So much to say

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I don't like to post round up type posts and always have a main focus anytime I sit down to write anything.... except this time.  Life has been moving pretty fast and I have not been able to keep up.  The past few months we have been having a contest at work on who could get the most steps in.  The grand prize was a shiny new iPad and I wanted to win oh so bad!  The last few weeks the competition got fierce between me and one other guy which meant I had to "step" up my game.  He was 11,000 steps ahead of me going into the last week so I did nothing but run and walk and walk and walk every waking moment.  Since I did nothing but run and walk and walk and walk I just didn't have time to post anything...... the reason for the round up, scatterbrain post.  So, I am sure you are wondering..... yes!  I won the iPad!!!!!! by 20,000 steps.  A total of nearly 1.7 million steps over a 12 week period.

Now..... on to the running news

Blisters, how do you deal with them?

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I find it funny that I am even writing about blisters.  I have never had a blister on either of my feet or toes since I started running almost 4 years ago.  Now, I have had the occasional sore toe, and of course really sore feet, but never a blister.

Over the past few weeks I have been doing a lot of walking as a supplement my running.  This walking is completely unrelated to running and is for a contest we have going on at work over the summer.  The funny thing is that this walking has given me multiple blisters.  I am sure it is because my feet move around differently in my shoes when I walk, rather than run.

Sony is sponsoring me in my upcoming marathon!

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The past few weeks have been a whirlwind and so this post and announcement with all it's details is way overdue.  Lately my blog posts have been limited to modified versions of what was posted to my running log, or time sensitive posts that I felt were important enough to lose sleep over like my two daughter's recent XC time trial.

We all know what time of year it is, time for school to start, time for the kids sports to kick into the full on fall training, and of course marathon training.  All three of these have hit me harder this year then ever before, especially with both of my daughters running Cross Country this fall, and my son playing Football for the first time on the 9 year old team.  Looking at their schedules makes my marathon training schedule look like child's play. :)

14 miles of 90% humidity

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This mornings 14 miler was an OK long run. I did this one on my own for most of it this time. My girls long runs have been moved to Monday's by the coach so they just did a short run this morning with each other.

It was really humid with 89% according to weather.com. In fact the first 8 miles it was a really fine mist. It stopped for a few miles and picked back up for the last mile.

I carried water and Gatorade with me and drank regularly. This didn't seem to change the run much from last weeks long run when I didn't carry anything. I did take a GU at about 9 miles (note to self - Apple Cinnamon sucks - am I the only one that doesn't really want to taste anything 8+ miles into a run? Why do they make all these crazy flavors..... I would prefer water flavor thank you!)

My Daughter's Cross Country Time Trial

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This morning was Ashlee and Payton's Cross Country Time Trial.  This is the first officially timed race of the season to see where all the girls are and how they are doing (not to be confused with the pre-season time trial).  I am sure there is much more to it for the coaches.  They run the race at a local park and they only run against themselves as a team.

The park (Alexander Park) is just a couple miles from our house and I was trying to figure out how I was going to get my run in today with the time trial starting at 7:30 (dead in the middle of Saturday run time for me)  I needed to run 7 miles so I decided I would get up a bit earlier and do my 7 miles and plan it to finish at the park in time to watch both the boys and of course, the girls run.

Mixing it up - Tempo run

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I mixed it up this morning and drove to work and ran from there. My daughters needed to be at XC practice by 5:45 so I dropped them off and drove to work and ran. I have never done this before and so it was a completely new route.

My marathon training plan showed a 35 minute tempo run this morning. I normally would run a tempo run at about 30 sec off pace of whatever I was training for after a 1 mile warm up, but this morning I chose to go with a tempo run as defined by Hal Higdon in his marathon training plan which says "A tempo run is a continuous run with a buildup in the middle to near 10-K race pace"

10 Good miles - Plus 3 hard ones

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This past Sunday was my first half marathon distance long run of the marathon training.  I was looking forward to it, but anxious at the same time.  I was going to be running the first half with my daughters and a friend, and then finishing it off on my own.  My biggest concern was that I was going to go too fast the first 7 miles and then the last 6 miles was going to be brutal.

We walked out the door 6:10 Sunday morning and were walking to meet Sarah.  After a few moments we saw her appear in the dark and we were ready to go.  We started off slow as I always do..... especially on long runs.

After a couple miles Payton started to complain about her foot hurting.  She was playing around the night before running around the yard barefoot and had hurt it a little bit.  After assessing the situation we decided it was best to turn around and head home and let her call it a day.  It continued to hurt her, but started getting better the closer we got to home.  I still insisted that she stop at 4.5 miles and rest and ice her foot.

And the CSN winner is......

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I am sorry I didn't post the winner of the CSN Stores Giveaway over the weekend.  Life has been so busy for me lately and I used every minute of the weekend to catch up with things that are way over due.

Thanks everyone for entering and spreading the word.  The 100 comments/entries are much appreciated!