October 7, 2011

So this week started with a great weekend! Last Saturday began with a 5 mile tempo run and then the typical Pike household breakfast (2 scrambled eggs with peppers and Turkey sausage. and 2 pieces of toast). Breakfast is easily my favorite and most satisfying meal, and it's the same thing every day but I still look forward to it. After our daily errands Nicole made a chocolate chip cookie recipe that produced the best cookies ever! If you know anything about me, you know that I love cookies. Actually I love all food but I can go to town on a batch of cookies when I don't allow sweets but once a week.

Sunday is our day for our long runs. This particular Sunday was the longest run in the Hal Higdon Intermediate Half Marathon Schedule at 11 miles. It was an easy pace in cool weather with a few friends and Nicole. We started somewhere new and ran some roads just outside of town. At the end of the run we found a trail that was about half a mile long that winded through a field of what we guessed is wheat. It was a really nice end to the run. We went with our friends, Nicole, Jeff, Ben and Kaity to a pumpkin patch. Cadence loves Ben and Kaity and when she knows we are going to see them that is all we hear about until she gets her fix. Right before we left for the pumpkin patch I made the rest of the cookies. I think I baked about 5 dozen while Cadence napped... I sampled at least one cookie from each batch that came out of the oven. I was not doing so well in a house filled with cookies. They had to be eaten, given away and/or DESTROYED!

The weekdays are just the days we go through the motions. Nothing that great ever happens during the week except the moment I walk out of the door from work. Monday was a upper body strength day, also the day my iPod quit working. Tuesday was the day for speed work and this day was a 10 x 400 workout with a 1.5 mile warm up and cool down. I think it was about 7 miles total and I was feeling pretty good when it was over. Wednesday was my recovery run of 5 miles easy. Thursday was lower body strength and for the first time I had some company on this workout. Carl joined me for a lower body thrashing. Since we finished the workout we have been texting back and forth describing what new pain our lower half is feeling at that moment. And at this moment it's a throbbing throughout the backs of my legs, top to bottom. Friday, today, was an easy 3 mile jog.

So after this week everything seems to be working well and no new pains and nothing has gotten any worse. I have been having a bit of tension in my left knee but have been stretching and paying attention to it. It seems to be fine and I think it's mostly nerves that make it hurt. My anxiety of missing a workout, race, anything really, can really play tricks on my mind and body. I have actually made my doctor give me X Rays to look for kidney stones in my past because I was worried about missing a music festival. Another time for that story though... My left shoulder did have a bit of pain after my upper body workout on Monday but it seems better as well. I'm hoping that the strength conditioning in my IM training will do a better job of injury prevention and keep these pains to a minnimum so that my brain will slow down.

So the day I went to get my iPod replacement at the Apple Store just happened to be the same day that Steve Jobs passed away. I think he was a pretty amazing person that really did make a ding in the Universe. And his ding was a lot more than being able to carry 5000 songs in your pocket. I always thought he was just a good money maker and the iPod guy. After hearing all of the stories about him now I feel that I should have paid closer attention to him. He was a very smart guy with a great outlook on the world. I feel  that he and I share a lot of views, only he is much better at following them. Without looking up the exact quote I'm going to just paraphrase. He said something about not living in someone else's dreams, chase your own dreams. I have always felt this way but never followed it or acted on it. I have always felt that I have the ideas but I just need someone else to either do it for me or to force me to do it. Well, I'm not doing this any more... In my first blog I mentioned that I am setting goals and following them. And I am, I have a plan and I'm going to stick to it until I reach my destination.