Day 28

Super fun/relaxing Sunday. I slept in, then caught the end of the women's marathon on TV (why couldn't I have been from Kenya?). Once the race was over it was time for my own run. What better way to end week four of marathon training than with a running party!?! Sarah, Katie, and I headed out for a 3 miler - I've been so lucky to have such good running company while Andy's away. I actually realized I haven't done a single run of my training program alone - well, I might end up running by myself on some of them, but they've all at least started with a friendly face! I wish I could bring all of my running peeps to the marathon. :)  Thanks to everyone for their support - it will still be needed for 12 more weeks!

Running Party!

After our run, I stuck around for Sarah's zumba class. Sarah - I'm glad you are back! And equally mad that you are leaving again so soon. ;) Then I headed home for a quick shower because I had to work at a stupid summer festival for job number one (standing at a booth talking to people = boring). But wait...wait... wait.... THUNDERSTORM!!! The festival got canceled and I didn't have to go!!

With my new found freedom I threw on sweats, plopped on the couch, and was sucked into the "Toddlers and Tiaras" vortex. I. could. not. stop. watching. But I did manage to fold some laundry and even make some protein bread, so I wasn't entirely unproductive. Somehow I managed to pull myself away from the world of glitz and headed off for zumba part 2 of my day. There was a special class led by a ZES (zumba educational specialist). It was a lot of fun and I definitely got sweaty enough that shower part 2 was necessary. 

Before I sign off for the night, I feel like I should provide a quick overview of my feelings on my first quarter of training. I'm very proud of myself for running all of the training runs - I did skip one, but it was only one mile long... you are supposed to do it every four weeks just to find out how fast you can go and monitor improvements. But I seriously don't think that one mile is going to make or break my marathon experience - Andy and I both felt it was so inconsequential that we didn't even schedule it in our week. I'm definitely feeling comfortable on 3-4 mile runs now. The long runs have been challenging, although the short breaks help. I'm getting nervous that I will want to take too many breaks as the long runs get longer. As far as food goes, I started out great, and then took a terrible turn for the worse... but now I am back on track and feel like I am going about it in a smarter way. I might not lose weight as quickly, but that is ok. Thankfully at the end of 4 weeks, the number is moving back in the right direction!

With these 4 weeks over, it's about to get intense.... My first double digit run is less than a week away.

Total Miles Run: 72.9
Total Weight Change: -3.7