Catching Up: 12 Miles, New Kicks, New Name, etc...

THANK YOU!!!

First and foremost I want to thank everyone that stopped by Friday's post about Operation Jack and donated to my fundraising page. It means so much to me that ya'll are willing to help me raise awareness for Autism!!! For those wondering, my donation page will be open until I run Gasparilla (Feb. 28th 2010) so you have time to donate if you weren't able to Friday. Thanks again everyone so very much!!!

Fumbling thru 12 Miles with Irish

Picture it; It's 6:30 a.m., I'm driving along not paying any attention and suddenly I see a ninja cop and realize I'm going 66 in a 50 mph zone. *Cue flashing lights* D@mn it.

I text Irish Cream that I'm getting a ticket... In the parking lot... where she's waiting for me. Awesome.

This is how I start my morning Saturday. Thankfully I only got a warning and quickly met up with Irish. Parking was blocked off so we drive around trying to find a spot nearby. That's when we realize that there's a 5k race about to take place. On the trail we're about to do our long run on. Awesome.

Then she trips on the sidewalk. On absolutely nothing. Awesome.

We synchronize Garmins, begin our run and laugh at how much we are sucking this morning.

Then there's a detour. Awesome.

We haven't even gone a mile and a half and we're already laughing ourselves silly at all the random things that are happening on this run. As we continue running along we realize neither of us have our phones or any idea where we are. We begin to wonder if we'll ever find our way back to the trail and start joking about how the cop that pulled me over will be interviewed all upset because we came up missing. I know that probably doesn't sound very funny but if you were there for the running commentary you'd have been entertained. Or maybe not... maybe we were both just run-tarded.

We eventually got back on the trail and at the 5ish mark we Gu'd and I make the brilliant decision to attempt math regarding mileage and how "if we just add this turn here and loop around there" that should put us at about 12 miles when we near the car again. Yeahnotsomuch. After a few more close calls of Irish tripping on absolutely nothing, getting sprayed right in the face by a sprinkler and going back through that whole detour area again we near the race course that is on the trail where we started and realize we still have well over a mile to go. (Math on run = FAIL.) Irish breaks off to head to school and I wrap up the last of it myself. We FAILED to take a pic yet again but otherwise it was a great run filled with lots of randomness that kept us laughing pretty much the entire run.

NEW KICKS

So I FINALLY got around to getting a new pair of kicks for Gasparilla. With almost 450 miles on the Chicago Marathon pair it was high time... especially with how much my ITB has been screaming at me lately!!! I headed over to my beloved Track Shack and Betsy already had a sleek pair of Asics GT-2150's picked out for me! (The woman has excellent taste! Look at the sparkly red & silver!) I can't wait to break them in tonight on my hill repeats! Thank you Betsy!!!

HERMES

That is what I have decided to rename Captain Bluebear.

Hermes is the great Messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. He is athletic and is always looking out for runners, or any athletes with injuries who need his help. Hermes delivered messages from Olympus to the mortal world. He wears shoes with wings on them and uses them to fly freely between the mortal and immortal world.


I think it's pretty fitting name since Hermes, aka Hermi for short, will be delivering me all my running info and hopefully helping me become a better runner. Paired up with the new kicks and Coach EK's training plan; I'm hoping for quite the PR come Gasparilla in 11 weeks!!!