the weekend

This weekend's marathon training was a 15 mile run, which I had to do by myself. The saying "misery loves company" is sure true because it's nice to be able to moan and groan toward the end of long runs with Josh, but by myself the moaning and groaning is just depressing.

The plan was to meet at our usual spot near UVA and run at 10am, but at 9 he called to say his back was hurting (flair up of an old injury) and there was no way he could run, much less roll over comfortably in bed. So I re-mapped a different run leaving from my place and set off at 11.

I haven't mentioned it here yet, but the marathon I'm planning on running is pretty intense. There are multiple mountains involved. Go big or go home I say. So I'm trying to train on hills around town, but they don't really compare at all to what the real race will be like. I'm going to have to figure something else out, which might just end up being medium runs on the treadmill at a steep incline. Anyway, there is a pretty substantial hill (with an observatory on top) in town, so I ran up that twice. Afterwards I was pretty tired and achy, so I stopped in a building on campus for some water and to stretch, and a few minutes after running again I took a GU gel. This was the first full gel I've ever taken, so I'm not really familiar with them or how to notice if it worked, but I think it helped a little. At this point I had about 4 miles to go. When I had only 1.5 miles left I started to get a cramp, and I was going pretty slow. When I finally stopped at 15 miles I still had several blocks worth of distance to walk back to my apartment (which didn't look that far when I planned it on the map, it looked like a nice cool-down walk), and it was miserable. I was achy and thirsty and really wish Josh had been there to commiserate with me.

So yesterday's run was hard and didn't feel excellent at the end, but I will say that I wasn't nearly as stiff and rickety the rest of the day like I was after last week's 14 miles. That seems like improvement.

Then yesterday afternoon Josh and I drove to Richmond, where we visited with my family. In the evening I hung out with Grandpa and my aunt, then watched a bunch of tv on my own (when I probably should have been reading). This morning I read, visited Grandma, and then the whole family went out to lunch. After lunch Josh had his back popped in hopes that it will feel better soon, we took naps, did a little more homework, and then drove back to C'ville. Now I need to read more and then I plan on watching Downton Abbey.

Overall a pretty good weekend.