Happy Trails?

It's hard to believe that my mini marathon is in less than 2 weeks. The training has gone fairly smoothly-- I only had to take one week off (I was coming down with a cold). I have been following Hal Higdon's training regimen, and I was due for my 8 mile run on Sunday. The weather hasn't been the greatest on the weekends (cold and rainy!), so I was running on the treadmill. (Prior to Lisa and Nick visiting, I was running on the roads around my apartment complex, but they were both very adament about me finding another place to run because of safety concerns.) I remembered hearing about a bike trail in the area and managed to find it online.

For anyone familiar with Indianpolis, the Blackstone Valley Bikeway is similar to the Monon Trail. When it is complete, it will extend 48 miles from Providence, RI to Worcester, MA. Currently, there are several of patches of completed trail in Rhode Island. So, map in tow, I attempted to find one of the entry points. However, the directions on the site were less than ideal, and with my natural sense of direction (I have none.... no really, none. I once got lost in the woods on a retreat in high school and they had to call the police to find me... oops.), I was lost for about 20 minutes. I parked illegally (no spots were left) and was all fired up for my big run. I had a Camelbak (small backpack that also carries water- I highly recommend you invest in one if you do any decent amount of hiking or biking) so that I wouldn't have to stop for water, and I was wearing a Nike headband/sweatband to keep the sweat out of my eyes (granted, this is not the most fasionable look, but I feel so much more intense when I put it on- ha!).

I always walk for at least 5-10 minutes before I stretch and start my run. When I begun on the trail, I discovered that my headphones only worked in one ear. Alright, that's not the end of the world. Then I came to an outlook point and began streching, during which I got at least two bug bites (I HATE BUGS). After the bugs, I went to turn on my Nike Plus running system, which I use to calculate distance and keep track of my speed. (Another good investment if you like to run and are into numbers. You put a chip in your shoe and a chip onto your iPod, and they are connected wirelessly. It can tell you how far you've gone, how fast you're going, calories burned, etc. This data can then be downloaded onto Nike's running site when you sync your iPod on your computer.) When the chip on my iPod was trying to locate the signal from my shoes, I realized that I had forgotten to put the chip into my new pair of running shoes. Great. Now I can't really calculate how far I will be running. No big deal, I thought. I was going to do this run no matter what.

Turning on my favorite playlist ("Take Me Away"), I began to run. I kid you not- within the first thirty seconds I must have eaten five bugs. (Remember, I HATE BUGS.) I immediately proceeded to turn around, run back to my car, and leave the park. I'm sure the people there thought I was a nut job because I had so much gear on but ran less than 0.1 miles. Instead of running when I got home, I took a three-hour nap. I think running on Sunday just wasn't in the cards this week.

I did run my long run yesterday, and it was a little short of 8 (5 miles)- I was still proud of myself, though. I ran another 4 miles today, and then my next run on Thursday will be 5 miles long. I've got one more long run next Sunday that I'm doing with Nick (he could run the mini tomorrow if he wanted to, what a stud), which will be good practice for me. I enjoy running by myself, but there have definitely been some days when I could have used a training partner for additional motivation.

Since I started training, I've run over 100 miles! Even though I am enjoying this challenge, I am looking forward to tackling a new type of exercise this winter. Any suggestions?