One more week........

I have one more week until I am going to allow myself to start running again!  Hooray!  I've missed it, and I've missed my running buddy, Ms. Flippo.  Luckily the weather has decided to go crazy during my recovery, so I haven't felt too bad.  With the snow, rain, and teen temperatures at 5:30 am, Flippo and I likely wouldn't have been doing much running anyway.  I have done ok with the 30 Day Shred (I only skipped one day that I planned on doing it!), and I like step class.  I'm still just using the step without any lifts, but I'm sweating and sore, so I guess it is doing the job.

I probably won't be going to step this Thursday (they are forecasting a storm to come in on Wednesday with snow, so I'm thinking with the panic that seems to incur here that there is a good chance school will be cancelled on Thursday).  And there is a chance that I won't be going tomorrow........because I might be at the vet with a new puppy!!!!  Some friends had a stray walk up to their house, and they already have three dogs, so we might have a new member of the family!  We are going to get him and have him meet Clara (aka The Princess) tonight, so I will know more tomorrow.  Clara has been getting VERY clingy lately, so we think this could be a good thing. He's a bigger dog, which she will like, so keep your fingers crossed for a good meeting tonight!

Mom, I promise I'm going to get that scarf done, and mail it and the pants to you soon!

Congrats Packers!  Aaron Rogers and Clay Matthews are my favorites!

Knee Rehab Week 1

So I finally went to the doctor, and they didn't find anything wrong with my knee, which is a good sign.  It seems to be overuse, so I decided I wasn't going to run for two more weeks.  At that point I'm either going to start back over with Couch to 5k, or just give one mile a try.  We'll see.  But the marathon is definitely and I'm incredibly depressed about that.  Oh well.  On to running more 5k's and trying for a sub-30 minute time!!

Today will be the gym and elliptical, probably arm weights, and then Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred Video at home.  This thing kicks my tail, but it actually does get good results after 30 days.  It would probably do even better if I didn't eat S'more Pop-Tarts this morning!  Tomorrow will be 30 Day Shred in the morning, and then step class after work!  I've done this class a couple of times, and it slays me.  Which is good.

On the craft front for this week: 

Finish sewing the rows for the Christmas quilt
Finish Mom's scarf
Finish the scarf I'm making for my running buddy's daughter
Finish Katie's scarf

We'll see what happens.............hopefully pictures will show up later this week, and I'll actually get back to this.

Don't forget, 31 Days of Oscar starts tomorrow on TCM!!

Finally, I'm baaaaack......

It has been awhile.  I got busy at work, and then disaster struck.  It got really really cold, and of course, my knee started hurting.  So I've been taking it easy, but things are getting picked back up tomorrow morning with a six or seven mile long run!  Keep your fingers crossed that I only have the usual amount of pain!  I'm also trying a new running plan..........I'll let you know the results on Tuesday!

Picture from the Jingle Bell 5k in Little Rock in December.  Hit a PB of 33:08!  If I can just get over this knee thing, I think I might be able to break 30 minutes this spring!!

I have been productive in the craft area for the last several months, and here's what I have going on!

My boss at work taught me to crochet.  This is a scarf I'm working on for my mom........but I ran out of yarn, so now I have to try to find the same thing in a different town from where I bought the first.....keep your fingers crossed for me.

Scarf I'm making for my little sister (who freaking made her own wool winter coat----I can't believe that!!--in a good way).  It will match one I made myself in light blue.  It will be long and is about 8 to 10 inches wide.  I'm going to connect the ends so that it is a big loop!  It was Sister's idea, and is an awesome one!

Finally!  The Christmas quilt is nearing completion!  I have all of the block made now.  Don't know if the pic is high-quality enough, but I'm going to put a thin stripe of the red/gold star print between each block, and use the same in the border.  That will hopefully cut down on the crazy pattern headache it seems to cause!



The Hills are Alive.........With the Sounds of Me Wheezing!

Saturday was a BLAST for many reasons:

1)  I beat my previous 5k time!  The official time for me in my one and only previous 5k was 36:22.  My official time for this one was 34:08!  http://www.arkansasrunner.com/misc/results2010/wrw5k10.htm

2)  I feel very good about this because I ran/jogged the whole time and did not walk.  And the entire 3 miles went over hills!!!  Argh.  It was horrible.  The first mile was decently flat, but after that they just kept getting bigger.

3)  It was super fun hanging out with Dianna, Mike, and Kyle before the race.  Those boys are seriously funny (and super fast......Kyle ran in 20:21 and Mike ran in 25:25).

So we left Conway at 6:30 and drove to the start of the race.  It ended up being a smaller race pool, and a lot of the people seemed to be pretty hardcore, running warm-up laps and stuff.  Dianna and I just stretched a lot.  We were saving our energy.  I got sucked into the run really fast with the pack at the beginning, but after a couple of minutes I slowed down to the pace I needed.  Sure there were 60 year old men and people pushing strollers literally sprinting past me, but I just kept my own pace (while feeling a bit ashamed.....I mean seriously, little old men were running right past me like it was no big deal.....).  The first mile went by before I knew it.  But then the hills started getting bigger.  And I started getting inside my own head.  And then I started getting tired, and started feeling sick.  This was around the 2.5 miles completed mark.  I really almost stopped.  I felt horrible.  And then what happened?  I am dead serious about this, I didn't rig anything.  The song on my iPod ends.  I'm stumbling up a big hill.  And the new song starts.  It was Journey's "Don't Stop Believing."  Seriously.  So with my last breath, I start laughing because it is just ridiculous, and then I pick up the pace.  Once I crest the hill it is downhill all the way to the finish line.  And just like magic, I feel better, and finish out the race without walking.  This is so cheesy that I am rolling my eyes as I'm typing, but it sure makes for a good TRUE story about the race!!

5k Finishers!---Kyle, Mike, Dianna, and Kelsey

This is how hardcore I am.  My running shoe now has a hole at the pinkie toe!

On Sunday I decided to do some sewing (after sleeping until 11am, which was great).  After a lot of sewing things, and ripping out seams, and sewing again, I actually finished the quilt top!  Here it is!!!!!



We start training for our November 10k tomorrow morning!  Let the second leg of making me into a half-marathoner begin!!  Gulp.........

Tomorrow...........

Tomorrow will mark the end of the first quarter of the training plan!  Running a 5k at 8am (we have to leave town at 6:30 to get there.....ew).  I'll post my time on Monday if I am proud of myself.

I'm really worried because this week has been totally off kilter, and I've really only run twice-ish, so we will see.  Cross your fingers for me!!

Tomorrow is also the library used book sale and a home football game, and the usual post-home game football gathering at Casa de Smyth, so it should be an epic day!!

It is now Wednesday, and I am sorely behind again.  So here is another really long post!

Saturday:  I.  RAN.  THREE.  MILES.  WITHOUT.  STOPPING.  I am awesome.  That's really all I have to say.

(I do realize that there are a lot of people out there who can do this too, but for me, and those who new me when I was in high school, this is kind of unfathomable).

I also went to go see Easy A on Saturday.  It was super cute and it confirmed my loves of Emma Stone and Stanley Tucci!

Monday:  We wussed out.  Two of us couldn't run, so I used that as license to not run myself.  I went to sleep planning to get up and go, but when push came to shove, I just couldn't do it.  In my defense, we slept with the windows open, so the house was nice and cold and felt like fall, and snuggling into bed just seemed like the better idea.  That afternoon I did take Lauren Joy (aka Monkey) on an hour long walk around campus while I was watching her during band, so I did at least exercise.

Today:  We actually went running, and it was just a weird day.  It was super cold---40 degrees when we ran, but I warmed up way faster than I thought I would.  Really the only part of me that was too cold was my mouth.  The run itself was great, and I felt great except for one thing.  And it is kind of major.  My pants kept falling down.  I had on pants that were between capri length lounge pants and tights, and the waist is super stretched out compared to the rest of the pants, and it has been this way since I bought them.  The legs are fine, but the waist is oddly huge.  I was really worried, and constantly tugging at the beginning, but I finally got things arranged so that I didn't feel an inadvertent self-depantsing would happen.  So I had that going for me.  We went the usual distance in a bit faster than the usual time.  Bring on my Wednesday afternoon mile run with Clara!!

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I have also gotten more done on the quilt!  I bought some printed fabric, and here is the block I came up with.

I have 22 of the other blocks, so I decided to mix them up.  I could have made this way cooler if I had planned ahead at all, but hey, this works for a first try!

Here is Pattern 1.

Here is Pattern 2.

Here is Pattern 3.

Here is Pattern 3 with a possible border.

I did a really bad job planning and having enough of everything, so this will probably end up being a smallish quilt.  I still have a lot of the solid red and black, so I'll try to make a cool wider border with that.

Let me know what you think, and which pattern you like the best!  I am kicking myself for not doing it all in the print, but hey, live and learn.



Great run! Huzzah!

Friday morning:  55 degrees.  Pitch black.  Some tunes.  Awesome run.  Today felt great!  I finally did a better job keeping up with Dianna and Amanda, which I was very proud of.  And I ran for 28 minutes without stopping, which a year ago I would never have thought I could do.  Total mileage was 2.72 and total time (including warm up) was 33 minutes, so I feel pretty good about that, especially since I'm pretty sure that the five minutes of walking at the beginning covered at least a quarter of a mile, which would have meant we ran 2.5 miles in 28 minutes.  Still not super fast, but not too shabby either.

Registered for the 5k for October 9th today!  Yippee!

I'm not going to do the extra-after-work-mile today because we are running 3 miles at 7:30 tomorrow morning!

Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the UCA Marching Band are playing a concert downtown tonight, and then the run, and hopefully sewing and going to see Easy A tomorrow, and then sleeping in on Sunday.......sounds like a great weekend to me!!