What it do

Thank you for your comments, ladies.

In answer to your question Lucy, I'm nowhere near where I used to be when it comes to running. I injured my knee while mountain biking two summers ago, right before my first 50k (or 50k attempt). I ended up dropping out of the race after 25 miles because the pain in my knee started shooting down my leg into my ankle and I decided another 6 miles wasn't worth it if I was going to wreck my knee.

At the same time, I was also suffering some tendinitis in my shoulder so I wound up basically putting all exercise on hold just due to pain. The problem with that is that I got lazy. I didn't scale back my eating to compensate for the lack of exercise and I got fat and out of shape.

All this to say that when I was training for that ultra, I was running around an 8:30-9 min mile. I've never been very fast. And when I started running again this past year, I was very out of shape and was back to doing a 12 min mile. I've since knocked that down to about 10:30 but I'm not about to attempt any more ultras until I get that down under 10. Plus my distances suffered too. When I started running again this past year, even running 2 miles felt like work. I'm up to 10 miles being comfortable, but I get slow at the end. When I run more than 6 miles, my average pace drops to between 11 and 11:30 min. So I'm working on it. It's frustrating to think of where I could be now if I had kept up with the running but I'm trying to instead think of where I can be two years from now if I keep going now.

Also, I'm jealous of you Lucy, that your husband runs with you. Mine has tried to a couple of times and says he wants to run with me more, but he doesn't take care of himself (like, barely stretches even when I force him to) so he always winds up getting hurt and can't run anymore. I'm a chiropractor, so I know how to help him but a large part of it is ways he needs to take care of himself, but he won't. When I attempted that 50k, there was a couple that was running the same course but as a 50 mile run, and I was so jealous of them, because they run together all the time and because it takes all day to run 50 miles, they just kept a steady pace and talked and laughed the whole day together. I want to be them.

In other news folks, its that time of the year again! Yes, today I got myself a small shamrock shake. I realized just now, looking back at the old post, the calorie content has gone up in those things. This doesn't surprise me too much, because I noticed they are a darker green and are more syrupy than they used to be. Using their calorie count, I figured a small to be about 500 Calories, and amazingly I had the self-control to only drink half of it. So I'm calling it 300. Its a disgusting 300, I know, but I know I'm going to drink those damn things every year so I just prepare for it. Actually, last year I didn't get one at all. I meant to, but never got around to it (I normally avoid McDonald's). This year, not so much, but hopefully I got my fix and can be done.