June 24th & 26th, 2011 - 3.42 & 6.10 Mile Runs

The continued prayer is, “Lord keep me focused. Keep my mind stayed on You. Help me to bring You praise. I know You believe in me. Please help me in my unbelief. Amen.”

Both of these runs were nice and relaxing. I was feeling pretty good but I wanted to just clock some maintenance runs because I know how important it is to fully recover after a race. Especially a Half. My goal is to get to a point where I am doing 10-mile runs every weekend. Once that becomes the norm, maybe I’ll be able to do a Half with no down time. As it is, I gave myself 5 full days of rest before I attempted another run.

June 24th, 2011 – 3.42 Mile Run
I’d been feeling pretty good. The only issues I seemed to have were the toes on my right foot. Just my right foot… Which I thought was strange. I had clipped my toenails but I bought new, high- endurance running socks for the race.

Now, I know that you are not supposed to use new gear on a major race but I figured socks couldn’t really be classified as “gear”.

I know! I can hear myself saying it and it sounds stupid to me too! Of *course* socks are gear!!!! Pretty important gear at that! Anything touching your feel, legs, head or arms is pretty important gear on a major run!

Well, lesson learned and I had the blisters to prove it. For a while I thought I might lose my big toenail, but I think that danger has passed.

One of the reasons I took so long in getting back on the pavement was because I could not comfortably wear closed-toed shoes (or even socks) for 5 days.

As soon as I could take any pressure on them, I was lacing up my Brooks just to get a few miles in.

I wasn’t expecting much from this run. I just wanted to see if I could run comfortably for any distance.

Turned out, my legs didn’t feel nearly as heavy as I thought they would and my muscles weren’t as tight.

Almost a mile into the run, I saw this sign. I scribbled out the phone numbers because I thought it prudent and I thought the sign was funny.



Many thoughts ran through my mind: How does one go about getting goats in the city and once you have them, what could transpire to make one lose them? Not only that, what would one do, if on a run, he or she came across said goats? Why, call the number of course! I think it’s funny that they describe the goats, as if they might be confused with any other goats.

Anyway, I hope they find their goats.

June 25th, 2011 – No Running Today
In Loving Memory of The King of Pop. RIP, King Michael.





June 26th, 2011 – 6.10 Mile Run
Interestingly, I didn’t want to do this run but I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do. When I explained this to Chris, he said, ‘Why don’t you just relax”….. Well, that didn’t sound like something I would do.

So I laced up the Brooks again and headed out for an easy run up the hill to check out a trail I’d been meaning to explore for quite awhile.

This trail is in a *really* nice neighborhood at the top of a hill where the lawns are well manicured and the streets and sidewalks are wide and arranged with open-air exercise in mind and they have trails all throughout the development.

Fortunately, they are all owned and maintained by the City so the public have access to them too. I can’t afford to live up there but I can afford to live near enough to run up and take advantage for the beautiful scenery.

I knew this was going to be a rough run because (1) it was hilly. Everything after mile 1 was hilly; and (2) I am not at all confident about running trails. There were times when I could open up and put on a little more speed, but I didn’t because I can sprain my ankle on a shadow. So precarious footing makes me *really* cautious.

Also, not knowing exactly where I was going puts me on edge a little too.

But I had plenty of daylight and I began to see immediately that at no point was the neighborhood out of sight. If anything happened, I probably could make enough noise to attract the attention of a resident. So I cranked up the gospel music and moved as quickly as I dared.

It was a nice run and a pretty decent workout. I was going pretty slowly but I sprinted up every incline and took as much time as I wanted to recover.

It was great to stop and just look around this beautiful area on this glorious day! And wonder what it might be like to live up here in one of these grandiose mansions.

At about the 3 mile mark, I came across this sign.



Ah, well….. How many times have we longed for something, only to find that it’s contaminated with sewage?