The 20 miler that wasn't

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Today was supposed to be my first 20 miler of the marathon training..... but it wasn't.  I was, however, happy to get a 5 mile mostly pain free run in though.  If you haven't read my previous post from earlier this week I have been dealing with a very tight, somewhat injured, calf since last weeks 19 miler.
The miles have been way down this past week, but I have managed to get out every other day for at least 2 miles.  Each day the calf felt much better and I think I am ready to start ramping up the mileage a little bit over the next couple days.  I will still take it easy so I don't end up with a re-lapse though.

A step in the wrong direction

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I really didn't want to be saying this so close to the 13.1 marathon, but I think I have taken a step or two in the wrong direction.  Things were going really good as you could tell in my last post called Grease Lightning.  I wish I could say things are still going just as well as they were then, but if you have been following me on Twitter or DailyMile you know about my latest dealing with left calf.

Last Thursday I went out early in the morning for some hill repeats.  The workout went great and I got some good trash your legs hills in.  As is the case with any good workout, my legs were hurting for a couple days after the hills, especially my calves.  I wasn't feeling any injury type pain in my legs or calves so I was not worried in the least.

Grease Lightning

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Whoooooooo Hooooooo!!!!!!

Wow is all that I can say!  I was really not feeling it this morning, and had no motivation to run going to bed last night or getting up this morning.  My girls needed to be at the school for XC practice at 5:40 this morning and I needed to do a workout.

The problem was that I wasn't going to be able to get my 6x800's in early enough to get back home to get them to school by 5:40 considering the drive to the track, the warm up, the 800's and then the drive home just to turn around again and drive them back to the school by 5:40.  If I was going to pull this off I was going to have to get up by 4:00 am which I was not willing to do today.

The first two cross country meets

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I promised an update on my two daughter's first cross country meet, and now the second one has occurred already.  I guess it is past time for me to get writing and put it into words before the memory starts fading.

Two weeks ago was the first official meet of the season, however it was not a typical 5k cross country distance. The Stage Races at River Green in Duluth are a series of 5 - 2 mile races, typically getting faster each stage till the 5th stage.  They are all scored together so it is best for the coach to put their fastest runner in each stage, that is not too fast to blow away the stage so they would be better used in the faster stage.  The boys and girls run these races together which also makes for an interesting dynamic.

Another trail run

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This morning my daughters were planning to get together with many from their Cross Country team and do their long run on the trails at Yellow River Park in Stone Mountain.  Since I was going to be taking them anyway I decided I would run the trails once again.

Since I ran my 17 mile long run yesterday my legs are pretty trashed, however I had taken the previous 3 days off because of my incident with the speedy driver on Wednesday morning and I didn't feel like I would be over training to hit the trails for Tuesday's scheduled 9 miles.  Yes, I am aware it is Monday, but today only called for 3 miles and I really didn't want to waste the great opportunity to put in a few miles while I was there.  Tomorrow would be very difficult to get 9 miles in anyway so considering the circumstances I just did a little switcheroo.

Run for your life

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This past Wednesday morning was like any other morning.  I was running up and down the same roads I have run hundreds of times in the past.  It was about 5:50 when I was coming around the same corner I have come around many times before.  The road was dark and I was wearing my reflective vest and flashing red light for visibility.  This morning was going to be a little bit different, and serves as a reminder why we run into traffic and not with it.