The problem...

with being an all or nothing gal is this: eventually something has got to give! I am still struggling with my priorities for this racing season. I go back and forth on it daily. If you haven't figured it out yet I am the type of person that dives into something and gives 110%. (Curse you Mr. V for instilling this into me so well!) I hate not giving all of myself to whatever I am involved with whether that be work, my blog, my home, training, racing, charities, etc.

So my major goal for the year is to try and find some balance that works for me and those around me.

Sorry just had to get that out there in the open.

Back to this weekend.

Friday night I headed to a fundraising party for LLS. (After driving home and grabbing everything I would need for Saturday's race) I had a good time hanging out at the fundraiser and chowing down on all kinds of foods that were counter productive to the next days task at hand (The Chili Bowl 5k).

I have met so many lovely people in TNT and one of my fave friends from TNT offered up her guest room to me for the night so I wouldn't have to travel back and forth to the west side on both Friday and Saturday. It was very nice to know that I would only have a 5-10 minute drive to the race in the morning as opposed to 45. KR and I chatted into the wee hours of the morning (I think I finally hit the hay around 1 AM). It has been a long time since I have just stayed up and had girlie chat time. It was really nice. I forgot how much I missed my "bitch fests" from college. :)

KR and her family are SO much fun! When I headed to bed I found a chocolate on my pillow. I felt like I was at a Bed and Breakfast!

The next morning I actually woke up early (around 7) and had time to eat a bagel and have half a cup of coffee. I chatted with KR and her kids until it was time to get dressed and head to the race. If you missed the race reports from Su, DaisyDuc, and Trisaratops let me just tell you it was about 6 degrees out Saturday! That's even a little cold for my tastes and yes I did wear fleece pants as opposed to my regular race shorts. I went through a few outfit changes before deciding on my heavier technical long sleeve and a wind shirt, gloves, and two ear headbands. I think I did take off the gloves towards the end of the race (my hands are always warm).

I thought I left myself plenty of time for a long warm up but when I got into the race registration I realized I was quite wrong, the line for pre-reg was out the door (I am not even exaggerating!). So between running over there and back to my car and a short warm up I think I got about 15 minutes in. Right as I was finishing the warm up to the start line I felt a weird twinge on the lower front of my knee (thought that's odd, never had that before). No time to worry about it as they were telling everyone to line up.

J and A called me over and we did the quick "What's your race plan" chat and got ready to start. Good lucks to Su, J, and A and we were off. I decided to try and hang with J. She's a speedster but like me hadn't been doing any speedwork lately. I felt like we were going 6:30 and sure enough we crossed the 1 mile around 6:36, prob a little too fast for the first mile.

The knee was "twinging" on and off every few minutes, but no lingering pain, a short twinge then gone. I hung with J up through the 2 mile and then let her inch ahead of me. That 2nd mile feels like it takes FOREVER! I felt the exact same way last year at this race. Looking down at your watch you expect that the mile is almost up and realize you are just past the half, grrr.

There is a short out and back around 2.5, I tried to close in on J here but my brain leg combo would have none of it. So I just tried to hold the gap and finish strong. At mile 3 this 19 year old sand bagger comes flying by. Nothing I could do, J was about 6 seconds in front of me and this girl went flying by her too. Sucks but oh well. I need to learn how to run the shorter races like this, I want to be a sand bagger ;)

Afterwards the knee didn't act up, still not pleased about it though because it was on the front. I have never had knee problems so it is worrisome.

I am happy with the race. It would have been nice to break 21 but considering conditions and the top girls time (20:12) I can't really have expected more out of myself.

After finishing we stood around and watched some other finishers come in. A and Su kicked some serious booty. HUGE shout out to Su for PRing by a minute! Kick Ass! And big thanks to B2 for taking pics of us in the cold (although its only because he's a serious WWP (for those of you that read Bolder this is my rip off of SLP but mine stands for warm weather)) Also had a few other TNT peeps that came out in the cold to compete, congrats to E, G, and R!

About then the cold kicked in and we headed inside for some Chili and sat around chatting waiting for awards. We are chilling on the floor when Su starts screaming "Sara, Sara" I am like do you know that girl? Then I look closer and Su says, that's Trisaratops, and sure enough it was! So we got to meet Trisaratops and DaisyDuc. Pretty suhweet. DaisyDuc PRed too! And she joined my running club so now we have another speedster chick to join us on Sundays! Can't wait to introduce her to "the hill."

(Sorry for the continuous post but the OCD in me can't just break the story up into multiple posts, I have had issues with the way blogs are "ordered" since I first signed up for Tblog in 2004, I mean when you read a book you read top to bottom, but if you read a blog top to bottom you are going backwards, anyways I digress)

After awards and some chit chat Su and I headed over to KR's place to get in a hot shower. We had some coffee and colored with MR. I am really anal about staying within the lines so when MR helped me with my picture I had to stop myself from flinching, the agony of wondering whether she would remain within the lines was torturous :) She was probably thinking my goodness Elizabeth is a slow colorer, at this rate we won't have any time for hide and seek :)

After coloring MR and I played monopoly. It was a close game but MR ended up low on cash and I came out victorious. The kids version of this game is interesting because if you land on a property you have to buy it. So you can actually end up going broke against your will.

We played some hide and seek and then it was time for some gaming action. JR and I played some Mario Kart and some snowboarding game. I wasn't very good at the snowboarding but I gave JR a run for his money on Mario Kart. I felt a little bad, I probably should have warned him that I am pretty good at that game. He made up for his losses in snowboarding though.

I totally forgot I had planned on going into work on Sat for a few hours and ended up having to head straight home to get ready for Ds 40th b-day party. I had a blast with KR and her family. Can't wait to do it again.

Hubby and I got around and headed over to G's place for the partay. I indulged in some wine, jello shots, and beer. Needless to say I was having a good time. I am loud normally but you give me a few drinks and a party I get Real loud, yikes! But hopefully no one minded. We danced and I got to catch up with A. I hadn't seen her since I left for Arizona, what the heck happened to my training partner? But I think she will be back on track now and hopefully I will be seeing more of her. We left semi-early but we were up pretty late, esp considering I had a 16 miler planned for the next morning.


to be continued again...