Well, this week did NOT turn out the way I had expected. There’s much to tell so I shall dive in.

Sunday: on schedule – 30 minutes to one hour of cross training. I walked both dogs and it took about 25 minutes so we’re counting this one “good enough”

Monday – rest day. (say it with me) NAILED IT

Tuesday – 4 miles easy. Good run BUT my left foot has been acting weird and it bothered me a lot on this run. Prompted me to decide to do what I did on Wednesday.

Wednesday – 7 miles marathon pace. SKIPPED. Note that this is the first run of this training schedule that I’ve missed due to pain. I have no doubt there will be more. For me, part of a successful plan is listening carefully and knowing when a particular run may cause more harm than good.

Thursday – 4 miles easy. Skipped this one, too, but for work reasons. Foot actually fine but still made an appt with a podiatrist on Monday.

Friday – rest day. Had lunch with a couple running friends. One of whom (LIZ I’M LOOKING AT YOU) said these words “ya know, Jen, you have 14 on the schedule anyway for tomorrow so why not run a half marathon with me?” Um. Well. I mean. Yeah, why not?? Yes, I know, normal people aren’t like this. Ain’t it great??

Seems like an innocent lunch, right? WRONG! Liz, Selma and Me! Love hanging out with my running friends!

Saturday – The Michelob Dallas 13.1!! Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t like driving into Dallas. And I don’t like driving at night.

So, of course, I got up at 4:30 am to drive to Dallas pre-dawn!! I made my way to the AT&T Performing Arts Center with relatively little drama, and quickly met up with Liz. Since she had enabled so well, she opted to go one step further and had picked up my bib on Friday evening (thanks, Liz!).

This was taken at a stop light. And what I’m thinking is “why is it so dark and why am I doing this?”

We chatted effortlessly (as per tradition;) and milled around with the other runners. I’ll pause right now to tell you my FAVORITE thing about this race and why I’m very likely to run it again:

CONVENIENCE. Where you park is literally up a couple escalators and less than a 1/4 block from where we started and port a potties were RIGHT THERE as well. And when I was done? I was back in my car and on my way home in less than 15 minutes after finishing. Seriously. You can’t ask for more than that from a local race.

The route was truly lovely. Took us through downtown Dallas, all the way down Gaston, to the Katy Trail and back through Dallas. 90% of it was shaded and just lovely. The 10% that WASN’T, however, was a bit scary. Not because the neighborhoods were dicey (they truly weren’t) but rather because there seemed to be a bit of confusion about open and closed roads and they were allowing cars to go in the breaks between runners. I almost got hit by a bus. I’m not kidding. If they do this same route next year, they need to do a better job of blocking off streets. When I’m running a half marathon I’m not thinking to look for cross traffic and there were a bunch of us that were taken by surprise.

But honestly, since I DIDN’T get hit by a bus, I can easily let this go. Katy Trail was lovely (I had never run there before!) and I even saw some friends (not running the race, just out for their morning run:).

Since this was a training run (and Hal Higdon specifically said in today’s instructions that going too fast on a training run was a HUGE mistake) I had to hold myself back several times. I was MOSTLY successful. The really bad thing that happened that hindered this was my app stopped working very early on (this is not the first time this has happened) so I didn’t have him in my ear telling me my pace every 10 minutes and was just flying blind, trying to figure out pace from the clocks on the course (math is hard for me during the best of times – at mile 11 of a half FORGET IT;).

But even with all of that, I would give this race, and my experience, a solid B plus. Would have had an A if it weren’t for the traffic situation and for the lack of food at the finish. If it was there, I couldn’t find it, and although it’s lovely they give you beer, I don’t drink beer and would have loved a banana or something for the car ride home. And when you pay $110 for a race entry, that seems reasonable?

In my pic, Dallas is only “IG”

Came home and hung up the bling! Anybody else think it’s time for a new hanger??

But it was a lovely day and I’m very glad I did it. Next week, hopefully, we will be BACK TO NORMAL! I will let you all know what the podiatrist says. Basically it’s a pain on the top of my foot that feels like a cramp and comes and goes. Had it briefly today at the very end of the half. Anyone care to guess??

Happy running!!

Jen