It has been a very busy 8 days for me.  Shall we recap?

Last Thursday my great uncle passed away after a battle with heart disease and cancer.  He was the last of my Grandfather-on-my-mothers-side’s brothers.  I memorialized him on Friday by walking the Relay for Life in his memory. 

Saturday I squeezed in a 4 mile run to help me reach my 410 miles walked/ran goal for the Walk Across Arizona.  After a quick shower I headed over to the SkullzDotHouse for a Indiana Jones Marathon in preparation for going to the drive-in and seeing the Crystal Skull last night.

Sunday there were several viewings for my Great Uncle and then Monday was the funeral sandwiched between several hours of working from home.  Tuesday was the all important 2-hour NCIS finale which forced me to cut the grass and run on Wednesday.

I am really looking forward to the long weekend ahead.  I have not been eating very well at all for the last few weeks so in addition to eating healthy my plans are to run and clean and maybe catch the UFC at my brother’s on Saturday.  I need to clean my sun room to prepare it for the arrival of my new toy next week.  Yes, I pre-ordered myself a Wii so that I can play the Lego’s Inidiana Jones game amongst many others. 

Tomorrow is the 10K on the 10th virtual race organized by Nancy.  I plan to just take my time since it is still within a week of a race.  I haven’t decided who to choose as my pacer yet.  It has to be someone that will get along well with the running group I plan to join this weekend.  He or she will also need to be a little on the slower side since I know my legs aren’t 100% yet.  Any suggestions?  Nancy has given us some nice options for this race.

I recieved a shipping notice that my new running skirts will be here on Monday, so one of them will make their maiden voyage during my 5 miles on Tuesday.  Then I will be sure to leave a review for those of you that are interested like Jeff.  😉

If you haven’t noticed next week is the last week of the Walk Across Arizona.  I have 32.65 miles left till I hit the 410 miles travelled by foot for the 16-week span.  I have planned everything out, including walking the dog, and if I stick to my guns I will hit that mark even before heading to the Relay for Life next Friday.  Overall I have already logged 463 miles for the team when you include my FIRM workouts.  Pardon me for patting myself on my back, but I am very proud of myself.  Overall the program has benefitted me by getting me more active throughout the day rather than just my workout in the morning and it has helped me return to consistently FIRMing.  Thanks WAA!

You may have noticed from my tracker in the upper right hand corner that I have in fact passed the 300 mile mark in my quest to reach  my goal of 410 miles by foot by May 17th.  I am very pleased with that.  Now the next several weeks are going to be a challenge to squeeze out the last 110 miles.  I have a few things on my side though. 

For starters the weather is getting to be nice and warm, so walks with Tillie are extremely enjoyable.  That is 2.20 miles per day at least.  I have two races coming up, which are great for earning mileage.  I also have a trip to Disney.  I plan to wear my pedomiter to the parks so that I can count that mileage towards my goal.  The last Friday of the challenge is the Relay for Life.  Which means lots and lots of walking.  Plan to wear my pedometer there as well so that I can count the mileage. 

As long as my body holds up I should be able to blow that 410 mile goal out of the water!

Yes, I am feeling much happier today thanks in part to reaching a goal I had set for myself this year.  This morning I headed out for my 5 mile tempo run, but in addition to using percieved exertion to judge my pace I set the pace alert on my GPS.  I set my min pace at 12:45 and my max pace to 11:00.  I am happy to report that my max pace alert was going off much more often than my min pace.  In the end I finished my tempo run in 59:28!  Yes, I reached my goal of bringing my pace run under an hour.  Now I know I still have it in me, so I just need to remind myself that when I go out for my runs and maybe, just maybe I will get my 5 mile tempo runs back around 55 minutes.

Ok, time to shower and go to work because right now I am bringing a new definition to the word stink.  Whew!

This morning I got an e-mail from my friends at Clif which mentioned a new recycling  program designed to target the energy bar wrappers that are ending up in our landfills.  I went to the website which is run by a company called Terracycle and ended up signing up for the Energy Bar Wrapper Brigade, Yogurt Brigade, and the Drink Pouch Brigade.  For each Brigade a certain amount of the objects collected will equate to 5 sq. feet of rain forest saved.  I plan to advertise this at work and put bags in our office kitchens to collect items.  I will have to let everyone know how I do.  If anyone wants to join in on the fun you can sign up for your own brigade at Terracycle or I would be happy to collect items from my reading public.  If you are interested in donating to my collection just drop me an e-mail.  I e-mailed my friend to suggest that maybe it would be a good idea for her child’s school because you have the option of having the money from your donations go to a school or charity instead of towards saving the rain forest.

I have been MIA since the 9 on the 9th, but I did get a couple workouts in.  Yesterday was just a bad energy day so I missed my run.  Instead I did it this morning and plan to double up on my workouts by doing an upper body sculpting workout tonight.  Ok, so I typed it now that mean I have to do it!  Right?  My WAA miles this week have been a little lower because of the cruddy weather and such, but hopefully I can make up for it when things get a little warmer this weekend.