2 runs and 7+ miles = one happy Jenn

One of these days I will sit down to write a blog entry and it will be funny and entertaining. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. Tonight I can't even come up with a good title for my entry. I must be tired, or just plain boring! Either way, just warning you this post will not be entertaining!

I mentioned my trip to Michigan in my last entry, but I failed to mention my souvenir from the trip.

From July 13, 2011

I was walking through a convenience store and managed to kick the back of my heel on a display of fishing rods. I knew I cut my heel open but I had no clue it was even possible to bruise a heel. I mean, I guess it makes sense you could, but seriously... I have never known anyone who did! I didn't notice the bruise until I went running on Monday. It isn't exactly comfortable to wear running shoes with a bruise on your heel like that. Thankfully it is starting to heal, but its still pretty tender!

Tuesday is a rest day with my half marathon training schedule, so I swam for an hour and did some strength training. Nothing too strenuous, but I had to do something... I was going crazy sitting on my butt! Today I cut my swimming short to only 30 minutes so that I could get 3 miles of running in this morning before it got too warm. 3 miles turned into 3.5 because I didn't want to stop until I had done the Y loop twice! This run felt pretty easy, well not easy, but I wasn't dying at the end, which is always a plus.

Tonight was my half marathon class and we discussed form and core strength training. I think this class was interesting for all of us because we were mentally trying to pick apart our run to see if we do things the "right way." More than once we joked about video taping each other so that we could check our form. I actually think this is a brilliant idea, I think that we could not only learn from watching and analyzing our form, but also our classmates'. I love this class, we all laugh and have a good time with it.

I am making it a goal to do the core strength training 4 times a week (Eric suggested 3 times, but I am an overachiever.. haha!). This is simple easy stuff and each workout will only take 8-10 minutes so its not a huge imposition on my schedule. And, really, with all my weight loss, I could use some major core workout!

I asked Eric about what seemed like an unusually high amount of wear on my new shoes. I have less than 40 miles on them and there are parts that are almost worn flat already! He suggested I take them in to the running store, so I guess that will be on my "to do" list this week! I am hopeful that I can figure out why they are wearing the way they are. Its the same shoe I had last time for over 6 months. I have had this one a little over 2 weeks and its looking worn already?!?

And, because I am crazy, I planned to run with whoever was running at the end of class today. It turned out most people were not, but "D" was running with a friend so I joined them. This was one of the slowest runs I have ever done, but it felt great to be able to socialize and get to know the two of them a bit more. We did a combination of walking and running to accommodate "D"s friend who wasn't feeling well. We did a couple of nice hills, so I think despite the slow speed I got something useful out of this run. I started my gps late, but it says we did 3.7 miles in just under 51 minutes. I would venture to guess that in total we did about 4 miles in 55 or so minutes. That makes my mileage total for today 7.5 miles!! I never would have guessed even 6 months ago that I would be running 7+ miles in one day! This is progress...

I plan to do another post tomorrow night about my run tomorrow, core exercises, as well as an exciting announcement about a future race! I have so much more I could post about, but I am exhausted and need to get to bed so that I don't sleep through my alarm tomorrow!