I think the rain we've been stuck with since Saturday is finally moving out of the area. It will be nice to be able to get runs in again at their regularly scheduled time. Yesterday I woke up before work and went out running....sans iPod (I know shocker!!!) because it was misty and I didn't want to chance my iPod getting ruined. It was supposed to be about 40 minutes but I think only ended up going about 35. I don't wear a watch when I run so I sort of have to guesstimate based on the time I leave my house and the time I get back.

Today it was pouring and flooding everywhere in the morning (it took me 45 minutes to get to my internship...usually only takes about 15 or 20... because I had to make about 5 detours because roads were closed) So needless to say I did not get a run in before work. Maybe that worked out for the best though because I have been very sore lately and my left calf muscle has been cramping up like mad. It's just been so tight. And my knees are starting to get a little sore again so I'm not really sure what's going on there either.

Instead I went running tonight after dinner. Again a nice 40 minutes, nothing too strenuous, but oh man did my left calf kill. It was some of my worst running ever. I just felt miserable the whole time and wanted to turn around and go home. I'm not sure what's going on. Running is usually so enjoyable, but lately it's been such a chore what with the weather and the aches and pains.

Hopefully now that it looks like the weather is going to clear up things will start to get back on track. I'm going to try stretching even more after my runs, in hopes that it will keep some of the extra tightness at bay.

Other things have beena bit out of whack too. I've been so run down and exhausted lately. Last night I went to bed at like 9:00 p.m. No joke and slept until 6:30 when I saw it was not possible to run and then went back to sleep until like 7:45 and still felt exhausted. I don't like this, it's definitely not helping my running at all.

Hopefully I'll have more positive things to post soon!

Ew today was not a good day. It rained/poured all day and the two hours it wasn't I was babysitting. So that means I did not get my run in today. Now I feel sluggish and blah and ew. And I ate cake left over from my brother's graduation party, and you know how when you don't eat high sugar foods for a while and then you do and you get that major sugar high and crash. Yea, I'm feeling that for sure. So all in all it's been a blah ick day.

But tomorrow, no matter how tired and gross I'm feeling, I'm dragging my booty out of bed and running before heading to my internship. So on that note, I'm heading out!

Today was a distance day, and I didn't think it was going to happen because of the weather. There were flash floods and wicked thunderstorms alllll day long and somehow my teeny tiny town got lucky enough to get nothing more than a few showers. Which left me with a solid two hours of running in the mist and rain, which is much better than running in the incredibly hot sun. Unfortunately my iPod died about half way through the nine miles (it's not waterproof and neither is the case....oopsies...don't worry though, it's all better now). But somehow I made it the last 4.5 miles without music.

I'm not really sure how that happened because I cannot run without music. I just can't do it. So it was by some miracle that I was able to finish with nothing but the thoughts in my head as my music.

I walked a little bit less than I did last week on my distance day, which I was proud of, but I still walked some of the hills because there was no way i would have made it the whole distance if I'd run them. I'm feeling pretty good now. No major aches and pains, although my knees are a little sore. I'm sure by Monday they'll be ready to go though.

The ice bath I took after the run was amazing. Seriously my legs were about ready to fall off and I just plopped down in a tub of freezing cold water and four trays of ice cubes (it's all the trays I've got) and instantaneously they felt better.

So all in all it was a pretty successful day. Tomorrow is my younger brother's graduation party and it's supposed to rain all day. Not sure how 80 people (we have a really large family and groups of family friends) are going to fit in this house, so I'm crossing my fingers for no rain. It'll be nice to see everyone though, especially my baby cousin (okay she's actually 4 now, but she'll always be the baby).

Well that's all I've got for now. Hope everyone else had awesome runs/cross-trainings!

Got this morning's run in right before it started to downpour like crazy. Literally about 10 minutes after I walked back inside it started raining. I wouldn't have minded some of that rain while I was still running because oh man was it humid. Hopefully this wonderful downpour will break the humidity because it has been unreal lately.

I had to walk again at the very end of my run. For whatever reason my legs were just exhausted and were like "We can't run anymore." It wasn't really a big deal, it was only about 5 minutes of walking tops, but still, I hate having to stop and walk.

So I've fallen in love with icebaths. Granted the initial shock of the freezing cold water isn't all that fun, but when I get out, my legs feel like I hadn't really run at all. I only have time to squeeze them in on Mondays and Saturdays though because I don't have time for them when I've got to get to work the other days. I highly recommend them to everyone, and I promise they aren't as bad as they sound.

Anyway, I'm off to get ready for work. Best of luck on all your runs today!

Today's run went okay. I went out at 6:40 in the morning and seriously the humidity was unreal. I felt I walked into a wall of water. It was sooo heavy, and it made it really tough to breathe. Never the less, I finished my run, even though I had to go really slow. I keep thinking this waking up at the crack of dawn (at least for me) and running will help me beat the heat and humidity, but so far it hasn't really seemed to be working, which is unfortunate because I am one of those people who must workout before they do anything else or else I find a million and one reasons to skip my training for the day.

Tomorrow's a cross-training day, which is nice because I won't have to worry about the heat and humidity. I'm planning on doing some upper body strength work to give the legs a rest. They could use it.

In other really really exciting news, my dad and I finalllllly bought my car today!!! She's a beauty. '03 Silver Ford Taurus (silver is my favorite car color). Looks like brand new. I'm really excited. If gas wasn't so bloody expensive I'd have taken her cruising today, but oh well, I'm sure I'll plan a road trip in due time to take her on!

I DID IT! I went for 8 miles! Granted I couldn't run the whole thing and had to stop and walk occasionally, but still I don't care I was just so excited to actually be able to keep moving forward for that long. When I got back home I wanted to do a little dance because I was just that excited, but welllll I was also exhausted. So collapsing onto a chair was looking a lot better than dancing around! :o)

I felt pretty good afterwards. I mean my legs were obviously exhausted (and still are) but otherwise I wasn't feeling any major aches and pains. At least not right away.

Now my knees are a little sore, but nothing too horrible. So I've been icing them. Basically my lower body just feels stiff, and I've been stretching and stuff so hopefully that will help stem some of that.

Tomorrow is a rest day, which should give me plenty of time to recover for Monday's run.

I was really proud of myself for being able to finish! I still can't believe I did it. I had all kinds of doubts that my knee wasn't going to hold up or that I would just get to tired and not get anywhere close to 8 miles, but I did and I'm quite impressed with myself. The only negative aspect of the whole run was how horribly strong the sun was. I went running at 7 in the morning, hoping to get out and back before it got too hot and sunny. No luck. I was out for no more than 15 minutes before the sun started beating down and unlucky for me a lot of where I run isn't very shaded (blasted suburbia and all it's developments with no trees), but even with the really strong sun I managed to finish!

What a day what a day!

Following the run was car shopping, and I think I might have finally found something affordable that drives nicely. I drove an Impala LS today....oh man it drove like a dream. But it was a 2000 with 51,000 miles and they were asking 10,400 and wouldn't drop the price anything below that. So, unfortunately I won't be getting that car. I'm afraid to say which car I might be getting for fear of jinking it. I have had awful luck in the car shopping department lately.

P.S. The officials in the US's World Cup game today sucked something awful! But we ended with a tie, so at least we get one point. ***Crosses fingers for a better game against Ghana***

So far this week has gone really well training wise. Got up every morning at 7 to run or cross-train(except Monday and today because I didn't have to be at work. So Monday I got up at 8 to run and today....I'll get around to cross-training at some point), and there have been no major aches and pains.

Tomorrow is distance day and frankly I'm a little nervous. I've got 8 miles scheduled, but with time off because of injuries and stuff I don't know how that's going to go. My mom keeps telling me I should back off and do less than 8, but I'm afraid if I do that I'll fall even farther behind than I already am. Although if I do the 8, I risk getting hurt again. So I'm in a bit of a pickle. I guess my plan for now is to plan on doing the 8 and then just seeing how it goes when I'm out there. If I'm feeling good I'll do the whole thing. If not, I can always shorten the workout. I do not want to be laid up with another injury because as you know from a previous post, that frustrates the heck out of me.

In other exciting news, my first story that I wrote for my internship was published today, on the front page of the section!!! Here's a link to it, but it looks much prettier in the actual paper with all the pictures so I recommend looking at it there if you can.: http://www.mcall.com/features/custom/hg/all-hg-h-tassels-061606,0,6062821.story. (I'm no good at HTML coding, so just copy and paste it into your little web address bar).

Alright, that's all I've got for now. I'm making a little vow to try to update this thing more often. I used to be so good about it!

So Friday I went out for a test run. Only about a half an hour. I went really slow probably only covered about 2 miles, maybe a little more. I wasn't really keeping track of time or distance or anything, I was more trying to be sure everything was in working order.

My knee felt pretty good throughout the whole thing. I didn't notice any substantial problems. I took Saturday off because I didn't want to push my luck. And today I just got back from an hour long swim. Everything's feeling pretty good. I didn't lose too much of my endurance (or well so far it doesn't seem like it) so I think I'm going to pick my training back up tomorrow. I'm going to have to back up in the training schedule a little bit, but I don't think it will cause too much of a problem. At least I hope not. Maybe I'm just being overly optimistic now because I was so pessimistic in my last post.

But I'm hoping from here until October 14, everything will work properly. No more freak injuries and sicknesses.

YAY for being able to run again! **crossing my fingers and hoping tomorrow goes as well as Friday**

Ok, so honestly I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. Although it sort of seems like it. I've been dealt a pretty big set back to the running schedule/marathon training. First there was finals week, and although I was able to get out a few times during the week, it def. wasn't enough and I fell a little bit behind. Then I got sick (again) with an awful head and chest cold. There was no way I could run if I couldn't breath. And then I was back to training, for a whole three days before something happened to my knee.

I don't know what happened. Wed. morning I went out for my run first thing, and my right knee was a little bit stiff, which I chalked up to it being early in the morning and my sleeping on it weird. It got kind of painful after a minute or two so I started walking to see if that helped. It did, and after a while I started running again, and the knee didn't hurt at all. I thought I was home free. But then in the last couple tenths of a mile before I got home there was searing pain through my knee. It was unfrickinbelievable how much it hurt.

I got home, popped two Motrin, busted out the ice pack, did the whole RICE thing. Holy mother of pearl I couldn't walk the rest of the day or all day Thursday. Thursday night we had my brother's Baccalaurette Mass and I looked like a fool hobbling around, and kneeling...yeah it just wasn't happening. Friday it felt a little bit better, but still there was no way I could run, I could barely walk.

I thought this morning I might be able to at least go out for a walk, but again no luck. I'm really started to get frustrated. I'm losing so much training time. I don't know how I'm going to ready for this marathon if I keep getting hurt and can't train. It's so frustrating, and I just don't know what to do about it.

I'm going swimming tomorrow in attempts to at least keep some of the cardiovascular endurance that I built. But it's not running and it's not the same. It's the most frustrating thing in the entire world. I just want to be able to run again. I really hate being laid up like this.

AHHHHH!