Training for 7/31/13

This morning, I did strength training in the attic first — ab exercises, push-ups, invisible chair-sitting and weights. Then, I strapped Pepper’s harness on him and made him do my easy 3-miler with me. It wasn’t too hot this morning, so he did fine.

I noticed it took us 15 minutes to get to the turnaround point — a 10:00/mile pace, with all his pee stops and another pause to pet some horses which, of course, terrified Pepper — but only 12 minutes to get back, an 8:00/mile pace. That’s how it always goes with him. He just gets so excited when he knows he’s going home.

When we got home, I gave him a treat and a couple of ice cubes, and he was happy again.

That wrapped up July for me, so it’s time for my monthly summary.

Mileage:

• Week 1 (July 1-6): 22.3 miles
• Week 2 (July 7-13): 32.8
• Week 3 (July 14-20): 35.6
• Week 4 (July 21-27): 45.7
• Week 5 (July 28-31): 13.3

Total: 149.7 miles

I actually ran all the miles scheduled for the first month of marathon training! It took some moving around of workouts and a couple of doubles, but I got them all done, including my long runs, which are now creeping back up past the half marathon distance.

As far as racing went, I just did two final 5Ks to qualify for the summer series, and managed to keep up my streak of winning my age group throughout the series. That’s the first time I did that in all six races.

August looks pretty similar to July. The mileage continues to increase, with long runs getting up to 17 miles, and I only have two races scheduled, both 5Ks, one on Aug. 17 in Dewey Beach and the prediction race that wraps up the summer series on Aug. 31.

I thought about doing the Charles Street 12 in Baltimore next weekend, but after going up to Pocono this coming weekend for the NASCAR race, I think I’m just going to want to relax. Plus it’ll save me $85 if I don’t run it!

Training for 7/30/13

Last night, I waited until just about the last possible minute before sunset to go for the 3-mile easy run I was supposed to do yesterday. The weather was perfect — nice and cool.

Unfortunately, the bugs seemed to be as enthralled as I was with the cooler weather. They were out in force last night.

When we were little, my brother and I called those random big swarms of gnats “scribble scrabble Valentines.” I do not know why. The entire three miles last night was through one of those damn scribble scrabble Valentines. They were everywhere! And they all seemed to be coming right for my head, which is why I kept inhaling them through my mouth and nose, and why I had to stop a couple of times to get one out of my eye. I ran the whole way with my arms flailing around my head, trying to knock them out of my way. I’m sure I looked like an idiot.

When I got home, I went upstairs to do some strength training, but I was really hungry and decided to just skip it and eat dinner instead. Then I fell asleep on the couch.

This morning, the weather was, once again, really great for running, sunny and in the low 60s with no breeze. As soon as I fed Pepper, I left for my run.

I was supposed to do another tempo run today, but I just didn’t feel like it. I pushed the pace harder than I would on a typical easy run — I think. I didn’t time it.

I had to stop in the woods to use the bathroom about halfway through the loop. I knew I was close to a little trail I’d just noticed for the first time a couple of months ago, so I held on until I got to it, instead of crashing through briars again.

The first time I used that trail, I saw a couple of boxes on stilts set back in the woods. This time, I took the time to investigate them closer. There was a sign on one box said that said it was an encephalitis test site, and the chickens could be infective, with a Delaware DNR logo. Chickens? That’s when I saw the feathers under the boxes. I walked around to the other side — the front and sides were made of chicken wire, and there were two chickens just hanging out in each box. I assume they were waiting to be bitten by mosquitoes, to see if they’re carrying encephalitis this year. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was weird!

I finished the 7.3-mile loop, and did some stretching when I got home.

Training for 7/29/13

Friday evening, after work, Clark and I (and Pepper, of course) drove to the Indian River inlet to give surfing another shot. I’d never been to that particular beach.

We got there around 7 p.m., after the parking lot attendant had left for the day, which saved us the parking fee. Clark carried the board while I was dragged along behind Pepper, who was going absolutely nuts, as usual.

The waves looked ridable, but not too big or choppy. There were a lot of people out there surfing, and making it look possible. Clark went out first and almost got up a couple of times. When he came back in, I pulled on my rash guard and took the board out.

All those jerks making it look possible were still lying to me, haha. There was one moment where I felt like I had a shot, but other than that, I just got a lot of water up my nose again. It was still fun though.

When we were walking back to the truck, we saw a huge crowd of Amish people walking out to the beach. I’m not sure what they were going to do out there; it was nearly sunset, so they didn’t have much time left. I was wondering how they even got there. Then I saw the bus in the parking lot. I guess it was a field trip.

We drove up to Fenwick and spent the evening with Clark’s parents at their place. Every time I bent over to pet Pepper, more salt water would come pouring out of my nose and onto his head haha. After dinner, we drove back home.

The next morning, Clark got up to feed Pepper. When he came back to bed, he said it was 66 degrees outside. I said I better go take advantage of that, and got up to do my long run.

I wasn’t really looking forward to running 13 miles after the previous two days’ harder runs. There was one exciting part though — this was the first run I’ve done since I bought that 24-pack of GU that I felt was long enough I needed one, so I got to try the mint chocolate flavor. I put the GU and two salt caps in the pouch on my water bottle strap and left.

The first mile and a half or so was kinda rough. Then there was a moment where everything finally loosened up. It’s weird how you can actually feel your legs unglue like that sometimes.

Even after it stopped sucking, it wasn’t a particularly fast run, and I was pretty happy to be done. I finished the 13.2-mile loop in 1:56 on the nose, an 8:47/mile overall average. On the bright side, that mint chocolate GU tasted great!

It was a lot warmer than 66 degrees by the time I finished my run. Later that morning, I cut the grass while Clark did the trimming and raked up the excessive grass clippings that result from letting your lawn go way too long between cuts, haha.

That afternoon, we eventually got up the motivation to pack some things and head back down to the beach. I stayed at the beach house in Fenwick with Pepper while Clark went back to the Indian River inlet to try surfing again. He got back from surfing about the same time his parents got back to the house from the beach.

They said they’d watch Pepper for us while we went to dinner. I decided it was a good night to go to Fish Tales. We haven’t been there all year. Unfortunately, I failed to take into consideration the fact this is probably the worst time of the summer for tourists at the beach. It seems like everyone is trying to get in one last vacation between about now and the second week of August, before kids start going back to school.

It took forever to get through all the traffic to even get to Fish Tales in the first place, and when we got in there after 9 p.m., the wait for a table for two people was still 90 minutes. Instead, we squeezed ourselves in at the bar, ordered food and scarfed it down as fast as we could to get out of there again. I am definitely one of those crusty “locals” who can’t stand all the annoying tourists. Any other time of year, they look down their noses at the Eastern Shore and Delaware, but between Memorial Day and Labor Day, they just love to sit in traffic for hours to get across the Bay Bridge and over here, where they make it impossible to get anywhere or do anything. Go home!

Anyway… we stopped by my family’s condo after dinner. Aunt Helen was the only one there at the time. Uncle John showed up right before Clark and I left, at midnight. Typical Uncle John haha.

The next morning, Clark was the one to get up early and go for a run, while I stayed in bed and slept in. It felt pretty good, I have to say. After breakfast, Clark had a report he had to write for work and email to someone in Holland. It was an overcast and not especially warm morning, so I didn’t feel like going to the beach yet. Then it hit me — I should finally go try stand up paddleboarding!

There’s a place not far from the house in Fenwick that rents paddleboards. I figured I’d drive over there, rent one for an hour, putz around on it and be back at the house by noon.

When I got there, they told me they don’t launch paddleboards from there, and it cost twice as much to rent one and take it somewhere else. Plus, when they asked me if I had used one before, I admitted I had no idea what I was doing. They convinced me to take a one-hour group lesson instead.

The group lesson left from a boat launch at the Assawoman Wildlife Refuge. I’ve run a 7-mile trail race there in November a couple of times. It was a short drive out there, and the lesson didn’t start until noon. To kill time, I took a short walk down a trail that ended at a deer stand. I’ve never been in one, so I climbed up there. I was immediately bored haha. Considering it’s usually cold and dark when most people use a deer stand, I don’t think I’ll ever give hunting a try.

I got back to the boat launch in time to see the earlier group of beginners come paddling back in. They ranged from little kids to old people, and they all seemed to have the hang of it. I felt confident an hour would be long enough to teach me how to use a paddleboard.

Six other people had shown up for my group lesson — a group of three women, another pair of women and a blind woman and her husband — and her service dog, a big black poodle named Albert. Our two instructors said this would be the first time a service animal had been on a paddleboard. The woman was certain he’d be fine.

We all got appropriately sized paddles and some brief instructions on land, and then the instructors put us on boards and sent us on our way. They told us to stay on our knees and paddle around a little bit to get used to it, and then to try to stand up, one foot at a time.

When I first stood up, I was a little shaky, and there was a brief moment before I had the hang of the paddle that I was heading for some rocks near the launch. But it wasn’t long before all seven of us — including Albert, who was perched on the nose of his owner’s board and looking perfectly calm — were paddling away down a nice, calm branch of the bay.

The instructors said we’d paddle out about three-quarters of a mile, and then the one instructor wanted to show us how you can do yoga positions on the board, and then we’d paddle back. Sounded simple enough.

The way out was easy — we had the wind at our backs. You barely had to do anything.

We got to a shallow cove, out of the wind, where the instructor wanted to show us yoga moves. And that’s when things started going downhill. People were falling off their boards and freaking out when they sunk to their knees in the exceptionally mucky floor. Then the instructor fell off his own board trying to a back bend or something, and lost his Oakley sunglasses. A 15-minute search for them produced nothing, but during that time, one of the other women in the group fell off her own board and managed to lose her paddle. We were all confused by that one — they float, after all.

The instructor who hadn’t lost his sunglasses finally found the lost paddle. The other instructor gave up looking for his Oakleys and we started to paddle back, against the wind. At this point, we were already past the one-hour mark.

It’s really hard to paddle against wind! I felt like I was barely moving. Plus, I swear these jerks on Jet Skis were screwing with us and trying to make us fall off our boards by creating waves with their wakes — they just kept circling through there, over and over. I am proud to say they never shook me off.

I was the first one back to the launch. One of the instructors came in not far behind me and got my keys out of the rental company’s Jeep so I could finally get out of there. I figured Clark was probably starting to wonder what the hell happened to me.

When I got back to Fenwick, he was still working on that report. Actually, the report was done, but he was having trouble getting it to go through email, thanks to a spotty internet connection and all the enormous pictures in the report.

The clouds had cleared out by then, so I went to the beach for a couple of hours. Clark finally got the report to go through late that afternoon. His parents watched Pepper for us again so we could go to dinner. We skipped driving and went to a place we’d never tried before, Ropewalk Oyster House, a couple of blocks away in Fenwick.

Once again, we sat at the bar to avoid the wait for a table. It wasn’t as crowded in there as Fish Tales had been the night before though. Everything we had was excellent — a dozen raw oysters from various places on the East Coast, a mini fish tacos appetizer and soft crab BLTs. They even had a saison from a brewery in Charlottesville, Va., that I really liked at the beer festival in Salisbury last fall but haven’t seen since.

When we got back to the house, Clark’s parents left, and then I fell asleep on the couch. Apparently Aunt Helen and Uncle John stopped by a little later, and I yelled at Aunt Helen when she tried to wake me up haha. She’s not the first person who tried to wake me up to get yelled at haha.

We stayed at the beach house again last night, so Clark could get up early this morning and try surfing one more time. I didn’t feel like moving when the alarm went off at 5 a.m.! I stayed at the house with Pepper, and when Clark got back, we packed up, closed up the house and drove home.

I didn’t run or do the strength training on the schedule this morning when we got home, so I’ll do that tonight after work. It’s relatively cool outside today for late July, so it shouldn’t be too miserably hot this evening.

Training for 7/26/13

Today was another lovely summer morning for a run. I was glad I wasn’t wasting my rest day on it.

I moved up tomorrow’s 6-mile marathon goal pace run to today. I’m taking another swing at 3:30 in Indy, so my goal pace is 8:00/mile.

I wore the Garmin again. I can’t remember the last time I ran with it two days in a row. No warm up today — I just took off and tried to settle into my pace.

I could feel my legs were a little tired from yesterday’s tempo run. The first mile was a bit all over the place in terms of pace, but I came through the end of it in 7:54.

By the third mile, my legs had woken up and I felt pretty good, like I was in a rhythm. The rest of the run went about like that. I finished the 6.5-mile loop in 51:07, an average pace of 7:52/mile.

I did plenty of stretching when I got home. I’m planning to knock out this weekend’s 13-mile long run first thing tomorrow morning. It’ll be at a much easier pace, but still. It’s 13 miles.

Once that’s done, I’m done with running for the weekend. My family’s annual two-week Ocean City condo rental starts tomorrow, and I’m sure Clark’s family will be at their place a little farther north, so we’ll probably be at the beach all weekend. I really don’t want to have to worry about getting in any miles Sunday morning.

There’s also the NASCAR race in Indy to watch Sunday afternoon.

Training for 7/25/13

This morning, I actually did a tempo run! I’m still a little shocked myself.

There was no excuse to skip it and just do another easy run, like I’ve been doing. I don’t have a race this coming weekend, and the weather was the best for running I’ve seen around here in several weeks — upper 60s and overcast! It was still a bit on the humid side, and it was windy, but it can’t be perfect.

It was such a nice morning, I decided to take Pepper with me. I made a mistake though — I tried to leave the house with him when Clark was still home (he just got back from Chicago last night.) We didn’t even get to the end of the lane before Pepper was circling back and leaping on me. I didn’t feel like fighting him today, so I just took him back in the house. I’m sure the panic set in when Clark left for work two minutes later and Pepper realized he was alone.

I wore the Garmin for the workout today. I did an easy mile at an 8:51 pace to warm up. Today’s tempo run was supposed to be 35 minutes, so I made a note of the 8:51 on the timer when the distance field hit one mile, and sped up for the next 35 minutes.

It’s amazing how much better it feels to try to run faster when you can actually breathe! I kept the pace comfortably hard, and covered 4.77 miles in 35 minutes, a 7:20/mile average. I doubt I’ve run a sustained pace under 8:00/mile outside of a race in weeks. It was great!

I pulled back on the pace for a cool down, and finished the entire 7.3-mile loop in 56:17, an overall average pace of 7:43/mile. I was more than pleased with that today.

Pepper was relieved to be released from his Fortress of Solitude again, at least until I had to leave for work.

Since I’ve managed to once again stick to my training schedule this week, tomorrow should be a rest day. But I’d really like to make Sunday my rest day, because I have a feeling we’ll be down at the beach this weekend. So I’m doing the 6-mile marathon pace run tomorrow instead, and then this week’s 13-mile long run Saturday morning.

I’m going to have to move up next week’s long run too, since we’re going to the NASCAR race in Pocono next weekend. I should probably just never schedule long runs for Sunday mornings.

Training for 7/24/13

Last night, when I got home from work, I got dressed to go for a run. I didn’t feel like driving out to the bridge though, so I just did a lap around my 4.5-mile loop. No hills, but I ran farther than I would have had I gone to the bridge, so, close enough, as far as I was concerned.

Pepper sat that one out. I went earlier in the evening than Monday night, and it just seemed too hot for him. He wasn’t happy, of course.

This morning, I went upstairs first thing for strength training, where I did ab exercises, invisible chair sitting, weights and stretches. Pepper and I went to the trail after that for today’s easy 3-miler.

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve been there, so I was hoping someone had cleaned up all the downed trees from that storm over a month ago, but they were still there. Pepper remembered all the routes around them. Other than the constant coating of spider webs, we had a good run together.

 

Training for 7/23/13

It’s July 23, my annual “where did the summer go?” date. Which is silly, because we’re technically only one third of the way through it.

Last night, I waited long enough to do my run that I was able to take Pepper with me. I was going to drive to the trail, because it was still pretty warm and humid outside, but I really didn’t feel like going to all that trouble. So I made him run on the road with me.

I thought maybe he’d have some trouble, but it turned out I was the one having a rough time. First of all, I’ve never inhaled so many bugs on a single run in my life, and this was only three miles. Just past the end of the first mile, I inhaled a big one that went straight to the back of my throat, and had to stop on the side of the road to try to hack it back up. The entire run, I kept having to spit out bugs or wipe them out of my eyes. Every time he’d hear me start coughing one up, Pepper would stare at me over his shoulder.

Second of all, I must not have drank enough water during the day yesterday, because I got a bad stomach cramp in the second mile. Bad enough I had to stop a couple of times to try to massage it out. Between that and the bug-ejecting stop, Pepper was getting pretty fed up with me haha.

We finally made it though! When we got back inside, I took Pepper’s water bowl into the bathroom to get him some cold water and glanced at myself in the mirror. My stomach, chest, arms and neck were absolutely coated in tiny bugs. I was so grossed out I made Pepper wait for his usual post-run treat so I could take a shower instead.

Pepper was fine — no puking, and he was happy after he finally got a treat and a couple of ice cubes (which he thinks are also treats.)

This morning, I was up in plenty to time to go to the Sharptown bridge and do the four hill repeats that were on the schedule, but I just didn’t feel like it. Looks like I’m running after work again today.

Training for 7/22/13

I had a pretty awesome weekend!

Saturday morning, I ran the Race for the Ribbon 5K in Rehoboth, the fifth and final 5K I needed to run to qualify for this year’s summer series.

Up to this point, I had been running progressively faster 5K times all summer. Well that trend came to an abrupt end, thanks to the weather.

Saturday was a continuation of the heatwave we’d been dealing with all week. It was 82 degrees at 7:30 a.m., and felt a lot hotter, thanks to the full sun and high humidity.

TK and I got there in plenty of time to pick up our race bibs and event T-shirts, and for me to do a warm up mile. Or so I thought. As I was finishing up my warm up and approaching the start line, I could see the crowd was already assembled and getting instructions from the race director, while the guys on the lead golf cart were ready to go. I heard someone say “You better pick it up!” so I did, and squeezed into the pack about 15 seconds before they gave us the start commands.

It took me five seconds to get over the start line, and then I started to pick up speed. Kind of. It was really hot and I didn’t feel like pushing too hard.

It seemed like most other people had the same idea. I noticed a lot of people who run about the same pace as me in a 5K were running my slower pace too. It was just a nasty day for running.

There were three younger guys running together near me, and I think their conversation at the 0.1-mile point about summed up how we were all feeling:

“How far have we gone? We’ve got to be halfway, right?”

“Where’s that water stop they promised?”

“I think it was that puddle we just ran over.”

“Worst. Idea. Ever.”

At the first mile marker, a guy passing on my left asked out loud if anyone had a watch. I looked down at mine and said “7:01,” about 25 seconds slower than my usual first mile in these races this summer.

I felt OK at that pace. As I ran the second mile, I caught back up with that guy who’d passed me at the first marker, and we ran together for a stretch. He stopped to get a drink at the water stop at said something encouraging to me, I can’t remember now. But I do know I said I’d see him at the finish line.

I passed the second mile in 14:13 by my watch, a 7:12 second mile. There’s not much to say about the last mile of the race. I kept up my pace.

As I was running down the final stretch back to the finish, I heard footsteps coming up from behind. Well, who likes to get passed right at the finish? I pushed myself a little harder and kept whoever was there behind me.

Turns out it was the guy I’d told I’d see at the finish line. I literally saw him at the finish line, haha.

I stopped my watch at 22:09, a 7:08/mile average pace. More than a minute slower than the last 5K I ran two weeks ago, but I was fine with it. It just wasn’t a good day for racing.

I guzzled some water, and then started a cool down mile. I heard someone call my name from behind – it was Enos, this ridiculously fast guy from Georgetown. We ran a little over a mile together and talked about the races we’ve got coming up. He said his goal for the rest of the year is to get his marathon pace down to 6:00/mile, from his current PR pace of 6:04/mile. That’s a little mind boggling for someone like me, who has never run one mile at that pace, let alone 26 consecutive miles. He won the full marathon in Rehoboth last year, and he thinks he’s going to run it again this year.

I got back to the finish area in time to see TK finish. She took it easier this time than the 5K two weeks ago also, and didn’t feel sick when she finished this time.

We exchanged our shoes for flip flops and went to the Greene Turtle on the boardwalk for the post-race party. They had a great breakfast buffet, with sausage, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, bagels, fruit, water, juice and coffee.

When they announced the awards, I had won my age group again, which pulled off my goal of finishing the series with six first-place finishes. That’s the first time I’ve done that in the four years I’ve done the series.

Two of the top three finishers in the F 30-34 AG.

I was also the fourth woman of 138, and 37th of 279 total finishers.

TK and I got our iced coffees from Dunkin’ Donuts and drove to Fenwick. We changed clothes at my in-laws’ place and went to the beach.

There were some cranky ass people on the beach in Fenwick! I don’t know if it was the heat or what, but it seemed like all the conversations I could hear were someone complaining.

My favorite was a guy complaining about an umbrella someone else had just bought that apparently was not up to his standards:

“This is JUNK! Take it back! IT’S JUNK!”

He was really flipping his shit about that umbrella. I couldn’t help but laugh. Calm down!

We stayed about three and a half hours. It was a really hot day, especially when the sun wasn’t behind a cloud. We had to run into the water to cool off pretty frequently.

Had to take this picture to send to Clark, who was at an ethanol plant outside Chicago for work haha.

Saturday evening, I went to my sister’s house for a birthday party for her twins, who turned 15 last week.

I got home around 10:30 p.m. and was in bed by 11. Sunday, I stayed up after feeding Pepper at 6:30 a.m., ate some breakfast and hit the road for my long run before it got too hot for once.

It was still pretty freaking hot though. It was gross. I did an untimed lap around the 8.2-mile loop and was really glad to get that behind me.

As soon as I got home, I jumped in a nice, cold shower. I was planning on doing absolutely nothing the rest of the day, until my brother called with a better offer.

He wanted to know if I wanted to go out on the boat.

Did I! I put on a swimsuit, made arrangements with my in-laws to feed Pepper that evening and was at the Choptank marina an hour later to go water skiing for the first time since Sept. 2006.

Kara and one of her twins, Jacob, also went, as did Dave’s brother-in-law, Wes. We were trying to get in as much time as possible on the water before some storms were supposed to come through. As soon as we were out of the marina, Dave asked who wanted to go first, and before I could think about it too much I immediately volunteered.

There were two skis on the boat, a small wooden one called the Avenger and a fiberglass one by a company called Cascade. I remembered my aunt bought the Avenger way back in the day because it was supposed to be good for smaller skiers. I also remembered not really liking it, but I couldn’t remember why, so I decided to give it a shot. I was probably the last person to use it, because the front boot was already set to my foot.

I jumped in the water, put my left foot in the front boot, slipped my right foot in the rear binding, grabbed the ski handle and gave my brother the thumbs up to tighten up the slack in the rope and then nail it.

“Here we go!” was the last thing I heard before the boat took off.

Getting up on a single ski is HARD. It is for me, anyway. When I was 14 and first learning, it took me a solid two weeks of trying before I finally got it. I swallowed a lot of water and even bruised the hell out of all of my fingers one day during all those failed attempts. You have to let the boat pull you up while keeping your weight on the back of the ski. The hardest part is keeping your balance, so the ski stays straight in the water. You start off unbalanced, because you have to hold the rope handle on one side of the ski.

It’s worth it though, because once you get up one ski, it’s a lot more fun. My family made us all learn on one before they let us try two. When you’re on two, your legs are trying to go two different directions and it’s impossible to make any good sharp turns. You can cut all over the place and fly across the wake on one.

The boat started to pull, the ski started to come up out of the water, and much to my own amazement, so did I! I got up on the very first try, seven years later!

Once I was up, I remembered why my aunt and I didn’t like the Avenger. The thing had no grip. It just felt squirrely in the water (that’s a technical NASCAR term.) I’m sure the fact I was so out of practice didn’t help, but it wasn’t long before I wiped out trying to come back across the wake.

I wasn’t done yet, so I got up again on my second pull. I stayed up a little longer that time, before the ski slipped out from under me again and I went head-first at full speed into the wake. That one rung my bell a little, so that was enough for me at the moment.

When I got back in the boat, everyone said they’d been taking bets on how many tries I was going to need to get up on the ski. I would have been offended if I hadn’t expected it to take several myself haha.

Kara got up on the kneeboard for the first time in 15 years, and then we got Jacob to try it for the first time. He got really close. I think he’ll pull it off the next time we go out.

Wes wakeboarded for a while, and then I wanted to ski again. This time I used the Cascade. The first two pulls, it felt like the thing wasn’t even trying to come up on the water, and I couldn’t get up. I decided I’d give it one last shot, and then I’d ask for the Avenger.

Third time was the charm though. Once I was up on it, it definitely felt better, and I cut back and forth across the wake until my quads felt like jelly and I had to let go.

Kara did some more kneeboarding, and then Wes drove the boat so Dave could ski and wakeboard. By that time, the sky was looking a little threatening, so we headed back to the marina and called it a day.

Dave and Wes securing Found On River Dead, aka The Party Barge. It’s the ugliest thing on the river, but it gets the job done.

It was so great to get back out on the boat and ski again! I’m hoping to get plenty more chances to do it again the rest of the summer.

Clark didn’t have to go to the plant yesterday, so he and his coworker went to the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Chicagoland Speedway. They paid for the $15 general admission tickets and then sat in some $70 seats haha. This was the view from his seat:

Had I not been on the boat, I’d have been pretty jealous! I’ve never been to that track. It wasn’t a Sprint Cup race, but I still would have liked to have gone.

This morning, I expected my arms and legs to be sore when I woke up (which they weren’t), but I wasn’t expecting my lower back to feel like it did! I don’t know what I did to it exactly. I don’t remember it ever feeling sore after skiing before. Of course, I’m not 23 anymore, so who knows — this might be the new normal.

I did my strength training, but I decided to hold off on the run until after work tonight.

Training for 7/19/13

Today was a rest day, so I rested.

Tomorrow morning is the Race for the Ribbon 5K in Rehoboth. It’s on the exact same course as the Father’s Day 5K last month.

Right now, I’m really wishing I’d done one of the earlier 5Ks in the summer series and wrapped up my qualifying requirements with the 5K two weeks ago, because tomorrow is going to be pretty much horrendous. This heat wave will still be going strong. Right now, weather.com is calling for a feels like temp of 90 degrees with 82 percent humidity at the 7:30 a.m. start. And sun, of course. On another unshaded course through residential streets.

I’ve accepted the fact I’m not going to run very fast tomorrow. Oh well. The after party is a pancake and sausage breakfast hosted by the Greene Turtle on the boardwalk, so it’ll be worth it when it’s over.

TK and I will probably hang out on the beach for a while afterwards, where it’s supposed to feel like 100 degrees by noon. We’ll definitely be running in the water pretty often, I’m sure. Tomorrow evening, I’m going to my nephews’ birthday party.

Sunday, all I have on the schedule is my long run. It’s a cutback week. Only 8 miles. It might even be raining! We’re supposed to get some storms Saturday evening and Sunday that should finally snap this heat wave. There’s no Sprint Cup Series race this weekend, just a Nationwide race in Chicago on Sunday afternoon.

Training for 7/18/13

Happy 20th birthday to my little sister! She’s grown up from a Creature Child to a Creature Teen and now to a Creature Co-Ed. I don’t know what I’ll call her when she graduates from college in a couple of years. Have to wait and see where she gets a job.

Today is, again, ridiculously hot. I had a speed workout on the schedule, a 30-minute tempo run, but it never even crossed my mind to actually attempt it today. I knew it would only be frustratingly slow, and besides, I’ve got another 5K to survive in two days.

I just ran the 7.3-mile loop at an easy pace instead. It wasn’t too bad. I don’t enjoy constantly wiping stinging sweat from my eyes or feeling my “quick dry” shorts clinging to me like a wet plastic bag only a couple of miles into a run, but it’s the middle of July. What do you expect?

I have to say, I’m impressed with the durability of the iPod nano I got for Christmas. I bought an armband for it, but it was too big for my arm and I’ve never tried to find another one. I’ve gotten in the habit of just putting it in the key pocket on the inside of the waistband on the back of my shorts, which was fine, until summer hit. It gets drenched in the torrent of sweat produced by my back every time I run with it now, but it just keeps trucking along. I was always under the impression iPods were delicate little flowers when it came to water, but this one’s pretty tough.

Guess what tomorrow is? A rest day! And since I actually stuck to my schedule this week, I get the day off instead of using it to make up missed workouts.