What a week you had last week Pam! This nice weather has been long overdue! I'm glad all systems are go!

Thanks Bob and YES about time for nice weather!! Long Branch is the Marathon that Michelle and I will be running on May 4th.

68.8 miles done for the week. Other than feeling tired I think I had a pretty great week and am happy with my runs. I had planned on running today's run as a progression run with Jill and Maureen. However Maureen was out of town and Jill is having ITB issue's so I was on my own. Yesterday's run turned into a short progression run so I decided to just enjoy today's run and not worry so much about pace other than making sure the second half of run was faster than the first half. 5 weeks left until marathon. This coming week is a cutback week. I'm thinking of doing 17 or so for my long run and have yet decided what to do with the rest of the week. I did have a training plan (my own) that I wrote down and started putting in my log early so I knew what my plans for the week were. However I only got to today and I have no clue where the paper with my milage plan is. So like usual I'll be winging it. I do know I plan on getting a couple of midlong runs in and maybe a day or two with doubles. All will be run at an easy pace, gotta make sure I have plenty of energy for the week of the 7th. I'm still starting my Ultra training 21st of April. The weekends start out pretty heavy so I'm still not sure what my goal as far as pace is for my marathon. I can't run it all out cause I've gotta be ready to do lots of running the following weekend and I can't afford to be injured. We shall see.

Well got my final long run in before NJ. Despite ankle issue and bowel issue run went well (considering) Only part of body that's sore from today is my ankle. Looks like I may have to take at least a day or two off. Believe it or not i'm good with it (at least for now lol) This is what I get for making my ankle HTFU for today's run Taken not long after the 2 hour drive home MTA: only part of me that's hurting now is bruise on ankle (tender to touch). Taken just a few minutes ago

Ouch...

Looks more painfull then it is This is from this morning Not sure what to think

Holy Cow. I haven't come here to check your progress in quite some time and this is what I see when I come. Hope that ankle heals quickly. I know you said it looks more painful than it is but something is definitely going on in there. You are icing, right?

Thanks Alan!

Since I didn't "race" it today I'm making a "run" report. Why can’t I have a training run that just so happens to be done in a race WITHOUT butterflies?? I swear the nerves started Saturday morning around 4 am. I remember waking up feeling all nervous and thinking to myself, Um hello it’s not even Sunday WTF is going on? I wasn’t sure if I was even going to be able to fall back asleep, fortunately I did. Fast forward to Saturday night. I had planned on getting to bed nice and early, but you know how life goes when you make plans. Well since I had a beer right before bed I made sure to drink extra water despite the fact that I would probably wake up 2-3 times to use the restroom. I should of realized when I woke up for the FIRST time at 5:25 (5 minutes before alarm was set to go off) that it was a good sign. I was hoping nerves would be done and over with but no such luck. In fact my stomach was actually aching before we even left the house. That’s usually NOT a good sign for me. Anyway day is going as planned. We go pick up Jill and Heather and head over to the race. Everything is going perfect. No traffic and only took a couple minutes to find a parking spot. In fact we are ahead of schedule. We head into the gym waiting for 7:30 to arrive so that we can meet up with another runner. The plan was that we would run between 8:45-8:50 until around mile 10 or so than kick it into high gear. Now Maureen and Jill had in the beginning planned on over 2 hour halfs but by the time I got mixed in they had both decided they wanted to beat 1:55. I hadn’t planned on running the half however after running with them a couple times I agreed to pace in hopes of them reaching their goal. Well during the time I was out for a bit due to ankle they both got the idea about going for as close to 1:50 as possible. They knew I was doing this as a training run and had no plans other than getting them to the finish line before 1:55. So anyways I figured that they would be blowing me away come mile 11 or so. So first mile was slower than what we wanted but we didn’t have much of a choice. The race really didn’t thin out until 2-3 miles out, plus to the right of us the 5k runners were on their way back so we didn’t have the full road. Now one of the things I REALLY love about this race is the bands and the crowd support. Now I’ve ran this race 2 other times, however this is the first time I really paid attention to my surroundings and bands. The first time I ran the course with Maureen and Jill I can’t tell you how many times I had them telling me wrong way lol. Talk about embarrassing. Here a woman who had never ran the course before knew it much better than I did. Anyway back to the race. Got in our groove around mile 2 though according to my Garmin I had a 8:11 3rd mile (WRONG). Something about the clouds and where we were was messing with my garmin (funny cause it usually happened to Jill on our runs) So other than mile 6 we were well under our planned pace of 8:45-8:50 but feeling wonderful. I’m really glad I decided to wear my new Mizuno Skirt cause you would not believe how many people called out to me and had such wonderful things to say about how I looked in my skirt. Between that and my marathon tattoo I was getting so much attention. Jill finally asked me if I knew all those people and what were they saying ( for the most part I was running a few feet ahead of them since there really wasn’t room for the three of us to be side by side) I’m like it’s all about the skirt! The bands were cool. Ranging from The Menapausal Maniacs at around mile 1.5 and around mile 12 or so on the way back, to Bagpipes, to “Alex Trebeck” on the Kareokee machine (damn he almost put me to sleep) to a bunch of school kids coverbands. All of it I really enjoyed. I did stop at the mile 9 water stop to have half a gel and some water. Not planned and didn’t really need it but the other two had planned on stopping so what the heck. We were in the parkway by then and both Maureen and Jill had started slowing down a bit. But still was a ways in front of them cause you know I had a plan lol. By mile 11 I knew the 1:55 would be in the bag for them and unless major problems but at that point I decided that I had stayed with them and got them through the hardest miles (technical hardest miles) and there was more than enough crowd support to help see them in so I started to speed up. I was feeling a little guilty about speeding up so I didn’t get too far in front of them. I was going to go back to my plan and pick it up a bit. So I did end up crossing the finish line before Jill, Maureen and Ken though a bit surprised. I really thought that Jill and Maureen would have finished before I was since they were really racing it and had planned on giving it their all and I hadn’t expected to finish that fast with how easy it felt. I don’t think there was one time during that race that I didn’t have a huge smile on my face. TOTALLY didn’t expect to have such a good run today. My ankle didn’t speak to me one bit!!! After getting water, getting chip removed I went back to finish line in time to cheer Maureen and Jill in both under 1:55. Hugged and congratulated them before heading off to where the runners were running into the Stadium JUST IN TIME to see Ken come in so I ran to the track and ran the last .2 with him crossing the finish line with him under 2:00hrs!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO He did so AWESOME considering how little he trained this time. OH I forgot to mention at the turnaround at mile 5 or so we saw Ken not far behind us with a HUGE ASS GRIN as well. I told him about it and he said that’s cause he felt great and he knew he was suprising me. I’m so glad he didn’t crash and burn completely though he did say he crashed around mile 12 for about 30 seconds before HTFU and finishing. One thing that sucked I have to say is feeling so freaken great and having dh feeling sucky  I was like an overstimulated hyper kid and poor dh was like an old old man. Guess it was my turn to take care of him. Gotta love how they have the bathrooms and food at the top of a BIG ASS HILL after you finish. So after going up the hill so he can use the restroom , getting him something to eat and settled down on the grass I run back down the hill to get our bags and then run back up the hill. Felt great. The first time I ran this race I pretty much needed dh to carry me up that hill and I didn’t feel a whole lot better the second time (though it wasn’t stomach pain it was pain from a huge blood blister) It was nice hearing all the OMG you did a half marathon this morning and you look so great from all the Brownie mothers today. Guess it’s hard for them to imagine running 13.1 miles than having enough time for a shower and a few minutes to sit down before heading to the Theatre to go see Highschool 2 musical with a bunch of 6-7 year olds. I guess I was supposed to do what dh did lol . Go home, shower and then take a 2 hour nap. Anyway sorry this is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LONG. I tend to have a lot to say when things go so well. Guess I’m ready for NJ marathon next week! If you made it through this NOVEL THANK YOU!!!! If not, I can’t blame ya  BTW I think I finished around 1:53:04 Not a PR but the EASIEST AND MOST ENJOYABLE BY FAR Half Marathon I’ve ever ran! (though I really really enjoyed my one and only trail half marathon!

Pam! Excellent "race" and an excellent report! What wonderful details you give, it really helps us to get a feel for what you go through in races. You are in great shape! I'll bet you could keep that pace up for a full marthon. I'm glad the ankle is behaving. BEST OF LUCK to you next weekend!

Thanks Bob!! I actually was thinking towards the end of my run how I felt like I could do that pace for a full marathon. I may try at NJ though I'm running it with Michelle again. She wants to break 4 hours and would really like to get as close to 1:52 as possible. Only thing the course is completely flat and I've only ran one time on something that flat and that was the 23 mile training run for it. I like my hills.