18 Miles Hurts

This week I missed a 9-mile run.
Mon: Taekwondo - cross training done
Tues: - 5 miler - done at the track with Chris & the kids
Wed: No TKD - attended the Lions Club Meeting
Thur: everyone was exhausted - we just hung out at the house and went to bed early
Fri: took Frank to the dentist, lunch with Chris at work, grocery shopping.... dates with the kids when Chris got out of work... no running....
Sat: 5 miler with Chris & the kids at the track
Sun: 18 miler... done!



The plan for today's run was to get to the start of the route by 7am. Somehow, I thought setting the alarm clock for 6:30 would get me to Ann Arbor in time. This plan was completely unrealistic - since it takes about 30 minutes to *get* to Ann Arbor, not counting the two times I hit the snooze bar, time to get dressed, eat breakfast, grab a cup of coffee, drive and park. The *actual* run start time was some time between 8:15 and 8:30am.

The temperature was about 52 when I started out. A full bottle of Gatorade in my running belt, 3 packs of gu/cliff shots, printed out maps in a ziplock, car key attached to pepper spray, and my cell phone in tow, I started out on 4th street towards Beakes. Beaks turns into Broadway when you cross over Depot St and the Gandy Dancer. From here, I took a left turn towards Argo Park and ran through my favorite trails next to the Huron River. The sun was shining through the trees and off the water - just beautiful. I passed other runners, walkers and a couple of bikers. I followed a wood planked bridge that ended up crossing to the other side of the Huron river.

Thank goodness there are public restrooms at the parks. About three miles in, I really really had to pee (too much coffee for breakfast!) Anyways - business taken care of - back to the running. Frankie called to let me to find out how many more miles I had to go. I told him 15 - he told me to sprint the rest so I could get home ;)

Trail run was over pretty quickly - 4 miles found me at Riverside park, coming up on UM Hospital. It's always important to plan your long runs past hospitals - you just never know when you may need one. This route would also take me past the VA hospital and St Joe's.

The b2b (border to border) route is a really well marked, continuous bike/running/etc trail from the west side of Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti. About every 3/4 mile is a new map, and lots of little b2b signs with arrows. Past Fuller Park, UM Hospital, soon I found myself on the east side of Mitchell Field. The b2b sign had two different ways to get to Gallup Park - a 1.25 mile route to the left, and a 1 mile route to the right. My path was the one to the right - of course!

Gallup Park was beautiful. Apparently there was a 5k earlier in the day. The race staff was cleaning up, and there were a bunch of race shirts on the tables. Looks like they didn't have the expected turn-out. More trail along the river and through fields and up along the Geddes Rd bridge.

Around the corner was Washtenaw Community College and St Joe's. WCC is building a new fitness center - nice facility, though not yet finished. Rounding the back of the hospital, I almost stepped on a set of keys on the trail. I picked them up and took them inside to the information desk. Hopefully the person missing keys will go look there! I was also hoping I was close to my turn-around point. My car seemed awfully far away, my Gatorade was gone (refilled the bottle with h2o at the hospital) and parts of my legs were really starting to ache.

Checking the map - apparently I made a wrong turn and ran the *long* way around St Joe's. The route from mapmyrun was over by a quarter of a mile, and with the long route around St Joe's, I ran to Eastern's staduim, and turned back towards Ann Arbor.

The car was really really far away. The last 7 miles seemed really long.

Aug 24 - Aug 30 - What's Supposed to happen

Mon: Cross Train (taekwondo)
Tue: 5 miles
Wed: Cross Train (taekwondo)
Thur: 8 miles
Fri: 5 miles
Sat: rest
Sun: 18 miles

Wednesday may be a little dicey - the rest are totally do-able!

Bought new running shoes today, and a pair of trail shoes. Can't wait to break in the trail shoes!!

This Week - What *did* happen

What a crazy week! On Thursday, work stuff came up and I didn't get home until after 10pm - WAY to late to run 8 miles....

Ran 9 miles on Friday (saw 5 deer!!), didn't run at all on Saturday, and got up early to run 16 miles on Sunday. What a beautiful 16 mile run! I started in Dexter, ran through town to Huron River Drive. Huron River Dr runs next to the Huron River, a long winding road with a low speed limit, and lots of bike traffic. (more car traffic than I'm used to too...). There was a misty rain coming down through my run, and a really nice temp. It started out about 60 at 8:30am, and when I finished up at 11:30 or so, it was about 65.

So - I survived the 16 miler, and I'm looking forward to this week.

Special thanks to Mom - the massage therapist! Don't think I'd be walking today if it wasn't for her magic hands ;)

What's Supposed to Happen this Week

Mon: Cross Train (Done)
Tue: 4 mile run (Done)
Wed: Cross Train
Thur: 8 Mile run
Fri: 4 Mile run
Sat: Rest
Sun: 16 Mile run

Just checking in!

Last week was really tough. The heat and humidity make the miles seem really long. I've been bringing extra gatorade & gu.

Sunday's long run was an 11 miler through lots of country roads with Dan. I don't mean to complain, but I really, truly believe Manchester was built on a road that is uphill both ways. There is no direction you can run where you can avoid hills. We ran into a lot of traffic on Sharon Hollow before we crossed over M52. From there, it was just a lot of road to cover. We finally came back to M52 just north of town, and have never been so glad to see that road. Both of us had been walking up hills for a couple miles. We stopped at the water fountain at Chi Bro Park to get a huge drink of water, and dump a bunch more over our heads. We both covered the miles with some new blisters, and new appreciation for the difficulty of running in the humidity.

4 miles today were pretty uneventful. Looking forward to the 16 miler at the end of this week.

8 Weeks to go

Here's what is supposed to happen this week:

Mon: Cross Train
Tue: 4 Miles
Wed: Cross Train
Thur: 7 Miles
Fri: 4 Miles
Sat: Rest
Sun: 11 Miles

So far (it's Thursday) so good. Ran 4 miles on Tuesday - 20 min on the track with Chris & 20 min on the road. Taekwondo on Mon & Wed. Tonight I'm scheduled for a track date with my husband, kids, and one of my friends with her two kids.

Catch-up post....

I've been slacking on the blog posts lately (though not on the training...) Here's a quick catch-up...

Mon & Wed have been Taekwondo days - getting the cross training in. Tuesday & Thursday's I've been running with my husband at the track - knocking out those 4 & 7 milers.

I did a little juggling of schedules to get a 10k in on Aug 1st. The running schedule said to do 14 miles on 8/2 and 9 miles on 7/26. I swapped those two days and ran 14 miles on Sunday, July 27th. On 8/1 I ran the Manchester Run 10k . Here's my race time:

Female 30 to 39
  Place    Name                    City              Bib No  Age   Overall       Time      Pace            
     1    Laurie Luckhardt        Saline  MI            123   35       25        55:14    8:55/M           
     2    Caroline Giordano       Ann Arbor  MI          82   30       26        55:32    8:57/M           
     3    Michele Ingalls         Manchester  MI        199   39       32      1:00:04    9:41/M  

Not too bad! I'll have to work pretty hard to pass up those two ladies ahead of me....

After the race, I ran another 3 miles with Chris to make up the whole 9.

Last week-end, the weather was really hot on Sunday, so I ran my long run a day early. 15 miles on Saturday, 0 on Sunday in the 95 degree weather. 10 miles out in the country, 6 miles on the track with the husband. Unfortunately, I wore the wrong socks on my long run, and found myself at the track with blisters on the arches of my feet (giant orthotics...). In a moment of complete insanity, I took the orthotics out of my shoes and let my family take them home. Because of the thickness of the orthotics, running without them makes me feel like both feet are turning in pretty sharply. Six miles of this really ended up being painful, in new and different ways... Hobbled home, took an ice bath, then refilled the tub with hot water, ate dinner then passed out in bed. The next day I made arrangements with my mom for a massage.