overachiever...or just dumb

I'm not sure which one I am yet. Guess I'll find out when I wake up tomorrow!

Had a kickin' time at my buddy Pat's Second Sole shindig at his cool pad downtown last night. I love running with those guys--they are soooooooo fun. So I got up early this morning and headed to the Valley to run at 8am. I had every intention of running the 1:45 that I was supposed to at a nice slow pace.

Well, my buddies are all in training for the Little Rock Marathon (March 5) and some for Kentucky Derby 'thon in April, so they had to do 14 miles minimum. Hmmmm...a conundrum. I didn't want to be antisocial but I also didn't want to abandon my goals of a nice easy 1:45 pace.

I decided to just join them for the first 6 and see how I felt. I felt pretty tired since I've been hitting it hard this week. So I turned around and bid them farewell and ran the last 6 on my own. Actually, it ended up being closer to 12.6 miles. Arg. Soooooooo did not stick to my 1:45, either. 2 hours and 10 minutes later I got back to my car. Oops. I know this was MUCH farther than I was supposed to go, but I love to run so I figure it won't kill me this once. I do know I can't be pulling crap like this again though....it's just so easy to get caught up in the group pace and distance and forget that I'm not training to run a marathon FAST, like they are...I'm training to run a marathon SLOWLY.

So we went to Caribou for coffee afterwards and I did some MAD stretching before I got in my car. I did rack up some major points for the Tri Club Holiday Challenge, though...one more day left in the competition!

Now I need to help hubby with the carpet in the attic. He's so fricken handy and I'm so NOT. We're saving a ton of moolah by doing it ourselves though!

TOMORROW IS THE POLAR SWIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to jump into 39 degree Lake Erie with nothing but a swimsuit with 40 other wack jobs like me. Pictures to come....stay tuned!

On an exciting note, I decided to be a pace team leader for the Cleveland Marathon! Soooo pumped about this. I will be pacing the first half of the 4:45 group....so if you're shopping for a marathon this spring and want to run in that time, come join me! :) Coach Kara said we should sign up for a pace that's at LEAST 15 minutes slower than our best half-marathon time, which mine is 1:54. 4:15 and 4:30 were already booked up, so I figured 4:45 would be good. I can walk through the water stops if I have a hard time slowing down too much. I was planning on doing the race anyway not as a hard race, but a nice training run, so this works out perfectly!!! I get free race entry and a sweet t-shirt, too. :) So I'll be carrying the balloons and hopefully leading people to reach their goals this May! Should be a blast!

Happy IM Year! (aka 2006)