peace, love and bottled water

The results from my morning of SPEED:

Female age group age: 30 - 34

place within age group: 23 (out of 42)

overall place: 530 (out of 857)
sex place : 173 (out of ? -probably a ton)
name: Carrie D. (sometimes I write my 'o's a little like 'a's. S'okay. Not akoy.)
time: 32:06
pace: 10:21


I am pleasantly suprised. I thought I was going slower than I normally do and I walked at two of the hills, but only for a second. It was hard. I felt quite woozie when I was done and my eyes stung from some sweat that dripped down in there. But it felt good to finish something I haven't ever done before. I may even do it again sometime.

AND I won a door prize! $10 gift card to Walgreens!

SCORE!

Hmmm...maybe now that I am a runner I should go get me some cute running gear.

music and motivation

(FYI -I know some people don't like it when the music just starts and I know you are familiar with my blog so you have your speakers off OR you've already paused the music, which is not difficult because I have purposefully kept the player close to the top so it is easy to pause for those of you who are at work or don't like my music selections. I have to tell you, however, that for most (not all) of my posts I search for a coordinating song to make the reading a multi-sensory experience. Like, when I did that half-marathon and had "Chasing Pavement" by Adele on there! That was a quite clever pairing. I was pleased with myself on that one.)

I have been struggling with getting back into the swing of exercise. Ugh. Just not doing it. My excuse was that it was too cold. Even inside. Lucky me I live in the south now and on Monday it wasn't too cold anymore. So I put on my new 'slickdeals' runners, put in my headphones and headed out the door. As I was running along I was trying to decide WHAT IS MY MOTIVATION? As I began thinking about what would keep me out there week after week the song "Everything I Do" by Bryan Adams began playing in my ears (and can in yours too if you turn on the player to your left!) and I chuckled and sang aloud (in my head) to those things I had deemed

My Motivation:

Pants.

I bought these right after that stint of exercise for the HM. And now they are quite snug! Darn the yummy food/cold weather of the Christmas season!

Heart Health, of course...

I guess, chocolate in general, but that cookie sure looks good! And if you are exercising it gives you a little more leeway when it comes to treats. I like the treats.

The kiddos and the Hubs. Duh.

But, yeah. You know...the pants were running alongside me throughout the song. I was singing to the pants. "Look into my eyes, pants. Look into my eyes."

I want those pants comfy! No WAY I threw that $ away.

Music is fun. I LOVE it when the right song comes on at JUST the right moment.

Tra la la.

(Does that song give you butterflies? Remember? It's one of those 'brings back memories' songs.)

are you too busy?

I lurve living in Alabama.

Where ever you go...where ever you are...you can always find reminders of what is really important.

And apparently it's not grammar.

Which is why Brian had to take this picture.

So much so that he backtracked a few steps to take this picture during our

morning of CRAZINESS in which you NEVER want to go BACKWARD when you have sooooo far to go forward! I kept going forward. He had to catch up. Which wasn't hard. 'Cause I was walking.

"What makes walking crazy?" you ask?

When you wake up early on a Saturday in 30 degree weather to walk 13.1 miles!!!!

Yes indeedee! I finished a half-marathon.

My runner friend Alisha enjoys (?) to do this kind of thing so she talked me into trying one out. I wasn't about to run. So she sent me a walking training schedule and I followed it...mostly.

My other two friends I talked into being my walking buddies had VERY good reasons to not be able to do the actual race so Mr Brian stepped up and became my buddy.

Brian kept me going at the pace I needed to go. He started us off running (I know! ugh) for the first mile so we wouldn't be too far behind everyone else. We still ended up pretty far behind everyone else. Pretty quickly,too. But this was not about them! It was about us! I wasn't trying to beat anyone, just trying to get it done. In less than 5 hours. And we did.

In 3 hours 2 minutes and thirty-something seconds.

I look happy, huh? I wasn't. I was grumpy. And I was SORE! But I knew this picture may make it to the blogging land of happiness so I mustered up a smile.
And weird! Look at my fingers. For some reason the whole 'race' (I use that term loosly - it wasn't so much for us.) I kept pushing my freebe gloves down between my fingers with my thumb. I noticed it a couple times about half way through and now that I see these pictures it looks like I was doing it the whole time! Weirdo.

We ran 3 miles - not all together. After that first mile we ran a half mile every 2 miles walked, or so. So we ran 3 miles and walked 10. But we walked FAST! Like speedy quick. And we "sprinted" (not really) the last little bit to the finish line .

Brian ran backwards taking pictures of me.

Wanna know what was in my kangaroo pouch? I had a crunchy granola bar for two and two boxes of Craisins. Alisha gave me a little bag of Energy Beans which were great!
You should have seen us pick up the pace after those babies! Yum.



You also may be wondering about my choice of running gear. I learned on
What Not to Wear that the colors don't have to match to "go" together.



So - It was an experience I was glad to have...uh...experienced.

Brian and I had fun making each other laugh, which wasn't hard because our brains were a little oxygen deprived quite early on. But he's a funny guy, I tell ya.

I may even do it again someday.



What I learned: Anything you can do I can do better.

(Just kidding...that just popped into my head. Have you heard that song? It's funny.)



Sometimes you have to make the time to do something new.



If you go out in the very cold for a good chunk of time you may come down with a cold a few days later.



Everyones bodies are different and some may hurt more and maybe even for longer than others.



Brian owes me a dinner at Classic on the Noble! Woot!



and last but not least...

(This post may be edited when all my anti-cold drugs wear off. I will check back in a few hours and fix what needs fixin'. Now off to find a good song to go with this post and get something warm to drink. Should I do one of those steam tent thingys? Do they work?)