Week in Review

70 miles
1 workout
15 mile long run
4 days in Arizona
3 Cities in Arizona - Flagstaff, Phoenix and Tucson
1 Red Eye Flight

With three runs completed in Charlotte, I hopped on a plane Wednesday night to see my brother in Phoenix and to reunite with Merry in Tucson.  While the air was thin, the temperatures were scorching, with highs in the 100s.  I wanted a little bit of a down week, so while I got in 70 miles, it still felt like my legs were getting some sort of rest since I had a long run on the shorter side and ran only five miles on Sunday.  Reuniting with Merry felt oh so good!  We ran together at 7000+ feet in Flagstaff, did a long run touring the streets of her new city Tucson, and ate lots of delicious Mexican food that one must do when so close to the border.  My brother was kind enough to get us a night for free at the Hilton Conquistador Resort so we spent ample time at the pool before heading up to Mount Lemmon for a hike in the cooler temperatures.  The ultimate reward for finishing our hike was stopping by the Cookie Cabin, which sells only gigantic cookies, cobbler, and pizza.  Talk about an athlete's dream!  We split the brownie cookie that was the size of a small personal pizza.  It was more than enough for all of us.  Five weeks until Grandma's Half!

Week in Review

70 Miles
4x2 Mile workout
16 mile long run in 6:50 pace
11 mile Medium Long Run
40 Hours in DC

Not much to report here except that I was supposed to do a medium long run or a long run with 8 miles at 6:20-6:40 pace.  That didn't happen because I felt terrible on my long run Friday morning with Laurie and then because it was really hot in DC on Sunday when I ran with a hungover Merry.  I had wanted to get in a good effort on one of the longer runs, but it just didn't work out that way this week, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.  Sometimes it's most important to enjoy time with some of your closest friends in Washington, DC than to fret over the workout you didn't get in.  After all, I'm still putting in good work on my workouts and getting the efforts in that I need to achieve a PR in the fall.

Week in Review

75 Miles
Down Ladder on the Track
16 mile Long run
0 Days Off
8 Runs

After a quick turnaround after my stellar track workout on Tuesday, I decided to get my long run out of the way on Thursday morning.  An evening flight to California made it necessary to get this run out of the way before I left for the office.  My long run went by fairly quickly with Laurie and there really isn't much to report from it.  My legs weren't too tired from the track workout, but they didn't feel nearly as sprightly as they have in the past couple of weeks.  After the long run, I went to the Elizabeth Family Practice to get some bloodwork done that Dr. Price had called in for me.  Given that I hadn't taken my iron pills in a while and my poor performance at the NC 10k Champs, I already kind of knew what the results would be.  Sure enough, Dr. Price let me know that my Ferritin level was a 13. This is a bad number for most people, but it's an okay number for me.  So long as I keep my runs, workouts, and races within 10 seconds of my target pace, I don't go into oxygen debt.  Basically, I just need to race really smart and I can still run well.  Oh, and I need to take my iron pills, which I have been doing; I even brought my pills with me to California!

Speaking of California...the trip was amazing.  The weather there truly is unbelievably perfect and every time I go I wish I lived there--that is, until I hop into a car and sit on the freeway for two hours to go two miles.  My college roommate, teammate, bridesmaid, and all around best friend, Merry, flew from Tucson to hang out with my sister and me and we took advantage of our time together.  Every night we went to bed before 9PM, woke up before 7AM to get out the door for a run by 730AM, and hung out the rest of the day.  Our interests are so similar and it worked out perfectly for all parties because when we ran, it gave our gracious host and my sister a chance to relax and get things done around her place. We got the full southern California tour this time around, with a 24 hour stop in San Diego, a shopping excursion in Orange County, and a night in Silver Lake, near where some celebrities live.  We ate so much very delicious food that it saddened me to come back to Charlotte's dismal selection of healthy and local eats.