Same Time, Same Channel

Easy run + 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 9:49.

Weather: 65°F, 50% humidity, light SW wind.

I think my legs are finally coming back. Maybe they'll be here for me on Saturday. Splits this morning were 10:14, 9:57, 9:43, 9:54, 9:58, 9:26, 9:15, 8:56. Paces on the hill sprints were 8:24, 7:22, 6:32, 6:36, 6:38, 6:52, 6:48, 7:14, 7:00 6:56. On that third from the last one, there was a couple walking a dog who were walking up the hill where I was doing the hill sprints. They had seen me doing the hill sprints and had made a comment to me as they were going up the hill and I was walking down after my 7th one. If they would have kept walking they would have been far enough up that I wouldn't have passed them on my 8th hill sprint. However, they stopped just short of where my hill sprints were ending to talking to another woman with a dog who was walking down the hill. I had to run through that crowd at the end of my 8th hill sprint. They were just starting to move from that spot when I got to that point on my 9th hill sprint.

I felt mildly sick to my stomach and very lethargic all day yesterday. It's no wonder I wasn't able to catch that runner yesterday morning. I went to bed after dinner last night and slept for an hour or so, then got up for a couple of hours and then went to bed again. I counted it all as night time sleep instead of a nap and a night. I'm feeling better today, but not 100%. I actually felt mostly okay during my run. A couple of my kids were complaining of stomach aches yesterday too. It must have been something we ate or were exposed to on the cruise or on an airplane last week.

Threshold Run. 2 miles easy, 5 miles @ 1/2 marathon pace, 2 miles easy. Average pace: 8:56.

Weather at start: 57°F, 81% humidity, wind calm. Weather at end: 65°F, 63% humidity, wind calm.

I slept late again this morning. I have not been able to get myself up early for about a month. And when I woke up this morning I didn't feel like going for a run, so of course I got dressed and went for a run. I think I was dreading having to run fast. I felt kind of sluggish when I started, but felt better after a couple of miles. I was feeling pretty good around the end of the 4th mile because I was completing the downhill portion. The next 3 miles, especially, the last 2 of the threshold portion, were really tough. It was warmer by then and I had that long uphill that I get when I do this route. Splits were 10:11, 9:36, 8:22, 8:08, 8:28, 8:20, 8:08, 9:39, 9:29. That 5K on Saturday starts at 8:30. It's going to be hot.

 Today was supposed to be a run to work doubles day, but I couldn't run to work because I worked from home yesterday. So not only did I not have change of clothes at work, my computer is home. I could have my husband drive me to work and then run home, but I really don't want to run that uphill again today. So I'll try to get 4 easy miles in this evening. I'm going to try to get a couple of my boys to come with me.

I made a pioneer dress yesterday, mostly. I still need to hem it and put the buttons on. And I'm going to replace the elasitic in the wrists to make it looser. I've got to finish this dress, make another dress, make an apron, and make a bonnet.

Our trip to Utah that was going to be next week is officially canceled. I just can't afford the  time off work right now, especially with Trek happening the week after that. I would have liked to come and run with the BBKs and run Marion's half-marathon, but it's not to be this time. However, my husband might drive a couple of our kids to Utah next week and leave them there. His parents are coming to stay with our kids while we go on Trek and they could bring the kids back.

PM: 4 easy miles without the Garmin. I think it took about 43 minutes, but I didn't time it exactly. Legs felt okay, the stomach, not so much. Dinner was still too much with me, even though it had been a couple of hours since I ate. I waited as long as I could, and still ended up running in the dark. I probably should have worn my headlamp, but I put it away with my winter gear. We had a big rain storm this afternoon, so it was slightly cooler than it was this morning, but more humid. My boys did not go with me.

Easy/recovery run. Average pace: 10:09.

Weather: 65° , 70% humidity, winds calm.

I don't have to go to work today, so I slept in and ran a little later than usually even though I've been running later than I out to recently. It was nice and overcast when I started, but was sunny by the time I finished.

I was pretty tired this morning on account of the hard tempo work out yesterday morning and then the double last night. I took it really easy this morning. I ran my secondary 6-mile route in reverse. This way it starts and ends uphill. The last mile is much more difficult when going this direction than when going the normal direction. Splits were 10:57, 10:25, 10:10, 9:52, 9:32, 10:02. If hard days are supposed to be hard and easy days are supposed to be easy, yesterday was hard and today was easy. I hope I'm ready for hard again tomorrow.

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start  . . .

Okay, enough Sound of Music.

Weather: 65° F, 73% humidity, wind 6 NE.

I did not sleep well last night. And then I got up just a little bit later than I had intended to. Parking was going to be a hassle at the race because there was also a parade. So I decided to run to the race, thus the 4.23 slow miles. That was my running to the race.

At these HRCA (Highlands Ranch Community Association) races they always hand out race packets and goody bags right before the race, even if you register in advance. Since I didn't drive to the race, I couldn't put my bag and shirt in my car. But the race went around my office, so I walked over to my office and left my stuff there. It was nice to be able to go into a nice bathroom and pin my number on in front of a big mirror, and not have to wait in line for a hot, stinky port-a-potty.

I got back to the race about 15 minutes before the race start. It was hard to know exactly where to line up. I lined up not far from the front, next to a couple of older guys who said they were shooting for 7:00 pace.

The first mile was pretty easy with some downhill and some flat. I wasn't feeling fantastic, but I ran that mile in 7:24.

The second mile started easy with a nice downhill, but then it went back up hill and started onto the trails that are behind my office. I never saw a mile 2 marker. I'm not sure if there was one. I slowed a little on this mile and ran it in 7:40. It was about halfway through this mile that I started leap frogging a girl with a green shirt and long braids. She was flying like bat out of heck on the short downhills, but then I would pass her on the up hills.

The third mile was beyond brutal. The first half was still on the trails and believe me, there are very steep hills there. Once we got off the trails, we were back on the roads, but it was quite literally uphill the rest of the way to the finish. I was really struggling to keep going and ran this mile in 8:26. I was still leap frogging green shirt and braids girl, and I managed to pass two young girls in sports bras, but then they passed me before the finish.

I talked to the green shirt and braids girl after the race. I think I beat her by about 15 seconds. She was 32.

My average pace on this race is slower than my average pace for the Boulder Bolder 10K. Nevertheless, I really gave this race all I had. I don't believe I could have run that course any faster on this day. I need to find a flat 5K to set a real 5K PR. In retrospect, maybe a 4 mile warm up was too long and I finished it too long before the start of the race.

I didn't have my wits about me enough to remember that they have an awards ceremony where they present age group awards and I missed it. I'll have to go pick up my medal later.

Note that the 10th place overall finish I reported is my place among all women, not all finishers and is what I remember from looking at the posted results sheet after the race. Official results aren't posted online yet.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:53.

Weather: 62° F, 65% humidity, wind 7-8 SW.

I still haven't recovered the zip in my step. I had a hard time getting a good pace going this morning, maybe because I was going into a moderate wind for roughly the first half of my run. Splits were 10:29, 10:03, 10:11, 9;58, 10:17, 9:46, 9:29, 9:38, 9:30, 9:27.

I'm wondering if I'm really going to be up to the ADT marathon on Labor Day. I'm not registered for it yet and it's a small enough race that I don't think I need to register far in advance. I am registered for the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon on August 8. I guess I'll see how I do and how I feel in that race and then decide whether to do the ADT Marathon.

6:30 AM: Fartlek Run. 2 miles warm-up, then 30 sec. @ 5K pace every 3 minutes. Average pace: 9:16.

Weather: 62° F, 50% humidity, wind 6-12 WSW.

I felt sluggish when I got up this morning and when I started the run. I considered cutting the run short. But then I felt better once I got warmed up. This is pretty typical for me.

The temperature and humidity were pleasant this morning, but the wind was a factor, especially since a got portion of my run was going either south or west. My hat blew off during one of my fast intervals, so I paused my watch and picked it up and then resumed. I had to hold on to my hat to keep it from blowing off several other times.

I won't bore you by listing my pace on all 25 intervals, but suffice it say that on the 30 sec. @ 5K pace sections, I was around 7:15, with a few off them too fast and down into the sixes.

I'm wondering whether these all hills all the time courses I'm more or less obliged to run are wearing on me and whether I should do some of my interval workouts on the track. I've got ladder intervals on Thursday. Should I do them on the track?

My husband and 75% of my kids left for Utah this morning. My husband is coming back tomorrow and is leaving the kids there.

**Edited to Add**

My husband called me when I had about a mile left to run and told me they were in the car and were ready to go. I told them to wait for me and told them what street I was on. They came looking for me. When they finally found me I was on our street and was almost home. The 2 boys jumped out of the car and started running with me. They 14-year-old ran ahead because my easy pace was too slow for him since he was only running about 50-100 yards. The 12-year-old stuck with me and I told him that I was on my cool down or easy pace or something like that and he said it wasn't easy to him. They both thought it was really cool to run with me for a little bit. Maybe this will make them want to run with me more.

6:30 PM: 4 miles recovery run. Average pace: 10:23. Weather: 79°F, 29% humidity, winds calm. This run was solidly in my recovery pace range from my McMillan pace chart, which is about what I could handle. Last time I ran in the evening I ran after dinner and that didn't feel so good in the tummy, so tonight I ran first thing when I got home from work and put off dinner until after the run. I could do this because the only family member home with me is my 17-year-old son, who likes to eat dinner late. I don't think I'll be able to do it this way once the whole family is back unless I manage to get home from work earlier, which would require that I get to work earlier, which would require that I run earlier in the morning, which would require that I wake up earlier, which would require that I go to bed earlier, and that's hard to do when my family is home.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:55.

Weather: 62° F, 60% humidity, no significant wind, sunny.

I was supposed to do 8 easy plus hill sprints today, but I'm thoroughly sick of hills. I think last Saturday's 5K pushed me over the edge of my hill tolerance. And it's not like I didn't run plenty of hills during the 8 miles this morning. I had 700 ft. of elevation gain over the course of the run (and also 700 ft. of elevation loss because it was a loop). I've tentatively moved today's hill sprints to Friday. Tomorrow's workout isn't as hard as yesterday's was.

See Lori, I sometimes cut back from the planned workout.

Ladder Intervals - 2 miles easy, 1 min., 2 min., 3 min., 2 min., 1 min., 2 min., 3 min. @ 3K-10K pace w/= duration active recoveries, 2 miles easy. Average pace: 9:07.

Weather: 61°F, 67% humidity, winds calm, cloudy.

I did this interval portion of this workout on the track. I live very close to both a middle school and a high school and each has a track. The middle school track is less than a half mile away, while the high school track is less than a mile away. The middle school track is more accessible because it's not fenced, though I think the gate to the high school track is always open.

I took a 2-mile long very out-of-the-way route to the middle school track. My average pace for these two miles was 10:02. The track is paved with asphalt, not that fancy track surface stuff. There was no one else on the track for a little more than half my run, so I ran in the middle lane and switched directions half-way through the workout. A little while after I switched directions a teenage girl and a younger boy, probably her little brother, showed up and started walking the track. They didn't get in my way at all. My pace on the intervals was 7:45, 7:43, 7:39, 7:24, 7:19, 7:24, 7:13. I think it was easier keeping a relatively consistent pace on the track that it would have been on the roads. I ran the out-of-the-way 2-mile route back home at 9:29 pace.

After I got back home, I was walking down my street a little ways for a cool down and I saw one of my neighbors, who is a friend of mine, sitting on her porch with her little boy. I stopped and visited with her for a little while. That was nice.

At the race I ran last Saturday they gave passes to an advance screening of a movie called 500 Days of Summer to the first 100 finishers, and so I got one (I was the 71st finisher). The movie is tonight. I can take one guest and I'm not sure whether my husband or son is going to go with me. It will probably be my son because Zooey Deschanel stars in the movie and my son loves Zooey Deschanel.

Easy Run + 10 x 8 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 10:09.

Weather: 62°, 78% humidity, winds calm, partly cloudy. It felt muggy this morning and I sweated profusely on this run.

My easy runs seem to be slowing down lately. I guess that's okay. I was really slow on the first 3 miles this morning (10:35, 10:08, and 10:18). The third mile has a lot of up hill. I sped up a little bit on the next 3 miles (9:46, 9:44, 9:28) and worked on form, specifically heel lift. I actually felt pretty good on the hill sprints (7:28, 6:26, 7:02, 7:10, 7:31, 7:51, 7:08, 7:01, 6:38, 7:00). I maybe could have run the hill sprints a little faster, but I didn't really go all-out on them today. These were the hill sprints that I was supposed to do on Wednesday and didn't. I just moved them to today.

My 17-year-old son went to the movie (500) Days of Summer with me last night. We both really liked it. It's really kind of short on plot, but it was fun, and actually kind of sad. It just went through different days, not in sequential order, of this guy's 500-day relationship with a girl named Summer. I recommend this movie. And it was nice to spend some time with my son. He told me that he sees himself as the guy in the movie. I guess he's struggling to find the girl of his dreams. He recently posted a note on Facebook that was a job description for his girl friend. I don't think he's had any serious applicants.

Fartlek + Progression Run, aka Torture. 6 miles easy, 15 x 90 sec. @ 10K pace/90 sec. easy, 2 miles easy, 2 miles hard. Average pace: 9:12.

Weather at the start: 70°F, 46% humidity. Weather at the end: 81°F, 42% humidity. Winds calm. Not Bonnie's heat by any means, but still pretty warm.

It's been a while since I did a long run because last Saturday was the 5K race and the Saturday before that I was travelling. It's also been a while since I've been on the Highline Canal Trail. So today I went back to slogging it out on the Highline Canal Trail. Next Saturday will probably be a wash because it's the last day of Trek. The trail is fairly shady this time of year, particularly early in the morning. Unfortunately, I didn't get up quite as early as I intended to. That's the story of my life lately. I started my run at 7:30. It would have been nice to start at 6:30. I've got to start getting to bed earlier so that I can get up earlier.

There were a lot of people on the trail today. I saw a bunch of people from Team in Training at first, and then towards the end there was a group of teenage boys that I'm guessing were a high school cross-country team. They were pretty fast. Also, why is it that dog owners have to clean up after their dogs, and yet horse owners don't. There were a few piles left behind from horses on the trail. There were also a few horses and several bicyclists in addition to the runners on the trail today. It was quite busy.

Now for my statistics.

6 miles easy: 10:11, 9:36, 9:31, 9:46, 9:50, 9:39

Fartlek intervals (This was supposed to be for 5 miles. I did 15 intervals except I didn't do the 90 sec. easy half of the last interval because I had completed the 5 miles at that point, and I had 2 miles easy coming up.) My pace on the fast portion of the intervals was: 7:44, 7:31, 7:34, 7:13, 7:33, 7:37, 7:47, 7:50, 7:35, 7:54, 7:30, 7:40, 7:35, 7:37, 7:42.

2 miles easy: 10:26, 9:58. 3 miles hard: 8:35, 8:42, 8:23.

I really need to do a lot of housework and sewing today. When I got up this morning the thought occured to me that I should probably skip the run and use my energy to do those things. But of course, I used all my energy on the run and it will be a struggle to be anything more than useless the rest of the day. This is the story every Saturday. No wonder my house is a mess.

No running today. I made the opposite choice than I did on Saturday and got up and made a bonnet instead of running. I didn't get much done on Saturday on account of spending all my energy running. I did a lot of sewing on Sunday. I've got both dresses and the bonnet made. I still need to make the apron. And I've got a lot of house cleaning to do. Some other things are going on that are stressing me out. I didn't have time to check any blogs yesterday nor do I possibly for the rest of the week, so I'm going to be missing in action for a little while.

Specific Indurance Intervals - 2 miles easy, 4 x 1 mile @ 10K pace w/3-min. active recoveries, 2 miles easy (+ .6 miles easy to get home).

Pace on mile repeats was 8:17, 8:20, 7:48, 7:31. I was shooting for around 7:45, but I just couldn't get it on the first two because there was too much up hill.

 I'm heading out for trek in less than 3 hours and I haven't packed yet, so no time to write any more.

Easy run near Martin's Cove in Wyoming. Average pace: 9:25.

Weather at 6:00 am: 55°, 40% humidity, wind 3 S.

This was the only run I managed to do while at the trek. I went up the day before the trek started to help get the kitchen part of the camp set up. I was woken up at 5:30 this morning after a not great night of sleep on the ground in a tent by some cows mooing loudly nearby. Since the kids weren't there yet and the first meal we were going to have to feed them was lunch that day, I figured it was my best opportunity to go for a run and as it turned out it was my only opportunity to go for a run while on the trek. I just ran 3 miles on a dirt road out to the highway and then back.

I guess I'll use the rest of this blog entry and blog entries for the next few days to tell about the trek since I don't have any other running to report.

After my run, I helped some more with getting things set up because we had done only some of the set up the night before and then helped prepare lunch for the kids. We had to feed 300 people at every meal.

Our campsite was about 7 miles from the visitor's center and we served the lunch that day at the visitor's center. We did all the cooking (it was Sloppy Joe's) at the camp site and then trucked it all to the visitor's center. The kids and other adults arrived in 5 buses and we fed them lunch, then they got outfitted with their handcarts and then walked from the visitor's center to the campsite. We food committee people drove back to the campsite and prepared dinner so that it was ready for them when they arrived. They moved at a rate of about 3 miles in 2 hours with the handcarts. I guess it was slow going with the handcarts and then made a lot of stops and they tended to have pretty long stops. There are outhouses (I won't call them port-a-potties because they're not protable) at certain places along the trail and it would take a long time to get all 260 or so people taken care of at a stop. Also, along the way this day they did something called the women's pull. I don't know whether they went the boys away or just had them stand aside, but the idea was to simulate that the men were gone to be in the Mormon Batallion and so the women had to pull the handcarts. They made them pull the handcarts up a sandy hill and apparently some of them really struggled. I wasn't there to see this part because I was back at camp cooking.

After dinner that night the kids had a square dance. I watched a little bit of it. My son who was on the trek danced for a little bit but then quit because he was with a group that he said didn't know what they were doing. But after he had sit out for a bit, he got pulled into a group that was a little better, and so then he enjoyed it.

This is what the camp site looked like when we got there. You can see a bit of a tent in this photo, but we didn't have much set up at the point when I took this picture. The rest of my pictures will be more interesting.

 Here's a picture of some of the food committee people stirring the huge pans of sloppy joe meet getting ready for lunch. We didn't have the full kitchen set up at that point. You can see our refrigerator truck in the background. They called it the "refer truck," which is kind of funny.

No running today. Trek report only.

The cows didn't wake me up this morning. I'm not sure where they were. However, someone woke all of us food committee people up at 5:30 so that we could have breakfast made by 6:30. I was in charge of mixing the pancake batter. We had a huge bag of powdered mix from IHOP. I wasn't very good at it. The guy who was the head of the food committee was cooking pancakes he was very particular about his pancakes. First I had the batter too thin, then I had it too thick, then it was mixed too much and was too smooth. I was not really happy with that guy at that point.

Not only did we had to get breakfast ready, but at the same time we had to get the lunches put together and handed out to the "families" because they were taking their lunch with them to eat on the trail. We had done some of the prep for the lunch the night before. There were 24 families, each consisting of 8 or 9 kids and a ma and pa. Each family had one handcart. In addition, there were various other adults who weren't connected to a family, such as the bishops, who each led a company, which consisted of 3 or 4 families, and as well as the wagon master and his wife, members of the stake presidency, medical staff, and photographers.

The families and other adults headed out on the trail after breakfast. Here's a picture of my son getting ready to head out on the trail that morning.

A little while after they left we got a call on the radio that there was a girl who was sick and needed to be picked up. We had cars, so it fell to us to go get her. We had some free time that day since they were eating lunch on the trail, so 6 of us got in someone's Suburban and went to get the girl because we wanted to see them on the trail. We went to a spot that we could drive a car to and that they would be passing through and waited for them. Here's a picture of them as they first started to arrive at that spot. Excuse the missionary sitting on a golf cart in the foreground.

It turned out that there were 3 girls who wanted to be picked up instead of one. I suspect that a couple of them who, when they realized that there was a car and a way to get out of walking, jumped out at the chance. But the car we were in only held 8 people and 6 of us had come, so with 3 more passengers, the car was over full. So another woman and I volunteered to walk with the trekkers at that point and the car was going to meet us further along because they were going to take the girls to the next stop, which was the crossing of the Sweetwater River.

At the Sweetwater River crossing they talked about how the pioneers had gotten to that point and they needed to cross the river to get to Martin's Cove, a couple of miles away, where they would have some protection from the elements, but it was freezing and the river was partially frozen, and many of them felt like they couldn't do it. The rescuers from Salt Lake had reached them by that time and 4 young men from the rescue company spent all day carrying people across the river. One of the 4 young men was the great great grandfather of the man who was the wagon master for our group and who was telling this story to the kids. They tried to make the river crossing a very reverent and spiritual experience.

They crossed the river a family at a time and in each family they had two boys carry a girl across the river in memory of these four men, and then the rest of the family brought the cart across the river. Here is a picture of my son carrying a girl across the river. He's the one on the right. Because of the side of the river I was on, I could only get a picture of his back.

The river got up slightly above their knees at the deepest point.

After the river crossing, I noticed the dog Oscar. There was an article about Oscar in the July Friend magazine. It's posted here. Here's a picture I took of Oscar:

The sign in the picture is pointing to the place where the handcarts cross the river. There's also a bridge, which you can see a little of in the picture. Apparently Oscar is afraid of the bridge and always swims across the river.

Oscar followed our group back to camp that night, stayed in our camp all night and barked at the coyotes and walked with our group back to the visitor's center the next day. It was fun to have Oscar join our group.

After the river crossing, my husband and I (he had joined me after riding in the car to the river crossing) and others walked with the group to Martin's Cove. Here's a picture of my husband and me just outside of Martin's Cove. This is the only picture I have of myself on the trek.

I have to say, I actually liked the bonnet. Maybe it didn't look so great, but it was good for shade and it kept my hair out of my face.

After the visit to Martin's Cove, we drove back to camp to prepare dinner. We ended up not taking any of the three girls home because I guess after a little car ride and rest they decided they could walk some more.

After dinner that evening, the kids had a devotional that I didn't go to, and then testimony meetings in ward groups. Then the kids were really noisy and didn't quite down for a long time even though it was very late. And it was very very windy that night. I mean very very very windy.

I was woken up at 5:30 again this morning to make breakfast. We scrambled eggs and made breakfast burritos.

Even though we had given him some bacon, Oscar caught a rabbit for breakfast and some of the kids watched him tear of the rabbit's head and eat it. I didn't watch and I don't have a picture of that.

After we sent the kids and their handcarts out on the trail that morning, we had to take down the kitchen and all of our tents. The kids were just trekking back to the visitor's center that day and we served them lunch there again, and then they got on the buses to go home. We had a little bit of free time and some of us women had some handcart races with the two handcarts we had there at camp. We got another call about a sick girl, I think it might have been the same one from the day before, and there were two girls still in the camp who hadn't gone out on the trail that day. My husband and I took our car and took those two girls, met the hand carts on the trail and picked up the sick girl and then drove them all to the visitor's center. We had some time there to go through the visitor's center and see their little film, before serving lunch. Then we drove home. Our son drove home with us instead of going on the bus.

This isn't a picture from that day, but this is a picture of the whole group on the trail. They're kind of far of, but you can get an idea how long the trail of handcarts was.

The trek was a great experience. But it was nice to be home in my own bed that night.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:11.

Weather: 67° F, 50% humidity, wind 4 SSW.

Back to the routine. I felt better on my run today than I did on my first run after the cruise. I worked harder, slept less, and ate adequately but less on the trek than I did on the cruise.

If you want to read about the trek, see my entries on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday last week.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:34.

I intended to run 10 miles today, but I developed a significant pain in my right calf, so I did something I've never done before. I stopped running and called my husband and asked him to come get me. After I called him, I walked towards home until he reached me.

When I got home, my daughter made me an ice pack and brought me some stuffed animals to comfort me.

I hope this pain is gone by tomorrow.

My calf feels quite a bit better than it did yesterday, but it's not 100% and I figured that running on it today would just aggravate it again, so I slept in instead.

At this point, I'm really leaning towards scrapping the marathon that I was going to do on Labor Day. I've missed a lot of workouts between the cruise and the trek and my heart just isn't in running 20 mile long runs right now, which I need to do in the next couple of weeks if I'm going to do that marathon. I feel like my body and my mind needs a break more than a challenge right now.

Instead of running the marathon, I'll do a handful of smaller races the rest of the year. I'm registered for a half-marathon on August 8, and then on Labor Day I can either do the half-marathon that's associated with the marathon I was going to do, or take another shot at the Park-to-Park 10-miler, which I really struggled through last year. HRCA (the local homeownder's association) also has a 5K in September. In October, HRCA has a 5 mile or 10 mile trail run. I did the 10 miler last year with Laura from the blog. In November, HRCA has a half marathon and then there's the Turkey Day 5K. I'll probably do several, if not all, of those races and then I'll start thinking about marathon training again for a spring marathon.

Argh! My calf felt tight for the first mile, and then it started to hurt and just kept getting worse to the point where it was changing my gait. I had forgotten to bring my cell phone and I wasn't very far from home anyway, so I stopped running and walked back home. I might try the elliptical at work tomorrow morning and see if I can do that without pain in an attempt to maintain some fitness while I let this stupid thing heal.

I took the Sage Marion's advice and didn't do the elliptical this morning. I slept in instead.

I got a list of ART providers from Bonnie. One of them is on my insurance. I'll see if I can get my GP to refer me to him.

**Update**

It turns out I don't need a referall from my GP to go to a chiropractor (ART providers are chiropractors), so I cancelled my doctor's appointment. I called and left a message with the one ART provider who is on my insurance.

My leg feels better than yesterday and I'm not limping so much, but it still hurts.

Recovery jog. Average pace: 10:17.

Weather @ 6:38 am: 57°, 70% humidity, wind 3 NW.

I took it slow and easy today. That's the way it's going to have to be for a while. My calf felt better than it has for a week, but it did start feeling kind of tight the last mile or so. I'll see how I feel the rest of the day today before deciding whether to run tomorrow. I'm definitely on the mend, but I've got to come back slowly or else I'll undo all the healing that I've done. In any case, it was nice to have been able to run this morning.

While I was able to run 4 miles yesterday morning with minimal discomfort, I had minor pain in my calf the rest of the day, though the pain wasn't as bad as it had been last week. So I've concluded that I'm on the mend, but am not quite ready to run consecutive days just yet.

 I've been neglecting upper body conditioning and other weight training lately because I've been spending so much time running and doing other things, so I decided to do the No More Trouble Zones video this morning. It's been a long time since I've done it and it was harder for me today than it was last time I did it. I'd like to keep doing some weight training, but it's hard for me to fit it in when I ramp my miles back up. I may have to switch to the Shred video because it's only 20 minutes long, while No More Trouble Zones takes an hour.

I'm getting my calf poked and prodded again this afternoon and then I'll probably try another short easy run tomorrow morning.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:57.

Weather at 6:30 am: 53° F, 85% humidity, overcast, damp streets from rain overnight, no wind. It's so humid that my glasses fogged up when I quit running. Now, an hour and a half later, it's not any warmer and it's raining. My apologies to Snoqualmie. I think Denver stole your weather.

I felt much better on this run than I did running the same route on Tuesday. I felt a little hint of tightness in my calf about halfway through the run, but no pain. And it doesn't hurt now after my run like it did after my run on Tuesday. Actually, I'm a little stiff all over today from yesterday's resistance workout.

I had the dr. work on my left hamstring yesterday in addition to the right calf, because the left hamstring has been mildly irritating to me for quite some time. I'm going to go back to the dr. and get poked and prodded again tomorrow. I'm going to go a few more times in the next week or two and then quit going until the need arises again.

I ran yesterday and I want to run tomorrow, but I don't think I'm quite ready for 3 consecutive days quite yet, so I didn't run today. I'll increase to 2 and maybe 3 consecutive days next week and then go from there until I get back to 6 days/week.

I was surprised how sore I was all over yesterday, especially in my abs, from doing No More Trouble Zones on Wednesday. So clearly I have gotten weaker in those areas that that workout uses, because I used to be able to do it with no problem. So I did it again today. I want to keep some strength training going as I ramp up my miles in the next little while. It may or may not improve my running, but I like to have toned muscles overall. I do think that a stronger core, especially, helps with running.