4 Weeks to the BIG DAY!!!!

So I have been a total slacker when it comes to blogging, but things have been crazy with life lately! Anyway, we are 4 weeks out from the the Half Marathon in Monterey! I cant believe its SO soon! With moving and a new job I cant say that I have giving my training my all. Today was actually the first long run I did in over 3 weeks! But I ran 8 MILES! The longest I have run since my 10K in May! My goal has been to run my long runs on weekends, well they keep getting filled up, and I knew if I missed another long run I would never catch up and be able to complete the race in the time I want! So I got myself an incentive! A brand new running store opened up in a town by us and I am super excited about it, and on Friday I went in and bought two Hammer Gel packets and pair of running "toe socks". The gels are basically a carb shot you take while running to keep your energy up, and the socks have toes! Which I thought might help since my toes sometimes rub together funny and it hurts. So on my run today I wore my new socks, which the jury is still out on, and used my Huckleberry Hammer Gel which was ok, not fantastic, but how great can a gooey substance be when you are having a hard enough time trying to breath! But it did seem to help at least a little bit, I dont think that anything could have covered the pain and fatigue of a long run after not running much though, but at least it did seem to help. I have a Tropical Hammer Gel that has caffeine in it that Ill try this weekend and see if that one does anything different for me. Some of the gels have caffeine and some dont and it all depends on personal preference, I think the ones with caffeine will work better for me, but we'll see. Anyhow, after today Im getting excited for the race, and a little less nervous! And Im pretty close to being on pace for what I want to run the race in, which is really good! Ill try to keep this updated more as we move forward!