Work will win when wishy washy wishing won't

I was very happy that this morning I woke up after the best night of sleep of the week. No back issues!  We wanted to get our long run done today because of late nights tonight and tomorrow night.  Tom and I started out at 5:00 in beautiful SG!  We were happy to feel the cool temps at that time.  It actually stayed pretty much perfect for the whole run.  Tom added 4 more to make another 20 miler for him.  Sixteen is plenty for me at the moment.

I hope everyone is having a fun and safe 4th of July!  We always have a fun time back in my old home town of Manti with family and friends.  Today was the first year none of our kids wanted to go with us.  : (  Tom and I enjoyed ourselves though and the kids enjoyed being home.  

I was planning on 6 miles today but I left home with not even nearly enough water in my system. So I could turn around at 3 miles to get home with six or go another half mile to the water fountain at the park and end up with seven.  I had to choose the water....I was so thirsty today!  Very warm, muggy and windy.  I met up with Tom when we both had about 2 1/2 miles left.  I'm glad I had him to run with or I may have done some wimping out on those last few miles. 

Tom and I are trying really hard not to complain about the heat!  At least when it's cold out we can layer and warm up, but when it's hot there is nothing you can do.  All of you who are running in even more heat than us....you rock!  

This morning I tagged along with Tom to run up and down Payson Canyon. We started at Beercan Flats and went up 4 miles. The last .20 or so going up I started feeling sick!  Between pushing up hill and seeing the creek out of the corner of my eye and hearing the water roar I just felt yucky!  But I pushed to the top and took a little breather for the journey back down.

Going down felt much better until about half way down when I over extended my knee or something and got a bit nervous.  I stopped and started but it hurt.  So I told Tom to go on ahead and come and pick me up.  After he left I was able to start back up slower and it actually felt fine the rest of the way.  So I made it down after all.  Poor Tom....his main running partner always has some kind of issue....but he never complains.   

Kay was my running buddy today.  It's always fun to be with her.  We went out to the river trail and up to Canyon View Park for a drink.  Lucky enough to have a Kellie Shepherd sighting on the trail.  : )

Slight rubbing on the side of the left knee in the last .30.  I'm a little nervous about the IT band this year.  I've had good luck with it for a few years but have been feeling some little things here and there that I am going to keep and eye on and be very careful with.  I do not want ITB issues! 

Today was a day when the "plan" and "what actually happened" are not the same.

 I had planned to join in with the SF running club for 5 miles before heading off on my own towards Springville for 7-8- more miles to watch Tom come in at the Hobbler 5K.  

The plan started right.  I met up with a good sized group and did our regular route.  The first three miles I ended up in conversation with Ken and Chad which meant I was in the lead group. It was actually feeling really good, in fact I was doing much of the talking and it was going great. But somewhere along the way my right achilles decided it didn't like what I had done.  On the next three miles I was going slower but it was burning pretty good especially when I went up Heartbreak Hill.  

That is where the plan changed.  I decided to take the last mile home slowly and then jump in the truck to go to Springville instead.  I thought I might be able to get a few more miles in over there while I was waiting for things to start but it didn't feel right so I didn't.  

I'm thinking that with the UV 1/2 then Ragnar the next week I haven't quite given myself the rests I have needed as a still fairly inexperienced runner.  I am going to watch this carefully and try to get it better before it gets worse.  I may be a little over protective this next week to see if that helps.  I hate to do that because I have been enjoying too many treats this past month and I need to run to make up for all of them!  : )

It was very fun to watch Tom at his finish line though!  Whenever we both run I never get to be there to cheer him in.   

Three run miles.  Last mile feeling kind of the tight/burning feeling in my right achiles area.  Walked 3 miles.  Felt fine while walking until the last quarter or so.  Then some pain from walking.  I will continue to take it easy and see what happens.  I would rather err on the side of caution here.  

Tom and I had to visit the ER with our 17 year old last night.  He wrecked on his bike.  He is a stunt rider but was just on a casual ride on the river trail when he wrecked.  Messed up his cute face and his knee a bit.  Hopefully he won't be down for long.  He isn't the kind of guy who likes to be stuck at home for very long, but he doesn't have any desire to do much today.  He is a sad looking boy.  : ( 

Wow...that's not very fun to write .25, especially when I only got to write 3 yesterday.  

I went out a bit later than usual but the temps were nice because of the wind and overcast sky.  I started running and noticed pain in the achilies right from the get go.  So I gave it a quarter of a mile and felt like it's not a good idea to push it right now.  So I turned around and walked home.  I grabbed the rickety old bike we have and went on an 8 mile bike ride instead.  I would have liked to get at least twice the amount of miles on the bike as I would have running but my neck, shoulders and bum need to toughen up a bit more for me to get that.  

Of course I never see many bikers while I am out, but today when I was on the old bike and looking very newbie-ish I had to go right through a gang of fancy dressed, fancy biked people who were stopped for a water break.  

Tested a little bit with Tom but decided that I needed to do some run/walk stuff so left him to do his own thing.  I was able to get some walk/run in for about 1.3 miles but it didn't feel good so I decided I would just get a good long walk in today.  After another mile I decided it was too boring to walk alone so I went back to get my rickety bike.  After biking I finished up with a little more walking with my doggy.  So I ended up with 3 miles walk and 5 miles bike.  Not impressive by many standards but at least I got out and propelled myself in one way or another for awhile.  

This week I have been introduced to pool running.  Tuesday I ran for one hour, yesterday for 70 minutes.  I took my HR at the end of the first day and it was 144 so I felt good with that.  I hope running will come back easily to me again.  I need one more week of rest and then I should be ready to try the roads out again.  It will be 4 weeks of rest when I start back up.  Hopefully that will be just right to be healed enough to run and not re-do the injury.  We'll see what happens with  Hobblecreek and SGM  when they get here.  

We had a super nice baby shower last night for a darling couple from Madagascar who are coming to BYU for a few years.  They left home, family, country, everything but $250.00 and came to a strange, foreign land.  They are going to have a baby in September and thought they were going to have nothing for him.....now they have everything they need to help get his little life going!  They were so sweet and so humble!  It was so fun to see how everyone rallied around to help someone in need that they didn't even know.