Halloween is here

First the bad news. My 5 miler yesterday sucked. Oh, the pain. I only made it 3 miles before giving up. Both ankles were grinding. Shin splints in both legs. And some knee/hip pain in my right leg that today feels like a tight IT band. ouch. So my plan for today is to stretch a ton, and maybe even see if i can find some yoga on TV to follow along with. Tomorrow is supposed to be 12 miles, but it won't happen in this much pain. and that really really sucks. fo really reals, yo.

Wednesday I ended up pulling a 12 hour shift at work so I missed my cross-training day. I think that's part of the problem. Just running with no different muscle stimulus is bound to create patterns in muscle tear/rebuild and bone impact tolerances. That's why every marathon training plan out there has at least one day per week of cross training or active recovery, right? So do you guys think more stretching and cross training will take care of this?

I also ordered The Stick yesterday, a foam roller muscle massager. It was recommended by Marcy and Wes to roll out my legs after a good run. It is supposed to aid with lactic acid soreness and recovery times. So I'm really looking forward to using it.

Halloween:

Tonight for my Atlanta peeps, my brother Michael is playing a show at Eddie's Attic. He doesn't tour very much anymore now that he's married and off the record label, so go see this show if you don't already have plans. Paste Magazine is sponsoring the tour with William Fitsimmons and Caitlin Crosby, and they are going all over the country. Tour details are on the Paste website, and this is a really big deal. William is playing with him as the opening act, and Slow Runner is his band during the headline act. You want to go see this show, it seriously kicks ass. Slow Runner has some songs on MySpace if you want to check out his music.

So last night we took the girls to the Halloween festival at the church where Bigun goes to kindergarten and had to snap a few pics in their costumes:

I'm growing the winter coat again. It really does protect my face when running outside on a windy day. Littleun was a cat, and here's the witch with her cat:

That is so cute! Speaking of what's not so cute, I found this pic the other day and scanned it in. THIS is hysterical. It's me with my high school sweetheart Christie (she's married now) at a prom we went to with a 70's theme. So this was taken in May 93, and is proof that I was thin in high school.

OMG that is too funny. I still have that jacket hanging around somewhere, but it doesn't fit anymore.

Good luck to anyone racing this weekend, I'm still thinking about signing up for a 5k race that benefits lung cancer research next weekend.