Well I haven't blogged in awhile, but I am waiting for a train and
have a few minutes :)

I have my 10 mile at waterfall glen Saturday. I have not been training
as much as I would like. I hope I do ok!

After the race I am off to Miami!!!

Sent from my iPhone.

The Hills

Woo hoo! I had another 10 mile race this morning. The race was the Downers Grove 5 & 10 miler that I also ran last year. I was a bit concerned about how I would do considering that I have not been training much this year :/ But amazingly enough...I have improved my time again! This is also very surprising to me since this is a very hilly course. Once the race started I got to thinking and I was like...oh no...no wonder my time for the Soldier Field 10m was so much less than last years DG 10m. I was wrong though...I am faster! See the times here:

Mile 1: 8:23.6
Mile 2: 8:21.3
Mile 3: 8:37.9
Mile 4: 8:14.8
Mile 5: 8:13.1
Mile 6: 8:14.3
Mile 7: 8:43.4
Mile 8: 8:57.5
Mile 9: 8:57.5
Mile 10: 8:36.0

Official Time: 1:24:48
Pace: 8:29min/mile

I also found out about another 10m race...Waterfall Glen Xtreme 10. I signed up today :D The crazy thing is that it is a very hilly course, worse than the DG 10m...yikes! One month to train!

Run for the Animals

Saturday morning I had my 10k race in Wheaton, Run for the Animals. Wow was it a rough one! It is just way too hot and humid in Chicago lately. As you can see from my times I definitely was affected by the fact that there was also a 5k race. I ran a bit too fast in the beginning and with the temperatures rising as time passed I really slowed down. Then around mile 4 I realized that there is no Gatorade at the water stations! I guess I'm just spoiled or something?? I should really investigate these things before I start a race :p Drinking too much water makes my stomach cramp up while running. I like to switch back and forth with Gatorade. I guess the water was useful when I poured it all over me...

Here's my times:

Mile 1: 8:05.0
Mile 2: 8:24.2
Mile 3: 8:01.4
Mile 4: 8:46.6
Mile 5: 8:47.1
Mile 6: 8:51.9
Mile 6.21: 1:57.2

Official time: 52:53.4
Overall Pace: 8:26min/mile

The Fog

I had a really nice run tonight. I left work at a reasonable time and omg it was hot and humid!!! My first thought was...I'm gonna have to run inside :( Luckily, I live by the lake! What a difference a little body of water makes. I actually thought there was a fire in one of the high rises over here because there was really patchy fog. Haha...I guess I'm not used to the lake effect weather yet. I ran along the lake and since it was so foggy I could barely see the lake even though it was right next to me. It seemed like I was running inside along a gray wall. It was cool :D

I'm not sure how far I ran, but it was for about an hour. I really need to look into the GPS thing again.

Angela needs some inspiration.

Alright...I'm slacking again! I'm posting in here so that I make sure I run tonight.

Work has been really busy and kinda stressful lately so I'm using that excuse this week :p That and its 80°F+ in my workout room. I would try to run outside, but I keep getting home pretty late.

Enough excuses, I will be running tonight. I have my 10k race on Saturday morning and I must prepare!

Ugly Betty???

After my post race nap Saturday, I finally picked up my first pair of glasses! Over the last 2 years since starting my job my vision has been slowly starting to bother me :( I'm pretty sure it's from all of the time I spend on the computer and looking at small drawings. I went for an eye exam almost a year ago and the optometrist was surprised that I could even tell that my eyes were changing. So he gave me a prescription for the smallest increment on my right eye.

My prescription was about to expire and my eyes have been bothering me when I drive at night so I finally went and picked out a pair. I hopefully wont be wearing them all the time, mostly just for driving. Although now that I can see so precisely out of my right eye...now the left seems not as sharp!



I have also signed up for another race...Run for the Animals 10k.

I finished on the 50!

First things first...my 10 mile race Saturday morning went spectacularly well! The weather was just about perfect for a run, maybe a little bit too sunny. I felt like it was going to be a rough race with the way my runs had been going the week before, but I couldn't have been more wrong! I kept track of my mile times on my iPhone. I was surprised to see that my first mile was under a 9min pace since the course was very congested at this point and I was still in my "warm up" stage. So I continued running and enjoying the peaceful weather and LSD. My pace was wonderful and I felt really good until about mile 7. That was the first point during the run that I was thinking when is this gonna be over! There were quite a few hills around this part and I was getting tired...but you know races aren't everyday running and you just have to go the extra mile...literally ;D Overall, i thought the course was very nice, however, when we were running into the stadium we went through an area that smelled realy bad of car fumes, yuck! But anyway, I beat my last 10 mile race time by 8:27 since my pace went from 9:24 to 8:33min/mile!!!! I'm so proud of myself :D

Mile 1: 8:48.8
Mile 2: 8:20.3
Mile 3: 8:21.7
Mile 4: 8:29.7
Mile 5: 8:30.6
Mile 6: 8:37.5
Mile 7: 8:43.6
Mile 8: 8:29.1
Mile 9: 8:52.0
Mile 10: 8:29.2
Unofficial time: 1:25:42 (I started the time early and stopped late)

Official Time: 1:25:28
Pace: 8:33min/mile

Waterfall Glen

I had a really nice easy run last night at Waterfall Glen. It's a forest preserve that surrounds Argonne National Laboratory. I had never been there before; I have to say it is very nice from the little bit I saw. I walked and jogged about 3/4 mile out and then "raced" back. 

Btw...tomorrow is the big race!