April Goals Recap

First, hello and thank you to all my new readers! Special thanks to Katie at RunsforCookies for listing my blog on her blog list. Her blog is one of the first blogs I started reading and she does an awesome job! I started this blog last July to document my running journey, really just as a journal for me. But now that I have a few readers, I’m really excited and hope to grow my blog to the level of all the ones I read (well, maybe…hey I can dream!).

WOW! I can’t believe another month is done for 2012. Well time for an April goals recap!!

• I ran my first 10k race on April 7. The Azalea Big Buddy 10k in Wilimington.
• I have been using the Garmin Connect website to record all my runs.
• Still on track for 500 miles for the year.
• I have been doing additional core exercises now that boot camp started last week.

Ok so I still need to work on eating more vegetables, taking daily vitamins, reading more…yada yada. I have started eating salads more for lunch instead of my normal turkey sandwich. But the weekends generally consist of eating out too much! I need to work on that. And I have completely gone off track with taking a daily vitamin. I don't know why that is so hard to remember!!

I didn't get as many miles in April, only 38.92. I know after the 10k race and not having a training plan, I kinda slacked off. I haven't even done a long run on the weekends since the race! Well with the new group and training plan starting next Monday, I know I will get more miles in.

By last Wednesday I was tired from working out so much, I wasn't sure if I felt up to meeting my buddy for a trail run. But I went and it was quite the adventure. It was a nice trail that was peaceful. At one point we stopped to admire a family of deer, which was pretty cool. At another point, we stopped because there was a copperhead in our way!!! UGH! Not a fan of snakes. Fortunatley for me and Kathy, we had a fearless leader with us, Joanne. She was one of our coaches in the Women's Running School last year. Joanne found a stick and moved it out of the way. What a brave woman! I swear we would have either turned around and ran back the other way (away from the car, not smart) or still be standing there trying to figure out what to do! I'm not sure why it didn't occur to us to go around the trail. Whatever the case, I think I'm done with trail running for a while. I'm sticking to the pavement!

Speaking of reading more, I went a little overboard with my library card in April (for me at least). I’ve checked out three books and started two of them so far. Not to mention I have another book I started in March and still haven’t finished (does not belong to the library). Anyways, two of the books are running related. "Accidental Athlete" and "Running for Mortals" both by John Bingham (aka "the penguin"). I started Running for Mortals, but not sure I will have time to finish it before the due date. I went online to renew all three books and that book is requested so I can’t renew it. Dang. Doesn’t this person know it takes me FOREVER to finish a book!

I also decided to subscribe to Runner’s World magazine! I guess this makes me an official runner now, lol! And of course, I haven’t even finished last month’s issue when a new issue arrived this week. Not to mention I’m behind on my other mags like Self, Shape, WW…maybe I can get caught up during pool season. We also picked up a copy of "Run Fast" by Hal Higdon at a used book store. Lots of running reading to do!

I’m on the second week of boot camp and it’s been fun, well tough, but still fun! It’s good to switch things up a bit and I get to meet new people. The forecast this week is HOT! I mean, WTC, 90 freaking degrees!?! I guess we are going straight to summer temps. Must keep hydrated, must keep hydrated, must keep hydrated…

I received my fitness assessment results, but I’ll save that for the next post. Oh yeah, also for the next post -a 2+ hour trip to the running store to get fitted for new shoes!