Just. Keep. Running.

It's been a while since my last post. That stinker called Life, just got in the way. Life has a way of doing that sometimes....

Quick recap:
My blog had a small feature on the front page of the Fitness section in the Sunday paper about 4 weeks ago. Booya! I'm legit now! Kidding!!!.. I'm far from being a fitness guru or running expert but it's nice to get some recognition for what I'm doing, PLUS get a little extra traffic to the blog. Hopefully, I could inspire someone. anyone. to get off the couch.

I've also started this eating clean challenge. It's nothing that I've joined or am doing with a group, but it's just something that I've challenged myself to do. Basically, cutting out all processed foods, salts, artifical sugars -- essentially I have to make every meal I make from scratch. Sunday, is now my food prep day, along with my long run training day. I'll spend a few hours in the kitchen preparing foods to eat for the next 3 days & then my next prep day is Wednesday. It seems like it's time consuming, but it really is a time saver because I don't have to figure out what to eat, what to cook, or God forbird, stop by a drive thru! *gasp* I just pull out my carefully prepared meal outta the fridge and I am good to go :) It hasn't been as hard as I thought it would be and I do have my weak moments where cave and have a handful of chocolate chips or half a bag of chips. But I'm only human and I just enjoy my little "cheat" and then get right back on track!

 

I've still managed to continue my training runs and my workouts at the Cave. I had a week where in dealing with some family sickness, the stress caught up to me and I managed to get myself sick as well. I missed about a week total of sweat sessions, but thankfully I kicked my cold to the curb pretty quickly and I was back at it! 

Yesterday, my training buddy and I had to log 9 miles. She just became under the weather too and I was dreading the run. For some reason, once I start having to get in 7+ miles in, I just don't look forward to the runs anymore. BUT, to my surprise we kicked some major @$$ on the run! We're still slow; about a 12:30 min mile but we ran 85% of the course and a few of the times we stopped were due to #runnerproblems but an 1:48 later -- we had our 9 miles in. Which is MINDBLOWING to me! I think back to my last half in December, ONLY 3 months ago and I am such a stronger runner now than I was then. At the pace we went yesterday, we would kill our next half at a little over 2:40. That is practically, 30 minutes faster than I ran in December! **happy dance**

Just a little under 3 weeks until the Tyler Azelea 10k! I plan on PR'ing over my previous time of 1:19. Keepin' my eye on the prize! Happy running!