Ugh.

Lizzie, in this area it was considered to be an open invitation if a well dressed woman was walking through the grocery with a bottle of wine in the top of the grocery basket. In another town it was seeing a well dressed  young woman sitting in a bookstore posed with a book. They were working girls. I haven’t seen it lately. They must dress more casually. 

Friday I was able to get in 35 minutes of running on the TM at the college. Yoga class was really good there also. Did some studying.

Saturday I did 40 minutes of yoga and more studying.

Sunday Buddy and I did 75 minutes out the trail. The flooding has receded. We also saw our Birder friends and they are doing well keeping track of wildlife sightings. Later I did 30 minutes of yoga. Meditations daily are ongoing.

Today I plan to do an early outside run, errands and then off to do several hours of volunteer work at the library.

Safe and happy runs, All! 

Morning!  I have 6 and weights tonight.

Liz, nice run.  Yeah, the race is Saturday.

Judy, enjoy the errands and outside run.

Blech to Monday, but at least it has been quiet so far!

Will run after work, I think it's supposed to be in the mid 60's!!

Lizzie - glad the surprise party went well but rude of people not to show up after they said they would!  Great run for you this morning, I wanted to ask, do you have several routes to run or do you just keep one main route and repeat it until you hit your mileage?

Judy - sounds like a busy day, enjoy!

Damaris - have a good run and workout tonight!

Sandy - yes, the weather has definitely lifted my spirits.  Work still sucks but I guess I can't worry about the stuff out of my control.  At least, that's what I keep telling myself!  So glad you had a nice weekend!!

Here's my Flint Hills marathon race report:

The drive up took 4 and ½ hours but it wasn’t bad. A lot of people think KS is flat but while there are sections that are pancake flat there are hills.  I drove past some of the most amazing tall grass prairie where you could see nothing but grass for miles.  Easy to imagine great herds of buffalo.  Got to Manhattan, KS at around 4 pm and checked in to the Quality Inn there, then went to find the packet pick up site which was the LRS.  Nice store but I was hungry and wanted to find dinner.

Since I have issues with dairy but decided on Olive Garden, pasta you know, it took a while to figure out how to get what I wanted with no sauce. So I ordered spaghetti, grilled chicken and the asiago sauce on the side…presto, no dairy.  Back to the hotel for the night.  Took a hot Epson salt bath once the water came back on…really of all times to have plumbing issues.

Since my race didn’t start until 7:30 and breakfast was at 6 I got up at 5:30 and went down to have what ever I could eat…some scrambled eggs and grabbed a banana. Went up and got dressed.  I brought my fleece tights, injinji socks, a SS shirt, and my fleece zip up along with gloves and a fleece hat.  Topped that off with a rain poncho.  I had a ton of GU’s that I have found I can no longer tolerate so I gave them to the RD who had them available to anyone who wanted any of it.  It went fast.

So in the rain and 40 something temps the marathoners started out. We made a one mile loop through the nearby industrial park before heading north to the gravel roads for the 25 mile loop.  At the start of the gravel loops there was a road blocked sign but no sign from the run so I thought I missed a turn and headed back to the start to find out…no, we go through that.  Start of the bonus miles for me. J

Instead of my usual F bombs let me just switch out to Boy Howdy! And Boy Howdy there were hills, and more hills and Boy Howdy there were at least 24 miles of hills. And it rained ALL DAY.  Never got warmer than 45.  And yes you can get wetter and colder especially if you plod along like me.  At this point I so wished I was a runner and could get warmer.  There were AS and those poor people were out in it with little tent things but at least they could get in their cars to warm up.  Oh and pringles and damp don’t do well together…lol.

So cruising along and about maybe 17 miles or so in, quit looking at my watch cause me fleece jacket sleeves were soaked and pushing them up made my hands cold, was the unmanned water stop and the sign directing our turn. Here’s where some local yahoo thought it’d be funny to turn the sign.  So I headed down the wrong way and eventually the front 2 50 milers ran past me.  They were moving well at this point.  A little later a van pulls up and asked if I’d seen them as she was tracking her fiancé and he was going the wrong way.  Told her they were ahead of me and she drove on to find him.  Eventually the 2^nd place guy ran past and then the 1^st place guy but at this point they were so far off course he lost his placing.  As I was making my way back there was a turkey buzzard fly up and land on a telephone pole as I went by.  I laughed and told him I wasn’t dead yet. More bonus miles J

At this point I started leaning to the right which meant my back was not doing well. The only thing that helped was to take my right hand and put it behind my back.  At what was the last manned AS I took 2 tylenol with 9 miles to go.  Sat for a bit too and ate part of a banana, drank some coke and kept on.  There was a fantastic guy with 3 miles to go who set up a floating AS.  He gave me some gatoraide and some more pringles, and boy howdy there were still hills!

Made it back to the finish line upright and ran across it. Unofficial 50k in 10 hours and 36 minutes.  The course reminded me of Pumpkin Holler with the gravel roads and hills so I was thrilled.  PH took me 12:15 and I did not run across the finish.

I’m supposed to do the Heartland 50k on May 5^th up in Cassoday, KS and am hoping there aren’t any boy howdy hills.

Margaret, laughing about being sucked into trail running. It's nice for variety, that's for sure.

Lizzie, there's nothing better than a nice Monday run Helps to cope w the inevitable "I don't want to adult" struggle better. I get enough sleep (for now) because in First Round I only watch my team, early games and Game-7-s. When it goes to later stages, games overlap less, become more meaningful = bigger incentive to watch = less sleep

Sandy, I am cheering for Flyers since 2010 and was absolutely devastated after they got eliminated yesterday (no sarcasm or exaggeration). Mental hangover will remain for a while, that's for sure.

Diane, wow, I'll have to read that race report w tea in my hands

11mi yesterday, so I am taking today off (floorball followed by 3 days of running; yesterday = lack of sleep, beer while watching NHL - yeah, not gonna happen) even tho this is totally a day where clearing the mind would be useful. But the body says no.

Waving to everyone else, finally leaving office.

I need to go back and read the pineapple post...sounds intriguing.

Damaris I got the Alli tights and shorts in on Thursday and they are awesome!  I considered the tights for the marathon but it was supposed to be cold and it was so the fleece lined ones sounded better.

Cathy I'm still sore mostly on my left side...especially my hip/butt area.  If I get up and walk around it's not so bad but sitting sure isn't a good idea.

Margaret what a beautiful area you live in.

Tessa, they were the f bomb hills after the first two but I kept trying to come up with alternatives.  When you walk by yourself for 10+ hours you get creative in your head space.

Elina I had to write that with hot tea in my hands...lol.  Eyeing the weather for the May 5th 50k up in KS and thinking I might change to the May 19th 12 hour one in southern OK.  I'm trying to get 3 marathon or longer distances in 90 days for the marathon maniacs criteria but I don't want to kill myself to do it

Diane, great report and fantastic job out there! Laughing at the boy howdy hills. Well, laughing at you calling them that, not laughing at having to conquer them all. I will share my badass title with you. In fact, now that it's been a week since my marathon, I will give up the badass crown to you.

Liz, nice way to start off the week. Ugh on the storms. For the first time in I don't know how long, we have beautiful weather - low 80s for the high, upper 50s for the lows, low humidity, no clouds - lots of bright blue sky.

Judy, interesting on the different "signals sent" in different towns.

I love seeing how happy all you northerners are now that you've finally got some decent weather.

Cathy, awesome seeing running reports from you again!

Easy 4 for me this morning. Started to get a little hot, I'm going to have to start getting out there earlier. Then I went to Sherwin Williams - last day of the big 40% off paint sale and we've been meaning to get paint for touch ups and stuff since we built the house.....3 years ago. Now, laundry and chores. This week's projects are sanding and painting the outdoor furniture and cleaning out the closets and pulling some stuff together for a charity pickup.