Last Saturday I got up and raced in Oneida. That is a small town about 15 miles away. It's also a small race with about 50 people. Don't be mistaken by the small town-ness and turnout. It's very nicely organized race and there is always some competition. I have ran it the last 3 years and have never won. Usually the smaller the race the more chance I have of winning it, but this one always gets me. The last two years was miserably hot and it showed in my performance. This year when I walked out the door to head over there it was pleasantly cool. That had me all excited about running. We were tricked though because despite the cooler temps the humidity was sky high. You didn't notice it so much until you got running and them WHAM! it hit you like a ton of bricks. I still felt pretty good during my run so I was shocked when I finished and saw my time. It was even slower than my 4th of July run and that run was awful! I could analyze it to death, but in the end I wasn't too worried. I was second overall. Beat by a 15 year old girl. Chalk it up to being
I took a picture, but didn't get the picture uploaded and my daughter has my camera at camp. I'm sure you'll live without seeing it...although I did look super awesome with my Wonder Woman socks on!
After racing I packed up all 6 of my kids, plus 2 extra and headed to Muscatine, IA my hometown. After a quick trip to the bike shop (will make a separate post about that) we headed to the water park for the afternoon. In the meantime, I had a friend go into labor. Her due date was yesterday and I had long teased her that her baby would be born on my birthday. I was busy keeping tabs on her the whole day and it became more and more apparent that it really was going to happen. How exciting!
Sunday morning I was up at 4 a.m. and met up with a running friend Tony and we headed to West Liberty. The Muscatine Running Friends has a long tradition of running from Muscatine to the smaller communities in the area that hold races. They call these runs migrations. The call was put out for anyone to migrate this morning, but it ended up being just Tony & I. We hit the road at 4:30. It was dark and cooler temperature wise. We took our time, took specific walk breaks and just enjoyed the run. The mileage from town to town was 17 miles. Once we got there we still had to get to the fairgrounds where the race was being held. So about 18 miles total. I felt fine the whole time. Only the last 5-6 miles was the sun getting high and hot on our backs and I began to feel a little worn. I could tell that I had some nice blisters coming though on my toes.
I still had a 5k to race. I wasn't completely dead from the migration, but I certainly wasn't up to speed either. My first mile was a 7:15 pace. Once I heard that I knew I was going too fast, I knew I would not be able to maintain that...not after running 18 miles. I don't know if that thought is what did the trick or if it really was just my body saying "whoa!", but mile 2 was awful. I was miserable. Going into mile 3 I began to perk up a little and despite still having a slower pace I at least felt solid and good. I finished with a time that on any other day would be unacceptable to me, but I knew was good for today. To top it all off I still placed 1st in my age group and won a $30 Panera gift certificate. Yay!
By this time it's only 9 a.m. and felt so happy and so accomplished on my birthday. How can my day get any better? I packed up the kids and headed home just in time for some church. I had not attended my church in almost a month. This is typical in the summer when we are busy & gone a lot. I enjoyed a quick lunch with my family, received a wonderful, most thoughtful present from my hubby (a brand new camera, one much nicer than my point and click thing I have now) and then headed off for musical rehearsal. It's tech week. We are in the theater, on the stage & putting the final touches on the show to have it ready for this upcoming weekend. Rehearsal is MANDATORY at this point. If you don't come, don't bother showing up for the performances because you are done! In the mean time, my friend is STILL in labor, she DID end up giving birth on MY BIRTHDAY! Woo hoo! He is the 3rd person I personally know to have been born on my birthday.
After a looooooong rehearsal I came home exhausted. I should have gone straight to bed and planned to sleep in on Monday. However, I never claim to be the smartest person you know. I didn't get to bed right away and I did not sleep in. I got up and ran 6 miles with my running partner Angela. I actually didn't feel bad at all. I also had to teach a hi/lo aerobics class later in the morning and have an informal job interview for the local community college to teach fitness classes there in the fall. My afternoon was filled with going to the hospital to visit my friend and new birthday buddy Liam followed by another evening spent on stage with musical rehearsal.
Awesome people are born on July 15. Don't be jealous! : ) Welcome Liam!
It's been non stop action since I last blogged last Friday. I didn't sleep in this morning either, I had a class to teach. I am taking it easy exercise wise and I'm going to require myself to take a nap. I have another rehearsal tonight. Ahhhh, the demanding life of stage & theater. It will all be worth it come this weekend with our performance of Pirates of Penzance!
I try and stay away from big long posts, but I wanted to give a recap of everything that has been going on. I'm caught up....for now : )
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