Living Vicariously

The Honolulu Marathon was this morning. I can't believe I have lived here for 5 years yet have never run it. I've been entered twice now but ended up skipping it both times... In all honesty, it did occur to me (for like a nano-second) that I could still run it this year. I mean, I feel pretty confident that I could have finished the thing today unharmed. And it would have been my last chance to ever run a marathon while pregnant (since I will not be pregnant again after this!!) But I just really don't have any desire to slog my way through another marathon. One of these years I'm going to run the thing. And when I do, I'll be trained and prepared and ready for a solid 26.2. Maybe next year. :)

In good news, I did get to live vicariously through two of my athletes who were running today! And they both did awesome!! Obviously it's not like I can take a lot of credit since I've only been officially coaching them for 2 weeks, but I do feel like I guided them through the taper and helped them come up with solid nutrition and pacing plans to help them both finish strong, so in that way, I feel so proud of them! Karen ran a 3:36 today, which is a 16 minute PR for her (and 32 minutes faster than she did this course last year). She delivered on the negative split plan we had for her- took it out in a 1:51 and brought it home in a 1:45! Talking to her afterward was so much fun because I could just hear the excitement in her voice as she talked about all the people that she *flew* by in the end. AND, she admitted to me that, um, she stopped for a half a beer at mile 24. I was like, what????? But I just had to laugh. That is so Karen. She absolutely cracks me up.

And Nalani had a great race today too! She had a huge PR with a very evenly split race, coming in at 3:49! I was checking the splits all morning online and doing the math to figure out her pace... and then her husband called me after she passed mile 19 to tell me she was still smiling... I was just bouncing around the house this morning so proud of these gals. :)

I can see how as a coach you really take personal responsibility for how your athletes perform. Not so much today, but come 'A' race time in June, I'm gonna be a nervous wreck.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good at 9 weeks pregnant. I'm not showing a ton, though I am definitely a good bit thicker through my middle. At night I definitely look a lot more pregnant than I do in the mornings. What is up with that? Anyway, I hit 31 miles of running again for the week so am feeling proud of that. AND I got outside on my bike both days this weekend. The weather here has just been glorious- perfect temps (mid/upper 70's is my version of perfect by the way- no 'chemical heaters' needed here) so I just enjoyed the heck out of myself for 2 whole hours of pedaling this afternoon. I didn't get to the gym this week, but I did do my pull-ups yesterday while I was playing with Moana at the playground. I can still do 7. :) I'm up about 6 lbs from pre-pregnancy weight, but let's face it, pre-pregnancy weight was Ironman weight, so 6 lbs up from that is probably what I would be anyway even if I weren't growing a baby.

So here we go... onto another week... my mission this week is going to be to finish up my Christmas shopping and get all those presents mailed out. I've become a terrible procrastinator. (I didn't used to be like this. I think Scott is rubbing off on me.) I keep bugging Scott that Christmas is in less than 2 weeks and we don't have a tree. He told me he's going to cut one down from some forest he knows about. I was like, "Is that legal?" He swears it is, but I don't know... Anyway, maybe one of these days we'll actually get a tree and then I'll be able to tell stories about how Moana is trying to rip it down.