Use it or Lose it

Usual loop to City Creek PA7 and back.  HOT this morning!  I feel like I'm just in a bare bones maintenance mode running wise - dog days of summer, kids out of school, working a lot, . . . It was nice as always up in city creek, tho!

Darn, something crashed in my house (probably a cat or kid knocking something over) around 2:30 this morning, and I never did get back to sleep. Finally got up at 4:30, had some coffee, and started cleaning my room/office area. Took off running around 7, and ran up to the 2 mile marker in City Creek canyon, and back.

A noteworthy first for me today. I didn't eat much breakfast before leaving, so on a whim decided to carry a gel with me, thinking that if I took it at the water fountain part way up city creek it would give me a boost when I had to run the last mile up hill towards my mouse. I have never tried gels before, but bought a Cliff Shot Strawberry gel a couple months ago thinking I should try it some day. E-YUCK - I took my first taste, and it was really awful!! (I thought it would be sweet, but it was surprisingly saltly tasting.) Not one to give up, I perservered and choked it down, chased it with plenty of water, and then took off running again. It didn't seem to upset my stomach, and I did seem to have a bit more energy, both running downhill out of city creek, and running up my home stretch hills. I will probably experiment and try another one sometime. . .

Evening run up to one mile marker in city creek canyon and back home.  Ran with my daughter, which always makes the run more fun. Plus she was keeping a pretty good pace on the way home!  :) 

Then she convinced me to do some other exercises once we were home, so . . . I did 3 sets of sissy sink push ups and 3 sets of sissy crunches and miscellaneous stretches mixed in with a bunch of talking!  I really should do more upper body core strengthening exercises so I hope I can get in the habit.  I'm guessing it is like running, in that in the beginning it is hard and seems so impossible that you're ever going to get better.  But then after you make youself run 3 or 4 times in a row, you see improvement and start thinking "I can do this".  I need to get to that stage with my sit-ups and push-ups!

Whoosh - it's hot & windy today! Woke up late and needed to run an errand before running, so decided to park my car on the corner of 11th avenue & bonneville and start my run from there. Mentally that gave me a boost because I knew I wouldn't have to run the last .6 mile uphill in the hot sun to my house (especially nice since I started running after 10 am). Since I started closer to city creek I decided to run further up the canyon and went to picnic area 20, which I'm guessing is about 4.25 miles from the gate.  Quite nice in city creek.- on the way down I met a lady named Maryanne at one of the water fountains and talked with her for a couple minutes. Then I saw my friend Mary and talked with her for a couple minutes. It was nice talking, but I stiffened up and had to hobble-run for a few minutes until I loosened back up!!  Very nice & very enjoyable run today.  :)