21 days...

21 is my favorite number....but at the moment I'm not sure how I feel about it. I have 21 days until The Big Sur. I'm excited but not. This will be marathon numero dos for me... and I've been feeling great about my training until recently. Over the past month I don't feel like I've kept up with my training as well as I should have and I also feel like I have just been eating shit and have put on like 10 lbs.

After the Shamrock Half Marathon weekend where Amanda and I ate like pigs, I came back and got sick that week... so I didn't train too well that week and into the weekend. I ran with Nat for 10 miles in her half marathon, and felt like poop that day. The whole week after that I felt like I was trying to catch up on sleep and feel better and didn't get in too many weekday runs. I was just exhausted all the time. Last weekend, I completed the Cherry Blossom 10 miler here in DC. I did well in the race but was completely dead the rest of the day. I got my best time in a 10 miler which I was excited about... but part of me wanted to be faster. I went a 1:24 something. My hip started hurting after this race... but it wasn't anything restricting so I ignored it.

This past weekend it was 18 mile weekend. I planned out a butterfly route - 6 miles out and back on the capital crescent trail and 3 out and back on the mount vernon trail. I parked at roosevelt island, crossed over the key bridge and made my way to the cap crescent. It was a cloudy day but was a perfect running temp of mid 40s. I felt good starting out... I had my ipod on and was staying at a good pace, based off my garmin. When I got to the turnaround point, I stopped to call Keri (she was meeting for the last 6 miles). When I started up again, my hip hurt like hell which made me nervous for the rest of the run. The stopping to walk made the pain worse, so I just tried to run faster and think about good technique... as I came to the end of the cap crescent trail Keri was ready and waiting for me. it was perfect! We ran the last 6 six... and I just started to die... my pace slowed down miserably, my hip was in so much pain but thank goodness I had Keri there with me or else I probably would have walked and cursed the last three miles. When we finished I walked up and down the parking lot a few times but I was struggling. My hip hurt like hell. But I DID IT! Keri said I was talking and smiling and laughing and she was super proud of me - well girlfriend I am sooo happy you were there with me - so THANK YOU!!! :)

All day yesterday and most of this morning I could barely walk normally. Something is definitely wrong with the hip and I'm not quite sure what yet. I think I'm invincible... I don't normally get injured and can usually handle pain thrown my way.. but not this time. This time I want to scream whenever I start walking. I was a total gimp over the weekend. I need to schedule an appt with a chiropractor because I think something is not aligned right.

So 21 days til the race. 18 miler done. 20 miler coming up this weekend. I'm looking forward to it.... I think :) What I'm really excited about is heading out to California, driving up and down the coast, heading to wine country, and just getting TAN!! It will be an awesome trip and I'm definitely going to enjoy the race. I haven't taken too good of a look at the race website yet to find out more about the course changes since the road collapsed. I'm hoping for me this means less hill because I haven't done very much hill training.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. more fun updates will come this week. Have a great one!