yep, I'm still here

living life, chugging along, running...or at least that's what I feel like I live to do these days. And most days I feel like that's all I do. 8-1/2 weeks left, which isn't much. But those 8 weeks will contain the longest runs yet--probably up to 22 miles. I eat to run, I sleep to run, I schedule my days to run. And I'm only running 4-5 days/ week so on the computer screen it doesn't seem like much. What hasn't been happening as much as normal? Cleaning and other general chore/household like stuff. Scrapbooking--although there is a layout in progress, maybe I'll finish it sometime soon. Reading. Blogging....well duh.  I have bad runs and I have good runs. And I've learned I like running. I want to keep running--maybe not train for a marathon all the time--but 6 or 7 miles is good for me. Unlike when I trained entirely on a treadmill and then ran a 1/2 marathon. I didn't run again for months. I want to get faster at shorter distances. I want to run 5K's and 10K's. So here's the past few weeks with times (mostly for my record, so I can get them out of my head!):

14 hilly miles: 2:52
16 hilly miles: 3:10 (a faster pace than the previous week)
18 flat miles: 3:33 (up to mile 15 I was on pace to beat my 16 mile time which wasn't surprising because it is  relatively flat. But I'm not going to lie, those last three miles were a sorry excuse for anything you might call running. There was quite a bit of walking happening. I was done. I blame vacation: bad diet, bad sleep, etc)
14 hilly miles: 2:47 (same course as the first time, 5 minutes faster! I'm not breaking any sound barriers here but I'll take any improvement I can get)

This weekend: 18 flat miles. Different course as the last 18. So we'll see what happens. I now have a mental block to get around since I died at mile 15 last time.

Bragging moment: Because we were on vacation I ran the 18 on a Monday, did speed work on Wednesday, ran on Thursday, took Friday off, and ran the 14 on Saturday. That makes my total mileage for that week: 43 miles!