Feeling Good with No Rest

Saturday’s nine miler went better than was expected. The weather was around 30 degrees and overcast, but the miles seemed to flow by effortlessly. My fastest pace was actually mile 8. In fact the run went so well that my wife and I went out again on Sunday, our rest day. The weather forecast was predicting snow on Sunday evening so we wanted to get another outdoor run in before the dreadful snow came. Well that snow came and it wasn’t so bad. I only saw a few inches of accumulation at my house. Still it is enough to prevent clear pavement for running for a few more days.

The good news is that my friend is still asking if I want to be her guest at the gym. I have a 3 miler for Tuesday, which I can run on my home treadmill but have a 5 on Wednesday that I will probably take her up on the gym offer. After running on the indoor track last week, I was having some pain in my ankle and inside shin. I self diagnosed my issue as Tibialis Posterior Tendonitis. After a rest on Friday evening and a Saturday run the pain seemed to have gone away. I think running so many laps on the track and having to pass so many walkers may have aggravated something. All I Know is that I am thankful the pain is gone and I am still running. I think I am going to use the treadmill at the gym and maybe a warm up and cool down on the track. Maybe it has nothing to do with the track, but I am too scared to test it out.

I was just in touch with an old college friend and he invited me to come to Champaign for a visit. He informed me that he is running the Illinois Marathon and he is going to do his first ½. I remember Max ran a little in college but not too much. I guess running to the bar was as good as it got. Anyway, I told him that I would have run the ½ with him but unfortunately, I signed up for the Wisconsin ½ Marathon for the same day. He has not been running regularly and is just thinking of starting his training this week, which gives him about 10 weeks to prepare. He said a few different people told him to run 3 miles for 6 days a week and a little longer on Saturday. He seemed really clueless on what it will take to get him ready for this. I forwarded Max the Hal Higdon ½ marathon novice program and I hope he will try and follow some training regime other than listening to clueless people. I hope he enjoys the journey and accomplishes the goal but as of right now I am a little skeptical. I guess too many people watch the Biggest Loser and assume anyone can run a marathon or ½.

Now that we have our appliances installed, we went tile shopping at Lowe’s for a back splash. We found a nice slate tile and bought all they had at our local store. We had to drive to another store to get the rest of the tile we needed. While we we re there, we decided to change the cabinet hardware, outlet covers and re-paint the kitchen. I seem to always create a good amount of work for myself, but I hope in the end it will be worth it. Luckily my Father-In-law is retired and has offered to install the tile. I think he is really excited to help out and who am I to get in the way of that happiness. He just did a back splash at his house and it turned out great. It also helps that his best (retired) buddy was a tile guy, who will probably accompany him for moral support.