16 Weeks...

So this morning I woke up at 6:30 or so, after tossing and turning most of the night and generally getting a horrible night's sleep. I don't know if I was just anxious about running this morning, or if my body was revolting from all the cheese I had on my pizza for dinner last night, or what it was, but I just did not sleep.

So as you can imagine, by about 9:00, I was feeling pretty tired. Let me back up though. I arrived at the meeting location by about 7:45, because we were told registration was between 7:30 and 9:00 and to get! there! early!

Well I got there early. Way too early it seems, because things weren't quite as busy as they made it seem. I picked up my fun team Denver marathon training outfits (baby blue, not super cute) and changed in the locker room. After waiting around for an hour or so, the coaches finally started talking and we separated into teams.

My team is made up of people who are doing the marathon or half marathon and plan to run 10, 11 or higher minute miles. After doing some fun warm ups and calisthenics, we finally set out to run at about 10:15 or so. And by this point, it was HOT. So hot. Ridiculously hot.

But I was okay. I was going to do this. My coach, C. had decided in advance she wanted our team to turn around at the 3.5 mile marker just because of the heat and our late start, so I didn't really have the option to do the 5 miler. Which it turns out, was just fine by me.

I started out pretty good I thought, but on what I now realize was a slight downhill, thus the easiness of the pace. I met a girl who lives in my neighborhood who was about my pace (she ended up finishing a little before I did, but we're close). We ran together until the turnaround, and that's when things started getting rough.

Just before the turnaround was a HUGE hill, and with the sun beating down, I started struggling. A lot of people did though. I think I let my heart rate get a little too high at this point, and I started dying for some water. There was Gatorade at the turnaround, but it just tasted too sweet and sugary for me.

The way home down the hill was okay, but by the end when we started going uphill again, I had to stop and walk quite a bit. Of course I forgot my heart rate monitor/watch, so I have no idea how long it ended up taking me. I would guess at least 45 minutes, if not more.

I met my mom and little sis for lunch, came home and showered and crashed into a nap for 2+ hours. I just took the dogger on a walk and I'm contemplating dinner since the boy is headed to a Bachelor Party (yikes). I'm kind of tempted to just do a Lean Cuisine or something since it's easy, but that seems kind of lame for a Saturday night. I should probably at least have something that requires an oven or a stovetop, right?

Overall I'm not super happy with how the first day of training went, but honestly, I'm just glad I got it done. I think next week will be better; I won't be nervous about meeting people so hopefully I'll sleep better, and we start at 7, not 10, so it should be quite a bit cooler.

The one thing I did realize today is that I have NOT been pushing myself on hills. In fact, I don't think I've even really attempted any hills. So if we continue to do hilly routes, that will be a big change for me. But I think it's a change I'm willing to embrace. I'm excited to have a team to train with, and I've already met a few women who I think will be great running partners. Now to get through the next 16 weeks!