i'm so ready for this.

Got my gear laid out and planned out. My dread has turned into excitement. My belly if full of good things. I've been hydrating for the past 48 hours. The taper has gone well. My family is ready to cheer me on.

Come on, Chicago Marathon. Bring it.

#TeamWorldVision.

Treadmill running...

is a pain in my knee. My right knee, to be precise.

The view from my treadmill. This was my third
set of 2 miles treadmill/1 mile track laps.

I logged 9 miles yesterday. All inside because of the weather. It was raining, but I had to do it yesterday morning because that's when I could do it. It takes me at least a couple of hours to run anything more than 8 miles. And the rest of my home-based duties don't stop just because I have a long run to fit in. The kiddos still need snuggled. The laundry still needs folded. You get the picture. So I've started using 1/2 days of PTO on mid-week long run mornings to run my longer distances as marathon day looms closer (just 30 days away!)

I've been obsessing over the weather leading up to yesterday morning and knew I'd have to run inside because of the rain. A seasoned marathoner from the fun run group at LCFC suggested I alternate two miles on the treadmill with one mile on the track.

That worked great until about mile five when my knee started to hurt - it was sharp. It got bad enough that I needed to slow way down. Track runs were still fine for a few more miles, but then the ole' leg joint was causing big problems there too. I ended up walking for some of that distance, but I did get it all in. I've been icing it and stretching/rolling to get ready for my 5-miler tomorrow morning. Slow & easy, it is.

16 miles, intense fog & a mild case of heat exhaustion

I probably had some dehydration too. But to be fair, it was totally the weather's fault. Sweat can't cool you down if it can't evaporate...

A quick photo of Lake Michigan I snapped while running on Saturday.
The fog was thick and made it hard to cool down. :(

Saturday morning's long run was particularly long. The first few miles are always hard. But they usually get easier as my legs and breathing fall into a mindless rhythm. This didn't happen Saturday. At mile 6, I accepted that it wasn't going to get any easier. At mile 10, I started feeling light-headed. At mile 10.5, I told my running buddy that I had to chillax a bit. We slowed our pace wayyyy down.

We ended up walking (serious speed-walking) the last few miles to try to cool down a bit. The fog lifted - kind of. The sky started to clear. We talked about how much we wanted a tall glass of ice cold lemonade. And remembered why we were doing this huge, seemingly insurmountable thing in the first place - so that everyone can have clean water to drink, to cool down, to get clean. So that everyone (especially kids) can have all the things we so desperately wanted as we slugged it out on the running trail.

I got in all 16 of my miles and took my chills and headache home. I rung out my clothes, showered and continued on with my life of mothering my adorable kiddos while trying to take it easy, drinking plenty of water and gatorade. It's been a few days and I'm back to my old self - feeling healthy and ready for a few more miles bright & early tomorrow morning...

planning around the elements

picture taken from http://chicagoweathercenter.com/blog

So I find that I obsess about weather now more than ever. Running outside for hours at a time will do that to you, I guess.

Between working full time, raising a couple of kids and supporting the husband in his duties, it's hard to find the right time to get my miles in. Most of the time, I'm getting up at 5:30 am - or even earlier - just to log the miles on my training schedule. And on days that it rains - or weeks when it's more rainy than not (like this week) - it's even harder. Mostly because I WILL NOT run in the rain again. We did a ten miler in the pouring rain and honestly, once is really enough. I'm done with that game.

Which begs the question - how do you get your miles in when the weather doesn't make it easy? Any advice besides slugging it out on the treadmill?

Balancing life and finding the time to run all these miles feels so much harder this time around. I don't have the flexibility to just go later - so it makes waking up early a necessity. And when it rains, that just throws everything off. So that puts me back at praying for sunshine and obsessing over weather forecasts. Here's to hoping they're wrong about Thursday...