Jumping over streams

I finished another race on Sunday.  I'm proud to have continued in the running/racing track for a year now.  I was hoping to finish my race in under an hour, but I missed it by a few minutes.  I finished strong in 1:10:03.  (The official times got posted yesterday on the website for the race.)  While I'm slightly disappointed that I didn't meet my goal, I'm reminding myself of all the ways I've improved over the last year.

These include:
Over three minutes shaved off EACH mile.
I was not in the last 10 people to finish. 
I was not constantly wondering how much longer I had to go.
Aside from feeling physically wiped out the day of the race, I was not exhausted or sore the day after in any significant way.

The morning was beautiful and the course was fun.  I have to say, though, they billed this as a "mostly flat" course.  That, to me, was a joke.  While it's wasn't as intense as my birthday run (which I just realized I never wrote a post about, and therefore cannot link that phrase to the post about said run - whoops!), which was like mountain climbing for much of it, it was nowhere near the flat that we're used to here at the coast.  It's amazing how much difference three hours north makes in topography.  Even so, the course was fun.  There were even a handful of stream crossings where we literally had to jump over the streams.  It certainly was an adventure, and I'm proud to have finished it.  I feel good about it and I'm working now on a strategy for my next set of goals. 

I do still have about 10 pounds to lose, so I can't stop exercising all together (nor do I have any desire to do so!), but I've been reading in my Runner's World about giving your running muscles a break after the end of the racing season for a few weeks.  I'm thinking about doing that for six or eight weeks or so and then maybe mid-January starting to build up my mileage again for a 10 miler or half marathon in the spring sometime.  It's nice right now, though, to have a little bit of a break from the rigidity of the training plan I've been following and to be able to decide when I walk in the gym what I feel like doing.  Yesterday I watched Rachael Ray while doing the elliptical for an hour.  That's a pretty fun/easy way to burn almost 700 calories!  I wouldn't want to do it every day, and I'll miss running in about two days, I think, but right now I'm enjoying the freedom from the pressure to fit exact workouts in.  I also hope to get a little more toning done in the next few months with yoga/pilates at the gym and Jillian Michaels at home. 

Other than that, we're getting ready for our Thanksgiving/wedding trip (five more sleepings!!) and taking care of all the odds and ends that start to come up this time of year with getting ready for Christmas and all of the activities that go along with that.