What the...

I wrote my last post on Friday evening while I was at the airport in San Diego. My plan was to get home and get a long run in over the three day weekend. I was on the red-eye and actually got a fair amount of sleep on the first leg of my trip to Atlanta. I also slept most of the way from Atlanta to Orlando. I don't do well with disrupted sleep. My plan was to lay down for just a little while when I arrived home.

I was so excited to see my family. It was a long trip and I was happy to be home. I said hello and layed down for a nap. I ended staying in bed for a little longer. I had a fantastic flu virus accompanied with some lovely chest congestion. I was in bed for four days. Four days!



I'm feeling better today and I expect to continue to improve daily. I hope to be back running before the end of the week.

This has put the Sarasota Half Marathon in question. I could run it and probably run an okay
race, but it's not really what I want. I may sit this one out wait until the Winter Park Road Race and then ultimately work toward an amazing 15k at the Minnie Marathon Weekend.

Where Has the Running Gone?

Last week I had hoped to get some miles in before I headed to San Diego. It just didn't work out that way. It was really important to me that I was available to spend time with my family before I headed out, as this was going to be a longer than normal trip. It didn't rank very high on my weekend priority list.

Monday morning I woke up at 3:15 AM EST to get to the airport for my 7:00 AM flight. This put me in San Diego just before lunch time PST. I checked into my hotel and walked to the office. It's about a half mile walk. I worked in the office for the afternoon and later than evening several people from my company went on the conference sponsored Harbor Cruise. It was absoultely amazing. We were in the San Diego Harbor for two hours. I had dinner with some industry superstars and I was able to spend a good bit of time with members of my team that I don't see very often. It was a great experinece.

I didn't get back to my hotel until later close to 11:00 PM PST - It was about a 22 hour day for me. Needless to say, Tuesday morning, I opted out of my run.

I spent all day Tuesday at the conference. In the evening we spent about two hours at a reception and then it was on to dinner. Another late night...

Wednesday morning I was a part of the keynote panel. No chance I could be late. I needed to be at the conference before 8:00 AM. Another day, no running.

Thursday morning, I was finally getting into the swing of being on the West coast. I got up and went for an easy run. Just a little more than 3 miles. My back has still been slightly uncooperative and I really didn't want to push it. It felt good to get out there and get to it!

This morning, I got up and even got dressed and ready to hit the road but, with the temperature hovering in the mid 40's I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I understand that sometimes life gets in the way of running. I don't like when that happens. Although it's a part of the cycle. I hope to get a long run in this weekend - maybe on Sunday and then get things back to normal.

One of Those Weeks

It has been one of those weeks where I feel like I don't have time to breathe, let alone run. In fact, the only time I have run this week was Tuesday when I ran with the 4th and 5th graders.

To add to it, that spot on the my back that required a visit to the chiropractor the week before last, was still bothering me a little bit. I went back to see her today and I think she got that rib head back where it belongs. Trips to the doctor eat away at my time and prevent me from being able to get my runs in.

I should think about moving back to my early, early morning runs. I used to get up around 4:45 AM and get 5 - 7 miles in before I headed to Orlando. You would think that with the nearly two hour daily commute ( about an hour there and about an hour back - gotta love rush hour) takend out of the equation, I should have a lot of time to run, but that time spent in the car has been taken up with other tasks.




This has also been a week of late meetings. I had a meeting yesterday that ended at 7:00 PM. A meeting today that ended at 6:45 PM. It doesn't happen often, and it never usually happens on back to back nights, but this would be the week for it.


I am in desparate need of a shopping trip. I am going back to San Diego on Monday to attend and present at the Email Evolution Confrence. I will be speaking on a panel about email marketing and blogging. When I was in the agency world I was the priciple contributor to an email marketing blog - we'll be talking about why email marketers blog and share information about the field.

I would really like to have something new for the trip. For the first time in, I don't know how long - maybe a year - I have all ten toenails. I might go with an open toe shoe and a pedicure on Saturday.

Hopefully, things will calm down sometime between now and Monday morning, and I will be able to get some miles in.

My Kind of Town...

I have been thinking about a fall marathon since December when I decided to stick to the half in Sarasota. There had been some ideas thrown around between some bloggers. Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco... There was no final decision. And then late last week with little discussion a plan was put into place.

The incredible Petra asked if I would be interested in registering for Chicago. The funny thing is, I had been thinking a lot about Chicago over the past few weeks. Of course being featured in the Spirit of a Marathon contributed to my wanting to run there, but also, I lived 40 miles outside of the city until I was 12. I have an aunt close by and my sister lives about 2 1/2 hours away. It would be nice to have my family cheer for me!

Early this week I registered. Chicago will be my fall marathon. Petra will be there too. As will David and Irish Blue (a.k.a. Melisa).

I think it will be an amazing race! And the more the merrier! Who else is in?

Click here to register. You know you wanna!

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Today was the day I talked to the 4th and 5th graders at my kids' school. It went really well and they were interested in what I had to say. I took the comments I recieved and shared them with the kids. I showed them my medals and I even ran a mile with them.

I had to stay strong becuase I told them not to start out too fast. However I was not about the schooled by 11 year olds. I ran that mile in 7:10. It felt good and it was really really fun!

I would highly recommend finding some tough kids to run with! It'll make you strong!

G2 :: The Review

I heard a while back that Gatorade was going to try their hand (again) at another lower calorie alternative. You can find some background about why their first attempt failed and why they feel their on the right track now here.

I had really forgotten about the announcement, but I was reminded today. My son has been playing in a Davis Cup style tennis tournement for the past few weeks. Part of our routine includes stopping at the Kangaroo Express and picking up some Gatorade and snacks.

Today when I headed back to the cooler all of the Gatorade sport-type bottles were gone (there's only so much shelf space). In their place were the new G2 bottles.

While I was frustrated that the tennis player would not have his sport bottle, I was interested enough to give the new G2 a try.

I grabbed the orange flavor because it's my favorite (ever since the iced tea flavor was discontinued in 1993... Apparently, I was the only one who liked it. ). I have to tell you, I was expecting to be disappointed. I thought for sure it wouldn't be good. I was wrong.

It's delicious! Despite the lighter color, if I didn't know it had half the calories of regular Gatorade, I wouldn't have known the difference.

I really liked it. I try to pay attention to my calorie consumption (most of the time). And unless we're going to tennis, or I'm running a long one, I hate to waste calories on beverages. So, while there are still 100 calories in a 32 oz bottle, it's better than the 200 calories in a regular Gatorade.

My, what could I do with the difference in calories? Half a Three Musketeers Bar? Hmmmmmmm.