10 Miles with a Rock Star

No fun Tales from the Gym for Saturday, alas. Everyone was just generally annoying and boring. Although I did see a few asshats trying to pretend that they knew how to use the foam roller. Good times!

Sunday had a 10 miler on the schedule. This would also mark my first experience with the run/walk method o'running races. I was a bit nervous, just because I really want my rematch with the Palos Heights half marathon to go well. Seeing as how I've been pretty consistently running sub-10 minute miles recently, I didn't want to lose any ground in my training. I was in good hands though. Leslee's been running for over 10 years and PR'd in the Indy Mini last year with 1:45. And that was doing the run/walk, so I wasn't really too terribly worried.

Anywho, I learned that we would be joined by Leslee's (and a bunch of other girls I run with) friend Julie, who is a rock star. No, seriously, she's on tour right now. I'll actually be catching her show this coming Saturday. She just got back from touring in Amsterdam, where Revolver gave her a great review. I'm diggin' her stuff right now, so I was excited to get to run with her. I figured with the running/walking, we'd be able to chat.

Well, I did this for a while. And then I lost all powers of speech, due to the speed. We took the runs at a decent clip and powered through the walks too. We ran for 9 minutes and walked for 1 minute. Both of these together averaged a 9:30 pace, which means that our run intervals were pretty fast. Damn. By the time we finished, I was ready to be DONE.

Luckily, the weather was outstanding! And I was able to personally witness the first water fountain to be turned on for the running path crowd. FYI, it's the one that is just South of the Ohio Street beach. The wind was low for a change. There were a few men who decided that 50 degrees is appropriate shirtless weather. Alas, they were not the men who should have decided to go shirtless. Oh well.

After the run, Leslee and Julie gave me a ride home where I proceeded to ice my heel and study for the GRE. Yep, my heel/ankle/tendon is still sore and puffy. These things make me worry. A lot. And since I was pretty tired and a little sore this morning, I opted to take Monday off and get in a good run tomorrow. I'll be back at the gym on Wednesday.