Thinking Thrillsome Thursday Thoughts

Hi all!

Let's start things off with how happy I am to have Sunshine! Blessed, glorious sunshine! This is a huge relief to me because I was starting to come down with serious winter depression. Not really. But really. I was ready to move to St George. or Cali. But the past 2 days here have been 80 degrees and I've even gotten some sun outside on my lunch breaks. It's beautiful!

So about the whole half marathon shebang. It's been really nice to run outside with the sunshiny, mild weather. Last night, I did a tempo run, which basically means you run a stint of a couple miles or so at a faster pace than what you're used to. My runnersworld.com training schedule has me do a tempo run once a week and it's supposed to train my body to run faster over time. Last night was a doozy for me. I ran 6 miles, 1 warm up mile, 1 cool down mile, and the 4 miles in between at an 8:00-minute-mile "tempo" pace. That's a whole minute faster than what I'm used to and I'll tell ya, it just about did me in. I was drained for the rest of the night. My arms and legs felt like they had 50-lb weights on them, I could hardly eat, and I slept a solid 9 hours. Feeling better today, I'm happy to report. I'm supposed to run 7 miles this weekend so...we'll see how it goes. The half marathon is at Bear Lake, on Saturday June 13th. We're going with Brett & Jessica, though Jessica will happily abstain from the run this year. She and her family are kind enough to let us stay at her parents' cabin near the lake on Friday night before our run on Saturday morning. All 4 of us did the 10K (about 6.2 miles) last year. It's pretty fun.

By way of an update, Clint's about to graduate with his master's in Civil Engineering. We're totally excited for evenings together! I don't know if we've told you or you've heard, but we're planning on going to Disneyland over Clint's birthday. Woop woop!!! Can't wait!!! Clint will get in free for his birthday. And I'm hoping we'll be able to spend lots of time on the beach. Just being lazy heads.

We're also planning on doing a Southern Utah backpacking trip over Memorial Day. Can't you tell we're getting stoked for summer? We're practically desperate to play and spend more time outside!! I'm hoping we'll do a hike every week this summer, June through August. Maybe through September since Clint won't be starting school next fall. People, I'm going to test my strength against the mountains this year. (And against the half mary, for that matter.) Even more than last summer. We'll do Olympus and probably Pfeifferhorn again, but I also want to conquer Timpanogos, maybe Nebo, and maybe Lone. It will definitely be difficult, but I'm ready to show myself and everyone that I can be hardcore. I will keep y'all updated.

Welp, I'm out. Hope everyone's enjoying their week and this marvelous sunshine!