Patience; the new endurance sport.

 10:31 AP I went up to run with Smooth and her neighborhood runner friends. They each remembered me from runs we'd done in 2011. One in which I got a speeding ticket in the middle of Nowhere West Lehi at 5:15 am driving over to meet them at the trailhead and the other when I almost keeled over of hypoglycemia in the savory wooded region of the Rose Park area on the northernmost end of the JPR. Fun times. Smooth and I were only going to run 10, but the morning trail was cool, the mountains beautiful, the conversation uplifting, and the company excellent. For the first time in a long time, I remembered what a training run with buddies feels like. It was euphoric. I finally am fit to run with company but now my favorite running pal is now going to be gone for 3 years. She is going to be an amazing mission President Mom. I have desperately needed a shot of Susanna and will forever be grateful she, Larry and Eric were safe in Boston. Some people are energy vampires they suck you dry and leave you exhausted. Some people are flowing fountains of love and light. She is the latter. She gives me good energy, makes me cry and softens my heart every time we run together. I always come away wanting to be a better person. There is no one stronger, more inspired, more filled with positive energy and faith than our girl Smooth. Now we have to share her with Australia. Next week is UVM and so I'll come to the course around mile 21 or 22 and head down to the finish. Maybe I'll find some buddies to cheer for or even pace to the end. Hopefully Smooth can come. If she can Ill have someone drop me off at the 13/half point and run the finish. Larry "gave permission" for smooth to run the half marathon (and we just laughed knowing theres no way she can only run the half. Whats the difference between 13 and 26 anyway, haha). I am looking forward to hearing all Susanna's mission president stories in 3 years time. Excited for UVM. If things keep going well this summer, I am going to run it next year.

10:17 AP/ Ran the temple and golden mile loop after eating two pieces of pizza and some ice cream.  It was a bad mistake.  But the sunset over the city from the top of Rock Canyon Bowl was worth it.

Met up with Rachel, Karen, Becca, and Smooth  at the JPR. Those girls were so nice to wait for me, I broke the cardinal rule of running--I was LATE. We ran and chatted and walked, and chatted some more.  Afterwards I made plans to meet / cheer everyone from mile 20 at UVM on Sat. and then run the last 10K w/ Smooth.  I gave Karen my number so I can join them on the Murdoch trail for some of their long runs.  It will be nice to hang with runners closer to my own age since Cath, Rach and Josse are at the height of their speediness. I had to work directly after and so I did the grossest things I have done yet in the name of running. I washed the sweat off my skin & face with some 'wet one' from the car as I was filling the tank at a gas station, I threw on a button down shirt-dress over my sweaty everything, jimmied out of my running stuff under the dress, put on  perfume and went to sell cars at the auction.  I felt really bad about it until I arrived at the auction and remembered that 73% of used car dealers arrive wearing acid wash jean shorts, socks with sandals and have questionable hygiene to begin with. As I arrived, a gentleman with a white 5 inch long handlebar mustache (waxed into a fine points) opened the door for me. Ahhh, car dealers.

Can't wait till Saturday! 

10:17/9:42/9:28/9:49/10:00/9:59/9:56

I couldn't run till the afternoon, and it felt hard. These times reflect walking up hills. But the fact it sub 10 mm suprized me. It really felt tough though. When I stopped running and stepped inside ! the sweat accumulated amd dripped all over. . I'm tired now.

I had to walk a couple of times today--really horrible run (AP 11:00).  I forgot to eat what I was supposed to before heading out the door.  I spent most of the run hoping stay conscious or throw up.  It sounds so easy to remember "to eat".  But it has to be the right food.  I had an orange and some milk.  I just forgot the oatmeal.

I had Diego drop me at the mouth of the canyon and I ran towards the mile 20 marker, at mile 19 Rachel ran by ( she was pacing the 4:00 hour group). She said Smooth was back there, so I ran up toward mile 18 cheering and clapping for runners as I went. I turned back toward mile 19 afraid since I'd told Smooth I'd be at 20. She could see me from way off and raised both her hands up and yelled my name. I was so happy. She looked strong. I'm sure the runners were getting hot, but I thought the day was gorgeous. Green canyon walls, blue skies. I promise I did not feel event millisecond of discomfort. Smooth got a little quiet around mile 24-24. She was afraid she was cramping up. So we sang "called to serve him" as we passed th temporary missionary housing and talked about her mission and son coming home. She should be greeting her son right this minute (2 years!). Today was her 47th marathon and last before Auatralia. As we came into downtown Provo, I started to get verklempt. I knew Smooth was exhausted, but I was sad the marathon end was coming so soon. As we approached the last .10, we saw Ericka sitting on the side with her camera. we said hi and then Smooth said 'lets sprint!" So we ran past this old guy making it into the finishers chute cause she wanted a picture with me crossing the finish. So basically we elbowed that old guy out of the way so he wouldn't block our photo op. Just kidding, everyone was clapping after we started sprinting. He got his own shot behind us. We saw. Rebecca who'd finished up with 3:16! Smooth, of course knew everyone and said hello. We waved at Rachel dipping her legs in the ice jacuzzi . Larry was kind enough to take me with them to lunch. We at where Smooth's so. Had lived at BYU called the village and we ate at the Aweful Waffle. It was delicious. I was so happy for Smooth getting to see her son today. She's off on a new adventure now. I am so glad I recovered enough and in time to do a few runs with her. I got to run past the spots on the UVM course that defeated me in 2011 and it felt great. I am totally going to do UVM next year.

I've been working since Sunday at 3:00 p.m. so like 56 hours of never sitting down.  First I had hours long meetings with business partners who flew in for our golf tournament. Then the CEO of my organization got into a car accident right before the tournament at 7 a.m.   It was left to me to direct the entire affair all day long; Which most especially included playing hostess to the most competitive personalities in all Utah: Kyle Whittingham, Ron McBride, Bronco Mendenhall and LaVell Edwards.  Our MC, Hans Olsen (an ex BYU football player, who is now an ESPN 700 radio announcer working mostly with the U) was the MC and he saved my bacon.  I generally don't love blond, football types. But he is now my new work boyfriend.  Mostly I had to direct the luncheon and keep my Vicodin addled coworker (who is supposed to be running the tournament) out of trouble and away from the players and "celebrity" players.   I wish I was in charge, he'd have been in rehab this year.  Tournament was a stressful, sad day for me to do it alone.  Today was my kids 14th birthday, and I started to get out the door this morning and remembered he has cross country at 7 a.m. so I turned around to decorate the hallway and kitchen with birthday notes and try to make it look like I didn’t forget it was his birthday by breakfast.  

I swam about a mile at Deer Creek this afternoon.  I cooked a bbq dinner and took a paddle board, a kayak and the kids up around 4.  While they played, I swam along the buoys that ran parallel to the shore.  It was very very hard.  It was windy and the waves slap you in the face when you're trying to breath and the water was cold so I had to keep moving.  I had to stop and rest at every buoy.  I'm a good swimmer, but not a fluid one.  And swimming against the wind is hard.  I knew someone that did a 2 mile swim in the ocean; I still can't imagine doing that without fins.  In La Jolla they have markers for swimming 1/4, 1/2, and 1 mile swim straight out.  I have a panic attack every time I try to go beyond the half mile marker.  Besides which, I've been invited to do it at night to see the phosphorescent kept and instead of marveling at the beauty of the phenomena, I was panic stricken that I would be bitten by a shark.  So Deer Creek doesn’t have sharks, but they do have some wicked wind that picks up the waves.  Not sure when I’ll be trying that again.  I think I’ll stick to paddleboarding.

I spent 13 minutes running the first mile straight uphill.  It's first like a 7% incline and then about .25 miles of 30%  so walking up is very similar to running up.  Did the run at 11 a.m. which seems like it should be bad at 84 degrees, but there was a good cooling breeze so I didn't feel at all bad.  While I was just finishing up, I hear a cat call whistle coming from a car and look over to see Cath and her girls riding up from behind.  She's been running at 6 a.m.  but ever since my kids have been in high school now, they are up and need my help between 6-7:00 a.m.  Soccer, cross country, driver's ed camp prep ,etc etc.  They put everything between 6-8 a.m. with the idea that the rest of the day is packed, but turns out it's just everyone trying to get their stuff done before it gets really hot.  So running early has gotten harder and harder this year. I guess pretty soon, once they are leaving for college no one will ever need me for anything except money so I'd just better suck it up for a while. 

We went to Smooth's farewell on Sunday, All Smooth and Larry's children came from all over the country to be home. We are al going to miss our girl too much. Today I ran past Sasha. I forget we all live on this side of town now.

11:06/10:03/10:31/10:24/10:17/10:52/10:02

Ran to the water fountain at dusk. It was delicious.

temple loop-rock canyon bowl x 2

I dragged on this run.  I mean, dragged a dead horse. AP 11:10 

1) because I ran a long run less than 12 hours ago 2) it was 90 degrees by the time I got out 3) I have had the stomach flu and a migrane all night 4)  I spent an hour trying to get my blood sugar above 58 and finally just ran anyway.  It made for a horrible run.

I rocked this run, compared to yesterdays abysmal dragging a dead horse day.

Today's AP is 10:03 and that includes my uphill miles.  Mile 6 was flat and so I tried to run a 9:00  mile and ended up dry heaving for like a half a mile after (can you believe that?  over a 9 minute mile?? I can't, I'm disgusted).

 But overall, I kicked out a bunch of 9:30' and 10:00s (I'm at work now and don't have my splits.  I may add them in later).  That's better than the 11:00's of winter.

 This run felt good in spite of the fact I overestimated my distance up the canyon and had to run 8 instead of 7.  Today success is owed to the following factors: 

1) it was 65 degrees outside 2) I feel mostly recovered and only a little sick/nauseated but no migrane 3) The 20 kneeling squats I do a day are starting to strengthen my glues/hams.  I only half fell like I'll fall down if I try a sprint.

It was nice and cool this morning but because it was late ish (9:15) when I left, I decided to go up to Vivian from the mouth of the canyon. All the runners coming down bid me hello. I must have looked like a real runner to them. Wishful thinking I guess. Anyway, the run up to Vivian's went by incredibly fast. it was just so pretty on the trail and I was really enjoying myself. my hips got a little achy by the time I turned around. I don't have an AP cause my Garmin beeped its last breath this morning. But my guess is 10:30's.

This is the closest I've come to a 40 mile week in a few years. I decided to take off Friday, but if I hadn't I would have hit it. I need to do a few of these weeks and see if my body can tolerate the beating. My blood sugar was wacky for a while after, but it could have also been dehydration, or the sick idea bite I have in my leg. Otherwise, I went about my Sat. Business per usual and without major fatigue. So, pretty good!

Ran evening, it is so hot I think I'm dying. This rash has driven me mad. And the Meds are killing me. But the evening was lovely in spite of the intense heat.