My life

I have no words as to why I stopped blogging.  But my life hasn't been completely boring nor has much changed.

I finished that second marathon in 4 hours and 2 minutes.  I was a little upset about the 2 minutes but then it hit me, I actually took almost 15 minutes off my first marathon and that was an amazing feat in and of itself.

I got another year older, my kids and husband got another year older but the most amazing thing happened to my family in June.  I'll share that story with you.

One lazy Saturday afternoon I was lounging in my bed watching TLC's I Won The Lottery or something like that.  A girlfriend of mine was coming over to lay out with me, so I was watching that show while I waited.  Once she got to the house, we all went outside and lounged in the pool discussing what we would do if we had won the lottery. 

I forgot to mention that a girlfriend of mine has asked me to feed her cats while she and her husband were out of town that same weekend.  So when I went down to feed the cats I found an envelope on the table with my name on it and $10 in it to feed the cats.

So anyways, I had to stop at the convenient store on my way back from lunch with my mom and sister the following Tuesday and while I was there I decided to take $5 of that $10 and purchase a Fantasy Five ticket.  It always has a jackpot of $100,000 in it and if I didn't win, welp no harm done.

I didn't tell a soul I had purchased the ticket, just stuck it back in my purse and went on with life.  The next day, Wednesday, I was in a meeting with my bosses when I realized I needed to check the numbers for the Fantasy Five and see if I had won.

As luck would have it, my ticket hit, along with another ticket, which meant I had to split the $100,000 with the other winning lottery ticket.  I called my husband and with a very cry heavy voice told him we just won $50,000 on the GA lottery.  He was actually with a client and told me he would have to call me back.  So I went to my bosses and asked them to please come check the numbers on the computer screen against the numbers I had on the ticket, just to have another set of eyes on the ticket matching the numbers.  I HAD JUST WON $50,000 ON FANTASY FIVE. 

I had never played that game before on the lottery and usually when I did play, I only played when the pots were up in the millions. 

We kept it quiet until after we went to the Lottery Office and picked up the check.  Even then we only told close friends and family what had happened.  But a week after we had gotten the check, I started getting a lot of notifications on FB.  Come to find out, the local news company in my area found out I had won that much money and ran a story of it on t.v. at noon.  Soon everyone found out I had won the lottery.

We didn't go crazy with the money.  In all honesty, most of it is still sitting in my savings account.  We bought a new t.v., new furniture, finished our pool deck and bought two kayaks. 

So you can say, my life has taken a very nice turn.  I haven't played the lottery much since I won back in June.  I think all my luck was used on that one ticket.  I still have a copy of the ticket and of course, the fake HUGE check they give you at the lottery office.

So there you have it, that's what my life has been like since January 2014, the last time I posted.

Happy Thursday!!!!

Love,
Angela :)

Update

Well I'm still here.  Mainly just reading other people's blogs.  I don't really know why I stopped blogging so much but I let it take a back seat to life. 

So what has been going on with me lately, lots.  I ran my first marathon last year (March 2013) and finished in 4 hours and 15 minutes.  I'm now in training for my second marathon and looking to take 15 minutes off that time from last year and bring it down to 4 hours or better.

I will shoot eventually try to qualify for Boston but after this race, I'm putting the marathon on the back burner and will focus my running on speed.  I want to bring down my half marathon time. 

I will also be focusing on my first triathlon in August.  I'm super excited about this only because I never thought I would want to try to do a triathlon but after talking to my husband and my best friend, both have said that it will be a good idea for me to try one.  So that's what I'm doing. 

Today it's suppose to snow down here in South Georgia and the whole state is in a tizzy over it.  We're all so excited and I'm thinking of staying up until midnight to see the first snowfall.  I haven't seen snow since 2010 when it snowed on my birthday.  We don't get a lot, never, snow in this area, so when it happens, we make it a huge deal.  Schools close, businesses shut down, people forget how to drive, it's a mad house.  A funny mad house.  I'm excited though.

I'm coming back to blogging.  I'll post more pictures and breath life into this thing once again.

Love you all.

Angela :)

Track Party

My running buddies and I have a track party every single week.  It's usually on Wednesday but this week one of the girls had a bike race and so we switched it to Tuesday.  We initially had a tempo run but since we are all at different levels and I don't want anyone to get left behind, I decided to just go to the track.  We ended up doing 3x1600 with 800 jogs in between each set.

We all meet at my house to get ready and then jog down to the track for our warmup mile.  My only goal was to keep each mile repeat around the 7:30 mark.  One of the running buddies is almost at my pace in the running game.  We usually run our jogs in between each set at the same time and our warmup and cool down miles are at the same pace also.  So when we get to the track for speed, I feel as though I'm racing her the whole time.  This week was no exception.  She told me to set the pace and she would keep up.  I'm not exactly sure of all the times but the first one clocked in around 7:16.    The second one was at 7:28 and the last one was around 7:40ish.  On the last one my Ipod died, so I had to run it with no pump me up music.  It was brutal.  We ran the mile back home and ended our work out with 6 miles for the day.  Those six miles were ran in 51:XX.  Not to bad I say.

The race we are training for is Run for Love on August 4.  It's a night race, so doing most of our training runs during the evening is really helping me gauge how I will feel at the race.  I do like evening races but I'm better in the morning.

I'm planning on running 4 miles this evening after work and then taking tomorrow off and running somewhere between 8 or 10 miles on Saturday. 

I hope everyone has a marvelous Thursday.

Angela :)

Still around

I'm still here, just mainly reading everyone's blog posts. 

I have a lot going on and things are getting excited around these parts.  I've started training a friend for a 5k race on August 4.  She's already a runner, she just wanted to bring down her 5k time.  I've been working with her since the middle of June for this race.  At the last 5k we did she ran a 26 or 28:00 minute 5k and wants to run somewhere around a 23 or 22:00 5k.  At that same 5k race, I ran a 22:46 5k.  Where that speed came from is beyond me.  But I was excited.

As for the running buddy, we've actually added two more buddies to our group for a total of 4.  We meet together once a week, usually Tuesday or Wednesday, for some speedwork at the local high school track and then get together Saturday mornings for our longer runs.  It's been a lot of fun running with these ladies. 

I've come to find comfort in knowing that someone else is running with me.  I ran by myself for the longest time and about two weeks ago, I attempted a long run one Saturday morning by myself.  I started way later than our usual start time and I guess with the heat, the being by myself, and the humidity, the run was awful.  I cut it short and had the hubs come pick me up after 9 miles of running.  The next week, I was back with my running friends, and the 8 miles went by way to fast.  I'm loving running with people.  I'm honestly looking forward to marathon training.  Even though I'm the only one out of our friends running the full, they will still run their long runs with me, breaking up my longer runs where I'm not out there by myself the whole time. 

I've also started Tapout XT.  I did all but two days last week.  My whole body was aching and I just didn't think I had it in me.  Also my hip has been giving me problems, so I decided to cut back and let everything just rest. 

Today I plan on running 5 to 6 miles after work, just because I feel the need to run.  I'm itching to get out and hit the pavement for a relaxing (crazy I know) run and just let the stress of this past week and the stress of the past weekend, run away (pun intended).

Also my girls are still out of town.  They have been at their grandmother's for almost a month (tomorrow will be one month).  I saw them for five days at the beginning of this month but when we left to come home and the girls stayed there, I think I cried harder than they did.  I never thought I would miss them this much, but I do.  I'm looking forward to Saturday.  They will be home on Saturday.

I hope you all are doing great.  I'll try to stop by more often, I promise.

Angela :)

Cheetah Chase 8 Mile Race Report

Saturday was a busy day for me.  I decided early in the week that with (what I thought was an 8 a.m. start time) I could do this race and be back home in time to get Monkey to her 10:15 soccer game.  So the decision was made, registration form was filled out and pizza was eaten the night before.  I laid out everything the night before so I could be ready to go by 7, since I didn't pre-register for this race I needed to be out there early enough to be ready for the start.

Now remember at the top I wrote how I thought it was an 8 a.m. race start.  I was wrong and read the form wrong.  It was an 8 a.m. race start for the fun mile.  The 8 and 4 mile race started at 8:30.  No biggie.  I was already there, paid and was waiting to go, so I sucked it up, reevaluated my time plan and just decided to go straight to the field from the game.  The hubs would have to get the girls ready for their games but that shouldn't be a problem, I had everything laid out the night before.

So the director of the race goes over the ground rules and points out that they marked the course as best as they could but there was still a lot of roots and stuff and that the trail was a single trail, which meant that going around people was going to take patience.  He finally yelled go and off we went.

It was trail race in all sense of the word trail.  I decided to just follow people as long as I could without feeling like I was on their butt the whole time and pass when I could.  The course was very pretty but with all the roots and stuff, I kept my eyes down the whole time.  At the 3.5 mark, the four milers went on to the finish line while the 8 milers kept on trucking.  I did end up having to walk some during this race because it was a lot tougher than I was ready for and my legs where killing me.

I ended up finishing the race in an hour and 9 minutes.  I was very happy with that time because I had given myself an hour and 15 minutes to finish.   I came in 2nd place for my age group (30-39).  I'll definitely be back to do this race again next year.  It was tough but so much fun at the same time.

Afterwards, I drove like crazy to get to Monkey's game.  Since she is on the U6 team, they don't keep score but she is loving her first season of soccer.

Then we headed over to the other fields for Bug's game.  Her team lost by two points but it wasn't because of effort.  The Warriors played hard and I was very proud of them.  Soccer season is busy for us right now but I'm loving every minute of it.

Angela :)

I thought this was Recovery Week

So I've made it to week 5 of Insanity, also known as Recovery Week.  I'm not sure if Shawn T. understands what recovery is suppose to be, but I'm in some serious pain.  My arms and shoulders have never hurt this good.  I'm really happy to have made it this far though and the pain that was in my hip has seem to disappeared so I'm going to stick with Insanity.  I realized I've only really made it through two days of Month 2 before I gave up, so I'm determined to make it through the whole month this go around.

Plus it's bathing suit season and I want to look hot in my new Victoria Secret bathing suit. 

This evening I'm planning on running 4 miles and then doing Insanity.  I'm really enjoying my running at the moment.  I think before the half marathon back in March I was starting to get burned out on running.  Taking some time off and finding exercise again has made me realize how much I really love it. 

Angela :)

Lunch Time 5 Miler

Whatever problems I was having with my right hip are almost gone.  That means I've back to running at the pace that I'm comfortable with (8:00ish) and I'm able to go further and longer.  It also means I'm back to running on my lunch break.  Well that and it's spring time.  It's hot but not unbearable just yet.

Yesterday I had 5 miles on tap but because I didn't get up in time to go running before work (must work on this) and didn't bring my stuff to go on my lunch break, I decided I would go in the evening.  Well family time got in the way and I ended up pushing my run back until today.  I still did Insanity.  I'm on week 5, which is the recovery week before the hell of month 2 begins.  I've only made it through one week of month 2 before calling it quits so I'm hoping to get through the first month and JUST DIG DEEPER!!!!!

I decided to go on my lunch break but when 12 rolled around and the weather didn't seem to want to heat up past 60, I decided to take a chance and hope I didn't freeze to death in my shorts and tank top.  It was the windiest five miles I've ran in a long time but I was able to pull out a 41:19 5 mile run, which means the pace was around 8:15.  I don't think I ever saw a 9:00 minute pace but it got close when I felt like I was standing still in the wind.

Speaking of Insanity.  This is suppose to be a recovery week, but I'm more sore again after last night's workout.  His recovery week is really all about control of your core muscles.  So you hold posses longer, you do the same exercise a little bit longer, you control your speed to work your muscles but at the same time take it a little easier so you can recover from the first 4 weeks before moving into the last 4 weeks.  I'm a dead woman next Monday.

Angela :)