Five Things Friday

Ugh. Haven’t posted all week, figured I owed you some more content.

1. Run streak is alive and well. I made it a goal to run every day at the start of the year and so far, so good. Through Thursday, I’d run for 12 consecutive days and had logged 83 miles over that span. I’m feeling great too. My legs feel strong. I ran 18 miles on Sunday and recovered enough to run a solid four-miler on Monday, a hilly six-miler on Tuesday and 8-mile runs on Wednesday (at an 8:50 pace) and Thursday (8:32 pace). I’m chewing up these miles and I couldn’t be happier about it.

2. My pace group is awesome. I can’t wait to run the LA Marathon with them! Even if I don’t run every step with all of them – which I already know I won’t – it will be so great being on the same course as them and the best part of course will be greeting them all at the end of the race. I know we still have more than two months from now ‘til then but I really am excited. There are four newbies in the group and they are all so strong and determined. It’s really contagious. They make me want to become a better pace leader.

3. The marathon bug has got me. As of now, I’m only running two marathons in 2012 for sure – LA Marathon on March 18 and The San Francisco Marathon on July 29. I had not set any goals for myself as far as running anything beyond San Francisco – half, full or what have you – and I still haven’t really decided. However, I do not want all these training miles to go to waste. I’m considering the OC Marathon on May 6 and possibly the Long Beach Marathon in early October. We’ll see how I do after LA but I think squeezing in another marathon between LA and San Francisco could be manageable. A lot will depend though on how I feel after LA.

4. The Year of Living Actively is in full swing. So far this year the girls and I have been bike riding five times. We went last week for three consecutive days and they were not tired at all. Kennedy has really improved. She can now take off on her own and she can ride far. On Tuesday, she rode two miles without stopping. The most we’ve ridden thus far has been four miles but I think they can ride more. We had to cut that one short at four miles because we ran out of time. We’ve also climbed up Mt. Rubidoux and have gone to play tennis twice. Tennis is a work-in-progress but they really do like the sport so we shall continue to foster that.

5. Monday is going to be a fun day. As you know, Southern California has totally awesome weather. This winter has been anything but cold. In fact, it was really chilly (for us) in late November/early December but for the last three or four weeks or so, it’s been spectacular. Save for some really windy days, it’s been almost like spring here. We had a stretch where the highs were in the mid-70s and low 80s. Unreal. Anyway, since there is no school on Monday we are going to head over to Huntington Beach and ride our bikes on the bike path there. I may run a little and then ride my bike with the girls but either way I am going to get my run in no matter what. The girls are already quite excited about it. I’m not sure how much they will enjoy the water itself since the water tends to stay cold until the summer months, but they’ll have fun playing in the sand and riding their bikes. Should be a fun day in sunny SoCal for us