Patience; the new endurance sport.

I woke up at 6:00 a.m. and immediately went back to sleep.  That was one great weekend. But Mondays...who needs 'em? Sheesh.  I tried to run at lunch, which was a bad idea.  It was 97 degree by 11:00 a.m. already.  I made my kids ride their bikes with me down to the lake while I ran alongside.  It took half my energy just to get them out the door and onto their bikes.  Then my son spent 3 miles pontificating about why he was glad he wasn't a woman (mostly revolving around the baby-having aspects, including stretchmarks and fatness).  Thanks for your support son!  Why, I just LOVE it....Why, there are so many benefits to being a woman, let me name a  few .... #@%$#%!!!!  I tried to point out he wouldnt have been born had I not been a woman.  But then he suggested I could be his father. Again, way to appreciate my feminine mystique there kiddo.  I'm sure I missed a really spiritual opportunity to explain the divine nature of women;  all our moral supremecy, and nuturing superiority, etc.  But I just told him to back off or I'd give him pickled chicken feet for lunch. 

 9:43's.  I could not add any speed at all to the run.  My goal was to just get through it before 8:00 a.m.  Yesterday, I did a few fast(er) 1/16th segments (every third triangle marking on the trail)--but it was so hot and my son was talking to me in a way that I found upsetting and distracting. So it was not a good effort.  I just couldn't muster the strength to do any speed today.  I hope that being on vacation will give me a bit of a break.  I have not had one second of mental down time in over 7 months.  I had a brief respite in March, but I am wound so tight, and then getting sick put me behind by 2 weeks in every way.  Maybe it's just the week before and the week after vacation suck and that's the way it is. 

The running gods are not smiling on me this month.  I wanted to be running 40+ mile weeks (which I have) to compensate for the lack of long run (as I'm getting stronger again).  Just when I'm getting there.... during the 9 mile run yesterday, a sharp knee pain that plagued me during the run has intensified and bothered me all night and again today.  It hurts to go up and down stairs, to balance my lower torso when doing half-push ups, while doing yoga, walking, turning quickly etc.  I strapped blue gel ice packs to each knee yesterday and today, with no results.  It's on the inside, bottom of my knee cap.  Sharp, stinging kind of pain.  It just came on and is unlike a general achy pain that I associate with fatigue or overuse.  I do have a tendency for rotating tendonitis and I wonder if this is the latest case (I sure hope it's not like a torn meniscus or something).  I will be biking probably 25-30 miles on the stationary a few days in a row and keep my fingers crossed.  I just keep losing ground toward my late summer/ fall running goals.

I did 2 hours on the stationary bike (I watched a whole movie in one sitting. Wow!).  The readout says I burned like 800 calories, but there's no way.  It is hard to pedal, and it makes you sweat like a river, but once you're done nothing feels tired except your butt where you sit.  Afterwards I ran a little 2 miler just to help my quads loosen up, and the knee felt pretty darn good.  I'll rest tommorrow for good measure.  I'll be in South Carolina this time tommorrow.  Can't you just feel the sunshine?  Can't you just feel the moonshine?  Just like a friend of mine who hit me from behind-- wait, what kind of song is that anyway?

I flew into the tiniest airport (Florence), and within 20 minutes of being in South Carolina I had eaten every single thing I came for:  Boilt peenuts (i.e. boiled peanuts), dilly beans, chow-chow, garden tomatoes and figs fresh and moist off my grandfather's tree.  We'd driven past the Farmer's market before heading to the farm and I could not believe the beautiful produce.  we bought  pounds of the fattest blackberries, sweetest blueberries and peaches.  We got field peas, black eyed peas, sweet 'taters, and collard greens.  Have I mentioned how much I like fresh food?  Well.   So today I decided to run from the farm out to the Magnolia Cemetary where my mother's buried, and where we recently put my father's gravestone.  When asking my aunt to remind me how to get to the cemetary from the farm, this is what she said in her deep southern drawl: "It's juhst 2 mihles daown Darlington Road, turn left up Carolina Avenue past Ko-Kur (Coker) College, then just keep on a'goin until you see the cedar and magnolias linin' the road.Y'all be kerful, them cars is danjrous along that highway."  Highway?  Oh, she meant the road.  So I ran to the cemetary, saw the gravesites (4.25/9:06' ave) then back to the farm.  But my aunt was right, those country roads have NO sholders.  So you have to run in the thick grass along the side of the road to avoid getting hit by a car.  It was hard to run through all that thick grass, and itchy.  When I got back to the farm, I thought I'd run one circle around the circumfrerance to see how many miles 100 acres would be--turns out 1.1 miles by the Garmin.  I sweat like a freaking pig, my clothes were absolutely drenched.  What's the benefit of sea level training again?  Training your lungs to suck the oxygen out of 100% humidity?