This morning I headed out for my 2nd 14-miler. I had been having some pain in my inner thigh for a day or two, but it seemed to have subsided. I planned out a 4 mile loop to give things a try – after 4 miles things seemed fine. No pain. So I headed down to Riverview Park to get in 8 miles by the river and then finish things up with 2 miles coming back home, but then…
Mile 6. Stopped to take a GU. Mmm, chocolatey. I start running …

It’s that time of year again – finals. Classes start to wind down, there’s talk of some sort of test in the near future, finally you sit through that last lecture… and then there’s what my roommate and I have taken to calling the “Gilmore Girls” period, where it’s really too early to start studying but you don’t have any homework, so you bake cookies and watch an entire season of Gilmore Girls in a 3-day period.
And then your first final is a few days away, and you have to …

Weekly Total: 39 miles

Monday 11/30 (Rest)

Tuesday 12/1 (5 miles Easy)
Today was our “After” mile test for my running class – we timed ourselves in the beginning of the year (September) and now was our chance to see if we’d improved! I don’t really think that using the mile as a baseline makes sense because we didn’t focus on speedwork, but I improved anyway – 7:05 this time versus 7:42 in September. Quite an improvement! I warmed up and cooled down by running to class and back.
5.2 miles / 47:00 …

Whew! That was some run. I conquered the 14 miler that gave me so much trouble last weekend!
When I woke up, it was raining and 33, so I put on my tights and underarmour and beanie and gloves and scarfed a piece of toast with peanut butter. Then I realized that I was wearing all black and might look a little um… threatening… especially with the black beanie. Well, as threatening as a 19 year old girl can look, anyway. So I swapped the beanie for a white headband (much …

I know! It’s not Jan 1 yet. But I just couldn’t wait to post my goals for next year. Obviously the biggie is the marathon, but I think after I finish (hopefully!) that I want to work on speed a little bit. I’m pretty confident that I can achieve these goals, but I think they’re challenging enough for me that I will have to work pretty hard on them.
I think the best part of being a fairly “new” runner (began in March 09) is that I can realistically expect to …