March: A month of highs and lows

March has been a very tough month for me in terms of getting all my training hours in.  I have struggled with burn out and weeks with little to no swimming.  I even had one week where I only ran twice, which is very out of character for me since I love running.  I'm happy to say I completed 429 miles and 37 hours of training.  Although this sounds like a significant amount of hours to dedicate to my training I am still about 8+ short of where I wanted to be by now.

    On the positive side I've seen a lot of improvement in my run and my riding.  I improved my ride of the three bears by 1mile per hour and I've noticed an improvement in my track workouts.  This week I ran 3x1 mile and all of my times were under 7 minutes.  Last time I tried this workout this month my stomach hated me and before that my times weren't below 7 minute miles.  My students worked hard and did well at Trojan Olympics putting on a show I am proud of even though we had some minor set backs along the way.  I'm an advisor for the class of 2013 and I couldn't find their dance on youtube, but here is their pyramid and the senior dance, hard to believe this was my first freshman class.
Anyway, I'm feeling a bit better now that T.O. is over and I can make more time for my workouts and GRADING...which I have fallen so far behind on.  Another positive was that my mom came to visit.  It was exciting to see her since I don't get to see her too often and we finally got to celebrate her retirement.
    However, March was also filled with some major bummers.  This was a month of rainy days to say the least.  I can handle running in the rain, but I spent many days sitting on a trainer or in a spin class instead of enjoying the outdoors on my bike.  I also had a few track sessions that I had to call it quits and try track again on the treadmill.  I skipped workouts to catch up on sleep or just lay on the couch.  Overall, I will be happy to see March go, and I hope April brings sunshine and great days as I wind my way toward Wildflower.

End of week 13 and a day of spectating

Usually I am the runner/racer when it comes to an early morning out on the race course, but today it was my turn to spectate as my boyfriend Nick tried to take on the Oakland Half Marathon.  I ran this half marathon last year, but I refused to do this half again due to the late start, 9a.m., last year it was scalding hot by 11a.m.  Despite some major blisters and a side stitch he did pretty well finishing at 1:31:50, which shaved about 2 minutes off of his first half marathon in Big Sur.  He did a great job even though he had some issues along the way.
In terms of being a spectator Oakland is a perfect course to cheer anyone on.  I was able to walk from one side of the course to the other and cheer Nick on at the start, mile 9, and mile 12.  I would have made it to mile 5 as well, but it isn't exactly the safest side of town to walk through by myself so I stuck around Lake Merritt.  I'm very much a poster and flashy spectator kind of person, but to avoid embarrassing Nick I stuck to just cheering with my backpack of supplies.  I even managed to meet a few people sharing stories along the way and they helped me cheer for Nick at mile 12.  Cheering to me is very important because when you're really starting to lose hope and everything hurts its the people who are out there that know you can finish even if you don't think you can that keep me going.  I remember during San Diego during mile 23 I really had nothing left in me, but I had people yelling, "Keep going Lauren, you're doing great!"  I didn't know these people I just had my name on my racing bib, but they still encouraged me to keep going.

I'd like to send a shout out and big THANK YOU to everyone who has ever been a spectator or cheerleader, we all need you more than you think, you are what keep us going and what makes me want to kick my butt a few more times.