Goofy's Race-and-a-Half Challenge: A Race Report - Part 1

First of all, let's go waaaay back . . . back to July 7, 2009 (also known as the day I went temporarily insane and decided to register for the Goofy Challenge at Disney World). I had NO CLUE at that point in time that I would soon quit my job and embark on this big ol' journey of mine to Orlando. Don't get me wrong; it worked out quite nicely given that I didn't have to worry about travel expenses or taking time off. But let's just say that if I would have known I'd be training for Goofy while working out pretty intensely 5 days a week (at times, twice a day), I never would have registered. The fact is, I was signed up, I'd paid the money . . . and DARN IT, I was going to get those three medals if it killed me!

Wilson and I hit up the Expo on Thursday evening in a desperate attempt to beat the crowds. Turns out this was smart thinking, as we were in and out of there in under 45 minutes. We first hit up the Goofy Challenge check-in area, where a kind gentleman presented me with my bibs, chips and some Goofy souvenirs; I then signed my life away to him and he placed a silver wristband around my wrist. As he did so, I couldn't help but silently wonder to myself whether this wristband's secondary purpose was to save time when I inevitably ended up in the hospital, dying of exhaustion and leg cramps at some point on Sunday. But I smiled and thanked the man just the same, and we quickly moved on, hitting up the marathon check-in area (for Wilson) and the t-shirt & goody bag pick-up area (Goofy Challengers got THREE long-sleeve tech shirts--SCORE!). Race gear in hand, we headed straight for the exit, stopping only twice on the way . . . once to purchase a couple pairs of gloves and once to grab some free Larabar samples.

Fast-forward 24 hours to Friday. I went to school as usual and was semi-bombarded with questions by my classmates. "How far do you have to run?" "What's your strategy?" "How are you feeling about it?" "Are you insane?" Somehow, though, I didn't feel nervous. Sure, I put on the whole "I don't know how it'll go; that's a lot of miles to run in two days and I really just want to have fun with it" act. But deep down inside, I was feeling confident. So confident, in fact, that I allowed a silly thought to creep its way into my mind. I'd thought about it in the past, but had always brushed it aside as ridiculous. But again, there it was teasing me: "Maybe . . . just maybe . . . I could pull off PR's in both the half-marathon AND the marathon. How epic would THAT be?" I was really starting to believe that it might just be a possibility.

Well, wouldn't ya know, that confidence faded the second I got back to my hotel room. Perhaps it was the bad news that accuweather.com was presenting me with. Perhaps it was the phone call in which my mother attempted to talk me out of running the races. Perhaps it was the twinge of soreness I was feeling in both quads. Or maybe it was simply the fact that the magnitude of what I was about to do had finally hit me like a load of bricks. Whatever the case, I was REALLY nervous. And my anxiety only grew as the predicted temps dropped lower and lower . . . It was official; The Disney Half-Marathon and Disney Marathon would mark the two coldest races I had ever run. Temps for Saturday were predicted to be in the 30s (with a "real feel" in the low-2os) and freezing rain; and temps for Sunday were predicted to be in the 20s (with a "real feel" in the low-teens). Can we say BRRRR?! And Wilson and I had brought no running tights with us to Orlando . . . FRACK.

After debating for hours about whether we should try to go out and find tights or not, we finally decided to hit up Target. It was a no go. FRACK SQUARED. Just when I had convinced myself that I would be fine in capris, we drove past a Sports Authority. Round two of desperately seeking running tights. And? We were in business! We both found what we needed, sprinted for the check-out line and booked it out of there without so much as trying them on. Well, I'll bet you already know where this is going . . . but we got back to the hotel, tried on our tights, and mine were HUGE; a size medium that fit like an XL. CRAPPERS. Luckily, Wilson's fit him fine . . . but I had officially given up. Capris it would be.

We ate dinner, I packed all of my race stuff AND my school stuff (I was going to have to go straight to school from the race), and FINALLY, we hit the hay around 9:30 p.m., knowing full well that our 3:00 a.m. wake-up call was coming soon.

And did it ever. I woke up, drank some coffee, got dressed and body-glided, ate some oatmeal, drank some water, checked my bags one last time to make sure I had everything . . . and we were out the door by 3:45 a.m., on our way to Disney for Day 1 of the Goofy Challenge! We got there without issue, parked, and I immediately hopped on line for the porta-potties. The lines were long, but nothing too bad.

Before long, it was time to leave Wilson behind and head towards the start line. Little did I know that it was a good 20-minute walk to the start line! I tried to hustle . . . but it was tough to do so with so many people sloooowly making their way over, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the race was about to start. Finally, I felt like we were starting to get close. I attempted to pull my throwaway pants off while walking/jogging, which--for the record--I would NOT recommend! I am lucky I didn't face plant . . . but somehow, I got those suckers off and resumed my jog to the start. All of a sudden, fireworks went off, indicating the start of the first wave. Considering I was in the second wave, I knew I needed to hurry. Luckily, I made it to the start with a minute or two to spare . . . and then another explosion of fireworks went off, and we were moving!

The first few miles FLEW by. There's not a whole lot to report, as frankly, there wasn't a whole lot to see! These miles were pitch black, and we were running on some nice, flat highway. Not real exciting. Despite some crazy crowds and narrow roadways, I really had to focus on keeping my pace down. Running was feeling basically effortless; a little TOO effortless. But still, I knew I had to stick to my plan in order to stand a chance at "fresh" legs for the marathon the next day. On I trotted, singing to myself in my head.

Before I knew it, we were over 5 miles through the race, and we were rapidly approaching the Magic Kingdom. I felt my heart flutter as we entered . . . it was very similar to the first time I saw the place when I was a kid--only WAY better! The sky was still pitch black and everything was just lit up in the most incredible way possible. There honestly just aren't words to describe it; it was . . . magical :) As I ran through the park, I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear like some kind of goofy fool! It was just SO MUCH FUN! I can say without doubt that this was my favorite running memory EVER.

As quickly as we entered, though, we were spat back out of the park for another six miles or so of uninteresting highway running. The only highlight of the section from mile 6.5-ish to mile-12 was getting to see Wilson around mile-8. By this time, I was still feeling great, and I jumped up and down like a hyperactive child when I saw him. Ha. I've NEVER ever felt that good at that point in a half-marathon. I think even Wilson was shocked to see me in such high spirits! Granted, I was running pretty easy . . . but still, I was on PR pace!

By mile-9 or so, the fun was over. The sleet/hail mixture that had plagued us through the first 90 minutes of the race had turned into freezing, liquid rain . . . and I was SOAKED. And also? I was REALLY EFFING COLD. I knew the smart thing to do was to keep my pace slow; but honestly, I just couldn't take it anymore. I was freezing my arse off! I struggled through one last slow mile, but then I officially gave up on keeping my pace down once I hit the Mile-10 marker. By that time, my one and only goal was to finish up as quickly as possible and get into some dry clothes and the heated car!

I booked it through the last 5K to the finish, slapping Goofy's hand right before crossing at 2:08:17 . . . a PR by over 7 minutes. Not bad, considering I held myself back for 80% of the race!

Splits were as follows:

Mile-1: 10:14 (holy crowded start, Batman)
Mile-2: 10:33 (road narrows . . . even MORE crowded)
Mile-3: 9:43 (AH, open space! Oops; slow down, Irish!)
Mile-4: 9:58 ('atta girl)
Mile-5: 10:07 (good; keep it there)
Mile-6: 10:06 (YES. I am a pacing goddess!)
Mile-7: 9:42 (watch it . . . )
Mile-8: 9:42 (watch it . . . )
Mile-9: 9:35 (WATCH IT . . .)
Mile-10: 9:53 (gel break; whew, back on track!)
Mile-11: 9:06 (EFF IT! I am COLD and WET)
Mile-12: 9:11 (I seriously can't WAIT to finish)
Mile-13: 8:41 (GET THIS RACE OVER WITH ALREADY!)
Last .1: 7:21/pace (Ah, sweet finish line! It is SO nice to see you!)

After finishing, I got my mylar blanket (WARMTH!) and my medal, and headed to the Goofy tent to have my wristband swapped out. I then grabbed a Powerade, had my finisher photo taken and headed straight for the family meet-up area, opting to skip the food tent. Yup. THAT'S how cold I was, homies . . . so cold that I didn't give a rat's ass about food. I don't think that's ever happened before! I met up with Wilson, he took a quick video of me (will post it as soon as I figure out how--ha) and then we headed to the parking lot . . . time to go to school for 7 hours of Sports Performance education! Of course, this was easier said than done, considering we couldn't remember where the hell we'd parked! We're city people . . . we don't think about things like that! Ha. A really nice runner offered to let us sit in his car to warm up if we didn't find our car soon; but thankfully, we found it (turns out it was like four cars down from the nice runner dude).

Amazingly, despite this delay, we still had time for a Starbucks stop on the way to school. I got a breakfast sandwich and a big ol' piping hot Americano, which I had a VERY difficult time consuming. Turns out shivering uncontrollably makes it very tricky to eat/drink without spilling all over yourself; and chattering teeth don't help matters any either! DAMN, I was cold! I had wisely changed out of my wet top in the car, but my wet sports bra was still on. Luckily, I had brought a change of sports bra with me . . . so I changed that sucker as soon as I got to school. MUCH BETTER! The dry clothes combined with the toasty classroom felt like Heaven. Only problem was . . . all I wanted to do was SLEEP!

Somehow, though, I made it to our hour lunch break without dozing off. I downed my lunch in approximately 5 seconds and then put my head down to sleep and had the most delightful nap in the history of naps. I woke up 55 minutes later to what was basically the BEST NEWS EVER. Because of the shit weather, our instructor was going to let us out of class 2.5 hours early!! We typically would have had a sports performance workout during that time; but Paul had pity on us and let us leave at 2 p.m., promising we would make up the time during the coming weekend's session. You guys, I am telling you; I have never been so happy in ALL MY LIFE.

Wilson picked me up at 2:00 and we headed back to the hotel where I showered (finally), iced, rocked my hot pink recovery socks and basically lazed around until we finally hit up the Macaroni Grill geezer-style (at like 5:30 p.m.) for a good old fashioned carbo-loading meal. We returned back to the hotel, got stuff ready to go for the next day, and hit the hay by around 9 p.m. Let me tell you; I slept like a BABY.

To Be Continued . . .

Guess Who's Goofy?

Um, you guys? There are seriously just not words to describe how amazingly the Goofy Challenge went. Despite a million and one reasons why it could have been a disaster*, I somehow managed to pull off PR's at both the half-marathon (2:08:17) AND marathon (4:28:23) distance. I don't even understand how that's possible. I'm actually thinking I may wake up soon and realize it was all a dream! I don't have the time (or the energy) at the moment for a full recap . . . but I just wanted to let you know how it went, since y'all have been SO incredible with your support as of late (despite the fact that I haven't been able to reciprocate that support--sad face). I will try my best to get a recap up in as timely a fashion as possible. But seriously, thanks again for being so awesome. I love you all! :)

*Including, but not limited to, my worst face plant ever at mile-1.8 of the marathon

Irish 2.0

It's official . . . I've entered the 21st century, folks. New decade, new Irish! :) But don't worry, I'm still just as nerdy as in 2009!

Happy New Year!

Hey runners! Remember when I said that things would settle down after school let out for the holidays? Yeah? Well smack me upside the head next time I mention things "settling down" during the holidays. I mean, really!

In an attempt to (again) catch this blog up with my life, I will post some of the stuff that's happened during the past couple weeks in bullet point format . . . because I'd kind of like to finish this before 2011 arrives! :)

• Finished Christmas shopping AND a huge assignment at school (designing a ridiculously detailed template for my future personal training clients), while still managing to fit two short runs in during the week
  
• Ran 30 miles the weekend before Christmas (PEAK WEEK!!) . . . it was one crazy-ass weekend. I somehow ran an effortless 10 miles in 1:29:38 (8:58 pace!) on Saturday a.m., went to school all day for my Sports Performance Clinic, went home, ate pasta, went to sleep, got up on Sunday and felt really sick (sinus crap), ran 20 miles anyway, checked my garmin like 40 times afterwards to make sure I had REALLY run 20 miles,* ate fast food (Sonic) for the first time in a year, felt REALLY sick (sinuses and tummy, both) and went to bed
  
• Studied for and aced another test at school despite the constantly-building sinus pressure in my head
• Survived my car making a WEIRD ASS sound** on the way to Target, checked and added oil to my car (that wasn't the problem; that was more a "just in case" kind of thing); renamed said car "The Little Suzuki That Could" with the hopes that I would make it to my older sister's house in Beaufort, SC without my life turning into one of those Fa-La-La-La-Lifetime movies I'd been watching recently
  
• "Baked"*** until the wee hours of the morning before heading to one last (entertaining) class and hitting the road for Beaufort
  
• Drove for 5 hours with my blood pressure through the roof as a result of my fear that my car would breakdown somewhere in rural Georgia with no cell reception
• Made it to SC without incident, ate some homemade gumbo and spent the next day-and-a-half wrapping presents, eating cookies and hanging out with the fam
  
• Had a wonderful Christmas**** in which I received many running-themed presents (will post photos soon!), new headphones and a telephoto lens for my "big girl" SLR camera
• Spent the next few days hanging out with the fam, attempting to get over my sinus infection that had morphed itself into bronchitis, and being lazy. I wasn't TOTALLY lazy, though . . . my younger sis, Mo, and I did rock the Dance Dance Revolution pretty hard! That game will get you sweating, let me tell ya! I also managed to work in a day of lifting, a metabolic conditioning workout and a bunch of walks around my sister's beautiful neighborhood . . . not much, but I'll take it considering I felt like absolute crap and was getting about 2 hours of sleep a night as a result of my inability to breathe and the fact that I was hacking up a lung every 4 seconds
  
• Researched rental cars and flights for like 45 hours straight in an attempt to figure out how the heck I'm going to get home to NYC in THREE WEEKS! Yes, you read that right . . . THREE WEEKS!
  
• Spent one extra day (Monday) at Mallory's house so that I could attempt to deflect some of my niece's CRAZY energy off of her. That child was WIRED!
• Drove back to Orlando, still slightly terrified that my car was going to break down. Made it without incident (whew!)
• Since I got back to Orlando on Tuesday night, I've spent my time polishing my resume, job-hunting, house-hunting in various parts of the country*****, researching a presentation I'll have to do in class in a week or so and prepping for Wilson's visit.

Have I mentioned that Wilson gets here tomorrow?****** 'CUZ HE DOES! That being said (and with everything going on at school right now--ugh, SO MUCH), I may or may not have much time to post over the next 10 days . . . or hell, over the next 3 weeks until I'm done with school. I will, at a minimum, let you all know how Goofy goes, though! Um . . . yeah, because that shizz is in just over a week. YIKES! Here's hoping the bronchitis is completely gone by that time!

Alright, I better get my booty to bed for now . . . I'd hate to be late picking my man up from the airport tomorrow a.m.! Happy New Year, y'all! Here's hoping 2010 brings us all lots of hugs, runs and happiness :)



*It seemed WAY too easy . . . that's never happened to me before on a 20-miler!

**Like gravel was jumping around under the hood, in case you're interested

***I don't have an oven in my hotel room; thus, I was stuck with "no bake" recipes only

****Minus a minor/major argument--ah, family!!

*****Yes, I realize this is a complete waste of time until I figure out where we're going to be . . . but I like it, so sue me!

******Actually today, seeing as how it is now past midnight. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :)

Two Weekends For the Price of One

I swear, I am *THIS* close to hiring somebody to write for my blog. Oy. This time of year is always an especially tough one for me, it seems . . . I just don't understand where the time goes! First and foremost, I'm going to have to blame Falalala Lifetime's insistence on playing Christmas movies 24/7. Why do I continue to watch these horribly awesome movies with what little free time I have? WHY?! That, and I've been spending a HUGE amount of time scouring the interwebs, trying to find thrifty but fabulous presents for my loved ones. Being a student without any income sucks, yo . . .

Anyway, life has been good. Not much excitement happening during the week . . . school, workout, run, study; repeat. Boring, right? The weekends, however, have been great. Thus, I will now tell you about them in an attempt to make my life sound more interesting than it actually is.

Two weekends ago, I got to head home to NYC to spend some quality time with Wilson and my beloved Brooklyn Heights apartment (okay, fine--and the cat too). Wouldn't you know, NYC was kind enough to greet me upon my arrival with some kind of freezing sleet/rain crap that felt absolutely LOVELY on my sissy Floridian skin. Yowsers. After that cleared up, though, it was a fabulous weekend indeed. I decorated the apartment for Christmas and helped Wilson bake gingerbread cookies. We also managed to squeeze in a 14-ish mile run along my favorite NYC route (over the Brooklyn Bridge and up the Hudson River--gorgeous). Most importantly, though, I got to eat at all of my favorite NYC establishments that I miss so dearly . . . brunch at Stone Park Cafe; Vietnamese sandwiches and bubble tea from Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches; pizza from Lucali; and Falafel from Waterfalls. Ah, how I've missed those places . . . and Brooklyn. Sigh. Only six weeks to go, though, until I get to return back home (and back to the real world--yikes!). How crazy is that?

This past weekend, on the other hand, I stayed in Orlando and had the distinct pleasure of meeting up with the the Redhead for 12 miles on Saturday morning. Those of you who have read her recap already know it wasn't exactly smooth sailing for the two of us. First things first, I was scared silly by a strange man laying on a bench right outside my hotel as I left at the early (and dark) hour of 6 a.m. He screamed, "GOOD MORNING!" at me at the top of his lungs as I scurried out the front door into the pitch blackness. I prayed he wouldn't follow me, and rushed to my car. Luckily, he did not . . . so I hopped in and immediately locked my doors. I was on my way!

The drive was uneventful (read: I managed to not get lost) and I arrived at our meeting point right on time. The only issue was that the lot we usually park in was all blocked off. FRICK. I pulled into a nearby McDonalds and pulled out my phone to text the Redhead and let her know where I was. As I waited for her to arrive, I could see flashing lights coming from the other side of the McD's, reflecting off of a nearby parked car. "OH SNAP," I thought. "Somebody got busted." I kid you not, 5 seconds later, I got a text from the Redhead saying that she had just been pulled over by a cop in the same McDonald's parking lot I was waiting in. Ha. Luckily, the cop just gave her a warning (whew!). With our usual parking spaces unavailable (we speculated there must be a race of some kind going on), we decided to head over to the Publix to park. Only, when we got there and climbed out of our cars, we realized we were like 10 yards from a big finish line area. Oops! Guess there WAS a race going on, and we'd basically driven right up to it.

We moved our cars away from the finish line and finally made our way to the nearby trail we were planning to run on, hoping and praying that the race wasn't taking place ON the trail. Well, I'm sure you know where this is going . . . but yeah, it was most certainly taking place right on the trail. DAMN. Luckily, it was still early enough that there weren't many people around. I should probably mention that right around this time, I tripped over absolutely nothing and just about bit it. Yep, we hadn't even begun running and all this crap had happened. But still, we were determined to have a good run. So, off we went!

All in all, the first mile went by without a hitch. Well, other than the golf cart of race volunteers who inadvertently blocked our path and then almost ran over us, that is. But hey, we came away from it unscathed, so that's all that matters. We kept running along the trail, and suddenly off in the distance, we saw a displeasing sight . . . the trail was blocked off with a fence up ahead. Oh geeze. Luckily, there was a lovely orange detour sign pointing us towards the right. We set off on our "detour", laughing ourselves silly about our bad luck. On we ran, praying we were following the detour correctly. After a couple of miles of detour, however, we started to get nervous. We realized neither of us had our cell phones and neither of us had any clue where we were. We attempted to recall how we'd gotten to where we were . . . just in case we needed to turn around at some point. Meanwhile, we joked about how we'd probably never be found, and how the cop who had pulled the Redhead over would later be interviewed on the news, weeping and saying he was the last person to see the Redhead. Ha, awesome.

FINALLY, we saw another orange detour sign up ahead, which led us back to our beloved trail. We hopped back onto the trail and tried to figure out how much mileage we had gained/lost as a result of the detour. Um, let's just say we are NOT math geniuses when we run. We got to the end of the trail around the mile-5 point and stopped to gel up. The Redhead had a fabulous idea to add on a loopy thing-a-ma-bob which we thought would make it so that we would hit 12 miles right as we got back to our cars. It made sense to me (which is honestly not saying much) . . . so off we went!

I managed to trip over my own feet like 13 more times as we made our way back to our starting point (soooo graceful!). We also managed to take a sprinkler right in the face, which was pretty awesome. The good news is that we rocked that detour like champs on the way back . . . go us! Unfortunately, though, at some point during the detour, I found myself quickly growing REALLY tired. I realized the past week was probably catching up to me . . . because my legs (and my entire body, really) were just PISSED. I tried my best to remain perky, but I was doing a baaaaad job of trying to hide my exhaustion. You know when you get to the point where you are just too tired to be good at holding a conversation? Yeah, that was me. I felt like such a loser, but told myself to just suck it up. Before long, we made it back to the 5K race course area where we'd started, and tried to figure out how to finish up the run without getting in the way of the participants. Luckily, though, it appeared to be just a handful of the far back of the pack who were still out on the course by the time we got back, so it wasn't much of an issue.

We got back to the area where we'd parked and quickly came to realize that we were only at about 11 miles. CRAPPERS. Looks like we were a little lacking in the math while running skillz department! Or, to use the Redhead's term, we were "run-tarded"! I debated whether or not to finish the 12 miles off or call it quits. I felt bad leaving the Redhead on her own for the last mile, but I was also semi-worried about time since we'd gotten a late start and I had to be at school by 9:30 a.m. for a 7-hour Sports Performance Clinic. Well, that and I was really starting to struggle. Considering I still had a 2-hour workout ahead of me at school, I thought it might be wise to call it quits and head off. The Redhead, being an example of total awesomeness continued on to finish out 12 miles as I made my way back to my car.

I quickly drove over to my school, all the while chugging my gatorade down and stuffing my face with an Amy's Organic black bean burrito. I made it there by 9:10, excited to strip out of my wet clothes and hop in the shower (ah, the perks of going to school at a gym!). Well, this was easier said than done . . . turns out there was NO HOT WATER. Oh dear god. It was painfully cold. I kept expecting to go into shock or something. But somehow, I managed to quickly get cleaned up without dying of hypothermia. I quickly got dressed and made it back into the classroom with a few minutes to spare. Nice! The workshop itself (which will run for the next three weekends minus the Saturdays after both Christmas and New Years) was REALLY interesting. I would love, love, love to work with sports teams some day; so this stuff was right up my alley. Oh, and the workout wasn't bad at all since we were mostly learning about dynamic warm-ups.

I got home around 4 p.m. and spent the remainder of the day laid out on my hotel bed (in my hot pink recovery socks, of course), watching Falalala Lifetime. It was early to bed for me, as I had plans for ANOTHER long run on Sunday morning. Weeeellllll, it turned out my body had other plans for me when I woke up at 6:30 on Sunday a.m. Oy. I was DEAD. I pulled the "I'm just going to lay back down for a second" trick . . . and didn't wake up until 10:30 a.m. Um, oopsies! Around 2:30 p.m., I finally convinced myself to head out, which was awesome considering it was HOT out. Don't get me wrong; it was a BEAUTIFUL day (and I know many of you would KILL for some 80s right about now) . . . it's just that running long was not the awesomest thing ever to be doing mid-afternoon. Around the 6-mile mark, I made a decision to slow to a power walk and shoot for "time on my feet" instead of my originally planned 16-18 miles. I ended up covering a total of 14-miles in just under 3 hours. It wasn't exactly what I set out to do, but given my busy weekend and the crazy-exhausting metabolic circuits we'd done in class during the previous week, I figured it was good enough. Plus, slowing down came with some perks: I saw 3 turtles and a couple of wild turkeys along the trail! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed any of them had I run the whole time. So yay. I guess there are some benefits to slowing down :)

Well, there you have it, folks. That's what I've been up to. I am STILL trying to catch up on my Google Reader . . . because I am nothing if not stubborn! But I figure if I can just hang on another week, I'll be on a 10-day Christmas break from school and can FINALLY get myself fully caught up. Whew! Almost there! Hope you are all well! I really can't wait to catch up with you guys!

Balance is a Real Bugger

Soooo . . . hi all! I'm still alive and kicking, despite what the silence of this blog would lead you to believe! I guess stuff has just been kinda busy lately.

The good news is that I aced my midterm; not only that, but I pulled the highest grade in the class with a 99%! What's up, bitches?! Hahaha. SO glad to see all of my crazy studying paid off! But the bad news about my crazy studying (combined, of course, with a crazy-fun Thanksgiving holiday with the fam) is that I am so far behind in my google reader, I want to cry just thinking about it! I haven't even opened it over the past couple days because the number of unread entries is so overwhelming. But today is the day I start chipping away at it. I simply don't have the heart to clear the whole thing out. Slowly but surely, I WILL catch up on all 202 postings!

Now for a little bit of bad news. Don't worry, my dad is just fine; no problems there. But it turns out that I'm not doing so well. Apparently working out twice a day 5 times a week and then attempting two back-to-back long runs every weekend is a good way to end up seriously overtrained. Shit. The overtrained-ness may actually be to blame for my insomnia according to this article. So anyway, I'm in a bit of a pickle. We're getting to the point at school where we are really upping the ante, so to speak; we're getting to training methods like metabolic conditioning that can really kick your ass if you're not careful. So basically, I have no choice but to cut back on everything else a little bit; otherwise, my progress will be seriously halted . . . which is obviously completely unacceptable.

So how am I planning to do this? Well, I've decided I should probably cut my evening sessions back to (at most) one a week. While this makes me a little sad, I know it is what my body needs. I've also decided to cut my weekday runs down from two to one, and reduce that one run from 6-8 miles to 4-6 miles, thus cutting my weekly mileage down from the 40-45 range to about the 30-35 range. Hopefully, this will be enough to combat the overtraining issue . . . if not, I guess I'll have to reassess things further. Ugh, what a drag . . .

Anyway, other than that, things are going just swimmingly. We're getting to some really interesting stuff at school . . . and I am loving it! Ooh, and I get to head back home to NYC this weekend to see Wilson (and my kitty), and to do some long runs in NOT hot weather. Not gonna lie, homies. I'm sorta/kinda really excited about that one!

For now, though, it's time to catch back up with what y'all have been doing! Can't wait!

Good News!

So, first things first . . . I have to thank all of you for your thoughts, prayers and kind words regarding my father. Just to update you, we got word on Monday that my father's bone scan came back negative. This is very good news as it means the cancer is confined to his prostate and has not spread elsewhere in his body. After meeting with the doc, my pops was given options of either surgery or radiation. At this point in time, he is leaning towards the surgery; but that won't take place until six weeks or so down the road (I guess he has to take some time to recover from the biopsy). Know what's awesome about that? It means we'll get to go ahead with the family Thanksgiving as planned! I am so excited, I can't even tell you. In addition to it being Thanksgiving, my adorable niece turns 4 on Thanksgiving Day . . . so it will be one big party at the Irish Cream household! Can't wait :)

In other news, I am tired. Like, really tired. I've suffered on and off from bouts of insomnia . . . and guess what? It's back. Blech. I'm trying to do everything in my power to make myself sleep at night, but for the past week or so, it's been a losing battle. Luckily, I've still managed to get my workouts in and stick to the schedule like white on rice. My first run of the week was a 6-miler on Monday after class. I started out running pretty easy, but then felt like picking up the pace about 1.5-miles in. My splits were kind of all over the place--not sure what that's all about--but I felt good the entire time, so I'll take it.

Mile-1: 9:25
Mile-2: 9:13
Mile-3: 8:54
Mile-4: 9:11
Mile-5: 8:48
Mile-6: 8:19

Not bad. Not bad at all. Yesterday was my evening circuit training session at school, and let me tell you, it was ROUGH. I think the lack of sleep finally caught up with me or something because I was SO not feeling it. I still gave my all, but I just didn't have my usual "stuff." Sigh.

Today, I got home from school and was equally exhausted. I was SO tempted to blow my scheduled run off. After all, with our big midterm coming up on Tuesday, I had a decent excuse. But in the end, I knew I would feel better if I got out there and ran. I put my clothes on and headed out, telling myself that I could run 4-miles and call it a day. Of course, once I got started, I was very happy to be running and, once again, felt like picking up the pace and getting a little speedy. Somehow, I managed to turn the run into a progressive run, with each mile clocking in faster than the previous mile. Isn't it funny how the runs you dread the most can sometimes turn into your best runs ever? My splits for today's run were as follows:

Mile-1: 9:10
Mile-2: 8:50
Mile-3: 8:34
Mile-4: 8:27

Now, it's back to studying because this midterm is NOT going to be easy. So . . . much . . . information! Happy Hump Day, folks! We've got a short week next week, so hang in there ;)