Since I last blogged

Well,  I guess I've been a blog slacker.  I keep coming up with other things to do; stalk the rest of you, catch up on teen mom, remove toenails, you know the things that seem take over our lives some time.  So since it's been so long, here's a bullet post to get you all caught up.  I'm sure you're all glad you can finally stop holding your breath!

- I started a new job in August.  I'm still teaching 7th grade language arts, but instead of commuting an hour or so each way, now I commute 3 miles.  My team is great so far.  2 of the other teachers actually were my teachers and they were 2 of my favorites.  The school is a positive place to be and the commute allows a lot more time for sweating!

- I ran a race.  Yes, the New Haven Road Race was on Labor Day.  It's the 4th time I have run this 20K race.  I had very low expectations going into race day.  I didn't feel like my training was where it was last year, it was HOT, laddy, daddy, da.  After whining talking it over with the hubs, I got down to business and pulled out a personal best.  I finished with a 1:42.41 which garmin had at a 8:12 pace.  I'm currently writing a story about this experience for my students to show the theme of believe in yourself.  You think I'm kidding...I'm not.  However I did turn myself into a fictitious Gigi whose goal pace was a 6:06.  But it's still based on my story.

- I signed up for a race.  Just a little old 26.2 miler.  I'll be running the Hartford Marathon this year.  When did I decide this; oh, about 2 weeks ago.  And when is the race...oh, in 2 weeks.  Good thinking Carlee.  I'll be honest though, as a mentor with Team in Training, I've been running the long runs and as a running addict, I've been putting up decent mileage during the week.  I decided I would officially sign up after my 18 miler, but it had been in the back of my mind since July (when I was able to run again).  I don't have any huge expectations for this race.  Mainly because I like the way that strategy played out in New Haven (see above bullet).

- I nailed a 20 miler.  Yesterday in fact.  If you live in the tri-state area (is that a term they only use in CT or does every state have a tri-state area?), you may know that it was humid yesterday (and today and Friday and pretty much every day that I had a run scheduled in the last 3 weeks).  So going with the theme of this training cycle, I didn't have high expectations for this run.  However, it went pretty well for me and I ended up hitting the 20 miler with a 8:40 pace.

- I put up more than 50 miles in a week.  That was last week as you may have guessed.  I had 7 miler with 2 sub 8 minute miles (it was meant to be a 6 miler, but I locked myself out of the house, so I had to run to my mom's for a key), 13.1 miler (love doing this midweek as part of marathon training), a very sweaty and humid 4 miler that was worse than my 20 miler, an 8 miler with some tempo work, and of course the 20 miler.

- I crossed the 1000 miles for 2011 marker.  This happened on the run where I had to go to my mom's.  However, it happened before I realized I had locked myself out.  Talk about going from a personal high to pretty embarrassed in a matter of a song on the ipod shuffle.

- I'm going to be certified as a coach with Team in Training.  That happens Sunday, so more on that later.

- 2 of my best friends had babies, on the same day.  They have met, but don't really know each other, so this was not planned.  Though that would have been creepy cool.

I think that's it for now.  So now you know I'm training for a marathon and I'm already into taper.  Man did time fly!