Livin' the Dream in Lima

Boston. What an experience.  By God's grace, I was not anywhere near the finish line when the explosions happened. I had finished the race around 1:40pm, and walked the couple blocks to the family meeting area to meet up with my Business Man and BFF Talen. After visting for awhile, we headed to the car around 2:40pm, ten minutes before the explosions happened. We didn't even realize anything had happened, because we were in the car on the way to our hotel about 10 miles away. After receiving several texts & calls, we flipped the news on to see what everyone was so concerned about.  It was so surreal. Just one hour before, I had run by the same exact spot. Crossed the finish line with a smile on my face.  Immediately, I started contacting my running friends that were at the race. After learning they were all okay, we sat there in the hotel room for 3+ hours, just watching the news coverage.  I have such a bittersweet ball of emotions about the who...

Well, it is here. Time to head to Boston! The original plan was to drive the 13ish hours today, but after spending some time on Priceline last night, we ended up with a great deal on flight + car rental.  16 weeks of training, and I'm ready to go! It's crazy how much the taper helps... just a few weeks ago I was so over  running. Just get the darn marathon over with already. But now, after having a couple laid-back weeks and lower mileage, I am ALL ABOUT THE RUNNING! I cannot wait to toe the start line on Monday and unleash the beast.  Kicks for the race I have been so blessed to have awesome training partners through this awful winter... despite the nasty snow, wind, freezing rain, I got in more outdoor runs than I ever have in a winter. So a big thank you to Amy and Jim for motivating my butt out of bed at 5:30am multiple times a week. So glad we are done with this weather. I was talking to my students about the race yesterday, and told them that I have r...

One of the best parts about being a teacher is spring break, for sure. (And Christmas , I mean winter break, and obviously the three months of summer vacation.) Life has been insanely crazy busy the past few months... between teaching, filling orders for  Sara's Sweets , making desserts for The Met , and training for Boston, there hasn't been much down time.  My Business Man and I booked a cruise with my parents months  ago for spring break, and it was the best decision ever. Seriously, it came it exactly the right time. After such a long, nasty winter (and running through a long, nasty winter), it was so nice to spend a week in the sunshine and 80-degree temps. The cherry on top was that we had no cell phone service at all! No distractions, no emails, no voicemails to tend to. No responsibilities for an entire five days! We almost didn't know what to do with ourselves. Don't worry, we managed to fill the time. ;) We cruised with Royal Caribbean on t...

Boston is just five weeks away. Which seems sooo long still. Why did I choose a 16-week marathon training plan? I think next time I will go with a 12-week plan. Less time to get bored. And nervous. Anyways, last week was an okay week of training. I developed a sore throat on Tuesday and have been fighting some sort of head cold/sinus congestion crap ever since. Today I could hardly speak. It made teaching oh   so enjoyable . (You try commanding the attention of 18 teenagers with the voice of a whisper. Not fun.) We ended up with a snow day last Wednesday, so I ran my 20-miler on the treadmill. It was pretty boring. Kathie Lee & Hoda just aren't as entertaining as they used to be. Saturday, I raced the BBO 4-mile. This was my 3rd year running this race; it's pretty fun. In 2011 , I ran 27:07, and in 2012 , I ran 25:01. The course is pancake-flat, but there's always a lot of wind on the country roads. Secretly, I hoped to break 24:00 this time around. (Lofty, I k...

I had originally planned on writing this post about 2 weeks ago... when I was actually 'halfway' to Boston. Now that two weeks have passed, the title of this blog post had to be changed.  So, the Boston Marathon is exactly 6 weeks from yesterday. 41 days away... and I'm feeling pretty good?! (I think...) I have missed the last five weeks of recaps so here's the highlights: Running. Lots of it. (duh) The last few week's weekly mileage amounts. Last week's cut-back week of [only, haha] 45 miles was much appreciated. Some killer long runs... including my first 20 miler of this training cycle, a 16-miler with 12 @ 7:04 pace, and a 15-miler with 4 miles at tempo pace. New running jacket - my pacer running bud gave me this purple windbreaker and I think I've worn it on almost every run since. Such a fun color! Lots of this stuff. I'm so over winter. It's March 5, I'm just ready for some temps in the 40s... is that too much...

So with this crazy busy life, I haven't had much time to blog. I'm sure you've gathered that. This also means I haven't had much time to cook. Does that mean we haven't been eating? Oh no - it just means we've been eating a lot of frozen pizza, easy paninis, and Schwan's chicken pot pies. (Oh how I love the Schwan man.) As it turns out, I returned from my run this morning to find out we had a 2-hour delay due to the wind chill. Best thing ever. Even better, the 2-hour delay turned into an entire day off. Which means I get an entire day to play catch up and even some extra free time to myself. Woo hoo!  It just so happens that I actually cooked dinner on Monday night, and it was so delicious that I actually took a picture. And now I even have time to blog about it! One of my Business Man's favorite things to eat is pulled BBQ pork or chicken. I stumbled across a recipe for Asian BBQ sauce, so I thought I'd give it a try. Sweet & spicy ...

First peak week, dominated. Okay maybe not quite dominated , but over with. And I can sigh a big breath of relief. The goal was to get in about 60 miles total, with an 18-19 mile long run and a 4x2-mile threshold workout. The weather wasn't too cooperative... half my runs were on the treadmill. (Boo.) Thanks to my buddy MLK Jr., I had last Monday off school, so I tackled a beast of a threshold workout on the treadmill. The wind chill was near 0*F so there was no way I was battling crazy winds and extreme cold with that  long of a workout.  My torture of the day was 4x2-mile @ 6:32 with 1-2 minutes standing recovery. Basically, I set the treadmill to 9.2mph with a 0.5% incline and ran sprinted 2 miles... and then hopped off for a minute while the belt ran on wildly without me. I didn't want to waste time slowing down and then getting back up to speed. After a minute of standing awkwardly on the treadmill rails (trying not to fall and make a fool of myself), I would...