Finally Some Rain

Yes, I woke up this morning and it was raining!! It was supposed to, and when I woke up at 2 I had looked outside I saw some lightning so knew the storms must be coming in, but wasn’t sure if they had, I had forgotten to bring the towel in that I had hung on my balcony last night to dry too (so as not to have to run the dryer) and when I set my GPS out at 5:30 to get a signal, it was drenched…oh well. I knew it was going to be fun to run in the rain again. I actually really enjoy a nice rain to run in in the right conditions. Today was the right conditions, but body is still acting out. I ran 4 miles last night in the heat, yes we hit 100 at one point yesterday, no idea what it was when I ran, but it was hot, I walked parts of it, but I wanted to get out so I did, 3rd run in a row without the GPS or a watch, I estimated time to be 9:30-10 minute pace…Today’s run I wanted to be easy tempo, nothing too hard, planned 6 miles (ended up with 6.5 due to a miscalculation in the distance I had come and no way to get back to the house sooner) and wanted 3 miles at tempo pace of 8:15 or so, the rest just easy, this is a cut back and easier planned week, plus I am running a half on Saturday (although that is just more part of my long run training run this weekend so not really going to be fast), but still, figured I could get a little speed out…nope…and I had to walk a few spots up some hills cause the legs were just dragging. I was feeling somewhat hungry, which should not be the case since I did eat last night and it was only 6 miles and I’ve gone up to 10 in the morning without having eaten anything for breakfast. I averaged 8:53 or so for the 6 miles and it was 8:57 for the 6.5 (the last half was up a pretty steep hill). I’m taking tomorrow off due to friends being in town, I’ll go easy on Friday, racing on Saturday and off again on Sunday, but I really need to be up for good speed work next week. I’m at 12 weeks till the marathon and right now, I’m not even sure I’m going to break 4 hours…honestly, I think the 3:42:54 is what my body had in it, that was it and I don’t think I’m going to go even close to that one ever again at this rate…I need something to give me some confidence and I just don’t know what will do that…or what more I can do to try to get the running to feel good again. I want the training feelings from this spring…

On the upside, tonight Leesa and Dan will be here. They are moving from Florence, KY to Sandpoint, ID, finally meeting their dream of moving to Oregon, Colorado or Idaho. They are both into outdoorsy things, hiking, skiing, Dan’s gotten into adventure racing and Leesa got into mountain bike racing, so it’s going to be perfect for them…now I just have to figure out if I want to attempt skiing on mountains and go see them sometime in the winter or if I should go visit in the spring!! But so looking forward to seeing them tonight, we are going to dinner at what is my favorite restaurant, Vescio's (this place was so good that when Leesa and I would be talking on the phone and it was near a meal time, if one of us mentioned the name, we'd be there in the next 30 mintues) and then probably for drinks, I’m off work tomorrow and hanging with them till early afternoon when they head off…so glad I was on the route to where they were going as it’s been way too long since I’ve seen them. I also can't wait for dinner...I used to be enough of a regular there that the waitress would know what I want (I almost always get their yummy baked rigatoni pasta with meat sauce, salad and then maybe dessert, they have fantastic tiramisu, black forest cake and yummy cheesecakes...what would I want most...)