sleep does a body good

Due to my early morning wake up call Monday morning and no sleep despite my best efforts I ended up reverting to my 3 year old self. This included getting annoyed at everyone and everything around me, losing my train of thought easily, crankiness, and nearly crying. The crying happened when I couldn't open my bottle of diet pepsi. The cap was glued to the bottle and even scissors wasn't getting that sucker off! I have a nice slice and open sore on my thumb from my nearly 30 minute attempt at opening the dang bottle. Oh how I needed the caffeine; it just wasn't meant to be :) Later while sitting on the tarmac in Chicago because there was no gate available Jacob called me. He was making fun of me because I was acting all over dramatic about a regular occurrence. I snapped at him "Every little thing becomes a major catastrophe on only 2 1/2 hours of sleep" He just laughed at me - that didn't help ;) So after all that no workout Monday ;) Early to bed on Monday night and after 9 1/2 hours of sleep I was ready to go today! It felt amazing to sleep well and long. My body desperately needed it.

Thanks to all that sleep I had a pretty incredible 11 miles this evening. I maintained a 9:30 min/mile pace which is excellent for me! I felt incredibly strong and I can only hope this feeling follows me for the remaining of my training. We will see...

On the run today I decided to take some GU along for fuel as well as my new favorite drink - Zym. GU just doesn't do it for me anymore. It does in a pinch and does provide needed energy but I get so hungry on mid-long runs that it starts to hurt the last few miles. I feel as though shot bloks and GU chomps "fill" me up more or at least satiate my groaning pterodactyl stomach.

In other running related news I signed up for the Oak brook half-marathon on Labor Day. This will be my first half in nearly 2 years! Incredible... I've been meaning to run them over the past 2 years but some how I procrastinated in signing up, didn't ever get to training, or it just didn't work with my schedule at the time. I will have to do a bit of maneuvering of the schedule this time around to make it work that week. Pftiz calls for a 10K - 15K warm-up race on the Saturday of race week and there is a race on Sunday which would work better. However, I have a ticket to the BMW golf championship in Cog Hill that day. And I'm sorry but my boyfriend Tiger Woods takes priority on Sunday :) I'm also looking into another 8K race 2 weeks later. More on that later.

Alright off to pack for Ohio! I'm excited to see the family (even if not under the best circumstances). And I am super stoked to run a local trail. It will be a nice change of scenery even if it takes 45 minutes to drive in the morning.