Sorry For My Tardiness

Topic: The End of an Era?

Key Words: My Ass Hurts, Sexiest Runner in Chicago, 400 Meter PR

Word Count: 545

Tomorrow's Likely Topic: Kate

The end of an era; I went a day without posting to the blog! Ironically, Monday, the day I missed, was the same day Jason told me I had to much time on my hands when he found out I was doing this :) A couple sessions of exercise, some email, an IM or two, some laundry, and the night was done. Here's a recap of the last two days....

Monday was too be softball; week 4 of our 5 week season (6-0 so far ... oh yeah!). Unfortunately, rain the night before left the field unplayable, so I was left with an unexpectedly free night. What do you do on a free night? For myself, I make sure to hit the elliptical machine ... especially when my ass hurts as much as it did on Monday! On Saturday I did my first leg workout in 27 years (actually, more like seven months), which I followed up with a three mile run, which has absolutely destroyed my legs! So I spent 30 minutes on the elliptical machine to loosen the hamstrings and then did the upper body workout that I normally miss due to softball.

Today I returned to the 400 yard track at Memorial to do a speed workout. I did six repeats of one loop at a hard pace, followed by one-half loop at a slow pace. It's rare that I do these speed workouts at a set distance, as normally they are to a set time (i.e., two minutes). So I'm not sure that this is a true personal best, but I did a loop in 1 minute 35 seconds today. Relative to the 50 seconds sprinters take for the distance, I think that means I was working at a decent level. Maybe I'll take up sprinting once my distance running career is over (riiiiiiight!).

This week starts the first real week of my Chicago Marathon training. My plan is for Tuesday to be speed day, Thursday a short marathon-pace run, and Saturday a long, slow run. Once softball ends, I hope to add a fourth day of running. Sunday stays biking day, add a couple of trips to the gym each week, and I'll at least be the sexiest runner in Chicago (I'm single ladies, I'm just saying). After some bizarre thoughts about not running Houston FIT this year, I've decided I'll run with the group again. I may run across multiple groups within Houston FIT, instead of exclusively with the yellow group, but after two years, I enjoy the people too much to quit the group.

Since I just started my official training, what do I want from Chicago? I want to look worse than this. The picture below may be my worse photo ... ever ... it was taken immediately after finishing the 2006 Houston Marathon, the year of my best time in the event. If I can break 4:30 in Chicago, I'll probably look like my ass felt yesterday, but it will be worth it. And if I can find the girl who thinks runners look good at the end of a marathon, it will undoubtedly be true love!