Three Days of BLISS!

The Sunday run went "interesting". I felt good, real good for the first 12 - 13km, as I was forcing myself to go at a pace of no faster than 5:00/km, which is what I SHOULD be doing for my long runs, given my time goal for the marathon. Legs felt great throughout the entire run, but my stomach went bad after about 15k and that was hell for a long while. The run was supposed to be only 34km, but for some reason I just kept on going out further and further, feeling terrible (sometimes good though) and knowing that it would end up being around 40k if I turned around at a certain point. So I turned around and started heading back at about 27km, which woulda had me getting home with a total run of somehwere between 40 - 41km, and I probably would have mashed out another kilometre or two just to kill a marathon in training. We planned for Julia to come out and meet me on the bike to see how I was doing, so I started just thinking about that to get me through the stomach issues. Finally I saw her around the 31km mark and i was feeling terrible. I managed to get anohter 3.5km in and had to stop running for a bit. But I couldn't get it going again and ended up taking the bike from her 6km from and biking home, while she walked the rest. She didn't mind because she had her camera and was taking all sorts of pictures. I got home, ate a bunch of food and my stomach came around. For having run almost 35k my legs felt amazing, so when my stomach felt 100% again the three of us went out to tackle Mt. Keira. THAT was another 3.5 hour trek (40 mins each way walk to the base). LOTS of climbing, it's about 1500 feet of climbing throughwoods, along paths. That was another big challenge of the day, but we got some amazing views from up there. Real beautiful.

Today is the first day of a 3 week challenge for Jared and I to get up at 4:30AM every morning to train before we go to prac. He goes to the gym at school and then over to his school, and I run outside and then head over to my school, after breakfast and a shower of course. :) We're both pretty pumped up about this, as it gets the training out of the way first thing in the morning and we don't have to worry about fitting it in later on in the day after school, and I can always throw in an hour bike ride here or there if I have the time. I've also started a push-up challenge during prac as well, "push-ups for prac". Keeping with my Boston Qualifying theme, I'm doing 310 every day for 18 days. Today it took me 28:56. I do a set, then do some homework, then do a set, then do some homework etc etc.

First day of prac went really well, right back into the swing of things! Seems like I coulda been there this whole time, didn't miss a beat. I'm doing a modelled reading lesson tomorrow! I'll be reading the kids the Big Book "Sea Stars" as they are doing a unit on space, and my teacher seems to think it's somehow related. And then we'll discuss what an information report it and how it is structured. I love it! :) The days at prac just fly by, 2 hours in the morning, then it's lunch, then about an hour and a half and then it's recess, then one hour and we're gonezo!

BAD news is, Julia only got TWO shifts (about 7 hours) at the buffet this week. For some reason her hours are getting cut back too, but she's at least still working some hours at the café as well. I've got to get some more applications going myself. We've prety much called off most of our 3 week break trip 'cause we just can't make it happen, gotta pay rent and bills first. We're still doing the marathon thing in Gold Coast, but not gonna go to Cairns or anywhere else. We're still living the adventure being here period so we don't mind, and if we can make it happen later in December then we will, but just gotta be smart at this point in time.

Did I mention how nice it is to have NO roommates for at least 2 weeks! :) So peaceful up in here!

Love everyone!