One Mile to One Hundred

The after affects of all the hills during the Austin Half Marathon last weekend caught up to me in full force by Tuesday morning. I had a bit of a crazy day at work due to power outages so I didn't get a morning run in which was a blessing in disguise. Fast forward to Tuesday evening when I was scheduled for my 90 minute massage. Within the first 5 minutes my massage therapist determined that the hills did one heck of a number on me! My hips were out of alignment and my left quad was incredibly tight. The weird thing was that when he massaged my quad it wasn't as painful as I expected it to be. Imagine my surprise when he moved on to my left hamstring that wasn't bothering me at all (well at least not to my knowledge) and I was immediately in agony! I had contemplated running after my massage but I listened to my body and took a second rest day! Wednesday morning I managed to turn my alarm off. I guess I was really tired. Since I didn't have time to run before work I packed my running gear and decided to run outside after work. The schedule called for 7.5 miles but my hamstring was nagging at me the entire time so I listened to my body and cashed it in at 5 miles. I figured better safe than sorry. I am training for a marathon afterall! Thursday morning I headed to the Y to run the indoor track. The schedule called for 4 miles. My hamstring was feeling better but I figured it best to not chance it and called it a day at 3 miles! Yesterday morning I had planned to head to the Y before work but we were hit with one heck of a snow storm here in Cleveland and the roads were a mess. Since the kids and I didn't have school I decided to hit the basement treadmill in the afternoon. I decided I was just going to run nice and easy for 30 minutes and whatever the mileage was in the end I would be fine with. In the end I ran 3.28 miles. When I uploaded my workout to dailymile I realized that I was going to be less than a mile short of 100 miles run in February after completing the half marathon on Sunday. I decided to jump on the treadmill this morning to stretch out my legs and get in that one mile to get me to one hundred for the month. How could I not do it? I was seriously going to be .97 miles short! After the easy mile, I hit the elliptical for 15 minutes for a little more stretching. As of this morning my hamstring is feeling great and I am ready to rock "The Last Chance For Boston" Half Marathon tomorrow morning with Dave. Originally, the plan was for me to pace Dave to a sub 2 hour half marathon. Of course Dave has changed this theory and we are now shooting for a 1:49:59 which will give him his first sub 2 half marathon and me a PR as my current PR is 1:51:18. I will tell you that he has done his research and the course is ideal for running a PR as we run 13 one mile loops with .1 added on. There is very little elevation on the course which translates into no "mountains"! I will definitely take that after last week's race.

One mile to one hundred miles before 10:00 AM tomorrow! I'll take it!!

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