Scary Mornings and Boxes of Love

Today's run: 4 miles
Week to date: 17 miles
Month to date: 9 miles (pleh... I really dislike it when the new month starts in the middle of the week!)

So, yesterday was kind of a strange day. I wasn't planning on running anyway, but even if I had, I don't know if I would have made it out. See, my morning was spent glued to the computer, constantly refreshing the Facebook page for the local station back in Marquette. The long and short of it is that there was a threat to the University found on a website, and someone called campus to warn them of what they saw. Here's the link to one of the articles talking about it (it even made CNN, you never see anything about the Upper Peninsula on there!) Scary stuff, but things are OK now. They reopened campus today after making 110% sure that everyone would be safe and they were sure the threat had passed.
All I have to say is that I'm very proud of how my alma mater and the surrounding community handled everything, and I am especially proud of all the students today who held their heads high, sported the school colors, and went back to class and on with their lives. It's always a great day to be a Wildcat!
I even hung my flag back up for the first time since Brandon and I moved in together.

I thought about running in my hockey jersey today, but in the end I decided not to, I just layered on as many green, gold, or NMU related items as I could. (And the All-Star toque, just because.)
In other news, early yesterday afternoon I got a big box of love from home! After spending the morning freaked out, it felt amazing to feel the love:

Look at all the goodness here! Coach Mom is the GREATEST! New shirts, Valentines' Day goodies, munchies (including my favorite cereal, Quaker Oatmeal Squares, and a bunch of Larabars!), and my TRAINING PLAN!!
The plan Coach Mom wrote for me looks amazing. It's nice this time to have a more concrete plan to follow (even if winging it was fun), and I'm really excited that it's finally training time! I had so much fun last time around, I hope it's the same way this time! And, with this, I'll do my longest run ever (14 miles) and my biggest week mileage wise ever (30 miles, the first week of May.) Looking at the calendar I was given, though, I'm already in week 1. But after a panicked phone call home, I was told not to worry about it, and I'm going to finish what I had planned for this week and jump in at week 2 on Monday.

Fortunately, my plan for this week and what I have written on my training plan for this week match fairly well. I had a 4 miler planned for myself today, and that's what Coach Mom wrote, too, and same with the 6 miler on Saturday. The only difference is that I don't have a run written on the plan for tomorrow, and I was planning on doing another 5.

Have you ever had Larabars? Which one is your favorite?
I'm a fan of the Cherry Pie one, myself. I had the Banana Bread one yesterday and it was awesome, too!

Welcome February!

Today's run: 5 miles
Week to date: 13.4 miles
Month to date: 5 miles
Happy February, everybody!
I can't lie, I'm very happy to turn the page on the calendar today. For some reason, it always feels good to leave January behind and move in to this month. Perhaps it's because it's one month closer to spring? Who knows, but even though January was a good if not completely crazy month for me, I'm ready for the adventures February will bring!

For everyone dealing the the Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse/SnOwMG storm rolling through the country, I'd like to show you what I have going on outside today:

And the people of the Northland rejoice--"For once, it's not us!!"
To be fair, though, this is what I saw when I started to get ready to run this morning:

Brrr...
I knew I had to get out today. No excuses. Besides, Coach Mom gave me this advice just after the last cold snap:

running outside in the extreme cold is okay if you dress correctly....many many layers...it just isn't much fun!

That in mind, I just decided to wait until I saw a positive air temp. Baby steps, all, baby steps.
This won for "Good enough" after I checked the weather every 4 minutes for the next hour:

I remembered Coach Mom's sage advice about layers, and I picked some fun ones for the usual wardrobe pick me up. Bundle up!

(Yup--you can take the girl out of Michigan, but you can't take Michigan out of the girl!!) No worries, I wore far more than this, but I loved the combination of these two. How can you not feel like a total champ sporting the winged wheel and the famous All-Star toque?

I walked to my new starting point and did a slooooooow 5 miler. I had originally planned 4, but I went in to lala land while running, and when I snapped out of it I was practically at the turn around for 5. Whooops! It's a good start to February though, eh?
I had a moment of divine intervention (or at least I hope...) on the way home. I knew we had no dessert type options left in the apartment, and with the path I'm on lately that's unacceptable. I carried $1.00 in change planning on snagging some M&M's from the skywalk vending machine.
Ready for this: the M&M's were $1.50! Whhhaaaaa?? I didn't feel like turning around to head back to the Snyders down the street, so I opted out of my candy fix. Hopefully, this is some kind of divine move telling me that I will come across something better than vending machine candy... if not I'm going to be a sad lady.

Any fun plans for your February?
I start training for my next half on the 7th, and next weekend the fiance and I are headed back to Houghton for Michigan Tech's Winter Carnival! It's something hard to explain, so check out the link!

Have a great day!

11/30/10--Out of the box...

Today's run: 3.08 miles
Week to date: 7.08 miles
Month to date: 40.68 miles

Another month complete! I thought it would be interesting to look at my monthly totals, so here they are:
January: 18.1
February: 16
March: 4 (Oh goodness...)
April: 37
May: 45.76
June: 26
July: 69.4
August: 70
September: 32.1
October: 35.1
November: 40.68

Yeah, I realize that most of those monthly totals are some people's WEEKLY totals, but that's OK. This is my journey, and even the smallest of those is better than what I had been doing before 2010. So, while they're not stellar compared to some, I'm proud, especially of from April on. It just shows how far I've come this year, and it makes me want to keep going.

Anyway, on to today's adventure!
The weather:

And the outfit: 

(Yup!! I decorated the apartment yesterday!)

And, it has made its triumphant seasonal return: the All-Star Toque! 

I had some fun while ransacking my winter clothes stash to find this hat:

First, I found my Grandpa's band jacket.

And then I found mine!

Then, I found something that is NOT mine, and that I do NOT approve of.

Eventually, I stopped playing with PhotoBooth and decided to, you know, actually go for a run.

I noticed on my drives to and from town yesterday and today that the shoulder of the highway was probably going to be my safest bet for running for a while. They were surprisingly clear, and it's not like it's a terribly busy stretch anyway. 

There was a bit of climb involved, too.

And boy, did I feel that coming back! It wasn't anything daunting, but just enough to feel.

I felt much safer today than I did yesterday. I don't think this will be a run I try right after a snowfall, but knowing HoCo, I think this will be safer than trying the streets in Houghton overall. Plus, the hills will only make me stronger in the end, right?

OK--time for breakfast! I had a basically empty peanut butter jar in the cupboard that I was saving just for some Oats-in-a-jar! :D

Have a great day, all!

4/17/10

Today's run: 5 miles

Week to date: 12 miles

Month to date: 19 miles

Yesterday, the run didn't happen. The carpool didn't leave and I didn't get home early enough to be able to run, shower, and get to work at the arena on time. Sad times.

Today, I made up for it. I KNEW today was going to be my long run for the week, but I was thinking 4 miles. However, I got motivated. I saw that my friends over at Team Baby Dinosaurhad just completed a 5 mile run (and congrats, you two! That's awesome!) And, I thought, "Well, Lindsey Ann, if they can, don't you think you can, too?" Of course I can!

Part two of the motivation came today. I saw the weather--cold, gloomy, windy as heck, generally gross. I KNEW I needed to run, but the motivation was SEVERELY lacking. So, I texted Coach Mom and Running Club Pres Little Sister with the following:

"It's cold and windy and gross outside and I don't wanna run. Tell me something motivating so I don't slack, please."

About 45 minutes later, Little Sister and a good chunk of her running club friends called me. Lots of "just go do it", "just get outside and do something", "you'll always regret the times you don't run, but you'll never regret the times you do", and "Go, Fifi, go! Go, Fifi, go!" (Old nickname, don't ask). Awesome. So awesome!

I needed one more boost, though. And, since it was cold, I knew just the thing:

All Star toque! :D Look at me, all fired up!

So, I set out. I took it SLOW. I wasn't worrying about time, I was just shooting to finish this. It was windy. It was cold. But I just didn't care. It was actually quite fun. And, at no point did I think, "whoa, I'm not going to be able to finish this." I was in a bit of pain--my knees started to bug me around mile 3, but nothing bad where I couldn't keep going.

And, I did it! No post-run photos, because I called my sister as soon as I cooled down (she had some, ahem, "recipe" questions for me.)

OK, I need some food, and goodness gracious do I need a shower! Have fun, kids!