I am attempting to record my running adventures while chasing my goal of running the Western States 100. I want to chronicle the joy of running with friends, the fun of running alone, and the excitement of running trails.

I run primarily in the Houston area, which suffers from a trail deficiency. I also spend some time in the Austin area. I love to race and I enjoy using races as training runs for other races. Occassionally, I will get over excited on my "training race/runs" and run too fast (go figure). Luckily, I have a trail-ultra running husband who understands this craziness and tries to keep me grounded (not to mention hydrated, rested, and paced properly.)

I want to share my ups and downs, my successes and failures and try to keep motivated to my ultimate goal. Plus, if I share all of my bone-headed mistakes with you-- you will not have to make them!



Sunday, January 2, 2011

Holiday Derail

Like everyone else, I got a little derailed in my training program over the holidays. I went home to Houston and it was pretty warm most of the time and raining quite a bit (typical Houston December).  On the Thursday before Christmas, I went to my old stomping grounds to do an "old standby" run, incorporating Memorial park and Allen Parkway. I decided that I would also use my "Virginia technique" of only walking the uphills and running continuously on the flats and downhills.

Remember a while back when I was saying that "hilly" was a relative term and that people here talk about courses being "relatively" flat and I think "did we run the same route??? That was hilly as hell!"  I learned that maybe they are converting me.  I used to love Allen Parkway because it was so "hilly."  I was looking and looking and looking for the hills.  I walked a few seconds here and there but would feel a little embarrassed because the hills were so small.  However, I had a wonderful run.  I ended up with 14.5 and I was happy with that.

Christmas was a fun filled family affair with no running (as expected)- Bruce and I headed to Austin for a few days.  I felt like I had not been there in forever.  We arrived on Sunday and went out to Barton Creek to hike for a few miles.  That turned into 4 miles, but at least we did something.   We decided to run on Monday (late morning) and treat ourselves to a couple of Matt's margaritas on Sunday.  Monday we headed to Barton Creek to run the trail.  We started (and ended) at the "hill of life."  This is one tough hill.  We ran 10 miles on the trail and did 2 miles of constant up and down the hill of life.  It was a tough run- we both took a tumble, but kept going.  It was a really good workout and we felt good at the end.  We headed back to Houston on Tuesday, so the rest of our runs were just weekly mileage in the neighborhood. 

Bruce got me 2 Western States videos for Christmas.  We watched them with fascinated stares.  We are hooked- excited and terrified.  I decided that I need to get to work! See you on the trails!
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