Louisville Skyline at Pinot's Palette

While my parents and Chris were in town for a few days, my Mom and I went to Pinot's Palette to test out our artistic side! 

KDF Mini-Marathon Official Photos 2014

ENJOY!!! 

MMT 2014 Week 15

Week leading up to the race...and of course my hip hurt. So not much running this week, but the race went well!! And I PRed!! Check out the post here. 

Week 15: 
4-13-14: Bike ride 11 miles 
4-14-14:  Elliptical 15 min, 30 min weight lifted
4-15-14: Yoga Class 50 min.Ran 4 miles 45:00
4-16-14: Elliptical 25 minutes, Weight lifted 25 minutes
4-17-14:Yoga Class 50 min. 
4-18-14: OFF
4-19-14: Mini Marathon 13.1 miles 1:58:17

Total Mileage: 17.1 miles 

KDF Mini-Marathon 2014

I DID IT!!!!! AND I PRed!!!! I'm very happy with my result. My goal was to run in under 2 hours and I did! I don't think I could have done it without my Mom because she definitely made my pace steady. We averaged around a 9 minute mile which is awesome for me. Sarah finished before us by 2 or so minutes. Go Sarah!


The course is flat and I think training with the hills and doing the Triple Crown really helped me complete the best half marathon so far. That was my 6th one, can you believe that?! I felt pretty good the entire race until we hit the last 2-3 miles. My leg was killing me. I felt like I needed to stretch, but I pushed myself and didn't. The weather was PERFECT. Mid 50s and sunny!

Dad and Chris cheered us on twice around UofL's campus. Plus I saw a few other people I knew cheering which made the race more bearable. Below are come pictures that Dad took of us (around mile 9). 

 

According to my GPS it was a total of 13.14 miles.
Total time: 1:58:22. The official time was 1:58:17...I'll take that :) Before this race my fastest half-marathon was 2:06:40, so I beat my time by over 8 minutes! 
125/729 in my age group. Not too shabby

Here is the breakdown:

Mile 1: 9:07

Mile 2: 9:02

Mile 3: 8:59

Mile 4:9:06

Mile 5: 9:00

Mile 6: 8:57

Mile 7: 8:46

Mile 8: 8:49

Mile 9: 9:13

Mile 10: 9:01

Mile 11: 9:06

Mile 12: 9:11

Mile 13:9:10

Last 0.14: 56  

Average Pace: 9:01

Sarah and I after the race

Mom and I after the race 

Can I get one?! Golden Pups

My roommate Katelynn really wants a dog! And I'm not complaining whatsoever. I would love a dog around the house. She saw an ad for Golden Retriever puppies and so we went to go visit them last night. Just check out their cuteness! 

Spring Fun

It's sure starting to look and feel like spring now, which makes me very happy.

This past week has been active and fun with fun spring activities going on in Louisville. Also, my roommate Katelynn is back in town so I've been doing lots of fun things with her.

Here is a recap of the fun I had the past few days...

Thursday:
Went for a 6 mile walk around Cherokee Park area with my friend Katie and Katelynn. It was a gorgeous day outside and was fun to talk with these girls for a couple of hours.I actually got some sun on my face!




Went to the Bats opening game. I went with Katelynn and had fun drinking ($1 beers) and taking it all in! We got free HUGE and kinda hideous looking mugs for being the first 2,000 people. Once again, it was a gorgeous day to be outside and do something besides studying.

Friday:
Went to University of Louisville's spring game!

MMT 2014 Week 14

ONLY ONE WEEK AWAY!!! AHHH! I'm excited and anxious at the same time for the race! 

This past week's weather has been AMAZING! Sunshine and warm weather. I love it! I went for a 6 mile run in the middle of the day on Wednesday and felt hot..call me a wimp ha! It was in the 70s and I think my body wasn't ready for that. On Monday I tried a new yoga class and enjoyed it; so three days of yoga this week (#winning). One mistake that I made this week was lifting too much on Monday morning. My legs were sore from Monday until Friday and I could feel it when I was running on Tuesday and Wednesday. Bad move for me but I learned not to do that again! 

Today was a great 10 mile run with Sarah in her neighborhood. She lives on a golf course and we started at 7 am (gasp!) so we were able to see the sunrise on the run. It was our last long run until race day. I hope we're ready! We were joking today about the difference between undergrad and grad school. We grad school people now make runs serious and begin at 7am on a Saturday. I don't mind it at all and get to start my day off right and early. 


Week 14: 
4-6-14: Walked 4 miles 
4-7-14:  50 min weight lifted, Yoga 50 minutes 
4-8-14: Yoga Class 50 min, 3 mile run/walk 
4-9-14: Ran 6 miles 56:35
4-10-14:Yoga Class 50 min., walked 6 miles 
4-11-14: 20 min elliptical, 30 min weight lifted (upper body)
4-12-14: Ran 10 miles 1:34:44

Total Mileage: 19 miles 

Showing off last year's mini t-shirt which will be old next week! This was taken after my 10 mile run this morning. 

Pro-Life on a Saturday

It's been awhile since I've written about pro-life. Since yesterday I had two events that were pro-life I thought I would share what I did, and some thoughts. 

I definitely haven't been slacking on my pro-life activism because I've been helping the Teens for Life. The Teens for Life is a high school pro-life group. I was asked to be their "mentor" since they needed some guidance. I love helping them out and working with younger people with such a passion for pro-life work! I wish I knew about this group when I was in high school. 

On Saturday early in the morning I went to pray outside the abortion clinic (EMW Clinic) in downtown Louisville. I hadn't done this in awhile and I'm really glad that I participated. Right now is 40 Days for Life, meaning that everyday for 40 days there is someone praying outside the clinic from 7am-7pm. I think that is truly powerful that there are that many dedicated people to fill all those time slots. We all believe that those women in there need extra prayers as they make their "choice." Because I went early in the morning I saw all the women come in for their appointments. There were around 20 women that I saw. Each women had a worried and apprehensive look on their face, as many of them covered their ears and eyes walking by the people praying. It gets to me every time to see these hopeless women walk in. All I can do it pray for them. 

What was shocking to me this time, was how many clinic escorts there were. A clinic escort is someone who walks with the woman from her car to the clinic. They have these escorts because for "some reason" they think that the pro-life people are going to attack or harass them. Which is totally not true FYI :) There were around 25 escorts and I would say around 40 prolifers. It's like they needed all these people to "protect" the women going into the clinic. Ironic because they aren't necessary being "protected" INSIDE the clinic. I saw one clinic escort recording a video on her phone of the prolifers prayer and the sidewalks counselors trying to talk to the women. The escort was smirking and laughing under breath. I thought to myself, who is going to watch that?! I personally thought it was disrespectful and immature. There were several sidewalk counselors as well. They are prolifers that are trained to talk to these women on their way to the clinic. They will offer help and tell them the Truth. I look up to those people, their work is truly amazing. That would take a lot of guts and prayer to become one of those. 

Another thought that came to mind while I was praying.... There were around 10 graphic abortion signs that people we holding (i.e. dead baby). Those disturb me every time I see them. I think they are necessary to use, but only in certain places. An abortion clinic is not one. These women coming into the clinic need hope and comfort. They are about to make a choice that many of them may not even want to make (being death). No one wants to admit to that. They don't need to see dead babies, the word "kill", and condemning them. They are just like any human being that makes mistakes and sins. I believe that praying outside the clinic is a strong enough sign to show these women that we care about them and pray for them. I do believe that graphic signs should be used on college campuses or other public places to share the TRUTH. Many don't even know what happens during an abortion. Those signs show what occurs and there is no denying that. The intention is that some those pictures will spark a thought in a person and make them reconsider the definition of abortion. 

Later in the day was more fun (and less somber) than being outside the clinic. The Teens for Life group stood on Shelbyville Rd. outside the mall with Pro-life signs. They had a blast and I had fun too! One sign said "Honk if You're Pro-life" We received 400 honks! It was exciting to see how many pro-life people are out there. More positive responses were seen than negative, which was awesome! The purpose was to spread the word and once again provoke a thought in those drivers going by. The Teens for Life decided to make this a monthly event, which is great!!

I'd say it was a great day to be pro-life!!

MMT 2014 Week 13

Only two weeks until the big race!!

This week was a good one! I ran the most so far in one week. Partly because I had a long run on Sunday (because I didn't run the Saturday before) and I ran 12 miles on Saturday! Knowing that I can run 12 miles makes me confident that I can survive the 13.1 miles. As you all know, my shins have been hurting. I finally received my compression socks in the mail and tried them out yesterday on the 12 mile run. The verdict? I'm not sure if they worked....my shins AND calves hurt. Later in the run my hip started to hurt (probably because of compensation). Any suggestions??? After the 12 mile run, Sarah and I made it to Life Bar after for a much needed juice. Yummmm. 

The weather has been a lot nicer outside, so I only had one inside run this week! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will be just right on race day. Because the race is in two weeks, that means that my Mom, Dad, and Chris will be in town soon. I can't wait! 

Week 13: 
3-30-14: Ran 9 miles 1:26:07
3-31-14: Walked 3 miles, 50 min weight lifted
4-1-14: Ran 4 miles  38:30, Yoga Class 50 min., 3 mile walk 
4-2-14: OFF
4-3-14: Ran 4 miles 45:00 (TM), Yoga Class 50 min. 
4-4-14: Ran 4.5 miles 40:28
4-5-14: Ran 12 miles 1:53:03

Total Mileage: 33.5 miles