What a Weekend

It was a busy and fun weekend here around the Flynn house. Wifey's dad came down from Raleigh to visit, and brought our niece from Rock Hill as well. It's fantastic to have in-laws that you get along well with. They kept the kids occupied while we got to go do stuff.

Saturday I got in the long run. It was supposed to be 18 miles. I took Wes's advice and used a route that MapMyRun said was 6.1 miles, so I could loop through it 3 times and fill up the CamelBak between laps. It is a cool route. I grew up here in Greenville. The route is basically one road and a small kick out loop. The 6 mile part even avoids any major intersections so there's no traffic problems, and it's one of the few roads in Greenville with sidewalks the whole way so it gets a lot of runners. The route starts at a grocery store which is a common starting place for group bike rides too. It goes down where I went to elementary school first. And now that the leaves are gone, I can see through a wooded lot to the backyard of the house I grew up in (1978 - 1992) and the backside of that house. I've driven past that house a few times since we moved out, but it's been a really, really long time since I've seen the backside of the house and the backyard. That was really cool. Then the route makes it's one turn and goes down to Eastside High School (class of '93), loops back up to E. North St and back to the grocery store.

Now MapMyRun said that route was 6.1 miles. So I strategically place the car on the side of the parking lot where I thought it would be closer to 6. Then I ran the first lap and the Garmin said it was only 5.4 miles? What's up with that? The 5.4 mile split time was ok, but I didn't record the time. I figured the second lap I would loop around by the high school twice and that should give me enough milage to make up for the dissapearing half mile.

That's what I did, but the second lap had considerably more pain. I rembered then that I had missed my Advil dosage before the long run started. That always leads to a more painful run than I had imagined. Boy it caught up to me on saturday. By the time I made it back up E North st towards the car, I was having some hip pain (not as bad as I've seen before) and some pretty bad knee pain. I would have been fine if I had remebered the Advil, I think. But that meant the end of lap 2 was the end of the run. The garmin said 13.01 miles, 2:27:55 time. not too bad.

With no football on tv, it felt great to get back outside. It is a different approach than having a place to store all the water bottles and nutrition, and a nearby bathroom. The preparation you have to do for an outside long run is really daunting. I'm going to have to come up with a checklist that I can reuse. If you have a long run checklist, please email it to me. That would be a big help.

Wifey was a little under the weather saturday. So after I got back, we did some christmas shopping without the kids. Then sunday, she got her 18 in on the treadmill. She also let her nutrition slack off a bit and paid the price towards the end. Looks like she needs a checklist too.

This part of the training plan is great, we're finally on the downhill side of it towards the marathon. 20 long runs on the plan (a 20 week plan) and we've got 11 done, 9 to go. But now they are getting long enough to not have back to back increases anymore. Last week was 17 miles, this week 18. Now it starts to stagger. 13 next saturday before the office christmas party, then 19 the next week after christmas stuff. Then our TR half marathon race the following saturday, followed by 20 the week after that. It is so going to help with recovery time. The long runs don't get any shorter than 13 until taper, but this alternating week thing is fantastic.

And OMG I am swamped with other shiz to do! I know it's a full moon, but dang i'm ready to get some of this little stuff knocked off the to-do list. Does your to-do list fill up with a full moon? Mail this, fax that, print these pics for my aunt, go to the computer store for a new usb keyboard, gaaaaaaa the list doubles every day and nothing gets done. e.v.e.r. I even overslept this morning. that doesn't help. Git 'r' done!