Running nerds...

So the nice part about this being a running blog is that I don't feel embarassed about posting on a Friday night. Of course I am at home! Saturday mornings are long run days! I have to be up early! So I am sitting here with ice packs on my knees killing time, and doing this is more interesting than TV...

Anyways, after my run tomorrow morning (which will only be an easy 8 miles - meaning I am not going to push very much), I am more or less resting up until the relay. On Thursday I did a double run simulating my two first legs of the relay, a 5 miler at 2% grade on the treadmill in the morning and a rolling 7.5 miler in the evening. That probably wasn't smart - I know better than to think that I should be doing anything resembling hard training the week before a race. I am not going to get any better at this point and I am just going to tire myself out. And here I am sitting with ice packs on my knees as proof of why one doesn't do that.

Sigh, I have come to accept that I am just going to be slow. I don't have any doubts that I will be able to put in the miles without walking, but I haven't done a single run faster than 10:30 pace since I got back from FL/IL, so at altitude, I will settle for a sub-12 minute pace. So frustrating! I mean my 20-milers during marathon training were at about 10:30 pace and now that is the fastest I can go? Well, I have also decided that after this relay I am officially taking at least a month off to see if I can get my hamstring and knees to feel better. I was going to do a triathlon at the end of the summer, but when running is your best discipline and you can't run, that won't be fun. So next year that tri is mine...

Even though my knees and hamstring hurt, I am excited we are only a week off! I made the mandatory signs for our vans tonight. Should we decorate our vans? I am not creative so I leave that up to you all... And if Laurie wants her SUV decorated :-)

Because my first run will be at roughly 1 or 2 pm, I have been watching the weather like a hawk. It makes me happy how much the heat drops off as we go up. A week off, the weather forecast is:

Fort Collins Mostly Sunny 94/60
Exchange 6 Partly Cloudy 85/53
Exchange 12 Mostly Sunny 80/49
Exchange 18 Partly Cloudy 82/50
Exchange 24 Mostly Sunny 80/45
Steamboat Mostly Sunny 83/51

Oh yeah, by virtue of being the first team alphabetically in the first category alphabetically (Flatlanders), we get to be Team Number 1! How awesome is that! Plus, apparently all the Flatlander teams will be 1-10, so we know who to keep our eye on while we run :-) Yeah, um me and my twelve minute miles are going to be passing people left and right...

To end this post that is way too long already, I have to rant about how our washer/dryer seems to know which socks of mine are expensive running socks. It never mysteriously eats some random pair of white cotton socks. Nooooo, it eats one of my wicked awesome Smart Wool running socks which I have run every race in in the last year and a half. Fortunately I have two pairs, but man, this is driving me crazy... (I heart google images)