The 1st Quarter Recap...

So much has happened so far in 2018! You probably could have guessed that based on my relatively scant blog posts for the past 3 months. It's not that I haven't wanted to blog, it's just that time has been so limited recently with lots of competing priorities. Anyway, it's the end of the first quarter so this is the perfect time to recap the last few months!

January started off with a big bang work-wise. I got a promotion (yay!) and took on a lot more work related duties. Running-wise I did 3 races (the Key West virtual half marathon, the Tropical 5K, and the Miami half marathon) and I started noticing the downward trend in my overall running pace (sigh). I did make it to my first "100 miles in a month" milestone though so that's something right?

February kept the same work momentum because we started off the month with one of our major events for the Trauma Program at the hospital where I work. The event actually started in January and continued through to Feb 2nd. I also travelled back home to spend some time with family and friends. February had 2 races, another virtual half and the A1A Ft. Lauderdale half, but I didn't make my 100 miles milestone for February (I only got to 75 miles). I'm blaming that on the fact that it was a shorter month (but the truth is I skipped a few runs).

March was a major travel month. The first trip was to Seattle and Portland for part vacation/part work. Seattle was the vacation segment with Marc... we went to visit some of his friends from college. Then we went down to Portland where I presented at the STN's Trauma Conference (it was amazing!). And, in case that wasn't enough travel, I went to Carmel, Indiana with my friend Niqui from work and we completed the Carmel Marathon Relay. I also ran the Miami Beach 1/2 at the beginning of the month, so I ended up with a total of 115 miles for March :)

So now that the first quarter of the year is over (so fast right?!), it's time to look forward to some of the major life stuff happening in quarter two:
1. Some big birthdays are happening - Kai; San & Me; Marc; my Mom)
2. The Pittsburgh Marathon will kick off month 2 of quarter 2!
3. College tours with Kai will be taking place throughout June!

Any major/exciting things happened so far this year?

What are you looking forward to in quarter 2?

When is your birthday? Do you do a big birthday celebration?

The 2017 Miami Beach 1/2 Marathon {Race Recap}

Normally I would be able to share all the prelim stuff leading up to a race (the expo, packet pick up etc), but I was in Pittsburgh for all of that. Thankfully my friend Suzanne was gracious enough to pick up my race bib for me while I was away. And since I was car pooling with her and her hubby, Jeff, I got my stuff on race morning.

Once we got there the big challenge was parking. All the garages were full and it took a while to navigate to a spot that would be safe. After that though the rest of the "pre-race" stuff went smoothly and we met up with fellow running buddies for some pics...

(Andy, me & Suzanne)

(Andy, Debbie & me)

The race is less... "formal" than some of the other (bigger) Miami races, so we didn't have a structured corral system. It was a rolling start which means runners lined up according to their estimated pace. I didn't actually see anyone with pacing signs but I was told there were a few pacers out there...

When Your Garmin Dies...

With all my fridge and foot drama I forgot to tell you guys that it's RACE WEEK!!!

Yup! Half Marathon #21 will be on Sunday in Miami Beach. This will be my second year doing the Miami Beach half (I missed last year's event but I ran it in 2015) so I'm looking forward to running the course again. My 2015 finish time was: 2:29:40 and I was kind of hoping for a course PR this year but I'm not sure how my foot will hold up. I'm icing it and am prepared to take more frequent walk breaks etc if I need to. So I'll just have to wait and see how race day goes 🙏.

My foot is still bugging me so I only did a one mile run today but my Garmin crashed about half way through!

It's been stuck on this screen for the past two hours...

I entered my run on the Garmin website manually (since I know where the one mile point is in my complex) and estimated the pace. And I've spent the entire night trying to troubleshoot it... but no luck 😭. I'm going to leave it overnight and hope & pray that it magically starts working tomorrow because I do not want to buy a new watch right now 😞.

Between Restlessness & Exhaustion...

So I'm a little tired. Ok, I'm A LOT tired, and I've had this nagging headache that doesn't seem to want to go away. I ended up missing my run this morning so that I could get some more rest and hopefully sleep my headache away. But it didn't work. So for right now I'm aiming to linger in a state between restlessness and exhaustion and hopefully get through my daily run tonight.

Between sleeping in and keeping up with this blogging streak I had a busy day at work planning for an upcoming conference that I'm going to attend/present a poster at. The conference is right before my next half marathon which is the Miami Beach half... next weekend!!!

The Miami Beach half was my desired PR race, but after the A1A half last weekend I'm really not sure I'll be able to pull it off. The reality of that is pretty sobering because as the weather gets hotter and more humid in Florida, a PR seems further and further out of reach. I'm still going to put in the work and preparation and aim for it, but I come back from my work trip late on Saturday night and my race is bright and early on Sunday morning 😞. So the combination of being tired and having to run in the heat probably won't be great.

While I'm planning for the upcoming Miami Beach half and work stuff, I'm also planning for future stuff with my ZOOMA Ambassador group. With that in mind, I'm excited to share that the ZOOMA leadership team recently opened additional ambassador spots!!! If you are interested you can apply here. 

You can also check out the entire schedule of ZOOMA races (here) and decide which one(s) you want to register for 😉)...

How was your Wednesday?

Have you ever been a race ambassador?

Do you have any PR goals for this year?