So, Week 4 is done and tomorrow starts Week 5. Today is supposed to be a rest day but I’ll have to hit the pool because I did not get my laps in on Friday. I hurt my shoulder doing push ups on Thursday night, which just goes to show you, I should not be allowed to do strength training unsupervised! It hurts in the front of my shoulder and it clicks when I move it. Probably not good but I will only pay the specialist co-pay to see the Orthopod if it is something below the waist that prevents running. Everything else will have to heal on its own! In this case, it means I taped a bag of frozen peas to my shoulder every few hours for the past few days and I had Carly apply KT tape in a very colorful pattern to my shoulder. I am not a graceful or efficient swimmer so I don’t suspect that it will make much difference that my shoulder hurts now. I will lurch from one end of the pool to the other, regardless.

Running this week went well. End of last week, this happened:

 

I have to admit I was pretty excited about this. Truthfully, I hit this milestone about two hundred miles ago but the Nike Plus app “ate” several hundred miles a few weeks after the Disney Princess Half and I was unable to recover them. I even called the help desk for the Nike app and they were unable to restore them. I was sad, and the girl on the phone was so sympathetic, I am convinced that they train those people in the stages of grief for when runners call mourning their lost miles. I could have manually added back in the miles but I could not remember how many miles I actually had or the days of the runs so, I had to accept it and was still happy to see the 1000.

Then, I hit 90 miles for the month of July. A first for me. On Tuesday, the Half and Full Marathon Training Group resumed at Fleet Feet. I’ve been running in the “off-season” with my old group from the Spring Half and Full Group but I was able to reconnect with several running friends I have not seen since April. We’ll meet new people and it will be fun to do boring track work-outs with a group and have variety for company on long runs. Dimity’s training plan (even the modified version we agreed upon) is a significant amount of miles more than the Fleet Feet plan. I am sticking with Dimity so, that means I’ll have to find friends to run extra mileage with me each Saturday. Sarah, from my regular “off season” crew is training for the NYC Marathon so, I suspect, she will hang in there with me.

My long run on Saturday went really well. First, the weather was mild and nothing like the jungle-like conditions of last week. I ran the first 5 miles with the new Fleet Feet group and the last 7 with my dear friend, Heather. Heather is in the training group, too, training for her first half marathon, the OBX Half in November.

Let me just take a minute to tell you all the reasons why I love Heather. Heather and I met in the Executive MHA program at UNC during the first week. I’ve known her for 5 years but I feel like we’ve been friends forever. I think we immediately recognized fellow Type A folks. Heather puts up with zero bullshit and I love that about her. The entire MHA program is made up of one series of group projects after another and you need people who are going to get it done in a timely manner. Plus, she is crazy smart and gets stuff I don’t, like Excel, math and how to fix Windows computers. She also knows how to make knock-off Sweaty Bands, saving me a gazillion dollars on my Sweaty Band fetish. She can cook, bake, fix a car, and sew. Basically, Heather is a total badass and she is the first person, after my immediate family, I am going to find when the zombies come for us all. Yes, we already have an apocalypse plan, of course we do! She now works where I do and she sorts all my Excel spreadsheets so, that is an extra plus. She is also my personal shopper and buys me things at Costco so I don’t have to drag my kids. My favorite thing about Heather is that she will do races with me and I love, love, love her company. Here is the proof (I have a ton of pictures of races we did together but these are my favorites):

The Ramblin Rose Triathlon in Raleigh in May, Heather was our swimmer (I ran my fastest two miles – ever. Too bad I’d have to keep that pace up for 24.2 more miles to BQ).

We ran the Komen Race for the Cure together in June and, we both, clearly, love pink!

 

Tarheel 10 Miler in April – her longest race to date!

She got in this dirty, dirty lake that has been known to have dead bodies in it for the Ironman 70.3 Raleigh relay team (because we have this type of friendship, I e-mailed her news stories about the questionable pollution level of the lake and a dead body that was fished out just a few days before we went out to the lake to practice open water swimming – not making light of dead people, or anything, just giving her a hard time):

 

Proof that we all made it to the finish line, although my finish was in jeopardy (more on my nutritional challenges in another post). Jonathan was our biker.

Earlier in the week, Heather agreed to run my extra mileage with me so I did not have to run alone. After a pit stop back at the Fleet Feet Durham store from the first 5 miles, we headed out down the American Tobacco Trail for the the last 7. Heather kept me energized, entertained and set a great pace. It was her longest run, ever, and she knocked it out of the park because, well, that is what Heather always does! I started to feel sick to my stomach towards the end of the run (I’ll have a post about my long run nutrition challenges later) and she walked a while with me, never complaining. I recovered and we ran in the last mile, hard. Heather has been known to puke on a run and just keep going. I am not that badass. I have to at least walk a minute or two before running on.

I have a lot of friends, whom I love, and a lot of running friends, whom I also love and  also keep me going on my runs, but I really owe a ton of credit for motivation to Heather. She promised to enter the Boston Marathon with me in the disabled division and push me in a wheelchair when I’m 70 and she is 60 so, it sounds like we are going to have lot of running and a lot of friendship ahead of us!