Sunday's Sixteen Miler and Wellness Week

I ran my 16 miler yesterday morning and everything went well. My first mile was around 10:02 and I was concerned that I was going to have another bad experience like I did when I ran my terrible ten a few weeks ago. Fortunately my legs joined me by mile two. I have been doing loops for my longer runs so that I have access to my own bathroom facilities as well as water/gatorade/sports beans. Yesterday I did an eight mile loop, followed by a five mile loop, and finished out the run with a three mile loop. I was able to finish without any pain in my feet this week. I ran a 2:32 (9:30/mile).

I work for a school and today was the first day of wellness week. The sports nutrition class passed out pedometers for us to wear to see how much we actually walk in a day. I asked them if I was allowed to wear my pedometer while doing my training runs this week or if they considered that cheating. One of the teachers (who happens to be a runner and is actually the 5:30 pacer for the Cleveland Marathon in May) said it is certainly not cheating and I plan to wear mine while I train this week as well. I think it will be interesting to see how much walking I actually do at work. I should probably mention that I am the supervisor of the kitchen staff so I am on my feet more than I am at my desk.

I will be altering my training schedule for the next two weeks to accomodate my spring break. As a result I will be doing my long runs on Friday instead of Sunday. I had to do the same thing last year during spring break and it seemed to work out really well. I am sure it will work out just fine this year as well. I am scheduled to travel to Pittsburgh the weekend of April 16th to run my 20 miler with "cuz" Michele. It will be nice having someone to run with for that length of time. The plan is to run a 5 mile loop 4 times so that we will have access to clean restrooms and water/gatorade/gu for her/sports beans for me.

I will be running 4 miles tomorrow after work and then heading to my monthly massage tomorrow night. I am in a lot less pain than I was last week but I always feel so much better after my massage therapist works out the lactic acid. This weeks long run is a scaled back 12 miler so I most likely will not get a massage next week. Next weeks long run is supposed to be 18 miles so I will be scheduling a massage for after that workout for sure!!

Happy running and training! Our weather looks promising for the rest of the week and here's hoping all of you find sunshine and warm weather in your training this week.

Keep running, you're simply the best, and you inspire me!!