Birthday Weekend Round Up

I hit a major milestone this past weekend - my first ever double-digit back to back runs on Saturday and Sunday!! We ran 11 miles with our Galloway group on Saturday. Sunday was my 38th birthday so I decided this was a great opportunity to to try this out. Eleven miles seemed like a good choice for this birthday since 3+8 = 11. I was joined by one of our Galloway group members for the first 5 miles and then took off on a little adventure of my own through Simi Valley on a most-beautiful Sunday morning. I had a general idea of where I was going to go but I veered a little off course to run through some quieter neighborhoods (and add a few hills). I was thrilled to wake up Monday morning with absolutely no muscle soreness or no IT pain. Admittedly, I was feeling pretty exhausted in general though. Hubby and I had already planned a day off for Valentine's Day and we were sure glad we did. Let's just say there was a lot of eating and sleeping on the schedule, although we did manage to go for a 1 mile walk in the evening. Just have to zap that zero somehow!

I returned back from our Galloway group run to find THIS waiting for me: A surprise birthday celebration!!  A little Accelerade out of martini glasses? Why yes, I think I will have one. Oh what the hell - make it a triple! A bagel birthday tower too! Thanks for celebrating with me everyone!!!

Double-fisted with Accelerade. This is the breakfast of champions!

We spent a couple of hours at a Valentine's Day Wine Tour and Tasting social at the Rosenthal Estate in Malibu Hills on my birthday as well. As members of the wine club, we are invited to several socials a year. Just in case you were curious - unless you want to pass out for 3 hours afterwards, I recommend eating a full meal after an 11-mile run before heading to a wine tasting event. LOL!  It wasn't my fault I was over-served delicious wine! ;-)

John gave me this necklace crafted by Linda Fontaine, sister of Steve Prefontaine. She offers a wide variety of products but I've had my eye on this necklace in particular for a little while. A perfect Valentine's Day gift from the hubby!

I love this quote on her website: My brother's life can be best described in one word—INSPIRATIONAL.
I created these “Pieces of Pre” to continue what I believe is Steve's legacy—motivating individuals to be the best they can be!

Click here to visit the website!

Hubby and I worked on my video for the 2011 Daily Mile team application process over the weekend of the Surf City Half. I was so honored to be selected to apply to be an ambassador for this online community! Special thanks to hubby for all the hard work he put in editing this and to my Galloway Group and Mo at Foot Pursuit for their contributions. The new team will be announced tomorrow. Fingers crossed!! I want to help this outstanding athlete's social networking site expand! There is no question that I have become a better runner since joining the site. If you're not a member yet, please do join. The support and encouragement is amazing - and you'll definitely learn a thing or two from other runners, triathletes, etc. Not to mention a place to log all of your workouts and track your shoes/gear usage too!

Vote for Vera! :-)

With the Surf City Half and a week of recovery runs behind me, I am ramping my weekly mileage up to get back on track with the marathon training again.

On the schedule this week:

Monday 2/14 - 1 mile recovery walk after the back-to-back 11 milers this past weekend
Tuesday 2/15 - Double workout Tuesday! 30 minutes in the morning; 30 minutes in the evening with our Galloway group
Wednesday 2/16 - 50 minutes @ 9:30 pace
Thursday 2/17 - 30 minutes @ 9:00 pace
Friday 2/18 - REST DAY!
Saturday- Galloway Group's first 5K race together!!
Sunday - 17 miles on trails and streets; LSD pace (11:30 pace) with hill work

This should get me up to 35 miles this week. I'm pretty excited to get to the first couple of weeks in March when I'll be running 40 miles each week! Whoa!!