Running Away from Adulting

GUYS! If you're in the Pittsburgh area (and run), you have GOT to run this race! It's like the Pittsburgh Marathon of the Fall. There is so much energy and excitement before and during this race; it's electric! Okay, I'll try to contain myself as I write this. But really, can you blame me? Just ruining the ending for ya, but... THIS GIRL GOT A PR! And the reason I'm extra excited about this? Because I literally just got back into running mid-September. I will make a separate blog post about this transition, but for now, lets talk about the race! Expo: The expo was quite small, tucked inside the shops at Station Square. But I did get to finally meet up with my girl Jen and her NEW husband after not seeing her since the Pittsburgh Marathon 5K! I'm so inspired by her and was so excited to finally meet up with her and run. Jen and I first meeting at the Pittsburgh Marathon 5K Race Morning: So my boss texted m...

Okay, so I signed up for this race just this past week. I was debating if I should run this as part of my EQT 10 Miler training, but not many training plans have distances longer than the goal as part of the weeks building up. But I knew a bunch of great friends of mine were planning on running it, and everyone raved at how fun it was. So here I am, a Tuesday before a Saturday race, signing up for a classic Pittsburgh fall race. I wasn't going to race it - just have fun. Since I wasn't racing it, I didn't really prepare. I didn't eat a bunch of carbs prior, slept horribly, did not hydrate enough, and even ate a Fiber One bar on my way to the race. Talk about long run poops... --- It was a beautiful morning for a fall race! Cool, sunny, and with such pretty landscape to enjoy. The race was downhill and on a trail. I'll be honest, I didn't feel like it was as downhill as my Garmin showed - maybe because of the crushed limestone versus asphal...

Coming back from injury made me both hungry and scared to race again. I didn't even sign up until the weekend before, but I had so many friends running it and thought to myself that I could at least run it as part of my 4 mile recovery run. Plus, the medals and shirts from this year were FREAKING AWESOME looking. The morning of the race was weirdly warm for October in Pittsburgh. I don't know how some of ya'll were able to run with long sleeves during that heat! Maybe I just overheat too quickly, and I hate being hot! I was getting dressed and listen to "suggested songs" from my current Half Marathon Playlist on Spotify. I found some really cool songs! They were my first few in queue for this race. I gotta say, a good song can really get your legs pumping! Fact: distractions can minimize the perception of pain, because as you'll find out, by the end of this race, I was hurting! SPEAKING OF THE RACE... I saw my good friend, who go...

So it's been a while. I'm working 54 hours a week at the RTF and continuing marathon training. I was also mentally down for a bit, and didn't have it in me to write. But now I'm back and ready to keep this blog rolling! This past weekend, my friend Steff  and I took on the Presque Isle Half Marathon. I used this as a training run, and she wanted to check this Half off of her bucket list. She happily let me stay in her guest room the night before, and we headed out at 3:30am to make the 2 hour drive to Erie. The weather conditions were perfect for a 6:45am start time. It was mid-60s at the start, and in the mid-70s for the finish. Parking was easy, and we even got to the bathrooms before the HUGE line. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed in the lack of bathrooms at the start line. They did however, have restrooms throughout the race - though I didn't need them. This was a training run for me; my schedule was set for 16 miles. My plan was to...