Update

Don't worry--I'm still here! It hasn't even been a month since my last post, but a lot of exercising happens in 3 1/2 weeks. I guess I never mentioned on here that I'll be running another marathon in October? If I didn't...guess what? I'm running another marathon in October! I know, I know. It's so soon after the first one. But my friend was feeling like it was a possibility for her, after running 15 miles before our half marathon last month. We only needed 3 runs longer than that to complete the marathon training, and when you're so close, why not, right? Right. I knew you'd agree. So...what have I been up to for the month of September?

In early September I did a nice 16 mile run with my friend. She was sick so we took it easy. It was awesome of her to even be able to run all of that while sick. Then we took off for Utah for a short, less than a week long, vacation. We actually crammed all three kids into the middle seat and stuck 3 bikes and a double jogging stroller into the back of the minivan. It was awesome having all of that with us, but I don't think we'll do it again. There was a reason we bought a minivan, and being able to have the kids easily buckle themselves (like they can three across in the van) was NOT the only reason! Dang, those were some crazy driving days!

I was going to go on a 12 mile run with my friend who moved to Utah, but our husbands took forever going on a 67 mile bike ride (go them!) and I was feeling a bit sick, so I decided to skip it. It was okay though, partially because I ran twice (extra) while we were staying with my sister-in-law (once with her! Woot!). But then I missed my Monday run because we were driving, so, really, I still ended up quite a bit under. But what can you do when you're sick? Meanwhile, as I was in Utah, my fall soccer season started back up and I had to miss the first two games! Major bummer. I also missed the annual Palo Alto Moonlight Run, which I've run 3 years in a row. AND, they had a thunderstorm at that race, which is something VERY RARE in the Bay Area! Peter and I MIIIISSSSSSS thunderstorms! But, we got to see our niece get married, and she was a beautiful bride.

Oh yeah, I should also mention that my hip (I think my IT band, but I haven't looked it up yet to confirm) started bothering me in Utah and now every time I run I feel like an old woman and, with the exception of yesterday's run, it hurts THE ENTIRE TIME I'm running and makes running incredibly tedious. It also hurts when I play soccer. I'm starting to wonder if I should stop exercising for a while, but, y'know, I don't want to. So...hopefully it will go away. Otherwise, I will be very sad!

So, upon returning from Utah, I did a few "with-stroller" runs because Peter was on another backpacking trip (I guess I didn't mention he was backpacking in Utah for a couple days...). I caught a dance class (yay dance!) the day after he came home, and then...dunh dunh dunh...came Saturday. Saturday was a crazy day! We ran 18 miles in the morning, at quite a respectable clip! Nothing amazing, but it was a pace we have run for lots of our 5 mile runs, so totally a great long run pace! I was actually still feeling sick from earlier in the week so that run was pretty hard for me. Really, it was one of my worst 3 runs ever.

After that long run I had about two hours to recover and get ready for my first soccer game of the season. Luckily my legs were feeling pretty good! Of course, no matter how good your legs feel after an 18 mile run, there's only so much your body can do in one day. So, yeah. I stunk pretty bad at that soccer game! I played midfield for the first half, but then I was tired of running for the whole time and I switched to defense. By the last 30 minutes of the game my calves were cramping up every time I tried to sprint so I couldn't defend all that well against the speedy striker I was guarding. Too bad... After Saturday, my legs were sore for the next several days! In fact, Friday was the first day that seemed pretty normal (and maybe that's why my hip finally loosened up enough to not hurt for the entire run that day?).

Gee whiz, I guess 3 weeks of exercise is like a novel... Well, anyway, this week was another fun week of running. There was something going on today, so we rescheduled our miles this week so that we could get all of the miles in without doing a long run today (Saturday). That meant that we ran 9 miles Wednesday, 7 1/4 on Thursday, and 6 3/4 on Friday. That's the first time I've ever done even 2 days in a row with high miles like that, let alone 3 days in a row. Besides my sad hip, it felt great. I ended both Thursday's and Friday's runs feeling great, despite the first 6/7 of Thursday's run feeling so pooey. And now that I think of it, I came under by 4 miles this week because I skipped Tuesday to see if my sad legs could recover a bit from that crazy Saturday!

This week, I've had two soccer games, one on Thursday and one today, and they were both awesome!!! I felt really great, and I feel like my game is coming back to me after all those years. In fact, I think I'm even gaining some skills that I never picked up back in the day. I have to say, I LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE soccer!

So, that's basically it for my last few weeks. Aside from that, I've got 2-3 dance classes per week that I'll be doing for the next few months. So I've got a marathon in 3 weeks, some dance classes, and soccer. Woot! Exercise is great, people! You know you wanna do it!

Stay tuned for our longest marathon training run this Saturday--20 miles!