A Bump In The Road...

This past week was a hard week. My middle child, Jackson come down with a stomach bug last Sunday and he couldn't shake it.  He ended up in the hospital on IV's and them doing tons of testing on him trying to figure out what was wrong.  There were some other things we need to still follow up on but I am hopeful that those will all work out in the end. We still don't know what it was he had but I can tell you that was the scariest thing I've ever been through as a parent. I always knew Jackson would be the one to do me in. 

 Jackson spend 4 days in the hospital trying to recover from this virus that he had. Needless to say we got little sleep. On Saturday I decided to go ahead and do my long run for the week. Since I am tapering now, it was only 14 miles. I didn't plan on doing the whole 14 since I was dehydrated, exhausted and hadn't eaten well in days. I figured the run would help clear my head and make me feel normal for a little bit. It did. I felt weightless for the first 10 miles. I felt blissful and peaceful until the week started to catch up to me.

 By mile 11 I was dragging and had to stop and walk some. I pushed through it though and ended up feeling more positive about things after that. I thought about my poor sick kid  laying in the hospital and with every step I was wishing him healthier. I know he didn't care that I was running for him but it helped push me further than I felt that I could go.

Running therapy is a wonderful thing. You may not always feel like running but once you start, you'll never regret going out for a run.

Miles and Miles and Miles....

 Soooooooooooooooooooooo....... It's been a while since I've wrote.  Let me explain.  I'M TRAINING FOR A FLIPPING MARATHON!!!!  My life has been insanely busy lately with all the running, fund raising, kids and school and did I mention running? It's been crazy. So let me play catch up.


I ran my  second official half marathon this August. I was so nervous before this as I had visions of reliving Cap City all over again. The whole week before I couldn't sleep and I was having nightmares over this race. It's in August, it's hot and it's 13.1 miles!
I had trouble deciding if I was just going to run a slow training pace or really push myself and try to PR. Thankfully it was a cool morning so I decided to go for it. I paced myself behind a couple for about 8 miles and  after they left me I was left to my own devices to finish. I felt AMAZING until mile 11 and then I got the goose bumps of doom and started to feel the energy drain happen.  I was able to maintain though and did not stop to walk. I crossed the finish line at 2 hours 22 minutes and 28 seconds. I blew my Cap City time out of the water!  I cried when I saw my official finish time and I road the high from that race for days.  It was so good to see all the hard work I've put in this summer come into fruition.

Fundraising has kept me quite busy lately. I offered up photo sessions for charity and that helped raise money pretty quickly but it also gave me a lot of extra work to do! It's worth it though. We also got a chance to go work on the house that we are raising money for! I can safely say that I should not count manual labor as one of my talents nor is looking good in a hard hat. I looked like Steve Erkel.

If you are interested in donating to me via an online donation you can click the link below.

 https://www.razoo.com/story/Amanda-E

So lets talk about the all the running. Below is a picture from my second ever 20 mile run. It was rough. It was so hot and at about mile 14 I started to fade fast. By mile 16 I was over it and I had taken to a run/walk just to finish.

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The following week we did 18 miles and we mixed it up a little with some faster miles thrown in between the slow ones. It was nice to break up the monotony of  the long run and it made me feel pretty good knowing I could pull out a 10 minute pace after 15-16 miles. This run was a good one and I'd like to credit the large amount of cookies I ate the night before at a wedding for the awesome time. 

So that brings us to today. Today I ran the furthest distance to date. Let me start by saying I ate enough carbs to kill a person before this run but I have to say.... it worked. I did not hit a wall at any point. I felt strong and I ran faster than I had set out to, especially since it was a warmer day.  I had some good running buddies to get me through the miles and some awesome signs posted along the way from my running group to put a smile on my face.  Today made me feel like I can do this now. I felt like I could have ran it today. I only hope I feel this good on the actual day.

So we are all caught up. I will try to do better about posting. I have my 1  year runniversary coming up on October 3rd.  I am running a half marathon that day and last year it was my first 5k.  Here's to progress!

 P.S.  Please go donate to my charity!  https://www.razoo.com/story/Amanda-E