Good few days

So lets rewind to Friday: I had the day off and it was a gorgeous day going into the 4th of July weekend. I knew it was time for a run that was longer than I have ever done, so I thought it was best to go a different direction. So instead of heading North on the beach path, which actually would only allow me to go a little over 6 miles before the end of the path, I went South towards Millennium Park and Soldier Field. Some people don't like doing the same path over and over again. For me I actually would rather run the same route until I can run it with my eyes closed. Really the only way I can cope with the sheer amount of time I have to be continuously running is to totally zone out. I'm not sure if it's a good thing that I can so easily shut off my brain. It either means I have the power of a Buddhist monk or I have gotten so much dumber over the years that I may have the intelligence of a 4th grader (although I had a vivid imagination back then... hmmm)... i prefer to think the former. So anyways, I put on my favorite podcasts on (PTI & the BS Report... stand for Bill Simmons, although he is full of BS too) and I started runnnning. I went out about 7.25 miles (although I thought it was 6.5) and felt a little lost. Luckily the path is over 18 miles long, so it's not like I needed directions. On the way back I needed to stop at 3 water fountains so I didn't overheat, thank god there is water and gatorade given out during the marathon! I ended up doing 14.5 miles in about 1 hour and 43ish minutes. I was pretty pumped with myself to say the least. I'm hoping to get myself up to 20 miles by August. Speaking of August, my half marathon is on August 1st. I really feel ready to run it at my marathon pace. Only problem is race starts at 630AM!!!!! Which means I have to get up at 5 at the latest to get warmed up and ready. Running in the morning is super hard. Heck one of the major reasons I chose to go to Dartmouth is that they never had morning rowing practice! That may be a bit of a stretch, but I am not a morning person let alone a morning athlete!

I took Saturday off to recover from the Friday run (and friday night...oooops) and Sunday and Monday I did 6.5 miles and 7 miles respectively. Legs were definitely still sore, but I am finding speeds coming quite a bit easier. Yesterday and today I did over 9 miles and during both runs I got rained on. Yesterday was pretty awesome actually. It was coming down hard enough that it was actually hard to see a few feet in front of me. Nothing is better than running in the rain, especially being caught after the turn around point.

At the top is a picture of the sky after the night that there was a tornado spot close to the city. It was very surreal to say the least. I'm not sure if the picture does it justice but the sky was literally purple.

Thanks for all the donations by the way. We are over $200 so far!!! Way ahead of where I thought I'd be at this point, so thank you and please if you haven't donated press the "Chip-In" widget at the top right of the blog!