Spring? Maybe???

The weather has been so great lately.  We have been able to go to the park a couple times this year and play outside a lot.  Yesterday we worked in our back yard to make it look a little bit better.  Man, the leaves got so bad this winter and we even raked this fall when they were bad.  We've decided that we're going to have to plant a lot of grass this spring in order for our yard to look like a yard again.  Hopefully it will all turn out well, but we do have three "diggers" that live in our back yard.  All three of them have been caught at least once, so we know we can't just blame one.  UGH!!!  Anyone know how to break a dog from digging? :)

Something else that occurred to me yesterday is that we have failed Lila as parents.  We have no, I repeat NO outside toys for her to play on.  What were we thinking?!  After she followed me around raking up leaves for about 10 minutes, she was bored.  She wanted to be held or at least something to keep her busy.  We have got to get a slide or some kind of play toy thing for her...stat!

So this past Saturday I ran my 18 miler.  WOW!  I actually felt pretty good.  That being said, it was so freaking cold outside that morning I knew I wouldn't be able to feel any pain anywhere because my whole body was numb.  I think I could've handled the temperature alone, but the wind gusts were 15-20mph.  When I got on a road that was in the middle of two open fields, watch out.  I ran backwards, I ran sideways, I ran with my chin tucked to my chest.  I think I can honestly say it was the worst conditions that I've ever run in.  I never thought I'd say I was ready to get to the bike trail.  If you're not a runner, you won't understand this next comment.  If you are, you'll probably appreciate it.  I am proud to say, I didn't have to stop and poop this time.  I thought I did and you can even see on my chart that I have 2 really slow miles in the run.  One was because I thought I had to go and had to seek refuge in a patch of woods and then other was when I slowed down a bit to gulp my PowerGel and rehydrate.  

I use the Adidas miCoach app on my phone that uses GPS to track my mileage and pace.  I can then see what my run looked like afterwards.  I can see a graph of my pace and the elevation.  I get a little confused on the pace chart, however, because it's all over the place.  I'm not sure if it loses the GPS signal every once in a while and then just logs that time as a slower pace or what, but my pace is almost always very very steady and usually at a 9:20-9:30 min/mi.  There are many places where it shows a 0.00 mph.  Here's the graph with the elevation behind it so you can try to figure out what I'm missing.

Next week I have my first 20 miler.  I have to admit, I'm kinda excited about it, that is, if the weather is going to be nice to me this week.  The other great thing about my 20 miler is that I get to go get a massage the following Monday!  WOOO HOOOOO!  I'm so stoked for this!