Third Time's a Charm!

I haven't written for a while. George has decided to stop taking naps, and it's really hard to get on my computer when he's around because he wants to play games or watch movies on it CONSTANTLY! Then a few days ago, it just died. I thought it was the battery and that it would have to be replaced and that it would be a big pain and cost lots of money! Luckily, Pete had the idea to take it in to work and see if he could charge it with one of the cords there. Bingo! That worked! Yay! So all I had to do was saunter into the Apple store and tell them I needed a new cord for my MacBook Air. Sweet!

So, that's what I did today. After about an hour and a half of eating, playing in the dinosaur playground, and searching the mall for the Apple Store with the kids. It was actually a really fun adventure for them so I tried to be super patient! :) Once we found the store, buying the cord was pretty easy, though the guy wasn't 100% sure this was the right one because I wasn't 100% sure when I actually got my computer or how old it was or how big it was or pretty much anything about it other than that it's a MacBook Air...

We finally settled on a cord and it was $80! Yikes! Goodbye plan to sneak an iPod Shuffle in there! Oh well, this was better than replacing the battery (I think) and way better than having to buy a new computer so I got it and we headed home.

Well, we actually headed to the dance store to get Mindy new pointe shoes! Arg, I swear I just bought her some! (I shouldn't complain as a runner who has to replace my shoes often too) Of course both girls thought of several other things they needed so I spent a pretty penny there as well.

On the way home, we stopped and got JambaJuices which was fun too!

When we got home, Pete said, "Before you open that, we should look around and make sure we don't have an extra cord floating around here somewhere." Ha!

Turns out we DID have an extra cord and it works just great! So I guess we can plan another excursion to City Creek Mall to get my money back! Yay! (And maybe that iPod Shuffle I was eyeing...)

ANYWAY. That was a longer story than I had planned! The point of this post was supposed to be that I am now officially training for a marathon again! Wahoo!

I signed up for the St. George Marathon a couple weeks ago. It is a lottery, but since I tried and failed to get in for the past two years, I have a guaranteed entry the third year! They call it "Third Time's a Charm." I figured I should take advantage of that and enter since I really want to try this marathon out again and hopefully redeem myself from when I did it 5 years ago!

I'm feeling really confident right now, having my last 2 half marathons go so well! I hope I can keep that up, and somehow transfer that success over to the full distance!

Another third is that this will actually be my third marathon (not counting Coeur d'Alene because the Ironman marathon feels like such a different thing!), so I'm hoping that the Third Time's A Charm will go for that as well and that this will be the marathon where I'm able to at least run the whole thing!

Following with my theme of 3 (by coincidence), the training plan I picked only has you run 3 times a week. I'm hoping this will be good for me to help me not get burnt out or injured. Though I added an easy 3 miles (hey, another 3!) today before my long run tomorrow because I'm thinking about doing Ragnar in June and want to feel a little ready for that!

My run today was so beautiful. It was pouring rain as I got ready to leave, but I wasn't going to let that stop me! I put on my rain jacket, then headed outside and the rain had pretty much stopped! It was sprinkling slightly for part of the run, but really it was just perfect, and such a beautiful run! I actually got a little hot and had to take my gloves off and unzip my non-breathable rain jacket. But I was just so glad I went! Here area few pictures of the running path down the street from my house - my little refuge in the city! I love the early morning light and how green things are in the spring here!

Another fun thing I'm focusing on right now is the Mt. Nebo Half Marathon in September that I'm going to run with 8 or 9 friends! I started a facebook group and have been really impressed with the turn out and how many people are excited to do this race and to help encourage and motivate each other get there! A lot of them are in my neighborhood, but we are all spread out and not everyone knows each other so it's fun that we have facebook to bring us all together! Maybe, since it's my 3rd half of the year, I'll finally make it in under 2 hours! "Third Time's A Charm!" My new theme.

I want to do a tri this year, but the Half Ironman I want to do is actually the week after Mt. Nebo so I think I will end up not doing it. That will proabably be too close to the half, and also too close to the marathon since that will only be 3 weeks after. (Hey, another 3! Maybe I should do it!) What do you guys think?

Another option is to just do an olympic distance tri sometime durning the summer which woudn't be quite as stressfull, and just have fun.

I haven't decided yet, but I am going to train as if I'm doing the half ironman in September because I feel like if I don't, I will do what I did for both my other marathons and stop cross training when the running milage gets high. I think cross training is imortatnt to help me not get injured, but I also just want to make sure I ride my bike! I only rode my bike one time last year because I didn't do any tris so I didn't have any pressing reason to ride it! I think it's kind of dumb that I have to have a race to make me ride my bike, because I really do love riding my bike, but I'll do what it takes! That being said, it will probably be hard to take this half ironman training plan too seriously if I know I'm not really doing it... Come on brain, stop thinking so much!