Countdown to Race Day.

Here are my hopes and wishes for this week:

--That swine flu stays way, way, far away from me.
--That the rain does its thing earlier in the week and stops by Sunday.
--That work gets less stressful so I can bring this arm twitchy thing to a stop.

Race Day is Sunday. And I'm so ready to run.

Only 2 more weeks...

12 miler was a success! The weekends have been ultra busy lately now that school started back up again so I didn't get the chance to run until 5:30 pm on Sunday. Andy came to the rescue once again. He took out my girly light blue bike once again and rode alongside me for the entire 12 miles as it just barely started to get dark as we pulled in to his house. Actually having him there helped me keep up my pace and I finished in about 2 hours.

The Twin Cities Marathon is only 2 weeks away. My cousin and aunt are coming in to town to watch me (they live in Kansas City). So excited to have fans--hehe! Two weeks later, I will be travelling to Kansas City for the Kansas City Marathon Relay to team up with my cousin on a leg of that race.

My local hometown paper also printed a story about my fundraising efforts for NF and running the Twin Cities Marathon. Thought that was super cool. I don't know if I ever mentioned it--but Joe Mauer (Twins catcher) donated a signed bobblehead to the cause that will be raffled off to donors who donate $20 or more. If you are one who is a Mauer fan--you can find my donation page in the left margin of my blog.

Prince Charming on a Blue Bicycle

Monday evening I planned out my 20 mile run. I was a little scared because it was going to be dark by the time I finished up and the trail is wooded and you never know what/who might come out of the woods! I had barely mentioned to Andy while he was half asleep that perhaps he might be able to come down and bike alongside me. I honestly thought he wasn't listening though because he was so tired.

The run started out pretty good. I made it to mile 7 before I really needed to stop to get a drink of water. By then I was just entering Lake Calhoun (a portion of the Twin Cities Marathon route!). I made it almost all the way around the lake when I checked my I-Pod and it told me I had run what I thought I heard as "10.05" miles. Andy called me near this point to ask me whether I still wanted him to come out with my light blue bike so that he could ride next to me in the dark. I was suprised that he had actually heard me that morning and quickly gave him directions on how to find me on the trail.

It was getting dark pretty fast by the time Andy found me. I was sooo relieved and happy to see him. When he got to me, he told me how happy he was that he came out because he didn't like the idea of me running in the dark alone. That and the end of my run is in Hopkins--and there are parts of Hopkins that scare me in the daylight--let alone the dark. Andy got to experience the trail and told me that he now thinks he wants to take up biking--so perhaps next year I'll be biking more.

Anyways, Andy talked to me through the last 5 miles and all went pretty well. I had a few stomach issues in the last 2 miles that caused me to take a few extra breaks. But all in all--it was a good run. No knee pain--thank goodness!!!!

The shocking thing is--when I got back to the apartment--my I-Pod was telling me that I ran 21 miles. Not sure how that happened really. Unless perhaps when I turned around I heard "10.05" when it was really saying "10.50". Not sure. Either way...I'm sure I got the required 20 done which is good.


Taper time!!!!

Sitting on Edge

Sooo...I had an AWESOME GREAT 10 miler on Wednesday night. I was supposed to do a 5 miler yesterday but by the end of the day I was experiencing something that I thought I would manage to successfully avoid this marathon training season....

KNEE PAIN!!

Yuck, Yuck, Yuck, Yuck.

Anyways, I took the day off of running yesterday, iced the knee, and prayed that my knee would pitter please hold up.

So far none of my home remedies have cured it. Although I will say...I have yet to actually try to run on it since the pain started. Sooo....maybe it will go away with a little run. I don't have time for one tonight...but I'm going to attempt tomm.

Also have a 20 miler scheduled this weekend. I will try to do it on Sunday but if knee pain proves to be detrimental--I will postpone to Monday. Then it will be taper so hopefully if I can just make it past the 20 miler--I can give my knee a little break.

18 and Counting...

I finally finished the 18 miler on Sunday. I won't say it is the best run I've ever had. In fact, it was probably near the worst.

I started out on the run at about 11:00 AM. Yea, not a good time to start a long run. While the weather man said it was going to be a "pleasant" weekend, I wasn't thinking it was so pleasant. It was 79 degrees which I thought would be alright. But it was sooo hot. I think it was the way the sun was hitting me, in all honesty. I wore a black hat because I couldn't find my sunglasses and that was just trapping heat on my head. I was absolutely miserable through a good majority of my run.

Once I hit the 9 mile mark, I only had one bottle of water left and a bottle of gatorade. I brought the Gatorade to try to help with the lack of electrolyte problem I experienced on other long runs. Well, it turns out that Gatorade makes me more thirsty. I hate that sugary taste it leaves in your mouth so I kept having to follow it with water. Sooo...I think next time I'm going to have to try to mix it with water to make it less potent. Anyways, I very quickly went through my liquids and was starting to panick about how I was going to make it the 9 miles back.

I texted Andy to see when he was going to be back home (he was an hour away). He said he wasn't coming home anytime soon. At that moment, I really was frustrated. I tried to keep running but my mind just wasn't in it. I ended up walking a good distance, running some, walking some. Finally I reached the high school near Andy's house. They had just installed outdoor water fountains this summer and every time I stopped they had no water in them. I hoped that they would have water running through them this time since school is starting tomm. And thank goodness--they had water! Although one of the fountains seemed to have a taste of paint thinner or some kind of chemical--I assumed because they were new. Yuck. Anyways, I filled up my water bottles and went on my way.

The last few miles turned out to be okay--alot of running and then walking. I came back to the house with no chills this time--the Gatorade must have helped that problem. Also had sunburn on the back of my knees, arms, face, and neck. How fun....

I'm hoping the 20 miler this weekend is better than this one. I definetly will either be leaving earlier in the day or later to avoid the sun beating down on me.

One Month to the Big DAY

One month from today I will be standing at the start line of the Twin Cities Marathon!! I can't say that I'm near as nervous as last year's Kansas City Marathon. So far, my knees have held up quite well through training this year. I've had a few minor knee "warning" pains in my left knee the past few runs but nothing to be too worried about. The only thing I have been worried about is the fact that I have yet to get the 18 miler in. I will be doing it this weekend. I still have some chesty stuff from the cold I had last week but I'm ready to go.

My runs this week have been alright. Somehow I've managed to lose some speed lately which is slightly disappointing. My fastest pace on my 5 miler the other day was like 9:30 which was my normal pace last year. Not that I'm all that concerned with pace in my marathon but I do want to hopefully beat last years time. We'll see what happens.

Oh and I finally got pics back from the Run of Mills 5k that I did with my bro and dad back in May. See below.

Joe (brother) and I before the race.

Start Line

Dad is in the yellow Cheerios hat and Joe and I are to the side of this guy in the hat in the forefront. You can only see my hair but Joe is in front of me.

Crossing the Finish Line