With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams...

started out early to try and beat the heat of the day, but 7:30 wasn't early enough.  By mile 3, it was already feeling hot and humid.  We had an occasional cool breeze, but wow...the 80's came quickly and made running tough. 92-55% humidity.

But we pushed on through...Mr ran 8 with us, then rode the bike while we finished the rest of the run.  The break we take while he transitions from run to bike seems nice, but it's hard to get back on track afterward.  We stayed under 10mm before the break, and couldn't get under it after the break. 

after mile 15, my friend said she was ready to put her ipod music on to help her focus on running the last 2 miles.  Our pace was starting to slow down a little, and she told me I could go on ahead at my own pace to finish if I wanted.  So I went ahead & Mr shuttled back & forth between us on the bike. 

I decided to push hard the last two miles, which actually ended up being 2.64 because my math when I'm running is fuzzy.  those paces were 8:38, 8:25, 8.11(last .64).  Overall pace for the whole run was 9:50.  Considering the heat, I think we did great. 

walked two miles in the evening...pretty warm outside today but the humidity is horrible

72^o  : 82-84% humidity at 4:45 am!!!  I had on shorts and a performance tank.  They were both wet with sweat after only one hour of easy running.  It was icky!!  Once in a while the breeze came and it was nice, but the rest of the time, yuck.  We're supposed to get big storms here today & tomorrow. 

I brought my running stuff if it's not raining after school to do bleachers.  I brought an unbrella if it is.  We could really use some rain, so I'm not going to complain if it does rain today.  I might complain if it's still raining tomorrow morning when I'm going out to run, but I'll worry about that tomorrow.  It might actually be fun :-)

My pace was slow today.  It took me a long time to warm up my muscles.  They were still achey from Saturday's run.  Today I was happy that my last mile was under 9, when last week I was happy to get one under 8.  Funny how things can change like that.  By mile 4 I was staring to feel "normal" and not stiff and awkward running.  I was glad that the feeling finally came- I was wondering if the aches would ever go away.

Looking forward to a good week of running...hopefully the weather will cooperate!

3 miles later- 2 running with 1 bleacher mile in the middle

no way I was going to get up and run with only 3.5 hours of sleep..I knew I had a long, full day... so here's my goose-egg

Up and at 'em early again.  It was super foggy this morning.  Couldn't see with my glasses on because they fogged up..couldn't see with them off either..just too foggy. 

I almost got attacked by the bush on the side of the road that someone had thrown out with the trash.... 4 times!

Moisture wicking shorts: $25, using bathroom before running:  1.5 gallons of water, not seeing the sprinkler because of the fog and getting sprayed in the pants: priceless

interrupted the bunnies again this morning....silly rabbits!

Felt sloggish running today.  Fog wasn't as bad, but it was still foggy & humid.  The temp was a little lower (62 predicted) and when I caught a breeze, it felt good.

Avg pace was 8:44.  Not as good as my same intended effort last Thursday, and there was no way I was pulling a sub 8 out of my pocket for the last mile either.  I didn't have a real recovery run yesterday due to no run Tuesday, and I wonder if that made any difference in my struggle today.  There's so many variables, it's hard to know for sure.

Maybe I'll get in a couple slow easy miles after work today.  It's supposed to be 92^o outside today, so I'm going to have to see what the heat/humidity tolerance level is by that time of the day.  Some days, I have zero tolerance for any weather...it might just be one of those days.

Attempting a 20 miler on Saturday.  Hope the weather/humidity cooperates with us.  We may start out before daylight to try and beat some of the heat.

Best part of the morning run:  one word- honeysuckle.................it smells so great!

hot, but not as humid after work...2 miles: 1.75 bleachers and 1/4 of an easy cool down lap.

started at 6:30.  no regrets there.  nice breeze in our faces most of the way, a lot of shade, very low humidity. 10:10 ap

beautiful day for a run.. honeysuckle growing crazy on the side of the road most of the way..what a nice olfactory treat! 

went out for a yummy lunch at a local place in the town we ran to.  Still hard to believe we ran to Lumberton.  Pretty cool.

Mr played water boy on the bike...he did a great job.  Made us laugh along the way.

Saw 1 dead puffy cat, 1 dead not puffy at all cat, 1 dead bobcat, 1 dead fox, lots of UDO (unidentifiable dead objects), 2 dead snakes - one cottonmouth and one w/o his skin...hard to tell what he was other than big.   And...we saw the house with big objects up on poles in the front yard.... a car, a plane, and a life-sized trike.  Mounted on the front of the trike was a huge troll head....Just when I thought I'd seen everything.

Happy Mothers Day to everyone on Sunday!

Going to do a couple of easier weeks.  Really didn't feel like getting out of bed today, but I was glad I did.  Same old Monday story....

There is a good Mutts comic strip today in the newspapers.  It's title is:  I Hate Mondays Comix    By Sour Puss.   If you see it, you'll know how I feel.

Progressive Run.  Started at an 11:00 pace then 9:33, 9:17, 8:32, 7:45 (the last .62).   I felt like I was running so fast there at the end, and I wondered how people can run that fast (and faster) for 26 miles.  It just blows my mind.

Things felt pretty good, but I could tell stuff was still kind of recovering from Saturday's run.  That and all the good yummy treats I ate yesterday. 

Felt awake when I went out the door today, so I tried a tempo run. 

Avg pace 8:14.   (1) 9:05, (2) 8:23, (3) 8:15, (4) 8:09, (5) 8:16, (6) 8:06, (7) 7:25.

I think I could have kept up the 8:15-8:20 pace for a while longer, but I couldn't have kept up the 7:25.  I was really done at the end.  For a few seconds, I thought I might try to go for 7.2, but I was pooped and stopped short. 

There was a cat stalking a rabbit this morning.  I scared the rabbit away first, and the cat was still crouching behind the trash can, so when I got close to the trash can, I hissed at the cat and scared him away too.  Good times.

2 miles of bleachers and a little extra running from the car to the track.

Bleachers tonight.

recovery run

10:18 pace........nice

If you notice my only entry today is my sleep and nap time.  I realized when I hit the snooze button this morning that I'd messed with the clock and it probably wouldn't go off again....and I just didn't care.  I got some extra sleep I needed, and since this is one of my "easy" weeks, I'm not going to feel guilty about it. (I'm still trying to convince myself of this).

I had my chocolate oatmeal breakfast with blueberries this morning because my strawberries were gone.  It was great.  There was only one thing that could have made it better:  ice cream.  So at 6:20 I sent my child to school on the bus and went back in for a bowl of ice cream and a nap. 

I guess it's going to be one of those days.  Just relax, enjoy, and try to not feel too guilty about it.

slow today.  Avg pace was 9:23, but my effort was much more.  I couldn't figure out why I was so sluggish and running was so difficult.  Then around mile four, I remembered that I'd donated blood yesterday and I thought maybe that's why.

It almost felt like I was trying to run in SLC....just strange.  Maybe it was all the ice cream too......naaahhhh.

Still having trouble with my energy & focus level.  Is there some rule about how long it takes to recover from donating blood?  Maybe I should have waited to run...I'm just not sure.

Ran the Marine Corps Historical Half Marathon with my running buddy from MD.  I didn't race, so I didn't put this as a race entry.  I just ran with my friend and we talked and caught up and took time to pet the minature ponies.  If I can get RAD to help me out, I'll get a picture of the ponies on here for y'all to enjoy.  They were just around mile 6, and too cute to pass up.

MR. ran the race.  He had a goal to finish under 2 hours.  His actual chip time was 2:00:28.  He was close!  Maybe next time I'll race with him and see what we can pull off.

My friend and I trotted in around 2:12.  We wore sock puppets as an experiment to see if they'd help us run faster.  At her last race, there was an older gentleman who had long socks on his hands (in an effort to stay warm), and he kicked her trash.  So we wondered if it was something in the power of the socks, and made sock puppets to wear to see how it went. 

I'm not sure they gave us any kind of advantage, but it was fun.  We had to take them off after the first mile due to sweaty sock puppet hands, so the sock puppets became sock tails for the rest of the race, until we put them back on again to cross the finish line.

We got to high five the base commander of Quantico as we crossed the finish line.  He got a sock puppet high five from me... and just in case you're wondering: my sock puppet was a pirate :-)

lots of rain, wanted sleep, and have a little pain on my foot I want to let recover before I get back into the full swing of things for our "mock marathon" in a couple of weeks.  

I considered doing the shred dvd. Maybe tonight.  Maybe!

I'm running in the rain....just running in the rain...

Got out at 3:55 because I had lots of things to do this morning.  Taking the week-end off for a race means none of the regular week-end stuff gets done...wish I had a Cinderella to shop for me.

AP was an 8:44.  Progressive run:  9:40 start with a 7:51 pace to finish (last .75).

Ran by a little pond, and the frogs were all singing and croaking away.  It sounded like there were thousands of them...pretty neat.

Went for a walk after dinner & dessert while the kids were at church.  There's a park with a walking path next to the church, so we got a couple miles in walking & talking.

When my alarm went off, I could hear the rain just pouring down (the windows were open) and I couldn't talk myself into a 9 mile run in the drenching rain.  So I slept in and when I got up again, the rain had pretty much stopped so I got in a few miles.

My avg pace was an 8:twenty-something (can't remember).  I think I'd call it a tempo run, but I don't know what kind of tempo it is...I just tried running faster.

The frogs were silent today when I ran by the pond.  It was still wet everywhere outside, but not raining.  I wonder if they only like to sing in the rain, or if they stop singing after 5 am?  Or maybe, like RAD said, they were just singing for my birthday yesterday, and they knew it wasn't my birthday today, so they weren't singing for me.

Comfortable pace run.  Watch was off from .19 to what I determined was 1.19, so I didn't get 100% accurate pace, but I'm pretty sure I have the distance right because it's the route I run every day.

Avg pace for what I did get on my watch was 9:17.  Actual would have been more since my first mile is always slower.

I saw the most fantastic sunrise.  Started out with light pinks and baby blues, then the pinks grew bigger and brighter until the sky was almost all magenta and the clouds looked  blue.  Then a 1/2 mile later when I'd turned to see the sunrise again, it was all gone, and the sky was back to blue.   What a show.

Saw Brent's black cat out slinking around this morning.  She ran off into the grass under the apple trees...probably looking for some old apple cores to chew on.

Recovery run.  I wanted to run a slow pace because I want my legs fresh for tomorrow, but I also wanted to hurry and get the run over with so I could go home and try to hurry & get ready so I'd have enough time for a quick nap before work.  

It was a good choice vs a good choice.  I managed a 9:48 avg pace, and I had 15 min for a nap.  So we all won.

No frogs singing today, but... I think I know what happened to them.  I was looking out over the grass and into the pond wondering where they'd all gone, and I saw a gigantic frog jumping in the grass.  I think he must have eaten all the other 2,000 frogs & that's why they're not singing anymore.

Clear sky sunrise, so not a lot of colors like yesterday, but beautiful none the less.

Cloudy, cool and overcast all morning.  Until I go out to run.  Then the sun comes out & it's humid.  Oh well...serves me right for sleeping in & being lazy.  

Ran with MR.  We kept a fairly good pace most of the run.  There is one part of our run that is a long straight road with nothing on it, and not many cars.  We switched over to the right (wrong) side of the road when there were big patches of shade to run in.  It made such a difference.

He got a leg cramp and stopped running around mile 7.5.  I ran the rest of the way home, grabbed some water and gatorade and ran back to meet him.  I had an 8:30 pace for mile 9, but over all pace was 9:30.  Miles and pace matched up again today.  9 1/2 for both.

started out for a walk, but the thunder started clapping and big wet drops started falling, so we turned around and went home.  Maybe .4 mile total. 

oh the joys of Monday mornings...  I woke up, got dressed, put my hat & headlamp on, put my garmin in the window to get satellite reception up & read, sat down to put my shoes on, and ended up falling asleep on the floor.  It was warm last night so the comforter was on the floor, and it was in just the right place.  So I woke up to MR tripping over me on his way to the bathroom.  Oh well.  B+ for effort.

I threw off the running gear and tried to just get back in bed since a 3 mile run didn't seem worth the effort at that point.  Couldn't sleep, so I went out and did a few minutes on the elliptical and read in some fitness magazine about how I can be thin and look good in my swimsuit by walking and/or running 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week.    All I can think is: if it hasn't happened by now, it's just not going to happen.

On the winning front, I did choose to eat a bowl of frosted shredded wheat with strawberries and bananas instead of a left of cheeseburger.  And despite what you might think, it wasn't an easy decision.

So I've got my hopes pinned on this afternoon.  Our mock-athon is Saturday so I know this is my "taper" time, but I still need to get some excersise in.  Preferrably running.  So I can look good in my swimming suit.............hahahahahahahahaha.

Ran after work.  humid out.  took a long time to feel like I was in the swing of things.  just couldn't get my rhythm.  I was feeling good toward the end, and tried to pick up the pace when my old cramp behind the knee popped up again.  What a good old friend showing up like that when I hadn't seen him is so long.  stretched and tried running slower, but by the end (1 mile later) it was hurting me again.   It always shows up when I'm increasing my pace, but not every time.  It's a mystery. 

Rain started after mile 4.5, and I was enjoying it so much I made the run a little longer than I'd intended.  So glad I got my run in.  Lots of morning commitments this week, so i might have more afternoon runs in my future.  I was nice sleeping in and running in the daylight :-)

4:30...no rain....somewhat humid....not warm, but not cool either

I didn't know what my goal was today, but I knew I had to be done by 5:30.  So I just started out slow, then picked up the pace a little, then I tried some of those strides I'm so curious about. 

Reading about something and actually applying it correctly isn't always easy.  I'm probably going to need someone who knows what they're doing to watch me and help me out on this. 

I'm not sure I understand the difference between fartlek and stride, except strides are faster and shorter distances.  Is this right?

Either way, I got in 6 "strides" over the last 2 miles.  Avg pace overall was 9:09.   Is it okay to do the strides when I'm running a faster pace, or should I only do them when I'm running recovery pace?  I tried doing them with a faster pace than recovery in between.  It was a good tough effort. 

Recovery run.  4:35 am.  ap 10:00.  Read the RW tid-bit on strides, read all the comments on strides, tried a couple at the end.

Still not sure I'm "doing it" right, but I don't think what I'm doing will hurt.

cloudy and cool this morning.  felt good.  nice run.

recovery sleep

got wicked sick yesterday

still tired but feeling better today

sick sucks

Didn't run today : achey-breaky muscles

I do think I'm getting better, but it's slow going.  I want to reserve my energy for getting better and to try and run our mock-athon.  We've pushed it back to Monday for now.

rain forecast for all day Saturday anyway, so it's a good move weather wise too.

9 more early mornings for me....ahhhhh almost there

After being sick for 5 days, I was feeling better and didn't want to disappoint my friend, so I went on the "Road Kill Run."  I was also looking forward to finally getting in my marathon after training all winter and getting snowed out of Myrtle Beach in February.

We'd made medals for the end of the run.  They were faux fur/feathers neckbands with a sheep on the bottom that has tire marks across it.  On the back we wrote "ROAD KILL RUN"  Hope Mills to Lumberton,  May 31, 2010.  I chose a sheep because one of the first runs we'd gone on out in the country was the time the sheep charged out of his driveway and down the road after us.  We've never actually seen a dead sheep on the roadside....YET.

We started out early because the weather was going to be hot and humid.  We set out at 5:20 with headlamps on.  The sun was just starting to come out, and we were treated to a most wonderful sunrise.  The roads were empty except for the newspaper lady.  Mr. rode behind us and carried out water/gatorade/gu, etc...  he also took pictures of us.  He made a compilation page of some of the pix.  RAD said she'd try and post it here for me since I can't figure out how to do it.

At mile 6.8, we were at my friend's house (I'll call her Wyatt Earp), and we took a potty break.  The break ended up being long, which was nice at the time, but just made the run longer in the end.

We headed back out to finish the run, and saw the sun rise up as the moon was also up.  It was a visual treat to see, and neat to be doing it among the wheat and corn fields.  At mile 13, Wyatt Earp said her knee (on the outside) was bothering her, and she might need to stop.  We tried switching sides of the road, hoping a different incline would help, but by mile 14, she had to throw in the towel and stop.  My heart just broke for her, because I knew this was such a big goal for her and it was so hard to stop.  It's her first injury and since I've been there too, I know it's so disappointing.  I told her that injuries are often just as much a part of running as actually running is.  They will help us be stronger, better runners in the long run, but they disappoint us so much when they come.

She encouraged us to go on without her, and she called her husband to come pick her up.  So MR and I went on our way.  It was a long way without her.  MR was there, but it's not easy to talk to him when we're on a road with no shoulder and he's on a bike.  Traffic was picking up as was the heat & humidity.  There were some nice stretches of shade, but too many stretches of sun.  I got hot and cranky.  Poor MR, I grouched at him to be quiet when he was singing along to his music and I was trying to focus on the rhythm of my running.  The last 10+ miles are on a road called "Ten Mile Road."  It's just a long road.  It seemed like it would never end.

I took GU breaks every 5 miles, and water/gatorade breaks every 2.5 in between.  I'd just find a spot of tree shade and walk around in the shade while I took a quick break.  At one of the spots, there were 2 large trees in someone's front yard, right along the roadside.  As I was walking and drinking, I read on the trees these signs  "NO TRESPASSING..Violaters Will Be Shot," and "TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT  Survivors Will Be Shot Twice."  I made sure I stayed close to the road the rest ot the stop.  I could just imagine the old man sitting there inside the house with his shotgun trained on MR and I.

Around mile 24, I finally got to see the troll head on the tricycle.  I'd been waiting to see it.  I know he got pix of it, but I don't think they're in the collage.  I'll have to get the pix up another way.  Mile 25 was the break down and cry wishing it was over already mile.  There was one point, when I was running on the white line of the road but refused to move over to the dirt...I thought, "fine...if they hit me, then I won't have to finish."  I was in a bad place then.  

But I finished.  It was terribly slow, and in hindsight, I would have been better off just stopping at mile 14 with Wyatt Earp, but I never claimed to be logical about running.  Wyatt Earp and her husband were waiting just after the 26.2, at the end of Ten Mile Road.  I cramped up all over, stretched as best as I could, then hopped (haha) into the truck and we all went out for lunch at the yummiest little restaurant in Lumberton. 

Two days later...I still can't get up or down from a seat without wincing in pain.  Can go upstairs slowly, downstairs...still creates a great amount of pain.  Just really sore all over.  Kind of like last week when I was sick, only this time, I've got a good excuse!