Week 9: Winter Warriors and a Bomb Diggity New Recipe!

I made it to the halfway mark! Just 9 weeks to go and the miles are ramping up! I've got 17, 18, 19, and 20 milers coming up in the next few weeks and I'm so SCARED excited to see how they go : )

Last week I only ran 3 times but I still managed to log 32 miles so I was happy with it. 

Monday I decided to do 10 miles since I missed my long run from being sick the week before. My friend watched the kids so I was able to run outside and it was awesome! 25 degrees outside but no snow so I was able to cruise along. I did my usual hilly route that has a 711 ft. elevation climb but I pushed it on the hills and finished with an average pace of 8:41. 

Wednesday was a 7 miler on the treadmill, didn't push it too hard and finished with an average pace of 8:31.

Then on Friday my friend Kelly and I braved the elements and ran 15 miles on the applefest course (super hilly) in freezing icy snow. Their was a wind advisory too so the wind was whipping around us and causing icy snow drops to pelt our faces. It felt like like getting stung in the face over and over again, we had to look down at the ground to avoid getting too much in our eyes.

(Do you like how the snow flake fell in front of my face right as I was taking this pic? kind of cool : )

I seriously felt like I was just "surviving" that run, trying to get through the snow and wind and hills without dying. We stopped to walk briefly to fuel at mile 8 and then to find our way at mile 14, but even with the walking I was shocked when we finished to see that our average pace was 9:01!! We definitely earned winter warrior status for that run!

Me and Kelly, my awesome marathoning mentor who recently qualified for Boston with a 3:32 marathon. I feel like I learn so much every time I run with her!

So that was week 9. I wish I could've squeezed one more run in but life is busy with 3 kids, and now our Friday nights and Saturday mornings are filled with rehearsals for a play Taber and I are in that's being put on by our church. It's a scripture based musical about the life of Jesus Christ called the Savior of the World.  I'm playing the part of Mary (who has a lot of lines and a couple solos) So it's a pretty big commitment right now. So yeah, always tricky to fit in our runs but every Sunday Taber and I sit down and meticulously plan out when each of us is going to run. It takes a lot of effort and planning but we're doing it and I think it will be so worth it to run our first marathon together!

Oh, and the healthy eating thing has had it's ups and downs but I recently found a new website called Skinnykitchen.com and it has the BEST recipes! I tried these lettuce wraps last night and they were so amazingly DELICIOUS! Taber seriously went on and on about how good they were and how he felt like he eating at PF Changs.  So yeah, here's the link to the recipe, enjoy! Lettuce Wrap Recipe

I got a DSLR camera for Christmas so I'm kind of having fun pretending I can take cool pictures of food : ) 

Yummy Yummy!!