What a weekend

Hey all. As the title says, it was a busy weekend. Or at least a busy Saturday. Sunday was more about recovering, but more about that in a minute.

Saturday morning was cold and windy and mostly overcast. Susan and I had planned on a 10 miler. This is strengthening for her since she is doing the Mercedes Half a month from now. I was using it as a recovery run from this stupid calf injury that had kept me down for a couple of weeks. We decided to get a relatively early start since the day was full of activities. We started our run around 8:30. Early enough to fit the plans to the day but late enough to let the temp get into the 30s. As usual when I run with Susan, I let her set the pace. She had not done this distance in several years so she was a little nervous about it but she did about 8 1/2 last week so I knew it shouldn't be too much a problem. Regardless, she picked a pace a little slower than normal just to make sure she could do it. I've done it myself so I completely understood. She wants to run the half marathon at about a 11 minute pace. I told her that I would help her hit that pace. I know that you need to run slower in your training runs, but I wanted her know what the pace feels like since she really doesn't judge her pace that well. The plan was to run a little at a 11 minute pace but to leave some slop in there to allow her to slow to a 12 minute pace. That's what I told . . . we want to finish between 1:50 and 2 hours. We ran the lakshore greenway. 2 1/2 miles out with the wind at our back and we were running a little slower than 11 minute pace. We were feeling good and Susan had taken off her gloves and ear cover. We turned back to the car and realized that we were running into about a 10-15 mph wind. OMG. I was running in shorts and a single coolmax long sleeve and was feeling fine until the wind started whipping my sweaty shirt. Susan put the glove and ear covers back on. To be honest, I could have used some gloves running into the wind. I noticed that our pace had slowed considerably. I checked our split at a half mile marker and told Susan that we had slowed to almost a 13 minute pace. She wasn't crazy about me telling her this but I just wanted her know. She said she was doing her best going into the wind and I just let her set the pace (though I did secretly step it up just a smidge). We got back to the car for water and another 5 mile loop. We decided to head the opposite direction on another trail called Jemison Trail. The reasoning being that we would run another 2 1/2 miles into the wind and then have a tail wind coming home. Susan was up for the change. By the time we finished the first five, the temp had dropped. I grabbed my Asics wind vest and Susan grabbed a windbreaker and off we went for our second five miles. It was pretty uneventful and thankfully the trail is so deep into the trees, the wind really was not a factor. We turned around at 2 1/2 and I told Susan that with 1 mile left we were going to pick it up. She just sort of grunted and looked at me. Not a good sign. However, when I told her it was time to go, she was all game and off we went. Her first 10 miler in years and she turned it in under 2 hours. Bravo to Susan!

After the run, we went back to her house and I split firewood for a couple of hours. Afterwards, we spent the afternoon going to her two girls' basketball games. MA had a really good game. Her team won 25-8 and she had 4 points. She played good defense and a couple of steals. She also did a good job passing the ball and had several assists. MA takes practice serious and it is such a great joy to practice with her. I've been doing passing drills with her and trying to get her to shoot without putting the ball on the floor. Both her goals were shot like that so I sort of gloated! E's game (first and second graders) is a little more lax. They go light on the traveling and double dribbling thing and the kids have fun more than anything else. That age group doesn't quite seem to understand the competitive nature of the game so it is fun watching them run around trying to figure out where to go and what to do. All that being said, E always seems to be having fun and smiling. She took several shots and made 1. She's one of those that practices better than she plays. I'm sure that in a couple of years she's going to be a terror on the court since she is in the first grade and taller than all the second graders.

After that, Susan and I went to dinner with some of her Bunko friends at one of the nicer hotel/conference centers in town . . . Ross Bridge http://www.rossbridgeresort.com/. We met early for cocktails and then had a very nice dinner. I didn't want to horn in since it was all girls but they all insisted that I eat with them. They were celebrating birthdays (5 ladies with birthdays within 30 days of each other) so we turned it into a party. The restaurant was very nice, giving us desserts and allowing us to hog the table for 3 hours. Without going into too much detail, we'll just say that we had fun but we overdid it . . . just a little bit.

Sunday was spent sitting around watching TV. We were supposed to go to my parents but neither of us were up for the visit. It was pouring down rain, cold and we were nursing our "party". We layed on the sofa and watched TV most of the day. We had planned to run 4 or 5 miles but blew it off because of the rain and the headaches (ouch!). I left her house around 4 and spent the rest of the evening washing clothes, napping, and watching the football games.

The good news is that I feel better today and will be trying to get a 6 miler tonight.