Origin of my medal bears

We ran last night and it was everything we expected, and more. More heat. Lots of heat. Hot hot hot. Honestly, it was just a teensy weensy bit better than we'd thought it would be; i.e., nobody had to be taken to the hospital on a stretcher. Heh. Olivia, Claudia and I met at the Iron Horse Trail in Danville at 5:30 pm on our (hopefully) regular weekly New York training run. My car thermometer said it was 97 degrees out. Ouch. We decided to just run a half hour, anything else would just be pushing our luck. It was tough and I was soon huffing and puffing. My legs just don't understand that on a day like that my lungs can't keep up with them. For someone who was running only a 13+ minute mile a few months ago, I was going pretty fast. For someone who a couple of years ago was averaging more like a -12 minute mile, I was slow. I was our designated whiner last night and I apologize for the fantastic job I did. This was the first time I had run with either of them and I'm pretty sure I didn't give them a good impression. I'll be better next week; either it will cool off or I'll be a little more used to running in the heat by then.

We ran just under 3 miles (love that rounding up feature!) and Olivia had bought us presents for when we finished: little frozen ice packs. They were wonderful! We hung around the parking lot for a bit rubbing the ice packs all over until they (too quickly) melted.

Tuesday night I've designated as cross-training and toning night. I have a bazillion workout tapes and cds but my favorite is an old Kathy Smith video that's a lower body toning tape called Functionally Fit Lower Body Workout. It's about a half hour of various squats and dips and is the best workout you can get for hamstrings and glutes in such a short time. I've found if I do that tape weekly I hurt a hell of a lot less after a marathon, even a hilly one. When I do the tape after not having done it in a while, my legs let me know they're hurting. I could tell when I started running last night that I had had a good workout and by the time I sat down on my sofa a couple of hours later I was feeling my hamstrings big time. This morning when I got out of bed I actually hurt more than the day after my last marathon. That's not right! Advil to the rescue; tonight's run is going to be really challenging!

I'm close to finishing my multidirectional diagonal scarf, probably just one more triangle then I'll finish it off. It's getting pretty bulky to be my take-along no-think project so I 'll probably just get it done. Lots of end to weave in when I finish; it's Noro after all. I think I'll do the Noro hat out of the same yarn, I have so much of it. This time I'll swatch since my other Noro hat is big enough for a couple of people to wear at the same time. I haven't done any of the finishing work on my neverending superlong wrap, it's been too hot to work on that big pile of sheddy alpaca.

Today's Gratuitous Bear of the Day will be the first of my marathon bears. I never meant for this to be a trend or anything, never planned to display all my full marathon medals around the necks of bears. Of course, I never planned to run more than one marathon either! When I got to the expo of my first, the (then) Suzuki Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in San Diego, I saw the cutest bear. She had on a little running outfit with the race logo and I just had to have her. After I finished the race and got my medal and TnT 26.2 pin it just seemed natural to hang them around her neck. I put my souvenir timing chip on her wrist. I named her Zuki after the name of the race sponsor. A year later when I finished my second race, again the Suzuki RnR Marathon, I put that medal and pin around her neck too. For my next few races I found appropriate medal bears and a trend was started.
The next year I again ran the Suzuki RnR and pin and medal went to this bear again. Her neck was getting crowded!
I skipped RnR San Diego in 2004 (I ran RnR Arizona instead) and in 2005 I was back, this time without the team and without Suzuki as a race sponsor. I figured 4 medals was enough, if I ran the race again I'd need a new bear. Well, this year as we all know I ran it again, got another medal and pin, but I couldn't find another appropriate bear. Poor little thing, she got the new medal too! Next time, I gotta get a different bear!