Need Garmin Advice Please

Rich and I are finally serious about getting a Garmin but we have lots of questions. Is the newest model (405 I believe) everyone's favorite or is the older model just as good but bulkier? Is it water resistant to rain and sweat? What would you say are the pros and cons, what are your biggest complaints or what do you love the most. Can we just get 1 and share if we do runs together? Is it practical for us to each use when we run at separte times? I don't really know anything about them so all advice is helpful. I would like to have it and use it in the Myrtle Beach Half in 2 weeks since Rich will be running ahead of me trying to have his best race this time so I can't count on him as my pacer. However it is and expensive piece of equipment so we need all the info we can before we buy. Help?!?!

6 Miler, Lost & Found, and The Reader

Lost & Found went down much smoother than Edgar Sawtelle. Today is my day off so I had some time to read. I finished it this morning and I loved it. It is overall a feel-good book but it has some serious themes woven in, and the main character is pretty deep. It tells the story of Rocky, a psychologist, who loses her husband to a heart attack at a young age. It is about her journey to heal her broken heart. Mix in a big black lab, a few other lovable main characters, a bit of mystery, a new love interest and you've got a great story. It was a very quick and easy read, I'd give it a 3.7/5.

After I finished reading I headed out for a 6 mile run. I ran the same loop that we used for our 12 miler last Saturday. Whenever I have a bad run, I always look forward to re-running the same route so that I can have good associations with it instead of bad. My goal was to finish in 66 minutes, and I ended up finishing in 62:25. Wahoooooo!! I was very happy with that. I had 2 pieces of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and homemade (by my granny, love her) strawberry jelly and a cup of coffee beforehand and I think it was a good choice. It was in the low 60s and damp/misty out so I was able to wear shorts and a tank top. I listened to Nickelback almost the whole run. They have several songs that I love to run to. There is a song on their newest album that I love, it is called If Today was your Last Day. I want to post the lyrics because they wonderfully reiterate the "seize the day" motto that I think we all want to live by but it so easily forgotten in the daily grind:

My best friend gave me the best advice. he said each day's a gift & not a given right.
leave no stone unturned. leave your fears behind & try to take the path less travelled by
that first step you take is the longest stride
if today was your last day & tomorrow was too late could you say goodbye to yesterday?
would you live each moment like your last? leave old pictures in the past? donate every dime you had? if today was your last day
against the grain should be a way of life. what's worth the price is always worth the fight
every second counts 'cause there's no second try, so live like you're never livin twice
don't take the free ride in your own life
if today was your last day & tomorrow was too late could you say goodbye to yesterday? would you live each moment like your last? leave old pictures in the past? donate every dime you had?would you call those friends you've never seen? reminisce old memories? would you forgive your enemies? would you find that one your dreaming of? swear up & down to God above that you'll finally fall in love?
if today was your last dayif today was your last day would you make it up by mending a broken heart you know it's never too late to shoot for the stars regardless of who you are
so do whatever it takes 'cause you can't rewind a moment in this life
let nothing stand in your way cause the hands of time are never on your side
if today was your last day & tomorrow was too late could you say goodbye to yesterday?
would you live each moment like your last? leave old pictures in the past? donate every dime you had? would you call those friends you've never seen? reminisce old memories? would you forgive your enemies?would you find that one your dreaming of?swear up & down to God above that you'll finally fall in love?if today was your last day

I think my favorite line is "don't take the free ride in your own life." This song is my favorite song to run to at the moment.

After running I went to the movies and saw The Reader. It is excellent, but be prepared for lots of naked Kate Winslet with her 15 year old lover. It is a very touching story about love in various forms and how 2 people can impact each other for a lifetime.

Ok, enough of this deep post, time to take the dogs out!

Emmy's blog update

I updated Emmy's blog today. The dogs were all laying in the bedroom floor when I was getting ready for work and I took a couple cute pics with my phone.
http://adoptemmy.blogspot.com/

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle...possible Spoilers

I finally finished reading the Story of Edgar Sawtelle and it has left me unsure of whether or not I liked it. I'm not going to do an in depth book review because I don't want to give anything away. Overall I'm glad I read it, but I'm not sure I would say I liked it. It took a while for me to get into, and I actually read 2 other books while I was reading this one, but after about the halfway point I was really into it and read it pretty quickly. I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that it didn't turn out the way I would have wanted, and I have lots of questions still. Have any of you read it, did you like it? I know Alisa at Ambitious Aspirations read it, what did you think? I now am moving onto what I thought was a light and easy read, Lost & Found by Jacqueline Sheehan although it is starting out a bit deeper than expectedl. I think I will love it though. I didn't run today, too busy finishing Edgar, but I plan on getting 15-20 miles in by the end of the week.

The Weekend

Friday night we went to visit with some friends and just had a nice low-key night hanging out and had a couple glasses of wine. Saturday morning we had a 12 miler planned, but it was cold and we both had slight wine-headaches from Friday night so we spent the morning laying around catching up on a 2 weeks worth of DVR including Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Houswives (I think I'm the only person who still watches these 2), Nip Tuck and Lost. We finally headed out for our run around 3pm, right as it decides it wants to rain. I actually enjoy rainy runs so it wasn't a big deal. We drove out to a 6 mile loop that we would run twice. It turned out to be a great run for Richard and a really crappy run for me. The first lap I felt like we were going "really fast" which for me is anything <11 min miles, but we were really going 11:30 min miles...not a good sign. Everything hurt, my feet had pains they've never had before, my entire back hurt, my hands went a little numb. My sport beans at mile 4 helped some, but they seemed to wear off pretty fast. Rich went ahead of me on the 2nd lap, so it was just me and the Ipod. I wanted to speed up the last 2 miles but my body just didn't have any oomph. At mile 10 to about 11.5 I was struck with the overwhelming urge to stop and walk and cry. It was a wierd feeling. I knew if I stopped I wasn't sure I could get going again so I plodded along. Beyonce came on the Ipod and I rocked out to Single Ladies for the last few minutes which really helped me kick it out at the end.



Final stat was 12 miles in 2:14, about 16 seconds per mile slower than my last HM time so not ideal but it was all I had in me at the time. I'm hoping to have the bad painful run out of the way and that the HM in 3 weeks will be nice and smooth, crossing my fingers!

The after-run was really wierd too. I felt almost flu-like, with some chills and nausea and body aches. Maybe it was toxins from the wine the night before? Food sounded terrible so I didn't eat for almost 2 hours after we finished, just drank Gatorade, which was probably not a smart move. I had eaten some oatmeal around 10am, then really nothing else besides a couple big spoonfuls of brown sugar (yes, I eat straight brown sugar from the bag occassionally, it is delicious), before we ran so maybe that contributed to it being an all around icky run. I have a lot to learn about running nutrition. Anybody else ever felt flu-like post long run?

Yesterday we saw Slumdog Millionaire. It is really good and I highly recommend it! Then we played some Mario 3 on our new Wii and both got mad when we couldn't beat World 3. I think we need some practice on that one:)

Friday Photo

I just had to share a pic of my new boots. These were a late Christmas present from Santa, aka my parents, that I got when we went home last week. They are a tapestry fabric with some black and gold beading. Gaudy? perhaps. Fabulous? I think so! I just made sure to wear them with minimal jewelry and neutral makeup to avoid looking like a streetwalker. Sorry about the upside down shot, that was the result of trying to take a pic of them in decent light by myself on my blackberry, and then I was too lazy to flip it.

I saw Bride Wars yesterday after work. I was torn between movie and running (a common dilemma for me). I decided to go to the theater and if a movie was playing, that would be my sign from above that I should choose movie. You may wonder why I would have to choose, why not do both? Well, the movie theater we usually go to serves alcohol. So I would have had a glass of wine, and for some reason I can almost never make myself run if I have had any alcohol, even just a glass. I get to the theater about 4, and the next Bride Wars isn't until 5. Ok, guess I'll go home and run. Oh wait, let me swing by the other movie theater in my town (sort of on the way home) SCORE, Bride Wars is just starting, and NO booze at this theater. I do eat some (ok, all) of an order of nachos single handedly, and chug diet coke instead of wine as I laughed and cried my way through the movie. I'm that wierd girl that is in the theater by herself laughing out loud and smelling of jalapenos. Don't judge. It is a pretty cute movie, and I am big fans of Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway. My favorite scene is the dance off at the bachelorette party, love their moves!

After the movie, it is dark and cold and I'm having the internal battle of do I run? How far? I don't wanna, I don't wanna, just wanna watch DVR'd Oprah and lay on the couch with the dogs. But I put on my big girl panties, or more specifically my big girl running clothes, and headed out. I ran for an hour, and it was actually very nice and enjoyable, so I was glad I made it out. Today is a rest day, then tomorrow is a 12 miler, then a 2 week taper then the Myrtle Half, woohoo!

Latest Runs

The Myrtle Beach Half is on Valentine's day, and this weekend coming up is our longest run, 12 miles. Usually when we travel, we pack all this running gear then wind up wimping out and not running and we've just lugged our shoes and clothes across the country for nothing. This trip home I knew that wasn't an option because of where we were in the training, it was a pretty critical week and we couldn't afford to just be lazy all week. So the first morning home, it is freezing out so we bundle up in our warm clothes. Rich forgot to pack running socks so I'm feeling all high and mighty that I packed extra and had to loan him a pair. I'm pretty sure I teased him about it a bit, then I go to get my shoes and this is what I find....
Now we all know that figuratively speaking I do in fact have 2 left feet. However, since I do actually have a right foot, I wasn't going to make it very far in these 2 left shoes. Now it was Richard's turn to laugh at me. I managed to make it 5 miles in my mom's size 9's, although I usually wear 11's in running shoes. Later in the day we made a stop to the athletic store in my hometown where I picked up these babies....

I ran the rest of the week in them. I was a little worried because they are not my usual motion control shoes, although they did have pretty good stability. They were great though, and I managed to get about another 20 miles on them while we were out of town. My parents live in a neighborhood that is basically just one 0.6mile loop, and so we ended up doing 4 runs between 3 and 5 miles around the loop. It was boring but we made it. Then we did an 8 mile long run down in south Arkansas on some country roads. We were chased by a couple dobermans, and let me tell ya, that will make you pick up the pace! It was a great 8 miles, and after we finished I felt like I hadn't run at all which was a nice feeling.

Here we are all bundled up, and looking like a running Nike ad, before our run the morning it was 19 degrees out.

I slacked off yesterday and skipped my 3 miler. I have no good reason other than it was hovering around freezing and dark by the time I got home. Oh, and all 4 dogs needed baths after being boarded for 9 days. I don't like to bathe the labs in the shower because they get hair everywhere, but it was way to cold to even think about getting outside with a hose and scrubbing them down. By the time I had showered them all, the girls with Bath and Body Works Winter Candy Apple (don't be mad Kristen that I used your Christmas gift on the dogs) and the boys with some coconut Herbal Essence, the bathroom was covered in water and dog hair from ceiling to floor. I was left with icy cold water for my own shower, and a messy bathroom to clean, but now the dogs smell great. The boarding place charges $30 per dog for a bath, so we always just bathe them ourselves when we get them home.