July 23

I got a late start to my walk today and it was really hot with the sun out in full force. I was tired this morning (which is why I think I was putting off my run til later...as if it would go away!) so I had a talk with myself before going out the door. It went like this: "so get your act together and push it today. You have this 5 k run on Saturday and you DON'T want to be the last person over the finish line...so see what you can do today" So I left the house thinking "yes, I can do this". I got to the trail and took off at a good pace and for the first 2 miles (of my 4 mile walk/run today) I really pushed it. I did the usual 4 min walk, 45 second run...but also did little spurts of running in between those times. I was huffing and puffing most of the way, but I kept going. At the end of 2 miles I was at 30 minutes flat... 15 min/mile and very pleased with that (although by how hard I was working, I thought it might be at 14 something). But by mile 3 I started to lose steam and did it in a 15.5 minute pace...with running in between...and mile 4 was really bad...I was hurting. My final time for the 4 miles was 61 minutes...only 1 minute better than yesterday and I almost killed myself! So I reset my goal of not being the last one over the finish line at the 5K race on this Saturday...to my new goal of just crossing the finish line! That's a lot less pressure! I'll keep you posted as to how it goes.
So the plan for this weekend is this: Sara and I will go tomorrow afternoon (Fri) out to my friend's (Carleen's) cabin in Elkhorn where we will stay tomorrow night. Sara will ride in the Cornhusker State Games in a 50 mile bike ride on Saturday morning. Amazingly, the ride is right on the road that Carleen lives on!! So on Friday afternoon we'll scout out where she needs to go the next morning and maybe she can see the roads that she'll be biking on. So Saturday morning I'll see her start off on her race and then I'll take off on my scheduled run of 10 miles. I mapped it out on that great website where you can map out your own route and it will show you how many miles you have gone and you can click on the satellite photo to see landmarks as to what you'll be passing by, etc. ...it's great! Here's the link if you want to play around with it: http://www.usatf.org/routes/map/
So anyway, I'll be running on country roads out by Elkhorn going north to Bennington Rd and hopefully I'll be done in time to catch Sara crossing the finish line of her race. Then we'll go back to Carleen's and shower ( a cold one for me!) and grab a recovery drink and some protein and then head back to Lincoln where I hope to have a few hours of rest before I go to my event that evening of doing a 5 k race...where my goal is to finish!! I'll probably gulp down a few carb shots to get me going before hand. So that's the plan.
I forgot to mention tonight was yard mowing time. Leo got on the riding mower and did the yard and I mowed with the push mower doing the trim work and working the edges. Boy, you'd never know Leo had just finished round 4 of chemo...seeing him zip around the yard like nobody's business! The only problem with this situation (of me doing the push mower) is that I'm training for a marathon ...and so I tend to walk very fast...too fast for the lawnmower to do it's thing. So Leo is constantly telling me to slow down...because where I mow tends to look like someone got a bad haircut (or so he says!). It usually involves Leo riding his mower over some of the places where I got carried away with my pace!