New Year, Same Me, Hopefully Some More Posts

It's 2019! I am excited for a new year and a new semester, but I am even more excited that I woke up this morning well-rested. I have had the worst cold since Friday. I've basically been in bed for days, and it was a legit struggle to stay awake at dinner last night. I spent my New Year's Eve exactly how I wanted to spend it - having dinner with my best friend - and then I was home and in bed with the pups by 10 PM. I just wish this cough and the rain would finally stop!

No hangover for this girl this morning.

First Long Run in About 2 Years

I signed up to run a Hotlanta Half course preview last Saturday. I figured it was a great way to get myself to complete a long run. I got a little nervous as Saturday approached; I hadn't run 10 miles since I completed my last half marathon on November 8, 2014.

So I wake up at 5:45 AM on Saturday in an attempt to kind of recreate race day conditions. I needed to leave the house between 6:45 AM and 7 AM to make it to Big Peach Running Co. on time. Back before I had two dogs, I would have been able to wake up at 6:40 AM and make it out the door on time. Now I dragging two dachshunds around in the dark asking them to go potty. After the troops were pooped, fed, and watered, I ate some raspberries and drank a protein shake. Then I neurotically peed a few times and headed on my way.

The Big Peach's midtown location is 1.8 miles away from my house. I ran/jogged/walked over there and sadly my GPS didn't pick up. I didn't realize I didn't connect to the satellites until a mile into the group run. We started and ended in the same location, but Garmin shows the start as somewhere near Georgia Tech's campus. The nice thing about the Garmin Forerunner 630 is that it continues to track your mileage without the GPS, unlike my 305. I lost so many miles to that damn thing.

Atlanta Dogwood Festival Mimosa 5K

The boyfriend and I ran a 5K a couple of weekends ago. We'd been talking about running a race together and chose the Atlanta Dogwood Festival Mimosa 5K because of it's location. We live right near Piedmont Park so it was super easy to walk to the starting line.

That 8 AM start time kind of sucked. It's been pretty warm in Atlanta this month but the high for April 9 was 62 degrees. It was like 40 degrees when we woke up. Even though it was cold, I decided to wear my brown Oiselle Roga shorts. I love these running shorts and I got them for a sick discount because apparently no one but me wants poop brown shorts. Last summer, I went to our local running store to try a pair on and I had to size up from the size 6 because they were too small for my booty. I bought the size 8 but had to tie them tight around the waist. Now that I've lost weight, the waistband is getting too large and I might have to accept that Roga shorts aren't made for runners with small waists and large bums. I completed the outfit with a Fabletics long-sleeved tech top and my Saucony racing flats.

Row. Tone. Om.

Last Saturday I went to Row. Tone. Om. in Piedmont Park. It was a 90 minute circuit class combining Orangetheory, Pure Barre Virginia Highland, and Highland Yoga.

A Fantastic Week

So last Thursday I went on a date with this guy I met on Tinder. I'm terrible at dating because if given too much time (aka any more than 20 minutes from the start of the date), I start coming up with excuses not to go. It was raining, and I was tired from work, and I was hungry and we were supposed to have drinks and then I was trying to eat while simultaneously putting on makeup, and I was totally going to bail. I am so incredibly happy that I did not. We had the best time. And one week later, we've had six dates.

Thoughts on Love During a Long Run

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (Corinthians 13:4-7)

Today I ran the long run I skipped last Friday in favor of watching The Young and the Restless in bed with my dog. Spectacular idea at the time and I felt pretty good on my run today. I had 8 miles to cover before my Pure Barre class at noon. I left a little bit after 9:30 AM and headed south on the Eastside Beltline Trail.

I had to run 4 more miles after the Beltline so I hit up Piedmont Park

Intervals on the Active Oval

I woke up on Sunday and couldn't lift my arm. If it didn't hurt so badly, I would have thought I was paralyzed. It turns out that I did something to my rotator cuff when I reached behind my driver's seat looking for my pocketbook the day before. Yup, I have injured myself through my own laziness because I wouldn't get out of the car to look for my purse. I blame my passengers for forcing my pocketbook to relocate to the backseat floor in the first place.

On Monday I woke up in excruciating pain. I managed to dress myself and get to CVS for Icy Hot patches and Advil. I really wanted to make it to CrossFit that evening because the WOD was everything I like: clean and jerks, cleans, shoulder to overheads, doubleunders, wallballs (eh maybe not wallballs), but my arm just didn't feel right. I decided to get over to the Active Oval and complete the interval run from my half marathon training plan that I have been putting off for weeks.

I ran from my apartment to the Active Oval and that conveniently took care of my 1 mile warm up. Then I ran fast for 30 seconds and recovered for 60 seconds sixteen times. I'll be honest, some of those 1 minute recovery jogs were more like stumbling around like a drunk walks. Most of my 30 second runs were at 7:09 or 6:15 pace. Once was an outlier at 8:20 but that was when the timer went off in the middle of me chugging water from my almost empty bottle. It was pitiful looking. Georgia is hot.

Day 1 of Half Marathon Training

Today I trained twice - CrossFit in the morning and running in the evening. I even looked forward to running after work. I found a plan on the half marathon website that was made by a running coach who has a L1 cert and therefore is trustworthy. The plan includes CrossFit twice a week, but since that's not enough to feed my addiction, I played around with it and some days I have two workouts. The plan called for a 45 minute easy run and that's about a 9 minute mile for me if I'm really taking it easy.

super excited to go run around in the humidity instead of going to bed

I ran 20 minutes along the Beltline and turned around when I hit another road. I then ran back and into Piedmont Park. A ton of porta-potties are all lined up. I'm not sure if they're for the Peachtree Road Race on Friday or leftover from today's giant USA soccer party.

Atlanta Pride Run 2014

Yesterday I ran the 2014 Atlanta Pride Run and Walk 5K. It was my first 5K race in 2014 and the only short distance I've raced since the Oyster Bay Thanksgiving Turkey Trot. I came in first in my age group and in 6th for women. My time was 23:41.20, not my fastest 5K time by any means, but it was hot, there were a lot of hills, and everyone was talking about how slowly they ran (even the sub-20 finishers.) I'm feeling good about my time. Even while I was running the race, I thought about how I needed to reset my expectations because I have never raced in Atlanta before.

The race was held in Piedmont Park and I live right there so I walked over. I was hoping there would be baggage check so I didn't have to run with my iPhone and keys but I was out of luck. I imagine baggage check is unnecessary when most participants drive to the race. Thankfully I had thought to wear my iFitness running belt.

Run in Piedmont Park

I finally went for a run here in Atlanta. Today's weather is a bit bleak but the cool overcast weather is perfect for running.

We're staying at the Regency Suites right next to our office in Midtown Atlanta. I asked the friendly folks at the front desk to recommend a running route and they told me to run down 10th Street towards Piedmont and then I would see the park.

According to Wikipedia, "Piedmont Park is a 189-acre urban park in Atlanta, Georgia, located about 1 mile northeast of Downtown, between the Midtown and Virginia Highland neighborhoods."

According to me, Piedmont Park is lovely.

the entrance I found

I wasn't looking to do any amazing run. My 50 miler is Saturday so this was more a get moving because you are slowly becoming one with your hotel bed run.

I found a dog park and watched the puppies play. Then I found this trail path and decided to see where it led me. It led me back to the dog park.

I got a little lost and confused about where I had entered. I found an exit and then figured out I had exited on the opposite side of the park. It was easy to figure out where I needed to go to get back to my hotel so I wasn't concerned.

Including my photo shoots, shoe retying, music fiddling, and GPS mapping, I ran 3.70 miles in 37:54 minutes.

hotel mirror shot - wouldn't be a business trip without one