Preamble to the Vegas Mustang 50th Anniversary Half Marathon

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Tomorrow we're off to Vegas for my race on Saturday. I have mixed feelings about it. My foot pain comes and goes and though I'm pretty confident I can finish the half marathon, I'm starting to get really nervous about the marathon distance in June for Calgary. Speaking of which, the deadline to switch distance is tonight at midnight (in case you need to)... Every time I run now, that's in the back of my mind.

The pain in my foot seems to have migrated into the back of my ankle, where I'm starting to wonder is maybe where it really began, and perhaps the arch pain was a result of continuing to run on it or overcompensation. Anyways, there's not much I can do about it at this point, except continuing to focus on recovery and running smart. I think the timing for this injury is what perplexes me the most. Sometimes I feel like I can only be good at one thing at one time if that makes sense. Lately I've been more focused on school because I haven't been enjoying running as much because of the pain, which I suppose isn't entirely terrible, since I need to finish it. Also, it could be a lot worse, as my foot actually seems to be managing the half distance before becoming excruciatingly painful, so I'm definitely counting my blessings in that respect. That's a huge improvement since LA.

Mostly I'm looking forward to a vacation with Cody. We have a really busy Summer coming up with friends getting married and my practicum for school, so this will be our main vacation this year other than hopefully some camping and I think we both need the time away together.

Other than the race, I don't have any plans to run. Supposedly, it's set to be 30+ degrees or high 80's Fahrenheit. Personally, I do not run well in those temperatures, but hopefully because the race is so early in the morning we will be able to beat the heat...

Do you have any exciting plans for the Easter long weekend? Any suggestions for what to do in Vegas? We are seeing a couple of shows, but so far that's it.

WOW... I can't believe it's over.

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Yesterday I began my day by taking my 2nd taxi ever in New York City to central park making my way to my corral along with 18000 other runners. After a VERY chilly wait I began the race of a lifetime around Central Park, through Times Square, past the new World Trade Center, and through the Battery Park tunnel ending finally at the South Street Seaport.

There are so many things to say about this race and this trip and I just haven't had time to process it all just yet. I've been up for nearly 24 hours now and I need to go to sleep and digest everything that's happened. My race report will be up in the next couple days complete with some great photos!

Until then I will share a couple of things:

1. This was the coldest start to a race I've ever had.

2. I've never run while that sick and I'm STILL sick... seriously.

3. It was not a PR despite my best efforts. Not sure how I feel about this yet.

4. NYC was completely different than I imagined.

5. This could be the MOST memorable race I've ever done.

6. I have never been this sore post-race before.

7. I love Vancouver and I'm so happy I live here.

More to come. I hope everyone who ran on St. Patrick's Day had a great time, I look forward to reading about it but now I need to rest and recover.

Also, I have some more great reviews/giveaways coming up so stay tuned!

13k IS enough.

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So I had planned to do 16k today with a group out of the Running Room. When I arrived a group that I had previously trained with in the summer was only doing 7k, as tempting as that was it was a HUGE group and I didn't feel like that today. So, I opted for a smaller group running 16k with some hills, I felt good, tired but good. When we hit the hill that was about a mile long I didn't feel that bad at all, I powered through it at the front of the pack, thanks Nevada! But come about 10k my ankle started nagging me and I realized that there's no point injuring myself now and it was still 3k back to the store so I waved goodbye and off I went by myself.

It was a peaceful run, I'm thankful for that. I'm okay with only 13k, it IS enough. Sometimes I think I start feeling guilty about the shorter distances when I know I could go that whole 21.1k, probably further at this point. But I'm learning that there is a time for rest, that is going to be very important this year to avoid injury. In preparation for the first half on February 10th next Sunday will be a shorter distance as well.

Here's to a restful week. Is it bad that I need a vacation from the vacation we had?!

Buffet anyone?

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Okay first of all, I have not slept in almost 40 hours, so this may not be the most coherent post:
We started our journey at 4:00am this morning and like any "seasoned traveller" I stayed up all night worrying about what I forgot to pack. I even got out of bed a few times to go see if i put this or that in the suitcases. The airport was a relatively painless experience, I was very thankful for this as you may know travelling with a toddler off his regular routine is like walking through a minefield, I was sort of expecting for something to go terribly wrong the entire time. I pictured him having a Chernobyl style meltdown in the middle of boarding or takeoff and being those parents that everyone were staring at. Normally this wouldn't bother me but I did have to endure a 2.5hr flight with these people... There were some close calls where I actually cringed and closed my eyes for a moment waiting... When a toy was lost or when the sippy cup exploded over all of us from the pressurization on the plane, but the meltdown never came, my boy was a happy camper the whole time! He fared better than even myself as I was having a panic attack watching every single bag roll off the plane after we landed (we were seated in the very last row, so we had some time before exiting...). "Where is the bag with the orange ribbon Cody? My running shoes are in there, what am I going to do?" It wasn't until we reached the baggage claim and I realized they must have loaded/unloaded bags into both sides of the plane... That did seem like a lot less luggage for the amount of people on the plane!

So after my highly irrational panic attack, I had worked up quite an appetite, so where's my first stop in CA to eat, why In-N-Out of course. Now I know what you're thinking, fast food, but its not just any fast food, I can't even describe how good it is, you really just have to experience it. I mean there's only about 5 things on their menu, and everything is REALLY that good, and the kicker is it's all fresh, they cut the French fries right in front of you! I had planned this great blog post with pictures of In-N-Out and everything but honestly there was no time, I was just too hungry and too exhausted.

So off we went to finally put a very sleepy boy down for a nap. Then it was off to super Target to stock up on baby food, diapers, powerade, you know the essentials! Then we went to a casino buffet for dinner and now I'm sitting here thinking what the hell is wrong with Me? I ate SO much food, and I'm going to run a half marathon on Saturday.

Krista, you're an idiot.
(BUT I ate a lot of salad at the buffet, does that count? NO it doesn't not when it's smothered in cheese, salad dressing and bacon bits.

I've eaten a lot worse even on the night before a 20+k run and I am stillI 2 days away. So I went a little overboard today, time to reign it in tomorrow, get myself sorted out before the run. At least it's warm here and I don't have to get all bundled up for my last training run before the Running from an Angel Half in Boulder City, NV.