My long runs are getting longer, and planning for them is getting tougher every week. This week marks my first 15-miler, the longest I’ll have run since before I hurt my hip in 2007. Last time I trained for a marathon, I did so to cope with Steve’s first deployment. This was both an effective [...]
Entries from August 2009
August 29, 2009
Getting through it
The best long runs are, in my opinion, a combination of a workout and a journey. A long run is a journey in the most literal sense: If you travel 13 miles by foot, as I did Thursday morning, you are literally going somewhere. It’s also an adventure. Things go awry. Get lost on a [...]
August 27, 2009
Montgomery County’s best running routes
Every time I move to a new place, whether it’s a new neighborhood or a new country, I have a simple routine that never fails to make me feel like I’m home: I put on my running shoes and go. That was the case when I moved to Silver Spring, Md., in November, after four [...]
August 26, 2009
Staying on track on vacation … and jumping back in after
Is August a frenzy of travel and chaos for everyone, or is that just me? We kicked off the month with a visit from one of our oldest and best friends, Mike, who took us on a whirlwind tour of our own home city while he was in town from Colorado. The day after Mike [...]
August 24, 2009
And I thought Washington was hot …
I’m visiting my parents in Florida, which means this recent DC transplant is getting a reminder of what real heat feels like. It’s not that it doesn’t get hot in DC, just that the heat in Florida in August is a different kind of relentless. My friend Sarah, whose own Florida stint overlapped with mine [...]
August 20, 2009
Hot hot heat
I think I had my first encounter with heat exhaustion this week. I tackled my long run, something like an 11-miler, late Tuesday morning, when temperatures topped 89 degrees in Washington. I felt OK immediately after, but starting Tuesday evening, I began to feel like a truck hit me. I’d brought a little 18-ounce water [...]
August 19, 2009
Slow and steady
Have I mentioned lately that I’m training for the Marine Corps Marathon? Between vacation and, you know, life, it hasn’t exactly been on the forefront of my mind. But I’ve still made my training a priority, and I’m up to a 12-mile long run after a flareup of an ugly, old hip injury halted my [...]
August 17, 2009
A week in runners’ paradise
“I saw eternity the other night/Like a great ring of pure and endless light.” I got this Henry Vaughan poem in my head like a song while lying on the beach in Carmel, Calif., as my husband and I watched shooting stars zoom through the great starry awesomeness of the night sky above us. It [...]
August 4, 2009
Vacation time!
Amy will be posting sporadically this week, as she’ll be spending time with one of her dearest, oldest friends, who’s visiting from Denver. The week after, she won’t be posting at all, as she’ll be trail-running, winery-visiting, Big-Sur-going in Monterey. Stay tuned … photos to follow!
