Do's and Don'ts for Runners

By trial and error this weekend, I came up with a list of do's and don'ts to adhere to as a runner. This list is primarily for myself and will probably not be applicable to others. Fair warning.

Don't go to the batting cages to show off your batting skillz. For one, your softball playing days are long go, and you have the hitting skills to prove it. For another, you've NEVER played baseball, so it's stupid to attempt to prove that you can hit a baseball well. Because you can't. Third, and most importantly you will aggravate the stupid ab muscle that you have been trying soooo hard to heal for the past 6 months.

Do try to beat your boyfriend at mini golf. Continue to repeat this as many times as possible throughout the summer. Feel free to rub in your putting skills but repeating your hole-in-one move on hole #9. Also, always include the jumping fist pump celebratory move. That way every one knows you have gotten a hole-in-one, not him.

That's all. As you may, or may not, be able to tell. We spent some time at our local water park this weekend. We went all out and bought a season pass this year, so Saturday was our first trip there. Since it was pretty cloudy towards closing, we decided to hit up some mini golf and the batting cages.

Other than being INSANELY sore still (3 days later) from swinging a bat, I'm hoping the ab pain was just a minor tweak and will be back to healed by Saturday.

I had a long 7 mile run on Sunday and needed to get it done before Father's Day brunch with Taylor's family. Than we had day #2 planned at the water park (we're water park FIENDS). In short, the run kind of sucked. It was rainy/misty and so so humid, and my legs were as heavy as cement. Then, the dreaded ab pain reared it's ugly head about 2 miles into the run. I honestly thought about just turing around and walking home. :( I have been doing SO well with trying to take it easy, and only pushing hard during speedwork for the last few weeks. I'm just really annoyed with myself for reinjuring it doing something dumb like messing around in the batting cages. :( :( :(

I decided to suck it up and just do the runs slow enough to not hurt the ab, and to stop and stretch it if it did start hurting. I ended up having to stop probably once a mile, usually after downhill stretches. Made for a looooooong run. Somehow I was still able to do it under the 9:40 pace that I'm supposed to be doing long runs at, so score 1 for Jeri I guess.

Also, my Garmin was being crazy about 5 miles into the run. I think I have it set on Auto Pause for a pace of 15:00. Well, because of the severely overcast skies and tree coverage on the trail I was running, apparently it was reading my 9:30 mm pace as 15+. Since I did a 3.5 mile out and back, I just used my starting point as the end of mile 7, even though G-man was short by .08. That means that one of the miles in there is also messed up, but I don't care to figure out which one. :)

1. 9:40

2. 9:28

3. 9:24

4. 9:21

5. 9:34

6. 9:23

7. 7:44

Ok, if I had to guess, I'd say that mile 5 is probably a good 15-20 seconds faster and then tag that extra to mile 7. Good? K then. I ran the 7.02 in 1:04:34 for a pace of 9:12.

After the run, we got to enjoy a delish grill out and I chowed down BIG time. We were planning on going to the water park afterward, but the weather had different ideas. While we were waiting for the storm to pass, we both zonked out big time for a 2 1/2 hour nap. Considering we didn't even go out this weekend, that was kind of ridiculous, but felt SO good.

After the amazing nap, we headed to the waterpark for a few hours of fun in the sun. Is it sad that this was one of my favorite weekends ever and it was just spent doing random things with Tay.... awww sweet. (either that or I just REALLY love the sunshine....) :p