I'm Part of the BEST OF THE BLOGS on Title Nine!

Title Nine Sports, a great company that sells amazing athletic clothes for women, requested to publish part of my running blog on their Best Of the Blogs webpage! I was really honored that they would even ask! Jen is on it too! You can check it out HERE. Or you can go directly to my page HERE.

I think I am excited mainly because I am hoping it will generate more traffic here from other runners that can inspire ME! I am needing some of that inspiration right now! I am having some heavy decisions to make concerning the marathon in September in the next day or two. I am afraid the decision has already been made due to my lack of hard training this summer. I realize now that summer is a hard time to train for a biggy. Life gets so busy and so crazy this time of year, that I have found my training has taken a back seat to everything else! Not good, when time is of the essence! I have decided to run the Top of Utah half marathon on August 23rd. But as far as the full...it's not looking good!

Please feel completely free to leave your comments and any advice or just inspiration you can share! I love meeting new people this way!!!

Thanks again Title Nine! Be sure and check them out HERE.

That Dam Race

Today I ran the Mantua Dam Race which means I have been running now for ONE YEAR! Last year the Dam Race was my first race ever and is really the reason I am still running today. The main reason I ran it last year was so I could get the t-shirt that says I Survived the Dam Race! I was so happy that I finished it last year when the farthest I had ever run previous was only two miles. I ran the entire 4.7 mile route last year without one break and that really motivated me to feel like running was something I could do. Yes, me! Run! That was huge for me since I have always HATED to run. Even just one mile a little over a year ago seemed impossible to me. So today in a way is my one year running anniversary...my "runniversary"!

The route is beautiful and wraps around the entire Mantua Dam. The 4.7 mile course is mostly on a dirt road with lots of little pebbles that tend to make it a little tricky to keep your footing at times. Right before the gun went off one of the men in charge told us that he ran the course yesterday and saw a huge blow snake! I was not grateful for that last bit of information right before taking off! Luckily I didn't see anything except a few cows, but a few of the others that I went up with did see a snake! In some ways I do wish I had seen one because I am pretty sure it would have improved my time!

Speaking of time, last year I didn't pay much attention to my exact time because I was just happy to cross the finish line. It was around 44 minutes I think. This year I shaved some time off of that and finished in 41:50! I was real happy with the fact that I have actually got faster and not slower like I was worried about. I placed 6th in my age group.

There was a group of six of us that ran it this year. Unfortunately no one that I ran with last year was able to do it this year.
















Shauna, Julie, and me waiting for the results.






This year's t-shirt. I just LOVE these shirts!!!! I rotated this but it didn't come up rotated when I downloaded it. Hmm....

Firecracker 5K

On the 4th of July I ran in a local Firecracker 5K. I met my friend Julie there with her niece. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was only the 2nd annual race of this kind. When I got there I was surprised there wasn't more people but after about 10 minutes they started to pour in. I saw a lot of other people I knew there. I wasn't one bit nervous for this race. That's a first for me! I guess since my last race was a half marathon I didn't feel any need to be nervous. I was using this one as a guide to see how I am doing time wise. I don't ever time myself while training and I have been worried that I have been losing speed. I was hoping this would give me a good idea of what is going on with all that.

The route was a really awesome one, other than I wasn't real thrilled that the last mile was uphill. I tried to conserve my energy at the beginning and pace myself. I didn't have a watch and so I had no idea how I was doing. After the first mile I kept passing people and no one passed me until the very end when I passed a girl and then she turned on the power and passed me back while she cruised to the finish line. I tried really hard to pass her back up, but I was trying to control my IPOD that had come unhooked from my shirt and was flying all over in between my legs! My time was my best so far for a 5K! It was 26:04. It would have been about 10 seconds better (25:54 - or so) except I had to slow down to control the IPOD before I tripped over the wires! I am sure I looked like a total idiot! Imagine if I HAD tripped! That happened about 75 yards before the finish line. But I was still happy with my time especially since I have still been fighting this chest cold for the past month!

I was disappointed in the organizers of the race though because they had no timing system other than they called out your time as you crossed the finish line. They didn't do a list of ages and places and so I have no idea how I did for my age group. One of the ladies there told me she thought I took first in my age division, but not sure how she would have calculated that without any real proof. They also didn't have ANY water at the end. We did get to have the city breakfast for free for entering, but that didn't start for at least 30 minutes after we finished. It wasn't very professionally done. But it was still fun and I was very happy that I have actually improved time wise instead of slowing down. I don't run real fast when I train and so I was pretty sure that had taken an effect on my speed.

I just ordered Jeff Galloway's new book on Marathon running and I am looking forward to seeing what he has to say about the training plan. I didn't do my long run on Saturday because I had read an excerpt from another of his books that said racing is really tough on your muscles and you need to allow your body time to recover from a race to prevent injury. I felt fine, but decided to not chance it. He also said that long runs can only be every other week in the beginning. So I wasn't real stressed. I will be interested to see what this book says about the training. Hopefully I didn't blow it already!