Friday and Bill comes home tonight after being gone for 2 weeks!

nothing

Another run in the morning. Jodie came to run today!!! Only 16 days postpartum and she's out running--probably shouldn't be, but she wanted to try. Ran the first mile with us, then paused at Melissa's before running another good mile. Wow! Then she walked a bit, but we saw her later still trotting along.

I ran 4.81 today at an average 9:01 pace.

Just had softball tonight. Right in 1st inning, someone hit it way over my head, so got a little sprint. Then rest of the game was uneventful with just a few fielding moves and one run to 1st.

Met up with Kristin and we got going. Headed out and about a mile into it, I realized we were going pretty fast. As we came back towards her house, I said I was done at 4 miles today as I had tennis tonight. During our cool down I realized it had been fast--34:16 for 4 miles = 8:33 pace! Funny thing is that the first 2 miles were 8:39, whereas the 2nd 2 miles (when I knew we were going fast) was 8:27 pace.

Then played tennis tonight and had a good workout with that as well--played really well actually.

After the two good run days, decided today was a break day.

So since Melissa didn't run yesterday, the plan was for Mel and K to do a long 14 mile run today. K & I talked and I figured that if they met by their house, and ran to 4 Mile and the bike path, I could meet them there, have water for them, do 5-6 with them, water back at my car, then they could run back for about 14.

Got to the meeting point and Kristin came alone (well, with Chester). Apparently Melissa just flaked and didn't show or call! Kristin and Chester had water, we ran up and back the bike path for 4 miles, then I ran to Hwy 31 with her as she asked me to accompany her a bit towards her way back home, then I ran back to the car---giving me 6.22. Ran this 6.22 in 54:07, which is a 8:42 pace--whew! Granted I stopped the watch for the two little breaks, but I even kept it going while I walked for aobut 30 seconds at 3.5 miles and still was that fast!

6 miles, 2 days in a row, with a faster 2nd day. Good little runs!

So it was pouring rain this morning 4-5:30am....pouring! Mel and K were going to run long this morning, but figured they probably didn't. I was going to go a bit early, 6:20ish to do a few extra miles, but figured I'd just sleep a bit after being woken up by the rain and just go at 7am. Just after 6am I heard my text messaging going. K texting, wondering what I was up to as Mel bailed on the run. She was just going to run on her treadmill as she had to leave to get Kayla at 8am. I was bummed thinking I'd be alone at running group, but then she invited me to her house to run with her for 4-5 miles.

Well, I got there and she suggested 6 miles. Ran from her house to Spring, to Sunnyslope roundabout and back--a nice 6 miles. Averaged a 8:59 pace---first 2 miles were 8:39, next 2 were 9:17 (there was a little walking in there at the turnaround point), final 2 miles were 9:01.

It's Friday, so I decided to take a break as I'll run both Saturday and Sunday.

Another morning run with the girls and Melissa was with this time. As we got going, decided to do Johnson Park (oooh, hills, after last nights workout). As we headed west on 3 Mile, then they wanted to do more so we headed north to the clubhouse...which makes our normal run 5.25 miles. A little long for a morning, but good to push it a bit. It came out to an average 8:58 pace, so not too shabby.

Softball got cancelled for today and it was my bye week for tennis so I made an appointment with Anna. Nice to do one-on-one with her again. I wasn't in the mood for arms today, so told her to focus on core (even though I was still sore from the Ab workout) and legs (as we took it easy on those for a few weeks due to my knee). We started with lunges with the back leg on the bench--oooh I hate lunges and those were hard. That was alternated with high step-ups onto that bench. We also did side leg lefts and squats on the bosu, reverse situps/standups on the angled apparatus, V-sits with extensions, pikes on the balance ball, and probably 1 or 2 other things I can't think of. Not too hard of a workout, but some good ones in there.

Up to run with the girls today and it was a day of comedy of errors. As I was getting ready, smelled something. Not sure what, smelled the clothes, hmmmm. On drive to Kristin's realized it was cat piss smell! Not a direct hit, but I think the bra I was wearing was near wherever was hit. Arrggh. Too late to do anything about it now. Get to Kristin's, take a drink of water, take fob off key ring, open door, hit lock button, close door, go to put fob in pocket----Arrrrghhhhhhhhhhhh----WRONG FOB! I pulled Bill's off. Now my keys are locked in the car. To make matters worse, Bill's set of keys is also in the car as I had those for last night's GOP meeting as it has the key to the bank on the ring. I just stood there as Kristin walked up. Told her what happened, talked through options, then just decided to head off for at least a short run.

Ran 3.15 miles in a fast pace--frustration needing to get out (8:33 average pace). After talking through different options, I asked Kristin to use her phone and called Mom as she's always up this early. Kristin drove me over there and I called Amoco motorclub. They said they'd be there in an hour and 10 minutes. So just hung at Mom's, then she took me back to my car. Got in and drove home. Found where the cat pissed (on my Fargo backpack) and shoved that in both cats' faces. Started a vinegar laundry and got ready for work. What a morning!!! And still made it to work by 8am, but felt like I should have just gone back to bed.

Needed a running/legs break today after 4 days of running. I didn't want to blow my one rest day this early in the week, though, so I decided to do the TJ Ab workout. That is a tough one. For some of the floor exercises, I tried to lift up a bit further than normal to push it--and I can feel it.

Hills today, back to Gateway. Bill, M & K wanted to do 10 hills, I wasn't too sure about that. Did our mile warmup and started the hills. After 8, I decided I was done and waited for them to finish. Then did our mile cooldown. Ended up totalling 4.25 miles. Funny thing, though, is that my 2 mile splits were exactly the same--9:32 average. With the warmup and cooldown, the charging of the hills, a bit of walking at the top of each hill, it's weird that it came out so even.

Happy Independence Day!!!

It's a holiday, but it's also Saturday. Did the 3 mile bike path today. Got started with Melissa, Kristin, and Tony. M & K only were doing 4 miles as they already ran 10ish, but Kristin demanded I do the full 6 with Tony. He's enjoyable to run with and I like the northside bikepath route. We did a 9:05 average for the first 2, 9:17 for the 2nd 2, and Tony had to walk a bit then so our average for the final 2 was 10 min. A good 6 mile run, after a 4 mile Thursday and 5 mile Friday. Now on to hills tomorrow. Ugh!!!

With the holiday Friday, Bill suggested we do something different since we all have more time to run. We met at 7:30am and drove out to Bong for a trail run. There is a 4-mile-ish trail and then another 1-2 mile trail we could do.

I struggled quite a bit, I really am not a trail runner. Mosquitoes are terrible. I ran the first 2 or so, then had to walk on and off quite a bit. Only ended up getting 5 miles in, but it was beautiful. Views of a lake, lots of birds singing. Lovely day out with a nice change of scenery.

We all have off on Friday, so we decided to move our morning Thursday run to Friday. Bill really as some mileage goals, though, so we decided to get up and do a short run, just not as early as when we meet Kristin.

Did 4 miles out the neighborhood up the bikepath and back in 9:24 average pace. Not a great run, just couldn't get too into it. It was nice to run with Bill the whole time, though, we don't get to do that often.

Wednesday, so it's a softball day (no tennis). Unfortunately we didn't have a very good game, in fact lost by the slaughter rule. Had a few balls in the outfield so got a bit of running (we were short so I had all of center field!), but hitting wasn't great. Walked once and got a hit once--but caught.