Weekend Warrior

Marathon training for Memphis officially began for me as of Monday, 8/17.

I did not run all week. Marathon training was NOT off to a good start.

This weekend, I was a good little weekend warrior; I feel like I'm all caught up for now.

Saturday:

I ran the Kirchenfest Strassenlauf 5K. This is always a good race, and I managed to finish in just over 30 minutes. The weather was perfect, low 60's with just a hint of the sun. I'm not sure of my "official" time. The race had a turnout of 640, the highest ever for this race. As a result, they were NOT prepared for it at the finish chute. When I finished, I stood in line outside the finish chute waiting to "finish" the race. My friend C said that the volunteers were dropping the tags when she finished, so we were not surprised when they had a problem with the results.

After the 5K, there was a 2K race that was mostly kids. I ran it with C and her grandson, it was a nice cooldown.

The awards ceremony was supposed to begin at 10am. It did not begin until after 11am. Since our friend S won the race, we stuck around and waited. NOT what any of us wanted to do with our Saturday morning. They weren't even playing music to keep us entertained! There was free beer until 11am, so I must hold my complaints to a minimum. They do need to use chip timing, though. I'll be watching for it next year.

Saturday night, my son played his second football game of the season. Of course, our boys ran all over the other team! We won 34 - 8. We were actually skunking them until the end of the 4th quarter. The weather at the ball game was football weather, for sure. I was wearing a jacket and still cold! The low temp on Saturday night was in the low 50's. Very strange for August in Southern IL.

Sunday:

This morning, I met my friend C at some bike trails near a local community college and we ran 13.1 miles. My marathon schedule called for 10 miles, but I went the extra 3 with her because she is still doing the "one half marathon a month" plan. The long run is just what I needed! Once again, the weather could not have been more ideal. I sure hope we don't have an unseasonably hot September to make up for this!

Now that I have my marathon training back on track, I just need to keep up with it. I have a couple of other longer races planned for the next couple of months, so I'll just have to work in the 18 and 20 mile runs in between.