'Protect Your Knees' week here at Marathon Training central

I love four day weekends. I'm also finding to-do lists to be very helpful. I was inspired by my pooky bear to make a to-do list for my time-off. I want to be clear that mine is in no way that ambitious. (Good for you Pooky!) Here's mine:

• Sew button on pants: Check, done Sunday night, and that is the limit of my sewing expertise.


• Fix earring: Also done Sunday night. (One of the charms fell off of one of my favorite earrings, simple fix but it did involve my jewelery pliers.


• Untwist elastic waistband in a pair of shorts - not yet. Is there a simple way to do this? I haven't even figured out a difficult way to do it.


• Make a guitar playing area in the living room and buy a guitar stand: Done today. At first I was planning to take apart the behemoth that is my entertainment center, take off one of the shelf segments and put it back together so there'd be no space on my wall. Then I realized I couldn't actually disassemble and reassemble the thing alone. That realization was followed by the realization that I should probably use my pooky bear (the only other human being on the planet who can figure out how the thing goes together and comes apart) for more important jobs. I was able to find an acceptable 'space' with the entertainment center intact.


• Figure out a 'standing desk' hack for the office with Ikea furniture: Fail.


• Polish kitchen table: Not yet, but I will.


• Load pictures from my camera onto the computer: Done. Not wouldn't it be nice to put them on the blog? Too bad that's not on the list.


• Buy summer work shoes: Check. Most expensive item I bought today. I have heavy criteria for my summer dress shoes (flip-flop style toe loop, no strap around the ankle, has to be dressy, black is preferable, heels bad) so it's good I found something I like and will wear. My current shoes are going on three years old. It was really time for new ones.


• Buy and install drawer organizers for the bathroom drawers: Ikea actually had something for this. Done.


• Make a system for contact lenses: Done. (It's not even worth explaining but glad it's in place now.)

Today I meant to wake up at 6am and head over to some of my favorite lakes. Sadly, I woke up at 3am and spent a couple hours lying awake so at 6am I was fried and I reset the alarm for 7am before turning it off completely. At 10am when I finally woke up (don't you wish you had a four day weekend too?) my knees weren't interested in running on concrete. I can't say I blame them; they've been working awfully hard lately. So I went to the gym (one visit down this week) and made friends with the ellipticals.

Not all ellipticals are created equal. The first one I was on was much harder at level 6 (like worked my muscles harder, had my heart rate higher, slower number of steps per minute) than the one I normally use at level 9. I'm just saying. I went a total of 12 miles on a combination of ellipticals. For the last couple of miles the Reds game (opening day!) was on the TV in front of me so I got to see shots of my hometown, the opening day parade, and the Cardinals get their first of several runs in the game.

I don't think my knees are injured, they're just kind of achey right now. They don't hurt worse when I'm standing or sitting, no stabbing pains, no throbbing. But I'm respecting their wishes. I think I'll try to do most of my mileage at the gym this week. Next week is a step back week so I'll try to skip a long run then. (I have to look at tapering before the half marathon too, now that I think about it.)

After the 2.5 hour elliptical marathon, I came home and made brunch before the shopping trips described above (Guitar Center, Ikea and DSW Shoes).

I called Steve for dinner and we had an excellent time at Chipotle. (Good thing I was on an elliptical for 2.5 hours today. I don't even feel guilty about it.)

After dinner I came home and played the guitar for a while, something I haven't done in a while. I don't remember why exactly I wanted to start playing more again. I think it was a combination of not liking to spend as much time on the internetz as I was and a co-worker (who also plays guitar) saying something to me about it. I decided to be honest with myself that I'm not really a fan of my acoustic guitar. It's got a couple dead frets in a really bad place so it makes some chords (A, C#m, D) that are fairly common sounds really bad. Plus I always liked my electric guitar the best. I dug the electric out of my storage closet, along with the amp (I hope it's not too loud for the neighbors) and set it up. (Hence the guitar area.) The case for the electric literally disintegrated in my hands when I opened it up. That should tell you how long it's been away.

I'm not actually tired yet but I should think about going to bed...