I finally did it.

I wrote the rest of this post first, hoping that I could come up with an awesome introduction. A welcome back statement I guess. But I couldn't so here's whats up:

I have endometriosis. I had surgery two years to check it out and it sucks. I was taking birth control to regulate my periods and by regulate I mean make them non-existent. Perfect world right? NOT. Over the holidays my body started responding negatively to my birth control and lack of period. After 10 weeks of straight up being miserable, I am finally back to feeling better! I am looking into different kinds of treatment and working with a doctor up here to hopefully get this disorder back under control. 

I dedicated the entire month of March to re-evaluating my health. I have done a lot of research and can't wait to share some of changes I'll be making in my life with you guys. MMR has been a huge help and support system and did hours of research with me - now that's love.

With my endometriosis, my running has taken a back seat. Actually, all exercising had taken a back seat. This week was my first full week back to working out. Robie is officially less than two weeks away. This weekend should have been my first of the taper weeks, but instead it's peak week.

Since life happens, my goal for my first race of the season is to HAVE FUN. It's going to be tough, I'm going to be sore, and driving 6 hours the day after is going to be pure torture. But if I've learned anything these last few weeks - my body can handle it. My body was built to do tough things. I'm going to focus on recovery so I can hopefully race a few weeks later!

Now for the biggest news....I BOUGHT MY OWN DOMAIN NAME AND WEB HOSTING SERVICE! I have big dreams that I am finally rolling into motion. Please bear with my while I work on switching things over. It is a HUGE HUGE HUGE learning process.

I need to go get ready for my long run - it's super windy here so I'm going to do my favorite loop and then I might take the rest of the run inside. I actually wish I could roll my treadmill into the living room so I can watch the rest of the Nashville season I have on my DVR.

It's late and I refuse to give up on my streak

As my title suggests, it's a little late for me to start a blog post, but that's not going to stop me! I am on a roll here, I have posted every day for a week. Go me, go me!

I am 99.99999999% sure I caught MMR's sickness. I will find out tomorrow exactly how bad its going to be :( . I ALMOST went the whole winter without getting sick. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Happy Lent! Today I went to church and got my Ashes - it's Ash Wednesday for us Catholics.Today it was kind of neat, I went to Subway after the service and my sandwich artist asked me how mass was.

Then I got to class and I had a couple people tell me I had dirt on my forehead like I had no idea ; ). What I really liked about people asking and making comments about my dirty forehead was that I got to talk about my faith, which I rarely do with people outside of my family. In the tradition of Lent I was going to give up something but instead I am going to change a few things in my life, trust me - you will hear all about my progress. The message from mass today was really powerful and really helped me put life in perspective.

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Today I took a rest day due to my bubbling sickness. Hopefully I don't regret that tomorrow. I went for a run yesterday and my calves were so tight. I did 4 miles with an average pace of 11:19. Works for me. I did it on the treadmill at home. It turned into a decent day right before I walked into my Spanish class, then boom I came out and it was raining. I am trying so hard to love my treadmill, but yesterday it took all of the motivation mantras I know to keep me going. I don't have any cool pictures from my run, except this one, when I realized by the time I tell you guys about this I got nothing to show for it...

Eventually I'll have some neat outside pictures of my runs, promise.

One of my motivation mantras was - "Papa Murphys is cooking in your oven, run faster".

Dude just begged me to let him wear my headband. I caved, but only for 6 minutes. Goooodnight!

When to throw it out the window

So for this upcoming race, I've decided to throw my training plan out the window, kind of. I originally wanted to run a couple races before Robie to help give me my grand number of 14 races. I will not be running the two races before Robie. Robie Creek is a beast and I want to make sure I have fresh legs. I got injured the last time I raced extreme hills and I want to make sure that doesn't happen again.

For Christmas I got The Runners World Big Book of Marathon and Half Marathon Training. I have almost read all of it and it was really helpful in learning and understanding the fundamentals of running. This is where I picked my training plan to start with, and they have some really good ones in here.

Like I said before, I am switching out speed for hills, but I am also going to play with the mileage. My body hasn't really been eased into running high mileage per week. I've decided that I will keep my shorter runs between 3 and 4 miles. My weekly mileage for this first race will range from 14 miles (last weeks mileage), and the highest will be in a couple weeks with 23 miles. I am working on/doing research on what I should be doing between my races, as June and July are looking pretty busy.

I love following training plans, but I end up getting a little obsessive and negative when I miss a work out. This does nothing for the training process, and quite frankly it makes me not want to race. I will be setting up mini goals each week which will have my workouts I need to complete. There will be no days or dates tied to the workouts. That way I've still planned workouts but still have wiggle room for when life happens. Here's what this week looks like:

Know what else I throw out the window?! Matching socks! I hate that part of the laundry, so I got into this nasty habit of throwing them in bags so I can sort them later. Sunday I caved - they were overflowing, and I realized I needed to stop being a lazy housewife. I matched as many as I could, and downsized to a small bags one for me and one for MMR :)

I have some serious spanish homework and a Papa Murphys Pizza calling my name (thank goodness for college coupons and pennies in the couch cushions because I did not want to cook tonight). Adios!