{redeemed my run}

Guess who totally redeemed herself on Friday?! THIS girl! Yup, you better believe it! Instead of just the typical six miles that I was pushing for on Friday, I decided to go all out and do my long run that night. The weather was great for it and I knew the weather for the weekend was going to be kind of iffy. I pushed out 8.37 miles on Friday night and was so proud of myself. Some days I wonder if I will ever be able to run a full half marathon and the thought of the 13.1 miles is daunting to me. Can I really do it? Will my body let me? Running is probably the most mental sport that I have ever attempted (not that I've been all into trying every sport that there is). In fact, I am not much of a sports person to begin with. I was not actively involved in any sports while I was in school (other than being a manager and please, like that requires any effort, haha!) But compared to just your typical workout video and/or bike riding or rollerblading, running takes a lot more mental effort. There have been runs where I know my body can keep going, but my head just isn't in it and when your head isn't in the game, it is SO much harder to finish.

But, on Friday, I rocked it out. Once I was about halfway through I knew I could keep pushing and would finish. The first 1/3 of the long runs is probably the hardest for me right now mentally because I know just how long I have to go and I am just starting. It takes me a while to really get into the groove. I pounded that pavement and was super proud of myself. This weekend I have my first 9 mile run. Slowly but surely I am going to make my way up to 13.1 miles, even when I feel like I cannot. I am going to just keep going and going and going.

On Saturday and Sunday... I was lazy and didn't work out. Ayden had bowling on Saturday morning and after bowling it was raining out and Ayden and I were running to the car. Please, even attempting to somewhat run to the car the day after a long ass run, not possible! I looked like an injured deer trying to hobble my way across the road at anything faster than a slow walk, haha!

The rest of the weekend was good. We were supposed to go sledding on Saturday with Victoria and Parker; however, the rain melted all of the snow and really, no one likes to sled in the rain on the grass anyways. So, Victoria and Parker just came over to our house instead, we had lunch, and then hung out together enjoying a relaxing afternoon. Sunday... well Sunday wasn't exactly pleasant at my house, so for the sake of respecting my almost husband's wishes about putting our entire life in display for everyone, I'll just skip over Sunday. But in case you were wondering, we are fine again.

And Monday... it was good. Pretty super busy at work, but it made the day fly by. Ayden had his Christmas concert after school and my little boy made this momma SO proud. He had been practicing his songs for the concert at home for the last several weeks and I fully believed he would be belting them out while on the stage. He did not disappoint. He also had a whole gaggle of people there to watch him as well! Me, Jay, my mom, Emily, John, both of Jay's parents, both of Jay's sets of grandparents (although one set was there to watch other great grandchildren as well), my dad and Wendy (Alexis sang before Ayden did), and my aunt's family (there daughter was on after Ayden). I think he was just beaming inside to know that that many people he knew were there.

Run wise, I squeezed in a quick 4.5 mile run last night. I didn't really want to go. Like I said, it takes me a while to get into it and it was cold out last night. But I pushed it out. My knee started to hurt around the 3.5 mile mark, not liking that so much. Speaking of knee pain, almost hubby is having some pretty severe knee pain today. So much so that he stayed home from work. Jay isn't one to complain too much about pain unless it really hurts, like really hurts. When I talked to him last, the plan was to head to the doctor to have it looked at. He is concerned that he might have pulled/torn an MCL ligament or whatever you call it. All I know that is that typically anything MCL related usually ends up in surgery, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it is just a knee sprain or something like that and that we are over-reacting right now. But really, he was not looking too hot this morning when he was trying to hobble around.

Speaking of running, has anything that lives in this area seen the weather that we are supposed to get. 6-10" of snow! OMG! I won't even start the rant about how much I hate the snow because I'm sure you are all well aware of that already. But seriously, ugh!

I'll say this again, I like my nice clean sidewalks and roads to run on. Snow hinders that. No thank you, haha!

CIAO! LOVE ME!