In a Rut

I think I'm in a running rut, or was, I'm not sure.  I don't have anything coming up.  When I was doing Couch to 5K last fall, the end was the goal.  Then I ran a 5k a couple months after that, and then another 5k a few weeks later.  Right now I've got nothing.  There is a 10k in my little town at the end of October.  It's on Sunday of Pumpkin Fest weekend though so I'm torn.  Pumpkin Fest is a big deal here.  It starts on Wednesday with a display of decorated pumpkins on the courthouse lawn.  It ends on Sunday afternoon with a super ridiculous long parade.  It is my favorite time of year!  Honestly, I'm not sure why anyone that's not from here would want to subject themselves to this, but people come from all over the place to participate.  The best part is that a lot of people "come home" for Pumpkinfest and I get to see a lot of old friends.  On Saturday night our good friends have a party and then bar crawl.  That's not going to work if I'm going to run 6.2 miles for the first time the next morning.  I wish they would do the run on Saturday morning, that would make it much easier.  So even though I really love running, and have never run the pumpkin run before (I worked at it all 4 years in high school) I don't know if I want to give up my Saturday night.

Because I have nothing planned I feel like I'm in a rut.  Although I have been running, I don't feel like I've really been improving at all.  Most of my runs are right at 3 miles (or a little more) and that's it.  I haven't missed any runs because I'm trying to loose weight (10 pounds to go) but that's kind of been in a rut too.  I don't have a lot of motivation to do any more than the 3 miles.  I would like to work on speed and to increase my distance some.  I've been running in the mornings quite a bit and pushing the jogging stroller.  Maybe that's why I don't want to do more than 3 miles, pushing the stroller is hard work!!!!

We went to the lake last weekend for a family reunion.  It was super fun and it was great to see all my cousins and second cousins and their parents.  My aunt and uncle and 2 cousins were here from Colorado.  They are both runners and my uncle did an Ironman last year (I think, could've been the year before)  My aunt offered to run with me one of the days we were there.  I was a little worried.  I wanted to run with her, but she's fast, or faster than me at least (that's not hard to do) and I can't talk while I run.  I have to think about my breathing in order to not hyperventilate.  We got there on Thursday afternoon and I ran on Friday with my sister-in-law.  She ran slow with me and we didn't talk.  I actually ended up running faster than usual by around 15-20 sec/mile.  On Sunday my aunt asked me if I wanted some company on my run.  I gave my usual, "are you sure?  I'm super slow, you can probably walk faster than I run, and I can't talk" speech that I give when anyone mentions running with me.  She said she wanted to do a recovery run anyway and would run at my pace.  She said she talked a lot, but would be quiet if I wanted her to be.  I told her I could handle listening so she could talk all she wanted, and I could grunt yes and no responses periodically if need be.  We took off 20 min later and we talked the whole time!  It was great!  I was huffing and puffing, but so was she!  I felt like if she was huffing and puffing running my 11:00min/mile pace that it wasn't as embarrassing that I was huffing and puffing too.  At one point on the way back she said, "we are at a 9:50 pace, do you need to slow down?" Holy crap!  Yes, I needed to slow down, but I didn't feel like I was running that fast at all!! It was great and I was tired  but felt awesome when we were done.

Both my aunt and uncle have Garmin Forerunners.  Dave ran both times with my uncle's and fell in love.  I have my Nike+, but he had never run with anything more than his Timex watch.  We decided we had to have one, especially since they told us that we could probably find one in the $150 range if we looked around.  I thought they were closer to $300-ish which was definitely out of our price range.  Dave's b-day was yesterday so when we got home on Monday afternoon I started searching for them online.  I found the 305 at Best Buy and Walmart for $145 woohooo!!!! Of course they didn't carry  it at our Best Buy in town, but they had it in Elgin so we hopped in the car and headed there.  So we are now the proud owners of a shared Garmin Forerunner 305!  I am still getting used to it, but I really like it a lot!!!

Dave also decided he wanted to start riding his bike (Super cheapie that I bought him 2 or 3 years ago for his b-day that he's ridden all of 3 times) and swimming at the Y.  So I decided to ride the bike too.  I rode on Tuesday (with the new Garmin) and on Friday.  The bike kills my butt and my back, but my mom has a much nicer bike so I rode to my parents house and traded.  I think I will keep doing that.  She has a much nicer seat and the handle bars are higher so I'm not so hunched over.  Much better.

My runs have all been a tad faster this week and I even ran a little of 5 miles yesterday.  Maybe getting the new Garmin and riding the bike is helping me get out of my rut.  Lets hope so!