Just under a month ago, I ran the Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks. My official time was 5 hours 38 minutes. I felt pretty good. I hated going up Ester Dome, of course, but I loved the descent! I turned my IPod up as loud as it would go and flew down the hill. I think I was even dancing a little!

Tomorrow, I leave for the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco. I'm hoping that this relatively flat race will help me get a time in under 5 hours. We'll see soon!

The yard sale was this weekend. I've been collecting items from many friends to sell. My storage shed was so packed, I had to start leaving items in Cindy's garage. Chad and I brought truck load after truck load over to her house. On Saturday morning, it took us over 3 hours just to set everything out. Right before Cindy and I ordered lunch, I went around back and saw 4 boxes and a coffee table that we had forgotten about. Oops!

Overall, everything went smoothly. I managed to make $666.60 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! That's more than my $500 goal! There are still a few items to sell online, but I'm more than please with the amount of funds already raised. If I include the checks I just put in the mail, I only have $614 left to raise to meet my overall goal.

Thanks to the following friends for donating items for my yard sale: Sarah McConnell & neighbors, Jodi Bailey, Amanda Burns, Cindy Baldwin & her sisters, Jeni Macomber, Ginger Day, Teisha Simmons, Colleen Angaiak, Kiffany Bailey, Fan Burge and many people I don't know! and another round of thanks to Mayanna Bean, Jennifer Ward, Lael Oldmixon, Mary Buchanan, Colleen Angaiak and countless others for shopping! Special thanks to Cindy Baldwin for letting me use her centrally-located house!

On to running: Yesterday I did the Gold Discovery Run. Its a 16.5 mile run from Cleary Summit down to Silver Gulch. I didn't remember there being so much uphill in that downhill run! It was really hard getting up at 6am to catch the bus to Fort Knox Mine. It was a wonderful day for running: cloudy and cool. It was a hard, long run and by mile 14 the yard sale and the run had taken its toll. I walked a lot of the last 2.5 miles and ended up with a time of 3:09:05. Its 43 seconds faster than last year, which is all I could hope for since I was so exhausted to start with! I had just enough energy to enjoy the BBQ afterwards, drove home, sat down on the couch for just 1 minute and fell asleep.

It was an exhausting, but worthwhile weekend!

We've entered the long run part of training! The weekend runs are multi-hour and double-digit mile training runs. Last weekend, I ran 11.5 miles up Ester Dome and back down again. I was pretty exhausted. This weekend, I ran 12.5 miles along the first parts of the Equinox Trail. For the next 2 weekends, I'll be taking a break from training runs with my team to run in 3 races. This coming weekend is the Flint Hills Run of the Valkyries, which is only 5 miles, and the Chena Lakes Triathlon. Next weekend is the Gold Discovery Run, which is 16.5 miles downhill.

I'm looking forward to the races. I push myself much harder and I run faster when I know that it "counts"! This is especially true with the Run of the Valkyries race. Its part of the Flint Hills Series. The series consists of 8 races throughout the summer (Chena River Run, Midnight Sun Run, Flint Hills Mile, Run of the Valkyries, Gold Discovery Run, Santa Claus Half Marathon, Golden Heart Trail Run and the Equinox Marathon). Last year, it took me 14 hours 36 minutes and 17 seconds to run all of those races. I was ranked #8. I want to beat my 2010 time! So far, I'm right where I was last year. The longer races will allow me to make up time.

Each year on Solstice weekend, thousands of Alaskans run in the Midnight Sun Run in Fairbanks. Its a 10K that starts at UAF, winds around town and ends at Pioneer Park. It is my favorite race of the year. I enjoy the jazzercise warm-up and looking at all the crazy customes (my favorite this year was Mr Potato Head). I'm grateful for all the spectators that cheer on all the runners. Its 6.2 miles of partying!

My main goal each year is to beat my time from the year before. Last year, my time was 58:52. I tried my hardest, but just couldn't do it. My time this year was 59:19. I was a little disappointed, but had to remind myself of the circumstances of the week. This includes, but isn't limited to the fact that I went to a camp with 120 teenage girls. This translates to no sleep the entire week and I ate my weight in sugar and s'mores each night. I got home Saturday afternoon, showered, ate real food, unpacked and went out to run 6 miles. I'll take my 59:19 and say it with pride!

Fundraising update: I've raised $1210! I'm working with Jazzercise right now to have a fundraiser at their studio. I also found a friend that would host a garage sale for me. I'll be collecting items to sell. Mostly I have clothes to get rid of. I guess a side effect of training for 2 marathons is that I need a new wardrobe!

This weekend was my first attempt to run Ester Dome. The TNT group started at Anne's Greenhouse, which is located at Mile 8 of the Equinox Trail. We ran up Ester Dome to the 10 mile marker. I say "ran", but its nearly impossible to run up a trail that steep. I'm very grateful we only had to go a 1/3 of the way up! We came back down and ran along a dirt road to get about 2 hours in, which for me was probably close to 10 miles.

Even today, my legs are really sore!