Feelin' good

Today I am feeling good, yesterday was a different story. It was 3° yesterday to the 11° that it was today. I only ran 3 miles yesterday to the 5 that I put in today. I think it was the cold and the start that I had yesterday. I put way too much pressure on myself yesterday to up my pace and it wiped me out on the first mile. The second mile I practically walked and it took forever. The last half mile I had a really nice pace going and finished strong.

Today, I ran well. I didn't push it at the beginning, but I had a good pace. I got the full distance in and did it in good time. For the last mile I ran my hardest and finished strong all the way into the driveway. It felt good.

While I was running today I was thinking about setting goals. Yesterday on "Everybody Loves Raymond" Ray talked about how he needed to set goals for his life to make it through his mid-life crisis. Although his goals were pretty rediculous, it was something good to think about. It made me think of some of the things that I want to do. I know that I have way less freedom than I did a year ago with the addition of our twins, but that still doesn't mean that I can not do some neat and important things. I have a few ideas in my head for things that I want to do during my life. Some of them are big ideas, while others are just minor things. It is important to set goals and I am going to continue to try to add things to my list over the coming weeks.

9 miles?

How do people do this. My run today was so tough. I ran 8 1/2 miles today and just couldn't get the courage to make the last turn to go down the last road to get the full 9 miles. That is the farthest that I have ever ran on my own. Next weeks 10 mile weekend is going to be even tougher. Here's to hoping for good weather.

Perseverence

Boy did I not want to run today. When I woke up it was from one of the girls crying. It was 5° outside and it had snowed last night. It is really hard to run on the street with snow, it is like running on sand, which makes the run altogether difficult. As I began my run I was doing pretty well. There were a few times that my body wanted to walk, but I just made my mind think about other things while I was running. This way I avoided even thinking about walking and for my little bit over 3 miles I ran today, I didn't walk. It felt great. I actually put my arms up in the air like I was crossing the finishing ribbon in front of my house. I felt dorky, but it felt great.
During my run I thought about setting goals and sticking to them. During college I learned that I set a ton of goals, or verbally said a lot of things that I wanted to do, but never got to doing them. That really hit me and after realizing that is something that I did pretty consistently, I have tried to really stick to doing what I have said I will do. I have even gone as far as not verbally saying things that I want to do until I am really sure I am going to do them. Even to some of my closest friends.
I have known for awhile that I need to set reasonable achievable goals. I love to shoot for the moon as far as what I want to do and when it should be able to be done, but I have learned that there is only so much that can be done at a time.

NO WALKING!!!!!!

I didn't walk during my 5.5 mile run today! I slowed down a couple of times, but that was only to let cars pass me by. It was great. I was wiped when I was finished, but it went fine. It was pretty warm when I ran, I had to carry my gloves and hat for the last mile of the run.
While I was running I was singing and thinking. That is what I think made me be able to get through the run with no walking. I was thinking about our house while running. I thought about how people lived many years ago. My house would have been huge back then! And we are wanting more space in our home? It is a weird thought. I know that some day I will end up with a bigger house because that is how our world is. I think it will just be expected to keep moving into a bigger house as I advance in my career. I don't want to be that materialistic, but I think it is inevitable. I hope that if some day we are blessed enough to have a large home, that we fill it to the brim with a family or people that are in need of space. That is what my wife Melissa has said she would want and I fully agree.

It felt good to run, but I did terrible

Today my run went ok. I grabbed a handful of mail that we had to send out and took it to the nearest mailbox. That is approximately a mile and a half away so I knew that I had to make it at least that far and back. I did pretty well going a little farther, but I was pretty beat when I was done. I know that is a good thing, but it was tough. It was really hard running as there was a ton of snow on the ground that had frozen making the ground very unlevel.
Yesterday I had a talk with Melissa about being good with words. I prayed about that today during my run and had good results today at school with it. I am always glad to see quick results to prayer!
Tonight we have open house at school. It is going to be a really long day, but not to worry, I don't have to go to school tomorrow. The girls are going to be 4 months old and are getting their shots, so I won't be there. I can run in the morning before going to the doctor. That will be nice to run without having a time to focus on for getting home. I am hoping to go five miles tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. Especially with the ground in the shape that it is in.

Snow Day? 2/6

It looks terrible outside. I woke up and the sleet was hitting the windows and it sounded really bad. I was thinking there might be a snow day today and I could run during the day, but it didn't happen. I am hoping to make it home and get my miles in after school today. We'll see. The weather looks terrrible and weather.com says it is only getting worse. Ugh. Finally, I feel good enough to run and the weather isn't cooperating. Maybe it is God's way of telling me to take another day off.

Days off

I am thinking about trying to run tomorrow morning. I had a scare about not being able to breathe two nights ago, but I think I am over it. I had to get an inhaler and it has helped. I hope I don't need to use it anymore. I think it had to do with all of my congestion. I don't think that I will be able to put in 8 miles, but I am hoping to try for 4. I think that would be a good way to get back in it. It was tough taking this week off as it is so much at the beginning of the training, but I couldn't have made it without taking the time off. I was not able to do the most basic of things let alone run 3 to 5 miles.
Here's to hoping that next week will be much better.