I Probably Should Make My Blog Public again

I think I'm just going to abandon posting fast miles.  

 I had a pretty good workout, probably the best that I've had in about a month.  I've been trying to get pregnant, but we will not be trying this month because having a baby in May doesn't work really well for me since I teach seniors.  I don't know if that's a stupid reason or not, but oh well.

So anyway, after thinking up until I got my period the last two months that I was pregnant, I was being cautious.  This month I won't be as much.

So I warmed up for 20 minutes, then did 6 x 2 min fast with the same in recovery.  It was late when I started, so it was starting to get dark and it was much cooler than it had been during the day (the first couple 90+ days we've had in about 6 weeks).  The fast portions felt good.  

Then I stopped to talk to a cousin who was walking by my ex-SIL's house, which is where the kids were.  Her son is getting close to finishing his last chemo treatment for leukemia, is getting ready to start 5th grade and might actually get to go school most of the time (last year his attendance was understandably spotty because of all his treatments).  Their family has been through so much, but now things are going well!

Then I drank some water and convinced my cranky 4 year old to let me run 1 more mile.   But I did 2 instead.  Am I horrible or what?

I dropped off my kids at my SIL's house.  She has been working 12 hour days for quite a while, so I felt bad (especially since I had asked my BIL if he would be there, and he wasn't there when I dropped them off, although he was when I got back).  So I told her 40 minutes.

I ran my usual route, except the mile markers were off by about a 1/2 mile.  So I stopped paying attention to speed and just ran.  While running, I was all paranoid, since I have been reading about serial killers for the past two days.  So everyone I passed on the street was a potential monster.  I started projecting my "don't mess with me" by bellowing hello to everyone so they could see I wasn't winded.  I know I frightened people with my massive guns.

And then when I ran past my house I realized I had left my garage door open in my haste to get to the preschool meeting for Caleb, which actually turned out to be an open house, so my hurry was needless.  So again I was paranoid and walked in the house and shouted really loud to make sure no one was there.  My husband has been out of town at a conference for a few days, so I made sure to check the house well when I came home with the kids.

Then I continued on.  I pushed the pace for the last 10 minutes because I wanted to make sure that I ran as much as I could in the 40 minutes that I allotted myself.  At 4 miles I was at just under 9 min pace, so I pushed my hardest for another 4 minutes.  So of course I am estimating the 1/2 mile, since I still don't have a garmin, and I don't plan on gettting one right now, given the circumstances of my life (even though I drool over ads and amazon).

It was a good run.

I need to check what I ran.  I know we were out for close to an hour, so it may have been longer than what I'm reporting.

 First day of practice.  Hooray.  I ran with on of the groups, but ended up hanging back with one of the asthmatic varsity runners who didn't bring her inhaler.  Grrr.  We weren't going too slow, but we were not going that fast either.

I'm probably going to be inexact on my mileage from here on out...

Ran another 3 min fast/3 min rec run.  Did 6 reps.  Two of my varsity girls kicked my butt.  The other 2 (I have currently 13 girls on the team, but the other 3 varsity spots are up for grabs at this point) were behind me, including my asthmatic.  Her problem?  Our school is surrounded by corn fields and she is allergic to pollen.  She usually has trouble this time of the year and then once the fields start coming down, she can breathe again.

Girls' team is looking pretty good.  I lost my fastest girl from last year, but I have 2 new ones (a senior and a freshman) who will fill her void and a returning sophomore and senior who both trained hard and smart all summer.  All four have the potential of going sub-20 (probably not sub-19, though), which will be a first for our team.  Usually I have one or two superstars and then everyone else is a good distance behind.

Boys' team is currently rebuilding.  I have one boy who's going to be someone to watch.  He's a freshman and he reminds me of an all-state runner I had who graduated several years ago.  One of the good things about my assistant is that he is pretty fast so it looks like he'll train with this kid. 

I'm hoping that the boys can make it out of regionals again this year, and I think they should be able to with what we have this year.  The good thing is that some of the boys have decided to be more serious about summer training, so I'm expecting good things.

Ran with the XC kids today.  We did an easy 40 minutes with 10 fast minutes at the end.  Guessing on the mileage.

Ran at Lake of the Woods with my friend Colleen.  We ran with some kids too for the first 3.5 miles.  It was really slow because one of the girls there was really slow...

Then Colleen and I ran just ourselves.  We were going pretty fast for these 4 miles...it was awesome, but we didn't get to talk that much because we were going too fast for conversation.  It was nice to run with her.

Now I'm going to help her set up her own blog.  Maybe.