A Runner’s Balancing Act

I am writing this post from my new HTC Droid Incredible. I am sitting in a park in Payson, Arizona, where the temperature is probably about 72 degrees. I just finished a 13 mile run and I‘m feeling pretty good! I‘ve been running up here on the weekends now for for 3 weeks. Its only about hours drive from my house, but the elevation changes from 1,000 to 5,000 feet in that hour and the temperature drops a good 20 degrees. I’ve been wanting to spend a little more time in Payson instead of driving up here and just turning around and heading back to the hot desert as soon as I finish my run. A good friend suggested I get a laptop so I could blog from anywhere. That would be wonderful except I really don’t have the cash for that. So instead I opted for a full size blue tooth keyboard that pairs with my Droid phone. WOW. All I can say is… this is freaking awesome.

I got my HTC Incredible back in July and I have been loving every second of being a smart phone owner. I downloaded the WordPress app right away and intended to blog from my vacation in Mammoth, CA where I did a ton of running. Unfortunately, as nice as the little touch keyboard is, it really is not conducive to creative writing. I doubt you all want to read a blog post filled with text message shorthand. The keyboard is called the “Freedom Pro“ and I definitely recommend it. It even folds up and has a carrying case for easy transport.

I‘ve been playing around with a lot of different running apps on my phone since I got it. Unfortunately I have been  disappointed in nearly every app on the market. This phone isn‘t going to be replacing my Garmin anytime soon.  It is interesting to think that I could have all of my running gadgets combined into one – gps, radio, mp3 player, map, cell phone, and camera. At this point, I think I can use it for everything but the GPS. It IS accurate enough, but my biggest problem is that I have yet to find an app that will pause recording if you come to a stop light. I hate how the average pace data gets thrown off.

In future posts, I hope to go through all of the running apps and cell phone products I’ve played with and review them. Maybe I can save someone my frustrations.

But before I do that I thought I‘d just give you all an update on my life and running.  I‘m mentally gearing up for the fall and winter racing season. I‘m still trying to figure out what races I want to run and if I‘m going to attempt 26.2 again in January. I for sure will do a half or two before then.  There are a couple of halfs in November I will probably run.

My long run buddies are no longer available, so I‘ll be doing my long runs alone this season. I‘m sort of bummed out about that, but at the same time I‘m sort of an introspective soul and a good long run by myself can be enjoyable.

My average speed seems to have dropped over the last couple of months. It’s no surprise really – it’s hot out there and my milage has dropped as well. I‘m in the process now of slowly upping the weekly milage, and adding in some speedwork here and there so that come October I can really start pushing myself. I‘ve still got another month of hot temperatures to deal with so I can‘t expect too much out of myself just yet.

That’s it for now. I have to drive back down the hill so I can meet my hubby for lunch. Have a safe and happy Labor Day weekend all!

(I know, TWO posts in one day. Crazyness! When I’m on a roll I just go with it!)

I was tagged in the “Beautiful Blogger Award”  by Jill, over at Jill Will Run recently. Part of the game is to post 7 random facts about yourself in a post on your site. These things come around every so often, but I do enjoy disclosing random facts about myself, so here goes:

1. I LOVE the soft inside of brand new sweatshirt. I went to Kohl’s last weekend and bought 3 new sweatshirts! Such a waste of money when I already own plenty of sweatshirts but I don’t care. I just love snuggling into the soft fleece. I wonder if they’ll stay soft if I dry clean them?!

2. I’m NOT very spontaneous. I like to plan and know what’s coming far in advance, especially when it comes to running. But this week I have broken out of my box! On Monday I was surfing Active.com and realized there is a small, inexpensive half marathon being run this weekend only an hour from my house. I thought about it for 24 hours and Tuesday night, I signed up.  How’s that for spontaneity? I thought it pretty comical that Active wanted to sell me an online “Training Plan” for the race. Really? I only have 4 days left to train!!

3. I have known my best friend Jackie since the 3rd grade. We bonded playing barbies and have been best friends ever since.

4. I have an older half sister I did not know existed until I was 23 years old! Its really a neat story. My mom gave her up for adoption 10 years before I was born and 38 years later they reunited. She’s super cool! She totally fits in in my family. I get to see her and my two neices again in April. I am very excited.

5. I HATE the taste of fish. Even more, I HATE HATE HATE the smell of it!

6. I secretly want a mini cooper. Ok it’s not that much of a secret. Unfortunately  it doesn’t make a good family car, and our next vehicle is probably going to need to be one.

7. I am ashamed to say that I throw away most our leftovers along with the plastic container. Not only do we waste the most of the food, we waste the container because I’m so easily grossed out. I need to buy stock in Glad and Ziplock. Maybe I’ll recoup some of my losses!

Now I need to tag some bloggers to also get this award. I tag:
Ariana at ArianaHilborn.com
Lauren at Failed Muffins
Anne at Run DMZ
Lindsay at Chasing the Kenyans
Lauren at Sassy Molassy

Running pops up in my dreams every so often. I’ve had dreams where I am running forever not knowing where I’m going. I’ve also dreamt on more than one occasion that I was being thrown into running a marathon I had not fully trained for. Its usually pretty comical. The gun goes off and I’m like “WHAT?This is a full marathon? I thought it was a half?!” And the people running around me are like “Yeah, you didn’t know that?”. Last night’s running dream was one of the funniest I’ve had yet. I thought I’d share it with you all since you probably need a good laugh for your Wednesday.

I dreamt that I had signed up on a whim to run a small half marathon near my house. When I showed up at the start line there were only about 10 people running. The gun went off and suddenly we were running down MY street towards my house. Then, to my surprise, the race continued right into my front door and around the couch in the living room. I’m at the front of the group with one other guy. We circled into all three rooms in my house and around the couch and then again and again. This entire race consisted of laps around my house (which is only 1400 sq feet mind you!). I thought, “I can’t run a half marathon like this!” as I continued to make the loop. But then I realized I was doing so well and at the front of the pack I could actually win! So I kept looping with this one other guy not far behind me. Finally I stop and look around and think, “this is stupid!, I’m going to have to make a million laps to run a half marathon in my house!”. So I sit down on the couch I’ve been circling and Joe is there watching TV as people continue to run through the house. He isn’t bothered. He just sips his beer, puts his arm around me and says something like “I thought it was stupid too!”.

How’s that for a crazy dream! Now you know I am completely insane! So how about you guys? Have you ever had a weird dream about running?