The hockey pictures aren’t done yet, but the important ones are, at least. Those would be the ones that had to go to the printer to be put in the program book so that it can be done for our first game this Saturday. In addition to the standard team photos and individual photos, I also put together something pretty special for each of the players. I haven’t seen them, but I hope they turn out! As soon as I get them back, assuming they don’t look like crap, I will show them off. 🙂
I spent most of my weekend working on those pictures, but in between, I had plenty going on. I had Friday off work, which was very helpful. Because of the time change and the day off, I actually did something I haven’t done in months: ran in the daylight! It was even a sunrise run, and it was pretty cool.
That last one is of a flag in my neighborhood, which I thought was fitting, since it was Veterans Day. Thank you to all of our veterans, who do so much for each and every one of us!
Friday night, JJ had a hockey game, and I had fun taking pictures. It’s always fun when they win, right?
Saturday morning, I enjoyed another great run with my girlfriends. This was the first time in a long while that all four of us had been able to meet for a Saturday morning run. Since no one had anywhere to be until the afternoon, we unanimously decided to sleep in and not meet until 7 AM! We ended up meeting in Flat Rock and running the trail that connects to Oakwoods Metropark. It was quite cold, around 27 degrees when we started, and there was a lot of frost. The sun rose as we ran, and Toddra actually stopped in mid-conversation to point out how beautiful the trees looked as the rising sun came up to bathe them in light. Since we’ve had a lot of warm weather here in southeast Michigan, there are still a lot of leaves on the trees, and it was truly beautiful.
Toddra only wanted to run an hour, but I had to run 90 minutes, according to Katie’s training plan. Since the three of them had driven together, I left them back at the cars after an hour and then branched out on my own. I ran once around the park there in downtown Flat Rock by the river, and then I headed out into the neighborhoods. I snapped a few pictures while I was in the park:
Right after I took that last one, my phone just decided to die. I think it was a combination of having too many apps open and the cold weather. My iPhone (or at least, the battery) does not seem to like the cold.
When I hit the 90-minute mark, I was at 7.82 miles. I don’t consider myself OCD, but knowing that I was that close to 8 miles, I just couldn’t let it go. So I ran around the block one more time. 😉
And there you go, 8 miles on a frosty Saturday morning. It’s still kind of blows my mind that I’m running 7 or 8 miles to train for a 6.2 mile race. 😛 But I suppose the idea is that running that distance at an easy pace will help build my endurance to run 6.2 miles fast.
Speaking of 6.2 miles, aka a 10K, my race is this coming Sunday. I am not going to lie: I’m getting nervous. 😮 That’s the thing about telling everyone that you have a goal for your race; if you don’t make it, everyone will know!! But I feel like I need to continually try to improve my running capabilities, so it makes sense to shoot for a sub-60, which is only 54 seconds faster than my best 10k so far. We’ll see. If I don’t make it, it’s not the end of the world, but I sure would like to!
On the other hand, I’m excited about doing the Chocolate Run, and specifically, the Chocolate Double! That’s the 10K plus the 5K, and you don’t just get the two medals for the individual races; you also get an extra special medal for running both. And you know, that’s worth, like… um, well actually nothing. 😉 But I’m gonna do it anyway, just because I can. AND because Jamie agreed to run the 5K with me. The Chocolate Run remains Jamie’s favorite race memory, after the extremely hard work he put forth to earn his 10K PR. You can read that story here. Gosh, it’s hard to believe that was three years ago! There will be no PR for either of us at the 5K this year, because he hasn’t been running much (he’s been very active in hockey), and as for me, I personally expect to jog it after running hard for 6 miles beforehand. So, we will take it slow and easy, and we’ll probably walk more often than usual. The 5K for us isn’t about time… it’s about the experience of running together again. And the chocolate, of course. 😉
As far as my weight goes, I did not have the best weekend. I started out the week really well. With all the speed work and the long runs I’ve been doing, I’ve actually had a lot of calories left over. This past weekend, however, I spent a lot of time in front of the computer, processing and editing pictures, and computer time is my downfall. It’s just so hard not to snack when you’re spending hours in front of the computer. :/ Sunday, I totally fell off the wagon, mostly because I was up until 2 AM trying to get the pictures finished, because they had to be at the printer that morning at 9. I tracked it all, but it wasn’t pretty. Nor was my weigh-in the next morning.
Ouch. So much for my awesome loss the week before. But that’s OK, one bad weekend isn’t going to kill me, and I am back on track. I do need to be careful what I eat, though, because this is a step back week before the race, and I’m not earning many calories at all. Darn it. 😛
Thanks for reading!
