Snapped out of the haze

Maybe I was inspired by Michael Phelps or Dara Torres but I woke up and had no trouble getting out of bed at 4:15 today.  Thursday, the best I could do was send an email to Leslie at 4:30 am telling her I was not coming to our usual run and Friday I just could not get up at 6am.  I'm still on my running vacation for a few weeks so I'll cut myself a break.

Ran 16 today - Bruce was nice enough to invite me to join the team Rogue run so Jim Gelb and I tagged along.  Started out a little faster than I normally would have but felt good. Ended up slowing up a little for Jim as he hasn't done anything longer than 5 or 6 miles since Boston.  Ran strong for the last mile or so.  Over all feeling strong.  What a great group, it was fun to have a pack to run with for the first 6 miles or so.

Jim and I stopped for breakfast afterwards at Trudy's and now I'm getting ready for a shower and nap.

Blew a wad of cash at the tax free Rogue sale and got my self a new pair of shoes to race the distance challenge in..always good that they were on sale!

Sending out a little rain dance...please, please rain.  Did I see a high of 89 one day next week??

Diamond in the Rough...continued

You wouldn't associate a really nice athletic facility with Manor, TX would you?  I wouldn't.  Jim Gelb and I met at the Manor New Tech School track tonight for an informal workout.  The track surface is perfect.  Nice restrooms, no graffiti, no trash on the track, a gorgeous football field and plenty of local families participating in cheerleading and soccer practice and some walking and jogging on the track.  A nice wholesome environment.  Definately nicer than Austin High (I'm not touching the East side track!).

We ran 200-400-800-1600-800-400-200 with appropriate recovery between with a 2 mile warm up and 1 mile cool down.  We did not do any drills - will next week.  I attempted to run at 6:30 mile pace - OK until the mile - Jim tried to pace me but my legs were screaming by 8oom.  I was about 40 sec slow.  Everything else was OK and we did finish up with a fast 200m.  It was a little hot - we went a 6:30 pm.  All in all, I feel a nice sense of fatigue.

Diamond in the Rough

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Continuation...

So, after being at work for 10 hours on Monday night, I went to the gym, ran 5 miles around Hyde Park (I felt really good), took a shower, grabbed a muffin and drink and headed to court. I parked by a parking meter near the court house and as I fed it a bunch of change, it suddenly said "fail". So I called the # on the meter (turned out to be 311) since I really didn't feel like getting a ticket. Met with my supervisor who said he had a message on his office phone saying I needed to be in court at about 1pm. He called the people back and said "unacceptable" and lied a little saying that if I went at 1pm I wouldn't get enough sleep to be fit to come to work and so then there would be no nurse in CB. They suggested I go home and come back and he lied a little again and said I lived in Bastrop (almost but not quite) but that they could get me a nice hotel room and that would work. Anyway, they caved and I gave my 3 min. of testimony at 9:30 am. Surprisingly the defense attorney had no questions for me. Got home and crashed at about 10:30am and ended up with about 6.5 hrs of sleep - not enough but OK. I am going to leave at 4am...take a power nap, get up at 8 am and take care of Riley and maybe do a short run and then go back to bed.
I see for everyone except the Tahoe folks, the run in GT is 10 miles. Seems crazy to drive that far for 10 miles so as long as I feel good on Sat I'll do at least 16 miles. Hopefully there will be someone slowish doing the 16 mile run.
My weekend starts on Wed. Yeah!!!

Tired and likely to get more tired

I haven't run since last Thursday. Last night my allergies were really bad so when I got home I took 1 Benadryl, 1 Zyrtec and some nasal spray and crashed. At about 1pm the County attorney's office called and asked if I would be court tomorrow. I said no. When they asked why, I said because I didn't get a subpeona or 10 working days notice and if they had a problem with that they could call my supervisor. I fell back asleep only to be woken up an hour later by my supervisor asking me to go to court. I told him I had gotten 2 subpeonas for next week via inter office mail - they are supposed to be hand delivered. Went back to sleep. Got up at 5:30 to take care of the horses and eat. I still feel a Benadryl hang over and my eyes are dry.
Since I supposedly have to be in court at 9am and I get off work at 6:45, I brought my running stuff to work and will try to get 5 miles in - if they are lucky, I will take a shower and change before I roll into court. Of course, I have no idea what I am being called to court for and have no idea what court it is in.
This is how I forsee it will work...I will show up at 9am and they will say..."sorry, it's been postponed until 1:30pm" (this has happened before). If that happens, I am not going to be back in court because I'll be sleeping....I really don't like my sleep being messed with.
I got a nice email from Betty Sport letting me know that they are having everything in Rogue at 20% discount and it is the tax free weekend. I have my nice little $100 gift cert. from Rogue..woo, hoo!! I will be there at 10 am to get some good stuff!

Weekly wrap up

Low mileage week - about 20 miles.  Spent the majority of the weekend at the horse show and I have to admit I'm whipped.  I did get to ride a few jumper classes on a friends horse and that was a blast.  He is a super talented horse and just goes out and does his job.

I took Riley to the vet and while he does have a sore foot, so far they haven't found anything worse than a bruise causing the lameness.  They checked his back leg which had a severe joint injury years ago and it was perfect and the xrays of his sore foot showed perfect bone structure for his age.  So that is all good.  He is resting for 10 days with antiinflammatories and ten will get a good hard ride and we will see what happens.

The jail has the Olympics on for the inmmates to watch and so far they seem to be quieter than usual...they are actually watching the TV instead of fighting.  They need to record it and play it all year long!

I hear a lot of people saying that Equestrian sports have no part in the Olympics because it is boring.  Well...I challenge any of those people to get on a 1200 pound animal and try to get it to do a complex dressage test, jump 5+ft high jumps or gallop around a 4-5 mile course jumping 4+ft obstacles that don't fall down.  And this would be on an animal that has a mind of it's own!

I think Geezer would agree that it is harder and scarier than it looks!

Summer Sunstroke Stampede Wrap Up

Tonight was the awards banquet for the series.  12 5K races at either Brushy Creek or Town Lake Trail.  The temperature was over 95 at every race except one and over 100 at several.  I don't tolerate hot brain very well so it was a challenge.  But a worthwhile one...I won overall women masters (1 cool trophy, 1 gift cert. from Rogue EQ for $100, 1 gift cert. from Performance Wellness and a Rogue hat) and was one of only 12 people to run all 12 races - we probably really needed a gift certificate for a local psychiatrist but instead got a cool trophy.  Running at least 8 races also netted you a nice tech shirt.  For $10 a race it seems like a great deal.  Chip timing too!

Also scoring big was Nancy Dasso - overall women, Leslie Barclay 1st place 40-44F and Jim Gelb 1st place 45-49M.