Chug-along-chica!

*Whew*  I am sore from yesterday's long run.  The thing that concerns me the most is right above my second toe, on the top of my foot.  It niggles when I flex my toes up, push off that foot, or when I touch it.

2 miles outside at 10:45 pace. I was so sore from my long run on Sat.

My sister Laura (on the blog) is in town for New Years. She is trying to decide if she should run a 3 mile race tonight. I will be her pacer if she does. Everybody go comment on her blog and tell her to do it! It will take quite a bit of effort for me to keep up, though, in my present state. She'll probably need me to run about 10-10:15 pace for 3 miles. We shall see if I hold up!

(LATER THAT NIGHT...)

Wow! Laura ran a great race! Her average pace for the 3 miles was 9:37--that's about 2 minutes per mile faster than the last race she did! I am so proud of her. And she made me WORK! Her last mile was the fastest at 9:22 according to my Garmin. And she was fresh, too. You should have seen her sprinting to the finish line at Warp 9 to try to keep from getting "Geezered" by this old guy. (He was a really tough old guy, though, I must say.) She recovered quickly, and from my observations, merely looked "tired," not "wasted." I think with a little more experience racing she will continue making huge PRs. If this had been a full 5K she would definitely have been below 30 minutes.  (THAT'S OVER A 6 MINUTE PR FOR 5K!!)  According to my watch, she finished at 28:40. The results said 28:50, but I think that that was gun time, instead of chip time.

Tomorrow when I have a little more brain cells awake I want to start a discussion about how to encourage someone to do their best when you pace them. Any ideas of things that work of don't work? Basically tonight I mainly lied (I told her we were going 10 pace, which was the goal, but actually we were going 9:30), cheated, stole (not really), sang, did fartleks with her, feigned not holding up very well, praising her for pushing it, talked as fast as I could for 28 minutes, yada yada yada. She responded every time I asked her to push it! That was just SO DARN COOL!!!!! I'm so glad I got to be a part of this.

I had to sleep in REALLY late to get my 8 hours of sleep.  I was up very late last night because I was all excited from that midnight race with Laura.  

So anyway, I was a major bum today and completely skipped my run.  No excuse at all. I think that sleeping late leads to less ambition all day long...or maybe it's just a coincidence. 

5.47 slow, boring miles on "Treadmills 'R' Usville." 

But I mopped my floor at the same time using my new irobot Scooba mopping robot!   Hooray for the modern age of technology!  This almost makes up for smog, in my book.  :)

I really had to drag myself out there tonight!  And I only did 2.  Not good.  *Sigh*  I am feeling a little bit of the post-Christmas, post-New Year's, post-vacation blues.  I need a well-placed kick in the pants, if any of you have your bloggee boots on...

Tonight my littlest guy turned 3!  I don't have any more babies--they are all growing up!   I'm not sure I like this pattern...  I try to persuade them to not eat their vegetables so they will stay little and not grow so fast, but that usually only produces a broccoli feeding frenzy.

5 on the treadmill.

I don't think I'm going to be able to run today!  Yesterday on my treadmill run my right leg started hurting.  It was a really dull ache at first, but eventually started to really hurt.  I think it is some kind of cramp or strain in the muscle on the front of my leg between the knee and ankle.  There is definitely tightness.   It hurts a little today even when I am not doing anything,  I feel it a little more when I walk, and well, I'm not even going to try running until it goes away.  Massage and heat feel good on it.

 Humph!