Same Time, Same Channel

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.