My Sister's First Race

Congrats to my sister for completing her first 5k (the Komen race for the cure in Minneapolis on Mother's Day)!!! I am so proud of you, Murph! I received a phone call the next day listing 4 more races she was doing in the upcoming months!! hehehe... running can be quite addicting!!

This past week I logged 25 miles and included a solo 10-miler. This was encouraging for 2 reasons. First because I increased my mileage by about 10% over the previous week and second because I was able to get myself out the door to do 10 miles by myself. when i was in the best shape (probably this time last year), all of my long runs were with PR. When I had trouble finding time to get the long PR runs in my schedule (aka last summer and fall), i didn't have the motivation to get out the door by my self and log the miles, so hopefully this is an encouraging sign of what is to come this summer and fall training season.

My Partially New Front Wall

Here is a picture of the front wall after the first weekend of work. I did some work this past weekend as well, finished the left wall, but I didn't make much progress on the smaller right wall. Perhaps this weekend.

This past weekend was the BSR, but as I stated in my last blog, I decided not to run it. A lot of the people I ran with got PRs so that is great. Reading their race reports made me miss being in the race even more. I guess it should teach me to be out of shape!!

This saturday I ran the loop with english mike. It was a leisurely pace, except for the last mile or so. I think the last quarter clocked in around 1:34, so we were moving by the finish. I felt great during the run, no joint problems, didn't feel too winded. that is until i stopped running... as soon as I stopped i got extremely nauseous and got an intense headache. I ended up getting sick on the drive back to my house. It seemed like any liquid i drank that morning was just sitting in my stomach not getting absorbed... very strange. i threw up... drove home... took some aleve, slept for an hour and felt better. i think i am switching back to gatorade from the Clif shots drink... i blame that.

also, i put in 5 miles last night with the last 2.5 at about 7:30 pace. it was nice to see that I could still put in a few quick miles. it is certainly a start to getting back to where I was.

My Front Wall

as many of you know... i have begun the epic battle of rebuilding the retaining wall in front of my house. To many, it may not seem like an epic battle, but to those motivational disadvantaged like myself... it will without a doube be quite a struggle. To increase the reader's involvement in the project I will include pictures of the progress of the wall.

Here is a before picture. Note the mop on the top of the wall, which I believe was some dead juniper.
I started last weekend and with the help of two guys from work (thanks vince and stan), we made some pretty serious progress. I will try to get a picture up this weekend.

ohh yeah... running. I haven't been great about running the last two weeks. the whole stomach thing kept my mileage down for a week and then the wall last weekend kept the mileage down last week. I think this week, I will be back up to around 20 miles (assuming I get int he planned 8-10 tomorrow).

Broad street run is sunday but I opted not to run. I think it is best that I focus on just getting my mileage up, doing house work, and plan for some races during the summer and fall. Here are some races i have been kicking around in my head: the double trouble, the River 2 Sea relay (if I can convince people to do it with me), PDR, possibly the philly marathon, maybe a random 5k or 10k. looking at that list actually makes it sound like a lot of races for me...