Same Time, Same Channel

Easy run. Average pace: 9:50.

Weather: 39°F, 87% humidity, wind 6 NNE, cloudy and gray.

I did my run later than usual this morning. I got up at 5:45, put on my flip-flops and glasses and drove my son to seminar. Then I came back home and put on some clothes and went back to the school to meet with the same son's World History teacher. The meeting was supposed to be at 6:30. I cooled my heels at that school until 7:00 and the teacher never showed up. So then I came home and got  breakfast for the two younger kids and then went on my run.

I took the pace really slow and easy this morning. However, I did pick up the pace for a little while during the 4th mile in order for my cadence to match the beat of the song Curious, by the Barenaked Ladies, which was playing on my mp3 player.

Hard Long Run. 18 miles @ marathon pace + 20-30 sec./mile (that's the description from my training plan). Average pace: 8:48.

Weather: 42°F, 81% humidity, no wind.

Another Saturday morning spent on the Highline Canal Trail. I ran the first mile with a friend of mine and her neighbor. They're training for a half marathon in June. I believe it's the first half marathon for both of them. I think they're using a Runner's World training plan or something. They were doing 8 miles today. They kept up a pretty good pace on the first mile, but I left them after the first mile because I was supposed to be doing a slightly faster specific-pace run.

I'm thinking (hoping) that my marathon pace might be around 8:30, but that might be overly optimistic. In any case, I targeted my pace for today's run between 8:50 and 9:00. For some reason I find running on that dirt trail to be harder than running on rounds. The same pace always feels harder to me when I'm on that trail. I decided to do a fast finish on the last mile. That's not specified in my training plan, but it's something that I know that Greg McMillan has his runners do, so I decided to give it a try. My splits were 9:15, 8:53, 8:52, 8:48, 8:49, 8:50, 8:53, 8:46, 8:50, 8:46, 8:49, 8:47, 8:59, 8:48, 8:45, 8:52, 8:48, 7:54. I stopped at my car after the 13th mile and ate not quite half of an orange. I didn't have any tummy trouble running after that so I guess I'm okay with oranges.

I saw a softball game, a lacrosse game, a soccer game, and some people playing tennis while I was running. The southern part of the trail goes around a big park and recreation center. These play fields were all empty during the winter when I was running, but now there are people out there every Saturday. There were a lot of people on the trail today to.

I suppose I have now made it through the toughest part of my training schedule and now it's time to taper. I'm actually half-way through the so-called "sharpening" period on my training plan. Two weeks until Ogden!

P.S. I ran an extra 0.04 on the end because I knew that would get me to a whole number on my total miles for the week.

Ladder Intervals. 2 miles easy, 1 min., 2 min., 3 min., 2 min., 1 min., 2 min., 3 min. @ 3K-10K pace with equal duration active recoveries, 2 miles easy.

I felt sluggish when I started out and considering just doing an easy run instead of doing the intervals, but I stuck with the intervals and I'm glad I did. I've found that the best cure for sluggish legs, at least for me, is to run fast for a little while. I felt much better after the first couple of intervals. My pace on the first 2 miles was 10:20. My paces on the intervals (followed by my pace on the corresponding recovery in parentheses) were 7:58 (10:08), 7:56 (10:26), 7:53 (9:58), 7:47 (10:12), 7:42 (10:19), 7:45 (9:46), 7:45 (9:44). My pace on the last 2 miles was 9:29. Average pace overall was 9:25, but average pace isn't very meaningful on an interval workout.

I've got a busy day today, but what else is new. 

Moderate run. Average pace: 8:46.

Weather: 46°F, 57% humidity, wind 3 ENE (according to motionbased, but it felt like a south wind to me).

I had a really bad day yesterday and so I just went out this morning and pounded my anger and frustration into the pavement. I hope it helped and today is better. But I've got another busy day today. There are just so many kid things going on the last few weeks of school. And to make it worse, I succumbed to emotional eating yesterday and ate a bunch of junk. And I got a speeding ticket.

I debated whether to put my miles today under slow miles or fast miles because they were somewhere in between, but in my mind the categories are slow miles and not-slow miles, so since they weren't slow miles, I put them in not-slow (fast) miles. Splits were 9:08, 8:51, 8:51, 8:48, 8:22, 8:39 (and 8:39 for the last 0.38).

I've got to go to an orchestra concert at the HS tonight, which is fine. But it is the last concert at the year, which means that the conductor will talk on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on (you get the idea) about each one of the graduating seniors individually.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:38.

Weather: 46°F, 61% humidity, wind 7 SE.

Another busy morning. I hope things ease up once school is out.

Thing 3 has a slight cold and I've got to keep him home because the school is all paranoid and freaked out about swine flu.

Marathon Pace run. 1 mile easy, 2 x 4 miles @ MP with 5 min. active recovery, 1 mile easy.

Weather: 51°F, 48% humidity, wind 11.5 S.

This was a good workout. I like workouts where I run faster than easy pace. My pace on the first easy mile was 9:55. Pace on the next 4 miles was 8:19. Pace on the 5 minute recovery was 8:46. Pace on the next 4 miles was 8:05. Pace on the 1 mile cool down was 9:04. Average pace for the whole run was 8:29.

I ran in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt for the first time except for the Canyonlands Half Marathon since last summer.

I have this little embarrassing problem. The places on my body that get sweaty and the way it collects on my shirt, it looks like I'm lactating. Some shirts show it more than others, but it was pretty obvious on the shirt I wore today and I was thinking that that would be a good shirt for the marathon. Maybe I'll have to get a white shirt.

Easy run + 8 x 10 sec. hill sprints. Average pace: 9:43.

Weather: 44°F, 76% humidity, wind 8 E.

I tried out some different warm-weather running clothes again today. I'm trying out every outfit that I have over the next few days in order to decide what I want to wear during the marathon. I'm so used to dressing in warmer clothes, that I'm not very well acquainted with these clothes.

I did my standard 4 mile loop today, but with some hill sprints on the end. I got some pretty good speed on the hill sprints today. My paces on them were 6:51, 6:32, 7:07, 6:44, 6:44, 6:51, 6:52, 6:48. I would spend 10-11 seconds running up the hill and then turn around and walk back down. Each time it took me 32-33 seconds to walk back down, so I was really taking it easy between the hill sprints.

Progression Run - 10 miles easy, 3 miles moderate. Average pace: 9:35.

Weather 46°F, 51% humidity, wind 12 SSE.

A friend of mine and her neighbor, who are training to finish a half marathon in June, were running 10 miles today. It was their longest run this far. I ran it with them and then did three more on my own. It was running with people for a change and they kept up a good pace. Splits were 9:38, 9:37, 9:43, 9:52, 9:54, 10:08, 9:55, 10:05, 10:03, 9:50, 8:43, 8:40, 8:23.

We ran on the Highline Canal Trail but there was a race this morning on the part of it that I normally run. So we went to a different part of the trail a little further north. That's actually a really nice section of the trail and has fewer streets to cross than other sections of the trail.

One week to go until Ogden!

Easy run + 6 x 10 sec. hill sprints.

Weather: Maybe about 48-50°F.

I ran naked this morning. In other words, my Garmin had a dead battery. So I have no pace or good weather information. I don't know how that happened because I thought I charged it after my run on Saturday. I had to reset it a few days ago. I hope it's not giving out on me. I've only had it for a year.

My husband and I both talked to our mothers yesterday and they each seem to misunderstand this marathon endeavor, but in different ways. My mom is just worried and wanted to make sure that there would be someone to drive me to the finish line when I collapse on the course. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, said to my husband, who is overweight and badly out-of-shape, "Why don't you run it with her?"

My mom did say that one of my niece's might be able to drive my mom up to Ogden to watch the finish of the race.

Marathon Pace Run. 2 miles easy, 4 miles @ MP - 10 sec./mile, 3 miles easy. Average pace: 8:51.

Weather: about 52°, but good weather data is lacking because motionbased is down again.

I didn't feel like getting up and running this morning, but I felt better once I did it. I was shooting for about 8:15 on the MP - 10 sec. mile section of the run. I didn't quite make it on the first of the 4 MP miles despite that it was largely downhill. I guess it just took me a while to get warmed up. Splits were 10:09, 9:30, 8:25, 8:14, 8:13, 8:10 (this mile was uphill and hard) 8:56, 9:00, 9:03.

My training schedule says to take a rest day the day before the race. However, I think I'm going to take a rest day tomorrow and then run short and easy on Thursday and Friday. I often feel a little sluggish the day after a rest day and tomorrow's a travel day anyway.

Rest/travel day.

I leave for the airport in about 45 minutes. I thought about running today and resting tomorrow, but I didn't have time for a run this morning with all the travel preparations. I suppose I could go for a run after I arrive at my sister's house this afternoon. We'll see.

I was driving out of the neighborhood earlier this morning to do some errands and I saw the Barbie doll out walking. Not only was she all dolled up with her hair and makeup and velour track suit as usual, but she was sporting ample (and probably silicone enhanced) cleavage. I guess that's what she does when the weather gets warm. I just don't get it.

I'll be seeing some of you soon!

I've been planning and preparing for this marathon for so long, I can hardly believe it's actually time to go to Utah and run it. I'm trying to think of it as a long run with extra food!

***UPDATE***

4:30 pm - Easy run on a rail trail outside of Park City, Utah. Elevation 6600 ft. Average pace: 9:28.

Weather: 57°F, 21% humidity, wind 8 NNW.

I thought that it was high elevation and hilly where I live. Well, we got nothing on the area where my sister lives. You can see Jordanelle Reservoir out her back window. The roads around here are all big looong hills. I didn't want to trash my legs running on these hills, so my sister showed me this rail trail that is quite flat. It was a nice place to run, though a little rockier than the Highline Canal Trail where I usually run. I saw quite a few people on bikes on the trail. I'll take a rest day tomorrow and then will probably run 4 miles easy on that rail trail again on Friday morning.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:45.

Temperature: 32°F.

It's cold up in them there hills at 6:30 in the morning. I ran on the rail trail again, but a different section than I ran the other day. This section took me up to where I was actually running between the east-bound and west-bound lanes of I-80. That was a little weird. But there's really a lot of space between the two sets of lanes and the ground is lower, so I don't know whether people on the highway could even see me.

I spent all day yesterday at my mom's house working on a quilt that I got roped into making for the 6th grade. It was kind of a nice because I got a lot done and it kept my mind off the race. Now today is all about the race. I'm getting ready to head up to the expo pretty soon. And tonight I'm going out to dinner and then having a slumber party with Lori and Marion!

Official time: 3:45:10.27. Split time for the first half 1:53. Split time for the second half 1:52:10.

So for this race report I will first talk a little about Friday. I arrived at the expo at about 3:00, but wasn't expecting Marion, whom I was meeting there, until about 4:30. So I got my packet and perused the booths (and got an ice cream cone), but otherwise just sat around in an area they had set up for the speaker, so as to avoid wearing out my legs with excessive walking around the expo. During this time I ended up visiting with the race announcer. He asked about me so I told him my age and that it was my first marathon. He asked if I had a time in mind and I just smiled, so then he guessed that I was trying to go sub 4:00.

At 4:00 I listened to a talk by Dane Rauschenberg about the marathon course. After that I waited a while more and then Marion, who had gotten stuck in traffic, got there. We got her packet and went through the expo. I bought a pair of gloves for $1, which was fabulous because I hadn't brought gloves and was wishing I had a pair that I could wear at the start and then discard when it got warmer. I also met Kelli at the expo.

A little later, Marion and I went to dinner with Lori and her husband and another couple who are friends of Lori's. Then we went back to Lori's house and visited for a while, and then went to bed a little bit later than we should have.

 I slept fitfully, waking up several times during the night. When my alarm finally went off at 4:15 I got up and said out loud to myself, "This is it." We all got dressed and tried to eat something, then Lori's sweet husband drove us to the start so that we wouldn't have to ride the bus. We were also picking up another runner that Lori knows and giving him a ride to the start. It was a little tense for a little while because we got a little bit later start than we had intended and then we had trouble finding this other runner's house. But we finally found it and made it to the start in time. Lori's husband dropped of Lori, this other runner, and myself at the marathon start and then took Marion to the half-marathon start. It was cold at the start, but not too bad. I kept my ratty old hoody on instead of putting it in my drop bag, but then took it off just before the start of the race because I thought it would be hard to take it off while running. I tied it around my waist and ditched it after 2 miles. I suppose I could have ditched it sooner, but oh well. They had pace flags to help you line up in the right place, and so I lined up about half-way between the 8:00 and 9:00 flags. That worked out well because most of the people around me at the start were going about the pace that I wanted to go.

Now I will give you a break down of the miles with comments where I have them. These are Garmin miles, not mile-marker miles because I had auto-lap set on my Garmin. I probably should have turned it off and just hit the lap button whenever I got to a mile marker, but oh well.

1 - 8:48
2 - 8:39
3 - 8:23 - Warm-up over. Time to pick up the pace just a little bit.
4 - 8:20 - I think it was around here (or maybe it was a little later) that I came upon a woman who asked me what pace we were going because I was wearing a Garmin and she wasn't. We were going about 8:20 and she said that was the pace she wanted and it was about the pace I wanted, so I ran with her for 2 or 3 miles. There was also a guy she had met at the start of the race who was running with her and was kind of pacing her. He had just run Boston, so he wasn't really racing this race. It was nice visiting with her, but after a few miles we came upon a very mild incline and her pace started dropping off, and so I left them.
5 - 8:15
6 - 8:21
7 - 8:26
8 - 8:29
9 - 8:37
10 - 8:26
11 - 9:51 - I had a port-a-potty break during this mile and that's why it was so slow. When I came out of the port-a-potty I saw the two runners that I had run with before up a little ways, and so I ran a little faster and caught up with them. But they were going too slow for me so I left them and did not see them again the rest of the race.
12 - 8:25 - I met Rad who was struggling with her IT band. She asked me my blog name as I passed her because I was wearing my FRB singlet, so I ran with her for a little bit and we talked.
13 - 8:30
14 - 8:40 - The start of the only significant hill.
15 - 8:38 - I got an encouraging text message from my husband at the start of this mile and I responded with the number 15.
16 - 8:38
17 - 8:42 - I've been wondering when the promised downhill would start and then I remembered that it was after the dam. Oh good, I could see the dam up ahead.
18 - 8:24
19 - 8:38
20 - 8:31
21 - 8:32
22 - 8:24 - At the start of this mile I sent my husband another text message that said 22.
23 - 8:08 - Hmm, got going a little faster here, I guess.
24 - 8:42 - As of the start of this mile everything was further than I had ever run before since my longest training run was 23 miles.
25 - 8:15 - I decided to try to pick up the pace the last 2.2 miles. It was hard but I knew I was within reach of my BQ time but it was going to be close so I figured I would push it in order to avoid blowing it by just a little bit. At this point I thought about all the people who were pulling for me (thank you all) but, no offense intended, I decided that I was doing it for me. It was hard at that point, but I figured that this was what I was training for and there was no point in saving myself for anything.
26 - 8:16
0.2 (but my Garmin says 0.39) - at 7:53 pace. - I could see the finish line and people were saying things like "4 more lights to go" or "3 more lights to go." I was wondering whether their count included the current light (because they were stationed at lights) or not. But mostly I was just trying to get to the finish. I was really digging deep by this point.

 The announcer that I had met the day before was standing on the finish line with a microphone making comments. As I went over the finish line I pointed to him and said, "See, I told you I could do it." So then just after I got over the finish line he came over to me and said, "Talk to me." I told him my name and reminded him that we had talked the day before. And then he said into the microphone that it was my first marathon and I had qualified for Boston. At least that's what I think I heard him say.

So I got through the finish shoot and did not see Marion standing right there nor did she see me. So I went over and got some water and food and ran into Sasha. I talked to him a bit and then asked him if he knew where Marion was. He pointed her out for me. At this point my calves were seizing up, so Marion had me lie face-down on the grass and she massaged by calves. Thank you, Marion!!!!! It really helped.

A little later Lori finished. We hung out for a while and talked with Kelli and Kellies and then went back to Lori's house, where Lori's husband made us eggs, hash browns and toast. A little later, Rad and her husband and darling children came over to Lori's and we had strawberries dipped in chocolate, watermelon, cookies, and root beer floats. Yum.

A huge thanks to Lori and her husband who were wonderful hosts and do so much to make this a great race for me. I really appreciate the company, the place to stay, the ride to the start, and the great food and service after the race. It was great having Marion stay there as well and so much more fun going to the race with Lori and Marion than it would have been to just go by myself, run the race, and then leave by myself, which is what I would have had to do without them. A million thank yous to Lori and Marion!!!!

And thank you to everyone who has encouraged and supported me in this endeavor. Now I've got to figure out what to do next. Rest for a while, I guess. I'll keep running over the summer, but I might cut back a little and work on some other things.

Day 2. Rest.

Too bad. It's a beautiful morning out there.

I'm sore, but I don't think I'm walking funny. Yesterday at the beginning of church someone said I was walking fine, but then later someone said I was walking fun. I guess I got tired as the day wore on. I should be a bit better today. I'll see what people have to say at work.

I had an absolutely fabulous trip to Utah. It really was perfect. I enjoyed staying at my sister's house and running the rail trail up there. Sometime when I'm in Utah but not racing, I want to do a long run on that rail trail. I had a fun day sewing with my mom. I got to have lunch with a friend and then had an awesome time with Lori and Marion and a great race. Even the travel between Colorado and Utah went without a hitch. My flight coming home was even early. And I kid you not, at the Denver Airport they were paging Mr. Jazz, Mr. Hugh Jazz, to the white courtesy telephone. He never picked up the phone. He must have run off somewhere with Bart Simpson.

Now it's back to reality with going to work and getting the kids through the last week and a half of school. And I've got to take this extra time that I get from minimal running the next two weeks to get that school quilt finished and get my house cleaned. Somehow I think I don't have enough extra time.

Day 3. 20 minutes and 46 seconds of the old lady shuffle.

Weather: 60 °F, 36% humidity, wind 9 S.

I got out and went really slowly like I was supposed to, though I did speed up slightly over the course of the run. McMillan's instructions say to run on flat terrain. That's not really possible for me, but I did try to take a less hilly route than usual. I went 46 seconds longer than I was supposed to because I was too far from home when the 20 minutes were up. I kept running until I got to the bottom of my hill sprint hill, then walked up that hill and home. I'm still feeling tight, particularly in my left hamstring. That's the only muscle that's really hurting at this point. It was always a little tight for the weeks before the marathon.

When I got to work yesterday one of my coworkers had decorated my office with streamers and confetti and congratulations signs. Some of my coworkers are more excited about what I've done than my family is.

I'm starting to think fairly seriously about the American Discovery Trail marathon, which runs from Palmer Lake to Colorado Springs and is on Labor Day. It's a downhill course mostly on packed dirt trail and has slightly more overall elevation drop than Ogden (and is at a higher elevation overall). I was thinking I'd like to do a fall marathon and this one would be the least stress and cost to me and my family since it's close to home. My only hesitation about it is that it's a little sooner than I would like it to be. If I take 4 weeks to recover from Ogden, I'll have 12 weeks left after that to prepare for that marathon, one of which I'll be spending on a cruise ship. I guess I can run laps around the track on the ship.

Day 4. No running today.

I got up and did the No More Trouble Zones video. It takes about an hour and is a pretty good workout. I'm trying to take advantage of my no running days to work on some strength training.

I was looking at the Ogden Marathon results yesterday and I discovered that if I had registered in the Athena division (which I could have because I weigh more than 140 lbs.), I would have taken first place in the division. The woman who did get first place ran 3:49. Oh well. Maybe I'd rather be 11th place in the old skinny lady division than 1st place in the fat lady division (not that over 140 is necessarily fat - I'm just saying).

I've got to make two quilts/wall hangings for the 6th grade and they have to be done by next Thursday. I would make just one, but it would be way too big (I've got to use 87 6-inch blocks that the kids drew on), so I'm making two smaller ones. I got the quilt top for the first one done last night and I'm about half done with the second quilt top.

Day 5. Short easy run. Average pace: 9:59.

Weather: 54°F, 69% humidity, wind 9 SE.

My legs are still sluggish, but the tightness is gone except for just a little lingering tightness in the left hamstring. I felt like I could have run for longer today, but I decided that I should keep it short.

I saw Barbie again this morning in all her glory.

It's high school graduation this afternoon, so my two high-schoolers don't have school today. The older one, who is a junior, is going to graduation because he's in the orchestra that's playing. The seniors took their finals early, but the other grades, which include my two oldest sons, have finals tomorrow and next Tuesday and Wednesday. Next Wednesday is the last day of school for all of my kids, and is 6th grade Continuation, in which my third son is involved. I've got to have the quilts done by then. I should finish the 2nd quilt top tonight. Then I've just got to quilt and bind them. They are not going to be very heavily quilted. I need to buy some batting and fabric for the backs. I figure the work I'm doing on these quilts more than makes up for all the volunteering at the school I didn't do during the year.

Day 6. Rest day.

I got up and did No More Trouble Zones again, but I didn't get up early enough. I had to stop in the middle of it and drive the oldest two to the high school. I finished it when I got back. I'm hoping that the reintroduction of some weight training into my schedule will help me shed a few pounds and improve my core strength, which will help my running.

So we got some big news yesterday. My husband has been teaching elementary school orchestra for the last five years. He found out yesterday that they are cutting instrumental music from the elementary schools in his district next year (they're also doing that in the district we live in, but that's a different story). This means that his current position will not exist next year. However, rather than terminating his contract, they're moving him to the high school (they terminated the contract of the guy at the high school). I actually think this is a good career move for my husband, but of course I'm unhappy that they're cutting music from the elementary schools. But to shift the focus to me, because this is my blog, and so it's all about me ;), this means that my husband will have to get to school much earlier next year than he does this year (he works about 30 miles from our home). This means that he might not be able to take our son to seminary in the morning. Of course, we don't know what time seminary will be yet because they're changing the schedule for the high school where my kids go. Also, my third son will be in middle school, which is apparently going to start at 7:30, or something like that. So that means that next school year all of my family will be out of the house by about 7:00 in the morning, except my 6-year-old daughter. So I have to be done with my run by then. I could manage that, but it gets tougher if I'm going to have to be driving a kid to seminary around 6:00 in the morning. I'm really not sure how I'm going to do any significant running in the mornings next year, unless I do it at something like 4:30 in the morning, which I don't think I can pull off. I'll have to figure something out, maybe a short run in the morning and a longer run later in the day, as if I ever have any time later in the day.

OK. I'll stop boring you with my scheduling problems.

Easy run, but not really easy. Average pace: 9:22.

Weather: 53°F, 76% humidity.

I didn't have any pain on this run, but didn't feel as peppy as I would like to. But I can't complain. Each run this week has felt better than the one before. I did a couple of short fartlek-type bursts on this run to see if I still had legs. They went okay, but I didn't get going very fast and it wasn't for very long, just a "to that tree" kind of thing.

I didn't work any on the quilts last night. I guess I needed a night off after working with them all evening for the previous 3 nights. But now I've got to really work hard this weekend and get them done. Thank heavens for a 3-day weekend. However, I do have to go up to Boulder for a while on Monday morning.

I've been totally out of control with food lately. I've really got to stop it. I need to force myself to keep a food journal again and really be serious about it. The pounds have been creeping up on me. It wasn't so bad when I was running 55-60 miles a week, but it's bad now.

I just spent the morning running through the streets of Boulder with almost 50,000 of my closest strangers. Average pace (not counting the warm up): 7:44.

This was my 2nd year running the Bolder Boulder. I ran it last year in 62 minutes, so this was a 14 minute PR for me. I was advised not to run this race this soon after my marathon, and I'm sure that was good advice. However, I just couldn't resist running the Bolder Boulder. Last year I was in an open wave and it was very crowded and I spent a lot of time dodging between people. This year I ran in a qualifying wave. There were fewer people in the wave and they were all running fairly fast, so it was easier to run at a decent pace. The earlier, qualifying waves are definitely better if you want to try to set a PR, but I'm sure the later, open waves have more people in costume and that kind of thing and generally have a more festive atmosphere. There were several bands along the route, three groups of belly dancers, and one Elvis impersonator. I ran past one couple where the woman was dressed in a white singlet and a white running skirt and had a white veil on her head. She and the man both had signs on their backs, hers saying "Mrs. " and his saying "Mr. " and one of them said "Tonight" and the other said "6:30." So I guess they're getting married tonight. I said "congratulations" as I went past them.

I tried to take water at two of the stops (I passed up others - they had a lot of them), but it was more an exercise in pouring water on my face, because I didn't want to slow down. In the marathon, I felt like it was appropriate to walk through the aid stops and take a decent drink, but here I just wanted to keep going. I think I got a little water in my mouth.

The timing system for this race is excellent. They have timing mats at every mile and you can sign up to get a text message of your split times. I got the text message with my splits and final time about 15-20 minutes after I finished the race, and official results are already posted. And that's with over 40,000 runners.

I just told myself that I didn't feel as bad as I did with the same amount left in the marathon, and kept pushing. I went a little slower on the 2nd and 3rd miles for some reason. Maybe I went faster on the first mile because it was the start of the race, then I slowed down a bit because it wasn't the start of the race any more, and then I sped up because it was getting to the end of the race. I struggled a bit at the very end because that's when the hills come. Otherwise, the course is pretty flat. I did manage to pass some people at the end. In any case, my splits were 7:44, 7:57, 8:01, 7:42, 7:27, 7:36.

Because there are so many runners, each year is a separate division. So my division is just 40 year-old women, of which there were 429. I'm pretty happy to have gotten 16th out of 571.

It occurred to me recently that the average pace for my 5K and 10K PRs were slower than my average pace for my marathon. I've now done something about that 10K PR. Now I've got to do something about that 5K PR. The next 5K that I'm thinking of doing is on the 4th of July.

No running today. I'm supposed to be recovering from that marathon and I ran kind of hard yesterday, so I thought I better take today off.

I would have gotten up this morning and done a workout video, but I've got to get these memory quilt/wall hangings done for the 6th grade by tomorrow morning. I was up until 11:30 last night finishing the first one. The second one is done except for the binding, so I should be able to finish it tonight. I'll take pictures and post them when they're done, though they're really nothing special.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:28.

Weather: 42°F, 87% humidity, wind 4 S.

Just an easy run on my standard 4-mile route. I have nothing exciting or even remotely interesting to report about the run.

I had a busy morning after the run because I had a conference call from 8:00 to 9:00 and then I had to get over to the elementary school for 6th grade graduation, which started at 9:30. My meeting went over by about 10 minutes and I would have been able to sit down during the graduation if I'd gotten there earlier. Oh well.

They gave me special recognition during the graduation for making the quilts. I was up there with the Queen of the Room Mothers. That was weird. I did pretty much nothing all year, then spent a bunch of time and money the last month of school, while this other woman has been room mother extraordinaire all year every year. But whatever. I got a hanging plant of some variety.

So as requested, here are pictures of the quilts. In the pictures they are hung in front of the climbing wall, which is covered in pads. The hanging things in the middle of the quilts belong to the wall covering, not the quilts. Each quilt has 5 loops for hanging, but they used only the two outside ones when hanging them today. They say 2008 instead of 2009 because they went to Outdoor Ed in the Fall.

Easy run. Average pace: 9:32.

Weather: 48°F, 66% humidity, wind 9 SW. It felt pretty windy.

I felt a little sluggish today. It's probably because I ate a fairly large quantity of ice cream last night. I've really got to stop that. We were celebrating the last day of school. Now I'm in this no-mans-land where my kids are out of school but my husband is not. His school district goes through all of next week. So I've got to do this juggling thing where I work at home part time and work in the office part time so that my kids aren't home alone all day every day and my work is not too neglected. I'd like to start riding my bike or running to work, but I can't do that until after my husband finishes school, because when I'm doing this part-time working at home I have to transport my laptop between home and work all the time.

I've been thinking about something. It seems like when I talk to non-runners about my running I get two responses, often from the same person in the same conversation. The first is that they act impressed and say that they used to run but now they have bad knees or else they say that they can't run at all, or something like that. The second is that they say that they've tried running and they hated it and it was boring. I figure if they hated it because it was too hard, they were trying to run too fast. But I'm a little bothered by this common refrain from non-runners that running is boring. It's as if they're saying that runners must be simple-minded or something to be content to do something that's so boring. As I think about it, I think that quite the opposite is true. We must be pretty interesting people to be able to live inside our own heads during long runs. What do you think?

No running again today. I did No More Trouble Zones instead. That is one kick butt workout. I decided that for my marathon recovery plan I would run 3 days the first week (that was last week), 4 days the second week (this week), 5 days the third week, and 6 days the fourth week. That's why I didn't run today. I'll run tomorrow and that will be my 4th day this week.

I have another thought that's tangentially connected to my topic from yesterday. I have talked to a handful of people who said they don't run now because they have bad knees and most of them seem to claim that their bad knees are a result of running when they were younger. For example, they say that they ran cross country in high school. I did not run cross country in high school. In fact, when I was in high school, I would do just about anything to avoid running or any kind of physical activity. I don't know what was wrong with me. I did a short stint of recreational running for a few months in college, and then ran for about a year in my late 20s, then ran for another year in my early 30s, and then started up again when I was 38 and have been running since then (the last two years). I don't have knee problems.

So the question is, does doing a lot of running when you're young, perhaps as a teenager, frequently result in injuries that prevent you from running as an adult? Or is that something that happens to a few people but not most? Did any of you who run now run when you were a teenager? Can you run when you're young or when you're old, but not both? Or can you do both? I'm just curious about this.

Easy run. Average pace 9:08.

Weather: 62°F, 42% humidity, wind 5 WNW.

I slept in a little bit this morning and so I didn't have time for my run before it was going to be time to take my son to work. So I did the No More Trouble Zones video and then took him to work and ran after that. The result was that it was a little warmer when I ran than it would have been if I had run first thing. I'm going to have to make sure I get up early on Saturdays as well as on other days to run when it's cooler. I suppose 62° today wasn't too bad, but it will get worse and would have been worse if I had had a longer run. I should probably also start wearing my fuel belt. I haven't done that for quite a while. I didn't take it today, but I make a little detour and ran through some sprinklers just before the end of the 4th mile, and then stopped at a Walgreen's and got a drink from their drinking fountain just before the end of the 6th mile. I actually passed 3 Walgreen's during my run today. I can stop at any of them for a bathroom or water, but only if I run late enough. They don't open until 8:00 am. There is one that is open 24 hours, but it is down by my office and I go by there only if I do my office loop.

I felt sluggish at the beginning of this run, but got feeling better. There's a fairly big hill in the 2nd mile that I always struggle with and today the song Allergies, by the Barenaked Ladies came on when I started the hill. It's not one of my more favorite songs, but it's got a good tempo and I matched my cadence to the song going up the hill and got up the hill a little faster than usual. But it's a short song and so it didn't last the whole hill. I like running fast up a hill because I can usually keep the faster pace with less effort once I crest the hill and am either on flat or downhill. Splits were 9:52, 9:24, 8:54, 9:06, 9:09, 9:08, 9:00, 8:41.

I had my mp3 player on all songs shuffle and a while later it played Be Still, My Soul by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This is actually the song and arrangement that my ward choir is working on. So even though it's not exactly a peppy running song, I listened to it twice and figured I was doing some preparation for tomorrow's choir practice during my run.