One Week 'til Surf City!

Today was the Kickoff for Team in Training's Summer Season. I am so excited, because we have a great team so far and I'm truly thrilled to be a mentor this time around. I want everyone on our marathon team to have the kind of life-changing, awesome experience I had my first season out and I hope I can help be a part of making that happen! It was inspiring today to meet all the honored teammates and see how many people are fighting or know someone who is fighting a blood cancer. In addition, our Team manager is awesome, my co-mentors are awesome, our coach is awesome...it's just going to be a fantastic and fun season.

Since Kickoff had an 8:15am call time in Santa Ana, I wasn't able to fit in a run before I left, so I decided to go this afternoon. I came back from Kickoff all pumped up and ready to go, but it was past lunchtime and I was beyond starving. I stuffed myself with some chicken fajitas and set out about an hour later to run. Huge mistake. Soon after I started the 5 miles I wanted to accomplish today, I was reminded that my body does not like to run with food in the stomach. Especially not totally overstuffed with chicken fajitas. This is a lesson I've already learned a couple of times before and you'd think I would remember...fig newtons at mile 8 of a 12 miler are a no-no. A few slices of pepperoni pizza before a evening run, also a bad idea. Gel bloks or anything remotely solid during a run are probably NOT going to stay there. I know people that can consume an entire burrito WHILE running and be fine. I, on the other hand, cannot. So up came the lunch on the side of the bike trail. Whew. After that, I felt much better. Until I realized that the lovely new route I had decided to check-out had been almost entirely downhill on the outbound portion, and would be almost entirely uphill on the way home. Wheeee!

Back home and in the shower, I felt a bit relieved to be heading into this last week of taper. I'll be doing very little running this week, and while TODAY that feels like a nice break, I absolutely know without a doubt that by Monday I'll be freaking out for want of a good run. Thankfully, a nice long one's coming up in about a week. I can hardly wait!!!