Hi team! Sorry to be MIA! Hope everyone is having a great week so far!
Emily - Sorry to hear about DH's cousin

I'll be keeping you guys in my thoughts. Hope he's doing ok. Good job on your 12 miler! Don't worry, your pace will be faster on the day of the race! My training runs are always slower than my race day pace.
Tandy - What a speedy run and on the TM too! I'll bet that you have a 1:40 half in you! What did you eat during your run? The only things I've been able to successfully eat during a run are cookies or pretzel M&M's. But I don't think they last very long. How do you think you'd do with a small PB and jelly sandwich cut into small squares? There is a mess factor but I was thinking it'd be easier on the stomach? Speaking of bread... I have a foccacia recipe that one of the chefs at the school gave me. I happened to talk to him one day because his class was leaving as we were going into the lab. I'll have to send it over to you.
Rick - How's your hip doing? I thought of you on my LR Saturday. I saw a police officer checking speed and I suggested that there should be officers checking for drivers rolling through stop signs, intersections etc. I know you don't live in Toronto but it's a problem here sometimes too. I saw your Klingon pics on FB! That was awesome! Did it take a long time to get all the makeup and effects on? And a run in the rain - WTG! How are you feeling about the half in January?
Dave - My cross training is going to the gym twice a week. I usually do a lot of leg work, stretching, upper body, lifting and metabolic exercises.
Sue - We're two weeks away from the week of the 19th! How did that happen? I'm looking forward to lunch!
Lynn/Scott - Safe travels! Will lookout for your FB updates
Regina - The Muppet's story line was a little bit silly ... but overall it was cute! It brings back childhood memories

I still have a whole lot of leftover cookie dough! Costco has an ice cream maker on sale so I might pick one up and make some cookie dough ice cream. The only thing is that the dough has raw egg in it. But I ate some of the dough in class

and nothing happened so I think it should be ok. Any luck with the package?
Elizabeth - How was your LR?
Kim - How's the training going?
AFM - I did my 18 miler on Saturday and survived! It actually felt pretty good. I did 10/1 intervals and went at a slow pace of 12 m/m. I was lucky to get warmish weather and there was a bit of sunshine as well. The only downside was that my fuel belt bottles tasted like dish soap - all of them

I still drank the water because I didn't want to dehydrate but I didn't drink very much of it. I'm not sure if it's because I didn't rinse out the bottles or if the soap was just really fragrant.
After my run I did an epsom salt bath which seemed to work better on my right side than my left. Go figure! I felt pretty good the next day except for some knee pain. I skipped my 9 miler to let my knees get some rest. It was raining (I'm not quite as brave as Rick, Mike and Regina) and figured it was just as well.
I kind of wondered about the knee pain and decided I'd better check on my shoe mileage. Turns out I ran almost 100 miles in November

I'm sure you guys have a ton more since I only run twice on the weekdays in addition to the long runs. So I've definitely got to get new shoe(s)!
Last night I was at the gym with my trainer. We did the usual - leg presses, bridges, hamstring curls, squat jumps, frog hops ... etc. After the hour, I ran a 5K on the TM so that I wouldn't have to go out today. It's raining ... so I figure if I didn't do a run last night, it wasn't going to happen today. I managed to do half of the run at 6.5 and felt like I could have gone even faster.
Today will be a rest day of sorts ... I have a dinner to go to and a few errands to run after work.
How is everyone feeling about their training? Be sure to test out your race day clothes. Same with new shoes... It's not that you need to break them in but if they're a new model, you want to make sure they're going to work for you over long distances. Also make sure you've worked out foods you're going to eat before the race and things you'll be eating and drinking on course. You don't want any surprises next month
Have a great day everyone!
