Wiped Out

I am feeling wiped out today. Too little sleep, I have a bit of a cold, and I've worked out hard this week. So ... this morning I went to the Y and lifted, then got up to the women's locker room and decided that I didn't feel much like swimming so went downstairs to browse the books at the Buck-A-Book sale and then decided that as long as I was there, I should swim. So I did. For 40 minutes. Tomorrow morning, it'll be a 6:20 AM lift off at the RAC with a bunch of others wanting to get an early start before the official 7:15 10-miler. I have to say a HUGE thank you to Pete Martin who's been assisting with the Saturday morning training runs for more than 10 years. He's the tall, thin, very nice guy :-) that explains the route each walk, chalks it for us, and does the work for the aid stations along the way. Pete ... we just can't thank you enough for giving up so many weekends for all those years so that we can have such a pleasant training run. You 'da best, guy!!

Yesterday late afternoon I got an email from Keeley at the Rochester Convention & Visitor's Bureau. She'd interviewed me last year about the Fetzer race and was looking to do a story for the upcoming Med-City marathon. Long story short, she ended up joining us out in Byron before we got going at 6 PM for a couple of quick questions with myself and Bri. So look for a link to that on the RCVB website in the near future.

We had a new face at the Den last night ... Chelsea, on the right in the photo above. She fit right in and even officially joined the club lasat night, and got her Team R.E.D. shirt!!

I was officially presented my long-awaited XS shirt as well. :-)

Also joining Team R.E.D. yesterday were Joe and Sara Ryan with Steve Gastfield doing a stand-in for Joe.

Most of us ran a nice 5.75 mile loop out in the country. Based on how I felt the first mile given my morning workout (more on that below), I didn't think I'd survive the run. But I came around and it was fine.

Very heart-felt best wishes to those running Fargo tomorrow ... Paul Melby, Ron Giles, Pete Gilman, Kris Saari, Rachel and Karl-Peter Hammer and I hope I'm not forgetting anyone. It's supposed to be warm and breezy but I hope they all have a great experience. Can't wait to hear from them.

This evening I will be working the 10K water stop along with another gal at the Stay Out of the Sun Run.

It should be a good evening for the races. They always get a good turnout for this one and raise money for and awareness of a very good cause.

I'll back up a bit to yesterday's (Thursday's) workout. I decided to do a tempo run, something I hadn't done since last fall. My usual course ... a 2 mile warmup (out to 2nd St SW/County 22) followed by a couple of loops around a course that's bounded by 2nd St SW on the north and 3rd St SW on the south. I'd been playing with the Macmillan Running Calculator on Wednesday and when plugging in some of my recent race tiems found that my tempo pace should be 6:57 to 7:15 (based on my mile time) or 6:48 to 7:05 (based on my 8K) time. Pace was significantly slower based on my marathon time (not my best distance). So after the warm-up I let 'er rip. My splits (I know ... this is not tempo pace!): 6:57 6:45 6:36 6:18 6:14. Yowza! What a workout. It was also a great morning for performance car sightings: 3 x Porsche, 2 x BMW convertibles, 2 x Corvette. :-) There was a gal driving a red Porsche Carrera 4. Sweet.

Back to last Monday and my foodie jaunt up to the cities.

This game looks like it'd be right up my alley! Didn't feel like spending the $ though. Trader Joe's is always a favorite stop. I spotted something I'd not seen before ... purple asparagus.

I'd seen white asparaugus before, but not purple. I didn't buy it, but it was very pretty. They have so many interesting things in that store.

A quick look-see at Run N' Fun and I came out with a pair of ds trainers from the clearance room. Can't say as I needed any new running clothes, but I like to have a back-up pair of shoes.

I stopped at Penzey's  Spices ...

I am a Queen of Coupons. I had a coupon for a free jar of Northwoods Seasoning ($3.49 value) and $5 off a $10 purchase. Well, my purchases totalled $9.99 (the cashier said that was the closest to $10 she'd ever seen) and she honored the coupon anyway. So ... I got $13.48 worth of spices for $4.98. :-)

Well, it's itme for me to get a bite to eat before I don my bright yellow SOS run shirt and head north.

Talk at 'ya tomorrow!