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Okay... I'm back! Or at least I'll try to be.

I have been running really sporadically, but I decided that I am going to be more committed in September...and on August 30, a comment from Kelli popped up in my e-mail and I knew I had to get back to blogging to make myself accountable!

After I moved, it took forever to get phone/cable/internet hooked up in my house. Shortly after everything was hooked up, my computer started acting really funny... it wouldn't turn off for the longest time, and finally when I got it to turn off, it wouldn't turn back on! My husband mailed me our laptop so I wouldn't go crazy! That was in June. In July, we met up in Florida to go on a cruise. We spent about 2 weeks together then he headed back to his base and I headed back to "mine".

I love my neighborhood/town. There is a nice system of running/walking paths, but somehow I can only ever find routes that are 3-4 miles long! One day I was out running and I was sure I'd get 8 miles in, since I had absolutely no idea where I was...one turn and suddenly I was right outside my subdivision! I have a friend who is trying to start running too. She lives 2 miles away, so I run over to her house, walk with a few minutes of running with her, and then run home.

I'm happy to be back here! I'll have to spend some time later checking the other blogs (unfortunately, all of my bookmarks are on my broken computer!

Becca

Running in Okinawa for nearly 4 years has practically ruined my body's ability to run in the "COLD". Today it was around 60 when I started running and I was *freezing* in long sleeves! I think it felt just about the same as running in Okinawa in January! Definitely colder than running there in December! 

I didn't really feel like running, but I told myself I had to run at least a mile. (Knowing that of course I wouldn't stop once I hit a mile!) I figured I'd go 3-3.5 miles. I decided I would try a "new" route...all my new routes here end up being bits and pieces of routes I've run before with a little new stuff thrown in. 

I really don't know where I was or how I got back...but somehow I covered 7 miles! I kept recognizing parts, like the "Norfolk Terrier" restaurant and a little school that I'd run past before, but didn't really know how I ended up there. I tried remembering street names, and while I do remember some (Vicar's Lane, Anne Bartholomew Road, Byron Walk, Churchill Road, etc.) I am not sure I'd know how to get there on purpose. I'd really like to replicate this route sometime, because it's hard for me to get runs that total more than 3-4 miles without a ton of backtracking. If I manage to do this run again, I'll be really happy. Shocked, but happy!

It's a little bit misleading to say that I ran 9 miles today. I "covered" 9 miles today...there, that's better. A friend of mine wants to start running, "from scratch", and so I'm helping her along, mostly in a motivating, "I'll be knocking on your door at 8, so you better be ready to hit the pavement" kind of way. Most of the run is still walking at this point, but I can see her improving already and soon we'll get to go for a run with a few walk breaks thrown in instead of a walk with some running here and there! I run to her house from mine, which is about 2 miles away, then we walk/run, then have a glass of water and a little chat then I run back home. There are several ways I can get to her house from mine. Some are slightly over 2 miles, some are slightly under 2 and I can never seem to remember which are which! So sometimes there's some zig-zagging or backtracking at the end of my run so I can get to a nice round number as far as mileage goes. Today I was 1.9 when I got to her house, 4 miles of run/walk (mostly walk... about 10 minutes of run, which is more than last week, so we're happy!), and 3.1 coming back. Not quite sure how I managed that!

Anyway, tonight I think I might go make a second attempt at finding a running group that I know meets Tuesday and Thursday evenings as well as Sunday mornings in the next town over. I tried once before to meet up with them, and even though I was in the right place (they meet at a local gym and I checked with the girl at the desk) at the right time (I didn't want to get left behind, so I got there 30 minutes early, and I wanted to wait to make sure other people weren't just running late, so I stayed about 40 minutes after the meeting time!) but there wasn't a group of runners in sight! That was a few months ago and I'm ready to give it another try.

Another misleading mileage report! Ran 4 and mostly walked 5.75

My friend is doing pretty well with her new running routine. This was our 4th time going out, and she ran 3 minutes more than yesterday...and probably 9 or 10 minutes more than our first time last week! I ran to her house and was running late, so you know what that means...had to run faster! I took a route that was pretty close to exactly 2 miles and the time for the 2nd mile was 8:15! We walked for about 10 minutes before starting to run a little bit every other "lap". We just kept going around and around the AF base housing in our town (even though the base is 20 minutes away!) There's not much traffic (vehicles or pedestrians) and I think my friend likes doing laps because she can tell if she ran farther than the time before. Ordinarily, this would be really boring, but she's easy to talk to, so I barely noticed that walking around in half-mile circles for over an hour! 

Stopped for a glass of water and a long chat at her house, then ran the last 2 miles home.

Tomorrow night is the next meeting of the running group. On Thursdays they do some kind of repeats/hills/intervals and I haven't done any of that in a loooong time, so I'm still debating whether or not to go. Especially because most of the people that were at the group yesterday won't be there as they're running a half-marathon in France on the weekend. But I think I should probably just go for it!

Another run that ended up a bit longer than anticipated, thanks to my lack of directional skills! 

I was going to go out for 3 on Saturday afternoon, but tried a "new way" home. I was right near my house, but there was a lot of traffic and I'm just not confident crossing the street at round-abouts when there's a lot of traffic, so I went a different way and ended up wandering around a neighborhood I hadn't been in before! Oh well! 

Ran with my friend this morning...she is really improving! On the last run we did last week, the total run time was 12:45...today it was 15:30! She ran for 4:05 straight minutes. I'm feeling very proud of her...on the first day we went out, I think she made it about 54 seconds. 

   I felt so good running the two miles to her house that I decided to push myself just a little bit. And on the way home, I decided to push myself too instead of just dallying around like I tend to do. I had cereal for breakfast this morning and a big glass of water when we got back to my friend's house, and my stomach felt a little weird, but it didn't bother me too much. I think I will try to make it to the running group tomorrow night, and I have plans to do another run/walk with my friend on Wed. 

mile 1- 8:40, mile 2- 8:00 mile 8- 8:40 mile 9-8:03

4 miles with my new running group tonight. It was getting dark so we had to cut our run through the forest trails short. I really like the people in the group! Met 2 new people last night and they were telling me about places I should go on the coast... I am especially interested in the section of the coast where there is a colony of seals!! Neat! 

My Garmin wasnt ready when we started running, so my mileage was off, but one of the other guys had us at 4.3 miles. There is a timed 5k on Thursday that I will try to make it to. The guy that plans out the speed workouts said that there was only one other person who showed up last Thursday! But he said that the 5ks typically get more of a crowd. We shall see!

I can't decide if I like the way my mileage looks so high because I feel kind of like I'm coming about it dishonestly! 6 miles of today was a run/walk with my friend. She is up to 16 minutes of running, her longest interval was 4:18 I think and her shortest was 3:27. She's come a long way from 3 weeks ago, that's for sure!

I felt really good running to her house and even knocked out an 8:09 2nd mile! But coming home I was feeling just a bit lazy, chilly, and my left knee was kind of creaky. I went on a new trail that I haven't been on before and was going to run a little further, but saw what I really thought was a tent set up in the distance. The trail is in a woodsy/field area and pretty isolated, so I decided to head home rather than get closer to the tent. I don't really think I had anything to be afraid of, but I'd rather check out the remainder of that trail sometime with a partner, or at least when somebody is home waiting for me and will notice if I go missing! :) My husband is coming to visit in just over a month, so maybe I can drag him out there!

The third Thursday of each month is 5k day at the running group. Only 3 people including me showed up to run, so I wasn't sure how motivated I would be to crank out a quick 5k!

The guy who was timing for the night asked me where I expected I'd finish and I told him around 25:00. The last 5k I ran in the states this summer was around 24:45 or 24:50 (over some hills) and I wasn't sure I would match that without the raceday adrenaline, people for "pacing and chasing", the crowd at the finish line, etc. They also usually do their 5ks with "handicapping" so in theory everyone finishes at just about the same time, but since there was such a small # of us, and since I was new, they decided to just let us all start together.

I didn't know the course, which was luckily just 3 3/4 laps, so I started out kind of fast in order to keep the other 2 guys in my sights and know where to turn during the first lap! I wasn't as concerned during the second lap, although I did stay pretty close, but started falling behind after that. The guy who was timing stood at the finish (different spot than the start) and told me, "One more lap". Of course I totally overanalyzed this... I kept thinking, "I wonder if he means one more lap once I get to the starting point and then back here to the finish, or if that means I'm done next time I get to the finish marker. Oh I really hope he means just get back here, but I don't want to get my hopes up and think I'm almost done when I'm not!" During the last lap, I had a big cramp in my right side that I couldn't breathe out (maybe from thinking too hard about the interpretation of "one more lap"...or maybe from the 5 fun-sized Snickers bars I had eaten earlier in the day!). So as I was coming around the 2nd to last corner, I was thinking, "I'd better see those guys standing around the finish line... I don't want to go around again!" Silly me, I could've just looked at my Garmin and saw that by the time I was at the 2nd to last corner, I was about 2.8 miles in!

My finishing time was 23:26 and my Garmin had it accurately measured at 3.1 miles. 7:10, 7:38, 7:56, and 0:41 for the .1 (7:19 pace)/average 7:34 pace! I don't know how I pulled that one off!

I don't know how far behind the other guys I was, but I'm guessing it couldn't have been more than a minute or a minute and a half. I was the only female to show up last night, and the timing guy told me based on their old times that I am going to be the fastest gal in running group.

By the way, did you know that Friday, September 18 is National Run at Work day? Too bad I don't have a job! But I will be running at the gym and watching Survivor! I'm a total Survivor geek and it doesn't come on my home cable.

Survivor started today, and so did my "Survivor Fitness Plan". All it involves is getting on the treadmill for an hour every Friday (or Sunday for the re-broadcast) so I can watch Survivor on the Armed Forces Network. Since I live off base, I have British cable, and I haven't been able to find Survivor. Since I absolutely CAN NOT miss an episode of Survivor, I watch it at the gym on base.

I ran 6 miles on the treadmill, averaging a 9:05 pace. I ran between 9:05 and 9:22 during Survivor, and sped up to 8:something paces during the commercial breaks. The thing about watching Survivor at the gym is that I really need to focus on controlling my Survivor-related outbursts! ;)

I walked a half mile afterward, mostly so I could calm myself down after the person who I wanted to win the whole thing was first voted off!