5 miles down, 21.2 more to go

Right after I finished the Lowell Spinners 5-miler on Saturday, that's what Braman said to me, "5 miles down, 21.2 more to go." While I finished the race in typical blazing fashion (59 minutes, 8 seconds; 212 out of 220 runners and 33rd out of the 35 in my age group), I definitely didn't feel like I was ready to keep going. But that's what training is for, right? So I have faith in the Team In Training people who say they will prepare me for this marathon and I will keep chugging along.

For those interested, the race was very scenic and involved plodding past beautiful old mill buildings, crossing over the Merrimack River and finishing on the Lowell Spinners baseball field. There were three water stops and the race people were all very friendly and courteous to the slow runners. I'd recommend this one and might even do it again next year. Larsson had a great time in the kids race where he and the other under-four-year-olds ran a small portion of the warning track on the baseball field to the official finish line. He won a T-shirt, a drink of water, a certificate, and dogtags with pictures of the Spinners players on them.

The picture above is just after I finished my race but before Larsson ran his.

And after returning home last night at 11:30pm, I got up this morning at 5 to do my three miles. I smelled a skunk, ran around the remains of an animal in the road, hopped over horse droppings and saw a large snake in someone's driveway. Even though I felt fast, I ran the course in about the same time that I did the other three times, 38 minutes and some seconds.

Training Day 3

I should mention that my training consists of running by myself during the week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and running with the group from Team In Training for longer runs on Saturday mornings. For the month of June I'll be running 3 miles during the week and then from 3-6 miles on the weekend.

June is a busy month because I'll also be running two road races: the 5-mile Reunion Run at Cornell on June 10th (as part of my 10th reunion) and the Marion Village 5K on June 24th in Marion, Massachusetts. Larsson is also registered for the Marion race. He and Nora will start out the race being pushed by me in the double jogging stroller but Larsson will get out of the stroller towards the end and run the last bit over the finish line. This will be his third road race and he is excited.

The Reunion Run will satisfy my running requirement for that Saturday but I'm supposed to run 6 miles on the 24th so, if you can believe it, I am actually going to be one of these people who finishes a race and then goes out and keeps running. I used to make fun of these people.

In case you were wondering, I did indeed run my 3 miles yesterday and today. Nothing eventful to report, which is probably for the best.

I did it!

It's a good thing that I feel like there's some public accountability now because I did not want to get out of bed this morning. But I did. I dislodged Nursing Nora at 5am, gathered my things in the dark and then ran outside for the scheduled three miles. It felt good to get started. And only one menacing dog barked at me and he was contained by an Invisible Fence.

Training starts tomorrow

Well, officially, training for the Nike Women's Marathon with Team In Training starts this Saturday but I'll be in MA for the weekend and will miss the first group run. But since I'm going to be running the 1st Annual Lowell Spinners Road Race this Saturday instead, I figured I better get in at least a few runs before the race.

So, starting tomorrow morning, I'm going to be getting up early and heading out to run a few miles before the family wakes up. Wish me luck! And be sure to check back for exciting accounts of how I narrowly avoided attacks by rabid farm dogs and dodged horse-droppings on these country roads.

(Hey, since you're reading this, do you want to donate toward the cause? Just click here to visit my Team In Training donation site. Thanks!)