Morning all,

Sounds like everyone had a wonderful weekend of running.

I'm a little sore today (2nd day hurt). The 1/2 I ran on Saturday turned out to be a local thing. Not much todo about it. No fanfare, no photographers, nothing. Not very many 1/2ers either. The temp at the start was 35F, but warmed up nicely. I positioned myself towards the back as I didn't want the faster people to influence my start pace. I was literally the last one in the "pack". My first mile was at 10:33 pace. But I didn't keep it up for long. The course started out great. Had a steep hill around mile 2. I didn't have any knowledge of the course, which is something I don't like. I like to know what my route is because I visualize myself running it the whole time. Helps me run better. Anways, didn't think much of the hill, it was early, breezed it. What I didn't know (and it's a good thing I didn't) was that the next 10 miles was filled with rolling hills. It was incredible. I had no intentions of walking any, but found myself having to around mile 8. I was so aggravated with myself. But I pushed on and finished in 2:35:40. Which is what I said I was going to aim for. My training partner who ran with me, left me right at the start. She finished in 2:09. Her and another friend were waiting for me at the finish, which helped me push that last little bit. I'm not sure where I can in, but am pretty sure I was in the last 5. Oh well, I think I did pretty good considering I did not train enough for hills and ran it basically by myself. My apologies, but there wasn't any pictures being taken.

Took it easy yesterday and am not sure what kind of workout I'll do today. It's cloudy here, but I don't think they are calling for rain. Might do a body conditioning class. Other than the squats and lunges, it should be a good one.

Happy Monday. I need another cup of coffee to get started.

Kim

On a different note...  Well, sort of....

I need some advice. I've been running for roughly 10 years. Approximately 2.5 years ago, I sort of lost interest and stopped running/exercising. Things were going south in my marriage and my self esteem was out the door. Didn't enjoy much of anything. Last year things started coming around and my interest was back. I started running again casually. Early this year I returned to my training group of friends who had been exercising/running the whole time I was off. It wasn't going as good as I'd like. Got a checkup and found that I had no iron (stored or otherwise). Started treatment and am now better. Since re-starting my running I find that the bottoms of my feet hurt after the first few miles of a run. I've read different books with the latest being Chi Running. I feel that I have the concept down as my quads, hams, and calf muscles all felt fine on Saturday. My posture was good as my lower back didn't hurt. My breathing was good, never got into any "distress" with that. My feet were my biggest enemy. That's the reason I had to walk during the second half. Got to the point I thought about taking my shoes off and running in my sock feet.

Have any of you had this problem??  Any advice???

I did okay.  Just looked at the results.   For our age group (40-49), my friend was 11th with 2:07:17 and I was 12th with 2:35:40.

Nice, huh?