The Schedule

Last week at work, I was running out of things to do. I mean, there were boring things, like going through old files from our move, but nothing pressing. Wow, did that change this week. The college starts classes in two weeks, and the preschools are in their orientation phase right now, with classes starting next week or the week after. Somehow, that translated to a whirlwind of last minute activity for me. Phone calls, questions, registrations, September staff meeting, planning, orientation talks, more meetings....I was going to go in this morning, but IT is giving me a new computer, and the college is only open till noon (summer hours), so I wouldn't get much done. Instead I've been doing a little work from home, but not too much since I was at work till 9:30 last night. This Friday and next Friday are my last two off, then it's back to the full work week. I've enjoyed the down time this summer, but at the same time, I am ready to get back to the nitty-gritty of preschools, families, and playdough.

On the running side of my life, it's been a low mileage week. After the long run on Saturday, I ran four miles on Sunday. I ran my usual midweek mileage, except I missed the three miles at the track last night due to work obligations. I'm going to run five or six tomorrow, and then on Sunday run one of our local 10ks - one of those races I try not to miss. I'm getting some...let's call it "encouragement"... to run another local 8k in a couple of weeks. I haven't signed up yet, I want to see how I feel after Eric's Six Summits next weekend. He's going to run a 50k next weekend up in Cle Elum, then is taking our running group on a 17 mile section of the famous 12 Summits run. He and I cooked this up because I kept hearing about it and had a little FOMO (fear of missing out) going on. The best part is that Eric is going to stick to me like glue, so we'll be doing it together.

The schedule through October looks like this:
Sept 9 - 10k
Sept 16 - Six Summits
Sept 22 - maybe an 8k
Oct 7 - Portland
Oct 21 - Nike

I haven't signed up for the 50k at Autumn Leaves yet - I am waiting to see how I feel after Portland. I'm a little nervous since my injury last spring. I have to convince myself that it's completely healed - I don't want to do too many in a short time unless it is. I'm probably already pushing it with Portland and Nike. I am going to try something new for a while - instead of a two or three week build up, I'm going to try alternate weeks of high/low mileage. High will be somewhere in the 35 to 45 mile range, low will be in the 25 mile to 35 mile range. This will work out nicely - last week I got 42.5 miles in, this week should end up about 27 miles. I'm hoping this will help keep the injury from reoccurring. I've had little tweaks in the same spot off and on the last few weeks, though I didn't have any problem after the 20 miler. My guess is that since I never rested it fully, but instead continued to run short and easy while trying to heal, that it isn't as strong as it could be. Thus, the cautious new plan - I don't want any more down time!

I am signed up for Big Sur! This was part of the negotiations last winter when we built our vacation around Western States. The deal was, I got to pick the next destination marathon, and since Big Sur was on my dream list, it was my first choice. Eric and I are both signed up. Sounds like we'll get a chance to meet some bloggers, plus we may have others from our run club there as well.

Hope you all have a great weekend, especially Rob and Arthur on their epic adventure at the Plain 100!