We're Gonna Have Fun Now!

Jenny just emailed me and said she signed up for Seattle. I swear - it's not my fault. No peer pressure here! We're gonna have fun now - first United We Run, then Seattle. There are four of us running UWR together - Rick, Jenny, Amy and me. Then Jenny and Lesa for Seattle. I just can't believe all these faster runners want to run with me at my pokey pace. I'm thrilled to have friends to share the experience with.

Speaking of those friends, we put in 16 miles this morning - the four of us, plus Steve. He's training for the Autumn Leaves 50K with Rob and Eric and just wanted to get the time in, he wasn't concerned about the pace. We did our usual Orting to South Prairie run. Started in the foggy, foggy dark at 6:00 am. I didn't bother bringing a headlamp, because we had run this section in the dark during our previous training. Today I learned that the dark of a clear summer morning is not as dark as the dark of a foggy fall morning. We were running five across, and it was so black that those of us on the ends couldn't see the edge of the trail. After a couple miles of this, Steve pulled out his trusty headlamp and lit up our world.

Just as we were coming into South Prairie, Brenda came out to meet us. She waited around while we all took a spin through the porta-potties, then ran 2.5 miles towards Orting with us before heading back. Her knee has been bothering her since the marathon so she's going short for now. Sonya is still dealing with the sore quad from before the marathon, so is not running right now either. Plus, she's ditching us in a couple of weeks and taking off on a three week cruise. I can't believe she'd rather cruise than stay home and run marathons - what is she thinking? Anyway, we finished up our run in 3:16 (including our short break in S. Prairie). Felt good the whole way, and (thank goodness) no new blisters.

I tried my running sandals out again Thursday night on a three mile loop near the track - this time they felt great. I still don't think I'll wear them for long runs, but I'm definitely going to use them on the shorter ones. Maybe even on tomorrow's five miler. I've heard a new theory on my bruised and blistered toes. One of our runner friends told Eric that when she was training for a marathon, she found she'd get tired on long runs and start "gripping" with her toes when she landed. She was wearing her shoes a little bigger to give the toes room (where have I heard that?) That caused the tips of the toes to take a pounding, leading to blisters and bruising. It's an interesting theory, and entirely possible since I am a 17 year Birkenstock wearer, and they have toe grips. Her solution was to go to an exact fit shoe. The only thing is, I don't think she trained for another marathon after that, so I'm not sure if her problem was solved. It's worth checking out though.

Unlike Rob, I count my running weeks from Monday to Sunday, mostly because it doesn't make sense to me to break up the weekend. That means tomorrow's planned five miles will go into my weekly total, and bring me to 42 miles. I'll cut it a little next week, a little more the week after, then have one really easy week before UWR. I guess since there are only two weeks between UWR and Seattle, I'll make both of them easy. One to rest and recover, one to taper!