Greetings from Duluth Minnesota!

It's been far too long since our last post and for this I apologize. We have a lot to catch up on, but for now I'll just give a brief update on what we've got going on this weekend. Jeremy and I are both competing in the US Half Marathon Championships early tomorrow morning! We're very excited! Even though there's some rain and possible thunderstorms scheduled for the race tomorrow, it'll still be in the 50's, which is a huge change from what we're used to training in back home in San Antonio.

A rainy day in Duluth

This will be my second year competing at the Championships. Last year I was going into the race completely blind as far as how I would do. It ended up not being too bad as I raced really well considering my training. The entire month leading up to the race my training was horrible because of allergy induced asthma (it's the worst during March and May). I was unable to complete many of the key workouts that I would've liked to get in. To help with that problem I've been getting allergy shots since August. While getting tested I found out I was severely allergic to dang near everything outdoors! I think the shots have been helping though. I haven't had as many failed workouts compared to last year, but as soon as I did have a bad workout Jer and I freaked out a little. What do we do? So....I decided to get on the treadmill for those tempos/threshold type of workouts. Yes, it's boring. Yes, I'd rather be outside using my legs like a normal person, but I've been able to complete a lot of workouts that I probably wouldn't have been able to finish had I been outside.

We'll see how things go tomorrow. I've averaged roughly 10 miles a week more than last year and I've only had two not-so-great workouts leading up to the race compared to probably 10-12 last year. On the other hand my great workouts this training season have not been up to par compared to last years. So I'm still going into this race a little in the dark as to what my fitness level is at. As far as a goal I'd like to be in the 1:17's. My time last year was 1:18:14 and I feel like I could do a little better. Last year I had such a great time because I wasn't even going to race, but decided to hop in anyways. I started pretty far back since I was going at a conservative pace (I was just hoping to make it to the finish line), so the entire race I worked my way up the line of ladies I was catching and negative split the entire race. It was a blast, but I definitely want to be a little bit more in the game this time around. There are only 60 other women scheduled to be on the starting line with me tomorrow, so I'm really excited about working with some of these other speedy ladies!

The cool personal bibs and jerseys we'll be sporting tomorrow morning!

This will be Jer's first time competing at the US Half Championships. Last year he ran the full marathon and ran a personal best of 2:27! I know he's really looking forward to the race tomorrow. The men's field is MUCH larger than the ladies. They have roughly 156 guys that will be on the starting line, so with a goal of 1:08 he should have plenty of other fellows to work with.

Thanks to our awesome friends, family, Soler's Sports, and Asics for all the great support they've given us! We'll try and make you guys proud tomorrow and get an update out at some point post-race. The gun for the men goes off at 6:15am and the women at 6:25am so we're going to hit the hay with such an early wake-up call. G'night from Duluth!