Christmas 2011

I am usually a once a week blogger but with the Holidays that is tough. Especially with traveling and no smart phone for me :(

My husband and I drove to Nebraska to visit my mom for a few days and we went shopping and hung out in her small town.  For some reason I didn't take any pictures...

Then we only had a 10 hour drive instead of 13 onto Minnesota to spend time with my dad. Last year at this time there was a ton of snow in Minnesota and this year there was none! It was weird. Of course we had a blast and I ate and drank some. I did run but not the mileage I wanted to.

We just returned back to Colorado with a ton of snow and I had a great run this morning. I am less than 3 weeks out to Houston so this will be my last hard week with a 20 miler on Sunday. My main goal really is to finish strong but would love to beat my worst marathon time of 3:55. This race came up unexpected so I have not put in the training that I would have liked to but I think I have enough fitness and mental toughness (and a fast course) to achieve this. I felt awesome on my 17 miler so we shall see.

 Enjoy the pics!

Fun bar in Hokah, MN

Cool toy store in Kellogg, MN

Total hick drinking wine in this cup!!

David and Karen, my step mom's sis who is super fun! Yes this party is in a heated garage...totally Minnesota!

My step sister and her man.

My new favorite game....FARKLE!!!

My dad singing in the church choir.

My dad and I.

HOUSTON Baby!

WOW I can't believe this is happening!

So as of yesterday I called off my February marathon. No one was going to go with me to Arizona and I didn't want to spend the money to go alone plus it would have been BORING!

So I was talking to my running club coach and she had the Brilliant idea (Remember Blair and her brilliant ideas from the Fact of Life!!?? LOVED show...I digress.......)

Without going into too much detail I am going to run the full marathon January 15th!!!
AND I get to watch the Olympic trials Saturday!!!!! How fun. So I need to get in a 17 and 20 miler some tempos in the next 4 weeks!

I am so excited! I will run this for fun so no PR's but still a marathon is a marathon :)

Holiday Fun

Last weekend my sister, husband and I made cute homemade gifts for family members. We had such a good time! I love getting fun ideas from pinterest and other crafty bloggers out there.

Woke up early before my 12 mile run on Sunday and made pumpkin apple butter.

Then we made gift tags and and used twine to decorate the jars.

LOVE THEM!

 

Training is going just OK. I ran over 12 on Sunday but on bike path...by the end my knee was killing me. Plus we have had super cold weather and snow here like in the negatives...so hard to run outside (but I still do). Work is super stressful until Dec. 16th so that doesn't help either...

However weather is looking better this week. I hope I feel good on this weekend's 15 miler. Lots of people that said they were going to run this race with me have bailed so do I even want to spend $500+ to run this or train for another one later? Am I just chickening out? I plan on running it as of now :)