A Traveling Pants Universe

After a super disappointing Spring, where I missed 3 big races because I was either sick, or traveling, or totally undertrained, I have FINALLY made it to the starting (and finish) line of another marathon. WOO HOO!! I heard about Grandma's marathon from other runners, and it was only praise and accolades. A running friend of mine was also planning to be there to run the half, it was only two weeks after my DNS at Newport marathon, so the timing to give it another try was perfect. OK, maybe not perfect, as I do think I messed up my taper with so much traveling and running all over the place and my schedule. But as my coach reminded me after my race, the lead up and training are rarely ideal. You do need to show up at least somehow prepared, otherwise the 26.2 miles will chew you up and spit you out, but maybe not every single thing has to be perfect. Well, my not-so-perfect trip to Minnesota started with me eating some bad taco at Austin airport and getting some issues with m...

WOAH! I am writing about my races and running again, hooray! 😃 It's been a strange Spring season for me, where I have not raced at all. My running career is still pretty new, but having no races on the calendar since January is something I am not used to (we are in May already, yikes!). I have signed myself up for Austin Distance Challenge last September and wanted to complete several races in my "home town" since majority of the running that I do (as in actual races, not training) is usually somewhere else. Austin Distance Challenge encourages local runners to complete a series of 5 events, varying in distance from 8K to a marathon over the course of 5 months. I thought it's an excellent idea and put my name down since I knew I would be running 3M half marathon in Austin anyways. Well, running every single one of these races reminded me why I am cautious about "going for it" in Austin. The only race that was not super hot and/or humid was Decker Chal...

I am tucked in bed on a Wednesday night at 6PM. Not sure if I caught a cold, or a bug, or this is just my body telling me that I need to take a break and chill tonight, but not feeling very good at the moment. I decided it will be a good time to think about 3 months ahead of me and all the training I want to complete before Berlin Marathon 17. I ran my second 10K race this past weekend, and was very excited to get my time to under 50 minutes. My exact time was 49.51, and looking at my pace of 8.02 for 6 miles makes me incredibly proud and happy. A year ago, running a mile at 8.30 seemed pretty daunting. I knew it's going to be a nice race when I walked outside to drive to the start line, and I was not dying from humidity. Nevertheless, I decided to be cautious when I headed out on the course. I did not want to feel horrible on mile 2 and struggle for the remainder of the race, and seems like my strategy worked! It was a small and not super fast race, but still exciting to ...