Longest Run Yet - and a fun new project!

Got home tonight and decided to get my run out of the way before it got too late or I got too tired. I knew I wanted to go for a pretty long one (for me) and so set the ipod for 2.25 miles and took off with Pim on the same route I ran Tuesday night, up a main road by our house and then back. For the most part I felt pretty good the whole time. My pace was a bit up and down but not as much as the above graph makes it look like (since they squish it all together the highs and lows look huge!). By the last half mile I wasn't winded so much as my legs and back were aching a bit and a side ache had started. Still, I was able to pick it up the last 500 meters or so and almost sprinted the end.

Having Pim along tonight was fun, and he definetely keeps me going at a strong pace, but I need to keep in mind that I will have to keep that pace (or whatever pace I choose) going in the future w/o him pulling me - and he literally does pull ahead sometimes which keeps me running fast. It would be nice to be running close to 8 minute miles over a sustained distance by the time I head down for St. John. Anyway, overall tonight was a good workout and I felt that little "athlete's buzz" kinda high that you get from really getting your heart going.

Speaking of the upcoming race, I emailed the organizer Peter Alter today just to let him know that I was excited about coming down and told him about my blog and asked him a few questions. He had also mentioned on the 8 Tuff Miles website that he was looking for someone to help design a shirt for this year, but was "hard to work with". I'm not sure what that meant, but said I'd be interested in helping anyway!

I got a really nice email back tonight from him saying he enjoyed getting my email and was "confident I can complete the race". So that made me feel good! Also, he asked if I'd like to try to help out w/ the tshirt design which I'm going to see what I can do on. He's got a lot of different things he wants to include in the design - so it should be a challenge to come up with ideas that will work well! We'll see if anything I come up with ends up on the actual shirt - it should be fun to work on. Peter said that I'll get absolutely nothing for this, though he may buy me a beer after the awards ceremony following the race! haha. I'll keep you guys updated on my ideas and let you know if I come up w/ something that he likes and wants to use.

What else... I got to go on a ghost tour of Naperville for free today following a Naperville CVB meeting so that was pretty cool. It was actually very entertaining and the guy who was "in charge" was a very good storyteller and I really enjoyed the hour or so we spent on the bus driving around Naperville. Some creepy stuff has happened there!

Food Report for Today:
Breakfast - 1 small pizza crust leftover from last night, Diet Coke
Lunch - Double Cheeseburger from Burger King (this was obviously not great but was sorta a time thing)
Dinner - Homemade apple streusel waffle, syrup, and water

I know that doesn't sound very good but portion-size wise I'm doing a lot better.

In really good news, Ashley played some major hardball w/ her realtor and was able to get the house sold (keep your fingers crossed everything goes right) on her terms for the most part. This is AWESOME news and I'm very proud of her for getting through this stressful situation. When we buy our first house together I'll definetely be looking to her for lots of answers! She's not feeling good tonight though so hopefully she doesn't get sick.

I'm thinking tomorrow we'll maybe just go on a long walk or something before the 5K. I want to be rested so I can try and run the whole thing w/o stopping or walking. I'm excited for the run and think it will be a good challenge at this point in my training. Well I better get to bed before too long. If you have any ideas for a tshirt w/ a pickup truck, stick figures, palm trees, banana plants, a road sign and lots of text let me know!! :)