3.17 miles~~New Years' Eve!

I ate breakfast this morning and then decided I needed to head out and run.  Today was a sunny day, although it was breezy and cold--36 degrees.  It felt great to get out and run with the sun on my face.   I knew we had a party to attend later in the day, so I made this a shorter run.  I felt great and enjoyed stretching my legs and moving.  Happy New Years' Eve!

4.44 miles~~that's a nice number!

   I wanted to make sure I got a run in before flying out to California for Christmas with my daughter Laura.  I hope to run while I am there, but we will see how that goes.  At least today it wasn't such a slow run.  I didn't go as fast as the race, but definitely was a little faster than my last practice runs.  My lungs are doing well (although I have to chuckle, when I say "my lungs" I really mean my bronchial tubes.  My pulmonologist always reminds me that my lungs are not the issue with asthma!)  I was off work today, so I was able to run in the middle of the day instead of having to wait for work to be over and worrying about the little daylight left.  
I do like the number of today's run...4.44!

Jingle Bell 5K

This has been an extremely busy last few weeks.  I flew to California to see my daughter for Thanksgiving, then came back to finish papers for class and go to work.  After that, we flew to Copenhagen to pick up our daughter from her study abroad semester.  So getting runs in was very difficult.  It has been 11 days since I last ran.  I had hoped that wouldn't happen, but life just butted in.  
Today was the Jingle Bell 5K in our own county--it was held in (little) Washington, VA.  I dressed in a Santa apron and wore a Minnie Santa hat.  I was a little worried that the apron would get stuck between my legs or trip me or something.  Luckily nothing like that happened.  I didn't run as well as I had hoped, but 11 days of no running makes it hard to run well in a race.  There were a couple of hills, that I had to walk up, not run.  But overall this was a great race.  I had a lot of fun, got to see several old friends, and after it was all done, had my picture on the front page of the paper!

I made the front page of our local newspaper!  The caption reads: "Run with Bells On: A festively dressed runner -- and a few other runners and walkers -- pounded the pavements of Washington for the annual Jingle Bell 5 K".

2.61 miles in the snow

Today it snowed all day long.  I had to get out and breathe some clean fresh air.  It was pretty cold running, and of course I ran slow, but it felt great to get out and breathe.  Of course I had to wear my buff to warm the air as I ran. It works great to pull it up over my mouth and nose and breathe in warmer air.  Of course, if I have sunglasses on, it just fogs them up!  There is no perfect solution I guess.  But wearing a covering over my mouth and nose makes running much easier.   

2.32 miles~~it's not much!

 Today was Tuesday, and after a day of work, I got suited up to run.  It was another really slow day, running at a pace of 14 minutes per mile.  Ugh.  Part of the reason I was so slow was due to walking quite a bit.  The early sunset doesn't help much either.  I hate that I am constantly struggling to find the time to get in 30-40 minutes of running.  dI need to get more days in each week so there isn't so long a time between runs.