Memories from last weekend

Here is a recap of last weekend's activities.

Friday night, a family movie, which I highly recommend, "Saint Ralph". Set in the 50's it's about a boy growing up in Hamilton, Ontario attending a Catholic school, and as a form of punishment, being ordered to join to the cross country team. As his Mom is in a coma, he is in search of a miracle, and decides running and winning the Boston marathon, would provide what he needs. Very inspirational! My daughter got up and ran 4 miles Saturday after watching the movie with us.

Saturday, was a Team for Kids group run, scheduled for 11 miles. I wasn't planning to run this, but our pace group's turn to bring the post run refreshments, and Bev volunteered to pick up some goodies at Costco, so my plan was to drop them off and vamoose, since I had already signed up for a 13.1 mile race on Sunday. However, I thought, hey, this will be an easy 11 mile run. Take it slow and go for it! So I did. Unfortunately, we missed a turn and ran more like 13 miles, at a pace faster than what I had planned. I was surprised at how tired I was from this run. Oh well....

Sunday I entered the Yonkers half marathon. This is a beautiful race, as it is off the radar screen for most runners and only several hundred runners participate. It was a sunny day, a hilly course and my legs had not recovered from Saturday's run. Walking around near the starting line I was very happy to see several tables set up with physical therapist's stretching runners and giving massages. I hopped on an open table and my legs were thoroughly stretched for me. Wow, that was great!!! At the start I noticed another runner wearing the green color of Team for Kids and I settled into a comfortable pace with him for the first 9 miles. He decided to run 26.2 miles Sunday, the full marathon. To top that off, he wanted to pick up the pace for 5 minutes of every 20, which was what we had done on Saturday. He was aiming to run a 3 hour, 30 minute marathon, but at 10 miles our time was about 82 minutes, so we were behind his schedule. I used a few of my zen words, power, strength, relax...from miles 9 thru 11, then I picked up the pace to finish in 1:48, or about 8:18 per mile.

Then I found the massage tables and hopped on for a massage which really seemed to aid in my recovery this week. Thank you Jeanine for the stretching and the massage! I never found out how my teammate finished, as I had to rush home, shower and go the the Yankee's game.

So far this week, I am taking it easy. My legs are still in recovery mode. This weekend we have a group 20 mile run. I think I'd better rest up a bit for that one.

Happy Trails!