Running!

I have fallen back in love with running again! Lots of factors have helped this....after Wynnie was born I signed up for 6 half marathons (all which will be completed by November of this year). One of those 6 has turned into a FULL marathon. I still have no idea what I was thinking when I did that! So far I have completed 2 of the 5 half marathons. Another huge motivator has been the Nike+ app on my phone. I have been using one form of this or another for about 6 years now. It has come such a long way though! The newest app can play music, track runs with GPS, track your friends runs (great competition!), set goals for yourself, set run reminders, log your miles for the month and week (and your friends) and I am sure that it does even more than that! So, on the mornings that I don't feel like waking up at 6am so that I can get my run in before Jeremy leaves for work I think, "I bet that Kiki and Brad are going to run this morning so I better get my butt out there!"

I love the things that I get to see on my runs. The picture above was from 2 weekends ago. There was a race called Color Me Rad going on at the Horse Park. At every kilometer the runners would get showered with a different colored powder! There are lots of runs like it around. I have never actually done one (Sep and Morgan did one in Florida!) but I have heard that they are lots of fun. Every time a group goes to do one in Atlanta I have something that weekend or I am pregnant so I have missed out that last two times. 

Here's a reason why I LOVE running with my phone....on my long runs I will call Jeremy while I am at the bottom of the street ready to pass out and I'll ask him to send one of the girls down with water, chocolate milk, coconut milk, or sports water (whichever I am feeling like). 9 times out of 10 Layne will come walking down with a huge smile on her face. It's such a great sight and I love the drink that she brings me too! 

I still am having some minor hip flexor pain but I am stretching and it's at about 90% so I am just going to continue running through it. Other than that I am feeling great and I LOVE getting out there when the temps are too bad. I love getting home early in the morning and I still have the entire day ahead of me and my exercise is out of the way.  

Since I am training during the summer there are dehydration issues that I deal with. Most of the time I get a terrible head ache after my long runs on Saturday, so I have been trying to figure that out since I don't like to run with fluids.....which is going to change. Coconut water is supposed to really help. I have tried it before, but it's just SO NASTY that I can't stomach it. Coconut water popsicles though!? I didn't actually get them, but someone said that they were good. 

This is good coconut water! Zico Chocolate flavored. Tastes like watered down chocolate milk (or chocolate milk made with skim milk...or skin milk as the girls call it). I had one on Friday night and then one on Saturday after my 10 mile run and NO head ache. Now, it could have also been the fact that I called Jeremy about 4 miles into my run and asked him to bring me my hydration belt because I knew that I was sweating profusely and would most likely get dehydrated. He brought it to me with about 3 miles left so I was able to hydrate during the last three miles.

I took this picture this morning, it was actually a lot darker and the moon was a lot more pronounced. It was beautiful!