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Sunday, May 3, 2009

Horseplay

Today = friggin' gorgeous. I'm pretty sure I couldn't have asked for better weather: sunny, 70, breezy. Yes, a little on the warm side as far as running goes, but it sure beats that one run I had back in March when I got a little hypothermic and couldn't feel my fingers for an hour :)

I'm trying to build a better base, once again, but this time actually sticking to it, rather than jumping the gun as usual. I'm giving myself three weeks of 30mpw, then I want to build it up to 40mpw and keep it there for awhile. I think I can handle that, with a few 50mpw's thrown in here and there leading up to Vermont. So, allllll that said, I sketched out a cute little plan in my daily planner, obviously allowing for some wiggle room...I like wiggle room. It's been two weeks and I eked out 30.7 the first and then 33.7 this week. Sweet. Feel pretty good, too. The new orthotics are great and things feel more 'normal'...my shins are the happiest they've been in over a year. My feet are doing weird crap though, which I was warned about. The orthotics get everything in line, and then it takes some acclimation for the toes and arches to get used to being placed correctly. So my toes hurt, little bastards. Growing pains. I feel like an aged woman in the mornings stepping onto the wood floors at home, oy. My feet would prefer walking on memory foam, or clouds, either or :)

Today I wanted to do 10 miles. So I did. It was a bit of a struggle to get myself out to do it, mostly because I couldn't decide where I wanted to run, then I was annoyed because I don't have a trail out my back door, then I started to think "well if I lived in Maine, I could have a trail out my back door...or at least then I'd be perfectly happy running on pavement because Maine is heaven," or something like that :) I decided to go with James Pate Philip State Park again. Since the sun was out full blast I thought it would be a good chance to get a feel for how the Sunburn Six in the Stix six hour run will feel on August 1. Obviously, it's not oppressively hot the way August in Illinois is, but close enough.

I had a great run! No turtle sightings this time, but lots of sun, lots of cool breezes, lots of rolling hills, and lots of sweat. I did all three loops in the park two times, then ran the main loop a third time to get my full 10 miles in. This was also a good way to see how I feel in another loop route. Mind games, I'm telling you! It wasn't that bad, but I did change it up and run all three loops in reverse on the second go-round. That kept it interesting enough. That, and the couple I caught towards the end of the main loop and pretended I was in a race, approaching the finish line, and left them in the limestone dust, waaaaaaaah! Okay, so now what...I grabbed my iPod to occupy my mind for the second go-round. It was pretty deserted again, so that was nice to have the place practically to myself. The place was swarming with horse flies though. Nasty little buggers, and they kept nipping at me. They were useful when it came time to employ a mind game, though. They were all over the ground, and as I'd run down the path a handful of them would leap up and fly a few feet down the path ahead of me, and when I 'caught' them in a couple strides, they'd leap up again and fly ahead of me to a new spot. Okay, I know how totally weird this sounds, and perhaps I'm not describing it well, but it was pretty entertaining, and it kept my mind off of how hot I was getting! Just horsin' around with the horse flies :)

I had my camera in the car, but the scenery isn't all that "holy crap, that's beautiful!" so I didn't snap any pictures. Very pretty place, but it's not like it's rolling, muddy singletrack :) I had a really strange pain on the inside of my left foot, towards the heal, that popped up at the very end, when I was doing my cool down walk. WTF? It was weird, and it hurt the whole way home until I iced it. Feels just fine now, but man is that annoying! I wore my fave running skirt and my snazzy glacier blue Run Hard Tread Lightly Atayne top, which left me with a wicked farmer tan! Oops, didn't think about the whole sun-beating-down-on-me thing, I guess it's time to throw the sunscreen into my running bag. At least I didn't stink :)

Great weekend, by the way. I did my five miles on Saturday along a southern stretch of the lakefront path. A 5k race was closing up shop at Soldier Field, and a parade that had something to do with Poland and a lot of red and white had recently finished up because all the floats were parked on one of the streets off Lake Shore Drive, in Grant Park. Kinda neat, but created a lot of annoying foot traffic. Hello, didn't you realize I was going to be running on the path this morning folks?! ;)

I love leisurely weekends like this. Naps, running, strolling, coffee, took Charlie for a walk in downtown Batavia to go see my mom's new shop, blogging.

One more thirty mile week, then we're getting into Pineland Farms 50M territory...! Maine, ready or not!

Crash, out.

5 comments:

David Ray said...

Good run. I know what chasing the horse flies is like. They're not too bright. :)

I pulled out the Skin So Soft spray on Saturday, thinking the bugs are due to show up. And, sure enough, I had some beastie attacking for a while. My least favorite, the deer fly, will show up in a couple of weeks. That's the price to pay for warm weather.

Loving the weekends!

Jeremy said...

I think your extreme love of Maine almost classifies you as a Mainer.

Paige said...

I am a naturalized Mainer, you do not even realize. Soon, very soon I will be reconnected with my Mainer brethren :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Paige.

I was able to get my miles up to 50 per week by increasing my back-to-back long runs. I am a huge believer. I wrote a blog entry on it back in February. Maybe it will give you some ideas.

http://neverstoprunning.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/back-to-back-long-runs/

JW

Paige said...

Thanks, JW :) I'm going to have to work up to that for sure...maybe once my knees stop giving me grief I can convince them to go back-to-back...that would be awesome!

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