How many miles?

This morning I went to the gym at my usual time, after dropping Mindy and Pete off. I deposited the kids in the child care and plopped my tired self into the pool. Swimming always wakes me up.

S: recovery swim
5 x 200 (50 Easy, 50 Build, 50 Easy, 50Hard)
150 easy

For some reason there was no warmup listed, so I did my own warm up. I did 200 swim, 50 kick (I would have done more but I didn't take the time to find flippers in my size and it takes soooo long to do it without), 200 pull buoy with paddles. I love using the pull buoy with paddles because it really helps me focus on my technique. Today I paid special attention to using my whole forearm to pull the water, and making sure my arm goes as far forward and as far back as possible. Does that even make sense? It's kind of hard to describe swimming.

My 200s were all around 3:53. Not very fast, but, after all, it was suppose to be a "recovery swim" right?

As soon as I got home I started working on putting the "turf builder" that I bought yesterday onto my sad looking lawn. I took a break for lunch and to take Ethan to school and put Elle down for a nap, but other than that I was obsessed and kept working on it until it was time to get the kids. In fact, I'm wondering if my back porch light would be bright enough to work by right now. . .

Pete got home from work a little early so I was able to get out on my run by 5. This was nice because I like to run right before dinner, but it is just so hot at that time!

R: 60 min at RPE 3. When finished with run, do 6 x 20 second strides.

This time I went to the bathroom after about 10 minutes so I felt a lot more comfortable than yesterday. Well, at least for half an hour. I still haven't put music on my ipod either. Pete offered to put some on really quick before I left, but then I couldn't even find it. Why do you have to be so small little shuffle? Oh well, I got to run to "Do Your Ears Hang Low" courtesy of the ice cream truck that seamed to be driving parallel to the path I was running on. At least I think that's what song it was. Anyway, that's the song it made me get in my head. Not the most inspiring running song of all time, but I shouldn't complain. 

I really should get used to running with no music because ipods are not allowed at triathlons. In fact, I was so used to not bringing an ipod to my races that I was surprized to find pretty much everyone else at the St. George Marathon wearing one. Now I not only didn't have music, I also couldn't talk to anyone because they were all in their own worlds listening to music only they could hear. I'm kind of glad they are outlawed at tris, talking to people on the way is part of the fun in racing (at least for us slow people).

So I will just try to prepair myself for 14 or 15, or 16 hours of listening to my own thoughts. 

Now I'm going to figure out how many miles I've done with these shoes. I'm worried it's getting close to retirement time for them, and I don't want to do it too close to the race. You're supposed to replace your shoes every 300 miles. The doctor told me that running in old shoes might have been one of the reasons I got that stress fracture. 

.

Ok, it's all added up, are you ready for the number?

284.5

Wow, I've ran 284.5 miles in these shoes, starting December 8th! That's just 5 1/2 months. Crazy isn't it? 

One more long run and I'd hit 300, and I'm thinking that's pushing it just a little too much. I don't want to end up getting another injury because of old shoes. They're not that old, just beaten up a lot. I need to play It's Time by Ben Folds for them now. 

Dang it, where's my ipod?

Shoes are expensive too.