Just Another Moaning Monday!

I have to say that we are developing a pattern, we run Sunday morning and we moan all through our run Monday night! Tonight Marathon Mom, C, her daughter, K from work and I met at Heritage and ran toward Bridgeport. The moaning started right of the bat, and pretty much continued the whole way! The thing about the run is that it wasn't really that bad, oh yeah, our legs hurt a bit from our 10 miler yesterday, but other than that it was a nice night for a run. The weather seemed like it was starting to cool off, and the run around the lake in Bridgeport is truly a beautiful run. I have to be honest and say that I seriously considered flaking out on my friends all afternoon, and had to stop myself from texting them and saying I wasn't feeling well. The funny thing about it is that at some point during our run, every single one of us expressed the same thing! The power of peer pressure can be a good thing at times. I didn't want to run tonight, I was in a bad mood, had a bad headache and just was not feeling it, but with the help of my friends, I made it through a 3 mile run and I know I am the better for it. Thanks girls

10 Again

For Patty and C it was another 10 miler. They weren't too happy to find out that they only needed to do 9 miles last week. Oops! We met with our marathon group out of Granary Square again and headed north to Copperhill. At our water stop, we asked the trainer where we turn around and when he described it at first, Patty's jaw just fell and the look on her face was shock. I guess she misunderstood and thought it was a different, much harder route. The hardest part was just before the turn around when we made a right at Copperhill and ran uphill for about a mile with a 122 foot elevation gain. I guess it's good practice for mile 23 of our marathon where there is a significant incline of 150 feet. It was actually quite pleasant and 90% of the time we were in the shade. We even stopped in at McD's for a bathroom break and some fresh ice water for our bottles. The only annoying thing about this route is all the lights that we have to stop at. It's really hard to get going at mile 8 or 9 when you have to stop and wait for a light. I wonder if it wouldn't have been better if we just ran cross the bridge at Bridgeport and got onto the bike trail so that we wouldn't have to stop so much at the lights? It probably wouldn't have been as shadier. All in all, we all did great, especiall C's daughter who ran with the "faster" group. Afterwards we all enjoyed our coffee and our protein loaded breakfast sandwiches. Couldn't get any better than that.

On a side note, Patty's brother asked that we post our maps of the longer runs. Today we weren't given any, but I'm so glad I figured out how to transfer the image from my Garmin software to the blog. I just hope I can still remember how I did it for next time :0

The Non Book Club

After our run on Friday, Patty and I were discussing ways to make this "book club" work for everyone. We realized that we really don't want it to be like a regular book club where we all read the same book, since we have such different tastes. What we thought would be better is getting together and sharing the books we have already read, sort of like our own library. Then as we're reading them or when we're done, we can comment on them to let others know what we liked and didn't like about the book. It will sort of be more of a book review than a book club. Since we are also sharing many of the same books, it will be easy for the rest of us to chime in and comment on them too.

So to get this thing started. . . .I am reading The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It's basically based on the true story of Brigham Young's 19th wife and a fictional character involved in a polygamist society. I'm still in the early stages of the book. It starts slowly, but I'm getting more into it. After reading Twilight, it's hard to switch gears into a more "serious" book with MUCH smaller print. The only thing I do not like about the book is how it jumps around so much. It goes back and forth from the true story to the fictional story to letters and stories written by other people. I'm not enjoying the fictional part of the story as much as the true story of Brigham Young's wife. Parts of it do have me hooked so I'll keep reading it and see what happens.

Running with the Kids

This morning Marathon Mom and I met our friend K from work at Central Park for a 7am run. The high school kids are out in force, and so are the moms. While we ran I thought back to the days when we had to drive them to practice and figured while we were there we might as well get our exercise also. How lucky it was for me that I found other moms that felt the same way about running that I did, and were willing to get up early to run with me! The nice part is the friendships that have formed in the process. I don't have to drive my son to practice anymore, but Marathon Mom does, and I really enjoyed being there today to see all of them running, the older kids and the new faces too, what a difference a year makes in a kid in his teens. We had a very pleasant run, cool enough weather, and managed to get in 4.25 miles. We are mentally preparing for another 10 miler this Sunday so I am going to be lazy today, and maybe tomorrow, eat right and look forward to suffering with my friends in a couple of days!

Hello Hills!

Tonight Marathon Mom and her hubby met me at COC to see how we fared on the hills. We stuck to the dirt and were dragging right off the bat. We told her hubby to just run ahead, unless he was going to chat with us, we didn't want to hold him back. The first time around was very hard, I felt like I couldn't breathe, and Marathon Mom's legs were feeling tired. I am sure she overdid it on her "vacation" with all the running and hiking in the altitude. We agreed that if we could have used my legs tonight and her easy breathing, we would have been just fine. The second time around she got a cramp and let me go on ahead on "killer hill". Even with a cramp she caught up and passed me, aah, I should have taken advantage sooner, while I had the chance. I think we both had visions of the cross-country races that will begin tomorrow night and how hard they are. Marathon Mom claims she doesn't want to run any of them, and I feel like we should run at least one. The one thing about our run tonight is that the weather was very pleasant, and if it is the same tomorrow night, I will be sad we didn't just get it over with. It seems to me that every time you run the hills on that course, there is another hill that wasn't there last time. I enjoyed our run, she may beg to differ, but the weather and being able to cool down on the track was a nice change and I think we should do it more often, maybe even on a Thurs. night!

Running with Gum

Running with gum is like running with scissors, somewhat hazardous. Lately I've been chewing gum during our runs to help keep my mouth from going too dry since we've been running without the water belts on the shorter runs. Yesterday, as I was running, talking, and chewing gum I accidentally bit down so hard on one of my teeth that it is still loose! I guess chewing gum requires that you do not try to multitask. See N Sun was telling us how she bit her tongue accidentally the day before by talking, eating, and player with her son, again multitasking. I wonder if anyone has ever choked on their gum while running? At every race, the goody bags are usually filled with various products for dry mouth (biotene), such as dry mouth gum, gel, toothpaste, mouthwash. I wonder if they help runners and that's why they market them at all of the races? Usually at the end of a race, my mouth is so dry that I think that is what starts the gag reflex (sorry for graphics). I think it's time I tried one of these dry mouth products.

A Popular Trail

Patty, C, See N Sun, and I met at the South Fork parking lot and ran for a short 3.1 miles. I knew beforehand that tonight's run wasn't going to be a lot of miles so I also ran 3.5 miles this morning to double up and make up for some of the miles I missed last week. I doubt that the little bit of running I did at Mammoth had anything to do with it and it certainly didn't qualify as "altitude training" , but I actually felt like I had a lot of energy left for the second run of today. That bit of energy really came in handy because our younger See N Sun can sure push the pace. It was nice to let the legs go a bit and pick up the pace on the way back. We've been letting the pace slide a bit lately so today's 9.17 was a welcome change. As we were running along a straight stretch of the trail, we noticed that there were so many people out walking, running, or cycling. I guess the heat doesn't deter too many people. However, even with all those people out and about, Patty's hubby still decided to run in the opposite direction and avoid us all together, even if it meant running straight into the sun.

As for our book "club" idea, we've decided that we'll all read the same book and when we've all finished reading it, we can discuss it. Since a few of us have copies of "Twilight", I think that's what we've chosen as our first book. It's an easy summer read, nothing too complicated. I suggested a running book, but no one seemed interested. Perhaps we'll all take turns choosing a book. We'll have to improvise as we go along and see what works.

Terrible Ten!

With Marathon Mom out of town for the 4th, C and I decided to run the 10 miles of our marathon training today, instead of tomorrow morning with the SCR's. We weren't too confident we would feel like getting up early if we happened to be out late tonight watching fireworks.. We got up early and met at Lowe's at 6:30 this morning to do the Lowe's 10, out to the Wiley Bridge and back. We agreed before we started that we weren't going to try and set any records with our pace and we also agreed beforehand that we would stop and take in some water at the beginning of the South Fork trail. I think we both worried that we would struggle, because our little 3 miler yesterday seemed hard and left me exhausted for the entire day. We were really looking forward to the return trip (downhill, usually feels faster) but at one point on the S. Fork we admitted to eachother that it just seemed to be taking forever. At our second water stop our bodies started to complain and stiffen up, it was pretty hard to get going again. To rub salt in our wounds a huge (20) group of bikers came racing up behind us as we were starting to go under the bridge. It was hard not to yell back @!#& when they told us to "watch out" and we literally had to jump out of their way. The bikers
at the back of the pack gave a weak "thanks" but it did nothing to make us feel better. What is it with bikers? The true test came as we re- entered the Heritage Trail and every step was painful. We made it though, and as we rounded the last corner and headed toward Bouquet and Starbucks, we both agreed we were very proud of ourselves for finishing! It wasn't the same without Marathon Mom to pull us along, but the runs will get longer and we will really need her then. Without her GPS we estimated that we ran for about 1 hr. and 40 min. give or take, and since there is no one to prove us wrong, we are going to stick with that story. Hope the "Freedom Mile" was fun, as for me I am going to celebrate the rest of the 4th from my couch!

Greetings From Mammoth

I'm posting today at Mammoth Mountain, elevation 7750. As we headed farther and farther away from the city, I remembered how blue the sky actually is. That is one of the things I really love about this place, a chance to see the bluest of skies. I wanted to take advantage of this clean mountain air so I went for a run (more like a jog) for 3 miles. One of the challenges of running at this altitude aside from the lack of oxygen, is how thirsty you get right away. A half mile into my run I was wishing I had my water belt. I started to run down the bike path to the skate park, but it was starting to get dark and it was more densely wooded. After just finishing the 3rd sequel to the Twilight books, visions of bears, werewolves, coyotes, and vampires entered my mind. So I decided to run up hill on Main Street. It was tough going out because there was a strong headwind (its always windy at Mammoth) and I was running uphill. I think my pace was around 12 min/mile going out, but once I turned back it got a little easier. Still my pace was nothing to brag about. So I'm wondering. . . . since I ran at almost 6 times the elevation of Santa Clarita, can I multiply my 3 miles x 6 to equal about 18 miles?

A Mad Run

I showed up to my run kind of mad and in a sour mood. It's a good thing only Patty showed up because I wouldn't have wanted to subject ALL of my friends to my grumblings. Patty should have known by my mood that it was going to be a fast pace. We all run faster when we're mad and I probably picked a bad day to be mad because Patty was feeling a bit tired today. Our pace has been creeping up a bit lately so I'm glad we did run a little faster today (9.32 min/mi.) even in this miserable, humid weather. We got a scare coming down the dirt road from Cheese Park as a security guard came up behind us in his car rather fast. I guess he realized we weren't quite a threat after all and decided to let us pass. Our plan was to run down to Decoro and cross the bridge and run up the other side where it is shadier, but it really wasn't so bad on the sunnier side so we decided to run to Heritage and back. It's on days like this that I'm thankful I have friends to run with and I'm sure my family is also VERY thankful.

I wore what I hope to be our "uniform" or colors. I found a pair of shorts that are similar to the colors of our blog on the top of the page, which I wore with a pink top. Unfortunately C wasn't able to see the "uniform", but I really did like the color combination. Patty did too, but she needs to try the shorts. It's all about the fit.