Road Race weekend!

So I managed to run the 4 miler Saturday morning. Phew! I was feeling a little out of place when I got there and didn't recognize a single person. And they all looked fast! See:

Thankfully they weren't all as fast as they looked, and I held my own. I did take two walk breaks. One short one at 2.3 where there was a water stop, and the other at 3.4 where I was tired and there was a decent hill. I'm a little disappointed in myself for walking that hill, but my time was 41 and change, so really it wasn't THAT bad! All things considered. Plus, I had a full day ahead still!
After race time, I took a short break outside with the puggers and had a snack. After that was barn chores and riding.

I ran a few errands in the evening, and then was exhausted so the pugs and I napped on the floor till bedtime.

I woke up Sunday and prayed to the weather gods to hold off with the rain until after barn chores. Thankfully they listened to me! I had the horses out for 2 hours while I did the barn and cleaned out the hay shed. Got them all tucked back in to their clean stalls with their lunch just in time for the rain to start! I was a little bummed because I wanted to go to the farmers market, but decided to fuel up the car and the gator and see what the weather was doing. Worked out pretty well for me, as it stopped just as I arrived at the market. Woohoo! I didn't take a photo of my farm fresh goodies this time though, sorry!
After I put away my tasty food, I headed out to visit Ducky at cowboy camp. He's doing very well according the trainer, but is definitely a tricky case. Not shocking to hear! Here he is being a western hony:

After my visit with Ducky, I stopped at the store to get the rest of my food for the week. Started the laundry and took a 45 minute time-out in the sun with a delicious smoothy (which I also used to make popsicles!)

I followed that up with pony dinners, puggy dinners, and some housework. Finished the night off the best way possible:

These busy weekends are exhausting! Did you do anything exciting this weekend?

Outside > Inside

After my miserable run at the gym on Monday, I was determined to take things outside Wednesday evening. I was having the most difficult time deciding how far to run and what route to take. Sunday I will be running the Leprechaun 5 Miler, which is certainly an attainable distance given my recent 10 miler with Katie. Yet I hadn't actually run more than 3 since I realized my April half wasn't happening. Finally I decided to run 4 miles. AND I decided to take my advice from the other day and step back a little to regain my confidence. Meaning I wanted to limit the hills and not press too hard for pace. AKA, go out and enjoy the run!

Well... low and behold, I had a GREAT run! There were moments of "whoa, this is hard" of course, but I told myself just slow down a little, catch your breath. I looked a few times at my distance as I had decided to do a few different out and backs. (I wasn't sure entirely of when it was getting dark, so didn't want to ever be too far from home.) I never looked at my pace however.

Speaking of distance... Does anyone else lose the ability to do math while running? By the time I was on my last out and back, I could not for the life of me figure out how far out I had to run. I finally guessed, and luckily it worked out. Running and math do not mix my friends!

When my run was over, I let myself look at the pace:

Do you see what I see?? That's my fastest run since... September I think. Nice work! Granted it was a relatively flat route, blah blah blah. But I'll take it! I was super excited to plug my watch in and see what the splits looked like. Oddly enough, my first mile was the fastest. Even more odd, that was the hilliest mile!

It's really encouraging to have a great run. Finally! Have any of you had a nice run lately? Battling the "I hate running" thoughts?