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The Spring of No Starts

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 Challenge. Which has 3 bazillion hills on its 13 mile course, so definitely not a PR endeavor...

However, my quest for the completed series remained unfinished.

























After running a very poorly executed 3M half marathon, I got into a repetitive pattern of either traveling (ok, that I do often) or getting sick (which I thankfully don't do that often).

Austin Half Marathon was at the tail end of one of my nasty colds, and I was supposed to get on a 10 hour flight to Europe later the same day, so pushing my body through 13 miles just did not seem like an excellent idea. I will have to come back for my Austin Distance Challenge magnet collection again!

March brought one of the most wonderful adventures I have ever taken. I travelled to Morocco with Austin's local company Rogue Expedition and had an absolutely fantastic time there. It was a run-cation, so I managed to cover almost 65 miles in 6 days time, as well as experience local food and cuisine and culture and make new friends! And nothing, nothing can top doing a speed workout in Sahara desert 😃 🐫 Here are a hundred pictures that don't do any justice to the beauty of the country and its people.




















































































































The end of Morocco trip brought another bout of virus/cold/whatever it was, and I made a very tough decision of pulling out of Manchester Marathon, that I wanted to use as "check-in" marathon before my fall goal race. I have been training as hard as I could, trying not to miss any sessions or workouts with all my crazy travel schedule, but may body was just telling me NOPE 👎 .

I am now 2,5 weeks away from another marathon, and even though my taper has not started, I am all about DON'T GET SICK. And I am running that MF even if I have to hobble along 💪🏻




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