Looking forward to tomorrow, I think

I missed the 15 miler a couple of weeks ago, and the 12 miler a month ago kicked my behind because of the heat, so I'm looking forward to really seeing where I am with my ankle and general fitness. I do ok during the week, still am not crosstraining like I need to. My ankle is feeling better and I hope to get back on a bike next week, get to the HP, or something. My running is going really well, even with the ankle brace. I'd like to get rid of it, but as long as I feel more comfortable with it on, I'll have it with me. I did take Thursday off because my legs were tired, but ran a short easy on this morning. I know it's a day off, but I have found that I do better on Saturday if I run a bit on Friday, call it active recovery. If I sit still on Friday, then I suck wind on Saturday. I do make a point to keep it short, slow and keep my heart rate much lower than it usually goes.

My reward for tomorrow's 16 miler is Dairy Queen. I'm a reward eater, but I try not to reward myself for those wimpy little 8-9 milers. We MMers hardly break a sweat for those any more. :-) But a 16 miler, I figure, is worth a tiny bit of ice cream. I do keep the serving size down though, only a cone, or maybe a small blizzard. Just something to let me know I've been there. I sure hope the cheesecake factory people know we're coming. By the time we do 26.2, we'll be ready for a big treat! God forbid they'd run out . . .

See all of you Saturday, and looking forward to it.

"Stay Prayed Up"

I could not wait to blog about this quote I just heard. I was talking to a lady on the phone just now and we were talking about God keeping us safe (someone had recently shot into her house, but thankfully, no one was injured). She said we just need to "stay prayed up" and it struck me that she really hit the nail on the head. I smiled to myself when she said it, never having heard it put quite that way before, but she's a very wise woman who has lived a blessed, wonderful, happy life. There's something to be said for her motto, and I think I'll borrow it as my own. However it needs to be said for us to remember, the bottom line is true. Prayer is truly the answer.

Working on speed

I was very excited on Saturday when, even with the slightly longer mileage, I was able to average less than 12:00 miles over 9+ miles. That is my goal for this marathon, to be able to average over the entire course below 12:00 miles. So I worked on speed this morning, and ran off and left my running buddies several times in order to loop back and pick them up again (I'm also trying to add some distance, which I was ready to do before I hurt my ankle, but am now taking it a bit easy). It was a great run, but I did tire out toward the end. And my time was not that much faster, I think I just didn't get into a good pace, but was more up and down the whole time. Maybe the old adage is true: Slow(er) and steady wins the race, or at least my race. Regardless of the time, I'm just thrilled to be able to run. I'm having a little pain in the ankle, enough to make me frown occasionally, but all in all, it's doing way better than I expected by now. I'm worn out on ibuprofen, tired of icing, but if that is what keeps me on the roads for now, so be it.

Trying now to start sucking down the fluids for SAturday. Hopefully, if the weather man is right, it won't be terribly hot, just moderately hot. :-)