go longer but it was hot and having not done any real long runs in a month and a half it just didnt happen.  I went with a friend who is training for a half at the end of the month.  The plan was to run/walk on a 4/1 interval.  Unfortunately even that was too much for me.  So we walked quite a bit, but it was nice bc we were able to talk during it.  I had never ran with this person before and kept apologizing for all the walking.  She said it was no problem, but  I hope she will want to go agian with me some other time when I have gotten better at the "long runs".

Then due to the rainy weather, no treadmill at the parents, I had not run since last Friday until today.  The weather was great, mid 60's and sunny.  It was a little windy. Seems like the wind is blowing hard every time I have run here lately.  I warmed up .25 of a mile with a jog.  It felt good and was at a 11:13 pace.  Not too bad for me, I was expecting a 12-13 minute pace.  Since I am working on my 5k speed and using the program i found last week in an old runners world i had 4 quarter mile runs with 2 minutes walking in between scheduled.  the first three quarter miles were great, less than 11:00, which again for me is really good, then number four came and it was brutal.  Luckily it was only .25 of a mile, my time on that one was 11:53 :( slower than my .25 warm up....crazy!!! 

Over all I am very happy with how I did today, but a little frustrated that I get in a groove and run like i am supposed to one week, then the next week dont get out but once or twice or none at all.  I just can't keep the motivation going!  Any tips? 

Hot to Trot

Today was beautiful outside.  Sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and hot. This weather makes me dread the hot, humid days of summer! :(

Yes I'm going to say it "I already long for the 40-60 degree weather again". 

The high was only 70 but it felt much warmer, especially considering I was wearing a long sleeve tech shirt.  When I packed for the parents house for the next two weeks it was 30 degrees, wasn't thinking "oh I might need short sleeves in the next couple weeks!"  Luckily I had grabbed some running shorts to take with me but only because they were in my tshirt and lounging pants drawer. 

My "new" 5k plan called for run 20 minutes with 4 30 second strides, with 2 minutes walk in between, then run 5-10 minutes.  I didn't do it exactly the way it said too.  I ran for 15 minutes, then did 5 30 second strides, walking 2 minutes in between, only walking back to the car after the last one and no running at the end.

I used the lap button today to get my "fast" splits and what do you know? I ran FAST!  Well, fast for me anyways!!  Granted they were only 30 seconds long but I was able to do them in 8:46, 8:27, 9:03, 9:36, and 8:50!  Considering my average runs are between 13-14 minutes, I was floored by these times.  Still am if you can't tell!

If I can do that now at 55 pounds overweight just wait til I get the weight off or even part of it off!!

FYI - I started weight watchers this week to help me work on those pesky pounds.  So far it hasn't been too bad.  I find myself eating more fruit, since those are point free. 

Jeremy and I have almost 90% decided on our fall marathon (for him - his first) and half (for me). The Rock in Roll Savannah is the one that we are leaning towards.  A couple other bloggers are going to do it and a friend of a friend wants to do it and we are both trying to talk the mutual friend into it also! I think it would be a blast!  I'm also trying to get Twila to do it too, but she is planning on another one that same weekend instead :(

I feel the need.....the need for SPEED!!

Love that quote and Top Gun and Tom Cruise before his crazy days! 

Today happened to be my brother in law's weekly trip to visit with my niece and run with my husband.  I tagged along too bc i haven't ran in 2 weeks now and really need to get back to it. I was not feeling it at all but knew i needed to!  So I did what any good girl would do and went! so glad I did!

Winds were blowing at 22 mph.  There is no way that you can run with the wind the entire time. At some point you have to come back into the wind which makes running that much more difficult.

I took off and felt like I might need to use the bathroom so I ran in that direction which also happened to be with the wind.  I stopped my watch while I was in the bathroom and noticed that I had ran a .25 mile in a pretty good clip for me.  Huh, I have been meaning to do speed work..... why not run another .25 mile and try to keep that pace?  So I took off again, going with the wind and ran another .25 miles.  Stopped my watch again while I caught my breath. Took off again, this time I only made it about .15 before I stopped, then did .1. I did that (.15, then .1) 2 more times for a total of 1.25 miles. 

Granted it was broken up and I stopped my watch at the breaks which you shouldn't do, but I wanted to know what my pace during the sprint intervals was.  I went my best mile time by 20-30 seconds.  I haven't been able to get close to that time since December, so I was pretty pumped. 

When I got home I picked up the old runners world i had been reading circa 2007 or 2008. (One of the joy's of working at the librar! When they dicarded their old magazines last summer I was able to get 3-4 years worth of old Runner's Worlds) The article I was supposed to read next was one that had 2 plans to get faster at 5K's.  I read the first plan and was happy to know that minus the stopping - I did what I was supposed to!!!!  It said do 4 x 400's.  I did 2 x400 and 3 x (150 and 100) which I figure with the bruttle wind is close enough.  It also said to jog slowly for the 2 minutes in between each one, which I also didnt do bc I wanted my total time and speed for the fast part. 

Next time I'll add the 2 min jogging in and hit the lap button at my stopping points.  I didnt think about it til just now that that's what I should have done and it would have given me the fast and slow lap speeds.  Oh well, at least I know for next time!  If only stopping your watch at breaks was legal and would count in a race!!! 

Finally Friday!

What a week it has been! Here is a summary of our ups and downs.

+Monday we found out the people buying our house had been approved for their loan!
-found out we have to close on it by the end of march (Aka Thursday)
+people buying would let us stay til we could move into our new house, which would be a couple weeks
- found out wednesday, the day before we closed, buyers had changed their mind and we had to move completely out within two days after closing. :(.
+my parents offered to let us stay with them until we can move into our new house
-neither Jeremy or I can take off work this week to move
+family came and helped us pack and move. Twila and her husband let us use their trailer to move stuff in.

As of tonight we have everything but our bikes and a couple small things that still need to be moved to my parents house. It has been a whirl wind three days. So glad tomorrow is Saturday and we can relax and of course watch the KY wildcats play in the final four tomorrow!!

Running has been non existent this week. :(. Dieting went down the drain as well.. At least theres always next week!!