dedication, perseverance, self-discipline

I ran 6 miles this morning in 47:28, followed by running another 5 miles in the evening in 39:22.

Everyone in our house has been sick the last few days (including myself).  I decided to run 8 miles today instead of 10 because I have been feeling just a little bit achy, and I didn't want to overdo things.  Total time for the run was 1:01:43.

To describe how things have been with everyone getting sick, Anita woke up four times last night to throw up so none of us slept well.  Anita threw up five more times today and I feel bad for her because she doesn't really understand what is going on.  She was telling Kimia this morning... "food... mouth" before running off to the bathroom to puke in the toilet (I wish that it would have ended up in the toilet last night).  She has also been telling us that her belly hurts, so Kimia is going to take her to the doctors office tomorrow just to make sure that she is okay.  Part of the problem is that she is having trouble holding down fluids and we do not want her to get dehydrated.  When she is not throwing up she seems to feel more or less okay, and she had fun at her dance class today, so at least she was not miserable all day long.

I ran to school in the morning for a total of 1.5 miles.  In the evening I took the long way home from school for 3 miles, dropped off my backpack and then ran 6 more miles for a total of 9 miles in 1:09:37.  I actually have noticed that I kind of like running with my backpack loaded up with my stuff because it forces me to run slower, and I have a straighter posture when running (versus a forward lean) so my back has been happier with me (odd that adding weight to my trunk and messing up my center of mass seems to make my back feel better).  I am also hoping that there will be some sort of stimulus that will benefit my running by training with all the extra weight.

I did not feel good today, worse than Tuesday in fact.  However, unlike Tuesday I did not want to cut my run short as I felt fine while running on Tuesday and later wished that I would have run farther.  Instead of running less I decided to just run really really slow so that I would not stress myself too much.  I ended up not wearing a watch on the run so I have no idea how slow I was going, but I would guess that I was averaging anywhere from 8:20-8:40 pace for most of the run (probably even slower at the end).  I ran a total of 10.5 miles, running 9 miles after school, and then running the final mile and a half home wearing my backpack.  I have to say that as a whole the run was miserable.  I felt decent for the first 5 miles or so, but by the time I hit 6.5 miles I was not feeling very good, and by 7.5 I just wanted to be done.  When I picked up my backpack after 9 miles I felt so cruddy that I just stood around blowing my nose for a few minutes trying to gather the motivation to run home while lamenting the fact that the bus was not coming any time soon.  I finally did run home, and shortly after arriving Shayon started to throw up.  Yay, more vomit, just what I have been wishing for.  I went to bed earlier than normal (around 9:30pm) leaving Kimia to watch the kids and put them to bed because my whole body ached while my stomach feels like it is all tied up in knots.  On the plus side I do not have a fever, so at least I have that going for me.

I ran to school this morning for 1.5 miles.  In the evening I ran home from school, ditched my backpack in the woods and ran extra before picking up my backpack and finishing the run home.  The total was about 8.5 miles in 1:08:01.  My total wearing the backpack was about 4.75 miles (1.5 in the morning, and 3.25 in the evening).  I stomach still felt like it was tied up in knots during the day and during the run, however I did not feel weakness like yesterday.  I did have diarrhea during the run which was not fun, and at times it was kind of painful running as my stomach was acting up on me, but all in all it was much more pleasant that yesterday.

I was feeling a lot better today than I have felt in the previous few days so I decided to run a little farther and a little faster.  the plan was to run 11-12 miles with an average pace for the run around 7:30 rather than 8:00 pace (or slower) which I have been running lately.  I felt great for the first 3 miles, making it to 3 miles averaging around 7:25 pace.  Around this same time my stomach decided to start complaining, albeit mildly, and despite feeling like the effort was similar I slowed down and barely broke 8:00 on the next mile.  I got slower and slower each subsequent mile after that and my stomach hurt more and more the farther I went.  I ended up deciding to only run 10 miles and I struggled home finishing my final two miles just under 17 minutes.  Total time for the run was 1:19:40.  I was fast enough the first 3 miles that despite feeling horrible and running slow the rest of the run I still averaged faster than 8:00 pace for the run