I have met my nemesis!!

Or should I say we've been reintroduced.

Yesterday I did not go running as planned because we needed to do some major shopping (Sam's Club, WalMart, etc...) and the only time our schedules coordinated was yesterday. So instead I did weights in the morning with cardio intervals. During one of the cardio intervals is when my HR hit 230, yeah right!!!

Anywho, this morning it was time to run. Now I have not run in the botanical gardens in about 5 years - yikes!!!! It was when I was training for my 1st marathon in 2001. At that time I wasn't speedy but could run through the gardens in about an hour, maybe just a touch more.

Now running in there is not like running on the road but it's not quite trail running either. It's like off road running. There is an asphalt road that runs through the gardens but it's at the base of the mountains so it's up and down and up and down and up ...... you get the idea.



This is at the entrance to the gardens. Those mountains, the Koolaus, have waterfalls in every crevice when it rains. It's one of my favorite places to be when it's raining.

As you can see there is an asphalt road but easy it ain't.

So I'm huffing and puffing through the beginning of the road and thinking, "what the hell are you doing????"

Then things start to get really fun.

For those of you that haven't been playing this game long, me and hills have, ummm, issues. If I have to run uphill longer than 30 seconds to 1 minute I get nauseous. Every. Single. Time.

I've tried a thousand things, eating, not eating, drinking, not drinking, slowing down, going faster, .... Nothing. Every time I get nauseous.

This was taken at the rear gate of the gardens and as you can see I'm standing at the highest point. Yes, there is an altitude gain and I ran up it all.

I ran up all the hills to get there and down the whole way back. I really need to do this to get over my stomach issues.

I've been trying to figure out how far it is. By mapping out a straight line it's 3 miles. But since the road takes a number of twists and turns I'm going to guesstimate it's 5 miles.

So it took me 1 hour 27 minutes to go 5 miles. Since I used to do this at right around an hour, I have met my nemesis and the thing I must conquer.

This run kicked my butt!! I have decided to do this run every weekend until I can do it without dying.




This is such a beautiful place to run I think I will enjoy these weekend runs.

Also, there are a lot of trails off the main road that I can run on. And, you can sneak out the back gate and it takes you onto an old road that's now closed that popular for running.

This will be where I'll spend my weekends for a while.










In other news. I'm such a dork. Yesterday I checked the oil in my car and was a quart low. So I added a quart. Apparently I forgot to put the oil cap back on - doh!!! I'm driving around this morning and all of a sudden there's smoke pouring out of my hood. I pull over and open the hood and immediately see the problem. What an idiot!!! I had to call hubby who came and rescued me with oil and a new oil cap. You would never know in a former life I was an auto mechanic would you!!!!

I also changed the windshield wipers and you know what??? New wipers rock. It's one of the simple things in life.

Well, I guess that about covers the weekend. I'm tired and am going to lay down and take a nap.