27 degrees

That was the temp this morning when I set out on my 10 mile loop.  This is my first run since the 40 miler on Saturday.  I had hoped to run Sunday and Tuesday, but with several sick children in the house, this was not to be the case.  Mom-duty comes first and I am just thankful that I didn't have to skip the 40 miler, only a few shorter runs.

I was not really looking forward to getting into the cold weather since I seem to be fighting a bit of the illness myself, but after reading Dave's post, I had to run.  I even wished for snow.  Being inspired by other runners is always a good thing.  It gets me out of myself and out on the road.

My legs felt pretty nasty for the first few miles.  The flat roads felt like hills.  I took it slow and tried to think of it as more of a slow recovery run.  The sun was shining beautifully and I tried to place myself in the moment.  Sun.  Brisk, cold air.  Peace.  God.  The kids feeling ill was still present in my mind, but I knew that they were in safe hands at home.

After about four miles, my tummy started talking to me, telling me that I should probably change my route up and find the park restrooms.  Unfortunately, as I approached them, I could see that they were closed for maintenance.  Uh oh.

I had to really cut the run short and only was able to get in 5.5 miles today.  I have 20 on the schedule tomorrow and a few more ( 5 or so) on Friday morning before heading out on retreat with my confirmation students.  Trying to get running in this weekend will be close to impossible as my focus will be on them.  I do plan to try to run Sunday night after I get back.

I feel like now that my longest week and mileage has been done, the next few weeks of training are going to be trying to strike a balance between staying healthy and uninjured.  The last thing I want now is to have all of these weeks of hard work to be for naught because I get bronchitis or hurt myself or something as equally frustrating.

Now it is time to start thinking logistically about how Rocky should go.  My ultimate goal is to finish, but I would love to have a plan thought out for nutrition and a time goal to aim for.  I think 28 hours would be a great 1st 100 time.  I will admit that cutting it that close to the 30 hour time limit makes me more than a little nervous.

Running Rocky won't be a solo event.  There will be others helping me the entire time and I know that I can't get it done without their help.  Perhaps someday I will be able to be completely self-sufficient on running a 100, but this time, I don't want to be.