37 Pieces of Flair

“I do want to express myself, okay. And I don’t need 37 pieces of flair to do it.”

One of the funniest.movies.ever!

Joanna’s right: I don’t need 37 pieces of flair to express myself.  I just need a super cute running skirt…that flairs out at the bottom! (See what I just did there? hehe!)

Yep, blurry picture, but you can really see how it flairs out in the back! (Or maybe my ample caboose just makes it do that???)

I picked this up during our cold spell last week for a whopping TEN BUCKS at my local running store OAS. Talk about a sale! (This little gem usually runs $70 (!) but they were having a pretty big sale to move some old stock…)

Another thing I adore about this skirt? The shorts underneath it are LONG.  7 inch inseam long!

It’s kinda hard to tell, but I’m lifting up the skirt to show you the shorts

I mean, they actually cover my thighs which is very very hard to find if you ask me! I usually pass up lots of running skirts because the under shorts have a 1/4 inch inseam…which does not work well with my legs. (Ok, ok. 1/4 inch is a bit of an exaggeration…but hopefully you feel my pain on this one…chafing is no fun at all..and 2 inch 1/4 inch inseams just don’t cut it for me.)

I tested this skirt out on Sunday when I ran with Diggity. It was a rainy day – and windy – and chilly – but I was bound and determined to wear this darn thing! These Florida legs are NOT used to running in long pants.

This just might be my new favorite thing to run in! The legs didn’t ride up at all so no chafing, and I looked super cute the whole time!

ANYHOW…(I’ve gotten a little off track here…this post is really supposed to be about a run…)

We ran 2:1 intervals for 50 minutes. My goal was to run each 2:00 interval at a pace under 10 min per mile. How’d I do?

SUCCESS!!!

My best 2-min was at an 8:52 pace! The slowest was 10:42, but we got stopped at an intersection so I don’t think I should count it. (The next slowest was 9:44!)

I was pleasantly surprised to see the majority of the intervals under 9:20! I did MUCH better than I thought I would. And I was exhausted at the end of the run.

I seriously think the new skirt had something to do with how well this run went!

I know it’s not necessarily “smart” to focus on speed during your weekly long run BUT I have the tendency to get sort of complacent on my long runs. I tend to think “who cares if I’m trudging along? I’m still getting the miles in.” And I end up just plodding along and probably not doing as well as I could if I really put my mind to it.

So I’ve made the executive decision to focus more on my pace (i.e. keeping it UP) while I’m training for the SRQ Halfer.

I’d really like to shave at least 2 minutes off of my half marathon PR and finish SRQ in 2:45:00 or better.  (Since my running group does 2:1 run/walk intervals my average pace is significantly slower than the “intervals” and thus the 2:45:00 goal.)

It’s still really hard for me to go this fast, even for just two minutes at a time.

When I run by myself I don’t do intervals and maintain an average pace of 10:45-11:15 these days.

So I know I’m going to struggle with keeping my pace up as our distances increase. But I’m thinking that since I’m starting to focus on this while my runs are shorter, it’ll be somewhat easier to get used to as I increase distance. Right?…Right?

Do you feel better during workouts when you like what you’re wearing?

How do you avoid becoming complacent with your workouts?

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If you want to know what kind of skirt I actually got, let me know. Since I got it at such an unusual price, I’m sort of hesitant to put the details out there – I don’t know if you’ll find it anywhere else for $10.