Curious Crystal: Finally got my rain run out of the way

Started the week as usual at Woodland Hills Physical Therapy. Later in the day I headed over to Cardiobarre to continue using up my classes as cross-training. I know I haven't exactly been glowing in my review of this place, but I have to say I had a really good workout Monday! I always try hard when working out but I'm terrible at pushing myself. This time, toward the end of class when it was really getting tough, the instructor Heather started talking about motivation and remembering why we were there. I'm sure she was probably talking about losing weight but for some reason I really took to heart what she said and thought about why I was there. For cross-training so that I could get stronger and avoid injury so that I could continue training and run the whole marathon. That didn't really inspire me all that much but then I thought about my fundraising and the poor children who have been victims of sexual abuse. I thought about how raising money for them made me feel good and how training for the marathon has given me the opportunity to raise $1,764. If I wasn't able to run it would be a lot harder to get donations. So that's why I run, that's why I want to avoid injury, and that's why I cross-train! Thinking about all that made me push myself so hard I was drenched by the end of class. That felt great! If you want to experience that good feeling too, make a donation at http://www.crowdrise.com/crystalarrieta

Tuesday I met up with my training group at Fleet Feet Encino for a hill run. Boy I do not like hills but I must say I am improving. I could probably walk faster than my itty bitty steps up the steep hills but walking isn't hard. Running is hard and I think the best way to prepare myself for the marathon is to choose the harder option so the marathon feels that much "easier." Near as I can tell the steepest incline of the marathon is 90-100 feet and the hills I run during training are over 100 feet!

Wednesday I decided to take the night off, go to bed early, and run Thursday morning. This wasn't purely selfish, I've been meaning to work on my morning runs since my evening runs tend to feel easier and the race will be in the morning. I actually felt pretty good waking up at 5:15am and was out the door by 5:30am. I ate an apple with almond butter since there was no time to make my usual oatmeal with almond butter. This seemed sufficient during the run, I never felt hungry. I knew I had to be home by 7 to get ready for work and I read that the sunrise was about 7 so when it got bright out I headed home. I hate checking my Garmin while I'm running but wish I had because I could have made it a solid 7 miles. The elevation was pretty steep in a few parts and my pace reflects that.

Thursday evening I was back at Fleet Feet for yoga with Ko Ohka. No cramping this week, running in the morning was no problem. We worked on the crow pose which is impossible without upper body strength so I wasn't able to do it but our coach Trey made it look easy!

Friday I went to WHPT and brought along the KT Tape since it seemed to help last week. As I was doing my exercises, the topic of conversation among the patients turned to iPhones. Rod mentioned that I showed him a thing or two on his and a few of the women began asking me questions. I helped a lady download my favorite app, emoji, and another lady asked for my number because she wants to pay me for a tutorial! Both were aware of Apple's in-store classes but said they were geared toward techies (my term, not theirs) and just needed basic information. Maybe this will be my new fundraising approach: iPhone classes!

Saturday I woke up to the sound of rain. I knew all week it would rain but wasn't sure if it would affect my run. Sure enough, it was pouring and when I arrived at the park it looked like this:

See that huge puddle? We had to run through tons of them! Luckily after a few miles the rain let up and by the midway point it was downright beautiful. The run was tough even though it was a scale back week and we "only" ran 14 miles. Garmin says I stopped for a total of about 25 minutes which is something I really need to cut out. There's no stopping the clock during a race so I need to train as if the clock is always running. Still, if I take my moving time and subtract the extra mileage I'm around 2:30 for a half marathon so hopefully I can beat my previous time of 2:19 in the Great Race of Agoura when I run the Pasadena Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon next month. The hills aren't nearly as challenging as Agoura so I really have no excuse.

After the run I asked Trey to take a picture of us since my wonderful friend Lorie was in town and since I knew I needed more pictures for this post. Not only did he take silly pictures of himself, but he also caught us primping (actually Sarah primped the least but somehow she still got caught).