12 miles on a beautiful morning!

The house is empty so I've got a few minutes to get online! Met everybody (Kathy, Patti, Kathy) at Panera to do the FitClub south and back route.. Jill was meeting us up at the wabash trail head up off of Wabash ave where the water is usually sat out. She had lots of things going on today and needed to get a little bit shorter run in.

It was a beautiful, cool morning and quite the change from last Saturday!! We met at 6:00 and it was just us there to start out, but when we were headed back from FitClub and stopped at the water stop on the trailhead, there were lots of familiar faces who were running 8 today. They were abe amblers who are keeping up the mileage to do Decatur in a few weeks. Mary, Penny, Nancy, lots of people! And as we turned off the trail and looked back, there were even more coming in! Kevin and Kaiden took to the trail out by us to do 7, as he's keeping up the mileage too.


12 felt really good this morning and I am enjoying the tapering.. just a couple more weeks!!


Got home last night and decided to take a good look at all my outside flowers ... thinking fall here.. to see if any maintenance needed to be done. A little early yet, but did get some dead heading and weeding taken care of. I was pleasantly surprised when I noticed that one of the seculants in my big strawberry pot had bloomed! I noticed the stalk coming up a week or so ago, but didn't know it would bloom!! Took a couple of pictures:

Friday Football Fun

Last night the CCFL Chatham Titans had a football game against the Springfield Steelers out at Community Park; their first home game! The day started with Kaiden coming to me yesterday morning yelling "Mom! Mom! I get to wear my football jersey to school today!! Coach said!" For a split second I was back in high school on game day thinking how cool those guys looked in their jerseys! I couldn't wait to see him head off to school in his! Kevin, being a football player for Lanphier, thought it was neat too and told him how he got to do the same thing on game day..


We were to be out at the field by 5:00 so we had to hustle after school but we made it. They were just getting the concession stand open and the smell of freshly popped popcorn wafted through the air. They lit up the big score board and set the clock to count down to game time. 49:00. Plenty of time for setting up the field and getting the team warmed up. With 15 minutes left we were wondering where the Steelers were! Shouldn't they be here by now? Finally they started trickling onto the field and by game time it looked like their whole team had arrived. Hmmm.. no warming up? That's a little odd! Turns out they didn't need to warm up!

Kaiden plays a couple of different positions for offense. He's either a tight end, linebacker or, at least in practice, running back. Last night he was on the kicking team subbing for a team mate who was out of town. He played the entire first half for the kicking team and tight end. He was having a lot of fun out there and made his first tackle in a game! Yeah for him! The second half he rotated in for tight end. We ended up loosing the game (by a lot!) but that's alright.. Springfield teams have a reputation for being really good! And now our record is 1-1.

I was mostly taking video last night, but did take one picture. Kaiden is one of the red helmets!

grumpy 5 miles

You know you've been running a lot when having to get up to run some more makes you grumpy!! Oh yea, getting up out of bed for another run was not top on my list, but I knew it had to be done and it made me grumpy! By the time I got done and back home I was fine, but I AM getting tired of running.. probably because I've done 2 20 milers in a row with lots of mileage in between.. that's a lot of running! Only 12 (only?????) Saturday and then 8 the next so I'm sure I'll snap out of this 'tired of running' mood since the mileage is going down..

And just because I'm tired of running at the moment in know way whatsoever means I'm not looking forward to my 1st marathon! (Did I just say 1st?? hmmmm) That's what is getting me out the door on mornings like today! Just the thought of accomplishing something like that, crossing that finish line, after 19 weeks of training, with my 'cheering section' there at the end?? Words can't describe it!

ps. And I do really enjoy running, I swear!

4 miles...

4 miles checked off the schedule this morning.. nice run at a 10:13 pace. And that's all I have to say about that! :-)

cold 5 mile run

Sure does seem like Fall is in the air! Didn't even think about putting a tank on this morning, went straight for a T-shirt.. and I'm glad I did! It felt great tho and with the slight wind, it seemed just like an October morning.. only thing missing was the rustling of dried leaves.

So another 5 mile run is done.. have I mentioned how much Hal Higdon loves 5 miles runs? Oh yeah, I did last week when I had to do 3 of them in a row... But I'm just about to the end of them(yes!!!) .. tomorrow is 4 tho then another 5 Thursday. Next week is 4,3 and 4..

People have been starting to ask me if I'm getting tired of running.. And I answer with an astounding YES! 2.5 weeks can't get here fast enough!!! I'm ready and I want to get it done. I never have been very patient...

Loved this......

This was part of an email from Chris. Thought it was well worth sharing:

When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you're the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

BIB #2433

Checked the website to find out my Bib Number.. 2433

The end of the long runs!!

WOW! It's done! The long runs are finished and it's time to cut back. Those 17 weeks really, really went by fast. Am I glad?? Ohhhhhhhh yeah!!!!

Met the 'girls', Kathy, Patti and Kathy at IDOT at 6:00 a.m. to run the trail.. They had another long run to do to get ready for Lewis and Clark and I had my last long run. Kevin was going to meet me later to finish up what I had to do and get in a nice long run himself.. Kaiden was going to a 10:00 birthday party at MidState Gymnastics for our neighbors' sons birthday and they offered to take him with them, so Kevin dropped him off early and headed to IDOT about 8:00.

10 miles on a bike is too much to ask of the little guy and this Birthday party thing worked out perfectly!!

The 'girls' and I ran to Rochester and back for about 10.5 miles and had a pretty decent run. Early on it wasn't too warm out yet and the shade from the trees on the trail helped, although there was absolutely no breeze at all from being surrounded by trees and that wasn't good! When we'd hit a little clearing we could feel the breeze but it wasn't very often at all.. We managed and got the 10.5 done.. good job ladies!!

Next up was Kevin and he ran 9.5 with me! I did another 20 total and he ran his longest ever, 9.5! He's working his way up to that spring half marathon, I'm tellin' ya! It was really hot and humid and without any breeze under that canapy of trees it was stiffling. Thick air, no breeze, hot! yikes!! Very very hard... we were totally drenched with sweat.. We took a couple of walk breaks (I needed them more than him!) and we got the 9.5/20 done! My pace for all 20 was between 10:00 - 10:40, which I'm very happy with.. Especially considering the humidty in that trail..

So no more long runs, and the marathon is in three weeks. The big question is, am I ready??

And I think I am! I can never be sure how any run is going to go, but based on my 'crazy long' runs recently I'm as ready as I'm going to get, and feel fairly confident. I've done 2o twice, so I feel good about getting two under my belt. It's that last 6 that scares me!! But with the crowd and being caught up in the atmosphere of the whole thing, hopefully that will be enough to carry me those last 6!!

My beer is getting warm!..........................

good 5 miles

Went out this morning and did another 5 miles.. Hal Higdon sure does love 5 mile training runs!! I've had more 5 mile runs than any other distance... Last week as three 5 miles runs with 20 Saturday and since I added a 22 mile week, I stuck with the 5 mile runs.. only got 2 in this week tho..

It was raining a little when I headed out but it felt good.. and it was dark for almost the entire run and even at 6:00 when I was done it was completely light out.. sad to say but the days are getting shorter.. I love Fall but not sure I'm ready to give up summer yet!

Had a good run at a 10:09 pace so I think the inhaler is working.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6566138

Ready to run again..

So I went to the Doctor yesterday to see why I've had this tickle in my lungs and a cough since I got done running 20 miles Saturday. During the whole entire run I couldn't get my breathing under control. I was practically gasping for air. Usually it takes me a mile or two to settle into a steady breathing but not Saturday. Afterwards I started to blame it on dehydration from too many margarita's Thursday night, but when the cough started, I knew something else was up..

I didn't stop coughing until Monday night but still have a tickle in my lungs. Well I told myself I'm to close now to just wait it out plus having once been told I have mild asthma, I thought I better go get it checked out. He agreed that we need to take care of it and set me up on Advair (an inhaler) and have had 3 doses of it. So far it's working great and the tickle is almost completely gone..

I'm running today at lunch for the first time since Saturday and hopefully it will go OK...

UPDATE:

and it did go OK... Did the scheduled 5 miles at lunch.. I had to stop a few times at stoplights and at the first stop I started coughing.. great, here we go.. I thought, but the rest of the time I didn't.. that's a good sign.. I went slow to sort of 'test the waters' and I felt alright...
tomorrow a.m. is another 5 then 22 Saturday. That will be the real test!!

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6560912

Abe's Amble - a great day for PR's

Yesterday was the annual Abe's Amble 10K at the FairGrounds and it was a perfect day for a race. Cool, almost chilly in fact, with NO humidity. For Abe's, it can't get better than that!!! Kevin trained all summer with the Abe's Army with Joy and Ali as their main leaders. They'd trained between an 8:00 and a 9:00 pace depending on the distance so he was shooting for somewhere between that.


He headed out early and Kaiden and I left about an hour later and went to Lincoln Park to watch and cheer everyone on. We got their about 10 minutes before the start of the race and Kaiden was occupying himself by having me time him in little 'mini races'... He was anxious to see his Dad run by so the 'races' took care of that!






Before long the lead police car came in to the park and we started cheering everyone on.. I was a little suprised that there wasn't more people in the park, but we tried to make up for it! There was so many people that we almost missed Kevin! He saw us first, in fact. Kathy Patti and Kathy ran by in a group and they looked great! Chris and Kellie were walk/run leaders so we waited for them to go by and then Kaiden and I headed over to the finish line in the Fairgrounds.




We missed the top two or three finishers but saw everyone else.. Kevin did awesome! His time was 52:14 for a 8:26 pace. YEAH for him! In fact, everyone did great yesterday.. Kathy Patti Kathy and Jill all had PR's.. Kathy F coming in first at 1:00:00 even, and Jill did awesome too coming in shortly after that at 1:00:41and shaving 9 minutes off from last year!! AWESOME!! Patti and Kathy H. PR'd too with 1:03 and 1:04.. Everyone I talked to had a PR!! Definitely the weather helped with that!! Way to go guys!!







Kevin asked me Saturday night if I felt I was missing out not doing Abe's this year and at the time (just hours after my 20 mile run) I said NO!!!!!!!!!!! But once Sunday morning came and I watched my friends go by in a group, I thought, ya know, I do miss being out there! Next year!!

20 miles

Well it's done. It wasn't a very good run at all, but my 20 miler is done. Did some walking after about 15 miles and ended with a 10:50 pace. It was just not in the cards today.. you have good runs, you have bad runs. Today wasn't exactly a good run. Just didn't have any energy after about 15.. I could start a list of excuses but when people go on and on with their list of 'excuses' I always end up tuning them out.... So no excuses for me. It says it all in the title of my blog, and today was a 'LOW'.

BUT on the bright side I have 22 miles next week to redeem myself!! I know the couple of mistakes I made this week in preperation and I know not to make them again next week!!

creepy 5 mile run

OK so for the first time I was creeped out on my run this morning. I guess because not only was pitch black out, but everything just looked.. well, creepy. No sign of the sun off in the horizon at all this morning.. Alright, I can deal with that..the street lights usually help with that anyway. Well a street light was out on the only street in the neighborhood where they are still finishing up building two houses. The houses are on the left and an empty, small field is on the right. Someone decided to store a huge backhoe in the empty field and a couple of tractors on the other side of the street. In the dark w/ no lights at all it just looked creepy... And I remembered the drunk homeless guy who stumbled out of a house under construction last summer as I was running by.. nice..

I turned the corner and in the middle of the street running straight toward me was a good size deer!! And given that he was running toward me and just a few feet away, he was way too close for comfort.. I stopped, he veered off and ran into someone's backyard and disappeared and I regained my composure and took off running again... Beautiful deer in the daylight slightly off in the distance is great... in the dark running toward you? Not so much!

Next as I was crossing north cotton hill to go into the other subdivision, a guy out of nowhere came up and started running right behind me.. I caught him out of the corner of my eye just as he turning off of nch as a I was crossing over.. it was still dark and I couldn't tell if he was the guy I always see out running, or what. This guy had a reflective vest on and the usual guy doesn't.. I speed up a little and made the first left I could and watched behind me.. he kept going straight. good! About this time I could hear Kevin in my head: " I keep telling you not to run in the dark!!"

Finally the sun was up a little to lighten things up a bit and the rest of the run was fine except for the hawk that swooped down over me, within a few feet of my head, to catch something.. no big deal I suppose, but given the run so far, it was fitting.

Got the 5 miles done and was quite relieved to be back home after a creepy run like that!

A change of pace

Another week of triple 5 mile days.. AND next week too. So what do you do when you're really bored with your 5 mile route and you have to do it again this morning?? You sleep in and run a completely different route on your lunch hour!!

Brought in all my gear to work (minus the fuel belt), changed in the bathroom lounge and headed out. Went straight up Edwards to Feldkamp, into Washington park, made a loop around the park, back out on Feldkamp and back to work. Exactly 5 miles. Nice change of scenery and some nice hills for a change.

Tomorrow I'll probably do my usual 5 mile route but this was a nice change of pace..

I think we have everything ready to go for Lewis & Clark.. We all have reservations at the same hotel, all are registered for the race, and as of today I made us dinner reservations on The Hill in St. Louis for Saturday night. My friends let me pick the restaurant since it's my 'marathon debut' (as Kathy put it !) .. turns out she's been to the same restaurant and said it was good!! yeah.. picking one restaurant out of about 30 is kinda tricky!!

I can't believe 4 weeks from Sunday is marathon day!! It's kind of hard to believe that 14 weeks has gone by that quickly!! 14 down 4 more to go.. and 2 more crazy long runs. WOW.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6510091

I LUV this weather!

This weather is perfect for running!! I absolutely love it.. you can almost feel fall in the air....
Had 5 miles scheduled today so out I went about 5:00 am and got it done... with my Ipod jammin away the miles seemed to go by quickly.. The miles passed quickly but it was a slow run because my legs weren't totally recovered from Sunday.. I figured as much.

This week I'm stopping the weight workouts. I had been going about once a week (sometimes I blogged it, most times not) but since I'm only 4 1/2 weeks out it's time to quit. And here's a loud YEAH!!!!!!!! to that!! I loath weight training.. always have, always will. I'm sure at some point this winter I'll get back to it but I definitely need a break...

The big huge 20 miler this weekend is staring me in the face and it looks pretty scary!! We'll see!

12 miles

I was on my own today because everyone either was out of town or had other things going, or ran Friday.... the plan was to run Sunday because of Patti's party Friday night, but as it got closer things didn't quite work out..

Sooo, I headed out for 6, came back and got Kevin and Kaiden and did another 6 miles.. And it was the fastest 12 miles I've ever ran in my life!! Why???? I have no idea....... the first 6 was sub 10:00 for all but 2 miles and then when I ran with Kevin he pushed me even more and ended with a 9:49 avg pace !!! I did't go out intending to see how fast I could run 12 miles.. that wouldn't be too smart, given it's a long run.. but I was feeling good and just went with it... I could say it was my new shoes.. another pair of my trusted Asics, or maybe the cool weather, but whatever it was I can only hope it returns for marathon day!!



http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6480675

Lots of good things....

Number one on my list of good things is that my sister reserved her flight home for the marathon the other day! Yea!! I am so excited about that!! It's been waay to long since I've seen her but she said she 'wouldn't miss my first marathon for anything!" How cool will it be to have my whole family (Husband, Son, Mother and Sister) AND all my friends there at the finish line??!!! Very!!

Second on my list of good things today was that Kevin totally smashed his Parade Run record last night by almost a full minute!! 14:42!! That's a 7:21 mile and a PR!! Way to go Kevin! Saw lot's of familiar faces running last night, Bill, Chuck, Blake, Jill, Libby, etc... Jon ran too, but I missed him... What a perfect night for a race! Hey Jill, how'd you do last night?? Looked like you were running a good pace!!

Third is that I snagged up Kevin's 25% off coupon at the Running Center! Everyone who ran the parade run received one in their packets.....Of course I asked him and he said 'sure'.... That means I'm getting new shoes today! I've heard more than once, and Chris at the running center advised me too that I need a fresh pair of shoes 4-6 weeks out from the marathon.. Now a good pair of running shoes are supposed to last 500 miles, but with putting way over 400 miles on them (460 to be exact!) with training, why run your marathon on an almost worn out pair of shoes!?! That's how Chris explained it and it does make perfect sense! And since I'm 5 weeks out AND have that 25% off discount, todays the day!! And to think that I almost went yesterday!! I got hung up tho on another errand and ran out of time!! I'll test them out Sunday morning during my 12 miles with Kathy and Patti... why Sunday?? That leads me to my.......

Fourth good thing about today is that it is Patti's '20th Anniversary of her 30th Birthday' and she is having a big party tonight.. HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATTI!! So we are holding off the run until Sunday so we can all relax and have fun tonight!!

And finally, it's FRIDAY which is always a good thing!

5 miles AGAIN

Another 5 miles around the neighborhood.. I think I need a new route.. should have headed out onto Toronto, but didn't.. I really wasn't into it this morning.. didn't feel like getting up, didn't feel like running the same old route, just didn't feel it.. period.

BUT I got my butt out there and did it.. I really zoned out and let my mind go.. thought about everything except running.. didn't care about pace, drinking water, gu-ing.. nothing... just ran. And that was nice! Felt the way I ran before training started and it was nice!!

1 runner, 1 dog walker and 8 rabbits later, the 5 miles was done and I was back home..

Pace? who cares!

Outside again for 7

The heat broke so I got outside again today for 7 miles.. so much better than the boring treadmill !!! Got out there late so I had to cut off the last mile. Was supposed to be 8 today.. But that's OK a mile won't hurt..

It was pretty nice outside.. not too humid. Switched up the Ipod quite a bit over the weekend so I was enjoying the new songs this morning.... hopefully it will hold me until after the marathon... it should.. hmm... not much else to say about the run.... "That's all I have to say about that"

Today starts the decline in weekly mileage.. during the week that is. They are all 5 and under now..plus 2 more crazy runs.. 20 and 22 miles. 5 more weeks to go!! That light at the end of that tunnel is getting a little brighter..

19 miles DONE!!!

Wow.. I actually ran 19 miles yesterday! 13 weekls ago I never would have believed it! It took over 3 hours and a tour of Springfield, but it's done!!

I had to make other plans for running since it wasn't going to work out this week running with Kathy and Patti... (Late night to the Cards game Friday night).. they were going to go later but after my miserable run in the heat last weekend, I really needed to get out at 6:00 a.m and Kaiden's very first football practice started at 10:00 so I wanted to be done so I could go watch..

Pam Enno and Kim Noonan had organized an 18 mile run starting at 6:00 from Panera.. perfect!! I knew they'd blow me away, but figured as long as I could at least see them in the distance I'd be fine. There were water stops at 3 parks and thought maybe I'd catch them at the parks.. Tim Mu, Carl Benton and a guy also training for Lewis & Clark were also there.

So we started out and sure enough they pulled away around the end of the first mile... all but Carl who had commented he was just out for a easy run and didn't really 'have' to run 18 today.. (I for one can't imagine getting up to run 18 when I didn't 'have' too!!) But that is what makes Carl the runner he is.. anyway he hung back with me and boy was I glad! I figured at the first water stop (Bunn Park) he'd go ahead and run with the other group since we had them in our sights all the way there and would definitely catch them in Bunn, but he ended up staying with me the entire way!! Now how nice is that??? Probably felt sorry for the slow one getting left in the dust!! hahaha.. He was a big help getting me through the 19 and I appreciate it!! Even making sure I drank enough along the way... way more than I usually do, and I think that really helped me today.. sometimes when you're out there into the 'teens' mileage it's too much energy to grab that bottle off the belt, open it , drink and fumble to get it back in the belt, but I learned how important it is yesterday.. and how it helped.. But Carl kept me drinking, even during the last mile!

Saw Jill along the way!! We crossed right in front of her SUV at a side street and she honked and waved.. Hey Jill !

So here we were running through Springfield trying to get 19 in.. went from Panera to Bunn Park up to Lincoln park to Washington Park back to Panera.. Carl and I added on another mile so I could get my 19 in and again, boy was I glad he was there.. I really struggled that last mile or so and he talked me through it.. Thanks Carl!

We definitely took a tour of springfield.. didn't like running on all those sidewalks tho, plus we had more than a few hills to deal with!!! And you can imagine the traffic on Iles from Chatham Rd up to White Oaks drive on a Saturday morning.. stop, wait, go.. stop, wait, go..

When we finally got back to Panera's there were a couple others still there who had just gotten back from a long run they started a little earlier in the morning.. They are all training for Chicago.. so we got a picture of all those who are training for a marathon..

It is soo true how much running is not only a physical thing, but also a mental thing.. like Carl was saying yesterday.. you can either talk yourself down, OR tell yourself you can do it... and for me, how loooong that last mile or so seems.. like the last few long runs.. when I did 15, the 13th and 14th mile were hard.. when I did 17, 13 and 14 were ok, but 16 + was hard.. same with 18 and yesterday with 19, 15-17 were fine.. (well, I wouldn't exactly call them easy) but do-able.. why is that? That the last mile are so are the hardest for me.. definitely all mental with me..

I felt really good and maintained a pretty good pace the whole way until that last mile or so.. very hard!! I had a 10:34 pace for all 19 ..I was extremely happy with that, overall !!

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6419008