Skirts, Sunglasses, Sprints, and Stomach Bugs

Skirts: Crystal & I decided that new outfits for the race were a must. So we hit up Nordstrom together on Saturday. We opted not to get matching outfits but both went with Nike skirts. Crystal's is teal and mine is navy. We're pretty confident that new outfits will make us run faster.

Sunglasses: The shopping marathon continued while we set out on the quest to find me a better pair of sunglasses. I went to the doctor about my migraines and she just reiterated the need for a good pair of polarized sunglasses. The good news is that she said it is very unlikely that exercise is a trigger. So Crystal & I were on a mission to find me the best pair of sunglasses. After visiting three different stores we decided that I needed a pair of Oakley's with Black Iridium polarized lenses. These lenses apparently block out 91% of light. It took us a while to find this lens in a style that I liked but Crystal was up to the challenge and kept encouraging me to find the perfect pair. And we couldn't resist finishing up the shopping trip by buying Elias a new pair of sunglasses as well.

Crystal & I shopping for Oakley sunglasses

Elias and I wearing our new shades

Sprints: Bummed about missing my long run this weekend (see next section) I was ready to work hard at boot-camp on Monday morning and make up for it. I guess lucky for me the instructor had a doozy of a workout in store for us. Our strength training workouts were followed by 400 meter (1/4 mile) sprints. I never would have thought that 1/4 mile was a sprinting distance but I actually enjoyed the challenge of pushing myself to run as fast as I could for that distance. I can't say that I enjoyed it while I was doing it and didn't necessarily look forward to the repeats but I was proud of myself to finish with a time of 1 min 43 sec. The sprints made me feel stronger and confident that my training has been paying off!

Stomach Bugs: So my I can take on the world attitude that I acquired from the Monday morning sprints lasted until about 1 pm yesterday when I started to get an intense stomach ache. I couldn't figure out what was wrong and all I could think was that those sprints took a larger toll on me than I thought. Realized a couple of hours later that it had nothing to do with my morning workout and I had caught a stomach bug. Elias was up sick all night on Saturday. We incorrectly assumed that it was something he ate because he never developed a fever and acted like his normal self on Sunday. Guess I got it a little worse than he did because I was wiped out for a full 24 hours.

I'm looking forward to putting this bug behind us and picking up my training with an 11 mile run this weekend. This will be my last long run before the race as the week before the race includes a combination of short runs and rest days.