I took a little break from the blog while life things happened after the Marine Corps Marathon , but I'm still hitting the pavement. I ran a Turkey Trot 5k with my brother-in-law on Thanksgiving day, Our first race together! (And I have bed-head.) the Brandon Half Marathon two weeks ago, I cut that one a little too close! the Let It Snow 5k for Girls on the Run last weekend, I hijacked this pic of my friend Karen and her running buddy; I'm toward the back with mine. I finally replaced my overly worn shoes with the newest Brooks Ghost (7), At last, I get a wide shoe with good colors! I went back to my bootcamp class this past week after a seven-month hiatus (ouch), It's easy to smile when all the hard work's over! I made a bike change that I've been wanting to do for a while--I sold both my road bike and my cruiser and bought a hybrid (if you ever want to know where NOT to try to sell, ask me), I'm so excited to ride ag...

It's three-subject blog-post time. Which means I've fallen behind. First things first: Turkey Trot Last, last week, on Thanksgiving morning, Tim and I went to Clearwater to run the Tampa Bay Times Turkey Trot 10k race. I understand my northern family and friends will likely scoff at what I'm about to say, and they may feel free to do so, but it was freezing! It was about 31 degrees (with wind chill) during the race. That is cold for Florida, especially when it's been in the 70s and 80s in the weeks surrounding that one. It's difficult for me to know what to wear for a cold-weather race, because I know I'll get warm quickly, and I hate being hot during a race. So I wore shorts (which I swear are under my sweatshirt in the picture below), a tank top, arm sleeves, and a headband to cover my ears. While it may seem silly to wear a tank top and full arm sleeves (why not just wear a whole shirt?), I don't like to get sweaty under my arms, and this is a good s...

Last night, I raced for the first time since July . A month or so ago, Tim said he was signing up for this 10k race put on by local race director Chris Lauber , and asked if I wanted him to sign me up, too. Sure, I said. (Some six-mile race over a month away? No problem.) The race was the HOT Run 5K and 10K , sponsored by the radio station HOT 101.5. It was out at Pass-A-Grille Beach, on a Thursday evening. This made it rather stressful to get to after work, but even in the hours leading up to the race, I was thinking, I'm just going to treat this as a training run. No pressure for time. But that never works. I even left my watch in my car, so I wouldn't be obsessed with looking at my pace--but also because it was raining lightly. The course was a 1.55-mile loop; 5k racers would run it twice, and 10k-racers would run it FOUR times (I love running in circles!). The 5k group had a four minute lead on our group. This further meant that the time clock would display the time based...

So, after the Nike Women's Half Marathon I ran in DC, I told myself I'd take a rest afterward. But then someone kept tempting me to sign up for races. And because I was on a PR roll, I thought, hey, why not--let's end the spring race season with a bang. So I ran three races on the three weekends following Nike: the Police Appreciation 10K, Miles for Moffitt 5-Mile, and the Secret Service 5K. I PR'd two out of three, and finally got my 5K (official) PR I'd been hoping for. Interestingly, I placed eighth in my age group for all three races. Police Appreciation 10K - 5/5/13 Official Time: 0:49:46 Official Avg Pace: 8:00 mins/mile Age Group Place: 8/45 The unseasonably cool and breezy weather that morning made for a great race through scenic downtown St. Pete. Even though we learned later that we were led backward through the course as it was designed, which explains why we only saw the back sides of mile markers, we still ran the correct distance.  ...