Friday, August 11, 2006

In to the LONG stuff now....

Tomorrow my running group and I will be tackling 18 miles. Can you say BLEAH?

We only have about seven weeks until Twin Cities Marathon, so the long, tough stuff starts now.

Actually, most of the training drills this session have been much tougher than in previous years. Don't know why exactly, but our mileage seemed to go up fast on the long runs and our weekly sessions seem to alternate between doing fast runs and hill runs. (What the heck ever happened to Easy Does It or EDI?)

I'm glad I have a good group of gals to run with, however. My friend Marcia, who's birthday this year started this whole thing; new friends Jane, Mary and Ally; old friends Cheryl, Bea, Kathy, Bev, etc. Makes the runs really worth it.

Last weekend, a number of us ran the Urban Wildland 1/2 marathon. It was a great event. I finished 10 mintues faster than I did at the Wells Fargo 1/2 earlier this year and felt pretty good the whole way through the race.

I ran mostly with Marcia and Ally -- until a potty break sent them ahead and me waiting to "go" -- literally. We were running 7 minutes with a 1 minute walk break. The course is very pretty. We ran through residential areas and nature preserves. It was great fun.

The rest of this week was spent mostly in Salt Lake City (SLC) for work. I flew out Sunday and back late Wednesday, just in time to miss all this new travel fear and crap. SLC is very pretty with the mountains and interesting buildings downtown. There is definitely a Mormon influence (you have to be a "member" to go in to bars, but I hear that membership is pretty easy to get); downtown is a ghost town after 5:00 pm; but they do have plenty of coffee houses (thank heavens) and I hear that most of the city has a pretty liberal bend. (The conservative crowd has settled in the suburbs).

I ran once. Found a great path through the city, by the Tabernacle, up to the capital, through a beautiful part and up a mountain side. W O N D E R F U L.

I communed with nature and came up with a gratitude list while the miles pounded away.

I'm not so sure I'll be as grateful tomorrow about mile 15...

Got home on Wednesday night and the new terror warnings came out Thurday morning. Hubby and I have plans to go to Europe this October after the marathon. I really don't want to cancel our trip although I will say that I do have some anxiety about the trip. (I'm not a very good flyer to begin with.) We are not making any decisions yet about our trip. We'll wait out this recent thing for a week or so and then decide.

Stepson goes back to his mom's on Monday, which also produces a yin/yang feeling in me. I love him and have a hard time living with him. Part of it is he is 16 and part is that he has been some what spoiled by his parents. I usually end up in the role of WSM -- wicked step mother -- nagging him about helping around the house or at a minimum getting out of the house. If he had his way, he'd sleep in late every day, eat junk food till he burst and then would sit on the computer playing games with cartoons on in the background.

Yet, on the other hand, he is a smart, personable kid who can be a lot of fun to be around. Once he leaves, the house gets quiet and it isn't long until I miss him.

Funny little ironies, no?

3 comments:

Mmem said...

Props on the HM! GL with the huge training run, wow.

Mrs. Snark said...

EIGHTEEN miles? Ouch, my legs cramp just thinking of it. Great job on the Urban Wildland Half!

Good luck on your training run tomorrow!

Dori said...

Ten minutes faster than Wells Fargo? That's the AmyBee I know--good job! I really like that race and would have run it if I'd been in town.