Runner Girl VS Bronchitis

Taking a break at one of the lookout points at Point Defiance. 
I may or may not have almost fallen off of the log I was standing
on in this picture...

Well hello friends!  Wondering where I have been?  Battling the worst cold/bronchitis/cough whatever you want to call it that I can remember having.  It was a close fight, but I am proud to declare myself the winner.  I have been resting and medicating and trying to get better for nearly a month now!  I am extremely frustrated because I had gotten myself into such great running shape heading into my half marathon season and now I am feeling a little bit under trained without much time to fix it.  But enough about all of that- I am feeling almost 100% again and can only look forward!  I highly recommend NOT getting bronchitis. 

Where we started our trail run.  So pretty down there!

Speaking of moving forward, in 11 days I will be running the cinco de mayo half marathon in Snoqualmie.  And the day after that I will be running the Tacoma City Half Marathon to move up to Jupiter status in the Half Fanatics.  You see, I am currently on Uranus and I am anxious to change that!  Haha.  And I unofficially earned Saturn last year so I am just going to skip that level since it didn't really seem like a challenge. 

Narrows Bridge in the distance

On Sunday I was supposed to be running the Mt. Si Relay with an amazing group of ladies, but I was still feeling terrible last Tuesday so I decided it would not be a good idea for me.  I wanted them to have time to replace me and luckily Zoe was able to take my legs (sorry I had picked the uphill ones!!) and they did a fantastic job running 59 miles in the heat!  I am sad I missed out on such a fun experience, but hopefully next year we can get a few teams of runner/bloggers together and run this awesome local relay race.  Want to see what I missed out on?  Check these awesome ladies out on their blogs:

Nicole @ www.ricoleruns.com/
Kerrie @ www.momvsmarathon.sanitydepartment.com
Lindsay @ http://tri-lindsayonthego.blogspot.com/
Lauren @ http://www.marathonlar.blogspot.com/
Zoe @ http://www.runzoerun.com/

We opted for the blue square trail

So instead of running a relay I went for a short run down at Point Defiance Park with my hubby.  The kids had stayed the night with my mom so we had the rare opportunity to run together and with the amazing weather we definitely took advantage of the morning.  We arrived at the park and headed for the trails- we opted for the "blue square" trail that goes around the entire outer perimeter- I wanted to be able to check out the lookout points, plus it was the longest trail. 

This may not look scary, but there was a huge drop-off
behind me and I have a fear of heights!! 

See??  Those are people way down there on that beach! 

This was my first run since the Boise half marathon and I could feel it in my heart rate and breathing.  Plus it was rather warm out- probably in the high 60's or low 70's by that point so that may have contributed to the effort level.  We took our time and I just enjoyed being out in the sunshine and nature.  It sure is beautiful down there, I am going to make an effort to run these trails more often!



A rare treat- running with my hubby!

Oh, and remember my issue with my contact?  And how I had to wear my glasses for the half marathon?  Well, 4 different contacts out of 2 different boxes later the problem was still there.  Basically there was this "spot" that kept appearing across the middle of my contact- it looked like a silver fleck.  So I called the eye doctor on Friday and guess what it was?  I had 2 bad batches of contacts and there was a HOLE in the same spot on all of them.  So they gave me a new set and voila- just like that my eye is better.  Talk about a crazy couple of weeks- between my lungs and my eyeball it is a miracle I have any sanity left!!! 

How lucky am I that I can see this while running trails?  Amazing.  Especially
now that I have non-holey contacts!