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!!