Snowball and new PR

Lots of stuff going on lately. Ever since my "emotional day" post, it's been crazy around here mixed with a little shake shake of excitement.

The news was that we aren't moving to Pennsylvania. Matt's been working hard on this transfer and I felt bad mostly for him and the kids who were crying at the fact we won't be close to maw-maw and paw-paw. :(

It was one of those major life-changing moments to get the news. They wanted Matt to come so badly, but at a 20k salary cut. With the amount we're at now we're living well, but with 20k less it would have been almost impossible. I only say "almost" because I don't think anything is totally impossible, but our quality of life would have been pretty crappy. So many of the reasons we wanted to move back would have been cancelled out by making such a low amount. We didn't even know if we would be able to afford rent and forget EVER trying to buy a house. PA let us take a week to think about it. We prayed, cried, discussed, sought council, read the bible, and discussed some more. It was a very hard decision, but we really feel it was the best for our family and our future to stay in Las Vegas.

I can't say I'm totally complaining though! I had so many races I was looking forward to. Even with the wind, I still love running here in this beautiful city and up at Red Rock.

So now, let's talk about races! :o)

Last weekend, on April 4th, I ran a 5k at Lake Havasu City in Arizona. Just taking a little vacay was nice. Went swimming at the pool, sat in the jacuzzi after the race, went on a ferry ride, ate some really really good pizza, ended up with a $100 gift certificate to eat at a nice restaurant there, that was also kid friendly! Oh yeah...and finished my race with a..... NEW PR! Due to the emotional roller coaster we were on the weeks before, I hardly ran. I ran no more than maybe 2 miles. I usually come in a 5k race at around 35-36 minutes. So I gave myself 40 minutes this time for lack of training the weeks leading up to it. I ended up finished in 34:04! Even cooler is that it adds up to a pace of 10:58. Why is that so awesome? - well because A)I'm now in the 10-minute mile range! B) my bib number was #1058! Ironic huh? lol

Upcoming stuff:
Through a crazy cool series of events, my spin teacher hooked me up with a swimmer and a biker and we're now a team in THE RAGE IN THE SAGE TRIATHLON!!!!! I'm so incredibly stoked. Ok and a little scurred. I don't know how well I'll do running 6 miles (olympic distance)... ok let me say that I didn't (past tense) know how well I'd do with 6 miles... until yesterday that is! I went up to Red Rock, despite the 25 mph winds and ran 6 miles! With some stopping to look at the beautiful sights and to ask if there was even a 10 mile marker to a passer by, I finished in 70 minutes. That's in the 11-minute mile range. Not too shabby. I hope to increase that a little bit, but during a race I'm always faster than in training. The competitve side in me shows up :o)

Then I have a 10k the following weekend as well - Labor of Love @ Lovell Canyon. Looking forward to it! Afterwards I'm volunteering. The race goes up to 50 miles, so there's plenty of runners still going once I'm done.

mmm... OH and then there's the big one. Not until June, but I'm SO in that race. Running with the Devil. I had planned my 1/2 marathon training to do my first 1/2 at that race, but I'm not sure how I'm feeling about it. I think I may just do another 10k. We'll see how my training goes and how I feel with the two 10k runs I'm doing this month. I may love it, I may hate it.

Any ideas for what to do in May?