STARTING OFF RIGHT

I know I am terrible at putting up posts but, HAPPY BELATED NEW YEAR! :) May you have a year of great running! I have definitely gotten my running year off right. A co-worker and I originally had plans for new years eve to do a midnight trail run up in the Auburn hills! However, at about 10:00 p.m. we thought to ourselves 1.) Can we even stay awake until midnight!? and 2.) Maybe we shouldn't be out driving that late on New Years! So, we decided to hold off on the midnight trail run and just head to the hills for a nice run in the morning. Then our plans changed again! He told me of a race that was happening up that way later on in the day so we decided to enter in that! It was a blast! We ran the 10 mile race which had 2100 feet of climbing! Tough course to say the least. We also saw a lot of  great people and had a great time chatting and catching up with them. We both ended up winning overall male and female which was a great way to start the new year!

On another note, yesterday was my last big workout before racing in Houston next weekend! My training partner and I did 14x400 at goal race pace with one minute rest. It's always nice to do this workout because the pace seems relatively easy when only doing a quarter mile at a time as compared to 13.1 miles non-stop! Nice little mental boost I'd say :) My legs felt great and I hit the pace right on for all 14 repeats (except the first one. I got a little excited and went too fast. OOPS!) I am starting to feel very confident about racing next weekend. My coach/dad really changed up the type of training cycle for this race because of the quick turn around from running and resting from my October 30Th marathon. The paces were a lot faster and the workouts longer. Needless to say, the intensity was high! I struggled for a while to hit the paces and dealt with a hip issue for a good month (which I am happy to say I am finally pain free!!). I wasn't at all used to going that fast! But now that it's getting closer to race day my legs are really coming together and I'm nailing my times! I still think running a 1:22 is going to be one hell of a hard time, but I am going to give it all I've got!

9 DAYS! LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN!