Coming Clean, sort of

I have a confession to make. I've been slacking terribly at my running. This is hardly the time to slack too. I'm looking at just over a month out of the marathon. Tomorrow is an 18-mile run and I'm so scared because of how little training I've done lately. I do have some excuses for why I've been such a loser but really, it's my fault.

Now, this is a blog about running, so I should be writing about the real aspects of running, correct? The good and the bad? Well, this definitely falls in the category of bad. I encourage you to skip ahead to my part about Sioux Falls if you are uncomfortable reading about bodily functions.

Last Monday, Michelle and I went out for a 16-mile run. We went after work. Mistake. I don't think I will ever, ever run that far after work. It was no fun at all. That wasn't the worst of it. Lately on my longer runs I've been having some serious GI issues, and Monday was no different. Apparently this happens to Michelle too. What a pair we are. We hit the mile 14-15 point and it all started going downhill. Stomach cramps and a very uncomfortable urge to find the nearest bathroom...fast. Luckily, we both made it through and made it home but it's been a close call on a couple of runs for us. My issues were so bad, I called in sick to work on Tuesday morning. Ugh.

This got me a little worried because if I can barely get through 16 miles, what the hell is going to happen when I have to add 10 more to that? I can't be stopping at every mile just to use the john. I'll get picked up by the sweep truck for sure! It's been very distressing to say the least.

So, I did what any 21st century athlete with a problem does. I Googled it. Typing "running" and "diarrhea" into Google was kind of scary because I wasn't sure what would come up, but it was very very helpful. Mostly it was helpful because I found that my problems have a name. Runner's Trots. That just sounds like it's going to be something terrible. So, with Google I began my research. Turns out this is a fairly common problem with runners and there is a lot of information on the web about it. This probably has to do with the fact that up to 50% of runners, or extreme exercisers have this problem. Good, I'm not even close to being alone. I'm not weird. Whew. That's good. So, I've found ways to combat it. Namely, staying hydrated.

I've been very afraid to do any long runs lately because of this phenomenon. Well, armed with my new info and a box of Immodium, I'm going to tackle this week's long run...18 miles. I'm scared to death because that is sooooo far! 18 miles?! What? 16 didn't sound so bad but 18 sounds like forever. It's going to take almost 4 hours to complete, when we include driving time to drop our cars at the start and finish of the route.

So, besides the runner's trots, I've had some other excuses. Lame ones too. I've really gotta get myself past these hurdles. It's not helping me out in any way to be lazy and to find excuses to not run.

I spent a few days in Sioux Falls last weekend. Now, I'm not really fond of running in Sioux Falls right now. The only good place to run, the bike trails, are under some massive construction, especially on the side of town where my parent's live. Terrible excuse I know. But, part of my time in Sioux Falls was for work. There's an MS Society chapter office there and I had to conduct a training. I had spent a lot of time prepping for this training and was massively stressed out and tired. I also was planning a baby shower. I was just plain tired. Running did not sound good. So of course I wimped out of going for runs and completely ran out of time to go for a run I'd scheduled with a friend. Hmph.

That brings me to the next lame excuse. This summer is really wearing on me. Now, summers are always busy for me and I knew that going into this training. I figured I could do it. I will not lie. It's been very hard. Working extra hours and being on events has not helped me at all. I'm completely zapped of energy by the end of the day and there's no possible way I can get out of bed early enough to run as far as I need to. I've just felt so blah.

Lastly, as these runs have gotten longer in mileage, they have also gotten longer in time. What used to be a quick 30-60 minute run after work is now an hour to two hours. Suddenly, my evening and my time home is gone. It feels like I'm never really relaxing. I get up, go to work, go for a run, then go to bed. I repeat that 3 days of the week. Then one day on the weekend I have to block off nearly 4 hours for a long run. Maybe the key here is that I just need to run faster. I guess there's a thought.

But, I'm really going to need to turn it around. 18 miles tomorrow. Whitney, get your shit together. I figure even if I have to stop a bit, I must, must, must get out there and get in the mileage. I plan to meet Michelle at 8 a.m. tomorrow. While I'm very scared, writing this entry has made me feel a little better about it. On that note, I just realized that I'm short on GU gel so I should get going to the sporting goods store to get some.

I'll be sure to provide a full report post 18 miles.

Running Misfortunes

To warn you, this may be a bit of a rant post. My runs this week have been HORRIBLE to say the least.

Let's start with Sunday. Michelle and I scheduled a good 15-miler. We met up and neither of us were feeling too excited about the run. Well, we tried to turn our attitudes around and set out. I ended up getting us lost around Lake of the Isles. Not so much lost since it's essentially a loop, but I definitely misguided us. We ended up going around the lake twice because the first time I missed our turn off to head back around Lake Calhoun. I've discovered that it's easy to lose where you are on that lake because of it's shape and how the trails are laid out. I'll be more careful next time. After this we continued on and still felt a little crappy. Michelle has some crazy knee issues that started acting up. There's a screw in one knee that holds a ligament from a cadaver in place. Really cool in a nerdy scientific sort of way. Really not cool in an athletic sort of way. But, I guess that can happen when you play soccer all your life, including D-1 college. So, we ended up calling it quits at mile 8. Michelle's knee hurt and last week I had a terrible shin splint flare up so I didn't want to over do it. I felt a little guilty about this but I think it was for the best.

Tuesday was scheduled to be 4 miles. We decided to do 5 because of our lack of running on Sunday. One mile doesn't really make up for it, but hey, it helps. We set off from our office and ran north along the river, into the "north loop" area, or the warehouse district for those of you familiar with the Minneapolis area. There is a slight problem with this route however and that problem blew up in my face on Tuesday. You see, the "running" path is concrete and meanders into the woods and drops down close to the river, while the biking path is asphalt and stays close to the road. As you can imagine, for the sake of my joints and for the sake of my safety, I run on the bike path. Most runners do. In fact at any given time, you'll see more runners on the bike path than the "running" path. Well, Michelle and I were about a mile into our run when suddenly she veers off into the grass on the left and in about 2 seconds time, I hear a bike come up behind me and someone yelling, "Bike Path!" before taking out my right leg. WHAT THE F**K? Who doesn't give the standard, "On your left" warning AND passes on the right? Moron. So, he hit me then crashed himself. He got up all huffy and blaming me for running on the bike path and not giving a damn about my safety or being injury free. When I told him that the asphalt is better for runner's joints he actually said, "Well crashing on my joints isn't good for me either!" At this point I'm pretty pissed off because I'd asked him 3 times if he was ok, and I apologized. NEVER did he ask me if I was ok, despite the fact that I had tire marks up my right leg. I lost it. I got angry. I threw it down. He's lucky my fist didn't meet his face, but I yelled, "You know what? WE may have been on the biking path but YOU didn't give verbal warning, YOU passed on the right and YOU ran into me. So, this is YOUR fault!" He didn't like that. He just kept saying, "There's a running path over there." So, he went limping away (he scraped his knee, poor baby) and Michelle and I stopped to use the bathroom. He ended up passing us again and giving us some snide remark to which Michelle replied, "There are 50 other runners on this path. Are you going to run them all over?" Heh, nice.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'll admit that I was partially in the wrong for being on the bike path but I was completely out of the way, and following the rules of the paths. I consider the roads to be largely the car's domain, with a few cyclists scattered in and you don't see me plowing down the cyclists just because they're there. And trust me, they are much less courteous than the runners on the bike paths. So, when I got home, my leg looked like this:

Kind of painful. Notice it's not only on the thigh but on the calf as well. It's all scabby now. Looks great. :/ Hurt to sleep because the covers touched it. The good thing about the incident is that it must have sent our adrenaline going because we finished these 5 miles in 50 minutes flat and that included the time we were stopped for me getting hit and for Michelle to go to the bathroom and some time taken to walk because my leg was stinging from the sweat going into the wound. That is speedy for us!

Well, after that drama, we went for a run yesterday. 8 miles were on the docket. We set out to run around the chain of lakes again. This time it would be Calhoun and Harriet. We parked on the west side of Calhoun and took off. After about 1.5 miles, I decided that my shins were still in pretty bad shape. Probably because of the speed we'd done Tuesday. We turned around and walked back. Upon return to the car, we found that someone had broken in and stolen Michelle's purse as well as a baby shower gift (weird). Well, let's just say that Michelle's whole life was in that purse. 3 credit cards, her debit card, ID, social security card, planner (which she was REALLY upset about) and other things. Her ID is still from Ohio because she's in the process of changing everything. So now she's stuck in weird limbo between ID's. Minnesota won't issue one without her Ohio ID unless she wants to take the whole driving test. Ohio will issue her one but she'll either have to go back and do it in person or it will take 60-90 days. So, she has to wait 60-90 days. That's not even close to the worst of it. In the past 24 hours she's found out that her AmEx card had $9,000 charged to it and another card was maxed out. In addition, her checking account got overdrawn by $6,000. HOLY CRAP! She's now meeting with a Minneapolis police sergeant because the amount of money is on a felony level. I hope the F---ers get caught. They were dumb enough to make online purchases so it's possible to trace it through IP's and the shipping address.

In short, Michelle and I are not allowed to run together for a while. We have bad luck. Let's hope that by our 16-miler on Sunday, the luck turns around.

They're baaa-aack!

Yes, the evil has returned. What evil might you ask? Shin splints. At least, I'm pretty sure it's shin splints. I had a minor panic attack at work yesterday when I thought I might have compartment syndrome. Here's why. The picture is pretty awful and that's what they have to do to fix it. But, I am about 99% positive I'm experiencing shin splints again. Now I understand why doctors hate the internet and people who self-diagnose. They, just like I did, tend to jump to the worst-case-scenario.

Thursday I had a 4-mile run scheduled. This is now ridiculously easy. That is unless your legs feel like they're going to explode. Mine felt like I stepped on a land mine with each stride. This happened right from the beginning, all the way up to the first mile, when I decided to stop and stretch out. It didn't help. I hobbled the mile back to my office. I probably looked like a giant loser. People probably thought I was a big tool walking along the river in my sports bra and running tights. Who goes for a leisurely stroll in clothes like that? I mean seriously! It took me under 10 minutes to run the mile but over 20 to walk back. Damn what a waste of time. I came home and iced the shins. They seemed to improve.

Now, I usually have something to blame the shin splints on. This time is no different but I'm not sure I'm actually addressing the underlying cause of the problem. I did push myself really hard to keep under a 10 minute-mile pace in my 7-mile run on Wednesday. It was quite hot that day. My legs started to feel a little off after that run, but they seemed fine. Thursday was the first day of the week that I got to wear normal clothes to work. We'd just wrapped up an event the week before and spent Monday through Wednesday unloading trucks in our warehouse. So, I popped on a pair of heels on Thursday. That is not happening ever again after a long-ish run. Ever. I don't think that helped at all with recovery.

I also stopped running on the dirt paths instead of the asphalt. That was moronic. I will say that the asphalt is easier to run on from a fatigue point of view because the dirt paths are uneven and sometimes sandy. But, my legs will appreciate it much more if I run on the dirt. Back to the dirt I go.

I'm a little nervous because tomorrow is a 15-mile run. Michelle and I are doing it together which is helpful. However, these legs might not hold out. Luckily she's prepared for me to collapse in a heap at some point during the run. I've given her fair warning. But, to keep that from happening, I'm doing this for 20 minutes, every 3 hours today:

DG's if you're reading this, that IS an Anchora on my coffee table, and book club members, that IS a half read copy of "State of Wonder." I'm splitting time between that and the book below it, "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest."

Ice packs held on to my legs via plastic wrap. I'm reminded of the time I spent in the athletic training office after high school cross country work outs. Only they used straight up bags of ice and there was no barrier between skin and ice. Kind of dangerous now that I think about it, but it worked. I remember driving home with those bags of ice taped to my shins. It was especially fun because I drove a manual and slamming down on the clutch jostled the ice quite a bit.

Today, I'm taking it easy. There was supposed to be a trip to the lake planed for some tubing and wakeboarding, but I think that has gotten cancelled due to a high level of "festivity" at a friend's birthday party last night. I'm not sure my friends are even out of bed yet. So, instead of that, I might have a cupcake. Lately I've been a little obsessed and have been spending time coming up with new flavors. Last night for the party, I developed pink lemonade, and it looks a little something like this:

Pink lemonade cupcake with lemon buttercream frosting.

Last week it was margarita and looked like this:

Margarita cupcake with tequila-lime frosting.

I'm hoping these shin splints clear up this weekend. Wish me luck on 15 miles tomorrow. Maybe I can run with the ice packs on my legs...

Half Marathon

Well, well, well. Here I am, 8 weeks into my marathon training. Today was a true test of endurance. Half marathon. Well, ok, the training schedule said 13 miles. A half marathon is 13.1. We ended up going about 13.5. But shhh, don't tell my running partner. I don't think she'll like knowing that I accidentally tacked on an extra half mile.

Now, usually I run alone. Actually for this training I have exclusively ran alone. The reason for this is I don't have any friends who 1.) are training for a marathon or 2.) if they are, run the same speed I do. I've gone on one 6-mile run with Erich and I'm pretty sure he was bored as heck with my slow speed, despite the fact that he is not, "a runner." But, since this was going to be quite the milestone in my training, I thought I should find myself a buddy. It made most sense to turn to my new co-worker, Michelle, who is also participating in Run to Stop MS. We talk almost daily about our training. We talk about our accomplishments, downfalls and straight up disasters during our runs. We also happen to run at the same pace. Woot!

We scheduled our run to be at 6:30 a.m. Michelle coaches a high school soccer team in one of the suburbs and had a game at 11:15. This meant we had to start early. It was a little difficult for me because I had to "work" until 11:30 p.m. Saturday night at the U2 concert at TCF Bank Stadium. I say "work" because all I was doing was answering questions about the facility and this was the view from my post. Let's just say I got paid $10/hour to watch the greatest rock show I've ever seen. Yes, the stage is a giant space claw, and yes it was even fun when it started pouring rain.

Surprisingly, I didn't have a tough time getting up and out the door. We met at Minnehaha Park, my favorite place to start a run, and were on our way. The weather was in the 60's while we ran and boy did that make all the difference! Holy cow. No instant sweat today! I barely had to use my Amphipod, unlike last Sunday when I had to refill at each drinking fountain (bubbler?) I came across. Today was absolutely gorgeous for running.

Since running cross country in high school, I've known that running with a buddy helps with motivation. I'm pretty competitive with myself, and constantly challenge myself to push a little harder in my runs if I'm feeling good, but having someone with you offers a completely different type of encouragement. Just knowing someone is there and probably feeling the way you do is helpful. Having someone to talk to makes the miles fly by. Now, I'm not usually one to talk during my runs. I'm typically huffing and puffing too much to do any sort of talking. Not today. Today we talked about all sorts of things. We talked about why we're crazy for doing this, Michelle's love life, and stuff at work. Before I knew it, we were halfway done. We continued to talk for most of the other half. You could tell when we were getting tired when it gradually got quieter at the end of the run. The last mile or so we were really pushing each other along. I felt like I was back on Coach Greeno's cross country team. When we finally reached the end, we gave each other big high fives and congratulated each other on a job well done.

Now, I'm not saying that it was suddenly easy because I had someone with me. But, it was certainly easier. I found myself having less negative thoughts about the course and how I was feeling. I was either too distracted, or too busy encouraging Michelle along to have those thoughts. Telling her that the impending hill wasn't so bad made me actually believe it myslef. We now have a standing date each week to do our long runs together. Next week it's only ten miles. Hah, only! We're also going to be running together during the marathon which is such a relief. Michelle is a pro when it comes to hills despite her displeasure upon approaching them. I am not so much. She just powers up them, with seemingly no trouble. I think she has some things to teach me. :)

Upon returning home and posting our accomplishment on Facebook, my friend, Erin, from the National MS Society, Illinois Chapter asked if I want to participate in the Madison Mini Marathon. A half marathon on August 29th, in Madison, WI. I told her I'd think about it. But, the more I think about it, the more fun I think it would be. I haven't seen her since last summer and would love to get in a long road race. Hopefully It works out. I'm having more positive thoughts about it now than I was 12 hours ago. :)

The upcoming week is a "step back" week. I run 3-7-4 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then 10 on Sunday. I'm looking forward to a little bit of rest. The following week peaks at 15 miles. 15! That'll be over half of the marathon. I'm really excited to see how well I do in the upcoming weeks as I approach my peak training mileage of 20 miles.

Further than Ever

I've been incredibly remiss in my postings lately. Mostly I haven't had a lot to talk about and when I did, I've been quite busy. Since my last post I've been through 4th of July festivities, a 10-mile run, my farthest since my 18th birthday, and a 12-miler in over 80 degree heat with 75% humidity. Whew!

It's become a tradition for Erich, my friends and I to head up to my friend's parents for the 4th of July. Jenna's parents live on a lake in Detroit Lakes, MN. For the past three years we've gone up there and spent the weekend. We tube down the Ottertail River while toting a cooler of beer and various mixed drinks with us. We also play plenty of yard games and cook out. Needless to say, this wasn't a big weekend for training. I pretty much postponed my long run until we returned and I had a day off. Traveling, high heat, drinking and all around "vacation time" wasn't great for fitting in some runs. But, despite that, it was such a great weekend. I already want to go back so I may have to plan a late summer visit with Jenna. :)

After returning from up north, I was facing a 10-mile run. I planned my route and set out on a Tuesday morning after dropping Erich off at work. Luckily for me we got both the 4th and the 5th off so I had time to get in this run. The last time I had run 10 miles was on my 18th birthday. I vividly remember arriving at cross country practice that day to find out that on the day I became a legal adult, I'd get to celebrate by running 10 miles. Swell. Now, at 25 it was even more difficult. The run was tiring that's for sure, however not awful. I got done and felt pretty good. During this run I decided that I needed to procure some sort of hydration belt.

After a couple more weeks of small training runs, today I faced the longest run I've ever had in my 25-year existence. 12 miles. In preparation, I went out and bought this:

It turned out to be a very good purchase. The temps were in the 80's with 60% humidity at 7:00 this morning when I took off. I also picked up some body glide and some GU gels to try out. I thought the hydration belt would annoy the crap out of me during the run. Having extra things on my body is always annoying to me, however this really didn't bother me at all. Maybe it's because I knew it was ultimately good for me. I'd read many reviews and consulted many other runners to find the best hydration belt available. This one had some bad reviews regarding the bottles falling off since they snap in. However it came recommended by a couple of people, as well as the guy working at Marathon Sports. It was also the most comfortable. Turns out I made a great choice. I'm very happy with my purchase. I got Body Glide because chafing is a real issue with most runners. I have some pretty good thighs so I'm hoping to try it out there. Also my toes have been rubbing quite a bit so today, I put it all over and between my toes. It was incredibly helpful and I highly recommend it to anyone who's having problems with chafing or rubbing to pick some up and use it. It really works wonders. Lastly I used some GU energy gel. After almost bonking on a mere 7-mile run, I took all precautions to not have that happen again. In addition to eating good meals, I also packed a couple of these pretty foil packets. Well, they may look nice on the outside but they are disgusting on the inside. I tried a lemon-lime variety. it was not very lemon-limey. I don't really know how to describe the taste, other than terrible. Good thing I had water and Gatorade on me to wash it down. But, despite this, it turned out to be helpful and I had enough energy to get through the run. I have a berry-flavored GU saved for my next long run, which happens to be next week, when I run a half marathon for my training. Thankfully, my co-worker and I have decided to do this together to help each other along. 

For now, there are other huge feats of athleticism being broadcast around the world, specifically the Women's World Cup so I think I'm going to watch that. GO USA!!!

9th graders and 9 miles

Well, well, well, I've been a bit absent lately. I try to not post unless I have something really good to post about. I leave the menial posts for Facebook. My biggest accomplishment up until the past week was making some outrageously good buffalo wings, complete with homemade sauce. The real kind, not the battered, boneless kind. That accomplishment didn't really need a full blog post dedicated to it though. You can find the picture of them on Facebook HERE. Almost blogger worthy but since this is a running blog, that didn't really make much sense.

In the running world, here is what I've been up to. Last week's long run was a step-back run of 5 miles. You see I progress for two weeks, then step back for the third. Apparently this prevents over-training. I did two laps around Lake Nokomis in south Minneapolis. It ended up being just over 5 miles. The weather was great. It was pretty overcast and humid but I can handle humidity when the sun isn't shining and it's just barely in the 70's. Unfortunately my neighborhood doesn't have great areas in which to run. There are streets and such but they're pretty boring and quite hilly. I typically drive to the Uptown lakes area or somewhere on the River Road for my long runs.

Well, this past week was pretty lame when it came to running. You see, I spent all week as a camp counselor at MS Youth Camp. It's a camp we put on for kids who have parents living with multiple sclerosis. Often these kids take on a lot in their lives. In addition to being a normal kid they help out with housework, grocery shopping and sometimes are caregivers for their parent with MS. The camp gives them a chance to connect with other kids like them as well as have some time away from the stresses in their life. It's a great camp and is probably the reason I decided to participate in Run to Stop MS. I was able to attend last year because they needed more counselors. I requested to return this year and I'm really happy that I did.

This year I again had middle schoolers. Last year I had a mix of 8th and 9th grade. This year I had all 9th graders. The week got off to a rough start, which is pretty normal for the middle schoolers. They take a while to get settled in and get used to each other and to their counselors. Needless to say, the first and second nights were a little late. But, we got through the week and I became much closer with my campers than I did last year and I hope I was able to be a positive role model for them through the week.

Because of the late nights, it made it really difficult to get up early and run. :( There are optional early morning activities that campers (and counselors) can participate in before breakfast. They included a polar bear splash into the lake, yoga, or going for a short run. I decided to join in on the run, along with one of my campers. We only did a quick 1.5 miles on Tuesday. I did not make it up at all on Wednesday or Thursday to get out to run. I was just too darn tired. But, that's ok. I think I will be just fine.

Despite not running this week, I got out today for the longest run I've been on since I ran on the Lincoln High School cross country team my senior year of high school. This was the longest run since a 10-miler I did on my 18th birthday. I did a 9-miler today on the River Road in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I started at Minnehaha Park in south Minneapolis and ran north along the river, almost to downtown. I crossed the Mississippi river via Franklin Ave and ran south along the river in St. Paul and back across the Mississippi to Minnehaha Park. The run was lovely. I felt great during the whole thing. I ran most of it on the grass next to the path so I had no shin splints. I'm hoping my ankles get stronger from that because they get a little achy now that I'm running on the uneven grass.

According to my mileage counter, I've run 137 miles since I started keeping track. Holy crap! That's a lot of miles! I know that number is really going to grow as my mileage increases over the summer. It'll be fun to see how far I'll end up running when this is all over. Any guesses?

Here's looking to a great week of training ahead!

$2.4 Million

You'll remember that about a week ago I was really having some problems with shin splints. I decided to spend the last week resting and not running. Now, I will be honest and say that what I did do was not exactly restful. This past weekend, the National MS Society, Minnesota Chapter put on the Bike MS: C.H. Robinson Worldwide MS 150 Ride 2011. Big name, even bigger event. About 3,400 cyclists mounted their saddles in Proctor, MN (near Duluth) for a 150 mile journey back to the Twin Cities. 75 miles on Saturday, 75 miles on Sunday. We have an overnight in Hinckley, MN at the Grand Casino. So far we have about $2 million turned in from participants. Our goal is $2.4 million. Participants have until about mid-July to get all of their money in. I think we'll make it!

Team Cargill leads off the start of Bike MS: C.H. Robinson Worldwide MS 150 Ride 2011. Team Cargill has raised almost $233,000 as a team this year!

When we break for the night in Hinckley, all of the bikes get loaded into a bike corral where they are guarded by a security guard all night. 

This is about half of the bikes in our bike corral. The numbered rows go up to 50. At least I made signs for up to 50. It's possible that we had to hand write more. That's a lot of bikes!

So, with this big of an event going on, you can imagine that I wouldn't actually get to rest much. We load 8 26-foot trucks the week prior to the event. Then, we kick it off on Friday by loading all of those bikes onto 21 semi trucks, and the participants on chartered buses to take them up to the Duluth area. Saturday morning I was up at 3:30 a.m. to see the riders off and get them on the route by 6:30 a.m. A mere 3 years ago, I would have been going to bed at this time. That evening we had our grand party in Hinckley, complete with a catered meal from Buca di Beppo. They were great and gave us the meal at cost. Mmmmmm...Buca. Sunday the riders returned to Century College in White Bear lake for a grand finish. 

Needless to say, I had little sleep and was on my feet for pretty much all of the weekend. However, it was totally worth it to help these riders making this journey to help end MS. 

Today, I had a kickball game. Yes, I play on a kickball team. Nothing better than adults playing a game meant for a playground. It was the first time I'd done any sort of running since Tuesday and I have to say it was awesome. Despite the rough week and weekend, I had nearly zero leg pain. I'm pretty stoked to go on my short 3-mile run tomorrow and see how quickly I can complete it. The temps are supposed to be great but the forecast calls for scattered storms in the afternoon. Hopefully I there is a 25-30 minute window without storms to fit in this run. 

Lately, because of my extensive leg pain, it's been taking me about 28 minutes to run 3 miles. Pretty sad and lame. Tomorrow I'm shooting for closer to 26. I'd really like to drop that time down to about 24 minutes by August. I'll be running in the grass from here on to see if that helps soften the impact. Wish me luck!