What a week!

This is starting to sound like a broken record, but last week I was due for another rough week. Big deadline for a project at work, complicated with the matters of my older daughter being done with Pre-K but her summer program not having started. What did that mean? 2 days at Grandma's, 1 day with the hubby, and 2 days of trying to work from home. ARGH!!! But I knew that even as hard as it would be to run, it would do my mind and body good. ESPECIALLY given my 8 miles I'd be running on Saturday.

And so I made time for myself and I DID IT. I ran twice during the week, 40 minutes each. You all KNOW I love to run in the mornings, and tend to think of a million excuses in the evening if I put it off til then...well on Thursday evening I forced myself to get on that treadmill and just DO IT, since I decided to work early in the morning instead, since I'd be home all day. On top of that, two other days I managed to fit in a whole-body strength training session and 30+ minutes on the elliptical each time.

I capped off this great week with a fabulous 8-miler along the lakefront with my training group. This is the longest run since the Indy Mini, and since I took my "I have a soar calf muscle" hiatus, so I was a bit nervous. But all went well.

Our group consisted of me, Lou & Meg (who are BOTH pace leaders now), and two newbies, Sal and Jenny (not to be confused with Coach Jenny.) We knocked it out pretty efficiently. There were occasional moments, only fleeting, where I was worried I might not make it....is that my calf tightening up? Are you crazy to go from 5 miles last week to 8 miles this week? (I missed our 6 and 7 mile runs due to said calf.) The conversation drifted from whether or not there are a lot of dead bodies in Lake Michigan (don't ask), to Oprah's former abode and whether or not Tom Cruise lived in the same building too, to Sal's bragging about drinking and dancing the night before (eyes rolling)...we had a nice route, heading south first along the lakefront, then going back up north past our starting point for another 2 miles, before heading back for the final two.

During the last mile or so, we got the chance to run with "running royalty," as Coach Jenny rode along next to us on her bike, chatting us up for a good while. (For those of you not privy to Coach Jenny, you can find her here, or you may have seen her coaching one of the runners in the Spirit of the Marathon, or read her Ask Coach Jenny column in Runners' World. (Dude, I'm so mad at that magazine right now, but I will save that rant for another post.) Anyway, I really appreciated her rolling along side of us, because sometimes as the slowest pace group, you sort of get the feeling that people are just putting up with you. So we chatted about past races, the importance of strength-training, etc... it was really cool.

So 8 miles down. My legs were super-sore last night, but feeling good today...and ready to hit the road tomorrow morning for a full 45 minutes! I think. :-O

Thanks for reading my completely self-serving, self-congratulatory post!

Have a great week, friends!