Hello there! I hope you all had a great week. I hope the guest posts I had lined up kept you entertained while I was away. 
Last week the hubby and I were down in Delray Beach, Florida. My grandma has a timeshare down there that she offers to her kids and grandkids every year. It is a great little community and we use our time down there to RELAX. My week consisted of laying by the pool, walking along the beach, eating yummy food and lots of running. It was great and I am now sporting a tan which is pretty humorous considering they are predicting snow this afternoon. It was perfect. Not much to write about though because we really spent our time relaxing and reading and swimming. But the running I will certainly tell you ALL about.
We arrived on Saturday around 4pm, and after a decent nights rest I woke up bright and early (damn you Daylight Savings Time) to hit the road to run a local 8k. Whenever I know I’m going to be traveling I always search local running websites to see if there’s a local race I can join in. It’s a great way to break a sweat and as experience the area you are staying in! I happened to find a race that was about 20 minutes away which was perfect. Plus an 8k fit pretty nicely into my training plan. I got there early and registered. I didn’t register ahead of time in case I changed my mind. I was planning to do a 1 mile warm up, the 8k race (8k is right around 5 miles), and then a 1 mile cool down. My warmup was done in 13:18, a tad fast for my easy pace. I ended up doing the race in 1:06:37. This is not the time I wanted at all. I was hoping to do it between a 12:20 and 12:45 pace. This was about 13:15. It was a case of starting off too fast. I don’t have my garmin splits with me but I’m pretty sure my fist mile was around 11:30. oops. I just got so caught up in the start line excitement. A silly mistake. But despite my not so great finishing time, the race was really nice. It was warmer (!!!), relatively flat and pretty scenic. I loved wearing a tank top to run.
Monday I was planning to run, but I ended up moving it to Tuesday. My legs were still pretty tired. I did 5 miles in 1:12:05. Again not ideal, but I sort of got caught up taking pictures of the beach and my surroundings.
Wednesday was better. I made the hubby run with me, knowing that he would make me go fast and nix the walk breaks. This was supposed to be an easy run per my plan, but since I sort of bonked the previous two runs I decided to make this one count. We finished 3 miles in 36:13.
Friday was my last run at the beach. 
It was hill run day! Since I had a good time on my last hilly run I was pretty excited. There was a drawbridge nearby so I used that as my “hill” and made sure to run up and down it once a mile for four hills total. I had a good time again – the hills really pass the time and give me something to focus on. 56:30.
We flew home on Saturday, and our plane literally landed in snow and slush. Welcome home right? ha.
This morning I did some speedwork with a warm up and cool down for a total of 5 miles.I hit the speedy sections at an 11:44 pace, 11:36 pace and 11:30 pace. No complaints there.
So that’s what I’ve been up to vacation-wise and such. We’re slowing getting back into the groove of normal life. It stinks to be back in the cold weather though!
Also in case you missed them, I hope you’ll check out the guest posts from the past week:
Monday - Top Women’s Racing Getaways
Tuesday – Healthy Recipes to Cure a Sweet Tooth
Wednesday - Time Management as a College Student
Thursday – That One Quinoa Disaster
Friday – It’s Awesome Being a Vegetarian
Saturday - Do I Diet? How Do I Eat Healthy?
Sunday - Race to Remember: Staten Island Half Marathon
Thanks to those awesome Sweat Pink ladies for helping me out!
