Not sure whether to run this evening or not. Top of my right foot has been in fairly serious pain since overnight last night. Couldn't figure out how it got hurt. Didn't run enough over the weekend to aggravate it, and I was very diligent about stretching both days. Then this morning, I tried to push one of the myriad boxes of school stuff across the office with my right leg, and WHAM, pain shot through my whole leg. I think I pulled muscles all up and down my leg moving a full box of paper for recycling with my leg at school yesterday!!! Now the top of my right foot is a little swollen. It feels like the long bones in my foot are in a vice where they meet the ankle bones and that someone's banging on them with a hammer. (And to think,, my 5 yo godson asked last week whether I'm a drama queen! Can't imagine what he was thinking.) Weird thing is, it hurts most when I'm not moving. Feels pretty good when I'm walking and felt fine when I jogged a few steps earlier today. Going to give running a shot, but may end up walking, or perhaps crawling home. Too beautiful of an evening not to try to get outside and move someway, somehow. All I can think is - great, I signed up for a HM on Sunday and got my first potentially running-impairing injury since I got the orthotics on Monday. Is this a sign or what?!?!? My bike's at the shore, so that's not a cross-training option until Friday. nono - what kind of shore town waits until summer to pave the roads?!? Sorry the moving is so stressful, but it sounds like the sleepover was fun for the kids at least. Also sorry mom's situation is continuing to be so difficult. Hard to deal with in any circumstances; worse when you're so far away. Hope you manage to keep getting in plenty of stress-banishing runs. Hopeful - those puppy pics are exceptionally cute, even compared to the earlier ones. Off to try out the foot . . . . Eliz

Don't have much time to read the daily, but I will go back later and catch up on the Tall and 'Ribs posts to find out what's going on. Always learn so much from all you guys. Vista is right... there are regions (which is why we refer to this tournament as "regionals") where teams play for the championships and the right to go to nationals. We get here by winning our "state cup" which is held in August. Our team has won State two years in a row now so that's how we got to play in Vegas last year and Honolulu this year. Our first game was pretty tough. We way underestimated that Colorado team. Ouch. And a couple of our kids developed serious bad attitudes out on the field which was very disappointing to see. One of our strikers collided with (our own) goalie and ended up coughing up blood on the sidelines... So, he's out of the tournament! (he's going to be ok, but apparently has a lung issue that hadn't been detected before?) Our second game was this morning and it was supposed to be against Nevada, but they didn't even come to the tournament (how's that for sportsmanship... they hosted last year, and are "no show" this year!). I do think that the cost of the trip was prohibitive for some of the players... So we played a Hawaii wild card team, and ended up losing 8-0. We have a difficult time with these teams who can play outside all year long, and have a population which supports several extremely talented teams. We do feel a bit outgunned sometimes. But, as Vista pointed out, it's pretty cool just that we can come and play here, and I hope the kids can keep that perspective. Tomorrow we play AZ, and it should be another tough game but I hope the kids can work together and play well. I did run 2.8 barefoot miles on the beach yesterday morning with DH and his pace... a few walk breaks in there and carefully dodging some rocks and glass (!) on the beach. It's very sloped and not something I'd want to do a lot but it was fun. Today I ran 5.25 miles with two at tempo (mile 3 at 7:54, mile 5 at 7:50) in the muggy heat. It rained yesterday so today is pretty "damp" feeling. I also got chased by a chihuahua on my way back to the house. Rotten little dog.

Quick 5 mile walk for me on the American Tobacco Trail. Not too hot either!

Managed to run 3 miles without my foot falling off and I RAN THE WHOLE WAY! Haven't run that far without a walk break in ages. I'm using last week's flu-induced break to think of my running as beginning again last Saturday - this time with no (or very minimal) walk breaks. My foot hurts, but no more than before I ran. I will definitely do the ICE part of RICE the rest of the evening. No real rest until after the last of the packing is finished tomorrow. BEAUTIFUL evening - temps in the low 70s, humidity low, slight breeze. Hardly even remember that heat wave from last week. (Oh, yeah, I didn't run last week!) Happy Hump Day, all, Eliz

Some good runs today... Tall and Ribs....great discussion....just one of the many reasons I frequent this site. I'm glad to say I'm back to posting a run!! 3 easy miles @9:43 pace.

Love the discussion today! I have had to learn over the last couple years how to be flexible with my schedules. In the past I had to stick to the mile everyday and never listened to my aches and pains. In the end it cost me a lot of running time because of injuries. I went from 7 days a week-in past years to 5 This year .I slowly worked up from every other day to 5 days a week with 2 complete rest days. It is my goal over the summer to work in a bike day on one of my off days but will fit it in slowly. I fit in" back" weeks and try to organize my runs more so that I am not always going full out every run. A few years ago i felt like i had to run hard all the time. Now I force myself to run slower on slow days and faster on medium long days vs. trying to beat my times every time out no matter what distances. No speed work other than tempo runs and fartleks. The results have been good as I have been pretty much injury free and finally achieved a long term goal of running a marathon. My run today was a 3 miler in 25o and about a 8.5 minute mile pace. The knee felt fine although I was wearing a brace and will continue to do so the rest of the week. If I continue to be painless through my long run on Sunday I will consider it to be fine. I am wondering if I should do the 5k on Thursday though Larry