By Land and By Air

Running and flying. That’s what’s on my mind today.

I ran in a 5K this morning benefiting one of the local high schools’ track team. It was a very small race. I think most of the participants were the track team members and their parents. Knowing that this was probably going to be the case, I was SINCERELY hoping that there would be no more than 3 people in my age group so I could bring home some bling. Alas, that did not come to pass. Some of the parents of the high school students were IN my age group. Now that I have to check the box that says 30-34 instead of the box that says 25-29, I’m grouped with people that are actually old enough to have teenagers. (They start breeding young in these small towns.) But bling or no bling, I set a new PR and FINALLY got that <30 5K that I’ve been dreaming about! My time was 29:27–a 9:29 pace. Never thought I’d see the day…

My training schedule called for a 9-mile run this weekend. I had to do a little schedule shifting and rule bending for this one. It’s supposed to start raining tonight and rain all day tomorrow. I don’t mind running in the rain. Did it last week. But not the kind of rain we’ve got coming. Hard rain with thunderstorms here and there? No thanks. I’ll pass. So no long run on Sunday. And I knew I wouldn’t have another 9 left in me after running the 3.1 this morning. So I did what any excuse-making easy-way-out-searching girl would do. I counted that 3.1 TOWARD my 9. When I got home I headed out for another 6. I was exhausted. My body isn’t used to running a 9:30 pace, so I took these 6 pretty easy today. Kept the pace around 10:30 for the first 4 miles then took a one-minute walk break, jogged to 5.5 then walked the last 0.5 home.

As for the flying… the plane tickets are booked! THAT took a good little chunk of change out of the ol’ checking account. We had been watching the prices hoping that they would go down, but they haven’t budged. And with the “experts” predicting that gas will be going back up this summer, we were hesitant to wait any longer in fear of the fare going even higher. So everything is set! Now I’ve just gotta wait for it to get here!

It’s gonna be a looooooong couple of months.