I WON! (plus week 3 of Chicago marathon training)

Well, this week didn't start out as good as the first two but I'm pleased with how it ended! My shins HURT in the beginning of my week and I decided to listen to my body and give it a rest rather than forcing down the miles that the Chicago marathon training plan called for. I only ran 3 days this week, and the last two were my best runs in a long time... AND.... I won a pair of Vibram soled Patagonia Release Trail Shoes!

Monday: (No, this isn't the shoe that I won, but is my favorite road running shoe.) The plan called for 5 miles but my shins HURT!!! I ran 1.15 miles with the dogs and then 1.35 miles on the treadmill. Did I mention my shins HURT?!? So I decided to give them a break and not go planned distance. During the day I saw a tweet from the Big Peach Running Company showing off their new technical t-shirt design. This reminded me that Fleet Feet didn't have the shoe I need in stock a few days ago. So I sent a message through twitter to PeachyRuns and they did indeed have the shoe I'm looking for. I stopped by their Decatur store on my way home from work and picked up a new pair of Nike Zoom Elite +4. And while I was there I picked up two packets of Accelerade (since the only Hammer Perpetuem they had was a giant container and I just placed an order with Hammer yesterday.) I've never shopped here before, but was impressed! They had a 5-gallon water cooler and cups set up outside the door providing water to area runners. The service was excellent and the store was well organized. It was a very positive shopping experience!

Tuesday: My shins still hurt, but not quite as bad as yesterday. I decided to listen to my body and take a rest day this morning instead in hopes of quick healing. Tonight was the last swim meet of the season for our neighborhood swim team. My daughter is away at a 2-week camp in Pennsylvania, but being the dedicated person that I am, I drove to Grayson (about 30 minutes from my house) and served my duty as our team's Head Timer. It just wasn't the same without her there... Unfortunately, our team lost by 38 points, but the kids still seemed to have fun.

Wednesday: Lately I've been craving to swim laps so that's what I did for my scheduled cross training today. I went to Mountain Park Aquatic Center and swam for 35 minutes before going to work. I think I swam 1000 meters but I may have lost track somewhere along the way and double counted a lap or two. It was at least 1000 meters but may have been a little more. Good swim! I had planned to go to the Group Power class at the gym this evening, but thanks to worse traffic than I predicted, I arrived home from work at the same time the class started. Maybe I'll do push-ups, crunches, and lunges at home instead. or not...

Thursday: I mixed the plan up a bit so I could still get in my long run (10 miles) and be able to run the Peachtree Road Race on Saturday (10K). The plan called for 5 miles today and 10 on Saturday so I'm doing/did 10 miles today and will do the 10K on Saturday. I went to Stone Mountain Park early this morning and did two loops around the base on the roads. I filled half my amphipod belt bottles with water and the other half with Accelerade. (I like Hammer Nutrition products much better than the Accelerade, but I'm still waiting on their shipment.) After doing a little research, I decided to not focus on pace, but to try to keep my heart rate in the 70-80% range. In the past I would walk up the hills when I was breathing too heavy/tired, and would be push for an 11.5 minute/mile average pace, but today my first reaction was to slow down going up the hill and only walk when I hit 81%. Normally I would be counting down the last few miles til the end (including walking more than running), but today I felt like I could have kept going long past 10 miles. I felt so good that I picked up the pace in the last half mile, forgetting about my heart rate, for a strong finish. I also ran without my iPod, listening only to the sounds of nature and truly focusing more on the run. It was awesome to listen to the birds chirping, frogs croaking, ducks quacking, etc. and feel strong to the end. What a great run!

Saturday: See separate blog post (July 4th) for Peachtree Road Race...

Sunday: I'm sticking to the plan's "Rest Day" so I can hopefully complete all of next week's scheduled runs. And while I'm resting, I listened to episode 76 of Chris Russell's most excellent Run Run Live podcast. And to my huge surprise, I was one of five people selected to win the contest for a free pair of Patagonia Release Trail shoes! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU: Chris, Buddy the Wonder Dog, Vibram and the rest of the selection committee! In the Run Run Live episode 74, Chris announced the contest and on a whim, since I never win anything anyway, I decided to enter. Contestants simply had to post why they should be the recipients. So I wrote about my Lyme disease experience (see blog posts in March 2009) and how I loved that first trail race, but the Lyme disease had put the fear into me to not want to venture out into the woods again. I wrote that new gadgets often give me incentive so if I had a pair of trail running shoes, it would motivate me to overcome my fear and get back on a trail again. I'm so excited!!! If I receive the shoes in time, I'll register for the July 26th XTERRA Pig Trail - 10K Trail Run. (And yes, ever since the tick incident, my most frequent perfume is insect repellant.)

Days run this week: 3
Miles run this week: 18.71
Highlight of the week: Awesome 10-mile run, Terrific Peachtree Road Race, and I WON TRAIL SHOES!
Goal for next week: follow Week 4 of Chicago Marathon Intermediate Plan