Staycation, St. Pat's and so much more!

Hi all!

It's been so long blogging world, yet I hope all is well! You are finding me hump-dayed of my Spring Break 2010 holed up in Manhattan! This Spring Break is going quite well and has been a good mix of hang-out time with good friends, time and space for me, and getting stuff done, and relaxing--and we're only 1/2 way! :)
Spring break recap (read: staycation)
Saturday's 32 Annual St. Pat's 10k-
Why don't you rotate for me picture? anywho: Beth and I gathered at Acme gift in Aggieville to store our winter woolie-warm clothes so they wouldn't hold back our speed! It was quite chilly that day, maybe 40-ish with a mighty north wind! The first 2.5 miles were uphill and into the north wind pretty steadily. Beth and I ran together and just chugged right along. It was a nice casual pace and felt pretty good, nice a relaxed for me. I was coming off a low-back strain that happened sometime the week prior, so going slow was good for it. We finished just over an hour- 1:01. I always love flying by people at the end, keeping enough kick to really excelerate right by them-best part!
After the race we enjoyed some AJ's pizza--could be my 2nd favorite pizza establishment in Manhattan. Second only to Bluestem Bistro ;) (free plug)
Sunday night ate some yummy sushi and hung with my other half-separated from birth (Jenny-funny girl!) We laughed, lounged, sipped red wine and watched Julie & Julia-so cute!
Monday--ahh, sleeping in! errands, eating yummy food-at home! watched movie with Parkers! We watched Hurt Locker--which was good, another war movie around Iraq, different twist, but really nothing amazing-was kinda disappointed because it won Best Picture this year.
Tuesday--5:45AM cycle baby! Ain't no wussies up in 'har! Then, eventually went on a little retreat with Mars, and Jenny G.
We gathered at this Inn, outside of Manhattan and sat and talked for a couple of hours, shared some stuff, then had some time reading. It was really nice to get outside city limits and look into the woods, enjoy someone else's establishment, and have focused time. I'm not very good at focused time at all--carving it out is a challenge and honoring that time is even more of a challenge.
I had decided that a retreat would be nice to focus on priorities and thinking about what I value. If you ask anyone who knows me they would agree that exercise, nutrition and fitness are pretty important to me personally, and running has taken priority the past year.
Which leads us to today....

Today, Wednesday, was my first appt. with a physical therapist to look at and diagnose my right hip. My right and left IT bands are really tight and since the marathon my right hip has not been able to recover fully. It's marketedbly weaker than my left hip and when I run it kind of collapses and so my stride compensates and creates pain. Even as I write this right now, I realize I'm writing it for me as a way to process. But I feel encouraged because I have a clear path of treatment: no running for a little while, get in to the PT, work on getting inflamation down, learning strenghtening exercises, and get my hip up to par so I can handle to stress of running distances again! It also means that I can say a def. yes, or no in this case to upcoming races. So, Abilene 1/2 marathon on April 10th, have to say no to you for now. But, I will be patient, and we might meet again next year. I do plan on going out there and riding alongside friends and being their portable PIT-CREW! :)

So, here we are: Wednesday afternoon, ready to attack some Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred--bring it girl! ;) I hope you are enjoying your week, no matter what it looks like!
Oh, and BTDubya--have you seen the forecast for Saturday? high of 35 and 2-4inches of SNOW?!?! what the hey??!

Have a grrrreat day friends! So long for now!

Shelb