July 29

I couldn't go on yesterday's group run due to working but got myself out in the evening for a solo run. We had gone to a state park earlier in the day for a short hike and the humidity was just miserable. I waited until nearly dark to start on my run, hoping the weather would improve. It ended up being pretty tolerable--still humid but at least it was overcast and cooler. Today's a rest day, then group run tomorrow. I'm having some labwork done this week and it involves getting two intramuscular injections (in the butt of course)--hopefully I won't be too sore from that. Hubby's also gone this week but I've already arranged babysitting so I can make it to the run. No interruptions allowed!

I'm back

I didn't slack off on my running, just on my writing! For starters, my sick puppy was taking up every spare moment for over a week (he was hospitalized for 9 days, if you're counting) but he did pull through. Parvo + pneumonia = 1 near-death experience for the little guy. The puppy (now named Phoenix) is looking fully recovered now and you'd never know he'd been sick a day.

Training for the mini is going well, I'm still hanging in there and keeping up on the scheduled work-outs. On this past Saturday, we ran the first part of the race route (just under 6 mi of it). Hooo-boy...got some nice hills along that route! I then found out that we are supposed to run the 2nd portion on a Saturday that I was scheduled to work. Since I desperately wanted a chance to do that with the group, I managed to trade my Saturday shifts so I'll be able to go.

After running a 4.5 mi on Thursday, then the 5.7 mi on Saturday, I found yesterday's (Monday) run to be weak. I managed 2 miles before my legs said "no more", but since it was an out-and-back run they had to suffer through the rest of the route anyway. I did 3.6 mi but it felt harder than what I'd done the previous Thurs and Sat. I'm supposed to do 2 miles today but since I have the kids/no sitter, it looks like I'll have to do a treadmill workout (yuck, it's humid in the basement...).

And updated my post to add that I did accomplish the workout and did it outside after all. It's just too nice to run indoors so I crated the puppies, told the kids to behave themselves for half an hour and took myself for a run. I stayed in the neighborhood (figured I'd smell the smoke if the kids tried to burn the place down that way) and did my neighborhood loop. I wanted to do two full loops but after the first loop was ready to quit. I pushed through another half of the route (the loop is more like a cloverleaf with my house in the middle of the 3 leaves) and called it good. Although late for a morning run, the weather was perfect. I may take the kids over to the park for lunch before I head in to work. I rather like the odd schedule I'm working today, makes it feel like a day off!

Too distracted to run

My puppy's still very very sick and I'm finding that it's affecting every aspect of my mood and activity. I did go for my evening run last night, but I just can't seem to turn off my worrying even when I'm running. I'm exhausted mentally and emotionally, that seems to be affecting my physical endurance as well. My training schedule called for a short 2 mile run with 8x100m strides. I ended up doing 1.5 miles with 4x100m strides, then walked back another 1.5 miles. The walking was very soothing to my stressed state though. When I was running, I didn't notice much of what was around me. During the walk, I admired the blooming wildflowers and saw/heard so many birds with fledglings. It's good to take the time to notice the good things. I needed that yesterday.

Been a bit mopey

On Saturday, I got up and got dressed for the group run as planned but had an unexpected situation that made me miss the run. When I came downstairs, I found that my newly adopted puppy (only had him a week) was horribly ill. Luckily for him, I'm a vet so I recognized the signs of parvo immediately and he's been hospitalized since then. On the down side, I've been worried sick about him and it's really brought my attitude down. I did go for a solo run once I was done tending to him, but my heart just wasn't in it. I was planning a 4.5 mile run, but after the first 2 miles I just walked the rest. Crummy day all around.

Pup's making slight improvements, which helps my attitude somewhat. Today we had great weather for our run: 77F and barely any humidity (don't know the actual % though). I did the 3 mile campus loop and my goal was to finish it before the 4-milers caught up to me. I almost made it--they passed me with 2 blocks left to go but I still had a good pace. The guys who passed me had done an 8:18 mile pace so I was right at an 11 minute pace. Nothing too impressive, but I felt pretty good doing it so I'm happy with it. I'm having some doubts about whether to register for the mini. We'll just see how this goes over the next few weeks before I commit.