The Final Countdown

I will be toeing the line very soon....

Despite the mishap with Drifter as reported here on my horsemanship blog, my tailbone, which has been sore ever since, has eased up on the pain a bit for me to get in a few short runs. I was worried last week and even went to urgent care for an x-ray, but this town is notorious for its...shall I say...interesting medical care. The x-ray tech was on vacation so I walked out and decided to see how the weekend went.

I am as ready as I can be. Training went pretty well overall. I did miss some runs, but I logged more miles than before any other race. Actually, I logged more miles than my previous races combined.

The last couple of days, I have had what is called taper madness or taper crazies. I looked up videos of runners hitting the wall on youtube, looked at the weather forecast a dozen times, got on the treadmill.

Excited!
Eek!

Race report to follow....

Taper Madness

My training for St. George has turned out to be great in some ways and not so great in others. I've completed two 20-mile long runs. But I've missed days too and that might prevent me from achieving goal #1 this year: a sub-4 marathon.

In addition, my knee has been giving me some trouble the past week or so, which is pretty uncommon for my  running, but I did log over 300 miles on one pair of shoes before I realized I needed a new pair (which may help the knee).

So my goals have been re-assessed and they are now:
a) PR - personal record
b) beat Oprah (4:29)
c) beat P-Diddy (4:14)
d) Sub-4 (Will Ferrell 3:58)
e) did you know Dubyah has a 3:44 marathon??

If it matters to you People Magazine readers, I'm already faster than Al Gore and Kate Gosselin.

So I am officially in what they call "taper". You should have run your long miles and should be exhausted. From this point forward, long miles taper back until the marathon. I am just going to work at keeping my fitness up, get a 16 miler in this weekend and try to stay motivated and positive and understand that even though I didn't exactly follow the plan, I have logged more miles than ever in the last 18 weeks and am in better shape than I was before toeing the line for my previous races. We shall see if I still enjoy marathoning after St. George and figure out where to go from here. Eek!

Oops

So I ran my first 20-mile St. George training run yesterday. Travis got up early to take Pat to the airport after her 10-day visit and I got up to prepare myself for 3+ hours pounding the pavement.

I must admit, I haven't followed my training as I should. I've missed some long runs and quite a few midweek runs. I wonder if I would have stuck to the plan how much better I would feel and how much faster I might be able to attempt this marathon.

As hard as it was to complete the 20-miler yesterday, it wasn't a death march. I felt OK when I was done, albeit a bit sore (especially in the glutes and hip flexors). I ran out of water around mile 17. As I plodded along, I reached my arms back to squeeze my Camelbak for just one more drop. Suck it up, princess...there's an ice cold beer waiting for you when you get home. (Beer is a great recovery drink for long runs. So is chocolate milk. I had both.)

So I got out of my soaked, sweaty clothes and threw on a suit to go out on the deck to enjoy my beer and stretch. Next thing I know, I woke up with a pretty bad sunburn. Oops!! That's going to make my next run a little uncomfortable.

This past week, I logged 48 miles. 48 MILES! My previous best week was 31. This is a huge milestone and I am guessing the midweek miles helped me with my 20. But, again, making it through this week reminds me of what I had missed in my training. But what's done is done. My last long run of 17 was a bit of a death march after mile 15. But I ran past 16 miles before I really started to second guess why I was out there running well over 2.5 hours. This is a learning process for me. I actually do enjoy running and seeing the process of improving. And if I don't make StG a sub-4 marathon, I know I am going to get a huge personal record (PR) over the Las Vegas fiasco of 4:47:xx (part of which was extremely poor race organization, but I still take blame for undertraining).

I have 40 days and one more 20 miler and a 50-mile week till the marathon.

Speaking of logging miles, the Taco turned 200k this week!

A lot to catch up on...

June and July have been crazy busy. In addition to spending our 15th wedding anniversary in Colorado (we had a blast), Travis has improved his golf handicap (PGA, remember this name: Travis Hodges), I have attended three horsemanship clinics, took 3rd place in a cow sorting jackpot on Jake, wore a bridesmaid dress and cowgirl boots in a wedding, and have tons of updates I need to make.

I have, however, made a little bit of time to get my horsemanship blog updated, so if you want to get your computer a little dusty, mosey on over there and check back soon for me to catch up on the past couple of months.

Better late than never?

I've been a little behind in my updates. Maybe a couple of weeks behind, actually.

If you hadn't checked out my horsemanship blog, you may not know that Travis went riding with me a couple of weeks ago.

Yes, it's true...

I had to sign an agreement in order to get him to go with me, but I am glad I did. It was nice to see Travis on Jake and he seemed to enjoy himself. If you ask Travis, he might tell you Jake tried to kill him a couple of times but because of his amazing catlike reflexes and superhuman athleticism, he was able to get things back under control. I think Jake was just testing the rookie and got schooled. It was good for both of them! And it made me happy!


I was able to get down to Temecula to hang out with Hans and Samantha a couple of weeks ago. We went to the mall and I got Samantha a couple of new bathing suits and an outfit. Then we went to the park with some yummy Farmer Boys' fried zucchini and sat in the shade while Samantha ran around and played. She is really pretty brave...tries things on her own and holds her ground when the big kids go blowing past her up the ladder to the slide.

Hans begging Johann (great name!) and Samantha not to run him over

They didn't know where he ran off to...

Samantha peeking around the corner for her daddy

She is a kewpie and I love her little voice when she says "think you, unt su-sanne" and when I asked if she wanted to hear Hannah Montana or Party Rock, she answered "potty rock". And when we saw a Tom & Jerry shirt at Old Navy, she said "Your favorite, daddy!"

It's been great getting to see her grow up. She seems so independent and doesn't get too worked up about much. She and Hans gave me a bag full of Robins Eggs from Easter and I learned a good trick from her. You can shove them in your cheeks so you can get more in your hands.

Caddies can wear shorts

A foot of fresh snow feel in Big Bear this past weekend, but we got to miss the white stuff because Travis played in a charity golf tournament in Palm Springs at the Classic Club Golf Course in Palm Desert.

While he and John were golfing, Candace and I hit the outlets in Cabazon and got some great deals at Under Armor, Cabi and Volcom. After shopping, Candace and I went to the clubhouse and watched the awards in which it was revealed that:

Travis's team took 1st place in the Charity Tournament.

So on Saturday night, we went to Kobe Restaurant in Rancho Mirage. No, not Kobe beef. It's kind of like Benihana except more tasty and more pricey.

I don't think any of you readers will ever realize how big of a deal it is that we went to Kobe. It's Japanese food. Travis went there. And he LIKED it. He really enjoyed the teppan chef. It was awesome! 2012 has been a big year for us. Travis has ventured out of his food comfort zone twice. Himalayan food and Japanese teppan have now been added to the list of acceptable places to eat! Yay!

Travis and John got up Sunday morning to golf in La Quinta. I was half asleep when Travis left the bedroom and I overheard a conversation that went something like:

John: Pants? it's going to be like a hundred, dude.

Travis: If I am going to be on The Tour, I'm going to have to get used to wearing pants.

John: Caddies can wear shorts.

Travis: Then you can caddy for me in shorts!

How is it that guys are so quick witted and can insult each other and make it sound funny, not bitchy?

Despite John sending this picture to us:

Travis won a couple of "skins"...I still don't understand why they call it that...and we met the guys at Las Consuelas Nuevas for a late lunch.

Finally, we met up with Mellany and Mark for some Cold Stone ice cream before leaving warm weather for not-so-warm weather back on the mountain.

Tuesday Two-fer

In light of a new entry on my horsemanship blog, I thought I could use this opportunity to update this one as well.

That's for you, Jason. Speaking of Jason, now that I've linked up with your blog, is there any chance you can share on your blog how the Moab trip was?!

This weekend is Trevor's birthday. Travis has a charity golf tournament in Palm Springs. Snow is in the forecast here. Bummer...