Every Race is an Adventure!

I felt surprisingly good this morning, except for some stomach trouble. Two of my daughters had upset stomachs last night, too. It must have been Dad's cooking. My 16-year old daughter has been doing the cooking (and a great job) since Karen left last Tuesday, but they asked me to make Tortilla Espanola (Spanish potato omelet) yesterday. I learned to make it while serving my LDS mission in Spain. It's one of the few meals that everyone in the family loves. My two adult children not living at home came for dinner yesterday, even without Mom there. The omelets tasted great, and the others didn't get sick, so maybe it was something else.

At any rate, I decided to stay close to home (and the toilet) just in case, so I just ran the 1/2 mile loop around the block in front of my house. I was just taking it easy at about a 9:00 pace and pondering. After a few miles I kept thinking about how I don't get to walk my dog after the morning runs now because of school schedules, and I started feeling bad about that. I also kept feeling bad about not selling Brittany Oriental Ave when we were all playing Monopoly last night. She had earlier sold me some properties I needed (that eventually won the game for me), but I kept demanding $1000 for Oriental Ave because I knew how badly she needed it. I was wrong. When I realized that all this guilt had slowed me to about a 9:30 pace, I cut the run short and stopped to get my dog. She and I ran one 1/2 mile loop together then I walked another with her so she could get her sniffing in. I then went in and apologized to Brittany. She was a little surprised and said it was no big deal. Maybe it wasn't to her, but it was to me. I had let my desire to win trump my love for my daughter. I could have let her into the game and made it more fun for everyone. Instead I let her basically sit and watch from the sidelines. Bad Dad.

Sorry for the rambling, but it is my blog...it's good therapy for me...it did affect my run this morning...and nobody's forcing you to read it. :)

I guess I should mention some pain I'm feeling in my left foot. Even though I felt fine all weekend after the race, and during the run and dog walking this morning, at some point after that my left foot started hurting near my ankle. It kind of comes and goes, but when it comes it's pretty painful. I decided to skip the noon run today. I'll have to keep on eye on it.

I tested the ankle this morning when I got up. It felt a little better but after some pondering I decided to skip today's run and rest it one more day. Since Larry is out of town, I called Wayne so he wouldn't drive all the way to our neighborhood to run alone. I told him to plan on me tomorrow unless I call him.

I tried to sleep a little more but ended up doing some inspirational reading (Ensign magazine) instead. I was a little surprised to get a text message just after 6:00am. It was from Karen in Delaware, apologizing for missing my call last night. It turns out she was in her sister's hot tub and didn't have her phone nearby. Since I knew she was awake and near her phone I gave her a call. She was surprised I wasn't out running. We had a good long talk. I sure miss her. So do the kids.

Karen called back twice later. She and her sister are flying standby on buddy passes. They were planning to come home today (hurray!) but now it's looking more like Thursday morning (nooo!), or maybe Wednesday night (better). Oh well, we'll survive. Karen (like most mothers) works a lot of 24x7 when she's on the clock, and deserves whatever break she can get.

Ran the water tank hills this morning. Since I was tapering last week and didn't push the hills, I promised Kevin I'd push the hills with him this week and give him a challenge. I thought I might be last up the hill. I decided I'd be first. I couldn't see anyone behind he. It was like I was running alone.

OK, I confess, I was running alone. Larry's out of town. Wayne called last night and is having foot trouble. I'm not sure why Kevin didn't make it out...afraid of me beating him up the hills maybe? Nah, he probably just slept in.

I climbed the 5 hills in 16:15. I think this is pretty close to a PR, but I haven't kept very good track over the years. I was a little surprised it was that fast. I wasn't pushing at top effort, and it was pretty dark, so I had to watch my footing, and there was a headwind.

My foot felt pretty good yesterday after skipping my run. I was scared this morning when shortly after I got up I felt the pain again. I almost skipped today's run, too, but decided to try running on it. I'm glad I did. It didn't bother me at all while running, and has felt pretty good since.

With working late last night with India again, and having the car in the shop, I didn't get into work until just before noon (got a ride from my son Adam). I stopped by the fitness center to see if anyone was going out for a run, but I didn't see anyone. I decided I'd better get some work done, so I skipped the noon run, grabbed a small taco salad to go from the cafeteria, and headed to my office to work and eat (and blog my run).

I ran alone again this morning. I ran the 10 mile route from home to two miles up Provo Canyon and back. There was a pretty strong headwind and it was cooler than normal. The coolness actually felt pretty good. When I got to the canyon it was pretty dark and I felt very alone most of the time. It reminded me of some of the runs Kerry has blogged, but without any animal encounters. I got spooked by some rustling leaves at one point, but I think it was just the wind.

I pushed along at about medium marathon pace effort, but I only averaged 8:15/mi., with a couple of 7:40 miles at the end. I say "only" because I averaged 7:07/mi last year at St. George, and would need to average 6:52/mi to break 3:00 hours this year. As I ran it seemed hard to believe that I'd be able to run more than a full minute per mile faster in the marathon. But I averaged 6:35/mi at the Hobble Creek half last Saturday, so with the downhills, lower altitude, taper, and race day magic there's hope I can at least break 3:10 again. I'm afraid sub-3:00 might have to wait for another year.

The best thing today was that Karen got home. My original plan was to go to work as normal. She was planning to ride home from the airport with her sister and her husband who are staying with us. They are here for the open house for their daughter who just got married out in Delaware, which is where Karen has been. I decided to work from home because I wanted to be here when she got home. About an hour before her flight got in I decided that wasn't good enough and decided to go to the airport. I was just past the point of the mountain when she called and said her plane had got in 30 minutes early. I got a little nervous because I wanted to surprise her and didn't want to have to tell her to wait for me to get there, but then she told me they were waiting for a plane that was in their gate. I also knew she had checked luggage so I figured I could still make it in time. When I got to the luggage carousels there was nobody there so I feared I'd missed them. I called her and they were still on the plane. I kept up the pretense of still being at work, but I think she was beginning to think, or at least hope, otherwise. As they finally came off the escalator her backpack was falling off her shoulder. I walked up from behind and asked if I could carry it for her. Her reaction was all I hoped it would be. She hugged me and kissed me (very unusual for Karen in public) and seemed almost as glad to see me as I was to see her. Then her sister said how much Karen had been hoping that I would be there. I was very glad I decided to go to the airport. I think the kids were even happier to have Karen home than I was, if that's possible. I'm very blessed with a wonderful wife and family.

Remind me to never try to organize a long run again. As of midday Friday we were planning on 8 of us for the 20 miler from the top of South Fork to the lake. Six started. Four made it to the lake. I had already run this 20 miler twice with different groups, and maybe would have preferred the run up to the girl scout camp and back, but it seemed like the best run for a couple of the newer/slower runners...the ones that ended up not coming. Oh well, all we can do is the best we can do.

Actually, the run turned just fine, just not as expected. The weather was cool and pleasant. So was the company. And I was plenty tired and beat by the end of the run.

Larry, Wayne, Kevin, Kerry, Nick and I started together at the top of South Fork. On the way up we had to stop for a very large moose that was crossing the road. On the way down, Larry and Wayne ran a little ahead while Nick entertained the rest of us with stories about BYU football (his son Christian is a freshman quarterback on the team this year) and with quizzes on LDS Church trivia (he's got a steel trap memory for statistics and was recently memorizing things from the Church almanac).

After stopping at Vivian Park, Wayne, Kerry and I pulled ahead while Kevin, Larry, and Nick hung back. We knew that Kevin was cutting out at the mouth of the canyon to run home to get to a family activity, and we could tell that Nick (who hasn't got much mileage in) might be joining him. When we hit the mouth of the canyon, Kerry took his headlamp to his car and Wayne and I ran back to meet the others. It wasn't long before we saw Larry. He had left Nick at one restroom, who was going to call his wife for a ride, and Kevin at another. He went on ahead to catch up to us so he wouldn't have to run alone to the lake.

Shortly after the four of us started the last 10 miles to the lake, Wayne started pulling ahead. He built up quite a gap. At 15 miles Larry told us to leave him and go after Wayne. Kerry had put in high mileage this week and decided to stay with Larry. I wasn't as wise, and picked up the pace. I had been averaging about 8:45/mi to this point. The splits for the next 5 miles were 8:34 (included bathroom/gel/water stop), 7:22, 8:03, 8:19, 8:44. I started my pursuit well, but didn't have the juice to hold it to the end. Shortly before I got to the end Wayne passed me going the other direction. He was headed back to meet Larry and Kerry. I was planning to do that as well. However, my left foot had started to feel a litte sore at about mile 5. By mile 20 my achilles had joined the fun. I decided to not risk injury and be content with 20.1 miles (avg pace 8:37).

I thought about soaking my feet in the water near the trail, but it's a stagnant swamp. I was afraid I'd catch some deadly flesh eating disease, or have the flesh on my feet picked clean by pirannah. Instead I sat down and drank a cold Powerade while I waited for the others.

This run was nothing to write home about, but it's worth blogging about.