Long Short Run Thursday and Saturday!

Come and join me in the wonderfulness that is the taper.  (If I was more tech savvy, I'd have a day- counter to tell you when the marathon will be. It's soon enough that I'm tapering.)

To understand my relaxation, you should hit play on this video while you read the rest of my post.  (The video is, um, not the best, but just listen to the song while you read.  Totally safe for work and the kids.)



Thursday morning I woke up at the crack of dawn and I'm so glad I did because I had a great run with the St. Paul runners.  What made it great?  A couple of things.
First - I wore my bolder options marathon shirt and realized it's the first time I've worn that thing out in public.  I finally lost enough weight that I don't look like stuffed sausage in it.
Second - when Robin (could've been Heather or Beth, one of them) said, "wow, Liz, we're not running any slower than we usually do".  WIN!  Because I usually run much slower than they do.  I refer you to the last race we ran together when they ran sub-9s and I ran a sub-11.  But there I was, right there with them at the end.  I could feel it too, but in that great "I just worked my butt off" way.

Thursday at work, much like the rest of the week, was crazy busy but a positive and productive experience.  Thursday night, I actually went back to the YWCA for another run because even though this is a taper week, my mileage for the week was kind of messed up by not running on Sunday.

Friday I slept in.  I refer you to the fact that I did like 15 miles all together the day before.  I went in to work late too.  Again, on purpose and pre-approved by the boss.

Work was very productive, mostly me doing chart audits.  I think I only talked to one person before my meeting at the end of the day.  And I was strongly reminded that I don't like people sneaking up on my from behind.  Seriously, from the side is fine, but not from the back.  That's a longer story than we have time for here.

At the end of the day, a friend called me from a closet at work.  (No, she called me when I was in a meeting and I called her back 5 minutes later she had to go to a closet to take the call.)  Obviously, friend wasn't having the best day.  Probably wasn't helped by the fact that it was 3pm and all she'd had to eat was a cup of yogurt and she was working a double.

I stopped at Taco Bell and picked up food for her and a snack for me.  She ate the burrito 'meal', half of my steak quesidilla, and a couple of my cheesy potatoes.  (Oh, just get the chicken burrito for me, that'll be fine.  Ha.)  I actually planned for her to eat that much food.  One of the things marathon training has taught me: fuel is important.

My Fancy alarm clock that Chris recommended also arrived on Friday.  I set it up when I got home.

Saturday morning I experienced an awesome sunrise.  Such a nice way to wake up.  I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow at 6am when I'm getting up for the long run.  I set it for a 30 minute sunrise but I'm thinking a 45 minute setting will be better.  Seriously, when I opened my eyes, I was awake.  Not like, whomahgod, whuttimizit?  But, just, awake.   Nice.

I went over to Turtle Bread and picked up some fresh bread and a chocolate croissant (I'm running, why not?).  I had the croissant and coffee for breakfast.  Then I headed over to Lake Nokomis for a nice five-miler.  It's good that I'm running when it's in the 50's because that's what it's likely to be for race day.  (I'm thinking about purchasing a pair of those fancy runner-sleeve-arm-warmer deals but not sure.)

I came back and again, headed over to the hot tub at the Y.  It's the time of year that when I stop running I get really cold so the hot tub warms me back up.

After that I tried to make lunch and failed at shirred eggs.  This is my second fail with those things so I'm basically giving up.  I then steamed some collards, fried some bacon, and mixed the two together.  I poached the one egg I had left (ooh, I've got to buy more eggs before tomorrow) and put it on top of the greens and bacon awesomeness.  (Thanks to Amanda for teaching me about that dish.)

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to a long run around Ft. Snelling.  It was about this time last year that I discovered how wonderful that trail really is.  I thought about running on Pike Island tomorrow too, but have opted to add miles by running around Lake Nokomis and its paved, typically more even, surface instead.  I'm reminded that while it's not Pike Island, Lake Nokomis has it's own beauty.

After the run we'll be picking apples, possibly for the last time ever at this orchard.  (Why can't I find pictures of last year's trip?)  Here's 2007, possibly the last year I put on the blog? and 2006 - look how skinny I was!, that's right when I started running.

Now, isn't that a fantastic song.  MaMuse home page or listen to them on Pandora and Grooveshark.