The Long Run

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October 31, 2005

Figuring Out Lunch

Lunch is turning out to be a very tricky meal. At my previous job I brought the same lunch every day, although it wasn't all that healthy. For the past few months at home, my lunch has been a cross between healthy and grazing. Now that I'm working and do not really have the access to everything that I have been eating, my lunch has not been quite satisfying. It is significantly healthier than it previously had been, but I can't seem to figure out the volume. I had been starving on Friday, but thought that was due to running errands in the morning and not being able to have breakfast until almost 10:30. Today's lunch was bigger, but it still didn't really do the trick. The problem is that if it is too big, my stomach won't take it during a workout. Today was the opposite problem....

The group at the track tonight was really small, probably both because it is Halloween and it is dark out now. Doing workouts in the dark is extremely difficult for me because of my very poor vision. My balance isn't very good either, so with that combination, the first few runs in the dark are very awkward. We were doing 400s with a 200 float, we decided that because it was dark to not worry about timing each one, to just do them for half an hour. I felt really good for the first five or so, but then in the last fifty meters of the fifth 400 I got really woozy and dizzy. I stopped and fixed my shoes and tried to re-group. I made it through two more before the feeling came back even stronger. At this point I made the executive decision that it was healthier to just run easy for the rest of the workout. I was too afraid that I would stumble and fall, or even worse, faint. I did do the warm down, which was probably not a very good idea because I was still feeling light-headed. The drive home was a bit iffy and I've been trying to eat to keep my blood sugar up right now, but I still feel off.

I'm planning on getting to bed early tonight and getting a good night of sleep. Things can only be better tomrrow.

Posted by Blondie at 08:07 PM | Comments (2)

October 30, 2005

Extra Sleep

In theory, the wonderful thing about setting the clocks back is getting to sleep for an extra hour. This is a great theory, but it rarely seems to work in real life. Take last night as an example. I was really tired from getting up early and running hard at the race. I fell asleep on the couch pretty early and then woke up and decided it must be time to get in bed. Once I was in bed it was pretty darn difficult to sleep. Finally fall asleep, a few hours later is bathroom time. This is all great until I wake up at 7 because my body feels like it is 8 and time to get up. The main problem with this is that there is absolutely nothing to do early on Sunday morning!

Since it has been quite a long time since I ran on the G trail, I decided to go there. Part of this decision was that I wanted to get a slightly longer run in this morning because I didn't do a long run yesterday and that I feel like I need a change of scenery. It was much, much warmer than yesterday. There were warm pockets along the trail, maybe where more sun got through? I had more encounters with dogs than I would have liked. There was this one bunch of women all just standing in the middle of the trail with their dogs and talking, how terribly rude! If you're going to stand around and talk, please move over to one side or the other; don't hog the entire trail. I purposely started out very slowly, my body was tight and a bit tired and then just went with the flow. By the end I was feeling pretty good. On my last back portion (I did two out and backs) a guy who I had seen accross the road caught up with me and asked what I was training for. When I told him nothing in particular, he commented that I was running awfully fast to not be training for anything. He and I ran together for the last back and talked the whole time. He's getting ready to do Philly and was on his long run. It was really nice to have some company, the only times I do tend to be on workout nights.

Today I have done a ton of laundry. It is really my least favorite task to complete. There is a ton of it just waiting to get folded right now. The Eagles game is on TV in the other room, but I'm frustrated with them. They just are not playing as well as they should be. They are back in the game now, I stopped watching when they were down 28-0.

Oh, this afternoon I did my second run. These won't be around much longer, although I must admit I rather like doing them. I did my 5 mile loop and timed it and discovered that it was quite zippy. My legs felt nice and perky, but I didn't want to do too much since tomorrow night is a workout night and those are more important in a way. The hard work, mileage, and trying to do faster intervals are paying off now. Thank you for the compliments on my race-it did make me very happy to see all of the work finally pay off. I had been saying that I had not really done any races that indicated my fitness and now I have.

Hope that everyone has a good week!

Posted by Blondie at 06:40 PM | Comments (1)

October 29, 2005

Happiness is a Hot Shower

There are plenty of other things that I am and can be happy about, but today a hot shower was one of the things I was happiest about. By the time I got home, I was a little popsicle and needed to stand under the hot water for a long time to thaw out. Long showers aren't something that I do on a regular basis, it must be the swimmer in me-I'm in and out very quickly, but when I'm cold, look out, I'm in there forever.

Yesterday was the first day of work at my dad's office. It was really overwhelming. The main problem is you can't be trained on how to do something all the way through because it can take years for one thing to go from start to finish. This means learning how to do different parts of the job on different clients. There was just a little bit of everything going on yesterday. I didn't pack enough for lunch, so there were bowls of candy corn that I kept grazing on-I know, BAD! It is just so tasty, although completely nutritionally void. After work, I went to the gym and rode the bike for half an hour and then stretched some. Friday is my day off from running (and working out if I'm really tired), and because I was going to race today I didn't want to do anything too taxing.

I got up early this morning for the race. I like to be up early and to the race on the early side so that I don't feel rushed. I watched some TV and read the newspaper for a while before leaving, to relax. It started to rain on the drive over even though the weather report specifically said no rain today! Anyhow, I got there early and started to get intimidated by a woman who was there. This woman looks really fast, but she has never beaten me. I know, I know...looks are deceiving. After registering, I got back in the car and turned the heat on to wait for J to show up.

He got registered and we went off to the bathrooms before warming up. We did most of the course backwards for our warm-up and noticed that the wind was going to be a bit of an issue at the start. While we were on our warm-up jog we saw another J who trains with us and was hoping to get under 18. We got back to our cars and went about changing out of warm clothes (it was really chilly) and into racing shoes. It was about five minutes before the race was supposed to start and I realized that I had to pee again, but didn't think there was enough time to go back to the bathrooms, so I found some bushes and took care of that. Geez,to strangers out there I do use regular bathrooms, but at races sometimes there just isn't enough time (it seems that I'm always writing about going somewhere in nature!).

We went over to the starting line and found out that the race was going to be slightly delayed because the police weren't there yet. To stay warm, we jogged around and did a few strides. The police showed up and we got ready to go. J decided that he wasn't going to run with me (like I had hoped), but that I should just keep him in sight for at least the first mile. Neither of us were too sure about what either of us was going to be able to do, especially after my not so great race two weeks ago.

The race went off and I was pretty much in the lead from the gun. There were some girls who run in college that were lining up in the front that freaked me out, but I never saw them during the race. During the first mile I tried to stay pretty relaxed, not push too hard and run out of steam. I looked at my watch at the mile marker and saw it was 5:47. This worried me some considering I had gone out slower two weeks ago and kind of fell apart in that race. I kept my focus on J's back and tried to not let him pull too far away (he's the kind of guy who can really accelerate through a race). I also tried to catch the guy in the yellow shirt who was a bit ahead of me. A bit after the mile, the other J passed me, I passed him back and tried to stay with him until he surged again a little bit after the two mile mark. We went through two in 11:40 where some guy was yelling out splits. At this point, my legs were really cold and it was starting to really hurt. I kept telling myself to push through it and not give in, but there was a small point where I think that I wasn't as tough as I should have been. The problem on this course is that this portion of the course is really ugly as well as being the part that hurts the most. I did get myself back into it and started to really close in on yellow shirt guy. Some one was at three miles calling out splits (17:40) that made me really happy because I knew that I had sub-19 in the bag, the question was by how much. I never caught yellow shirt, but was closing and finished in 18:15.

This race made me very, very happy. I ran relatively even splits and felt pretty strong the entire time. I may have been able to be a few seconds faster because of the wind and the small portion where I kind of fell asleep, but I haven't run close to that fast in two years. This was my second fastest road 5K ever and my fastest on this course.

J and I warmed down with our friend T who happened to just show up. T said that he saw us before the race but decided to surprise us instead of letting us know he was there. As I was running up to where he was, I thought to myself that it looked like him, but from a distance most male runners can look pretty similar (tall and thin). We did about 3 miles to warm-down, for a total of about 9 for the day.

I won a $50 gift certificate to some art gallery. The card didn't have an address, phone number, or what it was on it. I looked it up in the phone book to figure it out. Of course, fifty bucks probably won't make a dent into anything there, so I'll end up having to spend a lot more money.

My mom met me at the awards because the race was in a shopping center with an LL Bean store in it. She was looking for sweaters and shoes and I needed to buy my dad his birthday gift. His birthday was almost two weeks ago, so it is time to finally give him something. He has been riding his bike with the backpack I took to school in second grade, so I decided to get him an adult-sized backpack.

Anyhow, by the time I was driving home, my nails were turning blue because I was so cold. I will say it again and again-I am wimpy in the cold and don't want to be uncomfortable at all. If I had not been racing today, there would have been plenty of layers on. It seems that my body just does not really generate heat once I am cold, hence the long hot shower today.

Posted by Blondie at 01:26 PM | Comments (4)

October 27, 2005

The Attack of the Flying Popcorn

For the longest time, I didn't really care for popcorn. The regular microwave stuff that is drenched in butter is not appealing at all. About two years ago, I saw a clip in the newspaper about putting regular kernels in a paper bag and microwaving it. I know that Alison wrote about this before. I like my popcorn this way, our microwave sometimes burns it a little, but I like it a little on the burnt side. My mom, on the other hand, hates it burnt and hates the burnt smell even more. In order to solve this, she went out and bought an airpopper for the popcorn. The thing does pop the popcorn well, but it goes everywhere. Popcorn is flying all over the kitchen, as well as unpopped kernels. It doesn't just go out the chute into the bowl, it goes everywhere. I think that I'm going to stick to using the paper bag method, it seems a little safer after I got hit with an unpopped kernel.

I don't want to sound like I am complaining about the weather, because it seems that I am never happy with the weather. It is just that we have had very few perfect running weather days lately. This morning was chilly compared to what it has been. I believe that we even had some frost overnight. I went out for my easy five miler this morning. My body was very tight when I started out and stayed that way for about the first three miles. That is just how my body is first thing in the morning. My hands started to get warm in the last two miles, so I pulled my thumbs out of the gloves. The wind still hadn't died down completely, but it was better than yesterday.

This afternoon I got a bunch of errands out of the way before my life of leisure is gone. I had to pay my credit card bill, which I can do in person. The branch of the bank is out near the running specialty store, and my Mizunos that I won't really stray from are almost shot, so I stopped in there. The Mizunos probably can make another week or so, but I was there so I picked them up. The light on my watch died and it is getting dark for when I do track work, so I got a new watch while I was there too. My track shoes are pretty done, but I'm just going to use one of my pairs of racing flats until January when I have more income. A few shops down from the running store is a gourmet grocery store that is the only place that carries the kind of chocolate that my dad eats (his one and only indulgence), so I picked up three of his chocolate bars because I was there. Finally, I picked up a few groceries at the regular grocery store on the way home so that I could have dinner tonight.

It was quite chilly, in my book, when I went to the track for the workout tonight. I wore pants over my shorts so that I could have them on for the warm-up and warm-down, but in hindsight I may have preferred to have them on during the actual workout as well. There were only five of us doing the workout, so it was a small group. We had a leisurely warm-up and then started the workout. The schedule called for 6 x 800, but because I am racing I was only supposed to do four. The rest of the group only did four for various other reasons, including racing this weekend. Tonight was one of those nights that I would have done a lot better if there had been someone for me to run with. That isn't to say that the 800s weren't OK, but they would have been much better with someone to share the work. The first one was right where I wanted it to be, 2:51-holding back. The other three were 2:55s, but it was hard to push myself that much more by myself. My quads were freezing and it was harder to breathe. I workout better with someone else. Some of it is that you have someone to work with and some of it is that if I ease up I feel guilty that the other person is depending on me to set the pace. Only M did the warm-down with me. It was really dark by that time and I forgot my reflective vest so I don't think he would have let me go on my own even if he wasn't going to do it.

I think that next week I'm going to start doing the bulk of my training in the afternoon. As much as running in the morning is nice, I think that is part of the reason that I have not been running as fast as I once did. My body just can not run as fast as I would like first thing every morning, so I want to train myself to run faster on my normal runs again. I have to work out some kind of schedule with my dad about when I'm going in, but he is willing to give me a key so that I can get in early and leave early to run. We'll see how it works out.

Posted by Blondie at 07:38 PM | Comments (1)

October 26, 2005

Blustery

The weatherman on the local news was using blustery to describe the weather this morning. It was quite different than yesterday. Well, actually it wasn't all that different. It was still cold (in my opinion)-in the low/mid forties this morning. It was still windy, with the gusts getting pretty high up there. The big difference was that it was not raining and it was really sunny in the morning. Some of these weather conditions did change later on in the day. The wind seemed to calm down as the afternoon went on and it did warm up some, things that sort of made me wish that I ran later on in the day.

I did run in the morning. As I was out there, I was thinking about how there wasn't very long this fall that I was wearing shorts and long sleeves. I went pretty much straight from sports bra and shorts to tights, long sleeves, and gloves (my wardrobe this morning). Towards the end, my hands did start to get warm, but that was easily remedied by pulling my thumbs out of the gloves.

There isn't too much to say about my run this morning. It was better than most Wednesdays (my pathetic day), but it wasn't a terrific feeling run by any means. The sore spot on my left foot is feeling better most of the time. My right foot felt a little bit on the crampy side. I can't think of any other way to describe how it feels, it feels like the outer side of my foot is tired and cramps. I just did my basic 7 mile loop and there was nothing too exciting about it.

I ran some errands this afternoon, one of which was getting my free running shoes. This involved driving out to a store that I don't particularly like going to. It isn't a running specialty store and the people who work there aren't that knowledgable. I had to get a pair of New Balance shoes and my salesperson could not believe that I didn't wear New Balance. They didn't have a full line, I kind of need a new pair of light-weight trainers for speedwork and tempo runs. They didn't have a single pair of light weight trainers in their line up. I'm honestly afraid to really stray from my Wave Riders for the bulk of my training. I've been wearing them for what seems like forever and any time I wear something else for the bulk of my training, something decides to act up. I picked the most comfortable pair, but my friend M had them and hated them-it made her PF act up. One of my other friends wears these shoes and doesn't seem to have a problem with them. The last time I won shoes from this race, I picked the most expensive pair because you have to get the most for free, right? Anyway, these shoes were awful. I wore them once and had to give them away. They were way too rigid and stiff and just uncomfortable.

After getting the free shoes, I went to the gym to do my lifting. I rode the bike to get warmed up since I was pretty chilly. After riding, I lifted more than I have in the past few weeks. Lifting is starting to take a backseat right now since I'm racing more. The only other option is to find a different day to lift because doing races is more important to me at the moment.

Posted by Blondie at 07:31 PM | Comments (1)

October 25, 2005

Drawing Blood and Breaking Out the Tights

Today was my weekly meeting with the product developers. I guess that is what they are. I'm pretty sure that they are developing some kind of product, but I don't get that much information-they just want me to run. Easy enough for me, I get paid and do something I would already do.

Usually I moan and groan about having to run on the treadmill, but today I was kind of happy to be on it. It was chilly and rainy this morning when I headed over to the gym. These weather conditions resulted in it being significantly more crowded than usual at the gym, making getting a treadmill more difficult. I have mentioned more than one time that I am a bad treadmill runner. It is harder for me to run on the machine than it is to run on the road. My stride changes and (probably the bigger problem) something about how I carry my upper body does not work well on the treadmill. My right hand constantly hits the bar that blocks you from running off the belt (which I would do). Today I hit the bar harder and more often than usual and ended up cutting my right ring finger. The ring that I always wear probably contributed to the cuts because it is not a smooth ring.

I did forty-five minutes on the treadmill and was doused in sweat. We were done then and I was supposed to get at least an hour in, so I had the choice of running more on the treadmill or going out on the road. Since all of the treadmills seemed to be occupied, I opted to run on the road. Well, I was sweaty and it was chilly, so I never really got warmed up. My quads were freezing because I had on shorts. My upper body wasn't too bad since I had brought a GoreTex jacket with me. I didn't wear a watch, so I used the clock in my car to determine how long I ran, about half an hour. All I wanted to do when I got done was get into a hot shower because I was freezing!

This afternoon I was really really tired for some reason. I set the alarm and took a nap. This luxury is going to end on Friday when I start to work for my pops and have obligations during the day. Today was the kind of day that makes me want to nap-dark, cold, and rainy.

This afternoon I did my shorter run in tights. It was about 47 degrees out, definitely tights weather in my book. My legs get so cold that I can't run in shorts unless it is a race or track workout if it is below fifty. I am a wimp when it comes to cold and I like to feel warm, I'm pretty sure that although I sweat a ton when it is warm that my body can't get warm when it is cold. Strange. I felt a little off early on in the run, but by two miles into it I was cruising. The rain had stopped (it's started again), it was just wet and cool.

Hope that everyone is having a good week!

Posted by Blondie at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2005

Racing the Rain

The weather today steadily got worse. This morning when I went out to grocery shop, it was sunny. I don't really recall it being windy. A bit on the cool side, but it is late October, so that is normal. By the time I was getting ready to leave for the track, the weather didn't look very promising. It was getting colder, very windy, and the green on the radar was inching its way in. This area isn't really supposed to be in the path of Wilma, it is two low pressure areas converging over the Philadelphia region that is supposed to dump over two inches of rain by tomorrow night and have gusty winds-according to the meteorologist.

I got to the track and we all started to complain that we were cold when we were just standing around. Then we started to wonder if we would get done before the skies opened up on us. The workout was to do 400s, but instead of having a set number, we did them for time. The goal was to do 30 minutes of 400s with a 200 float and get them in before the rain started. There must have been a really strange wind going on because the wind wasn't in your face on the backstretch, it was actually at your back. In all the years that I've run on this track, there probably have only been about two or three times that this has happened. Instead, there was a fierce wind on the homestretch of the track, as this track always has at least one stretch with a strong wind.

There weren't that many people at the track tonight. When it starts to get dark and the season starts to end, people stop coming for a while. I ended up running by myself in the wind for most of the workout. The first five quarters were very comfortable in 87, but then the wind started to pick up. I guess that I also got a bit out of it mentally because there was one guy way in front of me and a big group behind me. The group cut some corners on the recoveries and caught up to me. J said they kind of felt bad that I was out there all by myself. I did the last few with them and brought the splits back down to 87s. I really think that if I had been doing the intervals with someone else and took turns leading, I would have been comfortable doing 87 or faster on all of them. It started to rain on us after about 25 minutes, so we didn't beat the rain.

It was raining pretty hard during the warm down and I don't expect it to stop anytime soon. My legs feel very tight, I need to schedule a massage soon. Tonight I definitely need to stretch and roll around on the foam roller to work out some of the kinks that I'm feeling.

Posted by Blondie at 07:58 PM | Comments (0)

October 23, 2005

Mingling with Runners

Letting an extra day go by before writing in my blog seems to make me scrimp on writing about what actually went on. It seems like when there are more runs to write about, I write less about each run because I don't think that anyone really cares that much if I felt great or if I felt like crap. That being said, this will either be really long or really short.

Yesterday morning did not have ideal running conditions. When I woke up, I could hear that it was absolutely pouring. I had to run early because I had already paid the money for a ticket to go to homecoming. I'm cheap, I paid for it, I'm going to use it. I got over to the school where we meet and it was dark. Nobody else was there. I waited for a few minutes and M, who usually runs over because she lives so close, drove over. She said that if nobody else was there, she wasn't going to run. At this point, I was considering going to the gym and running on the treadmill because it was raining awfully hard. We waited for a few more minutes, and three more people showed up. L could only run for an hour, and nobody really cared if we went an hour, so we did a loop that is about 8.5 miles. The rain did ease up during the run, it was probably what Becky considers "fake cold". It was chilly if you were just standing around, but once you got moving it wasn't too bad. I was comfortable in shorts, long sleeves, a light jacket, baseball cap, and gloves that stayed on until I had to fix one of my shoes. The pace was nice and relaxed, it was one of the more enjoyable runs that I have gone on in a while. I ended up adding on with one of the guys who made it. We ran for another half hour, about 12.5 miles. I would have liked to get to run for two hours, but I couldn't convince anyone to go that long and it was just gross outside.

I skipped my cross training and lifting yesterday because I had to get ready to go to homecoming. I would have had time to at least do my lifting, but I would have been too cold. Even changing into dry clothes would not have helped because I was chilled to the bone. A hot shower was really the only thing that was going to get me warm once I stopped moving.

Homecoming was fun. There was a track/cross country reunion. Mingling with runners usually results in conversation about what races you have run and what your times are. Most of the alums who were there were men in their forties. The assistant coach and I were the token young females. Thank goodness they had tents because it rained quite a bit yesterday. After a while we went up to the local bar that we all frequented in college. I ate terribly yesterday, all junk and I paid for it today. I got home too late to eat a real dinner, so I snacked on junk.

This morning, my run was pretty crummy. It was sunny and very windy. My legs didn't feel all that bad after a shorter long run yesterday and lots of walking around. My stomach wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible. I felt pretty weak because I ate so poorly yesterday. A few years ago, the way I ate yesterday was normal, but I have made a real effort to eat more nutritious foods and when I don't, I can really tell.

I went for my second run after the Eagles game. The game was not pretty, but they managed to pull it out. This run was much better than the one this morning. I have to believe that it was partly from getting some healthy foods in me and just getting the junk out of my legs this morning.

I ended up with 67 miles for this week. I never used to be mileage obsessed, but now that I'm running more mileage, I don't like having low weeks. I realize that because I am going to be racing more often now, my mileage will have to drop if I want to race fast. In another six weeks or so, I'll have a week that is either zero or in the single digits-yikes! It's hard to do, but it is good for me...it prevents injuries and it keeps things fresh, but it is so hard.

Posted by Blondie at 08:17 PM | Comments (0)

October 21, 2005

Rest is Best

OK, so I do take every Friday off from running, but this week it seems to be more needed than in some other weeks. The sore spot on my foot does not seem to be bothering me as much as it was yesterday. I don't know if this is mainly because I have tried to put on any of the shoes that irritate it. Whatever the case is, resting my foot seems to be helping it.

Reading other blogs sometimes makes me feel guilty about taking a day off every week, but it seems to work well for me. My body takes well to one day of rest per week. I could probably get away with one day off every ten days, but it is much easier to follow the calendar weeks than to work in ten day segments. This is more because the group I run with has set workout days and taking a day off every ten days would not work well with the schedule, I'd end up doing a workout or long run alone and those are two things that I prefer to do with other people.

This morning I did go to yoga. Yoga seems to be more beneficial for my body when I do some kind of warm-up cardio first, but I slept too late to do any cardio first, so my body was especially tight. After last night's talk, with an emphasis on flexibility, I determined that I need to be better about getting my behind into yoga again. I could feel myself loosening up as the class went on, but it was still tighter than it would be later on in the day. It was so dark in the room because the lights were out and it is just a dark and rainy day.

This afternoon, I rode the bike in the basement for forty minutes and read a magazine. This was really only to kill some time because I have been bored today. My legs do feel better after shaking out some of yesterday's workout. Running a pick-up for time is harder for me because I don't really have a focal point on where to end. Some people tend to run faster on those intervals, like J, and others slower. Yesterday did end up being a good workout, because J pushed me up all of the hills.

When we warmed down, we talked about my racing this year. I didn't have time to write about this last night, and it would have made the entry very long. Anyhow, we both agreed that the races I have run have not really indicated what kind of shape I am in. There have been a few that do, but only two that we could really think of. The half-marathon I ran in the spring was probably one of the best races that I have ever run due to the difficulty in the course. PDR was a good race, in fact I probably ran better than the condition I was in at the time. Other than these two, my races have been subpar. He felt I needed another week of race specific training before Tufts. There is no question that I was tired last weekend when I raced, and that ended up being my best 5K so far this year. He told me that he hadn't really wanted to say it, but the marathon in the spring really affected my entire summer. I told him that it still affects me because my bad days are very bad.

I was planning on driving about an hour next Sunday to race, but he asked me to see if there were any local races on Saturday. I have a feeling that he might be thinking about running with me to help me in a race because I have been racing so poorly lately. He would be a great help, he has a fantastic sense of pace and I know that I can run with him. He has this way of saying, "I'm surging and you better not let me get away". The man just ran a 17:40 5K, he's in his later 40s and is only running about 20 miles a week because he's fighting injuries. He could easily run in the low 18s and hopefully bring me through with him. I did find a race on Saturday that is local and on a fast course, so we'll talk about doing that.

Tomorrow is my college homecoming and I decided to go to it. It means that my morning will be a little bit rushed to get up there. I'll have to cut out my cross-training in the morning and possibly my lifting, but I can always do that another time. Unfortunately, the forecast looks wet :-(

Posted by Blondie at 03:46 PM | Comments (1)

October 20, 2005

Frazzled

It is really amazing how busy one's day can be without having much to do. Today was one of those days, I felt insanely busy, but there really was not that much that had to be done. The things that needed to be accomplished all needed to be done at around the same time, so it just felt like there was a lot going on, when there really was not all that much happening.

My body was still needing some extra sleep, which is probably just a price to pay with higher mileage. At least there isn't anywhere that I need to be most mornings, so I can indulge in my extra sleep. I could hear all of the cars out on the road when I first woke up, so I waited a little bit longer before getting up to run because trying to cross semi-major roads during rush hour is such a hassle. This run wasn't anything special. My body felt asleep for the first three miles, not a surprise considering I'd only been up for about ten minutes before heading out the door.

The top part of my foot still hurts. It only hurts when shoes are on it. It doesn't hurt walking around, and most shoes don't bother it. My running shoes hit the spot and the boots that I just had on aggravated it a little bit. Internet research wasn't that helpful, I can't really isolate what it is. The shoes that I ran in this afternoon hardly bother it, but I also put some moleskin on it to add some extra padding to that area.

I couldn't do the workout with the group tonight, so I met J earlier to do a workout. We couldn't go on the track because Girls on the Run had rented it and then another high school that does not have a track was using it for a workout. There was no way that we would have been able to get any sort of quality workout in. Instead, we went and did the four mile road course, but instead of doing tempo, we did four minutes hard two minutes easy until we finished the course. Well, we did it four times and then just ran hard to the finish. This didn't bother me too much because my stomach was feeling kind of heavy, so doing something as precise as a track workout was not appealing. We did keep a good pace, but I definitely felt better on the first part. The second half of the course is significantly harder than the first par. J was much stronger at the uphills than me, but that isn't much of a surprise.

I had to rush home, so as is typical when rushing, I caught every red light. I had to be back out the door in 20 minutes to go to a clinic for beginning marathoners. I thought it was at one place, but it turns out it was not the right place. I ran all around that area in my heeled boots only to find out I was in the wrong place. I ended up being late, which I felt terrible about, but I really tried to be on time. Luckily, it was a low key question and answer session.

Today is also my dad's birthday, but I have not gotten a chance to get him a gift yet. I did stop and pick up a card and I know what I am going to give him, I just have to actually obtain said gift.

Posted by Blondie at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2005

Think Positive Thoughts!

I must have been tired last night...I fell asleep on the couch watching TV and the phone didn't wake me up when it rang at 11:46. The only reason I know that there was a phone call then was that I checked the caller ID when I got home this morning. Even upon waking up this morning, I was a zombie.

It took a while to get going and once I did, I was convinced that my run was going to be lousy. This must have been a self-fulfilling prophecy, because my run was terrible. It wasn't that I felt really bad, more tired and dead. The top of my left foot hurts where I tie my shoes, so tying my shoes was a challenge. This has happened before, on my right foot, and the only thing that really helps is not having the bow right on top of it. My right foot also felt kind of crampy, so having a bad run already; I sat down, fixed my left shoe laces and massaged my right foot. When I feel dead, sometimes it is easier for me to just stop and walk a little bit than to run very slowly. The slow pace makes my form feel off, so I would rather walk a bit. This is probably just my body's way of letting me know that rest is necessary. Otherwise, part of feeling so crappy was a result of not eating right yesterday and not getting enough water yesterday. Early in the afternoon, I realized that I had not had any water yet today, so I played chug-a-lug to catch up. This is so not like me, I try to be on top of the water all the time.

The mornings are starting to feel more like fall, but in the afternoon it is still more summer-like. It is nearly the end of October and we are still having high temperatures of almost 80-it just isn't right! Usually by this time of year, gloves are a regular staple in the running wardrobe, but they have only made a guest appearance this year.

This afternoon, I went to the gym. My legs felt better in the afternoon, probably from eating and being awake for a while. I rode the bike and then lifted. It cracks me up to see most of the guys in the gym who brag about being there for so long, the only real workout they are getting is flapping their jaws.

My mother had jury duty today. The room was packed yesterday, but she said it was only about a third full today. Not only that, she was done by 11:15 and none of them even got called to be potetially on a jury. None of the cases scheduled for today went to trial. Why couldn't that have happened for me??? It would have made running yesterday so much easier (as if there aren't more important things in the world).

Finally, I need to decide whether or not to go to my college homecoming this weekend. The actual RSVP for the part I'm interested in attending passed, but I'm willing to pay more. I have not gone since the year after I graduated. The weather is holding me back; the forecast is for rain and I don't particularly feel like standing around in the rain again.

Posted by Blondie at 07:24 PM | Comments (0)

October 18, 2005

Luck of the Draw

Since I had to get up earlier than usual this morning, I did not sleep very well. There was a lot of tossing and turning going on. If I had to share a bed with someone, they would be awfully ticked off at me half the time because I don't sleep all that well. I was up around 3 in the morning and didn't sleep at all after that. My alarm was set for 6:10 to get up to run. The first time it went off, I hit the snooze bar because I wanted to try for another ten minutes or so. No sleep ensued, so it was just another ten minutes of peace.

I had to flip-flop my runs today, so I did my shorter run in the morning. I could have done the longer run in the morning, but didn't really want to get up that early. It was still pretty dark when I got started around 6:30, but the sun was coming out quickly. As I did the loop that I used to do at 5 in the morning, I ran by the park area and realized that I was a complete and total idiot for doing that. It is a nice neighborhood, but running by a park in the pitch darkness is just not a safe idea. Since I had been awake for so long, my run was faster than it normally would be at that time. I also did my new add-on loop to make it five miles in the morning. It was sort of chilly at the beginning, but by the end my long sleeves were getting pushed up.

I had jury duty today. My original summons was for a capital murder trial that was slated to last for at least four weeks. When I called the juror hotline last night, the message stated that that trial was delayed and we could either be re-summoned or come in today and be part of the petit jury pool. Well, duh, one or two days of service versus the possiblity of four weeks-today won, hands down. I was part of the pool for one trial, a rape case, but did not get selected. Unlike when Barb had jury duty last week, I did not get out very early. There was no lunch break and we did not get out until about 2:00. By the time we let out, I was starving and knew that I would need to eat a light lunch in order to be able to run later in the day. It turns out that a friend of my mom's had jury duty today, so I had someone to gossip with and pass the time. My civic duty is completed, I should not be called for two years, and I have a frameable certificate that shows that I served today.

This afternoon, I was going to run from my house, but by the time I would have been able to run the traffic would have been very bad. Running at 5:30 was pushing my luck with having lunch so late, but it turns out that things were OK. I went and ran with J's middle school team since that would be avoiding traffic. This was supposed to be my main run of the day, so while they stretched and did striders, I just kept on running loops. One of the reasons this seemed so attractive this afternoon, is there are two port-o-pots in the small park where they practice; so if nature called, there was a place to go. I did the main part of the workout with the kids. One of the coaches was bribing the younger kids that if they could catch me before I got back (with a head start), they would get a dollar. The rationale behind this was that I was just running and they were supposed to be doing a workout. One of the girls did catch me; well, three did, but two of them cut the course. I ran around for another ten minutes while they stretched to get an even hour in. It got very dark by the time I finished and I had no desire to be on the grass by this time because I could just see myself turning an ankle.

As I was driving home, I saw a woman who sometimes runs with our group. She is the kind of person who is going to get killed one of these days. It was dark out, she was running on a relatively major (busy) road, running with traffic, had headphones on, and did not have on a reflective vest. As soon as I saw this, I called J to tell him, because he agrees that she is going to get killed because she just does dumb things like that. The lack of common sense is just a big pet peeve of mine.

Posted by Blondie at 08:15 PM | Comments (2)

October 17, 2005

A Dilemma

Today has been, well, boring. That is not to say that any of my days are particularly exciting at this point. Today was more boring than most days. I hardly do anything anymore, so my life is pretty dull. By not going anywhere, I can't spend money or waste gas, so I pretty much stay at home most of the time.

I did get two phone calls about yesterday. J and I talked this morning, although he would be at the track tonight. We both felt that my mile split was not too far out of where it should have been. To be blunt, there really is no reason that I have not been running in the low 18s except that I have forgotten how to race. He also agreed that I should race every other weekend from this point out. I'm not doing a marathon and this is the best time of year to race, so it is high time to put all of that work to use. Later in the afternoon, H called me to congratulate me on my race. He is the same age as my mom but acts like he is in his thirties!

Tonight was track night, but M and I weren't doing the workout because we both raced yesterday. It was pretty cool by the time we ran, but I was comfortable in short sleeves until I stopped. When I stopped before the warm-down it did get sort of chilly. M and I did 12x110 striders with a jog. My legs really didn't feel like I had raced yesterday, but doing the workout would probably be more harmful than helpful.

When I got home, my dad gave me an offer to work for him. This offer has been on the table before, but I have always avoided it. One of the women who works for him gave him ten days notice today, so he needs someone to work for him. One of the reasons I have always hedged on this is that it would involve being around both of my parents a lot. At this point I may need to take him up. I was going to help somebody out some, but that person has not been very assertive as to when the help is needed and this is a better paying opportunity (it also involves health insurance). I told my dad I would think about it tomorrow when I am stuck at jury duty, so it looks like I have a lot to think about.

Posted by Blondie at 08:31 PM | Comments (0)

October 16, 2005

Overanalyzing

The passenger side of my car has been suspiciously damp this week. My original thought was that it was because of all the rain we had. I still firmly believe that is most of the cause, but the back seat had all six inches that fell last week on the floor, or a water bottle burst open. Either way, my project ended up being more tedious than originally planned.

The front floor mats had been very wet looking, so I decided to haul out the shop vac and wet/dry vac the front floor mat. Well, when I started to do that, I noticed a lot of water on the floor of the back seat. My project then spiralled out of control to using the vac on the entire inside of the car (it needed it, I drive around with the sunroof open, so small stuff gets in). Then, I decided if the inside of the car was clean, the outside might as well be clean, too. This entailed me bringing out the elbow-high bright orange rubber gloves and getting soaked from the hose. Anyhow, now my car is the cleanest it has been in several months.

Later on this afternoon, I decided to go for another run. My legs felt fine. They definitely did not feel like I ran a race this morning. I think that part of this is because I ran a very poorly executed race. I did five miles and felt like I could have done another five without a problem. I think that I was running around 7:20 pace, so it wasn't like I was really loafing, it just felt natural. I keep thinking to myself that I probably would have run faster (and won) if I had not gone out so hard, but I was following my directions. I also do realize that 5Ks are very hard for me as I am not genetically blessed with much leg speed. I keep going over the race in my head to think about what I could have done better. My main problem was not keeping the pace controlled enough early on. It was also suggested, that although I really don't feel it, my body is not completely recovered from racing and travelling on Monday. This week was not the easiest week, between that, not sleeping well (again) and a great track workout-so my body very well could have been on the tired side. All this is fine, but I don't want to make excuses, my race tactics were poor.

After today, I can't go over and over it. The race is in the past tomorrow and then I have to move on to the future. I'm pretty sure about the rest of the races I'm going to do this year and you learn from every race you run. I know that I run my best when there is a deep field to bring out my competitive side. Only a few more hours of the could have, should have, would haves and then it is time to work on what should have been done.

Posted by Blondie at 07:01 PM | Comments (2)

A Step in the Right Direction?

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I raced today. This was yet another all women's race. I don't particularly like all women's races. They are nice in the fact that we get all of the attention, but on the other hand, it is nice to have some men to focus on when you aren't feeling too good. As both Alison and I noticed on Monday, we tend to run at a pace that there aren't too many women around and having the men around gives you something to work towards. This is a pretty big race locally, but the walk is huge. They used to do the run and walk together, but the walk has outgrown the run, so it has a seperate start time and course now. It is a huge fundraiser for breast cancer, so it clearly had a special meaning to me. My parents were planning on doing the walk this morning, but they had been invited to the beach with friends of theirs this weekend and I told them to go to the beach. My mom has been to hell and back this year with her health and she deserves to get away. They never go on vacation, so this is a rare occurence for them. I reminded her that the race will still be here next year, as it has been going on for almost 20 years and is growing every year.

It was much cooler this morning than it was yesterday. Really, it is October now, we don't need high temperatures of 75 anymore. Today's forecast is for the upper sixties, which is still unseasonably warm. This morning it was in the upper fifties, sunny, and very windy. Did I mention it was windy? The course is flat, a small loop and then a bigger loop and runs along the river. Did I mention the wind? It was coming right off the river, nice. This is where having those men around would have been helpful. I warmed up the course, which was a good idea because it wasn't the course that I thought it was going to be. Registration didn't open until 7:15 and the race started at 8, so there wasn't much time. I warmed up, was changing into my flats and putting my number on when they said that we had three minutes until the start. Great. I still had to use the bathroom, so I had to improvise and well, use your imagination...

My directions for todays race were to go out hard from the start. That I did. I went out hard, like I was racing a 5K, which I was. There was a very strong field this year, some years there is one woman who is way out and then everyone else is well back, over 20 minutes. I went through the mile in 5:55, which isn't all that fast, but with the wind it felt a lot harder. I was leading until about the two mile mark. Right around there was where I could have really used a man to block the wind and help with focus. I kept telling myself to go with her, but she put in this surge that I couldn't match. In the last quarter mile, one of the other women who I run with came blazing by. I tried to go with her, but she was flying. Anyhow, I ran as hard as I possibly could to the finish and ended up third. My time, well that's debatable. The tape has me at 18:59, but the race director always rounds up, so they announced 19:00. Well, my time on the tape was 18:59.00, so I don't agree with rounding up, but that is what they do. Our race director is always notoriously slow on the button, so I am going to call it 18:59. Why is this a step in the right direction? I have not gotten under 19 minutes in over a year, so it may not have been the best executed race, as I fell way off pace, but it helped me with the mental barrier.

I warmed down for almost 24 minutes with the woman who won. I've never run with her before, but she knew who I was. Again, we were in the wind! I plan to run another 4 or 5 miles later to sort of make this my long day for the week, that would give me about 14 miles for the day.

Since I won my age group, I won a pair of New Balance running shoes. This means I have to drive out to the store that puts this race on. I am so lazy, the store is only about 10 miles away, but it isn't an easy 10 mile drive and there is a running specialty store much closer. Unlike when Alison won her shoes, I get to pick any pair I want. The last time I did this, I picked the most expensive pair and had to special order them. Then the shoes were awful, I wore them twice and gave them to charity. Since finances are sort of tight this time around, I'm going to pick a pair that I like so that I can actually wear them.

This was the last race that I had planned for a while. After today, I was going to look and see what else was out there. There were some races that I had planned for the end of November and the beginning of December, but nothing in between. After today, I know that if I want to race well, I need to race a little bit more often than I have been. It is hard to race when your body doesn't remember what it feels like. I have been looking online and think that I am going to race the last weekend this month and possibly the second weekend in November. Both of these races draw very strong fields (and you get to run with the men!) which should bring out some of my competitve instincts. It would give me a 5K, a 5 miler and then a few 10Ks at the end of the season. At this point, I really only need to be getting a long run in every other week or so and I think I would feel better about my running in general if I started to race faster, which these races should help me to do. All in all, if anything, today helped me mentally to know that I can still run in the 18s.

Posted by Blondie at 10:21 AM | Comments (2)

October 15, 2005

Normal Is as Normal Does

Yesterday was a day off as usual. One of these weeks, I should change my days around so that I'm not quite as predictable! In a way, I have changed my days around this week which is throwing me into a bit of a tizzy. Next year, I should work on not being as much of a creature of habit, but it seems to work well for me.

I wasn't able to make it to yoga yesterday because my car was blocked in the driveway. I did some of the yoga poses on my own to try to open up my hip area that felt a little bit on the tight side. When I was doing the stretches, I could tell that I haven't been stretching enough again becuase it was a little bit harder to touch the ground, so I know that is something to work on again. In the afternoon, I went to a high school cross country invitational. It was damp, drizzly, and windy once again. I felt really bad for the kids who ran JV because the course was absolutely trashed by then. The boys race was very impressive, a course record and four other amazing races. The girls race was good, the girl who holds the course record just missed her own record on a messy course and the next several girls set significant PRs. It wasn't all that cold, but by the time I got home I was chilly because my feet had gotten wet.

Since I'm racing a local 5K tomorrow morning, I got to sleep in this morning. Tomorrow I'll write more about the race, but I will say that I don't like racing on Sunday because I can't do my long run on Saturday and can't really do my workout on Monday. I used to make fun of the people in our group that didn't race often and only did workouts and now I'm turning into one of them! It isn't that I am opposed to racing, in fact I love to race, but I like to pick and choose my races carefully. This one is important to me and I did pick it a long time ago, so I knew that it was coming.

This morning that bright big ball of light was out! I had to find my sunglasses before I went out to run. It was also very windy, which I hope dies down tonight. For the first time in I don't know how long, I felt normal! Describing what normal is isn't easy. I think that it would be that my legs didn't feel too beat up from a workout or a big mileage day the previous day. I didn't feel great, like how to describe a workout or race, but just good in general. I did my 7 mile loop from home, which many would say is too much the day before racing, but I didn't push it and I don't really want to change anything up too much before tomorrow.

I need to finish doing my laundry now so that my racing outfit is clean and dry before tomorrow morning. Laundry is just such a never ending chore, I wish that I could invent clothes that wash and dry themselves so that we didn't have to do laundry. Once they figure out how to put themselves away, I'll be a millionare!

Posted by Blondie at 11:39 AM | Comments (2)

October 13, 2005

Math on the Run

My body clock seems to be completely out of whack this week. As a result of this, I slept later than normal this morning. That and the fact that it was rainy and windy last night, so it just felt so good to be under the covers. There is just something about knowing that it is downright nasty outside and you are nice and snug in bed that is super-comforting. As soon as I took care of putting in contact lenses and brushing teeth, I was out the door to run.

My morning run was nothing exciting. I thought it was raining (it wasn't) so I put on a hat. I thought that it was chilly (it really wasn't) so I put on long sleeves. It was windy, but damp and kind of sort of warm. Being overdressed wasn't all that bad since the run is only four miles. I felt pretty decent and ran faster than normal for the morning run, which did concern me a bit for tonight. The fact that it was a little bit later in the morning was probably a contributing factor to running faster.

J had called me while I was out on my morning run. We haven't really had much of a chance to talk since the race. I am also racing this weekend, so we had to talk a little bit about what to do for the rest of the week. We are both relatively happy with how Monday went, all things considered. Of course I would like to have run faster and had a better race, but given where I was three months ago, this is the best that I could have probably done. This race has also made me hungry to run fast again, something that had been a little bit lacking in recent months. One of the things I was happiest about was being able to get back to pace after having a tough patch, that has always been something that is difficult for me to do. I tend to give up once I hit a bad patch and you just can not do that. Oh, back to what to do tonight...the scheduled workout was 1,000s, I don't know how many though. He wanted me to do them F-A-S-T. His words were, "I'd rather you do three of them fast than to do five of them at 6 minute pace". His other words were that with the conditions fast was relative because with the wind our track was going to be a wind tunnel.

When I showed up at the track, nobody was there. I guess the conditons kept everyone at home. It wasn't that bad, kind of warm and drizzly with some wind. I've definitely done workouts in much worse. I firmly believe that you really can not let the weather deter you from doing a workout, because they do have races in some pretty atrocious condtions. My stomach felt kind of heavy, but it didn't really seem to bother me during the workout. My triathlete training buddy was there and gave me somebody to run with. We did the first 1,000 in 3:33. 3:33? That seemed to be way faster than I thought I could do, we were really aiming for around 3:40. We did the next two in 3:34 and I wasn't sure if we should do one more or not. I decided that we would do the jog really slowly and do a fourth one. That one was 3:35. We did our jogs slower than we normally do, right under 8:00 pace, but it was a great workout. It gives me a lot more confidence going into the race this weekend.

While we were doing the 1,000s, I was trying to figure out what kind of pace we were running. I knew that 3:45 was 6 minute pace. As we started the fourth one, I was multiplying 60 times 3 in my head and adding 30 seconds and trying to divide it by five and then multiply that by 2 to get the quarter pace. Needless to say, this was too much thinking to do during the fast part. Then I picked 85 second pace and tried to figure that out. This ended up being just about what we were doing. I haven't done a quarter workout at that pace in two years and have definitely not done a longer workout at that pace in that long. The last one did feel tough, but I did push through it.

I hope to get to yoga tomorrow morning since I have not had a good stretch out in a few weeks. The stretching really seems to help me feel good, but the class is in the morning when my body is just stiffer in general.

Posted by Blondie at 08:03 PM | Comments (3)

October 12, 2005

One of Life's Little Annoyances

Timeliness is definitely one of my pet peeves. One of my best friends is hardly ever on time and she makes jokes about it, but it truly bothers me to have to wait for her all of the time. This morning was one of the worst displays of timeliness that I have ever encountered. I was supposed to meet my researching buddies to run on the treadmill this morning at 9:00. As I was getting ready to leave, my phone rang and it was the guy in charge of collecting the data. He said they were running late and could we push it back until 9:30? Fine with me.

So I killed a little bit of time before leaving since I had an extra half hour to waste. I got to the gym right at 9:30 and waited for the guys I was supposed to meet. I waited and waited and waited. I had left my phone in the car because I didn't expect to get any calls. Around ten till ten, I went out to the car to get the phone to see if they had called me. No messages. OK, I'm getting really ticked, they're wasting my time. What would I be doing? Don't really know, but I could have gotten done running. As I was sitting in the lobby, I did see my high school cross country coach doing some work, so I went over and talked to her for a little bit. I told her that I was waiting and had not heard from them yet. A few minutes later my phone rang and they told me they were just getting ready to leave. To make the rest of a long story much shorter, they didn't even show up until 10:30.

My run felt much better than yesterday felt. It isn't that yesterday felt really bad, just kind of tired. Although it was not the best race, it was still a harder effort than a workout-not to mention the travel involved. As my eating habits are getting back to normal I've been feeling better as well. It isn't that I ate poorly while in Boston, but I did not follow my normal patterns which may have affected me adversely. Getting back to this morning...I had to do three fifteen minute trials. I still felt some fatigue, but that was probably more related to not getting enough sleep on Monday night. My legs felt much fresher than yesterday. I drove home and ran slightly over a mile because I have this strange obsession that I can't count a run as the main run for the day unless it is at least seven miles. I figured that the five minute drive home was no worse than stopping in the grocery store.

I went back to the gym later on this afternoon. I rode the bike for an hour and got some week-old celebrity gossip, which means that it is completely out of date by now! The seat wasn't that uncomfortable until the last twelve minutes or so, then I just wanted to get off it! After riding, I lifted. Lucky for me, during the hour that I was on the bike the swim team finished their lifting, so the weight area cleared out quite a bit. I was forced to lift a bit more than I usually do because the dumb bells that I usually use were MIA. Ahh, sore arms...

Posted by Blondie at 07:14 PM | Comments (3)

October 11, 2005

Doing a Whole Lot of Nothing

Today was one of those days that was really productive, but still not all that productive. I got so much stuff accomplished, but don't really feel like I put any kind of dent into everything that needed to be done. I managed to unpack all of my wet gear from yesterday and put away all of the old laundry only to have a full laundry basket of new dirty clothes. I did quite a bit of straightening up and still have quite a bit to go. I finally got to the bank and deposited a few checks. I still have to write thank you notes to the race organizers.

This morning, I slept in as I was totally wiped out from yesterday. I went for a run in the morning, but it just wasn't anything special. I felt kind of weak and tired, which was probably nutritional-I didn't eat anything after our lunch/dinner yesterday and didn't hit the road until about 9:30 or later. I decided to kill two birds with one stone this morning and altered the end of my route to go to the grocery store because I didn't have any greens for my lunch. Running home with a grocery bag was no easy feat, but at least it was only a mile. I was having the same kind of feeling that I had yesterday after the race, a little bit woozy and dizzy, so I think that I should have eaten more yesterday before running, but that is over and something to learn from. I could not decide if I was hot or cold this morning. I started out wearing a long sleeved shirt, but got hot, so I took it off and had on a sports bra and was chilly in just that. I decided to be chilly so that I could put on a relatively dry shirt to go into the grocery store.

This afternoon, I went out for a second run. I was not sure if I should do it or not, and decided that because this morning was so bad, I needed a better experience. It was raining, not light but not really steady rain either. I considered running with the middle school kids, but the thought of being out in the rain so much just standing around was not appealing, so I went on my own. I parked at the track and did our road course. It is about half a mile up to the start of the loop and the loop is four miles, so I ended up with about five miles in the afternoon. I felt woozy again for a while, but in the last mile and a half, I started to feel better. I didn't wear a watch for either of these runs today because they were supposed to be very easy and wearing a watch tends to make me run harder than I should.

I have not completely caught up with my blog reading from the weekend, but I found it interesting that everyone thought I would have long hair. I chopped it off about three years ago, it was really long and I never did anything with it, so I cut off about a foot of hair. I truly appreciate all of the reassuring comments on my race. I have to say that it wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do, but it was a faster pace than all of the 5Ks I tried to race over the summer, so I am making some progress.

I hope that everyone is staying as dry as possible in all the rain!

Posted by Blondie at 07:00 PM | Comments (1)

Meeting Lots of Bloggers and a Race Too

It feels like an eternity since I've been able to be on the computer. I don't have a laptop and it was simply too expensive to get online at the hotel. So where to start....

It was the trip of delayed flights as this weekend ended up being the desingnated rain weekend on the east coast. My flight out of Philly was delayed, after it started to rain in one of the terminals. The ceiling opened up and it was pouring in. Luckily, this was not the terminal where I was waiting. Although my flight was delayed, my bag made it up to Boston on the earlier flight. So I was in Logan at the baggage claim looking for my bag which never came. The man working the baggage claim was telling us that there weren't anymore bags, but it seemed a little strange since there were six or seven of us who were missing bags. We finall found the baggage princess who looked at our tags and told us that our bags had made it up on the 11:15 flight and took us to the lost baggage room to retrieve our bags.

The rest of the day wasn't too exciting. I made it to the hotel which was quite swanky, met my roommate, unpacked some even though it was only a two day trip. We went for dinner which was an adventure in itself. We went the wrong way out of the hotel and could not find a single place to eat. After what seemed like miles of walking, probably only about a mile, we finally found a place to eat. The food was OK, not wonderful, but we both found something to eat on the menu. During dinner, the temperature seemed to drop a lot because it was much colder walking back than it was walking out. The rain wasn't helping matters at all. I went to bed when we got back because I was tired and knew that I was going to be getting up early on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning I got up pretty early and put on about half of the running clothes that I brought with me. I navigated the T all by myself and made it to the Fenway station to meet Alison and P to watch the BAA Half Marathon. Before the start we also managed to find Caitlin who was there because her husband was running the race. We watched the start and then walked over to the twelve mile mark which was pretty close to the start and finish area. Needless to say, we had plenty of time to kill until runners started to come by. We decided that we'd rather be watching the finish after the first few men came by, so we went over to the finish area. While we were waiting there, we saw Mary a few times. By the time we went out for a short run going out on the last few miles of the course, a long story on why we did so, my toes were numb. It really was not all that cold, but it was cool and damp and after standing around for two hours, my feet were freezing. Alison, Caitlin and I ran for about half an hour on the course looking for Caitlin's husband. It was so cool to run with two people who I feel like I know pretty well even though I had never met them before. Once we finished, we did manage to locate Caitlin's husband and Alison and P were nice enough to drive me back to the hotel. The rest of the day involved some shopping, taking the course tour, and going to an athlete's dinner which was very nice.

Monday morning I woke up pretty early since once again I'd gone to bed pretty early on Sunday night. I walked over to the bagel shop around the corner and got something for breakfast. Afterwards, I saw on the Weather Channel that Logan already had 80 minute delays due to weather and equipment failure, so I called home to tell them I'd probably end up being delayed. Afterwards, I called J to ask if he had any last minute words of wisdom, he didn't really but said he'd be happy if I ran 6:10 pace based on what we've been doing in workouts. I headed over to the Common around 10:45 and tried to stay as calm as I could.

I warmed up for a little over 20 minutes by running circles around the block that the tents were on so that I would not get lost. The rain wasn't too heavy, but it was chilly and damp. About ten minutes before the start I got out of all my warm-up clothes and headed over to the start. While I was doing striders I saw Alison, who it did take me a minute to recognize her since she was not wearing nearly what she had on the day before when I saw her.

The race itself was not anything too special for me. I didn't feel too great during it. The first mile I felt OK, it was a little faster than I would have liked it to be, but it was not out of the range where I could have been. The second mile was not too bad either. The third mile, I felt awful. This mile is probably one of the hardest miles on the course, it has the underpass and a turnaround in it. It is also probably the most uphill mile of the course. It is much easier to push through in a 5K when you feel crappy at 2 1/2 miles than in a 10K. At this point, Alison passed me and I made the goal to not let her really get any further ahead of me. Sometime around here, I heard Becky cheering for me, but the first time I wasn't sure if it was her or not. She was in spot where she saw us go by three times, thanks for cheering Becky, you helped me to get back into the race! Around the 3 1/2 mile point, I managed to get myself somewhat back into the race. I started to feel a little bit better and buckled down some. I felt like I started to catch up to the woman in front of me and closed the gap between myself and the others who I could see. My time (38:47) wasn't quite what I was looking to run, but it is the fastest certified 10K I have run in two years, so I can't really complain. I have not read what Alison felt about her race, but she ran a great race.

Alison, Audrey and I warmed down for about twenty minutes. Audrey was the only one of us who knew where she was going on the warm-down, so she was in charge of the warm-down. When we got back to where P was waiting for us, Megan was there too. After we got cleaned up; Alison, P, Audrey, and I went out for "lun-ner", a very late lunch or very early dinner and by the time we were done eating, it was time for me to head back to the airport. Audrey was so nice and offered to drive me to Logan (thank you soooo much!) which didn't take nearly as long as we thought it would.

Once at the airport, I discovered that the delays were much worse than they had been in the morning. When I checked in, I found out that the flight I was supposed to take had been delayed until after 11:00 so I asked if there was anything earlier. I managed to get on a flight that was supposed to be leaving at 8:56. While I was at the gate, there was a flight that was leaving at 6:50 or so and I tried to pull the blue-eyed, blonde with a nice smile card to get on it if possible. It didn't work, but I would have kicked myself if it did have any open seats and I was stuck sitting in the airport even longer. The flight ended up being delayed even longer, to take off at 9:39. When the incoming flight arrived, the flight attendants told us that we had to be on the runway by 9:20 or else we wouldn't be able to take off for another 90 minutes, so we had to boogey to get on the plane. Needless to say, we had all been waiting for so long that we managed to get on and boarded in record time. The flight was a little more bumpy than I would have liked, but we did manage to get home. I think that my original flight ended up being cancelled. The flight I made was originally supposed to leave at 4:40 and didn't take off until almost ten, so the delays were nightmarish.

There was construction on 95 coming home, so we didn't get back until almost midnight. All I wanted to do when I got home was crawl into my own bed, which is exactly what I did. I have yet to tackle unpacking and have a ton of cleaning up to do yet. I'll write more tonight about today. I know that I forgot a ton of stuff that went on this weekend, but thank you so much to everyone who sent good luck wishes and it was so nice to meet people who I feel like I know already!

Posted by Blondie at 11:03 AM | Comments (4)

October 08, 2005

Gotta Fly

There isn't all that much time this morning since I have to leave for the airport. I do have some time, but I have to do all of that last-minute packing and make a final check of the weather. I also had to do a final e-mail check before leaving and take a final look at the airline stuff.

Anywho...it is really raining here. I had to get up and do the 7 AM run because I could have gone on my own from home, a whopping half hour later...so why not get up a little bit earlier and run with other people? Other people meant two, as most people decided that staying in a warm bed was much better than getting up and running in the rain.

The run was pretty crummy. About a hundred feet into it, I stepped on something and fell. No real damage, just some road rash on my right hip. I felt awful. With about two miles to go, I decided to just jog reall easy the rest of the way in becuase I didn't want to do too much. All I can hope is that it is a combination of the heat, humidity (it was a warm rain with poor air quality), lack of sleep all week, and massage. My other thought is that poor runs in the days leading up to a race means a good race is in the works! We'll just all keep our fingers crossed on that.

Thanks to everyone for their good luck wishes! I'll be sure to fill everyone in when I get back as I will be computer-less while in Boston.

Posted by Blondie at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)

October 07, 2005

Hurt So Good

I had one of my regular massages scheduled for this morning. To be honest, my massage therapist is the best I've ever been to, but the massages hurt. It isn't a good sign when she says, "your calves are tight, this is going to hurt". OK, it usually hurts, so when she warns you that it is going to hurt, it is so painful. It is a given that certain areas on my body are always tight-calves, butt, and right foot without fail. As always, these areas delievered on tightness. My psoas was a little tight on the right side which is unusal, but it wasn't like those other areas. Although I am kind of sorish right now, I know that I'll feel much better later on. Her massages are so deep that it is almost dangerous to run afterwards because your joints lack the support.

In an effort to get the junk that was loosened up flowing and to flush out last night's workout, I rode the bike this afternoon. It is so gross outside that I didn't want to venture back out, so I rode the bike in the basement and read. I also made sure to drain a full water bottle while riding. I know that I need to keep the fluid intake up today even though I didn't run to need the extra water.

The weather forecast does not look all that promising. This really isn't something out of the ordinary. There must be some unwritten law that whenever members of my family travel there must be bad weather. I could go on and on with problems we have had when travelling. I alluded to some yesterday. My parents, who never go away, decided to go away one weekend. What did they do? Drive right into the Blackout a few years back. We went to Florida on training trips in college, every year there was record cold. Expecting this, I have packed for nearly every possible weather condition.

Hope that everyone has a good weekend and good luck to everyone who is racing!

Posted by Blondie at 04:53 PM | Comments (3)

October 06, 2005

Gurgle,Gurgle, Burp, Gurgle, Burp

If you repeat that sequence over and over again, you'll have an idea of how I felt during my workout tonight. Tonight was not a good stomach night, and I knew that it was coming. The bloated feeling that would not go away, no matter how hard I tried, was a major indicator. A random man on the track even asked how I could be burping and sloshing so much and still be able to run. I had to tell him the truth: it wasn't easy. Oh, yeah, the fact that it felt like July/August, not October, also made doing a workout that much more unpleasant.

This kind of upset me tonight, as the workout is one of my favorites. It was supposed to be 1600-1200-800-400 with 800 jogs. My favorite workout is pretty similar, maybe a little bit harder because it is longer and has less recovery, but nonetheless, this is a good pre-race workout. The idea is to drop the pace as the intervals get shorter. That just couldn't happen tonight. My 1600 was 5:56, but I just couldn't bring my other intervals down. The worst part was that easy running didn't really bring on the feeling of needing to expunge whatever was in my stomach, only fast running brought on that feeling.

This morning I was aware that it was going to be pretty uncomfortable running weather today. My morning run was pretty dull, but I was barely moving until the last mile of it. I rolled out of bed and went. In all reality, I felt better this morning than I did in the afternoon, but hey, life happens.

I've been checking the weather for my trip. Because I am going to Boston, that means it must rain. Every time that I have been in that city in recent memory, it has rained. Three years ago when I went to run Tufts, it rained the day before. Two years ago when I did Tufts, it poured so hard the day before the Yankees-Red Sox game was cancelled. I had to buy new clothes to wear to dinner the night before the race because the only outfit that I brought was so soaked that it could not be worn. When I did the marathon, it rained the day that I left town. I believe that it even rained when we took family vacations to Massachusetts as a child. In short, any time I set foot in that state it seems to rain! I started to pack today so that I don't forget anything important. The possibility of rain means that I need to pack more. The one great thing about this impending rain is that it should bring the temperature down!

Posted by Blondie at 08:31 PM | Comments (2)

October 05, 2005

Strange Dream

Sleep is not always easy for me. I am definitely one of those people who needs a lot of sleep to function well. I am also one of those people who does not sleep well when under stress. For a while I was pretty happy with my not working situation, my previous job was not fulfilling at all. Well, after countless rejection letters, I am not so happy with my situation and that is starting to weigh on my sleep. I have not been sleeping all that well for the past few weeks. Last night, I finally took some of the medicine I have to help me sleep and I was sleeping very well until...I had a really strange dream.

The dream probably needs a little bit of explanation. Yesterday before running at the park, we were talking about putting bug spray on because this park is notorious for deer ticks. I know a few people who have Lyme Disease, and more people whose dogs have it. Almost every single one of these people think they picked up the tick that infected them at this park. I sprayed myself quite liberally before running and did a cursory tick check (I know, I should be more thorough). Anyhow, I woke up to a dream in which I had a tick on me. All I could think about was that I was going to have Lyme disease and that some tick was on me somewhere. I did another check, but it didn't settle me at all. Once again, not a great night of sleep.

Now if today were a normal-run-of-the-mill-Wednesday it would have been no problem. Noooo...I had to be up to meet the people at the gym to wear test again. Getting up was quite a struggle, but I got there on time and waited...for 15 minutes. Normally this would have upset me some, but today it was good because it gave my body a chance to wake up some more. I arbitrarily gave them thirty minutes to show up and if they weren't there by then, I was out.

Today I had to do three trials. The first two were in bras that I have tested before. Lucky for me, they wash the bras between tests or else they'd be really nasty. The third trial was in some shirt that they have developed. The prototype was huge, apparently the researcher designed it to fit him, not a woman. It was also one layer and white, so I had to put my sports bra on on top of it. Let me tell you, I was stylin'! Just imagine: red and blue running shorts, a very long white top, and a navy blue sports bra on on top of the white top-not very cute.

As far as the running went, because after all that is what this blog is about, not my running outfits-it went pretty well. Much better than yesterday morning went. I have never been one who does much heart rate monitor training, but I have noticed that my average heart rate during the past few weeks has declined doing the same pace. I know that during the first trials, I was averaging around 150-155. Last week I was in the 145-150 range and today it was down to 140-145. I called J to ask him if that was good because he is one of those people who does a lot of training by heart rate and he said that it indicates that I am getting in better shape. If you were looking at me you'd never know, I was still soaked with sweat, but hardly breathing hard at all.

My original plan was to lift after testing the bras, but I was so sweaty and getting cold because of the industrial strength air conditioning that I decided I would go back in the afternoon. I did a few errands and also contacted the department chair person for a graduate program I am interested in. I may need to take some community college courses before I can be admitted, but it would make me feel better about my life if I was doing something to further myself.

I went back to the gym in the afternoon and rode the bike for a while. I forgot to bring the book I'm reading, so I was stuck with the limited magazine selection. It wasn't too terrible today, but nothing was spectacular. After riding I stretched some with the therabands and then lifted. I made a point to lift more and do more exercises than I have in the past week or so since my lifting has been a bit on the lackluster side recently. I hope to be sore tomorrow!

Posted by Blondie at 06:57 PM | Comments (1)

October 04, 2005

Gross!

Today was gross. It seems like I am a broken record about the weather. Anyhow, in my recent memory, there has never been a day like today in October. Fall is usually my favorite season, and October my favorite month, but if this trend continues that may change. It never got very warm today, the sun never really peeked out, but the humidity hovered between 90 and 95 percent. The dew points were significantly higher than they were yesterday making it much less comfortable.

Even though I am racing on Monday, we decided to not really do much of a taper this week. I'll usually run 8-10 miles on Tuesday, but the weather combined with feeling pretty darn beat up from last night's workout made me decide to only do 7 miles this morning. It was kind of chilly when I first went outside and misty, but once I started to run I wasn't chilly anymore. My legs felt like I had raced hard last night, which apparently was what the workout was supposed to simulate. The secondary long run really isn't as important this fall because my longest race is over and logging higher mileage isn't as necessary for 10Ks and under.

This afternoon the middle school was practicing at the park where my high school had their home course. The course has changed quite a bit since I was in high school. We have our club cross country race on this course, but on the new course. The middle school runs a very different course because they don't run as far. Part of their course is what we ran in high school way back when. There is just something about the terrain there that makes an already challenging course much more difficult, so I always feel very weak when I run there. The workout tonight was hill repeats on a hill that we did in high school. I always got passed on that hill, almost without fail. It really comes down to the fact that I am not a very strong hill runner and couple that with the terrain, I really struggle. The entire time we were doing the loop, I was having bad memories of high school. After finishing the workout, we jogged the rest of the course. I got in about another five miles this evening that felt much better than the morning run did.

I started to compile a packing list this afternoon. I don't want to forget anything and don't want to feel rushed, so I'll probably start sometime tomorrow. I don't have Alison's obsession with my racing flats, but I always end up forgetting something important. My Boston amigas will need to help me out a little bit-keep me posted on what the forecast is! I tend to pack everything I could possibly need, ever.

Posted by Blondie at 07:46 PM | Comments (1)

October 03, 2005

Reminder to Mother Nature...

...it is October, not July. Luckily, the humidity was way down, or else it would have been absolutely brutal. I don't remember many Octobers when we have had weather into the 80s. It could be much worse, and in about six weeks when I'm bundled up in five layers of clothing I'll be wishing for this kind of weather! I did get a beautiful day to do laundry and hang it out on the line.

Around 11 this morning I got a phone call from J to tell me what I was going to do tonight. We have a schedule for the group, but that does not always mean that I'm doing what is listed. He also will frequently call me to tell me how I should do it as opposed to how it is written. Tonight I was not going to do what was on the schedule, 10 x 600 with a 200 recovery. He wanted me to do the 4 mile tempo run with something after it. The first question I got when I answered the phone was "What was your pace in Philly?". I told him it was somewhere around 6:25, and wanted to know why. He said that I was to do the four mile road tempo between 6:35 and 6:55 and then I was going on the track after it, but not doing the 200s like I have been; I was to do a mile at 5K pace or faster (hopefully faster). He emphasized that it was important to keep the tempo under control because the second part was the important part. The idea was to finish the tempo, jog the half mile to the track and go without really letting my heart rate drop. He also suggested trying to get either J or T to do it with me if they were at the track.

It turns out that only a small group showed up tonight. Neither of my possible recruits was there, so I was on my own. I don't know how some people out there do all of their hard workouts solo. Part of the problem may have been that it was me and the road, there weren't even other people to focus on. The idea was to do the tempo portion somewhere between half-marathon and marathon pace and then run even faster on tired legs. The first mile of the road loop is downhill and pretty fast, so I kept telling myself to slow down and relax in order to keep the pace under control. I had arbitrarily picked 6:45 to be the pace I was going to run, it was nice and in the middle. I would have liked to do it at the 6:35 end, but the mile at the end would have been nearly impossible and that was the key to the entire workout. Anyhow, I went through the mile in 6:55, whoops, way to slow! I made a conscious effort to pick it up a little bit in the second mile with some uphills to start to get back on pace. I didn't want to bust it out on the second mile and be done, I wanted to gradually get back on pace. Anyhow, the second mile was 6:50. I really started to panic now that I wasn't going to make it on pace and that 6:45s should feel easy. The third mile has the steepest hill and lots of turns in it, I tried to accelerate through all the turns and work the ups and downs, I don't remember what my split was but I was getting back on target. I worked the entire mile uphill back to the finish and ended up right at 27 minutes, 6:45 pace. I guess that it was OK to go out slower and finish faster, but I would have liked the effort to feel easier than it did.

I jogged the half mile or so back to the track, took off my sunglasses, and got two sips of water, then I was off on my mile. I tried to run a hard but controlled pace that I thought that I would be able to maintain for the whole mile. I peeked at my watch at the 800 and saw that it was 2:55. That gave me confidence that I would be able to do what I was supposed to be doing and just dug deep. The last 300 was tough, but I managed to do a 5:51 which made me very happy. The mile on the track was actually easier because there were other people on the track and it was not just me and the road.

I got home and "pre-habbed" some, I didn't get to buy ice, but I sat in the cold water for about fifteen minutes. My legs felt pretty beat up when I was driving home, so I thought it was necessary. While I was eating dinner J called to see how it went (he had to work) and was impressed with how it was done. He said that he would have liked for me to be able to run with someone for at least the tempo portion because going out on the road alone is hard. We talked for a few minutes about the rest of the week, but he had to go. I'll see him tomorrow and we'll figure out the rest of the week before Tufts.

Posted by Blondie at 08:27 PM | Comments (0)

October 02, 2005

Maybe "Pre-hab" Isn't Necessary

Even though I was whipped last night and thought that I would sleep really well, I didn't have a particularly good night of sleep. I had trouble falling asleep and then whenever I would get to sleep I had to wake up to use the bathroom. Ah, the consequences of being slightly dehydrated, rehydrating, and not using the bathroom for over nine hours. Hopefully tonight will be a better night.

I have been almost Nazi-like when it comes to taking ice baths. I make sure that I take one on Thursday after workouts and Saturday after long runs. I have been contemplating adding another one on either Monday or Tuesday. My main wish is that I had an endless supply of ice, it does get pretty expensive to buy so much ice every week. I've found that "pre-habbing" has made my legs feel much better. I don't know if it is a figment of my imagination or if it is true, but it seems to be working. Being so busy yesterday, I never got a chance to soak in the tub. I was mildly apprehensive about how my legs would feel this morning. In my bed, I could feel some tight areas, my calves and butt in particular.

To my surprise, my run this morning felt really pretty good. The first half mile or so was kind of crunchy and creaky, but once the blood got flowing, I felt pretty good. This probably also has to do with the fact that I was on my feet and walking around most of the day yesterday as opposed to lounging around. It was a pleasant temperature, low 60s or so, and really sunny. No watch, my route is pretty accurate and on easy days if I wear a watch, I'll run too fast. I got back and did two barefoot striders in the front lawn. I'm positive the neighbors think I am nuts, but I don't care!

This afternoon I went shopping with my mom. We were looking for a specific host gift (for mom and dad to give to someone) and a birthday gift for me to give to my brother. His birthday was a month ago, but we don't really keep track of that sort of thing in our family. In fact, yesterday he called me to ask what size I wear because he was going to buy me a running shirt for my birthday. He forgot that he gave me a subscription to a magazine for my birthday. His response was that he was at the running store, so he was going to buy it and save it for later. I told him that he could lie and give it to me because he thought of me! Anyhow, he'll like the gift I got him and it is the thought that counts. The gift my mom was looking for was sold out, so she isn't sure what she is going to do now.

After our little excursion, I went on my second run. On days that I do doubles, I have been trying to make sure that one of the runs is not on roads. I figure if I am running that many miles, my body will appreciate that some of it is off-road. I could not believe how many cars were parked at the end of the trail this afternoon. It should not be that surprising because it was a really nice day and people were out walking. I ended up running a little longer than I usually will on a second run, but I felt pretty good again. No time, I just tried to stay really relaxed and get the miles in. I did have some sharp stomach pains during the run, but nothing worse than I have had in the past. If the run was any longer, things could have gotten very ugly, but it was only a short run, so it was OK.

I ended up with just over 12 miles for today. I haven't totalled my week yet in my log, but I think that my weekly total was around 73. Next week won't be quite so big. In fact, most weeks won't be quite as high anymore because I will start to race more often and only do "maintance" type running.

I hope that everyone has a great week. I'm off to see if I can figure out how Bridget did in her marathon...I thought lots of fast thoughts her way when I was running this morning!

Posted by Blondie at 06:55 PM | Comments (1)

October 01, 2005

Long Day

Today has been one of those really long days. It was filled with activity, but it was still a very long day. Simply put, I left the house at 6:30 this morning and did not return until 4:30. I'll probably forget most of what I want to write, but that is pretty normal for me!

I could not believe how nippy it was this morning when we started our run. Of course, nobody is ever happy with the weather, so we were complaining that we were cold this morning. Just three weeks ago, we were all standing around complaining about how hot it was. We can never be happy! In all honesty, this morning was pretty nice once we got moving, but it was cold to just stand around. I had to break out the gloves this morning (along with a short sleeve shirt, kind of funny looking, but I knew that I would get warm by the end). I could only convince one person to go all the way out with me today. This person is the same guy who I ran with last weekend, we didn't talk quite as much as we did last week. We ran faster and he wasn't having the greatest day. We made it out in 57:26 and then both used the bathroom. We both kind of had to use it and decided that it was better to go when there was actually a bathroom around than to take a chance and have to run off into the bushes somewhere! We came back over two minutes faster, going up the hills, to finish up in 1:52. My gloves stayed on until about 13.5 miles, so it was quite chilly. It is not getting light out until later and later. It was still sort of dark when we got started, but about 30 minutes in it was really sunny and I was wishing that I had my sunglasses on.

As soon as we got done, I headed over to the gym to do some cross-training and lifting. I knew that I didn't have as much time as usual because I wanted to get to the cross country meet. I rode the bike for 45 minutes and read another trashy magazine (this one was more recent, so maybe the news is more accurate!). I stretched with the bands and then did some lifting. I would have liked to do more lifting, but I wanted to get a quick shower before heading over to the meet so that I wasn't too offensively stinky. A gym shower isn't the best, but it is infinitely better than no shower at all.

I packed my clothes to wear last night. I thought that it was going to be much cooler than it ended up being. It really wasn't that hot, but I was in the sun pretty much the entire time, so I was kind of hot. Everyone kept asking if I was hot, which I was, but I only had warmer clothes to put on or the sweaty clothes I wore to run in earlier-neither of which was really appealing to put on. There were some really impressive runs and some not so great runs. It was pretty much a good, cheap way to spend a nice afternoon.

I know that I've missed a lot, but I did the day once and don't feel like rehashing every boring detail. No matter what, I ought to sleep very well tonight.

Posted by Blondie at 06:39 PM | Comments (1)