Turning Negative Nellies Into Positives and a Sweepstakes Winner

I really can't believe the weekend is over already!  I guess I would be more sad except for the fact that I ended my Sunday with my favorite family coming over for pizza and now, if Aaron ever stops playing video games, I will be watching Glee, which I am not ashamed to admit I am totally and utterly obsessed with!  Oh and it also does not hurt that I have a 2.5 day work week complete with a trip to Pinkberry and a Turkey Trot on Thursday (my first ever, I know really, I am little behind on the Turkey Trot).  Plus one more thing, we are officially on Vegas countdown, in less than 2 weeks I will be in Vegas, one of my favorite places.

I love when this girl comes to visit - she even has her own room where we keep her Care Bears!

First off the winner of the Tommie Cooper Sweepstakes is Sandy! Sandy, I don't have any of your contact information so please contact me by next Monday, November 28th or else I will have to pick a new winner.

Second off, check this lady out, she is my amazing cousin and just did her first 5k (first race ever and she placed!)

Now on to my actual post, I have been thinking about this post ever since my run on Saturday, when things were not going so well on the run (yup on my run I was writing this post in my head).  I have kind of been avoiding this run all week...Well, not avoiding it but not looking forward to it like normal.  Normally, you see, I am running with this lady.  And even though we are serious about our running, I really consider it my girl chat time more than a run (well Robin chats while I grasp for air).  So when we realized that our training schedules did not sync up this week we decided that we would run this one on our own - big mistake.  A) we did not get in normal girl chat time = lots of texts and phone calls (not that I am complaining) and B) no one to pick you up when you are down.

So meanwhile the actual run, what was so bad you ask?  The first mile was great (I needed to 8 miles btw) - 7:50, and I felt good!  I knew it was fast, but I felt like I was flying and could not stop.  But then the trouble started, the fuel belt I was testing out was a major fail - it would fall down or ride up so I decided to go back to the car and take it off.  Fine - go back and the mile was still good - 7:49 and the next one, yup you guessed it still good.

But then it happened, the evil side stitches were back with a vengeance!  First the right side, then the left side, then all over the place.  UGHHH  I was going up hill and I watched my Garmin incessantly as I got slower and slower.  And then came the Negative Nancy talk.  It got into my head and into my legs.  There was no stopping it and it stopped me dead in my tracks.  I could not make the pain stop, so I stopped, I stretched, I was ready to cry!  I almost did.  I felt like calling it quits, it was not pretty.

But then it happened!  I snapped out of it and told myself I AM MARATHONER and I CAN and WILL do this.  I fought those negative thoughts and I put positive ones in their place with every freakin mantra I could possibly come up with and ended my last two miles  with an 8:04 and 8:30.  SO THERE NEGATIVE NELLIES, I won't have you!

Afterwards though, those negative thoughts kept creeping back in as I looked at my splits, but I did my best to fight it - I had fast miles, I ran by myself, I got out there and I would do it again (all the positives I could come up with).  I looked at what went right and what went wrong and tried to think positive!  This is running and it is supposed to be FUN after all!!! So I guess that is it folks.  Do I still have those negative thoughts? Yup!  Am I annoyed that I can't beat these side stitches? Yup.  Will I be back at it this week harder and more positive than ever? You know it! Will it be with the running buddy? Hell ya, that was pretty silly running without her.

Do you ever get the case of the negative nellies?  What do you do?  Any ideas on why I can't get rid of these side stitches?!?!