Sometimes less is more...I hope

So this week's running hasn't gone exactly as scheduled. I had a really good run with Heather on Monday night it was just the two of us and since we live in the same neighborhood it only made sense that we just run from home. I love Heather and it was great to get to spend some running time with her, I had an idea for a new route, thanks to all my miles with Michele I have really learned a lot of new steets to run on and I was able to string us together a pretty nice route. We did have to cross hwy 89 twice and that always slows us down waiting on traffic and then right around mile 5 the dreaded stomach thing came up... first I slowed down then I had to walk and then I had to stop and cross my legs!! luckily after I let it calm down it did allow me to continue the run and we had exactly 6.5 when we got back to our neighborhood. We were in trouble though... Heather's husband was waiting for us at the entrance to the neighborhood and we got busted for running in the dark with no lights or reflective gear :( and then when I got home I got in trouble for running without my phone!!
We had a 10:20 avg pace which is pretty good considering the stomach thing and the traffic crossings!

I already blogged about my change in plans and great day on Tuesday.

Wednesday was a pretty full day. Jane and I ran 5 miles on Wednesday morning from her neighborhood, it was really humid and warm but we had a good run. I did have to make an emergency pit stop at the waffle house!!! I was wearing my pink skirtsports visor with a clip on light and when I got into the bathrrom I looked in the mirror and I looked hilarious!! because of the humidty and and sweat my hair was "huge" I wish I could get that much volume on a normal day!! my face was red and I had sweat everywhere... no wonder everyone gave me such strange looks when I walked in the door!! LOL
we had a 10:18 avg pace and this also included a little leg crossing and stomach calming time!! LOL also I'm really bummed because my stomach started up again towards the end, Jane asked if I needed to walk and at first I said no but I thought we still had a ways to go so I said yes I better walk so we walked for a bit and a little later my garmin beeped 5 miles... well darn if I had known we were that close I would have kept running!!
I don't put my contact in for my early morning runs so I usually can't see my garmin very well :(

Wednesday afternoon I met Michele at the Community Center and we went to Bun's & Ab's class, walked for about 15 minutes afterwards and then at 7:00 I met Kelly for a short run. She had minor surgery last week and she wanted to test out her legs so we just planned a short 2 mile run. I thought she did great!!! it was really warm and humid and I was huffing and puffing and felt really slow but we ended up with a 10:37 avg pace. So Wednesday was a great work out day!!

Thursday morning Michele Jane and I were meeting at the Community center at 5:00am for a run... about 4:35 Michele texted wanting to know if Jane was running, when she found out that Jane was for sure running she opted out.. she has really over extended herself lately and decided to just get some rest. No problem... well 10 minutes later Jane texted and she was not feeling well and wouldn't be running either. I did not want to run by myself in the dark so I took my running shoes off and got back in bed!! I ended up oversleeping and didn't get up until 7:30. The good news was I felt GREAT!!!
Last night I ran almost 2 miles with Michele and the kids but it was a tough run, Alex wasn't having it!!! He started out full of energy and in a great mood and then suddenly he was done and in a bad mood. When we got back to the house we waited on James to get home and then Michele and I set out to add on a few more miles. We started off walking... and we ended up walking and the middle was all walking. Oh well it was a good walk we definetly still burned some calories! Mentally it was just what Michele needed and I think me too!!

We have a big weekend planned. The Big Dam Bridge 100 miler is on Saturday, Arland will ride the whole 100 but Brenda and I along with several other's Bailey :) are riding 50 miles. It is a pretty hilly route so 50 is still a challenge!!
Sunday we have a 16 mile run on the schedule. I'm hoping that by having a lighter week I will have a great weekend!

Good luck to all the racer's and rider's this weekend!!

Time to Recharge my Batteries....

Tuesday morning I woke up feeling like I had been run over by a truck during the night. My stomach hurt, I was bloated, I just felt tired and blah. I always eat breakfast every morning sometimes it is a protein shake but I always have something but yesterday morning I couldn't even bear the thought of ingesting anything!! I didn't eat unil about 12:30 and I still wasn't even that hungry then.
I made the decision that I was going to skip the Tuesday Night Flyer's run clinic and instead go home with Kylie after the kid's running program and spend the evening with her

I can not think of a better way to recharge..refresh..reenergize..renew.... revive re- anything than spend some quality time with my girls Livia and Kylie.

The kid's running program was great, Jackie has always been very organized but each week improves as she see's what needs to be tweaked... she also had more help this week. Coach O was there and another Coach a young guy whose name I do not know... anyway their participation really helped Jackie

I stayed behind in the gym for a few minutes when the kids first went outside and I was very happy to find Kylie running on the track when I got outside, I could tell she was looking for me but at least she was running!!

The obstacle course is probably Kylie's favorite activity and i like it too but yesterday it was the "food group" activity I liked the best

They seperated the boys from the girls and had them form two lines, the coach or a parent would call out a food and if it was a good food the kids would run to the soccer goals ( in opposite directions!) and if it was a bad food they stayed put. The girls did better than the boys but they all did a pretty good job of recognizing good and bad foods.... all the kids started to run when the coach called out pizza!! that was funny and one little girl wouldn't run when they called out cheese... she said that's not a good food so later I had to explain to Kylie why cheese is indeed a good food. When the coach asked me to call out a food spur of the moment the first thing that came to my head was asparagus.. LOL... luckily Grace C. knew what it was and started running so the rest of the kids did too... several kids told me they had never even heard of asparagus!

After the clinic was over and Kylie got to play on the Merry go round for a little while we headed to her house where our activities included the following.

Barbies

Drawing

Bike Ride - Run

Dancing

"Spying"

The list goes on but suffice it to say we had a blast and after a delicious brazilian dinner I went home feeling much better than when I arrived!

I think my time with Kylie did more for my physical and mental health than any speedwork could have!!!

A little of this and a little of that...

Sunday was quite a mix of events! I started the morning with a run, Michele, Jackie and I met Jane at SSE to help her with her long run. My plan was to run at least 8 miles with her but unfortunately the 17 miler from the day before just wouldn't let it happen. I did manage 5.5 miles and then Michele and I left Jane in Jackie's hands and we took a short cut back to the school via Michele's house (bathroom). We ended up walking most of the way back we were both pretty beat but we did get in 7.2 total miles.

We met Jackie and Jane back at the school...both Jackie and Michele had to leave to take care of family but I had brought Francesca along and I got her ready to ride along with Jane. She only had 4 miles left by the time they made it back to the school and Francesca and I kept her company.

It was VERY foggy Sunday morning and during the run I had on one of those hat lights clipped to my visor, for the bike ride I also clipped a couple of blinky lights on the back of it.... it didn't even occur to me until we were back at the school..I had been riding without a helmet!!!!! DUH that was dumb!! :( Actually I was all ready for our next bike ride and Phil was waiting and when I saw him helmet I thought OMG I am an idiot!!!

Brenda, Phil and I left a little later for our 36 mile bike ride... we were taking our 28 mile loop and then Brenda and I were adding on at the end with a trip to Mt. Mudd. Phil stuck with us for the most part during the first part of the ride, he is about 10 feet tall and I swear Brenda and I have to pedal about 5 times to his 1 pedal stroke... not fair!

It was a pretty uneventful ride, Brenda and I were both really tired from the 17 miler on Saturday and although we didn't run together on Sunday morning we had both run over 6 miles,so we were a little whiney! lol or at least I was!

OH.... I guess you can file this under DUH moments too....

When I first loaded Francesca up in my car she felt kind of slippery, at first I thought hmmm maybe Arland cleaned her and lubed her up and accidentaly got some on the handlebars, and then when I started the ride with Jane I thought maybe it was the humidity. Finally a couple of miles in I remembered that I had used Armour All clean wipes to clean the tape after my ride last Sunday. That's not the end of my DUH episode, as we are riding my butt is slipping all over the seat, I had on new shorts and I thought geez these things suck and it was a pretty uncomfortable ride!! I guess we were about mile 25 when it dawned on me that I had also cleaned the seat with Armour all clean wipes and THAT was what was causing the slipping and sliding!!! DUH..DUH..DUH!!!! LOL

Towards the end of the ride I was really starting to fade and it dawned on me (another DUH??) that I had not taken in very many calories. After the run I had eaten a couple of pretzels left over in my fuel belt from Saturday and 1/2 of a Blueberry almond bar. It helped but was not enough I guess so we decided to stop by Knight's grocery store so I could grab something... well I didnt' want to walk all through the store so I just headed to the check out stand and was looking for a payday candy bar, they didn't have any, but I saw Almond Snickers got that instead... very yummy!!! and I could eat it almost guilt free :) I think a 7.2 mile mostly run some walking and a 36 mile bike ride burned off those caloreis!

After we got our iced coffee's and got back on our bikes we both were like whoa what happened to our legs??? we still had about 6 miles left and it was tough but we did it and finished up with 36 miles

I went home showered made myself a sandwich and relaxed for about an hour and then I headed over to Michele's house for some fun!!

We baked cookies, we went on a leisurely 5 mile bike ride and then when we got back we decorated cookies for Abbie's class.

It was somewhat of a miracle that the bike ride even happened!! Michele had invited Karen to come ride with us, Karen doesnt' have a bike so Michele told her she could ride her old Mt. Bike... well Karen is quite tall and Michele is kind of short and it didnt' dawn on her that the bike would need to be adjusted. Normally changing the seat height shouldn't be a problem but this is a really old bike and the seat did not want to budge!! Michele brought out 2 tool boxes and between Michele, Shauna and Karen I think they got the seat to move up a fraction of an inch not nearly enough for Karen to be ablet to ride it comfortably. Shauna's bike was a little bigger and she is inbetween Michele and Karen in height so they switched bikes. There were 7 of us all together, 4 adults and 3 kids we had a good time, except for Claire she crashed :( it was pretty dramatic but in the end she got back up on the bike and finished the ride.

The destination for this ride was once again Mt. Mudd apparently after last weekends bike ride Alex was looking forward to going back all week!

The girl at Mt. Mudd is starting to get used to seeing me ride up on my bike but she was a little shocked to see how many of us there were!

The fun part of the day was when we got back to the house and started decorating the sugar cookies! It was fun and I was very impressed with everyone's creativity!!

Oh I almost forgot when I very first got to Michele's house Alex and I played with the wei..how do you spell it??

Anyway first we played the boxing game... Alex knocked me out 4 times and finally I said enough!!! Next we played Tennis, now this was more like it I was actually pretty good!! Now I want one!

Another fun Sunday spent with the Martin Clan...and in case you are wondering where poor Arland is while I am off having fun???? He was with James on a 65 mile bike ride!! We both got home about the same time.

Thankful....

I have many things to be thankful for but for right now I am going to talk about just two of them.

1. Laundry Fairies.
The dryer is still broken despite Arland's best efforts but never fear we have clean laundry thanks to Livia and Michele.
Livia came to the house on Thursday and I didn't notice until Friday morning that she had taken an overflowing basket of towels home with her.
Friday morning Michele called and said she really needed some Mt. Mudd and for me to load up my dirty clothes and bring her some coffee and she would do my laundry for me. I told her I would gladly bring her coffee but I didn't feel right about bringing laundry! She insisted and well we were starting to get low on a few things so I gathered jeans, t-shirts and towels. I started looking around hmmmm where did that basket of towels go???? I knew right away Livia must have taken them for me.
This morning Michele brought me my clean laundry and took more dirty clothes home with her.
So although I have no dryer I have plenty of clean clothes and I am very THANKFUL!!!

2. A GREAT long run at the River Trail
Michele and I met Brenda and Andrea at the River Market this morning around 5:40, we were going to do the River Trail Loop. It was not as cool as it had been all week, no we couldn't be that lucky, but we were still lucky because it was about 15 degrees cooler than last week!! It was still 90% humidity but with 67 degrees instead of 82-85 like last week. There was also a very light mist which we really enjoyed.
We all stayed together for about the first mile and a half and then Bren and Andrea sped on ahead of us.
I was wearing my new Mizuno Wave Nirvana and as of today I have to give them a big thumbs up, although I probably should have worn them on a couple of shorter runs first. The bottom of my big toe never hurt! :)
We had a great run I never had any stomach issues and only stopped at the port a potty one time and that was just a quick trip. I should mention though that I did run into the Marriot Hotel just before we started and I did have some business to take care of!! I am so thankful I was able to take care of that before we even started running!!
The Little Rock Marathon training group was also meeting at the RiverMarket and I looked for Kim and Cheryl as we ran by but didn't see them. They start at 6:00 and we started about 5:45ish.
From the very beginning I felt good but I kept waiting for something to go wrong but it never did!
Michele and I stopped at the port a potty by the golf course/boat launch and as I came out and Michele went in two young guys came running up, at first I thought they wanted to use the port a potty too, but instead they asked me if I knew where we were.. I kind of chuckled and said yes we are near Burns Park. Poor guys they were only supposed to run 5 miles total for the day and were already at 4.5 and were very sad to learn that they had to turn around and go back the way they had come.. I guess they were hoping for some kind of short cut. They said they were really tired so I hope they made it back o.k.! they were young so I am sure they did :)
Lot's of unfriendly runners out this morning I can't tell you how many female runners that we said good morning to that did not acknowledge us... one girl even looked right at us but would not say anything back.. oh well the Bikers were pretty friendly today! LOL

Karen drove in and parked at Rebsamen Golf Course in Little Rock and ran the last six miles with us.
We slowed down quite a bit those last six miles... Karen is still building endurance which is more important for her right now than speed. I would sometimes have to run on ahead a little bit but for the most part we stayed pretty close together.
Our times really slowed down once we got onto Markham and closer to the River Market. I think we had to stop at every traffic light!!
To get 16 we had to pass by the River Market and on down to the President Clinton Library and and around the block a couple of times. Michele and I picked up the pace quite a bit at about 15.5 and raced the last 1/2 mile... it felt good but I just can't keep up with her!!
When I hit 16 I was done I started walking but Karen wasn't quite at 6 yet so Michele went back for her. I was just going to walk back to the car but then changed my mind and started running again. We were at 16.7 when Karen hit her 6 and you know I have a hard time stopping at an odd number so we ran on until we got 17 miles.
17 miles
3:10
11:14 avg. pace
1-10:51
2-10:11
3-10:12
4-10:21
5-10:29
6-9:53
7-10:11
8-12:06 Big Dam Bridge we took a nutrtion break
9-10:45
10-10:47 We met Karen at 10.5
11-12:17
12-11:38
13-12:04
14-13:42 It was right around here we started hitting all the traffic lights
15-13:29
16-9:50
17-12:01
We were feeling really good and I think we would have continued our pace from the first 10 miles easily but right now we really want Karen to have good runs!!

As soon as we stopped my calves started killing me!! We grabbed long sleeves to put on and headed over to the Market to meet Brenda. We all went to Andina's and had egg and cheese bagels and coffee.. YUM YUM!!!! I stretched a little bit and eventually the pain in my calves went away but my hip flexors have been sore all day!
After going home and taking a shower I was restless so I decided to head back to North Little Rock for shopping, luckily Brenda was in the area and we met at Target and spent some quality time together shopping and chatting!!

Escape from Cabot....

Wednesday ended up being a day off off running. By the time we finished the Bun's & Ab's class and then Jane's Latin Dance class we ran out of time for a run. I think it was probably a good thing! I am sore from Bun's & Ab's but I think doing Jane's class afterwards kind of helped and I'm not as sore as usual.. all the hip shaking and then the great stretches afterwards were just what I needed :)

Thursday started with a nice run with Jane & Michele. It was really cool probably around 57 degrees which is PERFECT running weather to me!! Cindy, Rock and Gary were at the CC when we arrived so it was nice to get to say hi to them and get a hug from Gary :)

When we first started running it took me a few minutes to realize that Jane and I were running ahead of Michele, not something we usually see!! I told Jane hey we better take adavantage of this while we can so we slowed down a little bit and all ran together. Of course by the time we made it to our first really long incline Michele found her second gear and we had to speed up to keep up with her. Michele asked if we wanted to go the same way we did last Thursday and go over the concrete bridge that caused Jane's bloody knees.. or another alternative, I stayed quiet and let Jane decide..she of course didnt' want to go over the "bridge of bloody knees" can't say that I blame her.
This run was a little quieter than normal a couple times I would have to say ok time for someone to tell a story!! LOL

My stomach started doing it's thing around mile 4 on one of the hills but luckily just by slowing down a little bit it subsided.... usually I have to either walk or completely stop for it to calm down. I was pretty excited and just hoped it would stay calm. Just before mile five it started again I would speed up, slow down over and over but somehow my stomach behaved. Finally at 5.8 it decided it started revolting again, I had to stop for a little while and then was able to walk and then back to a run I just prayed it would hold out... and it did. This was definately a much easier run than Sunday & Monday!!

6 miles 1:00:40

10:06 avg pace

1-10:37

2-10:07

3-9:38

4-10:00

5-9:38

6-10:35

I was home by 6:15 and got a lot of tidying up done before I had to go to work. I had a hair appointment at 10:00 so I actually got to work a little early to the shock of the guys in the office. I think it scares them a little if I show up before 8:30!! LOL

The gray roots had started getting pretty bad so I was excited to be getting that taken care of and excited to get out of Cabot for a few hours.

I was also playing delivery person for Team 1 and needed to go to our shop in West Little Rock.. well on the way is a speciality running shoe store and I just couldn't pass it up. I told the guy all my feet issues, pain under my big toe, and Plantar Facscitis in the past. I also told him how the Saucony's didn't work for me and that I had been running in Asic Keyano 13's for a couple of years and really loved them but of course now they don't make them anymore, I also told him that I had tried the Kenyano 14's but didnt' love them so based on all of that he brought me out several pairs tof shoes to try on and then would watch me run in them. First up were a pair of Asic's 3000 they only had size 7.5 and they just didn't feel right. Next were a pair of Nike Structure Air Triax 11.. I had just retired a pair of 10's well I don't know if they need to be retired they probably didnt' have that many miles but they just weren't feeling as good anymore... anyway I LOVED the way the 11's felt!! Next... Mizuno wave nirvana 4's, LOVED them!! It was between the Structure and the Mizuno... the Mizuno's were more expensive, quite a bit more, but since my Nike's didnt' seem to last very long I decided on the Mizuno's, hopefully they will last longer and end up being the better bargain in the long run. I really liked the guy at the shoe store, we talked a lot about long distance running etc.

I am wearing my new shoes at work today to help break them in, I really want to wear them for the long run tomorrow morning.

After the successful shoe shopping trip I headed over to Team 1 West, dropped off some stuff, went out into the shop and visited Jonathon for a little while. By that time I was STARVING!! I had a "Andrea" banana muffin at about 6:30 in the morning after the run and then I had run through Starbucks on the way to my hair appointment but both had worn off by noon. Luckily as I was talking to Jonathon where I was moaning about being hungry Arland texted me to tell me they were at a near by restaurant... actually the restaurant was right next door to the shoe place. They were all almost done eating but insisted I order something anyway so I ordered a turkey sandwich and it came out really quick.

The they I am talking about were some of Arland's business partner's and our new accountant.

After saying goodbye to the guys I headed to Target. I wanted some new picture frames... 30 minutes later as I was getting back in my car with my purchases I remembered them. I left with a new sports bra, new panties, and some vitamins... no frames :(

While I was in Target Jane called to let me know she was back in her office, we had discussed during our run the fact that I was going to be in the area and maybe it would workout that I could stop by.

Jane is a Trust Bank Vice president... I am used to seeing her all hot and sweating in running shorts and skirts. It was really cool too see her all dressed up in her proffesional attire :) She is beautiful.. inside and out!!

The Cabot Cruisers won the Team Spirit Award during the Tour D' Rock back in .. well whenever it was June or July???

It is a traveling trophy and Jane had picked it up and has had it in her office for a little while, now it is Team 1's turn to display it for a little while... I have to tell you though it was a little tough getting Jane to hand it over!!!!

Next I headed to our North Little Rock Team 1 to drop off there checks... I stayed and chatted with Neal for a while, I used to work at the NLR shop and although I don't miss the commute I really miss Neal!!!

It was almost 3:00 by the time I made it back to Cabot and I was beyond the point of being able to do anything productive. I did sort through some bills etc. but it was hard to keep my eyes open the last hour!!

We had dinner plans with "the guys" at Bennihanna's in Little Rock, I really did not want to have to drive home after dinner so I called Neal and persuaded him to drive to Cabot to pick me up and that way I got to ride home with Arland. It was really nice of him, he had to drive 16 miles north to get me and Little Rock is to the South!! :) I'm a lucky girl to have such good friends!

We met at the bar in the lobby of the Wyndham Hotel and I had a margarita... oh that was yummy!!! I haven't had a margarita in ages well since after the San Francisco Marathon. This one was really good and I sucked it down way too fast so of course I had to have another one. I really hope I don't regret those margarita's tomorrow morning during our long run!!

Dinner was great I ate too much, but really I don't know if I ate too much or if it was the margaritas because we took home a pretty big to go box filled with our left overs.

OHHHHH I forgot to mention that Michele made Arland Mexican Chicken the other night and brought it over!! So now between the Bennihanna left overs and Michele's mexican chicken I don't have to feel guilty about not cooking for the next couple of days :) LOL
When we got home I kicked off my shoes and looked down at my feet and they were swollen!! yikes not a pretty sight.. luckily they are back to normal this morning.

It was so nice to get to spend some time outside of Cabot for a change!!! especially on a workday ;)

It is a rest day today and then tomorrow a few of us are going to the RiverMarket and running the "River Trail Loop" for our 16 miler.

Run Fast... Run for Fun

My week has felt off... the run on Sunday night has thrown my timing off. We normally run on Sunday mornings and by doing it on Sunday night it now feels like that was Monday so I have been thinking it was later in the week than it is. Silly I know but it is funny how just one little thing out of the normal routine can throw you off.

The usual gang got together for a run on Monday night. Jane, Kelly, Michele and myself met at 6:30 for a run, and Michele had picked out a fun new route, NOT. We started out in her neighborhood and then she took us out to the Campground Hill. It is a pretty decent size hill but what makes it even more challenging is the fact that it is on a busy road with NO shoulders! I guess one good thing about that is it makes you run harder up the hill just so you can get off of Campground. Next we went down Stagecoach all the way to East Main, on the way to East Main we had some rolling hills and a nice downhill.... problem with that downhill was that the whole way down I knew we had to climb it coming back!! The whole time we are just running our little hearts out and our wind up toy Michele is as usual leading the pack.
The first 2 miles were kind of painful, my whole left side was kind of twingy and tight (from the hip down) but once we got to about mile 3 I guess I warmed up enough and didn't feel the pain anymore. After we made it back UP Stagecoach we hit Linda Lane and winded around all the normal neighborhoods. We had several more long inclines but nothing compared to Campground and Stagecoach.
We were once again running a really good pace and it wasn't easy but it wasn't killing me... my thought process was to just keep focusing on each mile.
I knew we were on pace to be as fast as if not faster than Sunday night and that also helped keep me going. We hit five miles just a little bit before Michele's house but we called the Scarlata rule and we walked when we got to five.

5 miles
47:20
Avg. pace 9:28
1-10:06
2-9:43
3-9:15
4-9:15
5-8:59 :)

We did a cool down walk with Jane and then Karen arrived and Kelly and I ran 2.6 more miles with Karen and Michele. I think they ran 4 miles and I really felt like I could have run all night but it was getting late and I needed to get home to my sick husband.

Tuesday with the kids at Magness Creek is quickly becoming the thing I look forward to most all week!!
First I get to pick up Harry from School and we have a nice chat all the way to Magness. He is quite the conversationist!!!
We headed to the Gym and I found Kylie lined up with the rest of the kindergarten kids. We quickly headed to the little girls room so Kylie could change into her running clothes. Most of the kids just run in whatever they wore to school which is fine but some of then looked pretty hot yesterday!
We didn't get to hang out with Madison yesterday since they broke the kids up by grade. It really makes sense and helps with the orgnization but we were bummed not to run with her.
There were several stations set up, an obstacle course to help with agility, and another area where they practiced high knees, speedwork, slow&low's and lunges.
The kids rotated through these stations as well as running on the track. There are a108 kids signed up for the program this year and having the stations really helps with the congestion on the track!!
After we ran our first lap we headed over to the water station and there was mass confusion.. the kids were all fighting over the coolers so I made them all line up behind me and I started filling cups for them. I did this until the crowd thinned out and then it was time for Kylie to change stations.
After the fun was over Kylie and I stayed and helped clean up the cups, and help pick up all the cones etc. that were used to set up the stations.
I absolutely love being a part of this program.. I LOVE seeing the kids outside playing and running and of course I love being able to share my love of running with Kylie and all the kids.
My Runner girl Kylie


When Kylie and I got to her house no one was home yet so we hung out in the car and blasted Hannah Montanna as loud as we could.. or as loud as my eardrums would allow!!
It was hard to leave Kylie but next on the agenda was the Tuesday Night Flyers.......

On the way Arland called and he sounded TERRIBLE... it kind of scared me and I told him I would come home and skip the track, but he said he was fine and for me to go on. I will admit there was a small part of me that wanted him to tell me to come home!! I wasn't really looking forward to speedwoork... but I always look forward to seeing everyone!!
Kelly and I decided that since our Monday night run could have been considered a tempo run especially the last 3 miles, we would do the intermediate workout.
We ran our warm up with Rick and then when we got back to the Track Jane had showed up :)
Kelly, Jane and I were doing the same workout so we started off together. First up we did 1x800 at LT pace, it was hard and I felt slow. Second was 1x1200 at LT pace this was really hard and I really felt slow!!!
I don't know if the Football team had practiced before we arrived or what but someone left behind a not so nice present on the track. Right in the first turn was a huge pile of throw-up... it was nasty, smelly, and gross. It got to the point where we were counting our laps by saying only 3 more times by the throw up... 2 more times etc.
Next we had 2x200 at interval pace..
It was a short workout but the way my hip felt after our last 200 I don't think I could have done much more. All the left turns on the track really do a number on my left sciatic nerve or whatever that is bothering me. We decided we would go off the track for our cool down so we ran around the highschool & CC for a mile as a cooldown.
I was really feeling bummed by how slow I felt and how hard it seemed to just run as fast as I did.... and then I got home and looked at my Garmin.
First 800 or .54 was in 4:24 which was a 8:12 avg pace my LT pace is 9:20 ....
The 1200 or .8 was in 6:42 which worked out to a 8:23 avg pace
The 2x200 were done in 53 seconds and 51 seconds....
Sooooo I guess I wasn't as slow as I felt.

Tonight is Bun's & Ab's and Jane's Latin Dance class... and maybe a short run afterwards???

How to recover from a terrible long run.....

I truly am Blessed!!! I have wonderful friends who care about me and make sure I know it!! I received phone call's, text messages and e-mails throughout the day on Saturday from these wonderful people checking on me to make sure I was ok and cheer me up.

I really didn't do much on Saturday after I blogged about the terrible run... I went to wal-mart to pick up a few things and bought a new book. I used to be a voracious reader I never went more than a couple of days in between books, but since I started running I either don't have the time or if I get still and quiet enough to read I fall asleep.

Tropical storm Ike was pushing his way to Arkansas throughout the day on Saturday and the weathermen had predicted severe weather well into Sunday afternoon. I thought a book would be the perfect way to ride out the storm.

Oh and by the way Ike spawned a tornado about a mile from my house!!! Too scary!

I spent Saturday evening reading with HGTV on in the background... very relaxing and just what I needed.

Sunday morning for the first time in ages I slept in until almost 8:30!! that was a 4.5 hour difference from Saturday morning.

When I got up I looked around and thought good grief I really need to spend the day around the house. Our dryer has been broken so laundry was piling up etc. My plan was to go to the laundra-mat, I HATE the laundra-mat!!! but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Luckily I was saved from laundry hell by my friend Michele. She texted wanting to know if I wanted to go on a fun bike ride with her and Alex. When I responded with a no and told her the reason she INSISTED I bring my laundry to her house. It is hard to say no to Michele and knowing her she would have come to my house and loaded up my laundry herself!!

I didnt' take ALL of the laundry but I got together some stuff , loaded Francesca in the CRV and we were off to Krooked Kreek.

I arrived just in time for breakfast :) homemade biscuits and gravy with eggs and bacon.. yummy!! Michele is a very good cook.

Arland also came over for breakfast and we all had a nice time chatting and eating and doing laundry. Michele even made me match all of Arland's socks for him!! LOL

After breakfast Arland left, James retired to the living room to work on taxes and Michele, Alex and I headed out on our bike ride.
I think I might have forgotten to mention that the weathermen got it wrong for Sunday morning!! When I woke up it was SUNNY and beautiful... still pretty windy but not the tropical force winds that had been predicted. I guess Ike moved through the state a lot quicker than they orginally thought.

We rode our bikes at a very leisurely pace all over Cabot... we went to Mt. Mudd and had iced coffee's and a frozen non coffee drink for Alex (he doesn't need the extra stimulants!!) we rode over to Michele's grandmother's house and had a short visit... we went to a grade school and Alex climbed a tree and we just plain ol had FUN!!!

We went back to the house worked on laundry for a few minutes, gathered our bathing suits and stuff and got back on our bikes and headed to the Community Center to swim for a little while... on the way we stopped at the high school track and ran/walked a couple of laps so that Alex could have a mixed up triathalon.

The pool was great, the water temp was cool but not too cold we grabbed boogie boards and kicked back and forth across the pool while Alex alternated between swimming and splashing us. I really didn't want to get out of the pool but it was almost 3:30 by this time and we still had the bike ride home.

Our total mileage for the day was 15 miles.... 15 fun, relaxing miles!!!

James had helped me with my laundry so when we got back to the house we just had to hang some stuff up put my stuff in the dryer for just a little bit and all that left was towels.

While we were waiting for my things to dry we looked at Michele's pictures from San Francisco... she and Cheryl both have really nice digital cameras and got some great pictures!! I need to go back over sometime and e-mail them to myself and Cheryl.

It was about 5:00 when I got home, Arland had a meeting to go to at 6:30 so I cooked him some dinner ate a littel myself and then got ready for my 7:00 run with Kelly, Jane and Michele.

I was a little nervous about the run I wasn't sure how my legs were going to feel etc. We started off at the CC and did our little CC loop before we headed off into the neighborhoods. Right away we were running at a pretty good pace, I was running along thinking oh this is going to be tough!! Michele was full of energy and as usualy she was pulling us along. I wasn't struggling but I was definately feeling the pace I told myself just suck it up it is a short run so just run as hard as long as you can, luckily I wasn't the only one feeling that way and Kelly said hey are we running a race or something??? LOL I was relieved to know it wasn't just me. When my Garmn beeped at the first mile I looked down and saw our first lap was 9:54... hmmm not as fast as I thought it would be... sure felt like we were going faster BUT either way a great pace for the first mile!

Michele was like a wind up toy, she had a string on her running top and she was just twisting away at it and I swear it made her faster and faster!! There is one road that we run on that is a long incline and most of the time this is where we will take a water break. Jane called a break but I couldn't walk... just like on Monday night I was afraid to walk because I was afraid I might not be able to start running again... so I just slowed way down to a jog that wasn't really much faster than there walk, it helps to get my heart rate down but then I don't have the stress on my hips of starting the run again.

We went through a few new neighborhoods which introduced a few new hills/inclines. Every now and then someone would say good grief why are we running so fast and we would all laugh and slow down a little bit but without even knowing it we would be back up to speed within a few seconds probably because our wind up toy Michele never slowed down!!

About 3 miles in we saw some other runners in the distance... actually they were running so fast that at first Michele thought they were bikers!

They were actually a couple of guys and a girl from the High School track team... Michele knew one of them and turned around to run/talk with them for a minutes. When she turned around I said oh good NOW we can slow down and we did for a little bit but then we had a hill to get up and we turned up the speed and just kept up the pace. We werent' worried about Michele I knew she would catch up with us and she did just that, we were running along when all of a sudden we could hear the pounding of her feet as she approached. It was dark so we couldn't really see her but we could definately hear her coming!! LOL

She of course was yelling at us for making her have to work so hard to catch up with us! ha ha

Kelly mentioned that we were almost at 4 miles in 37:xxxx .. we were just about to approach our last hill and I really wanted to see how fast we could finish the 4 miles so we all charged up and we hit 4 miles in 38:13 :)

I was thrilled... but that last charge up the hill didn't thrill my stomach and I had to come to an abrupt stop right after 4 miles. The girls didn't realize I had stopped and kept going, I could see the CC in the distance and just prayed i would make it. Luckily once i let it calm down for a few seconds I was able to run again and when I caught back up with the girls I even suggested we add on at the tennis courts so we could get 5 miles. I only needed 4.3 miles on this run this hit my weekly mileage goal but 4.3 is just too weird of a number to stop at!! LOL

We also claimed that we would make it our cool down....

5.01 miles

47:44 9:32 avg pace

1-9:54

2-9:26

3-9:38

4-9:15

5-9:28

Seriously I haven't had such a fast run in ages!! It felt great!!

But wow how do you go from barely being able to run at all to running faster than normal??? I guess I shed that other persons body I was running with on Saturday... and the lower humidity made a huge difference too!!

After the run Kelly and I headed to Jacksonville for our weekly Starbuck's visit. We had the choco-banana vivatno protein drinks and kicked back and relaxed and chatted for over an hour! I looked down at my phone and it was 9:30!!!!

The trip to Starbucks with Kelly was the perfect end to a perfect day :) It was a perfect recovery day!!

Long Run Hell

FCUK!!!!

This was a Terrible,Terrible,Terrible run!! It has to be the worst since last summer when I was training for the Chicago Marathon and pretty much every long run sucked back then.

To start with it was HOT and HUMID at 5:00am!!!!! I checked the hour by hour weather forcast and it said that it was 77 but felt like 82.
We were running in Magness Creek for a few miles and then heading across Hwy 5 to Lila Loop. The run started off fine, just hot and sticky but I felt great!! Until a little over a mile when my stomach twisted up.. I was on the prowl for a port a potty, there is a lot of new Construction on the north side of Magness Creek and I had notice some construction port a potty's when I took Kylie home the other day. I had to walk and then I had to stop cross my legs let everything calm down etc. Jane and I are both keeping an eagle eye out for a PP but in the back of my head I thought if we get to Kylie's house first I will try and see if anyone is up. Of course no one was and the door was locked, as it should be!!
Luckily it wasn't much further when I saw a PP.. ran over used it, and we continued on. We had finally lost sight of Brenda, Michele and Cindy when the problems first started but we were doing an out and back so I knew we would pick them back up.
Next we were headed back to Andrea's house. Andrea, Dennis and Ginny were going to run 9 miles with us.. well not me but.. whatever. LOL
I ask Andrea to use her bathroom, mostly to wash my hands but I decided to take a seat and see what happens... NOTHING happened but I could feel pressure and I sat for a few minute hoping something would happen.. NOPE. O.K. I can't stay in here forever so I grab a couple of paper towels and off we go. Pretty much from the start I felt off... it wasn't too bad but just didn't feel right.
After we crossed hwy 5 we started the hills.. hill after hill after hill. I guess we were at about 7 or 8 miles and I just felt like I couldn't breathe.. our plan was to keep running on Ballard Rd. until our Garmin's said 5 miles and that would give us 15 when we got back to Andrea's house. I kept plugging away but it was getting harder and harder. I couldn't really understand what was going on, I felt like I had put on someone else's body everything felt foreign, my leg's didn't feel like my own and my breathing.. good grief why can't I breathe???????? Finally we turned around a little short of the 10 miles, because there was a pack of about 10 dogs coming after us!!! Sheesh this run was just getting worse and worse!! LOL

It really did all fall apart after that... I started taking walk breaks and soon I was doing more walking than running. Jane and Michele had been running slightly ahead of me and at one point didn't know I had started walking, but once they saw how far back I was they came back for me. They walked with me, ran with me when I could and I was feeling so guilty for ruining their runs... especially Jane. Michele was just running to keep up her long runs, although she isn't officially training for Disney yet but Jane is training for the Memphis Marathon.
I kept telling them to go on but they wouldn't, eventually my stomach started acting crazy again and this time nausea decided to come along as well. I told Michele why don't you guys just go on and you can get the car and come get me!!!!!!!!
So off they went and here I was on some back road all alone without my phone... it wasn't until they were out of sight that I remembered I hadn't brought my phone along. It ended up being ok, but still not very smart!
After they were gone my stomach calmed down and I thought darn I shouldn't have told Michele to come get me in the car. Luckily I had yelled out to her while she was still visible that I would wait for her at the entrance to Magness Creek.. I didn't want her driving aimlessly around looking for me.
When I got to the meeting spot I stretched a little bit but I was feeling really dizzy so I sat down on the curb to wait for Michele.
Just as I see her turning into Magness Creek two girls come running by and ask if I'm o.k... I can just imagine how I looked all laid back on the sign!! LOL Well actually I know how I looked because Michele took a picture! and now you all know how I looked too... LIKE HELL!!!!!


Michele dropped me off at Daily Grind and on the way I started to get a little emotional... I felt like a huge failure and I knew everyone was worried about me... I really dreaded walking into the coffee shop!!
I think my blood sugar must have plummeted because I was standing in line to order and I started feeling really dizzy and I still just couldn't breathe right... finally I go outside to sit down and Brenda is sitting there and I'm trying to tell her about my run when I start crying... no not just crying, I am hyperventilating!! It almost felt like a panic attack but I didn't have heart palpatations.
I don't know what happened to me today but it really really sucked and at times it scared the crap out of me!!
I sat in the pool for a little while when I got home, the water is colder now and I thought it might help my legs... not sure if I mentioned earlier that not only could I not breathe but my legs were really heavy and sometimes just felt kind of dead... must have been the lack of oxygen????

OH well I'm fine now, I've showered, and have just been taking it easy this afternoon.

I don't really want to post my splits or avg pace because it is so awful but part of the reason for this blog is to record my runs even when they suck!!

13.7 miles 12:40 avg pace
1-10:06
2-11:10
3-12:07
4-10:11
5-10:43
6-10:34
7-12:09
8-11:21
9-12:49
10-13:10
11-16:30
12-13:59
13-16:52
.7-11:45

Running in the dark = Bloody knee's & Bug's

Nine hours after my great speedwork workout and long walk I was up and ready to run with Jane and Kelly.
It has always been dark at 5:00am but it would usually start getting light soon after we started running, not anymore :( now it stays dark our whole run.
Wednesday morning was pleasant cooler and breezy we started off walking a little bit and then when it was time to start running my hips locked up. They had been bothering me since my long run & bike on Sunday but this was weird. I literally could not run, I was kind of shuffling, a very painful shuffle but finally had to stop. We walked a few steps and then I stretched a little bit.. it was enough that I was able to start running again and it wasn't as painful but it was very slow!! It took about 2 miles for me to finally warm up and for the pain to subside a little bit. We were able to get 5 miles and actually ended up with a 10:42 avg pace which was pretty good considering the first two miles were painfully slow!!

The pain in my hip/butt/inner thigh area persisted throughout the rest of the day. I have to sit a lot at work and everytime I got up it would really flare up. I had planned to go to Bun's & Ab's and then Jane's Latin Dance class Wednesday night but I decided I would probably be better off resting. I was bummed all night knowing what I was missing but I woke up Thursday morning feeling much better!

Thursday morning I met Michele and Jane we started off walking again to help my hip warm up but it was actually feeling ok. We were having a good run, it was really hot and steamy!! and the sweat was just pouring off of us who knows maybe that helped my hip??? Some of the roads we run on are pretty dark that early in the morning and we were going down a new one we don't run on very often... Michele said be careful up here they are doing construction and there might be debris on the road, and just as she was about to say oh and be careful of this concrete bridge, Jane triped and fell... fell hard! She kind of did that sliding into home base thing but her knees took the brunt of the impact. She was pretty stunned and it took her a few seconds to be able to stand up. It didn't appear that she was bleeding and nothing was broken just shaken up! We walked for a while to let her regroup plus we were on a dark sidewalk and we didnt' want anymore mishaps. Once we knew she was ok we started running again and the rest of the run was pretty uneventful... except for when she almost fell again!! She tripped on something in the road but was able to stay upright. I told her my heart couldnt' take anymore!! LOL
When we got back to the light of the Community Center we could see that she was actually bleeding and quite a bit. I of course had to take a picture and I let Jane know it would end up on my blog.

It is a terrible feeling to see someone fall usually I am the one falling, but on a couple of runs with the Little Rock Training group we saw some people take some really painful tumbles!!! I can still hear the sound of Jane hitting the pavment :(

Because of the fall and walk we were only able to get in 4 miles, Jane had to get home and get ready for work and pretty much once we got back to the community center I was mentally done. Michele and I did end up walking almost another mile for a cool down. Because of the short mileage and the fact that my hips were much better we decided to run again Thursday night at 7:00pm.

The Thursday night run got off to a very slow start, we were walking and then Michele remembered that Cindy was coming over to get some Kinseo tape from her so we headed back to her house and Cindy had just arrived when we got there. We visited with her for a bit and then finally were able to start on our run.
Karen was running with us and Abbie tagged along on her bike. At first the slow pace felt really good and I would run just slightly ahead of Karen and Michele, but then it got harder to stay at that pace so I picked it up just a little bit and would circle back for the girls. Abbie pretty much stayed with me :)
It was of course dark and very hot and muggy!! Darn those cool temp's we had last week, they just made running in the heat even harder!!
We were running through the neighborhoods by Michele's house and then crossed over Linda Lane into some older neighborhoods... we weren't even all the way across the street when I was getting bombarded with bugs.. I inhaled one and then another one ended up on my tongue. YUCK. As we continuted to run through that neighborhood I felt like I was being pelted with tiny little rocks. It was very gross and uncomfortable. I really just wanted out of there so I picked up the pace, but then I would have to turn around to circle back for the girls. It was so dark sometimes I couldn't even see them. I was really happy to have Abbie's company she just chatted away... and a couple of times she would tell me I was running really fast :)
Once we got back to Michele's neighborhood the bugs eased up a little bit but it was stilly pretty buggy out there... I guess that's what happens when you run at night in the dark?
I was feeling really good, my hip didn't hurt and despite the heat and humidity I was breathing ok. I felt like I could run all night!! At one point I had circled back for the girls and we were going up a hill, Michele said if it weren't for your hip I would challenge you to race me up this hill.... well the hip felt fine so I kind of sped up and we pushed it up the hill, it was exhilirating!!!! so much so that a few minutes later we were running side by side again and I just kind of started pushing the pace and the next thing you know we are racing.. of course Michele beats me every time, but it was a lot of fun!!!! When we got back to her house I had 3.6 miles the girls stopped at 3 but it was just too close to 4 to stop so I kept going and ran through the cul-d-sac... I was by myself and then I hear footsteps charging towards me, Michele had decided to join me for my last bit of running. We picked up the pace again and again it felt really good! When we were done we were just soaking wet so we walked for a while to help cool down and dry off a little.
I was also a good girl and stretched really good before I got in my car and I think it made a huge difference because I am not a bit sore this morning! YAY!!

Today is a rest day and then tomorrow morning we have 15 on the schedule.

Fun - Fast Tuesday

I am volunteering with the Magness Creek Elementary school running program on Tuesday afternoons. Yesterday was the first day and I was so excited! I scooped up Mr. Harry from school, and off we went to Magness Creek. Harry is going to a Montissori pre school right around the corner from Team 1 so it only made sense that I should pick him up and take him with me to Magness Creek...not only does this help his mom Jackie who is the creator/organizer of the running program but it also makes me feel like I am helping the environment just a tiny bit.

Livia called to let me know she hadn't picked Kylie up yet so she would be waiting out front, Harry and I found a parking spot and headed to the front of the school to find Kylie.

Everyone was gathered in the school gym and while we were listening to the pre run speech Livia and Tracy showed up with Kylie's running stuff. Once she was changed we headed out to the track around the playground. We were starting off with running a little and walking a little.

Kylie and Harry did great both little balls of energy although Harry is a more experienced runner than Kylie so he was able to run longer than she was

Jackie doesn't just send the kids out and have them run, they also do warm-up's - High Knee's, Slow & Low's and a little speed play.

I think Jackie said there we 76 kids signed up for the program so sometimes the track would get a little crowded... it kind of reminded me of the start of a Marathon..LOL

Brenda's grand daugther Madison found us, well actually I think we just all ended up in the same spot at the same time.

I had Madison, Harry and Kylie with me for the rest of the run and they were all so affectionate, they gave me so many hugs and I loved every minute I spent out there with them!

After the run was complete Jackie sent Victoria to go with me and Kylie to get Harry's belongings... so while on the way through the school I got a little tour. Victoria showed me her classroom and Kylie showed me where she sits for lunch in the cafeteria :)

I took Kylie home and spent some time with her playing in her room... well basically we danced to Hannah Montanna at full volume!

Next up was my Tuesday Night Flyer's running clinic.

All summer we have been doing mostly interval pace training but now Dennis has switched us to Lactate Threshold pace training.

I ran the warm-up with Rick Pinedo, he is a fast runner but he likes to warm up slow so we ran together. He is a super nice guy and we chatted and had a very pleasnt run.

The workout for advanced was

3x 5min at LT pace

with 2 min walking/jogging rest inbetween repeats and then finished it off with 2x200 at interval pace.

My LT pace is 9:20 but I don't have my Garmin set up to show Avg. Pace so I was just running by feel. I know that LT pace is not supposed to be 100 % effort but it is also not supposed to be easy.

Here are my splits -

1- 5min 8:36 avg
2- 5min 8:56 avg

3- 5min 8:19 avg

I knew the second one felt slower so on the third I tried to just keep pushing but I had no idea it would be that much faster.

My intervals were - 1st 54 seconds div>2nd 200 52seconds

Pretty good for me my 200 interval should be 59seconds I think, either way I was faster and I was very excited that the last one was my fastest. I told myself this is it you are done after this so just leave it all out on the track. It didn't hurt that the High School marching band was practicing while we were running! That was pretty cool I felt like I was flying down the track and that the band was playing for me! lol
I did a 1/2 mile cool down after that and then cooled down a little bit more by jogging with Kennedy, Andrea's little girl.

I finished the workout feeling really good.. not wiped out but knowing I got in a great workout!

Still not finished.......

Next I drove over to Michele's house and we walked at a quick pace for about 50 minutes.

Steamy Run

I had seriously thought about taking Monday off after my Sunday long run, long bike day, but after discussing it with Michele we decided that a slow easy 3 or 4 miler would be good.
Kelly, Arland, Jane, Karen and I all met at Michele's house at 6:30. Abbie and Alex were also running with us which would ensure that we would take it easy, actually I should correct that Alex was running Abbie was biking.
It was a pretty warm day yesterday and at 6:30 it was 87 but kind of cloudy and looked like it might rain.
The first mile was torture, my left hip/hip flexor was really painful and that seemed to have an effect on my whole left side. My shin, hamstring and ankle all felt very tight, but I just kept plugging away and eventaually once I warmed up most of the pain went away. We did a lot of circling back for Michele and Alex it seems that sir Alex was not having a good night!! Once or twice the others would take a quick walk/water break but I was afraid to stop, I had this fear that if I ever stopped to walk I wouldn't be able to run again. I ended up doing a LOT of running back and forth and we ran around the cul d sac several times!! About two miles into the run it started raining, we were all cheering, so happy for a little relief from the heat and humidity. Unfortunately the rain didn't last very long, just long enough to cause the streets to steam and the rest of the run felt like we were running in a steam bath!!!
With all of the running back and forth, circling back and just the general feeling of slowness I wasn't expecting much when I checked my Garmin at the end of the run to see what our avg. pace was.. so I was THRILLED when I ended up with 4.4 miles at a 10:30 avg. pace :)
Why 4.4 you might ask???? Because of all my back and forth and circling back I ended up with more miles than Jane and Kelly so I kept running with them until they got to 4 miles. I had about a split second thought of finishing up 5 miles, but no one else wanted to and I really was DONE!!
We probably walked a good 1/2 mile if not more afterwards to cool down.... between the rain and the steam we were soaking wet!!!
I felt much better when I got home, the run really did seem to work some of the soreness out! I just wish I would have done a better job of stretching... I really need to work on that.

Sunday run... bike..bike

Because of the 5K on Saturday a group of us moved our long run to Sunday morning.
We were meeting at 5:30 at the elementary school. I thought it would just be Me, Kelly, Bailey, Michele and Jane but we actually had a good size group. The Davis brothers came to run with us and brought along J.J. we also had Melisha and Danielle.
It was another beautiful morning, not quite as cool as Saturday morning had been but very nice. I had asked Brenda "The Route Master" for advice on a 14 mile route. She e-mailed it to me and I printed off a couple of copies. I knew when I saw it that we were in for a HILLY run but that's what we need so we just have to suck it up!
Gary and Melisha took the lead and after a minute or two we never saw them again and it turns out they missed a turn and made up their own route. Melisha is in taper for her Ironman in Oklahoma in two weeks and Gary just finished Ironman Louisville in Kentucky last weekend so I thought they were a good pair, plus Gary was the only one in this particular group who could run her pace.
The rest of us ran together for about the first mile and then we all started breaking out in little groups or partnerships. Kelly, Danielle, Bailey, Jane and I ran together for a long time, but then Kelly and Danielle had a little more gas in the tank and ended the run together just ahead of us.

It was a tough run, I felt the 5K from Saturday in my legs... nothing major just a little fatigued. We kept up a decent pace for the first 9 miles but then my stomach did it's thing. Actually it wasn't too bad and I never had to come to a complete stop, I just had to take a couple unplanned walk breaks to let it calm down. Luckily we were headed back to the school and gas station so I was able to make a pit stop. Sometimes after a pit stop I feel great and can usually run faster, but sometimes the opposite happens. Unfortunately this time it was the not good feeling, I know this is T.M.I but I felt like I could have stayed in that bathroom for much longer, but I was worried about everyone waiting on me. Because of the pit stop we had altered the running route and now were just winging the last 4 miles. Unfortunately I never recovered from the break and only ended up with 13 miles the last three of which were pure torture!!
I really do need to figure out this nutrition thing... I know that 14 miles on an empty stomach isn't a good thing. I had 2 or 3 honey stingers during the run and it just wasn't enough to keep me going.

As I was approaching the school parking lot I saw Brenda drive up. We were meeting at 9:00am for a 25-30 mile bike ride, actually there was a whole big group meeting.
After chatting for a little while with Michele, Gary, Curtis and Brenda I realized we had a lot of time before the other bikers would arrive. I asked Brenda if she wanted to go to Mt. Mudd with me and get Sugar Free White Chocolate ice coffee. I didn't have to ask twice!! so we hopped in my car and got our iced coffee's. Tyler was working and started lecturing me about not eating, Brenda had already been telling me I needed something to eat and she suggested I call Arland and have him bring me a pop-tart. I don't know if it was the double shots of espresso in our iced coffee's or the sugar in the pop-tart but I did feel much better after having both!!

There were a lot of hard core bikers in this group and Brenda and I knew all along that we weren't even going to try to bike with them. We did start off on the same route they were taking but when they had dropped us within seconds of starting we decided we would go on our normal 27 mile route. The advantage of our route is although it has plenty of hills it also has some roads that we can socialize on...if we had followed the others we would of had to stay single file the whole time and that's no fun!
We didn't "hammer" like the other bikers but we definately rode hard and we only took one break and that's when Arland called to ask if Bailey was with us. She had dropped back from the hard core group, well it turns out i had missed a call from her so I called and she said the other group were just being maniacs and she decided she didn't want to play with them so she had turned around thinking she would ride with me and Brenda, but unfortunately she didn't know we had gone another way. She was o.k, she had gone back to her car and was actually almost home when I called her. I wish she would have turned back sooner so that she could have ridden with us.
There is about a 6 or 7 mile stretch of hwy where the traffic is usually really light and it is kind of flat so I practiced getting down in my aero bars. I still feel nervous first going down in them but yesterday once I was there I was o.k. and I managed to ride for probably 5 or so miles.
Phil had stuck with us for the first 15 or so miles of the ride but then he wanted to experiment and ride as hard as he could for the last 10 or so miles and once he started pedaling hard it didn't take long for us to lose him.

We had already decided before the ride even began that we were going to go back to Mt. Mudd on our bikes and get another iced coffee so when we got back to the intersection of 321 and 89 we just kept on going straight up hwy 89 to Mt. Mudd. Seriously you would not believe how good a sugar free white chocolate ice coffee is after 30 miles on the bike... on a hot day!! We put our coffee's in our water bottles and then we headed to Michele's house so that Brenda could see her new bike. We had perfect timing they had just gotten home from Church.
We stayed a few minutes and admired Isabella and then it was time to head back to our cars.
If it were not for Brenda I would not get in as many biking miles as I do... there is no way I can keep up with Arland and the rest of that crazy group and I know me, I would get so frustrated that I just wouldn't ride.
I look forward to our Sunday morning bike rides all week!! Thank you Brenda for being such a great biking partner... and great friend!

It was right around noon when we said our good-byes and headed our seperate ways, Brenda home to garden and me home to get a quick bite to eat and then head out on another bike ride. Yes another one, I hadn't quite tortured my legs enough yet.
I was meeting James and Michele along with the regular 1:30 on Sunday group. They meet at a gas station on Hwy 5 and then ride all over the hills out in the County.
It was hot and I was getting a little cranky... when David told us what the route was I just wanted to cry, there was no way I could ride 45 more miles!! Heck I was going to be lucky to get in another 20.
I told James I don't think I can do it and he said we would just wing it... so we all started out together well I thought we were together. I didn't realize that I had left James and Michele behind. This was Michele and Isabella's first ride together and they were getting adjusted to each other. When we came to the first turn on the route I was with Lisa Ford and I said I'm going to go back for Michele, but then I saw her and James so I turned back around again, went off in the grass and only crashed... and then they just keep going. HELL now I had to scramble and try to catch up to them. I don't know where that burst of energy came from but it didn't take me too long to catch them but when I did.. well I was tired!! I told them they had missed the turn but we weren't planning on riding the same route anyway so we just kept going. We were riding along one stretch of road and had just come around a curve when all of a sudden about 4 or 5 dogs started chasing us luckily it was a slight downhill so that helped. This whole road was nothing but hills luckily there were also some great downhill sections, well actually we didn't find it so lucky on the way back!
At about 8.5 miles we came to a church with a nice big shade tree so we took a break. We were about to turn onto a fairly busy road and I said I didn't like the idea of riding on it and Michele said why don't we just turn around now. Sounded good to me so that's exactly what we did.
Remember the pack of dogs I told you about... well this time we had to go uphill as we passed them, the only advantage we had was we knew where they were so we started pedaling really hard, by the time we lost them as we were going up the hill I was dead !! I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The thing that saved me was a beautiful long down hill, we were able to coast down it and recover.
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful and we made it back to the store in one piece. Michele and I went into the gas station and we both got something to drink, a diet mt. dew for me and a package of almond M&M's. We found a little bench to sit on and we just hung out in front of the gas station waiting on the boys to come back. I'm sure we were quite a sight sitting there in our bike gear all hot and sweaty, we sure got a lot of strange looks from people going in and out of the gas station. LOL

Total's for Sunday
13.1 run miles
49 bike miles

Sara Low Memorial 5K

Saturday was a beautiful morning for a race!! When we arrived in Batesville 7:00 it was 57 degrees and partly cloudy my favorite running conditions!
As everyone knows I have a lot of issues with my stomach while running so I rarely if ever eat any thing before a run. Sometimes this works for me and sometimes it doesn't I would say today it wasn't such a good idea to skip breakfast.
The course was very challenging steep uphills and downhills. We warmed up on some of the hills before the race and I had a bad feeling then that this wasn't going to go well. After our warm up I ran to the bathroom and then there was a memorial service for Sara Low. The main reason I wanted to run this race was because of the special meaning... I knew I wasn't going to PR or even have a good finishing time. My goal was to run all the hills and just treat the run portion as hill training.
After listening to some beautiful songs... Josh Groban's "You lift me Up" and Bette Midler's "Wind Beneath My Wings" sung by a local woman with a beautiful voice! I was pretty choked up, but then they had a very entergetic guy from a local health club warm us up and that was fun. It made me miss the old days of Jazzercise!!!

At the start of the race we ran under the American Flag and past the Fire trucks... an awesome way to start a race!!
Right away it was a VERY steep downhill and after my experience with some of the steep downhills in San Francisco I was afraid to take it very fast. After the downhill there was no flat, it immediately went into a long uphill and pretty much that describes the whole course... up down, up down, up down.
After the first couple of hill climbs I felt like my gas tank sunk to empty very fast... I wasn't dizzy but I just was running low on energy. It was a weird sensation but I've felt it before and I knew i wasn't going to pass out so I just kept running. At the water stop I did get a cup of water and tried to drink it while running but that didn't work.. all I did was get water in my shoes and not my mouth!! I slowed down and took just a couple of steps just enough to get a small sip of water. I was afraid to drink very much on an empty stomach.
The best part of the race was just before we got to the turn around and I got to see some of our runners coming towards me... I saw Bailey and called out to her and she ran over and we low fived as she passed by. I think she gave me a little bit of energy, or maybe it was just a nice boost seeing everyone. Unfortunately it didnt' last very long and then we were faced with a very long hill climb... which was made worse because I thought we still had another really steep one at the end. I was really fading so I thought I will walk part of this hill so that I can run the last one. Just before the crest of the hill I saw Marathon Boy and the lady beside me asked if this was the last hill, I said no I don't think so but I asked Jacob and he said yes it's the last one... well hell what was I conserving energy for??? So I started running again, slowly at first and then I could see the entrance to the track and they had cheerleaders out there cheering us in... that was nice! When we got on the track and i saw how close the finish line was I somehow was able to sprint to the finish line. It felt really really good and I could hear Curtis and Bailey cheering for me. I felt such a rush when I crossed the finish line, but when I saw the time I was a little dissapointed. I knew it was going to be terrible but it was worse than I had thought!!! Oh well I did have that feeling that i was going to throw up so I guess I left everything out on the course, or at least on the track. Finishing time was 31:44.
I had 1/2 an orange and grabbed some water and was just walking around when I saw the free massage tent, there were only a couple of people in line so I grabbed a spot and waited. The winner of the race Leah Thorvilson was behind me in line and she is very nice... very friendly, which you don't always see in the really fast runners.

The massage was AWESOME... the massage therapist asked where I hurt, and although I wasn't hurting at that moment I told her that my hip flexors usually hurt after a run. It reminded me a lot of the massage I got after the Bass Pro 10K... she got into my pelvic/hip flexor area not sure the technical term but at one point she put pressure on a certain spot and I could feel almost instant relief!! It was definately worth the 20 minute wait!!

It wasnt' too long after the massage when they started the awards ceremony. We got to cheer for several Cruisers who won awards.
Arland and I had to leave pretty quickly after that, we were headed to the Sporty Runner in Conway. We had received an e-mail earlier in the week notifying us that the Mizuno rolling lab was going to be there on Saturday. You can just imagine how dissapointed we were after that long drive to arrive and find out they weren't taking any more names :(
We went into the Sporty Runner and it was packed, so I just bought a pair of my favorite running socks and we left.
By the time we got home we were both pretty exhausted, I had fallen asleep in the car and it took everything I had to make it through the door..I headed to the recliner and Arland headed to the bedroom and we both took naps!

Thursday evening run - Friday Bike shopping

Thursday I met Jane and Michele at Michele's house. Jane was going to be a little late and Michele's son Alex really wanted to run with us so I suggested he do our first mile. We mostly ran around the cul-d-sac and luckily at a slowish pace. My legs were very sore from Buns & Ab's class on Wednesday night so I really needed a good warm up.
Once Jane arrived we headed out through the neighborhoods, Michele once again was full of pent up speed and Jane and I just tried to stay as close to her as possible. I think if someone had been watching from a distance they might have thought Jane and I were chasing Michele and she was running away from us as fast as possible, ok maybe that's just what I was imagining it looked like, cause that is about how it felt. The next 4 miles were at a very steady pace with no walk breaks, other than one stop for traffic. Our average pace for the 5 miles was 10:06 the first mile was 11:02 and the rest were under 10min.
Karen was meeting us for the next section of the run we weren't sure of the exact mileage other than we knew we wanted at least 8 miles.
Karen is a new runner and still building endurance so the next 4 miles were at a slower pace. My legs had started to stiffen up a little bit and I was really feeling the soreness from the B&A class so I was happy for the slower pace. Alex was running with us again and Abbie was following us on her bike. I just love those kids and they were a very welcome addition to our run!!! Alex would go back and forth between running with me, his mom and Karen. We were usually all kind of strung out with Abbie riding back and forth between us.
As we were approaching "Michele's Hill" Michele turned to me and said come on... well my brain said no, I am too tired and too sore to charge up that hill, but then my heart said oh come let's at least try.. andI did and it felt so good to fly up that hill, it felt like old times! Last winter we always flew up all the hills but sometime during the late spring early summer I lost my hill legs. I hope last night was a good sign that they are coming back to me. We had one more small hill and then just about .25 of a mile back to Michele's house, I was feeling good from the fast hill climb and starting just pushing the pace and Michele was right by me and then we were just flying side by side and it felt so good.. almost effortless, well ok not effortless I was breathing pretty hard, but I definately had that "Runner's High" thing going on. It was the perfect way to end a fantastic run!! And what a good feeling to be able to run that fast at the end of a 9 mile run!

Today I went to Michele's about 11:00 and after a stop at Mountain Mudd we headed to Jonesboro to pick up her new bike. Jonesboro is about 1.5 hours from Cabot, but Michele and James have family there and happened to pick out her bike a couple of weekends ago when they were up visiting.
Michele had James call ahead to make sure her bike was ready and he reported back that yes they said it was.
We stopped in Searcy for a quick bite to eat and the the rest of the trip flew by in the blink of an eye... or I guess I could say at the speed of chat.
I have never been to Jonesboro and was suprised to see what a cool town it is, or at least the part where the Bike shop was located.
Things started going downhill right away.. the guy says I hope I put the right bike together for you and proceeds to pull down a bike. We are looking at it and first I noticed it was a 51cm bike and then it was like wait a minute this isn't the right bike this is a Dolce.. not a Dolce Elite. The guy says oh no problem I can build the Elite in 25 minutes.... well he goes in the back to get the Dolce Elite and guess what... they haven't even come in yet!!!! WHAT.... I can just imagine the look's on mine and Michele's faces, we had driven 1.5 hours for nothing??????
So the bike guy say's well I have a Dolce Comp, which is a level above the Elite, and he pulls the frame out of the box and it is a really pretty blue. He say's if you want this one I will give you a discount, so Michele say's O.K. We were thinking it is going to take 25 minutes, well about 2 hours and 25 minutes later it is done. O.K. well maybe I exaggerate a little bit, maybe it was only 2 hours later. There were lot's of cool little shops we could have been visiting but we thought it was only going to take 25 minutes so we waited in the bike shop that whole time!!!!!

It was worth the wait... they fitted Michele on her new bike and it is a beautiful bike and fit's just right.

Finally we are done!! Next stop is Michele's Sister and Brother in-law's house for a quick visit. They have a beautiful home in a Golf Course/Country Club community and I got the grand tour. Next we stopped at Michele's Father and Step Mother-in-law's house, also very nice people!!
I guess it was about 6:00 when we were finally headed home... well after a quick stop at Chic Filet for a yummy grilled chick sandwich!!
When we got back to Michele's house I took a quick spin on Isabella and she really was worth the wait.
I had a great day.. sure it had a few bumpy spots but I got to hang out with Michele, meet family and was on hand for Isabella's debut.

I better get to bed, have to get up early to head to Batesville for the Sara Low 5K tomorrow morning.

Running with Gustav

The remnants of Hurrican Gustav have been soaking central Arkansas since Monday night. The Tuesday Flyer's Clinic was cancelled due to the wind and rain, I personally was very relieved I was feeling tired and sore from the three day Labor Day weekend. Instead of being a good girl and running on the treadmill, I decided to meet Kelly at Starbuck's. We had a nice girls chat over grande Vivano chocolate banana protein shakes. For much of the spring and early summer Kelly and I would meet at Starbucks every Sunday evening, but with vacations and changing schedules we haven't been able to go so it was really nice to get to spend a couple hours together just hanging out and chatting.

Wednesday morning Jane texted me at 5:00am to say she thought it would be best if we cancelled our run... she and I were the only one's left who were even considering it so after I got her text I just went back to bed. I forgot to reset my alarm and the next thing you know it is 7:45 and Arland is waking me up.

The rain and wind just kept coming all day Wednesday, we lost power at work for about an hour and a half. I had resigned myself to just running on the treadmill at home, but then I got an e-mail from Brenda. Cindy was challenging/inviting us to go for a run in the rain after Bun's & Ab's class. I seriously did not want to run outside, there was debris all over the roads lot's of roads were flooded etc. I told Brenda I would go to class and then we would play it by ear as far as an outside run. I had called Michele and she was up for whatever, except treadmill running.
Lot's of familiar faces at B&A class... Cindy, Heather, Michele, Isabella (new runner) and myself. It wasn't one of the better classes but there were a few things we did that I know I am going to feel later today!!!
Brenda didn't do the class, she can't really get to Cabot by 5:30 but her plan was to run on the treadmill until class was over.
I had to change into my running skirt and when I came out of the bathroom Cindy was on a treadmill... I said so you guys changed your mind or something like that and Brenda and Cindy both said it was too windy outside. I took that to mean they didn't want to run outside so I went downstairs to meet Michele to see what she wanted to do. I should have know that my nature girl was of course going to want to run in the rain... so off we went.

Once we got our Garmins synched up we were off, since it was raining we just started running and running fast from the very beginning. When we came to our first water puddle I kind of hopped over it.. Michele looked over at me, shook her head and said "oh by the way, it's wet out here" LOL point taken. After that we looked for as many puddles as we could find and believe me there were ton's!! Some were really deep and as we were running by the tennis courts it was kind of like running through a River. Also as we were running by the tennis courts we saw a huge branch come crashing down... it was really kind of cool and scary at the same time. After that I told Michele we needed to stay away from trees!!!
The run was going ok.. I started feeling a weird tightness in my left shin and foot so finally I told Michele I was going to have to stop for a second and adjust my shoe. I guess I had it tied too tight and it was having a weird affect on my leg because after I adjusted and retied everything was much better.
We were running at a very good pace, it was hard but we were only planning a short run so I just tried to keep up with Michele.
We did have to stop at HWY 89 for traffic and it was a good minute or more before we could cross the street.
After we crossed over 89 we were in old neighborhood with lot's of trees!! sheesh I thought we were going to avoid trees??? LOL There were several Entergy work crews out working on downed power lines... I know they thought we were crazy but they were nice and we got some smiles from a couple of those guys. The people driving by didn't see as friendly and we got sprayed on several occasions.
We were finally crossing back over 89 and on our way back to the Community Center... I had three miles and mentally was done, but by the time we got to the junction where we could have taken a short cut we had 3.3 miles and Michele said don't you want 4??? Of course I did! Right at 3.83 my stomach acted up and I had to stop and cross my legs.. I was so MAD!! but luckily once I let it calm down it was ok and i was able to catch up with Michele and finish with no emergencies.
Our average pace for 4 miles was 10:18. I would love to know what it would have been if we hadn't had to stop and wait on traffic and my stomach incident. Oh well it was a great run!!! The whole time we were running we kept saying how great it was... I could have done without the heavy winds!!! There were a couple of times when I actually felt like we were running backwards it was so hard! but running in the rain was actually fun!

I called Brenda on my way home and she had a miserable run on the Treadmill and she didn't realize we went outside to run, she thought we had changed our minds too and gone to Latin Dance class. I think if she would have known we were going outside whe would have gone with us.....

I have some miles to make up so hopefully we will get a longish run in this evening... it looks like Gustav has moved on so hopefully we will dry out soon.

The rest of the weekend....

So what better way to follow a 5K race and long bike ride than a long run, o.k well a longish run.
We had 10-12 miles on the schedule for Sunday. We had a 10 mile route planned with a 6:00am meeting time. The great thing about this route was the fact that it had a bathroom at the 3 mile mark, actually this was a 3 mile + 7 mile route. It worked perfect since several people had different mileage needs for Sunday. Andrea needed 10 and she was meeting Melisha who needed 20 they arranged to meet at 5:00am they would run the 7 mile route together and meet us at 6:00 run the 3 mile route and then Andrea would be done and Melisha who needed 20 miles would run the rest of the route with us... well not me she is very very fast!!
I decided that I would go to the school early and run 2 miles before everyone else arrived and then hopefully if I had any stomach issues I could take care of them before the 6:00am start time. I told Jane my idea and she said she would meet me. I was very thankful especially when the alarm went off at 4:00am and I didn't want to get up, knowing Jane would be waiting on me made me get out of the bed!
It was actually very nice when we first started running at 5:25, about 70 degrees and breezy. We started off by walking, I had turned my garmin on and started jogging but then remembered that we had discussed warming up with a walk. I left my garmin on anyway since this was just about getting warmed up. We still averaged a 10:33 pace for the 2 miles which I thought was great!!!
The warm up run did it's job and we ran over to the gas station so I could make a pit stop, and then we got back to the school just in time to meet everyone.
We had a pretty good size group... Brenda, Tri-Lisa, Cindy(for 3 miles)Mark O.,Kelly, Robert, me and Jane.
First up was the 3 mile Candlewood loop, I normally don't like this route but it was o.k. this time and no problems, good grief how could I forget that Jackie also came with us!! She is battling some serious health issues but she is still training to possibly run the Memphis 1/2 or whole marathon and she is also doing the Goofy Challenge at Disney World in January.
Jackie mostly ran with us but with her walk/run plan she would sometimes be behind or ahead of us mostly ahead but we had some nice stretches where she ran with us and we got to talk quite a bit. She is a good example of how well the Galloway plan can work, she is a very fast runner so even with taking 2 walk breaks each mile she was still faster than me!
We didn't take any walk breaks the first 3 miles, mostly because I knew I would stop at the gas station at the end of the route.
Jackie ran to her car while I took my pit stop and then we all met up again at the corner and now we had Heather with us.
The 7 mile route is Mt. Carmel to Dogwood to Mt. Tabor to Hwy 89. Very hilly and plenty of traffic.
As we were running up one of the many hills on Mt. Carmel I said to Jane when we get to Dogwood we will take a water break, well I didn't realize at the time how far away that was!! But we ran up every hill and didn't stop until we got to Dogwood. While on Mt. Carmel a Van had sped past us going at least 80 mph, we were all like what is the deal with this guy!! We all kind of threw our hands up in the air at him like are you crazy... well guess who went speeding by us again when we turned on Dogwood... yes it was the white van and he was driving just as fast, and Dogwood is a much narrower road with a 25 mile an hour speed limit!! Our main concern was our other runners who were up ahead of us!!
Also just before we got to Dogwood we saw an ambulance headed that way... this was before the van. Of course all I could think was OMG Brenda and the others are on that road... I hope they are O.K!! I was also mad at myself because I always run with my phone but I didn't have it Sunday morning.
We don't know where the ambulance went but all of our runners were fine.

After Dogwood is Mt. Tabor, this is a very busy road with almost no shoulder and constant hills!
The whole last .5 mile before you get to hwy 89 is a constant incline, and at this point I was starting to fall apart!! I was really kind of upset with myself and started the negative self talk, you know, the good grief why do I think I can run a marathon when I can't even run 10 miles kind of self talk. Luckily at some point I remembered what I had done the day before so I felt a little better. I also didn't do a great job of nutrition! I know that I didn't take in as many calories as I burned on Saturday and I never eat in the mornings before a run, I was probably running on a calorie deficit and all I had consumed so far that morning were 2 honey stinger chews.
When we finally made it to Hwy 89 I thought I was done, I had started trudging or as Marianne calls it slogging. Finally when we got to 11 miles I got mad at myself and said good grief Annette you can run a freaking mile so somehow I was able to pick up the pace and ran the last half mile pretty fast!!
Jane was with me for the whole run, she could have easily left me behind but she never did.
When we hit 12 miles we followed the Scarlata rule and stopped our Garmins and started walking. We had thought we were going to get more of a walk but we were almost at the gas station by the school when we finished.
Because we had added on our 2 miles early we were able to get back to the school at about the same time as Brenda and Melisha who had to add on at the end.
Avg pace for the first 2 miles was 10:33
Avg pace for the next 10 miles was 10:40
1- 10:17
2- 10:26
3- 10:11
4- 10:39
5- 10:28
6- 11:37 - walk break
7- 10:18
8- 11-25 - walk break
9- 10:52... starting to fall apart
10- 9:13... just wanted to finish
Although I had started to feel pretty bad during the last part of the run I was very happy with my avg. pace and splits. It was a very hilly route and I hadn't really recovered from my long bike ride the day before.
After the run Brenda, Heather and I went to Starbuck's in Jacksonville. I talked Brenda into trying the new Vivano Protein drinks they have and then when Heather saw them and tasted mine she went back and got one for herself. They are the perfect recovery drink! Skim milk, a whole banana, whey protein and fiber. I of course I also have to get a shot of espresso!!! :) gotta have my coffee. I like them better than the Frappacino and if you get it with a shot it isn't as thick.
Heather couldn't stay long but Brenda and I sat outside and chatted for quite a while. My car said 8:07 when we were headed to Jacksonville and I think it was 10:07 when I got back in my car to go home.

When I got home I started on laundry and other chores, I made the mistake of sitting in the recliner in the red room, it was supposed to just be for a minute and then the next think I know I am waking up from a 45 minute nap!!
The rest of the day was consumed with watching the live Ironman feed and keeping up with Gary's progress.
I did jump in the pool for a little while later in the afternoon and then Arland and I had take out from Colton's. Salmon, salad and a baked sweet potato.
We ate our dinner sitting on the couch watching the Ironman feed... we weren't sure when Gary was going to come in and we did not want to miss him. I was constantly texting with Michele, and also Brenda a little bit and Arland was texting back and forth with Rock, who was getting some updates from Curtis. It was all very exciting but also tense... we were worried about Gary it had taken him longer on the bike than we expected, and then his Marathon splits were slower than normal for him. It was such a sigh of relief when we finally saw him cross the finish line.. and he looked great! He was pumping his fists in the air and had a big smile on his face. I called him about an hour later and he told me a little about his race... the main thing is he was happy!!!!

Labor Day....
I decided to meet Joan and her group for their Monday run, normally they meet at 8:15 but we were able to talk them into 7:00am. Sure meeting at 8:15 would have meant getting to sleep in quite a bit but it is just too hot to start that late in the morning!!
The run was posted on the Forum and we had a huge group!! Vicki counted and we had 21 runners :) I really wish I could have gotten a picture of all of us running up 321! I started off o.k, and was running with Kelly, Heather, Jamie, Jane, and Vicki. But by the time we got to Cherry I was really struggling... the heat, the busy weekend, everything conspired against me!! We were running the "Cherry loop" and of course just like most of our routes it's got some good hills in it!
Somehow or another I was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other and although I did have to take some walk breaks I managed to finish on my feet and not crawling in on my knees!! LOL
We have a couple of new girls that ran with us for part of our run this morning... Aracely and Isabella, both very friendly it was nice to have them along!!
I was really proud of myself that I actually kept running when we got back to the church parking lot, I was just at 4.86 and it would have been so easy to just stop and call it good, but I really wanted that even number!! LOL
5 miles 11:02 avg pace
1-10:10
2-11:29
3-10:27
4-12:01
5-10:59

Several people had run over 6 and some a little less than 5 and we all kind of got back to the Church around the same time.
A big group of us headed to Starbuck's and Brenda and I talked most of them into trying the new Vivano protein drink... my plan is to get everyone addicted to them so they keep in on the menu!! Vicki wouldn't try one but Joan did and she really liked it! The manager came outside to see how we all liked the Vivano's I think 5 or 6 people ordered them. Everyone said how good they were and she said great and walked back in... a few minutes later she came back out and gave us all coupons for free drinks :)
It was great chatting with everyone.. it's great to get a big group of runners together after a run, all those running endorphin's make for lively conversations!!

I had to go to Wal-Mart for groceries etc. and since Starbuck's is right next door it was perfect! I ran into Brenda in there and we ended up doing our grocery shopping together.

The rest of today has kind of been a blur... I haven't gotten anything constructive done, and if I sat down for too long I would fall asleep, but I never slept for very long because either the phone was ringing or the doorbell or Arland was coming and going...

It was a great 3 day weekend and I'm not ready for it to be over, but in a way I guess I am ready to go back to work so I can get some rest!!!!