January 25th was my daughter's birthday. It was also a day of rest for me after my 30 miler. She's into Manga, the Japanese comic books, and I had gotten her a cookbook with Manga inspired food. The Asian sections in our grocery story are pitifully lacking in Japanese food stuff. But we were able to make a couple of things - Tako sausage (sausage shaped into octopus and squid), and onigiri (a rice and seaweed creation). I made her teriyaki chicken for supper. I don't think I could eat like that every day! On Tuesday morning, I woke to snow! I just had to go out and play in it. Running in two inches of snow is like running at the beach. Your feet sink down and it's hard to get any speed going. I was trotting along and without realizing it a car a come up behind me. That's the other thing about snow, it muffles sound. By the time I got out of the way, he was going too slow to make it up the hill. Oops. I offered to give him a push but he waved me on. He must have figured it out, because he was gone when I came back by. I managed to do 7.2 miles before I gave up and headed home. The snow turned to ice and sleet by Tuesday evening and Wednesday ended up being a stay at home day. I didn't run, but was able to spend 4 hours in my garage "gym." I jumped on the mini-trampoline, then did combat conditioning, flexibility, balance, core, abs and resistance training on the bowflex. On Thursday, it was time for another run and the back roads were still icy. Not wanting to chance my treadmill dying on me mid run, I went to the gym in town. I was the only person there, so I set up my portable DVD player on a music stand next to the treadmill and watched "Mama Mia" while I did my 12 miles. I got a deep tissue massage in the afternoon - nice.Saturday was race day again, race 5 in the winter series. The 5k was interesting. It started out on paved roads, then turned down a dirt road where we were running right into the wind. Then, I think it turned down someone's driveway and there was ice so we were running single file in the car tracks. After that it turned into the woods and was on a trail! I felt right at home in that part.Finally we were back on the main road. They rerouted it a little bit to try and avoid the ice, but everyone said it was a little bit longer than a 5k. That's good because my time (25:47) was slow! This was a tandem race so I was paired with another woman who is about my age. We ended up coming in 3rd in the women's division! I'm not sure how that happened as I was actually finished ahead of my partner and didn't think I did that great. I also started TOM in the middle of the race, but I'm glad because now it should be over by my 8hr race - next week! Maybe that's the reason for these carb cravings I've been having. I decided not to do any add on miles. Besides, I didn't have my Garmin so figuring out mileage would have been tricky, at least that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it!
Sunday was beautiful! Sunny and in the 50s. At church, I asked a friend if she wanted to run with me. I've never actually ran with someone before so I was a little bit nervous. Of course, since I'm known for liking to go long distances, she might have been more nervous than me. But we had a great time and a great 3 mile run along the river (see photo above). After that, I felt really good and added 10 miles at my 1/2 marathon goal race pace (8:55 min/mile). I was psyched that I kept the pace for the entire 10 miles and there were hills involved!
Weather looks promising for next Saturday. Lake Anna here I come!
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