Same Time, Same Channel

Easy run.

6:16 am, 68° F, 62% humidity, winds calm, partly cloudy.

I had to drop my son off to go fishing with the scouts at 6:00 this morning, so I got dressed to run before I took him and then ran when I got home. That got my out the door early than I would have done otherwise.

About a mile into the run, I saw a guy doing push ups on the sidewalk and then he got up and walked away. A little later I had a close flyover by a flock of geese. Then I found a set of sprinklers and ran through the first one, and then they all turned off. I didn't get any more sprinklers for the rest of the run until the last mile. Then I was in my neighborhood and ran across three lawns with sprinklers on. A guy on a bike saw me on one of the lawns and smiled.

I ran for exactly one hour.

I've started this thing with my daughter lately. She's always up when I finish my run and I stand on my front porch and stretch after I run. While I'm stretching, she brings me paper towels to wipe the sweat off my face and water to drink. It's a pretty good system.

AP: 9:37. Splits: 10:17, 9:34, 9:43, 9:22, 9:35, 9:21, 0.25 @ 8:48.

Easy run.

6:43 am, 60°F, 81% humidity, wind 1 SW, mostly cloudy.

Just a short, easy run with Carly.

AP: 9:58. Splits: 10:23, 9:56, 9:40, 9:54.

Pathetic run.

6:37 am, 64-66° F, 48% humidity, wind 5 WSW.

I'm registered for a half-marathon next Saturday. I kind of made this deal with myself that if I could run 10 miles this Saturday, then I would do the race, and if not then I wouldn't. I agreed to meet Carly at 7:15 and then we would run to meet up with Michelle and the three of us would do about 6 miles together. So I decided that I would get up earlier and run 4 miles before meeting up with Carly. However, I didn't get out the door quite early enough. I was just a couple of minutes later than I needed to be, so I ran faster than I like to that first 4 miles to get back to meet up with Carly. (I wasn't sure she'd wait for me if I was late because I hadn't actually talked to her. Michelle had just left her a voice mail message about our plan.)

About a mile into the run with both of them, I'm felt like quitting, but I kept going. But then after I had been with Carly for nearly four miles, I was staggering along behind the two of them and I just stopped running and turned off my watch and started walking. They didn't even notice at first. But then they noticed and I told them to go on ahead without me. They were reluctant, but they agreed. Then I walked the rest of the way home at a very leisurely pace. It was probably about a mile and a half to home.

So I self destructed. I didn't manage to run 10 miles. Maybe it's because I ran too fast at the first. In any case, I neglected to pick up my race packet this weekend. I could still pick it up the morning before the race next Saturday, but I doubt that I will. I've spent the money one way or the other. I don't think I want to go make myself miserable running further than I'm comfortable in the heat all by myself.

AP: 10:03. Splits: 10:10 9:27, 8:23, 9:26, 9:57, 10:34, 10:47, 0.97 @ 10:47.

Easy run.

6:36 am, 57° F, 41% humidity, wind 3 SSE.

Just a short easy run with Carly.

Today is the first day of school for my Freshman son. The others start tomorrow.

AP: 10:03. Splits: 10:35, 9:57, 9:49, 9:59.

Easy run.

6:34 am, 59°F, 76% humidity, wind 2 SSE.

I couldn't get ahold of Carly yesterday so I ran all by myself today. I was going to take my iPod but I had misplaced my headphones and didn't have time to look for them. During the run I remembered where I had put them and sure enough, that's where they were when I got home.

It was a relatively uneventful run. The strangest thing was that in the last half, I ran faster on the uphills than on a long downhill stretch. I think I was daydreaming on the downhill. The downhill went past the high school and the middle school. It was getting close to starting time for the middle school (the high school starts 15 minutes later than the middle school) and there was all kinds of traffic from parents dropping off their kids at the middle school. The drop off at the middle school is a nightmare. As I was running, I thought about how glad I am that I don't have a kid at the middle school for the next three years.

When I had about .4 miles to go my husband called me and I told him I was almost done. He must have told our daughter, because she was out waiting in front of the house with a cup of water and a paper towel for me when I got home.

AP: 9:57. Splits: 9:58, 10:21, 9:44, 10:01, 10:08, 9:34.

Easy run.

6:34 am, 63°F, 53% humidity, wind 3 ENE.

I ran with Carly this morning. She's turning into a great running buddy. She's planning a 10 mile race in the Fall, so she's motivated to run regularly right now. Today we talked about animal sacrifice, among other things. She spent a semester in Nepal when she was in college and witnessed the sacrifice of a goat. She also said if they couldn't afford a goat, they used a zucchini instead and stuck sticks in it so that it would stand up like an animal. This subject  came up because I'm reading a book called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. It's about a Hmong family from Laos who came to California as refugees in the 80s. They had a daughter with severe epilepsy. The book is about the conflict between the Hmong culture and religion and Western medicine. There is quite a bit of discussion of animal sacrifice in the book. Carly recommended the book to me.

I've got to decide whether I'm going to get up early tomorrow morning and drag myself up to Georgetown to run that half marathon that I foolishly registered for. It could really go either way at this point.

AP: 9:54. Splits: 9:53, 10:00, 9:48, 9:58, 9:49.

I hesitated to make this a race report, because I didn't really race it. However, it was officially a race.

I was debating as recently as yesterday whether to run it, but Bonnie and JD said that I should, and so I did.

I got up at 5:09 (5:00 alarm plus one snooze). We left the house at about 5:35. I made my husband drive me. This is the third time I've run this race and every time I make him drive me to the start and then pick me up at the finish, even though you can park at the finish and take a bus up to the start.

I was supposed to pick up my race packet last weekend at a Runner's Roost store in Denver, but I didn't do it. So I went a little earlier this morning than I normally would have because I needed to pick it up before the race. It turned out that I didn't need to go as early as I did. Oh well. At least we got decent parking at the start.

After I got my race number, we spent some time just sitting in the car. I did step out once for a port-a-potty visit, and then it was more sitting in the car. I noticed that there was a woman by herself in the car next to us. So when it was time to start walking to the start for the start of the race, I got out of my car and spoke to her and then we stuck together until the race started. It was nice to have someone to talk to and not be all by myself before the race. But we split up at the starting line and I never saw her again. I didn't stick around very long after the race and I didn't see her there.

They had pacers at this race, which I hadn't seen before at this race. Maybe they started it last year. I didn't run this race last year. In any case, we lined up a ways behind the 2:20 pacer. The first couple of miles of this race are miserable because you have to run this loop around Georgetown and then you pass the start again and head down the frontage road towards Idaho Springs. The loop around Georgetown is very congested and it's hard to get past people. However, I did manage to pass the 2:20 pacer and the 2:15 pacer in those first two miles. For most of the rest of the race I could see the 2:10 pacer a ways ahead but I never seemed to gain on her. I figured for a 2:10 finish she should be running 10 minute miles, and I thought I was running a bit under 10:00, so I should have been gaining on her. I finally passed her with a couple of miles to go.

I really took this race pretty slow and easy. I kept thinking of it as just a regular Saturday long run at a comfortable pace. As a result, I was not as uncomfortable as I was last time I ran this race. The time actually passed fairly pleasantly. After about 6 miles I tried to pick the speed up just a little bit, and then with 3 miles to go, I picked it up a little more and then pushed about the last quarter of a mile. I passed quite a few people in the last quarter of a mile.

There were aid stations every two miles, but I skipped the 2 mile stop and the 6 mile stop. So I walked a few steps and drank some water at 4, 8, 10, and 12 miles. It was shady for the first two miles and then after that there was hardly any shade. In about the last 4 miles, there were sometimes small shady spots at the edge of the road from trees. Everyone shifted to the side of the road where there was a little shade. I did that except when it contradicted the tangent badly.

That's pretty much the story of the race. Not very exciting. Now I'm tired and useless for the rest of the day.

Stats are based on the auto lap of my Garmin and my Garmin measured long - 13.15 instead of 13.10.

AP: 9:34. Splits: 10:29, 9:56, 9:49, 9:36, 9:51, 9:38, 9:25, 9:33, 9:31, 9:27, 9:09, 9:20, 9:00, 0.15 @ 7:41.

Easy run.

6:31 am, don't have weather info.

I got out and ran all by myself this morning. Carly hasn't wanted to run this week because her little one has started waking up during the night for a feeding again. If she can get him back to sleeping through the night, then she'll run with me.

I encountered plenty of sprinklers this morning and got pretty good and wet just before the end of the 3rd mile.

I took Monday off because I was still sore from the half marathon last Saturday (how pathetic is that?). I did the shred on Tuesday. And I finally ran a wee bit today. It took a couple of miles to get my legs moving.

AP: 10:10. Splits: 10:55, 10:12, 9:55, 9:42.

Easy run.

7:17 am. Normal weather.

I was supposed to meet Carly at 7:00 am. I woke up at 6:45 and mistakenly thought that I was supposed to get up at 7:00 and that my alarm would go off at 7:00. So I went back to sleep. I woke up again at about 7:08. Alarm hadn't gone off because it wasn't turned on (it was set for 6:30 actually). I remembered then that I was supposed to have left the house at 7:00. So I went downstairs and opened my front door and Carly was standing there. I told her to go run a bit and come back. I got dressed and went out and met her after she had gone about a mile.

AP: 9:59. Splits: 10:13, 10:06, 9:53, 9:45.

Easy run.

6:11 am, 65°F, 54% humidity, winds calm.

I haven't run all week because I've been worn out and busy and trying to get to work earlier because I'm having to work so many hours. But I got out and ran this morning because Michelle called me last night and asked if I wanted to run with her this morning.

While we were running I got a call on my cell phone from Thing 3. He was calling to say that he could see me. He was walking across the high school parking lot on his way to seminary.

When I was finished running, my daughter brought me water and paper towels while I stretched on the porch.

My plan is to run with Carly tomorrow. We're planning 7:30 instead of 7:00 since I failed to get up by 7:00 last Saturday.

AP: 10:20. Splits: 10:36, 10:23, 10:12, 10:11, 0.16 @ 10:07. I didn't realize while I was running that I was going so slow today. Oh well.

Slow easy run.

7:34 am, 64-69° F, 60% humidity, winds calm.

I ran with Carly this morning. It seems that I can get myself out to run only if I have someone to run with these days. I'm glad that Carly was willing to go slow with me.

I'm tired. My two teenage sons had to be at the church at 4:30 this morning to go hike a couple of 14ers with the Young Men. My husband drove them to the church, but I had to get up and make sure they got up and out the door. And then I had a hard time going back to sleep.

I worked late last night too. Maybe that's another reason I'm tired. I should go try to take a nap before my boys get home from their hike.

AP: 10:10. Splits: 10:13, 10:18, 10:18, 10:10, 9:59, 10:01.