It's been almost a year and a half since I last blogged...wowza. During that time I graduated law school, took and passed the dreaded bar exam and moved back in with the parentals! Job searching has been rough and I've been doing temporary contract work off and on. So, if anyone knows of any available attorney positions...let me know :) . Anyways, I'm starting my blog back up because I am training for my 3rd full marathon.
I will be running the Chicago marathon again on October 13 with my college roommate Sarah Pruitt. This time around I am fundraising for multiple sclerosis. MS is such an awful disease and one that I feel strongly about. My grandfather, my mom's dad, had MS. At some point I'll post more about my grandpa's struggle with the disease. You can visit the website to learn more about the disease National MS Society. My goal is to raise $1,000 to help fight this horrible disease.
I am hoping this time around I won't have any major setbacks like I did with my knee injury last time. I am currently in my 5th week of training and it is going pretty well. I felt pretty good physically going into the beginning of training, much better than last time. I know I said last time I would never let my self get out of marathon shape again, but I did. I finally started hitting the gym pretty hard and improved my diet a lot in January...it was time to finally lose that law school weight! I was finally in a good routine going to the gym 5 mornings a week doing both cardio and weight training. During my training I still plan on doing some strength training, controlling my diet and trying to lose more of those law school lbs!! It took a while to be able to run outside this spring because MN decided it was going to snow till May and rain everyday till June! But, I started officially training mid-June. It has been going pretty well. I ran into a little setback because I hurt my ankle so I tried to take it easy for about a week. It still gives me some issues here and there so I do a lot of icing for it and also have been wearing Biofreeze (my favorite thing ever!) on it. I am also being very careful with my knee this time around because it still bothers me from time to time. I wear a small band under my knee which helps with pain and prevents further injury (Biofreeze also goes on my knee!).
Since my last marathon I switched shoes from Brooks Glycerin to Newton running shoes which are a natural running shoe. I love them! Check them out: What is Newton running?. It took a while to "train" into them and I had to take my time switching back and forth between the Newton's and my Brooks.
I have been having some issues keeping a steady pace so I need to concentrate more heavily on my pace in the coming weeks before I get to my really long runs. My longest run was last Friday and I did 11, however I think that was too soon. I really struggled and even had to walk a little. I was trying to do an intermediate training program so now I revised it and am doing kind of a mix between beginner and intermediate. My next long run in Friday and will be 10 miles. I'll keep ya'll posted on how that goes!
In the mean time, visit my MS fundraising page McDonough's Miles MS Fundraising Page and PLEASE consider donating! Any little bit counts! I really appreciate all of your support during my training and fundraising process!
