Attack of the tumbleweeds!

Ok Ok so they didn't literally attack us but it sure seemed like they were aiming for us!  More on that in a minute..

I survived my 1st week of training but not without some mishaps, the good news is I didn't let it slow me down.  Well, maybe it slowed me down time wise but I still put a lot of heart into it and pushed through! 

Saturday was this month's running club handicap run and it was a "prediction" run which meant that you were not allowed to wear a watch and you were told the total distance and had to guess how long it would take you to finish.  This was a 2 person team so the team who predicted their time best won.  My friend that went with me had never done one before so I put down our times I wrote her in at 36 mins. and myself at 37 and she looked at me like I was crazy because it was only a 3.4 mile run.  I told her "trust me"  I've ran out here before and the hills are killer.  As we made our first ascent I could hear her behind me saying "wow this is tough you were right!"  As we had to stop and walk up some patches of snow/ice I new I had made the right call.  Now on the downhill I got so excited and was running a little too fast, hit a rock, and went for a tumble!  I'm pretty bruised up, have a swollen hand, knot on my elbow, and my shoulder and hip hurts still.  I shook it off and kept going but it hurt...  Good news is we won the prediction run by only being off by like 30 secs each so the Starbucks gift card helped me forget about my injuries...

1st hill

I'm still smiling after the fall...

The next day I had committed to meeting a friend at the "bosque" trail which is a flat path by the river.  Trust me I probably would have wimped out if I hadn't said I'd be there.  The winds were up to 40 mph gusts with wind chills and I was hurting more than I thought I'd be from the fall.  We still did all 9 miles and thankfully my running buddy was there to get me through the last couple of miles because I was struggling.  The first few miles were in the 9-10 min. range and the last half were closer to 11  I was sooo dehydrated from the wind and a few times I swear the wind almost ran me right into my friend.  Not to mention the tumbleweeds that you had to dodge as the wind blew them over the path!!

So now I'm at work licking my wounds but so happy to have completed a tough week of training.  I start the week off with some weight lifting and plyometrics...