Never say never: 153 days until the Prairie Fire Marathon

     It took me about a week to get over "I will NEVER run a full marathon again!"  Simply put I have fallen in love with the whole concept of running long slow distances. I begin my training in early June.  I am debating if I should be coached (through Start 2 Finish) or just follow the Hal Higdon plan I used for OKC?  Not sure but I do know that I will be adding weight lifting to the mix and using the equipment that we have in our well stocked basement gym.  We have decided to drop our YMCA membership as we were not using it to it's maximum.  I mostly run anyway and to pay $37.00 a month for Brad and I to attend one cycle class a week is a little expensive.
     I like the fact that on Saturdays when I do my long slow distances I get a break from my life.  For those 2-5 hours I get to be my true authentic self.  I enjoy the opportunity to run with people I don't know.  It was fun getting to know Colette yesterday and when you are running with someone, the miles fly. I was thinking about my friendships and that most of my friends are runners, with the exception of Penny C.

Penny and I after East vs. West 2013

A   R A I S O N   A   S E A S O N   O R   A   L I F E T I M E

     Many of you have probably seen this poem and it is so true.  Penny is a lifetime friend.  I had graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1985 and had been teaching for 5 years when I first met Penny in an Education class at WSU in the summer of 1990.  She was in the middle of her teacher Education program and I was finishing up my graduate level hours in K-12 Library Sciences (no longer offered at WSU!) Two years later when I began my career with the Wichita Public Schools she and I ended up assigned to the same school.

Penny took this picture of me at mile 9

 Our friendship really bloomed after I left the school that we worked at together. If you are a teacher in a large district you need a friend that you can professionally vent with. And for me Penny is that girl.  As I moved into running longer distances Penny has been a great cheerleader.  She was so proud of my first half marathon that she bought me a red apron from Williams Sonoma.  That girl loves that store and I think the clerks in there actually know her by her first name. Another race a few years ago she asked me, "Where do you want me?"  I said, "Mile nine."  Well there she was and she took this cute picture of me.  Last year she came out to Victory in the Valley and watched her son run but also watched me run.  Penny you are my Lifetime friend. Some of my other friends are "season" those people that come in and out of your life. Those that have been put there because for some reason you need them at that moment.  I am hoping that some of my new "season" running friends become "lifetime" friends.  I wonder if they know how much they lifted me up during some very tough times? The thing I love best about running is that it seems that there are not cliques. No one is excluded. there have been times in my life where I have often felt like "I am on the outside looking in."  But not with running.

Workouts for the week of 5/12/14
Monday: Lower Body Weights
Tuesday: 3 mile run
Wednesday: 5 mile tempo run
Thursday: mile run
Friday: Upper Body Weights
Saturday: 8 mile LSD Run