little houses made of ticky tacky

I’m celebrating minor victories tonight, in the form of the final draft of my thesis proposal being turned in and getting an A posted for statistics. You’re a good man, Dr. Ted Baumgartner. Thanks for recognizing my great statistical mind. J/K, although at one point I did have some delusion that I should get a degree in biostatistics. I’m not really sure why. I love looking at tiny changes in numbers and documenting mundane information (such as my exercise frequency and intensity, as you might note), but data analysis alone is not too captivating to me. My brother is in town from Colorado and tomorrow after my last exam (kinesiology), we’re going to my parents’ house for the weekend. I really need to live somewhere interesting so I can visit people and it will sound cool that I’m in town from [somewhere more interesting than Bumblesdorf, Georgia]. But first I would have to actually go visit people, so there’s the quandary. And if I lived somewhere so wonderful, why would I leave?

But I don’t and I am, so off to North Cackalacky it is. Hopefully some brutal but-not-too-brutal runs await me there. I remember running those roads like it was just two months ago, two weeks out from the ING and feeling ready to go, beating down hills like skeeters. Well, hell. Maybe next time!

In closing, today I watched one of those E! network shows that is like, the top 8000 beach bodies or something ridiculous like that and they finally had this supermodel on as one of the best beach bodies and she mentioned that she made sure to get to the gym “at least twice per week.” I salute your unbridled dedication, unnamed supermodel with great beach body.

the luck of the…

I have been super wiped out for the past week. School is busy and just as I got settled into some new work, my old work picked up a little again. It beats having nothing to do, that is for sure. I’ve also slept through the night multiple nights in a row for the first time in at least six months. I still wake up in the middle of the night, but I go back to sleep instead of waking up at 1:40am every single morning. My brain feels empty and sleepy already, so I am just going to check in with my last two weeks of running.

Also, I never win stuff online, but in one week I won a giveaway from Vanessa at Vanessa Runs, a Run Happy shirt from Brooks via the Brooks Running Club on Facebook, and Bondi Bands in week one of the Racevine winter giveaway (it just occurred to me that it’s not really winter anymore). Brooks usually gives away t-shirts on Fridays and the Racevine contest is on for a couple more weeks, so go submit reviews if you want to win. I need to win some free marathon entries, but I might need a little more contest mojo for that to happen.

Starting with pre-ING, what apparently was a mega taper week. What the heck did I do all week? Not sure.

3/14 sunday – off
3/15 monday – 3.25 miles, 29:00
3/16 tuesday – off
3/17 wednesday – 2.11 miles – 20:00, 45:00 spin class
3/18 thursday – 3.25 miles, 30:00
3/19 friday – 45:00 spin class
3/20 saturday – off

total miles run: 8.61 (!)
total run time: 1:19:00
total cardio: 2:49:00

And moving into marathon week…

3/21 sunday – ING Georgia – 26.36 miles (they were on my Garmin, I ran them, and I will take the extra .16) – 4:30:49
3/22 monday – off
3/23 tuesday – off
3/24 wednesday – 4.31 miles, 40:00
3/25 thursday – 3.22 miles, 28:01
3/26 friday – 1:00 spin class, 3.0 miles – 26:17
3/27 saturday – 3.15 miles, 28:28

total miles run: 40.04
total run time: 6:33:35
total cardio: 7:33:35

I have to mention that I played keg kickball for a couple of hours on Saturday and was in more pain than I’ve been in after any race (marathon pain is gone within two days, this was still lurking on Tuesday). Somehow I don’t think I can count this as exercise since beer was involved, even if it was mostly spilled all over myself.

I’ve run 16 miles so far this week, putting me at a somewhat weak 120.86 miles for March (down from 159.94 in February), but I can chalk that up to a pretty generous taper week (about 25-30 miles less than a regular week) plus missing a few days being sick at the beginning of the month. I’m going to shoot for 160 in April; no big races, just some fun shorties like the Terrapin 5k plus one and the Twilight 5k. I ordered and received a copy of the [Jack] Daniels Running Formula, so I need to open it with my hot little hands and figure out what torture to impose on my body to get some faster times.

ING georgia marathon 2010

I ran ING Georgia yesterday and ushered in a new personal worst. That makes two PRs, two PWs for the four marathons I’ve run and maybe it’s no wonder I get nervous because my worst times have been in races I’ve felt the most prepared for! Three of the times are also within five minutes of each other, so it’s not very dramatic. I finished in 4:30:49 (official chip time), about five minutes slower than I ran this course last year. They did change it up a bit, including a funny little turnaround in Piedmont Park where you could witness the misery of those in front of you and behind you as well as replacing the long, semi-ugly 10th Street climb with a long, completely arduous route up 12th Street.

My mom and I stayed at the Omni Hotel in the CNN Center, which is located at the starting line of the race. The location was great, but the downside was that our room had an indoor balcony that opened into the atrium of the CNN Center (which houses CNN, Philips Arena, a food court, etc) so you couldn’t go outside without taking an elevator and escalator down to the first floor. The weather forecast was calling for rain and thunderstorms on Sunday, but it was vague as to when they’d be and then the temperature forecast warmed up a little bit. I ended up throwing on another layer at the last second (a vest to stave off some dampness if it rained), which I regretted later, of course.

We went downstairs around 6:25am and walked around Centennial Olympic Park, stood in bathroom lines for a while. They didn’t move, so we ended up just heading to our separate corrals before the race began. There ended up being more bathrooms near my corral with very short lines and I used those; wish I knew that before we stood around for 20 minutes at the other ones. This is a fascinating blog post.

I was in corral H (estimated finishing time was 4:00-4:30, I think); since my mom was walking, she was all the way in the back at P. I crossed the line about six minutes after the gun start. I tried to run at a comfortable but slower than usual pace. It ended up being even slower as I tried not to worry about passing people who were running slower than I wanted to, within reason. My MCM mistake was not just waiting until things opened up more to run the speed I wanted and I was trying to avoid wearing myself out by dodging and adding on extra distance. The first three miles are crowded, then they begin spacing out a little bit and things really empty out at mile seven where the half marathon splits from the marathon. The first seven miles are pretty easy with some small hills, but nothing too difficult. Mile seven to eight houses a long, steep mouth-breather of a hill as you head into Candler Park.

Now I’ve run this twice and I still forget chunks of the course. I felt pretty decent for the first ten or fifteen miles, but I didn’t feel amazing or like it was just my day to run very well. Just okay. There were some rain showers starting around the fourth mile or so, which later progressed into full on rain at some point. My mom said it never really rained hard on her, so that’s weird. I knew mile sixteen would be the beginning of the really hard part of the course and it was. Knowing what to expect was maybe a blessing and a curse. I figured I would run this as slow as I wanted to and walk if I needed to take breaks because there’s still a lot left to run afterward. I took a lot (please channel Dumb and Dumber voice while reading “a lot”) of walk breaks in the second half of the course. A couple of times I felt dizzy, which has never happened to me before and I think was probably me overdressing. My clothes were wet so I wasn’t really cooling off, but my legs and everything were cold at the same time. I took my longsleeve off at some point around mile 19 or so because I thought I might yak…left my vest on over my tank top so I figure I probably looked really butch or like I was on Star Trek.

Eventually the Druid Hills section was done, but I was definitely worse for the wear. We went through Virginia Highlands for a minute and then into the turnaround section in Piedmont Park. I didn’t look at how far the distance was, but you run about a quarter or third of a mile or so, circle a cone at the mile 22 marker, and run back. Very anticlimactic. [edited to add that I just read that the first male finisher was disqualified after his police escort did not make the turn onto this portion of the course and he followed the escort, cutting the course short - hugely disappointing] Then you go up 14th Street. Notice I say “go” because I did not “run up 14th Street.” The time and miles seemed to tick off steadily, though not very quickly. Blah blah, run through Georgia Tech for mile 24 (what happened to 23? don’t know), hit the last water station, up another hill to mile 25. I really was spent and unmotivated at this point; I thought I might still be faster than my MCM time, but was just like, crap, I don’t care enough right now. Heart of a champion! Haha. My butt was too sore and I was too busy probably giving everyone behind me a free show trying to rub it semi-discreetly.

I finished in 4:30:49 and found my mom right where she said that she would be, which was good because we had about 30 minutes to get up to our hotel room and check out and I didn’t have a room key. The seven AM start time was sweet since it gave us enough time to finish and not have to get our things out of the hotel room before the race. My mom finished her half marathon in 3:14:21, slightly ahead of her 15:00/mile goal pace. I’m very proud of her! She did make the mistake of sitting down on a wooden pallet to wait for me when she was done and we had an “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” moment.

I’m not sure why I felt like I couldn’t hang with my usual pace, even in the earlier miles of the race. I don’t think I ran any miles faster than 9:00, but I haven’t checked my Garmin. It happens, I guess.

Other stuff: the race expo was good. The race merch was okay. My mom and I both bought cotton tshirts with course maps on them for $20. They had blue hoodies with a race logo or something, I think. All the tech shirts they were selling were white and the participant shirt was already white, so there was not really a point in buying one (not a big white shirt fan). It seemed like less merch than usual, but we went at Saturday around 1pm, so maybe we missed something. The cotton shirts are cool, though, because I don’t want to wear a tech shirt all the time. The highlight of the expo was the Publix booth having $5 off a $30 purchase coupons. I may or may not have taken about five of those. The medals are smaller than last year and my shirt is kind of janky. It’s a size XS Mizuno short sleeve and one side (only the one) is kind of nipped in like they tried to make it a more form-fitting shirt, but the sleeves still look like men’s and are kind of oddly disproportionate to the body of the shirt. The huge sleeves on my shirt last year are part of the reason I never wear it; not sure if all Mizuno stuff looks like this or what. I never see it sold anywhere and generally consider them more of a soccer apparel/shoe company than running apparel. I’ll cross my fingers that they will get a different apparel sponsor next year, too. There were timing mats at the start, half, mile 22, and finish, but they didn’t offer runner tracking this year so that’s kind of a downgrade. The best part of the race were all of the volunteers, police, and firefighters who stood out in the rain and were really friendly and nice. It’s got to be tiring being out there for so long and having to respond to people running by and saying hi a million times. Or maybe I’m a sociopath. And on that note, I think my new favorite Well Meaning But Not Encouraging Statement From a Bystander was, “you’re going to finish this thing!” I think it was around mile 20 or something and I was just like, of course I am going to finish. Dur. Onward and upward!

you can find me in the A

My last run has been run and I am feeling good. Nothing left to do but check endless items off of my to-do this before this weekend. I do have a case of taperworms, but other than feeling flabby, hungry, and unsure of myself, it’s been a pretty rad week of not really running or working out. I need a couple more songs for my playlist so I don’t have to re-start at the end of the marathon, which I always find somewhat demoralizing. Anyone have any suggestions for upbeat music?

I got ogled by some old ladies in Target today. We needed dog food, which was a cheap excuse to go look at other stuff (I have Munchausen-Target financial syndrome…spending $75 when you plan to spend $25 even though you know you’re not really going to spend $25). I checked the sale racks in the activewear section and these two ladies were about fifteen feet away and I hear one of them say to the other, “I want those legs. Can I buy those?” and they start laughing. I tried to spy at who they were looking at and they were looking at me. Nice. It wasn’t even the lady in the Rascal scooter who made the comment, either! It was the one who could walk. I swear.

It looks like this will be the last year for the ING Georgia, at least under this name. Last week, it was announced that ING will no longer be the title sponsor of the marathon after this year. So long, blue and orange everything. It would be cool to have a more Atlanta-flavored title sponsor. Allow me to throw out some suggestions and suspects of potential Atlanta-based sponsors:

- Ted Turner Georgia Marathon
- Cartoon Network Georgia Marathon (this would be the bomb! Aqua Teen Hunger Force pace leaders, please!)
- The Andre 3000 Georgia Marathon
- Hooters Georgia Marathon
- Waffle House Georgia Marathon
- The Designing Women Georgia Marathon (with accompanying Sugarbaker Half Marathon)

There are a bunch of companies headquartered in Atlanta that could make decent, if a little more boring, sponsors (CNN, Delta, Home Depot, Coke, UPS, Chick-fil-a).

I’ve been adding adding some race reviews to Racevine, which is kind of a cool site that you can comment on different races. It’s pretty easy to use and not as ugly or cumbersome as using Active.com, but the content is still limited and they are having a contest for the next few weeks presumably to build it up. Many of the prizes are more suited for someone living on the west coast/Bay Area, so if you live in that direction you should check it out. I think they could improve the site by allowing users to ask questions to people who have reviewed a race, or somehow making it more in-depth without going the way of being another running-oriented social networking type site. You can see a list of the races I’ve reviewed so far here.

almost there

It feels pretty good to have less than a week left. The planner in me likes this time; there’s not much left to do but obsessively check the weather (current outlook: dubious – great temps if the rain will hold off) and try to figure out what clothes to bring and how to fit lots of gels on my person. This is the time between feeling relaxed and knowing I can’t do much else to prepare, and waking up in the middle of the night on Saturday dreading having to lace up my shoes and go play for all the marbles.

Yesterday I went for a short run in the afternoon between rain storms. I parked my car on campus and ran about two and a half miles to the tattoo shop to see Brian and some friends who were in town visiting. The tattoo shop is next door to the bike shop where I get my Hammer Gels, so I stopped in there on the way and took care of that errand. I was not really in a running mood, which resulted in me hanging out for about an hour for some hangout and puppy time, so I counted it as two separate runs in my weekly tally.

He had surgery this week to fix his nostrils and was pretty grumpy if he was not being cuddled. He spent a while zipped into my vest falling asleep like a little kangaroo.

Eventually, I had to “step away from the puppy” and run back to my car while it wasn’t raining too hard. My procrastination did ruin my swim opportunity, but those things are apt to happen when you aren’t that interested in doing something, which seems to be the case with swimming. I went home and got cleaned up and then we went to Terrapin for beers and dinner at Farm 255 with a bunch of friends from Atlanta. Between that and Daylight Savings, I definitely used today to lay around and do nothing. The alarm is coming early tomorrow!

3/7 sunday – off
3/8 monday – 7.48 miles – 1:10:58, walked 7.39 miles 1:47:33
3/9 tuesday – off
3/10 wednesday – 5.0 miles – 44:57, spin class 45:00
3/11 thursday – 3.37 miles – 30:00
3/12 friday – 10.02 miles – 93:33, 30 day shred 25:00
3/13 saturday – 2.68 miles – 24:41, 2.53 miles – 22:04

total miles run: 31.08
run time: 4:46:13
total cardio time: 7:43:46

radio silence

I ended up catching one of the colds lurking around me last week and things were pretty uneventful with only two days that I ran. My mom’s birthday was on Friday and I drove up there Thursday after a full day of class and a web seminar, so it would have been kind of a wash even if I could breathe at half my normal capacity. I took it easy again on Friday (baking and eating birthday cake) and then on Saturday plunked back out on the road for my last long run before ING Georgia in [now less than] two weeks.

The weather was great and I felt surprisingly good even though my breathing was noticeably shallower than usual. I decided to try to stick to a 10:00 pace, which felt like my “I can do this all day” pace when I started and ended up with an overall pace of 9:58. The run was actually supposed to be 20 miles, but I was running a loop of 7.xx miles so it added up to exactly 22 by the time I made it back to my parent’s house. Absolutely nothing notable happened over the course of several hours, other than I kept running. My dad was in the yard when I got back. He asked how far I went, and then did that thing where you kind of shrug your shoulders and say, “Eh.” Lest you think you are just a little bit badass for running 22 miles for fun…I took a shower and then fell asleep on the floor laying next to my dog for the rest of the afternoon. It feels SO GOOD to have the last long run done!

On Sunday, we drove to Greensboro to get my mom some workout clothes/a race day outfit. Shopping is brutal work. We were there for hours, but she is now outfitted in up to date clothes, mostly in the color pink. My quads were s-o-r-e. I went out again on Monday afternoon for 7.5 or so miles (one loop). First I took pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror to see if I looked as weird as I do in pictures of me running. I don’t know why, I had a new shirt on and wanted to see what it looked like, I think. I think I need to acquire and learn how to use makeup.

Then I walked another loop with my mom when she got home from work – she is walking the half marathon in two weeks and I feel somewhat personally responsible for her preparation, which so far has consisted of me bugging her to go get fitted for decent shoes (she got a pair of Brooks Glycerins at Off’n Running), giving nutrition advice, and checking to see if she’s doing her long walks. We walked at a 14:33 average pace for 7.4 miles. I think I pretty much went off the deep end after that. You know when you are so drained that you all of a sudden feel all sad and pathetic like you’re four years old and need a nap but don’t want to sleep? That was me eating dinner.

I drove home for most of the day today, so I hope to hop back on the horse tomorrow for some taper running and maybe a swim!

Last week:

3/3 wednesday – 3.13 miles, 28:33 – 45:00 spin class
3/6 saturday – 22.00 miles, 3:39:27 (avg 9:58)

total miles run: 25.13
time run: 4:08:00
total cardio time: 04:53:00
total time spent eating cookies/cake/chocolate: incalculable

meat feet

Things that apparently become a big deal within a month of a goal race: people within 20 feet of you coughing or sneezing, blisters, and a couple of extra pounds. Brian was sick last week. I did some daytime sleeping over the weekend and avoided catching whatever he had. I hate to say it and want to knock on wood when I do, but I pretty rarely get sick. I didn’t have as much as a cold from February 2004 until May 2007 when I had shingles (and didn’t realize it until it was almost gone). I’ve only had one or two sinus/cold type things since then, but otherwise I am pretty lucky.

That brings me to blisters and my new shoes. Maybe change is not a good thing. I thought I was doing a little baby step by getting an updated version of my same shoe, but now I’ve got some updated tiny but mighty blisters on my right big toe and left ball of my foot, under the callous instead of on top of the skin. Oh, blast. Please go away and do not make me overnight a pair of my old shoes from Zappos.com. I’m pretty sure my big toe is also growing laterally, but I have very weird looking feet so I might have just not noticed before.

And then the pounds. I still haven’t dropped weight I gained over the holidays and it’s almost March, so that is kind of pathetic. I’m a pretty bad night eater, especially if I can’t sleep and I stay up doing something (as opposed to laying in bed trying to fall asleep). So, I have been trying to get ready to sleep a little earlier to avoid being up late. I had to weigh myself in kinesiology this afternoon and it wasn’t too bad, but I could still drop some kgs. It strikes me as supremely lame to complain about my weight because I am well within a healthy range and I also just feel like it’s not something you should do if you are a “nutrition professional” or grad student in my case. It does not generally come across well and seems a little judge-y. I am happy to be healthy and fit. I’m not thinking I am in the best or worst shape, but I have been in better shape so I guess I feel a little guilty that I am lacking in the motivation department lately. It is hard when you spend a huge amount of your time on food, health, body weight, etc. Not just thinking about it in a ho-hum way, but doing research, writing papers, meetings, seminars, classes all the time. Sometimes, enough is enough and I don’t want to wax poetic on it if I don’t have to, though I’ve kind of painted myself into a corner with my two favorite hobbies being running and baking. This all combined with not having a full time job is making me kind of depressed, which I finally admitted to myself the other morning and is pretty fair. I miss having a solid routine, even if I didn’t always like it, and finishing the day feeling like I did something (okay, maybe I am romanticizing work here). So, in some ways I feel like since I am not doing so hot in the financial department, I should be picking it up everywhere else by doing really well in school, stepping up my marathon training, keeping my house in order. Not sure what I can really do to fix this; I’ve been pursuing other work, but nothing is panning out. I am simultaneously underwhelmed and overwhelmed.

Anyway, sorry for the Debby Downer there. Not sure where that came from. This has been a good week. Nothing standout. I’m at 23 miles or so and had a really good spin class yesterday – which actually lasted the full 45 minutes. It never fails that I complain about something and then I feel bad about it. My long run this week is uncertain. I am thinking about skipping it/doing something shorter tomorrow because my feet are killing me, but I’ve been wearing some old shoes around the house for better support (instead of slippers or flops) and hopefully the blisters will calm down. This afternoon, I ran seven on the treadmill and my feet felt like they’d been pounded by a mallet when I was done, so doing 18 or 20 on the road sounds scary – but I really want to get two more long runs in (this week and next) before doing a decent taper. This Saturday is a big fundraiser for AIDS Athens and helping to setup/cleanup the event will probably take up the majority of the day/night.

it’s what you’re doing now

Having a Saturday without a run = awesome. I slept until 11am (more like got up, putzed around, went back to sleep twice). My sleep pattern is terrible as I’ve mentioned before, so getting catch up sleep is great even though I woke up twice in the night and twice in the morning. I actually slept deeply enough to have a DREAM. Woah. Then I sat around and ate some oatmeal and didn’t really do anything until going to my spin class. My gym got new spin bikes this week; no more getting stuck on the bike that is either free spinning or hellacious resistance, at least until these bikes get all jacked up. They are pretty dope. Then I visited Brian while he was doing a sweet Fantastic Mr. Fox tattoo, came home, and made a new double batch of whole wheat pizza dough – one for calzones tonight (mine has been eaten), three for the freezer.

My mom was planning to come down to see me run in March. She came to the Marine Corps Marathon and got a kick out of walking around and seeing everything. She’s retired and generally up for doing whatever; anything with my mom is usually a small adventure of some sort. A couple of weeks ago, I suggested that she could walk the half marathon. It seemed like it would be up her alley and be fun for her. She’s done the 10k at the Turkey Trot in Pinehurst twice and walks regularly when the weather is decent. She thought about it for a while and was kind of nervous about it, but I signed her up this week after she did her first two hour walk and felt good afterward (I think it was eight miles and change). I talked to her tonight and yesterday she walked 6.2 miles in 1:25 (13:24 pace or something). Does that even qualify as walking?! Apparently she ran into some hardcore walker lady in her neighborhood and had to turn on the rockets for a couple of miles. She’s getting pretty into it. I think she will have a really good time doing the race.

Here’s what I did this week. I know that I meant to lay off, but I’m kind of wincing as I add these up. Now I’m going to resume my evening schedule of sitting on my butt watching Olympic athletes do crazy things in spandex and playing “Ali in the Jungle” on my iTunes (the Nike commercial song – “everybody gets knocked down, how quick are you gonna get up?” Hello, marathon playlist.). When the 1996 Olympics were in Atlanta, we went downtown to watch the marathoners run past the old Macy’s building on Peachtree Street. The gold medalist won by only three seconds!

Sunday 2/14 – off
Monday 2/15 – 5.0 miles – 47:16, 35:00 swim
Tuesday 2/16 – 7.0 miles – 61:xx
Wednesday 2/17 – 4.0 miles – 35:15
Thursday 2/18 – off
Friday 2/19 – 18.06 miles – 2:49:43, avg 9:24
Saturday 2/20 – 50:00 spin class*

miles run: 34.06
total run time: 5:13:14
total cardio: 6:38:14

*The class was a new one (Group Ride). It’s 55 minutes with sort of a cool down period in the middle. It’s hard to say how difficult it is since the impetus is on you to make it challenging. The cool down/recovery track felt way too long. I kept my tension fairly high and kept going at the cadence of the instructors, but wasn’t as tired as usual. I was also under the world’s most powerful ceiling fan which might have kept me from sweating as much. The class is segmented into eight parts and I think has it’s own soundtrack of kind of off-brand music mixes. It ended up only being 50 minutes, which is something I find kind of frustrating about the classes at my gym. They are almost always at least five minutes shorter than they are supposed to be. I can understand being a little off if you’re using your own MP3 player since you’re going along with certain tracks on a workout, but if you’re using a CD that comes with a 55 minute program, why is the class short?

good day for a run

I have been taking it easy this week for the most part. ING Georgia is four weeks away and it seems like about the time that I usually start feeling a little burned out. You know when you aren’t sick, but it seems like it might not be too far off if you don’t watch it? So, I have been chilling out and trying not to catch anything. I retired some old shoes with about 500 miles on them and got a new pair this week since I’ve been having some achy feet lately. I’ve done two runs in the new shoes and my feet are feeling alright so far. Usually I wear Saucony Progrid Guide 2s, but I have exhausted all the women’s color options besides white/baby pink and I bought the 3s instead after seeing them in Runner’s World, which said they were pretty much the same shoe with some minor tweaks. There’s nothing wrong with pink shoes, but I was not having a pale pink kind of week. I’ll let you know if I ever do.

My last swim class was Monday. The pool I swim in was hosting the SEC swimming and diving championship this week, so I haven’t been over to swim since. No spin, either. My gym has been having a fundraiser for Haiti this week where you pay $5 to reserve a spot in advance. Classes fill up really fast, so I haven’t had the heart to schedule around getting to class only to find out it’s full. Maybe tomorrow; I am definitely missing going to class.

This afternoon I met up with Melissa while she was visiting Athens and went for a run in the most perfect, perfect weather we’ve seen in months. Short sleeves and shorts! She was super nice and it was fun to run with someone for a change. I have to credit Melissa with making it pleasant enough that when we finished, I decided I might as well do my long run today instead of tomorrow since I was already six miles in. She has a really good attitude and I have a terrible one! I figured my feet might hurt or I might be a whiny bastard tomorrow (forecast: likely), so no time like the present to get it done. Running in town is so much different than running out here in the sticks and a lot more entertaining. Also, getting to stop at stoplights is pretty awesome. At mile 9, I stopped by Georgia Cycle Sport for two Hammer Gels and at mile 15, I stopped at the Golden Pantry for water and some Lifesavers, which were pretty much the most delicious things ever, except for the package being rife with the green flavor which immediately got chucked. Another thing that is awesome about running in town: places to buy things so you don’t have to carry them. I ended up back at my car after 18.xx miles (can’t remember exact time, average pace was 9:24) and called it done. Nothing too notable happened except that I saw the engine on a UGA bus explode on Milledge Avenue. I can just feel my student transportation fee increasing.

This is not related to anything – well, it kind of is because it’s part of why I have been stressed/not running as much – but I had my first statistics exam this week and miraculously scored a 19/20. The class is scored out of three 20-point exams so I was pretty stressed about doing poorly on the first one and having to scramble the rest of the semester. Somehow, I ended up taking this class with a bunch of people from my department even though none of us took the prerequisite course and I only had one undergrad level stat class. I’m not a math person, but I like statistics well enough; it’s easy to say that now that the test is over.

splitting runs

I’m looking for some advice if there’s anyone in the mood to dole it out. I have a half marathon this Saturday and I’m wondering if it would be good to do another run later on Saturday since my “long run” will only be 13.1, or if adding extra miles later in the day is not really going to do anything beneficial for me? This Saturday will be five weeks until ING Georgia. I know you should only split long runs if you have to, but if I’m just going to be running miles to run them and have them in the books, should I skip it? Is doing a 13 early and 7-ish later going to help in terms of marathon training? I’ve certainly coasted my way through some training before, so it’s not that I’m hell bent on meeting a quota; really, I’d just like to know that if I do it, it served a purpose. Twenty at once is not the same as thirteen, wait a few hours, and seven.