Another day, another run

I'm tired. Well, that's a big shockaroonie isn't it? It isn't so much running every night, although I'm not really used to it. It isn't just that I seem to have given up sleep for the season. It isn't that I'm watching what I'm eating and may not be getting the exact nutrition that I need. It isn't the heat, although my own personal heat waves have been driving me batty. It's a little of all of these. Yawwwwwwn.

Last night was our regularly scheduled run with Olivia, Claudia and me. It was oh-so-very-much cooler than last week and was actually pretty pleasant for running. We only ran the 2.7 mile out-and-back on the Iron Horse Trail. Maybe next week we'll increase that to the next block. Oh, we're not running next week, they have another appointment on Wednesday. Ok, the week after we'll increase that to at least 3 miles! Claudia has discovered that she can't, in fact, run as slowly as I do. Lots of people find it wrecks their running form to slow down too much; she was hurting after our last run and that's more than likely the explanation. But it works for me to just have to meet up with someone even though we can't run and chat. I need to have a reason to make me show up for the run so that I don't just go home and eat bon bons on the sofa all night.

It's been old timers week at the trail. After Tuesday's run I saw one of my old running friends/former TnT teammates whom I hadn't seen for almost two years. I was the mentor his second and his wife's first TnT season and we ran Anchorage together. He and his wife are still running marathons, in fact they ran New York last year. He had a lot of information about that race that'll be helpful to us in November. He said it was freezing at the staging area and recommended tents and sleeping bags!

After last night's run I saw a guy that I'd starting talking with a few years ago because we always staged from the same parking lot in Danville. He's the fastest person I know, he's actually won a marathon. He started running elsewhere so I don't really see too much of him. We talked about the races I've run in the last year and what his plans are for the future. I think he really doesn't believe that he runs a marathon a tiny bit faster than I run a half marathon. I mean, he just can't conceive that anyone runs that slowly. Not that he's snobbish and "well then you're not a real runner" about it (like so many people are), he just literally can't get his mind around the fact that it takes me over an hour to run 5 miles. Pretty funny. It's interesting hearing about running from a racing standpoint. It's totally different from running to beat my own time, or running a marathon just to see the scenery.

Last night I continued knitting my Temescal Bag. I finished the bottom, which I did all one color, and started up the body. I've got almost a couple of inches of the body done. I'm trying to make up my mind about how I'm going to stripe the colors. I know what order I want, just not how thick I want each of the stripes. I'm enjoying now just knitting in circles, my favorite mostly mindless circular knitting. Very relaxing, very zen.

Today's Gratuitous Bear of the Day is my second marathon bear. I got her in Anchorage after running the Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon. This was my third marathon (after two Rock 'n' Rolls). To date, the first 20 miles of that race were the best, absolutely best, run I've ever had, of any length. I have never felt so good running, it's never been that enjoyable or effortless. It's the closest I've ever come to a "runner's high" and I enjoyed every minute of it. Unfortunately, at mile 20 I hit the wall. Hard. The last six miles were a slow grouchy trudge to the finish line. It was a tough race and a beautiful race and one I'd like to run again some day. I hadn't initially planned on hanging my medal and chip and pin all over the poor little bear, I just thought she was cute. And red. At the time I didn't plan on running more than one or two more marathons, so I named her after the race, Marython, Mary for short.