Saturday Run - 7 miles in Tiburon

My shoes haven't arrived yet :( With the holiday mail rush, they won't be here until later next week. This made me a little nervous for our run today - 7 miles in Tiburon with my knee issue. Tiburon is just across the Golden Gate Bridge and over to the East past Sausalito. IT - IS - BEAUTIFUL with views across the bay to Golden Gate Bridge on one side and when you look to the South East, the city skyline, uh - just awesome. Well we were again blessed by mother nature with a sunny blue sky day, although 34 degrees, lol... I can get warm running, I'm not sure how warm I can get running in the wet in 34 degrees! I am so thankful and trying to enjoy every moment we train without rain. They rainy season has gotten off to a late start and we should expect it soon. Bugger, but now I am a little more prepared as I got my water resistant jacket! I also got a new shirt that had these weird cuffs, that when in the store and on the hanger, my friend Rebekah and I couldn't tell what the heck they were for. LOL, the minute I put it on, I was like "oh... i see...derr" - you flip the cuff (it's like 1/2 a cuff) over your hand and it makes your hand in a cacoon. You look a little special, but it does the trick. :) Anyway, I talked again with the coaches about my shoes and the upcoming route we were going to do because they mentioned some heels and a steep downhill. They said to just take it slow, pay attention and if I felt any bit of pain to not continue running and they would keep an eye out and come get me. So I told Annie not to worry about me and to go with her own pace, I didn't want to hold her back. My friend Colleen was also suffering from a bit of leg soreness and was going to take it pretty slow, so I stuck with her. We did walk a lot, but still ran a good amount and my knee didn't bother me at all, until about 50 yards from the finish. Nothing really bad, just the very beginnings of soreness leading to pain if I had another few miles to go. So yeah! I felt good and I know that if I keep training and just go at the pace I need to go at, then worst case is that I have to walk more than I'd hoped, but I will still finish the race. Pushing myself too far would only lead to an injury and then I wouldn't be able to do the race at all. Annie & Angie did the 7 miles in 1 hour and 25 minutes, which is great! If my new shoes work out and my knee gets back to normal, hopefully I can be at that same pace.

WED - Track Night - Flippin Freezing!!

42 degrees and I'm hanging out at Kezar Stadium waiting for Track Night training to begin. I forgot to pack my ear covering headband (a MUST that my ears are warm) so thank goodness Annie brought me an extra one she had! All my friends and family know that I have trouble producing my own body heat and I really hate being cold - so this is a big deal people! :) lol

The coaches were great, they got us in and out... I think they didn't like being cold either. We did a warm up, some stretching and then did 15 minutes around the track at a 10k pace - an effort of 7 out of 10, not able to chit chat while doing this. I warned my coaches about my knee so they wouldn't give me a hard time if they saw me going to slow or walking. They were really good about asking me how I was doing every time I circled the track, but I actually did pretty well. My first lap was timed at 2:53 and I tried to keep the same pace, but obviously slowed down somewhat as my mile was 12 minutes - but faster than my very first mile I did! My knee was just a teeny bit sore, more like tired sore, not painful. Then we did abs & push ups and we were done!

I am awaiting the arrival of my new shoes I ordered, hoping they will be here in time to test them out on this Saturdays run - 7 miles! I think I am going to try to start training a bit with the walking intervals. It's better to train your body to say, run 2 miles and walk 5 minutes continuously, than to try and run 9 miles and end up trying to walk a bit and have your legs want to give out! Very bad idea to attempt walk/run intervals on race day if you haven't been training that way. So we will see how Saturday goes!

Monday Buddy Run - I don't do hail....

Our winter team has been SO lucky with no rain AND great sunny day weather for all of our training days... it rained all weekend EXCEPT the morning of our Saturday run in Marin! ...we new our luck would have to run out at some point and that was Monday.

I have been mentally preparing myself that I would have to run in the rain sooner or later and as the rain was coming down Sunday night I realized it would be Monday morning buddy run :( At 5:00am I get a text from Annie "are we still running? It's hailing!" I texted back "Hailing? Um, I'm going to say no, I don't do hail."

On the bright side, I got to go back to sleep for an hour :)